Greetings once again,
This is a Gamma Version of Dreams. This is my first fic in the
first person. For anyone following my other stories such as The Beginning or
Forbidden Ops, this is the _very_ first book in the Phantom Riders series. So
tell all your friends to read this one if they were wondering what was going
on. I�m not used to the first person POV so if there are anything
I screwed up on please let me know. Crits and Comments are welcome to
either private email.
I've started slowly on a cast of characters for the Rider
Universe.
For a brief overview of what this book is going to be about...
I've decided to try this first person POV as a test, this is
technically the second time I've attempted this type of writing the first
time was a very early version of the Beginning back five or six years ago.
I've decided to follow Cassi, a Tendor Huntsman who appears for anyone who
reads the fics in Forbidden Ops. The story starts out at the beginning of her
life and follows it as it is intermixed with other Rider's lives. This is the
newest fic I've been working on so it's the least worked on, there are about
11 pages in all. It's still a rough draft. So be kind. ;)
Welp, that's it, comments and crits are welcome nuttin too big
or too small.....if I don't get any I start taking Space Gophers as hostages!
;)
Bentley
bentley4@ix.netcom.com
http://www.netcom.com/~bentley4/Forbidden.html
Bensile Inc. presents:
PHANTOM RIDERS:
Dreams
(C) 1996 R. Bentley
By. R. Bentley
Email: bentley4@ix.netcom.com
Gamma Version
6-12-96
I remember what happened.
What I experienced will probably remain with me forever until I pass
from this world onto the next.
I was the first to experimented on by our God. I was the first to
escape his experiments, I ran like a child as my family and friends walked
willingly into his arms, into the light, into the darkness. I listened to
their screams as I coward in the city that I helped build. I watched them be
torn apart like rag dolls and stitched up like a walking corpse. And I was
the one they tried to hunt down.
Perhaps I should start at the beginning of all this.
My name is Cassi and I am a Tendor. You might be thinking why does my
name sound so pronounceable, my name in your language would make no sense
even if I were to try and translate correctly, in my language my name sounds
like Cassi, so that is what you can call me. I was borne into a family of
three daughters and two sons on board a returning star ship from the deep
throws of space. I am told that when I took my first breath of air I was
clinically dead for the first hour. My mother was still having birthing pains
as I withered away, my father hadn�t yet been told of my birthing he was
still working, designing ships to take our race to the stars. He arrived as I�m
told when I stopped breathing. My first and most certainly not the last time
the darkness embraced me.
According to my birth records in the core of our planet I was borne in
a year that been designated as one of silence. A year when no child would be
borne to anyone, no matter what you believed in, no matter what rank in society
your parents held. I as a child did not exist. The records have an note
attached to them it says "This baby was borne into our world in the third year
of silence, she ceased to exist. Through no fault of her parents or the doctors
she was borne a day early. This baby was a kicker. She survived long enough for
the new year to cross the horizon and she lived."
The first thing I remember was closing my eyes because of the light,
the death around me screamed as a candle was lit and began to grow whiter as
our skin, it was then when I became the first baby to be borne in the year
of enlightenment. I�ve viewed the vids of my birth when I passed my age of
enlightenment, my parents looked so happy when I came into the world, the
camera taking the vids nearly shorted out due to how much light I was giving
off in the room. My sisters and brothers were informed of my death, they almost
didn�t believe that I rose from the dead a day later. According them I was a
terror from day one, I guess setting the house on fire three times, practicing
my magic tricks thus levitating the building where my parents worked and
piloting a cruiser into the drink would be called a terror eh?
The year of enlightenment was a year where most of our planets
factories began to build new vehicles to travel into the black sky which one
of our famous cruisers dubbed space. Space turned out to be very boring, I
muttered that to my old sister when she took me up in one of her cruisers.
Our planet had light, detail, originality while space was just black.
Nothing, zip, nada, I pouted for about another week until we hit planet side
and went to work as a cruiser�s first mate. I don�t know why, I don�t know
how, maybe it was the fact we could only go so far before loosing sight of
our home world. The one place that fascinated me the most was the one place I
wanted to leave.
My mother had started out as a cruiser Captain and worked her way up
into the High Council, she retired from the HC once I passed my tests of
abilities and progression, a batch of tests that show how much knowledge one
has grasped since they were borne. Rumors circulated that I had gotten
special treatment due to what my parents did, even though most of my class
mates will vouch for me on this one. I distanced myself from my parents while I
study for the test, even though these tests are ones you can�t study for I did
anyway. I trekked up into the ruins of the first city that was built on our
world and stayed there with a group from my class and studied until it flowed
from our ears. Each one of us passed with high honors. Looking back now at all
that happened I�m not as shocked as I was to see all of us getting dumped on
the same cruiser or for my selection of a crew. But I�m getting a head of
myself.
After the tests I was given the opportunity to either choose which
cruiser I wanted to be on or let the Acedemy Council randomly choose which
cruiser and which post. I was asked during the celebration party for all of
the students that passed, I was completely drunk on whatever Firewater my
parents had hidden away for such an occasion. I don�t even remember what I
said, let it not be said I cannot hold my �water. One drink of the stuff an
d I�m in heaven, I�m not addicted to the stuff by a long shot, I�ve heard the
older the �water the worse the hang over will be in the morning and the talk
from all the religious addicts will say �water pollutes you�re soul. All in
all, I have no memory of any of the events of the party, I wish I did, least I
could actually remember calling my ex-boyfriend a complete jerk off to his face
and dumping him right on the spot.
At first I thought enrolling and passing the tests would be easy,
they were. I think the hardest part was remember what job was ment to go with
what cruiser. To say that I had put a cruiser through it�s paces would be an
understatement, I nearly cost my father his job giving his own designs a
shake down cruise. I was suspended and put on planet side for at least a
cycle. I stayed on planet and basically annoyed the hell out my parents until
my youngest sister came home with her new baby. Babies started to pop up
everywhere, it wasn�t that I had the same idea as everyone else, I hadn�t
found anyone yet. My ex-boyfriend was one of the few to enlist in a military
program to terraform one of the twenty satellites in orbit of our planet,
friends from my little test group were crossed off the list. They felt more
like family then anything else. The coupling years seemed to drag by until a
rumor that I had been hearing about from some of the cruiser Captain�s came
true. A chance to enlist on a deep space cruiser, it�s goal to explore much
farther out then any of us had even dreamt off. My parents presented the
cruiser to me as a birthday present, I was to be her Captain.
I was able to recall most of my test groupies and assign them spots
on the manifest, my oldest brother was given a spot as science officer and
we dubbed her the Searcher. A crew compliment of ten thousand we set sail on
the eve of a new year.
The Searcher was a sleek ship, it looked big on the outside but on
the inside it was even larger. You may think that a crew compliment of ten
thousand is rather large waste of space and people. Ten thousand was a our
scientists best guess of how many people would be on board when we returned
from our journey. The male to female ratio on the ship was a little biased in
my view, the Captain only got to choose her command staff, anyone else was
chosen by the council. We had people from all walks of life on board,
scientists, warriors, civilians. If you hadn�t guessed there were more women
on board then men. I would bitch some more about this but what kind of story
teller would I be?
We kept in contact with our home world through a long range
communication set up in the middle of the ship, something that had been kept
top secret to the public. At first I didn�t know why they kept it a secret,
so it projected an image of you to a viewer a long distance away. My view of
this changed when long range sensors reported another ship in our path. I
ordered the ship out of hyperspace, the ship�s tac drives were brought down
to stand-by and the Searcher reappeared in normal black, boring space. My
brother was the first to react, he scanned the ship in front of us and
reported. It was one of our cruisers, it just sat out there, her hull had
been torn apart and crew of what looked to be thirty just drifted in front of
us. I ordered all communication lines to be cut immediately and towed the
remains on board for an through investigation. That was when the shit hit the
fan.
"I detest this, Captain!"
"Move out of the way, Ciro, we need to get through." I replied and
held back the security guards. I glared down the religious figure, the one
I�d had been butting heads with ever since we left dry dock. He was one of
the older Mages on board and was so stubborn. He and two other of his kind
blocked the door way to the main hangar bay. All the debris from the derelict
had been tractored on board per my orders, all of it had gone through deep
detox and was ready to be looked over. Why is he here, I thought. "Get away
from the door."
The Mage according to his files was known as Ciro and his two lower
disciples took an aggressive step forward, their bows flickered for a moment
as their mystic energy surged from their bodies to their only weapons. "We
cannot allow to go any further Captain, we have orders." The younger female
disciple retorted and looked away from my ole holy then thou don�t piss off
the Captain death glare, something I had begun to perfect almost to a T. "Only
followers can enter and see what remains."
"Orders from who?!" Decca responded from behind the two groups of
armored security guards. She�s the senior helmsman for the Searcher and
probably the second most heavily trained person in hand to hand combat on my
boat. She also has very short fuse when it came to the religious sect, pairing
her up with my brother had been the first thing I�d done when we set sail. He�s
calmed her down considerably. She stood on her tip toes to see and nudged the
navigator to move over more so she could see. This corridor was getting
cramped, it wasn�t ment for a close quarters confrontation and if the Mages
started up with their magic the door to the hangar bay would be the first thing
to go then outer hull and then us.
"Our orders are to search space and record what we see," My brother
Alex semi-quoted the rules engraved on the wall on the bridge. He stood right
behind me, behind him were the guards, then Decca, then Dina, my navigator.
I could have sworn I heard one of the guards say "pleaze start a fight, pleeze
start a fight." Alex ducked his head under the outer airlock frame to try and
get a better look, this was as far as we had gotten before one of the younger
Mages had dropped water on me by accident. I was the only one inside the inner
air lock, the others were still clustered in behind the guards. "I take it you
have orders from the Black Arts Council, right Ciro?"
Ciro�s fluffy white eye brows shot to the top of his head. His hands
nearly dropped his bow on the deck. He recovered quickly and sucked in his
chest. "I do yes." He replied. "And they told me not to allow anyone besides
our followers through this door."
Alex leaned forward through the door frame, reached out with his
right hand and pulled me back just enough so he could whisper in my ear. My
eyebrows raised this time and I smiled. "Then you won�t mind Alex taking a
look then?" I said and crossed my arms.
Both of the younger Mages looked at each other then at Ciro. "What is
she talking about, sir?"
"He�s a Mage�s apprentice," Ciro muttered through his white beard.
Alex nodded gleefully, pulled out his final test scores and his
certification of passing. Decca was the only one who gave a pat on the back
to Alex while the other people in the corridor let out a slight groan, he had
been showing it off to people since the left dry dock. They had almost
forgotten about how much of a show off he was until he pulled that one piece
of paper out. I know he didn�t hear one of the guards say "if he does that one
more time do I have your permission to slap him around, just a little sir?"
"Cassi would be too but she filed her papers before we pulled anchor. She
should qualified by now. So are you going to let us both pass or are you going
to stand there and let us wait until you pass out or your power runs out."
Ciro�s teeth started to grind together as he motioned for both of his
apprentices to stand down. "You will tell none of your crew this Captain."
I took a step forward, little droplets of water entrailed behind me. "What am
I supposed to tell them Ciro, the debris you all saw was reflection of our
own ship? There�s nothing out here but space. No one would believe me and
sooner or later I would probably be asked to step down due to incompetence or
something." I said in one deep breath. "Besides how bad can it be?" I
commented.
Ciro�s eyes met mine as the outer air lock door hissed open.
On that deck we saw why the secrecy of the communication system had
been so tight. The debris on the deck of the hangar bay was the remains of
one of the religious sect�s cruisers. Her crew compliment had been only one
or two but the passenger on that cruiser had been one of the sect�s rulers. I
had read about him in books they had supplied at the Acedemy for us, the few
people who wanted to become Mages or people not borne into the Mages Sect,
those known as Pryors. The ruler had been known as Knol, he had tried to
unify church and state into one big bundle, this was back during the age of
silence, a few years before I was borne. He was also one of founders of the
religious sect and the one that had introduced Black Arts into the Sect.
Black Arts usage had been foundation for the long range comm system, the
military along with my father must have tried to duplicate the idea with out
using the Arts as a crutch. It worked, so why the hell did we find Knol�s
remains on the deck of my ship and why did we find a brand new, never been
touch by Tendor hands Black Arts book clasped in his hands. A book that had
never been released to the public.
Over dinner one night in my cabin Alex had explained that Knol�s ship
had been lost in a solar storm of some kind, he was coming back from a dig on
one of the moons when his cruiser vanished off the radar screens. The storm
according to the trans scripts had appeared one moment engulfed the cruiser and
vanished. Knol�s vision had snow balled over the next few years. I was Mage on
my father�s side, Alex and I were the only ones who expressed interest in the
Arts at a very early age. Over the next few months the comm system still
bothered me a little bit, so what if it was long range, it wasn�t like anyone
was out this far anyway.
Me and my big mouth.
Alex moved from one console to another and eyed the readings as they
came in from the long and short range scanners. His smile was illuminated by
the scanner�s monitors as he sat back in his seat. "Computer AI has confirm
ed Captain," he reported. He looked over his shoulder and winked at Decca.
"We�ve got a planet coming up on us."
I turned in my seat to see Alex to make sure he wasn�t joking. My frown
brought only a very vigorous nod while he showed his science mate what to do.
"Visual!" I ordered.
The view screen that made up three fourths of the bridge�s main window
fuzzed over with snow for a moment and then became crystal clear. A jewel of a
planet appeared to the left of the screen while various numbers appeared to the
other side of the screen. The entire bridge crew turned in their seats as Decca
slowed the ship back into normal space and blue white planet filled the main
window. "Dina, lock that planet coordinates into the computer and plot a
reverse course back to home," Decca murmured in awe.
"Aye."
"She�s smaller then our home world, energy output from the core is
off the scale," Alex replied to my thought before it reached my lips. "Looks
like it�s a new borne."
"Reverse course appearing on screen two." Dina commented and fed the
information from the nav computer into the screen�s projectors.
Everyone not in complete awe of this spectacle turned to see the
second largest screen on the window surge to life. Their homeworld appeared
in the middle of the screen, a wavy dotted line started to appear, it went
from their home world to green dot. "Green dot is location we found the
debris of Knol�s ship," Dina voiced over as the dotted line continued on it�s
course until it came to a blue dot. "Blue dot is this planet."
"Almost a straight line," I muttered.
"And if we�re the center of the universe," Alex thought it through.
"We�ve come to a cross roads in our travels. We either explore the planet below
or return home." He looked up from work and his gaze met mine, a wide smile
crossed his face. "You�re orders ma�am?"
I sat back in my nice cushioned Captain�s chair and thought it over for
a moment. My first thought was to radio back to home world and tell them what
we found. But then the thought of being recalled home didn�t settle with me to
well. I was starting to get used to being so free. I ran a hand through my hair
and took a deep breath. "Prep crews for landing. I want small detachment of
warriors, scientists and religious sect," I ordered and let the breath out.
"Once we land we can contact home world from the surface."
"How many each?" My brother asked.
I cocked an eye brow and shrugged. "Twelve sounds like a good number,"
I looked over my shoulder at Alex. "I�ll lead, you pick two of you�re best from
science, Dina; I want you to come along from the command staff, I want Ciro and
two from the sect, Decca; choose two you can trust you�ll take over for
security. We can ponder the leftovers later."
"What should we dub the planet?" Dina�s fingers tapped away at her
console while she saved the location of the planet into the deep core memory
files that resided in the middle of the ship.
"Cassi�s Hope?" Decca kidded and ducked accordingly away from Dina.
"Hirala." I stated and found a few people looking at me kinda funny.
"After my mother," I replied to the looks and most of the bridge crew began to
set the Searcher for a atmosphere landing. I felt the deck plates shudder as
the main drives came to life and began to push the ship onto her side.
The ship according to specs began to make achieve high orbit and with
the help of the scanners found a window to aim for. I must say that the crew is
handling this well, watching them prepare for our first atmosphere landing. I
watched in absolute awe as the nose of the Searcher began to slice into the
atmosphere. The darkness that I had gotten used to was pushed back by the soft
rumble of the atmosphere, the entire ship lurched to the left which caught most
of us off guard. I found myself on my chin on the deck, a few others had
decided to join me as the sound of re-entry nearly deafened all of us.
A sharp wine caught my ears, the sound was coming from the damage
control station that was slaved into Decca�s console. "Hover jets two through
four are off-line," Decca reported, she grabbed the controls with two hands a
nd steered the ship slowly downwards. The nose started to dip down at a
forty-five degree angle, the sound of circuit breakers popping around the
bridge made me pray while everything around us shook. I had heard that sound
before, right before I dumped a cruiser into the lake. "I�m taking the main
drives off line," Decca pointed to the buttons safeties she needed Dina to
press. "Their going to tear us apart."
I got to my feet and found my seat, I then proceeded to buckle up
with the safety harness. "Someone�s writing this down for further use I hope?"
I tugged the clasps close around my shoulders and felt my stomach get lost in
the reentry.
"Already on it," Decca replied and sucked in her breath as the clouds
passed from the main screen, I blinked and let out a soft cheer inwardly. The
fluffy white clouds left us and blue sky, something completely new to us
surrounded us. The roller coaster of a ride eased up as the ship fell slowly
downward. What I saw was marvelous, green rolling seas of water and land,
lots of land. "Hirala land ho!" The bridge crew let out a small cheer and they
all stared at the screen for a moment. They were all getting home sick, I was
too sometimes. They went back to work gathering information and saving while
the ship under Decca�s control leveled out and Dina began to look for a soft
place to possibly land.
"There�s a bottle of fire water my parents gave me for such an
occasion," I said to my bridge crew. "Once we land and set up camp. I�m gonna
prepare a dinner you�ll never forget and we�re all gonna get blitzed."
That got a laugh from everyone, my cooking had somewhat become legend on board.
My recipes had begun to circulate around the ship, I pondered what to make for
our first night on this world until Alex stopped laughing and sucked in his
breath. "Captain!"
I swung the seat around and looked at Alex then over at the lift door
as it closed. Ciro stood there alone, his eyes wide with either fear or
excitement I couldn�t tell, I was still trying to get a hang of reading peoples
minds. I mearly smiled and was about to turn around to enjoy the view when my
eyes caught what Alex was talking about. In Ciro�s left hand was his staff in
the other was the book we had found Knol clutching in his decomposed hands. And
it was glowing. Well that killed the small celebration dead in it�s tracks.
"Ciro, I sounded general quarters you were supposed to stay there,"
Em, my first officer seated to my left found her voice and thumbed towards
the lift door. "Time to go." Alex was closer to Ciro then I was when Ciro said
something, I know he said something his beard moved that and he motioned with
his staff to the book. Whatever he said it made Alex drop his pad on the floor,
his face started to lose it color. I frowned. "What?"
Ciro held up the book that seemed to pulse now. "It called to me." He
said. He nearly dropped the book, he was scared out of his mind. "It told me
to tell you to leave this place and return home. Before it�s too late."
I frowned at that, I felt the deck shudder again. I turned back towards
the main screen. The hover jets where on full front and slowed the Searcher as
a clearing in the trees formed on the main screen. Decca slowly brought the
horizontal propulsion off-line and geared down the landing mains.
"Hang on folks this may get a little bumpy," she warned us just in
time for the deck to drop out under our feet. "What the hell!" Decca pulled
back on the controls all the way back to her chin and she pushed the hover
pedals all the way to the floor. "We�re being pulled in!"
"Confirmed!" Em mused, she turned her portable console towards her
and eyed the readings. "Another gravity well, just peaking above the surface
of the planet. It must like our ship, nothing else is being pulled in!"
"Planet fall in thirty seconds!" Decca reported, her harness activated
automatically as did everyone else�s, Ciro found the seat to my right and
clutched the book to his chest. I bearly heard him begin to pray.
"Drop the shields!" I ordered.
Everyone looked at me, this time with absolute horror on their faces.
If we dropped the shields then technically the ship would be wide open for an
attack. It also didn�t help matters that I A) didn�t orbit the planet and check
for life signs before going in and B) didn�t test this little atmosphere drop
on another planet. But that�s neither here nor there.
"Captain?" Em blinked.
"Twenty seconds!"
"Our shields are powered by your Mages, right Ciro?" I asked him, he
looked at me and for the first time he seemed to know what I was thinking.
"Mages and Pryors give off a sphere of power that surrounds them. The first
gravity well didn�t harm us, the second one doesn�t like the Arts." I stopped
in my thinking, a light came on. I looked down at Ciro. "Was Knol here?"
"Captain?!"
I punched the comm tab on my armrest for the shield/weapons bay.
"De-activate the shields, now! That�s an order!"
I heard a series of voices about to object but the head Mage shut all
of them up and cleared the channel. "Aye Captain!" I closed the channel my
gaze locked with Ciro�s. "What was Knol doing here?"
"Ten seconds, nine, eight, seven." The bridge lights flicked off and
the emergency lights flooded the room with harsh red light. A few of our eyes
began to glow due to the lack of light while others just blinked to get
adjusted to the light.
"Shields down to fifty percent," Em reported.
"Six, five, four."
"Shields down to ten percent and fall fast."
"So are we!" Alex retorted!
Ciro�s rough thoughts came to me for a brief moment, it felt more like
a haze. A vision of a ship, the one we found adrift. Knol on board with two
others, the book in Ciro�s hand. Knol was reading it, practicing when there was
a flash of light. Their screams, can�t get them out of my head. I winced
inwardly, too much, too clear! His ship was falling out of orbit, they knew
what we knew, there was an explosion. Something happened, can�t tell the others
of this. Ground coming up quickly, can�t stop. His death hits my mind like an
out of control train. My mind screamed in pain as the charred body of Knol, his
friends and the ship are transplanted by someone. Transplanted in front of us.
Can�t see him, someone is here. Something is coming. That�s when everything
went black.
I viewed the bridge recorder afterwards, since I remembered nothing
of the following. The voices from the bridge were blocked for a moment as the
shields were dropped completely just as landing mains touched the ground. The
hover engines kicked in full and the ship slowly began to ascend towards the
darkness of space.
"Hover jets: dropping to fifty percent, prep for landing," Decca
eased out of her straps and watched the read out next to her, a very small
diagram of the plain around the ship, the ship and air currents started to
form.
"Touch down in three, two, one."
The sound of the jets stopped and the soft thud echoed around us. I
didn�t understand, why can�t I understand? The thud broke the contact between
Ciro and I. He seemed a little more sane when the bridge lights came back on.
I held my head for a moment and then opened my eyes to see what lay before.
A brand new world.
I looked around at the happy looks on everyone faces. We would
celebrate later, I somehow lost track of Ciro as he made his way up the stairs
to the lift and silently went back to his room. His message he sent me, or
maybe the what the book sent me was something I wouldn�t soon forget. According
to our teachers our planet is the only planet in the universe, we have sent out
signals to other places and even sent deep probes out into space. They have
returned with nothing. This planet which has been named after my mother is
mystery. Somehow Knol and his associates were transported to this planet and
crashed. Someone is here. Something is coming.
The communication system hasn�t been working properly since we arrived
here. We�ve tried so many times to get it to work it sends our own messages
back to us. We have the means to reproduces smaller cruisers. It would appear
we�ll need to establish some kind of satellite system in orbit. The repair
crews are already hard at work repairing the system that were shorted during
reentry. When I look out at this place as dusk settles, the lights from the
Search come on one at a time. I look at the beauty of this place. Why would
they try to hide this place from us? I take a sip of tea and look at the
updated agenda for tomorrow. When light breaks we�ll send a unmanned drone out
to sample the planet. Once those results are over we�ll send out a two man team
with suits and if that works out then maybe without suits.
The death of Knol still weights heavily on me as I fall asleep. I�ve
posted heavily armed guards at all the air locks and gave strict orders the
bridge crew on night watch to wake me if anything happens.
Something is here.
Something is coming.
I drift off to sleep.
The Intelligence is coming��
"Captain?"
I rolled over in bed and curled up tighter around my stuff animal. My
mind retreated from the voice and the light instead I pulled my covers over my
head. I didn�t hear myself groan and ask for five more minutes of sleep.
The voice belonged to Em and it was coming from my comm panel next to
my bed. My nice warm fuzzy, filled with water, bed. "I�m having a good dream,
get someone else to do it." I murmured from beneath the covers.
"This is your wake up call Captain."
I clutched both pillows around my ears and rolled onto my stomach.
"I�m sorry Captain Cassi isn�t in right now but if you please leave your name
and number. She�ll get back to you as soon as she can. *BEEEEP*."
"Do you want me to get Alex to sing to you, sir?"
My heart skipped a beat. "You wouldn�t." I muttered under my breath,
I shook my head. Em was a by the books first officer she had no sense of humor,
a very very dry one yes. Even during our Acedemy days she was the one sour
blanket in the group. But to go as far as getting my brother to sing to me.
"You wouldn�t dare," I repeated.
There was a soft shuffle of feet that came across the comm link, a
muffle of voices until I heard someone clear their throat. "Testing, one, two,
three," Alex tapped the comm mic and took a deep breath and-
I kicked the covers off onto the floor and rolled left. In one swift
motion the back of left hand hit the comm button just in time to kill anything
briefly related to a do re mi. "I�m up! You merciless little son of bitch." I
took a look in the mirror and frowned, my extensions were starting to grow a
little faster then I expected. I stood up and padded across the fuzzy rug that
carpeted my quarters. I stopped in front of the full length mirror and ran a
finger nail across my rather full breasts. They rippled in response which
answered my question. I�ve had on my body shield since we found Knol�s remains.
After a while I must�ve gotten used to the constant hum from the power pack. I
unzipped the compartment where the pack was and eyed the readings. I frowned
again. Full charge? I shook my head slowly and continued towards the head.
"I�ll be read in ten minutes."
"What no singing in the shower Captain?" Alex�s voice moseyed into
the shower with me.
"You do and I�ll make sure you and Decca don�t mate for life," I
smiled wickedly as the hot water hit my skin.
"What?!?" Alex�s voice hit a high note as most of the bridge crew must
have been looking from him to Decca, back again and let their minds do the
rest.
"You told her?" Decca�s voice growled as the comm went dead.
To be continued....
Send comments, crits, carrots and cabbits to: bentley4@ix.netcom.com