A little Sci-Fi Story I am working on

[dalton]

---------------
SCROUNGER
---------------

PAIN, ACHING PAIN. Throbbing throughout my body.

Cold, blood like ice.

What is happening? It's dark, wait, lights, flashing red. Someone's screaming.

Vomiting, uncontrollable vomiting. The rancid taste of bile acting in a way to bring me to my senses.

People groping in the dark. Equipment lights flashing, yellow, green, red, all a blur.

A small part of me is saying, oh no not again.

Ok, settle down, where am I.

Some sort of metal room, large oblong caskets, no, cold sleep chambers, all over the place. Gantry with walkway about halfway to the ceiling.

Metal roof, overhead cranes with what looks like robotic waldo's.

Be a lot clearer if my eyes would stop bleeding. Breathing is starting to clear. Hands are cold, no feeling.

To the left is a large vac-sealed door with what looks like a small side airlock chamber. Too dark to tell much more, or is it just that my eyes are not working right. I can move my arms, clumsy, like clubs.

The pain down my left side is flaring up. Problem is, I don't know if my leg is actually shaking or if I just am getting ghost feelings.

Some days it just does not pay to wake up.

My name is, is, is.....What is my name?

Wait.

Don't Panic.

Calm yourself.

This is not the time.

It is never the time. You don't have the luxury of being scared.

d**n it's cold! I gotta find some clothes before my nuts shrivel up completely. Where the hell are my clothes? Why am I naked?

Wait.

Tubes. I am connected to tubes. Connected to the...chamber above me. It looks high, d**n it, I am lucky to not have killed myself on the fall.

I must be in dump shock after a bad case of freezer burn. I've done this before, I know that much, but, I can't remember when or why.

Where are the meds? Not a white coat in sight.

In the dark, a women crying, sobbing, "my baby, where is my baby?". I see her in the shadows holding her belly, rocking back and forth trying to give herself comfort.

She, like the rest of us, is naked and her body is covered in scars. Some fresh, some old, all medical, from a doc who does not care about leaving you pretty.

Looking around, it's like a scene from a fright show. There must be over a hundred of us in this, this, looks like a cargo hold. Yea, don't know the alphabet, but those symbols are in the positions I would put letters or numbers.

This place looks like any place used for temporary storage of low value cargo.

Overhead jacks, lifters, scratch marks and, oh yea, the unmistakable smell of old rancid piss.

If I did not know better, I would say that there would be some hidden bottles of alcohol slipped out of sight somewhere in this god forsaken place.

I may not have been in this hold before, but, I have been in a million like it.

But why? What is happening? If it was an emergency the cold berths would not be in the cargo hold......OH F...

Retching, stomach bursting out like I have just seen the most disgusting thing ever.

I didn't, I saw worse. I know. I've seen it before.


It takes me a little while to take in everything I am seeing. My name is Derrick, Derrick..., doesn't matter, it will come to me. I am...was third mate on the Far Horizon, a short haul heavy freighter. I am....I was....I, oh hell, I don't know.

I have one thing right, I am in hell. I used to be part of a crew, now I am only a part. Not "A part of Something", no, not that, I am just a grouping of parts. Cargo, low grade from our stowage. I don't know how, but, I, and everyone in this freak show are medical supplies to be harvested when needed. By the condition of the cold berths, we have been hauled around for a very long time.

The crying is starting to calm down, but the alarms are loud enough that their sound and the dump shock I am going through is acting like fiery spikes of pure pain being driven into my skull.

I need to stand up. COME ON DERRICK, you have experienced dump shock before. Cold sleep is your stock and trade. You have been awake maybe 40 of the past 400 years, well, I hope it is only 400 years. Last time I was long term thawed I had to spend the next three years studying physics just so I could get a rating position on a long hauler. The only thing that does not change with time is change itself. Oh yea, don't forget taxes. I just hope that IF I get out of this, the local taxes don't force me to go pirate again.

That woman, she is going into convulsions, got to get to her. Legs are next to useless. Dragging myself, I can just reach her. Turn her over, need, need, what do I nee.... there, rubber tubing. Big black and thick. If I can just get her mouth open ..there, now she can't bite her tongue off. Her airway is clear. What is happening, d**n, purple and yellow bruising on her side. Internal bleeding. The look of panic in her eyes....it is all I can do to just hold her. Hold her and watch her die. It was not quick and it was not pleasant, but at least she was not alone.

These legs have got to work. Come on, bend them. You don't want to end up like her. You never knew her, a complete stranger. So why are those the ones that will haunt you. Get to a wall, get my bearings.

Ok, I can prop myself up. The fog coming up from the freezing units as they shut down is giving this place the atmosphere of a poison planet. Thick, heavy, mixed with just enough chemicals that our lungs may never recover. Blasts of heat coming in from ducts above us are just making it worse. With the way I feel, those blasts of heat may be cold air. At least my body is starting to respond properly. What's a twitch here and there? Nothing new, at least, nothing new to me.

Derrick Penchdrow. My name is Derrick Penchdrow. My friends call me scrounger. Given where I am, I have no friends.


Is that a control panel? Yea, great, beauty. A gollard seven-twenty, little different from what I am expecting, but, who knows how long I have been in cold storage. It is in bad condition, looks to have been hacked together a few times. That gives me the creeps. The unit looks like it is over a hundred years old yet it is a model that was being bragged about in the vids as the latest and greatest just last week.....

YES! The lingual libs are still installed. Most of the spacers I know dump them to make space for vids. Good. Now I can at least understand what this piece of .....ok, I got it.

Power. We got dumped due to power. Fat lot of good that info is going to do ...

PAIN, SHOCK, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING??? PUT THAT DOWN!"

Figures, one of the other 'parts' has figured out enough to cause trouble. He must have seen me at the panel. Why he decided to use me as a target of his frustration I don't know. The club he was using looks to be a piece of conduit, I hope that it was not from something critical. He is talking gibberish. He is pointing, screaming and swinging that d**n club of his.

He's slow. Hell, I'm slow. This d**n freezer burn has all my reactions acting like I am in a tub of mush. He is bigger than I am, maybe 5'8", about my weight, looks to have a scar on his abdomen, probably acted as a donor for a kidney. Good, gives me a target to hit.

He is starting to talk. It sounds weird. It's like galac but with a lot of different words or word sounds. It's obvious he is trying to demand stuff, d**n, he thinks he is on a pleasure liner! Stupid nob. Only someone born with a silver spoon would be stupid enough to think he is in any better position than the rest of us.

He is no better than any of us now. Makes it easier to leave him twisting in pain on the deck. A extra little kick is no never mind, and it ensures he will stay down.

I am winded. I was not ready for that little confrontation. d**n stupid people. They see a little old guy and they immediately think we are useless. I was busting heads before most people's great grandparents where born.
He was no slouch thou, he is making his way back to the other side of the hold. Not many I put down would be moving that soon.

Now what? I have to use the make-shift club the nob was using to get those few who have noticed me away from the panel. It's not like I know any of them, why should I bother with them? Right? Right?

Who am I trying to fool?


Last time I tried to ignore people I ended up with nightmares for the next 100 years. Cold sleep is a pregnant dog 'cause you can't wake up from the dreams, no matter how bad they are.

Oh great, I have a female trying to pester me. At least she can speak my language (with a very weird accent – how long have I been asleep??). She wants me to help. Help how? I am naked, one step from crippled in my current state, confused and above all, pissed off.

"Look princess, I am trying to find out what is going on. Can you just please help those two women over there with those kids? I will do my best to get ...please stop crying, please?" It took every bit of effort I could muster not to do the same to her that I did to the nob I left lying behind me. Can't she see that there is nothing I can do for her? I am having a hard enough time as it is without her demanding my attention.

Those who can, are moving into groups, some helping each other, some taking their frustrations out on each other, while most are in that wide eyed-half insane, rock, trying to comfort themselves that this is just a nightmare that they will wake from any time now. Unfortunately, some are making a hassle of themselves. I really don't care what they are up to as long as they don't stop me from getting out of this place. Big thing is, I don't know if I can handle watching someone else die in my arms today, or ever for that matter.

Alright, the hassles (princess included) are starting to group together and comfort one another. Good, keeps them out of my way. I can get back to the console. The panel tells me that the ship is some sort of unpronounceable name engaged in speculative trade.

In my experience, speculative trade means any kind of trade, legal, illegal, moral or immoral. Unless chopping people up for parts has become the new concept for a good time, I think I know what type of trade they are involved in.

We are docked at some high-port orbiting an iceball. The station is draining power from the ship, wait, the station is draining power from everything. What the hell? Is a battle going on? Where is the crew....panel lists three registered crew on board with nine regular crew. Good, now what are those three crew doing and where are the rest.

Being a space hand, I know that cargo is money, and money is life.

The crew will either be running down here to stop their profits from walking out the door, or, I have a lot more to worry about than being parts.......don't want to think of that cause there is not much worse than being parts.

[dalton]

---------------
THE DOCTOR
---------------

d**n, d**n, d**n, d**n it all.
Ok, settle down, get your bearings.
Let your training take over, don't think.

You must be in cold shock. Maybe a crash recovery due to a emergency recall of the frozen watch. You have done this in simulation a thousand times. Simulation does not feel like this.

No medics attending, must try to stand, stumble, ok, bad idea.

I am in stage 2, no 3, hypo-thermionic shock with obvious nerve damage. Lucky I am not a vegetable. We must have been hit hard. We may be the only survivors, or close to it.

Ok, Natsumi, you have gone through the drills a thousand times. You are a cold sleep trooper, second term. You know that if you are not waking up in nice surroundings, it is because the ship you are in has lost a good percentage of it's crew and it is up to you to replace them.

Everything is going so fast around me - after-effect of a nervous system trying to thaw out.

Wait. Those aren't troopers, there civvies. THEY ARE NOT EVEN SLURIN!

Settle down.

You know the protocols, they have been drummed into you since you signed up.

Standard triage, establish situation baseline, find supplies, determine order of treatment.

Go by the book. Good, memory is coming back.

Start the memory exercises, start the litany.

I am Captain Natsumi Yukie of the Slurin purity league. GID 7869AB89C – Forth term cold reactor trainee, assigned as tertiary medtech for the SDL Righteous Victory. I am Captain Natsumi Yukie of the Slurin purity league. GID 7869AB89C – Forth term cold reactor trainee, assigned as tertiary medtech for the SDL Righteous Victory. I am Captain Natsumi Yukie of the Slurin purity league. GID 7869AB89C – Forth term cold reactor trainee, assigned as tertiary medtech for the SDL Righteous Victory.


Think it enough times and you start to believe it. Believe it long enough and nothing else matters.

Legs are starting to work again. Move the toes. I said move the toes, yes, your doing it. Ok, now, lets get sitting up and start working on my equilibrium.

Dizziness is fading.

Shouting happening on the far side of the room.....fighting.

That was a nasty punch to the abs., followed up by a kick to the head.

Whoever is fighting, fights dirty. File it.

Back to the business of standing up. Forget that. Back to the business of crawling.

Look around dummy. There should be supplies available.

d**n, not even an emerg-crash cart.

This place looks and smells like the innards of a three week old autopsy.

Where am I? Ignore that.

Remember the training.

Back of the cold sleep capsule, emergency supplies. Standard issue. Right. Right? Just drag your lousy carcass behind this rack of capsules and look.

Don't look at the others, you can't help them until you help yourself.

Their GID tattoos are all in the wrong locations. Some don't even have tattoos.

Bet you they aren't even gene-tagged for final retrieval.

Why am I here with all these civilians?

Those words.....Those words are in Gentesh. I am in a Gentesh transport.

What happened to the Righteous? Where is the crew?

At least I don't see any Gent's. It is bad enough to have to crawl over these dying retros, but at least I don't have to smell a gent, at least, not yet.

STOP IT! It is not time to loose control. I am a Slurin Officer breed from the highest calibre gene stocks. I am not some mentally deficient retro.

This place is huge, I am having to stop and crawl over those who did not make it.

The signs of improper cold sleep inducement are everywhere, the med-techs should be disciplined for wasting resources.

Some of the sleep capsule designs are ancient, while others are totally foreign to me.

I just hope, yes, YES!

Med access from the front! I don't have to crawl any farther. Adrenaline, endorphins, broad band booster.... feeling finally coming back to my face. Now I know how a stroke patient feels.

What is that stench? Oh crap, forgot that one lovely piece of sleep shock, bowel evacuation. I was lucky enough not to smell it until now. Now to find a water supply and waste disposal.

Can't triage when I am a walking cesspit.

Standing, Looking around. There it is, a de-com spray area. I can set up a work area there. There are a group of retros hanging around it already. I wonder if they will help?

[dalton]

---------------
FACE
---------------

The fights are starting to break out, and here I am with my head in my knees.

Don't know why, don't know how, but I do know that I am going to survive this. At least I was quick enough to get my self sprayed down and woken up before the others started to move in on the wash booth.

I don't know if I gave them the idea but, I don't want to be taking any credit. Given the shape some of these guys are in, I could be in a old time zombie horror flick.

It was by the luck of the draw that I even made it onto the transports for resettlement.

They said it would be like taking a nap. Yea, right! It is more like the worst hangover you ever had.

I don't know about the adverts, but this sure does not look to be a newly Terra-formed world.

I would like to find that settlement procurer and kick him in the teeth. Last time I take an 'easy' way though a one night stand, and I thought it was luck that had me pick him up in that bar.

So, standard operating procedure. Find the biggest guy or group that looks to dominate, and make yourself well liked. Should not be too hard. The guys back at the wash booth where big, but too stupid to appreciate me.

It's getting crowded, people are moving, shambling, god I wish I never watched the classics. The look of these people and the flashing red lights make some of the old B's that I watched look like first run hollywood.

Everybody is making weird guttural noises. Don't they know how to talk? Some are really strange looking. Forget the living dead analogy, they just look like their arms are either too long, or too short, or jointed in the wrong place.

“WHAT THE CRAP IS THAT??”, oh no, everyone is looking.

Calm down, drop out of site. You are just dreaming. This has to be a nightmare. When I signed up in Frisco they said that I would dream. This is just weird. I just saw a dog wearing what looks to be a tarp, helping another dog walk -UPRIGHT.

Pinch yourself, OW!, that hurt! Right, man am I ever stupid, I can't wake up. I am sleeping on ice. They told me about it. Remember. So why does this feel so real.
Well, dream or no dream, go with what you know. Find someone else and let them fight your battles. I know what side my bread is buttered.

Now, those guys look good.

Big, look like military chaps. Easy to fit in with their crowd.

Shame about the heads though. Must be a lot of country cousins back where their from cause that forehead combined with no chins just is not a combination I would have normally picked.

They sorta stoop funny too, like they have too many muscles. I know, they remind me of a old room-mate of mine. We used to kid him about forgetting his steroid needles in his backside. Stupid fool always used the same butt check. Made him look unbalanced....

At least they look like that guy they were beating up over at the showers. I can use that to get on their good side.

“Hi, I was wondering, do you guys speak english?”

They stopped what they where doing. I don't know if I liked that too much.

Ok, standard tough guy group approach, one guy in lead, the rest a foot of two behind. The leader stopped a few inches away from me towering down, with a glare in his eyes that looks like hunger – not the good kind, the 'you are dinner' kind.

“Hey, retro, looking to loose that well manicured look?” he growled to me.

Obviously they were a little defensive, and I must look like death the morning after. I didn't have a brush or comb when I cleaned up, but, I know that a winning smile, a little charm and a bit of helpful information will get me on the in with these guys.

“Just wanted to let you guys know that it looks like a brother of yours is being used as a punching bag back at the wash station”, you see, take advantage of a bit of info so they think you are a friend.

Normally works, well, normally I am not picked up by the skin on the sides of my belly and thrown against a wall.

Being held against a wall a few feet above the floor while a thug with a bad case of gingivitis is a few inches from my face is not something I would recommend to most, but, well, you flow with the times and I am very flexible.

“WHAT IN HELL ARE YOU SAYING?”.

I don't know why he has started growling at me with enough volume to shake the wall.

I sort of thought it was obvious what I was saying.

So, now he is being very unreasonable by making it very hard to say anything between my sobs.

Never claimed to be a hero.

So, with due diligence and full disclosure, I bring the guys up to speed as to what I had seen.

The kick in the ribs was a bit of overkill when they threw me to the floor, and the excessive spitting was totally unnecessary, after all, I was just trying to help......I wish I would wake up.

[dalton]

---------------
DUKE
---------------

In the small time I was left alone, I thought I was in a war zone, or the aftermath of an assassination attempt.

If only I was so lucky. I am now faced with a situation that has me terrified. Unlike most though, I do not have the luxury of letting it show.

“Sire..., Are you alright?”

That was Secondus, the tension in his voice was a telltale sign that he is very worried. Not about the situation, he must be sure that he has been in worse positions. No, he is worried about me. From the little bit of information we have been able to piece together, is we are dead. Sure, we are moving around, breathing, but, for all intents and purposes, we are dead. I have been harvested. I thought I was in shock from some sort of explosion. After all, no eyes, and a missing limb leads one to think the worst. It was only after Secondus found me that I was able to figure out what was happening.

“Sire, please sir. I need to know what you wish me to do?”

Secondus is a grown man, been with the family since before I was born. He was always on my left while Primus was on my right. Secondus....Dennis. It has been ages since I called him by his real name. Dennis found Primus, Nim. Dennis found Nim. Nim died in Dennis's arms due to missing organs. Nim. Nim....nim.

Stop it, I do not have time for feeling sorry or remorse.

“Sire, I need to know that you are ok”

“SECONDUS, I understand your concern”
There, stern, concise, and final.

“Detail the groups that are forming, their composition and leadership.”
A simple statement but it serves multiple purposes.

Secondus will now concern himself with the tactical situation and give me the information I need to build a coalition.

It came fast and furious. Dennis, had scouted the full cargo hold while I was still trying to figure out if I was alive. There are 97 of us total, of which 26 are alive. The rest were not viable. Our captors, for lack of a better name, kept us as alive as possible and on ice. Our organs 'kept' better that way. Our surgeries would be just enough to prevent us from outright dying, but not designed to give us much of a life.

There are people from every time and place in this hold. Some are relatively fresh, while others look, talk and act like an vid reinactment from the pre-light days. There are even a few uplifts, although I don't know if they are from pre or post purity league times. They can either be friends or deadly foes, only time will tell.

Only in the outer reaches can a ship like this operate, which tells me that I am very far from home. This type of scavenger vessel raids and trades in bodies. Given that most commodities are available somewhere, the only real items of value are the unique organ and gene tissue that the poorer worlds are too primitive or refuse to clone for themselves.

I don't know when we where taken. Last I remember, I was on Capital, but, it could have been any one of a hundred power struggles that I was engaged in that landed my retinue and I onto this ship.

There does appear to be hope though, because it seems that secondus has found an individual who not only appears knowledgeable about this type of ship. He has been finding supplies and materials for the other survivors, while keeping those who are unruly in check. I have to sway this man and find out if he will work with us. Secondus disagrees. It appears that Secondus had a small disagreement with him which resulted in a more than a bruised ego for Secondus. Dennis was never good at making a first impression.

We need to unite. Now that the seven Slurin troopers that woke up with us have found an officer we are dire trouble. Granted, the officer is a low grade doctor, they will still follow him to their deaths, it's just how they were made.

We were almost lucky, some of the survivors spotted the doctor first and tried to end his life over by the decontamination area. Unfortunately, the troopers found out somehow and saved his life. That is why our numbers are only at 26, the other 12 did not survive the small brush with the Slurin.

All I know is that, if I am going to die, I am going to end my life just as I lived it. We all may be dead, but, I am going to resurrect as many of these people as I can. I am my fathers son, a noble born, and I will be noble when I do finally die.

[dalton]

---------------
PRINCESS
---------------

There are enough others here that I can blend in. Hide. Keep low key and as uninteresting as possible. The biggest thing is to find out what happened and why. Unfortunately that has to wait until I can find some protection.

The men are jockeying for position, with the rest of us being eyed up as possible prizes. As far as I can tell, this is a new record. It has been under an hour since we woke up, and maybe 20 minutes since the last death spasms from those who were never meant to wake up.

The men have formed six separate groups, mostly due to old prejudices. The only doctor happens to be Slurin. He is protected by a group of Slurin thugs. Lucky for him, cause the general consensus in this place is that most would rather die than be treated by him. In fact, most would rather see him die.

The uplifts have grouped together, two canines, three felines and a snail. I overheard one of the small girls saying that there are a bunch of dead doggies over in the back, so the uplifts are in the same boat as the rest of us.

Most of the women are in bad shape. Some had their skin harvested. d**n, stupid rancid cultures that would do that to someone. I don't want to think about those who had more invasive surgery. Thankfully, most died soon after waking up. It was all I could do to comfort them as they died.

Now, it is all I can do not to take the head off of the short little mongrel who is moving along the walls taping the joints and generally making a nuisance of himself.
Normally I would not care but it appears that he is the only one acting to get us out of here.

And he is ignoring me.

And telling me to go take care of the kids.

I have tried crying, I have tried talking, hell, I have even tried enticing him, although the thought is repulsive. He is repulsive. He looks old, but, he also looks young. His eyes and hair have that off tint of silver that comes from prolonged angath use, while his skins wrinkles have wrinkles, which shows that he has been frozen for far longer than anyone should be.

Fact is, of all the groups here, he is the only one who seems to know what he is doing and how to stop others from interfering.


I wish I knew what he was looking for. It is obviously not clothes, since he ignored the bundle of tarps and bindings that I was able to pass out to the others. Nor does he care about food since he handed me the stash of sweets he found. They were old and stale, but they quieted down some of the kids.

"Would you PLEASE, not stand so close"

His tone is hostile, and he keeps his back to me. Maybe he is feeling scared like the rest of us.

Why won't he talk to me?

Does he not like me?

I may be one of the few here who can understand him. I was lucky enough to learn the old trade dialects when I was in the crèche.

This guy must be at least 700 years old. He looks it. He is a bundle of scars and wrinkles that do not look to have come from our captors.

He is trying to ignore me. He does not even know me, so how can he not like me?

"Look, Princess, I am trying to find a way out of here and I do not need a million and one questions just when I am trying to think"

HOW DARE HE TALK TO ME THAT WAY! All I am trying to do is help.

"If you want the way out, why don't you try the door - you have not even gone near it. AND DO NOT CALL ME PRINCESS, my name is Arlene."

Little bastard should treat me better, he is lucky that I am willing to talk to the little troll.

Now what is he doing? He is just staring at me and holding that pipe.

I think I will go check on the kids.

[dalton]

---------------
SCROUNGER
---------------

The sobbing is starting to die down. The screams have started to fad away. At least physically. I will be reliving this nightmare for the rest of my life, almost makes me wish it won't be that much longer.

Given the circumstances, I will probably get my wish.

The dead are laying where they fell, everyone else has found corners to curl up in. Those without a corner are shambling, lost. Yea, that is a good name for them, lost.

Nothing has a right to look the way we do. I am in no better shape than most. I am luckier than a lot of the others, since, I must be one of the least valuable cargoes. After all, who wants the parts from a short, ugly old man who has so much freezer damage that my blood is part freon.

The lost are starting to circle now. They follow you around, trying to be helpful when, in truth, they just want to feel like they belong.

Well, sorry, I don't belong, not to no one or anything, and no one belongs to me.

Some sort of doctor is helping some of the people here, but, strangely they seem more afraid of the Doctor then of dying.

I am trying to find a rat hole. Just a simple rat hole. The nice thing about people is you never have to worry about them not having a few rats along for the ride.

The rest of these people obviously never been on a 'Working' ship.

Rat holes are the ultimate answer to boarding inspections when every part of a ship can be inspected. Gravetic densitometric sensors can give a complete layout of a ship with all of it's nooks and crannies open for all the verse to see.

How to you counter that? Easy, hide things in plain site.

Cargo holds such as this one can hold a wide variety of random merchandise.

Inspectors enter a ship, check the personal quarters, then lock the crew and passengers into their quarters while they do a full inventory of the ship.

Trick is, most inspection teams are understaffed, bored with their job and thanks to the type of work, not too bright. Only those with little or no ambition end up in the floating tin cans which are used for picket ships.

They break up the job into smaller groupings. If you have a set of hidden hatches between the crew quarters and the holds, you can shift materials between the searched and yet to be searched holds.

Hatches, what a laugh. If they were actual hatches, they would show up on the scans.

Nope, good ol'holes is what they are. The sealant foam between the walls would be removed – no problem since that does not show up on scans so it would not be missed from a scan.

Inspectors don't even think to look for them.

No sane person would compromise both the structure and environmental safety of their ship would they?

Would they?

You bet your conniving black hearted souls they would.

Since getting caught with contraband is a death sentence in most systems anyway, most crews just see it as the other side of the same coin.

What I am counting on is a 'who me?' program being triggered on the ships computer.

Everybody figures that a anti-hijack program is the first thing running on a vessel when thing start to go bad.

Nope.

The first thing to run and hide traces of it's running, is the smugglers best friend – 'who me'.

All cargo hold recorders start to play back pre-recorded vid signals combined with erasing all traces of the ships logs and replacing them with the pre-sets.

If that is what is going on, the crew has no idea of what we are up to.

If I find the section of wall we can flank the crew before they know what is happening.

That is, if I can get this, this, this....FEMALE away from me.

I just want to be let alone, that's all. That's not asking to much is it?
"Would you PLEASE, not stand so close".
Desperation is starting to enter my voice.

She is not too bad.

Tall, redhead, athletic. Just the type that normally never notices that I exist.

She is a good head and a half taller than me and leaning over me as I am trying to work.

It is not that I really mind, well, I would be a fool to not appreciate.....but I have to find it.

I know it is here and if we are going to survive, we need to find it.

It is her incessant stream of questions, constantly demanding attention.

I have tried to give her jobs to do. I even found a couple of storage bays specifically to keep her busy. It has not worked. She leaves for two minutes and comes back demanding more.

"Look, Princess, I am trying to find a way out of here and I do not need a million and one questions just when I am trying to think"

Now I have done it. Never, ever, attempt to dismiss a female. They are clueless, obtuse, self absorbed wastes of...WHAT ARE THOSE IDIOTS DOING?

Princess has mumbled something but I don't have time for it.

Over her shoulder I saw a group of fools trying to get the door open. It is like watching a meglev dis-rail. You know what you are going to see. You know you will not like what you see, but you still stand and gap like an absolute fool with the faint hope that someone will be sane enough to prevent it from happening.

We are cargo. Can't they get that through their thick skulls. We are by definition, dangerous cargo and the ship has been in a state of emergency long enough to dump this group of lunatics out into an area where they can cause trouble.

Would you leave the door unlocked?

Nooooo.

Would you trust simple locks when you have thinking cargo?

Absolutely not.

So what do you think is going to happen?

[dalton]

---------------
THE FACE
---------------

This is just wrong.

I am supposed to be able to control my dreams. All the books I read tell me that. I am smart, intelligent, insightful. I should have no problems at all.

Why are they looking at me like that. This is mine. I don't care if they think otherwise. Who are they going to believe? Me or some kids? This is my dream anyway. They are just some part of my childhood coming back to teach me some lesson.

Well brain, I do not need any more lessons. If you want to dream, dream about some place a lot cleaner than this.

“STOP THAT, IT'S MINE” one of the werewolves is trying to take my blanket. “IT'S MINE, I THOUGHT IT UP SO GO BOTHER SOMEONE ELSE”.

Why are they being so mean to me? I was just lying here minding my own business and they come over and take my stuff.

I try to help people and they beat me up. I try to stay by myself and they come over and take my things. I am not going to stand for this much longer. I have rights! Who do they think they are?

I have gone mad. That is the only explanation. This can't be a dream, no matter how badly I want it to be. So the only other explanation is that I am insane in a ward somewhere making all this up. So where are the guys with the pills to make me happy. I want my pills.

Oh great, something new, more yellow lights, horns and people looking at me.

All I am doing is standing by what looks like a huge door. What's wrong with that?

[dalton]

---------------
DUKE
---------------

The change in air pressure combined with klaxon's going off is a good indicator that something is up. Unfortunately, Secondus is not here and I am not a high priority for the women and children he left me with. Luckily, they ignore me. They assume that since I am blind, I am also deaf.

The conversations are mostly those of fear, consoling, outbursts of sorrow or outright denials that anything is wrong.

It sounds like some of the women have taken charge of the children. I don't know if that is because they feel some sort of maternal instinct, or, they just want to feel like they have control of something.

The pattern in their voices follows almost a rhythm. The approach, with the show of concern, followed by the greeting and mutual expressions of grief. Attempts at humour combined with working out jobs so that each women has a place in the pecking order.

My anthropology teacher would have loved to listen in on this. Although he would have been always pointing out the proper method of directing the group so that you could control it. I really doubt he could have imagined my ending up in a situation like this.

“Are you okay?, Are you warm enough?”, the voice was high, almost shrill. I don't think she intends to sound that way, she just does.

I answer in as strong and firm a voice as possible, without either overt strength or weakness
“Thank you, I am chilled, but recovering. Someone gave me a blanket and it is helping”. There, I am showing no signs of weakness or sickness for them to be wary of, yet no aggressiveness for them to avoid. Even in the strangest places, my training in politics has me going down the litanies of group interaction.

She touches my cheek, strange, raspy, not soft, but, it felt like fingers, no, not fingers...UPLIFT. My initial reaction is to pull away, but, I catch myself. It would be obvious if she is paying any attention to me. I can't believe that I would let my childhood stories betray me like that.

“You are perceptive for an ape.” The voice had dropped to a whisper, but, it did not sound threatening, just a statement.

“You are afraid of me, but you try to hide it. Why?”

Her question caught me off guard.

"I.....I try to be better than what I am...." my voice, quiet to begin with, trailed off into nothing. What more can I say.

The silence was long and uncomfortable. The tension in my stomach was turning into downright nausea. I am helpless. Blind, crippled, naked, alone. The one creature who is showing kindness to me happens to be a real live monster from my childhood nightmares.

Uplifts had been exterminated in the core over 150 years ago. There is still an open bounty for the corpse of any brought into a government facility. The blind hatred has been lovingly passed down from one generation to the next since the purification wars.

For all I know, she views me the same way. That still does not change the way I feel, no matter how badly I want to feel differently.

I hear her shuffling away as she continues her checking on the others. I am ashamed of the relief I feel when I know she is gone. The sweat was dripping down my sides, leaving me with cold shivers on top of my cold shivers....

Shouting, different this time, people directing me to get up. The questioning of children, with fear evident in their voices, rising up and overwhelming my senses. They are clinging to me as I stumble to the wall. The air seams suffocating. Hot, Humid, washing in over us. The smell of burnt flesh, ozone and melted plastic is so thick that you feel like you are immersed in it. I can hear the slapping of running feet across the metal deck. First just a few, then many. I am getting pulled, pushed, falling.

My head, spinning, someone is pulling me up, shouting at me to move. I can hardly make it out. Something is dripping from my forehead, salty......blood, my blood.

The crush of others is contributing to my sense of helplessness. The screams, the shoving, the knowledge that the hand that is dragging me off into the endless dark is not human.

Blast of cold air, followed by low ceiling, sounds of shrieking in the distance. Gun shots, not close, but who? Running now, banged my left leg, pain tearing its way throughout my body. I don't know if I am going to make it. Children's hands are still holding on to me, me, I have to look terrifying to them, missing limbs, missing eyes. A monster leading them through hell itself, led by my own nightmare.

The sense of panic has stopped being a separate thing, for I have become the panic, become the fear. I have lost myself.

We have lost ourselves.

[dalton]

---------------
SCROUNGER
---------------


This is difficult.

I don't want to think about it.

I don't know how much time has passed. Minutes, hours, seconds.......years.
All I know is that I don't want to sleep again.

There are ten of us together now, although 'together' is not what I would call 'us'.

I made the mistake of following the doctor. Butcher is more like it. Between him and his gang of apes, I have been between killing them or killing myself.

I hate mondays. For all I know, no one has recognised mondays for the past thousand years, but, I know this is a monday. Only a monday can be this bad.

I have watched that piece of...........kill a man because it was inconvenient to carry him, and I was to stupid to stop him. d**n him. He has put me back into the very place I fought so hard to get out of.

Since the cargo doors opened, we have run through loading bays, corridors, common rooms and every possible tube way we came across. For the life of me, I could not trace my way back. I can't go back. I have been stuck with these animals, as they grunt out incomprehensible banter in the old tongue. Why did I go with them. Why do I fall back into the old patterns. I am done with this. I am done with this, this, madness.

I am pacing back and forth in this office, as the doctor is barking orders to the fools who act without thought. What makes a man act like that. He is a doctor. Monster is more like it. If I don't get away from him I will become just like him. I will not let that happen. That is not going to happen.

The pole was leaning against the wall. Some sort of metal rod. Heavy, well balanced. It did not even bend when I used it against the first ape by the doc. Shame it would not come out of the second one by the door. It was too smooth, the natural suction of the body just locked on and held. Too bad, it was a nice heavy rod. Not as good as a gun, but, you can't fault it in any way.

Now all I can hear is the shouting and confusion from the room as I walk away.

I never claimed to be a nice guy. I never claimed anything. All I know is, at those times that I am bad, I am good at it.