'Tapestry' [R] PROLOGUE Sept 6/08

missionman8 · **missionman8**

Prologue

�I am not afraid, �I was born to do this.� - Joan d'Arc

Hermetically sealed and free from the binds of gravity, the burnished stone sarcophagus floated lazily a good two metres from the floor, on to yet another bump into one of the chamber walls. It wasn't always so, but the locking mechanisms had failed due to a loss of power, caused not by the maelstrom that constantly wailed from miles above...but elsewhere.
Lit only by a single candle, the heavily guarded chamber lay otherwise in darkness at the bottomost level of the considered impregnable great fortress.

Perfect for her...and...it...

The Coven Queen lay in slumber inside the sarcophagus. Once merely a witch, she was being slowly transformed into a vampiress as well, and the transformation would only be complete when her master returned. She had hated being stranded here, on the desolate side of a dreary sun-baked world. It was beneath her, she felt, mothering a coven of petulant vampiresses and babysitting..that thing. But her master bade her to do so, for he needed the most powerful of the witches guild to guard 'its' secret..until he could return with his army of dragons.

And so she conceded, and paid the price as the days inexorably dragged on. Having reaped none of the rewards yet and several of the nasty consequences of becoming a vampire, she had lamented the fact that even still among the living, the suns were now forever a deathtrap to her without chemical augmentation, though her witch sisters could come and go as they pleased. The Kettering serum had been depleted, and a fresh batch was still en route. The entire vampiress coven was stuck inside the dark fortress until the serum would arrive. A tentative reach from a high portal in the fortress walls had proven that to her, and the searing scars that the Veras II suns had burned across her forearm, were healing at much less than a full vampires rate. Not quite here..not quite there...

Though she slept deep and dreamless inside, the air recyclers scrubbing along silently, for she was still among the living, paying no heed to the third loud echoing thud into the chamber walls, a newfound attenuation to the vampiric senses rattled her awake all the same..her eyes slitted open, partially glowing now with bloodred supernatural vision...the uninvited drew near..

"Ainsi, voce pensa dass sie mich �berraschen k�nnen? Yo siempre sab�a que usted ven�a. ???????? ????? ???????, exspectata ut vestri nex!" She venomously spat out the challenge..

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Konoshi wasn't sure if he should be glad for the perpetual chaotic stormclouds that raged above him. On the one hand they did deflect some of the fiery heat and sunlight, truly a blessing in the heart of the Kartouhm wastelands. But the sandstorms were severe, painfully biting, endless blinding curtains of sand, threatening to smother him, and the hundreds of other Kahjinn clan warriors that rode upon sturdy beasts of burden alongside him.

Sweat poured from beneath their robes, some caught back into moisture recyclers, but only enough fresh water to see them to the fortress, maybe. Return without capturing 'it' was not an option. No less than Life everywhere was at stake, and so theirs was forfeit. Konoshi knew this as well as anyone, and he didn't care all that much. He loved his wife Yuna and daughter Ayumi more than life itself and would gladly give it to prevent the Dark One from succeeding.

A mile away from the fortress, the general had the torchbearers signal through the sandy haze as best they could to hasten battle positions. He knew even with poor visibility that there was no way the Queen hadn't noticed them by now..

"Arms!" He pulled his cloth mouthpiece aside and shouted, spitting away the grit that caked quickly into his robes and tore at his exposed face...and when he realized that he had actually succeeded in getting his command across to the rest of his clan, he swung forward his fireball morningstar and bellowed out "Attack!"

Hundreds of heads pressed into the wind and broke formation, rushing headlong into the side currents to reach as many parapets in the walls of the terrible fortress as was possible. Konoshi broke along with the left flank, pushing his mighty beast to its limits, its nostrils flaring, hooves pounding, the crest of hair on its head now completely sweat flattened to the side. Timing was everything now, and as the shrill of electronic alarms blasted from the fortress keep, and particle shields had come to life around it, another mile away, the three Kahjinn that had been digging since the previous night into the desert ground, had finally come upon the main hyper-linked SC barrilium transducer coils that had been buried deep into the desert floor.

"It's so complex! How are we supposed to know how to disable it...?" one of the men gestured helplessly at the advanced machinery..

"Easy." another said matter-of-factly, "Its just a giant fuse box far as I'm concerned. Find the fuse box is what th' general said. Well here it is! Now blow the damn thing up!" he pointed to the third man, who was ready to drop a chord of dynamite into the hole they had dug.
Scampering as fast as they could back to their steeds, the blast rained so much clumps of soil down on them that they were falling back to the ground. After it subsided, one man sat up and turned to the others still lying in pain..

"I'm sick of this place and this bullshit desert!!" he fumed

"Don't blame you," dazed, the second man replied, "I want to live somewhere greener...and more women.."

The third man was finally able to sit up, "Did it work?" Black smoke rising told him 'yes'.

When it was apparent that the fortress had suddenly lost all power, the Kahjinn warriors lunged forward to the fortress walls. Winds of sand turned to waves at its base, so strong that many warriors were being pulled into the forming dunes, and buried alive. Magik was about, Konoshi was sure of that as he watched several of his closest comrades waving frantically before being swallowed whole by the living dunes. He closed his eyes in grief for a moment. The mission was even more daunting than he could have imagined. But time did not wait for his sorrow, and with renewed effort, Konoshi clawed his way to the first of the rope lattices thrown up against the fortress walls. His fears of magik were confirmed as the blue-green faces of the witches finally showed themselves high up in the openings of the smooth stone walls. The rope ladders were being thrown back down, and Konoshi was clinging fast to his own as he could only watch it being cut from above..

Arrows were useless in this storm, but Kahjinn warriors were perfect marksmen with heavy spears. Quadrinium spearheads could pierce anything, and were launched by the dozens at the mighty fortress. Within minutes the walls were becoming bristled with spears that stuck readily into them. Several of the witches were laughing, they realized they were too high up for a warrior to throw at. Konoshi wasted no time.

Between dodging chunks of rock and other things being thrown down at him, the last hold of his rope had been cut, and Konoshi leapt for the nearest spear sticking out of the black wall. Lightweight but solid, Konoshi climbed each spear as the warriors had intended, reaching a metre below the parapets. Hefting another rock high above her head, the nearest witch was quite surprised to see Konoshi somersaulting over the edge, feet first. He caught her in the torso mid-gasp, knocking the wind from her. Trading martial arts tactics for spellbound ruthlessness, Konoshi had taken one down as more Kahjinn warriors finally made their way up the spears and into the parapets. It was now a free-for-all. Close combat did not allow for lofty incantations and spells to be cast, but magik still made the witches devilishly fast, and freakishly strong. Konoshi could feel his clan slowly losing the foothold they had claimed. He was failing.

'Timing!' Once again, he remembered the general saying,"is everything!'

'I will NOT fail!' Konoshi clenched his jaws even tighter as he whipped around in a flying kick as the witch he fought moved so fast that she seemed to disappear altogether. It was an educated guess, but he had his own developing powers to guide him a little, and his foot cracked against her windpipe, dropping her instantly.

"Get to the keep! NOW!!" The general ordered as he fought his way over to Konoshi and his infiltration squadron. "We'll keep em back as long as we can, AAAIGH!!" he grunted as he impaled a lunging witch with his dao. The general liked it simple. "and Konoshi!..."

"Yes sir?"

"Timing.." The general managed an exaggerated smile, "is EVERYTHING!" Turning around, the man leapt back into the thick of the fighting, paying no more attention to Konoshi.

For his part, Konoshi paid no more attention either to the the general, mostly because he felt his head would explode right then and there if he heard that man say those words to him even just one more time. But the general was right also, they had to make haste to the keep. Witches be damned.

It was just as bad entering the keep as it was scaling the fortress walls. Eerily quiet at first and completely shrouded in darkness, Konoshi knew it wouldn't last. As fast as they could locate them, sconces were lit and torches were carried by everyone as they delved into the keep. It wasn't all that helpful, vampires could hide anywhere. Fear gripped his men tightly. Good. Konoshi thought, keep them on their toes for awhile. He knew the coven was there, and they were very hungry. Allowed halfway down the into the fortress keep unmolested, Konoshi knew they were being trapped in. Just as well, if they failed, he and his men weren't coming out anyways.
A moments loss of focus was the end of his happy thoughts, as the vampiresses erupted from the shadows in deafening screams of bloodlust. Now Konoshi wish they had still been fighting witches, for the vampiresses had no graceful form of attack, just mere animalistic hunger, blood curdling glowing red eyes sizing up their prey, and that was all Konoshi's men needed to know, before running for their lives in terror. He couldn't blame them exactly, he had almost lost his nerve as well, a vampiric influence tactic he knew not all could overcome, so he and his four most steadfast men watched as the others inadvertently led the coven in the opposite direction. It was Konoshi's chance. He bolted for the stairwell, taking two or three steps at a time, running so out of control that he tripped twice, rolling down several flights, his men fairing little better behind him. The screams of agony and sounds of gory crunches and biting echoed from far behind them. Terror kept them going.

Squadron was too generous a word to describe what they had dwindled down to now, just Konoshi and the four other men with him. It was all that was left for this, the most important part. All the rest would be forfeit just so they could have a chance. Here, the keep was deserted, as they made their way down into the bowels of the fortress. Beautiful in its enormity and trappings, they made their way as stealthily as possible all the same. Hugging walls, moving silently across hallways and down more stairwells, until it obviously bottomed out. There was no guesswork as to where their mission was headed. Gilded doorways, twenty metres high stood across from the last stairway. Discovering it wasn't the hard part anyways, Konoshi knew, and as they approached from across the stony outer chambers, torches in hand, sabers in the other, slowly, methodically, and with a deep reverberating groan, the doors opened on their own accord.

"Arrogant bitch!" Konoshi drew his resolve about him. He willed himself to steady his weapon, four others did likewise. Then they descended into the Queen's chamber. Crossing the threshold, an unnatural wind blew the torches out, the first parlour tricks of the day, Konoshi mused, and she wasn't even sitting up yet. They powered on their flashlights, knowing the batteries would drain all too quickly under the mysterious energy draining clouds in the heart of the wastelands.

So they ran as one for the far end of the chamber. Halfway there, the echoing thunder of doors slamming shut came from behind them. In about five languages Konoshi could recognize, and dozens of others he couldn't fathom, a darkly beautiful whispering voice permeated the chamber air, chilling the men to the bone.

"Don't stop!" Konoshi yelled to his men as they faltered. When they again picked up the pace, Konoshi turned around, "Fuck!!" his light bathed the far wall and the sarcophagus in its glow. It seemed as if it had not ever been opened in the first place, but she sat crosslegged on top of it. In her lap, several small wooden matrioshkas lay waiting in effigy. She didn't quite have the best of both worlds, but her witch's skills would do nicely. She was clearly chanting a long incantation as her head was facing downwards towards the little puppets. Upon hearing Konoshi, she glanced briefly up. This time, her eyes did not glow back at him. Just coal black orbs that projected gleeful malevolence. A smile curled open her lips, perfectly white teeth gleamed at Konoshi, her incisors were protruding now, almost ready to reap blood with a purpose.

"What the fuck are you!?!" Konoshi shouted to her, as he two handed his blade, steeling himself to strike her down..

As an answer, the Queen merely held up one of the wooden dolls as Konoshi watched, transfixed by her alarming beauty, indigo skin or not, no one had warned him of that. She brought the doll up delicately and brushed it lovingly against her cheek, her eyes closed halfway as she did so, and then her tongue snaked out to run slowly along the length of it...

The four other men had reached the far chamber. IT seemed so unimpressive at first, they thought they had been tricked. Cradled in a soft nest of withering scales, one man reached in to pick up the multi-faceted stone. For the briefest of moments, he held it up, now he could see the light from the single candle flame in the chamber, being drawn into its bejeweled depths instead of being reflected. That was what made it special, he marveled. Truly wondrous. Triumph began to fill him, that they had the ancient prize at last. His whole body began to tingle with excitement, and curiously, his skin shivered with pleasure, he felt soooo good, he..

The Queen opened her mouth wide and sank her nascent vampiric fangs into the wooden doll, cracking it wide open from head to sternum..

The jewel fell from his hand as his head split open, blood and organs spilling out in a ghastly mess. When Konoshi heard the other three screaming, he was jarred back to reality. It only took one look to realize what was happening and he lunged as fast as he could for her before she could raise another effigy. But she was just as fast, if not faster, magik notwithstanding.

There was no time to grieve or be shocked still. Another of the men grabbed for the jewel, caught it as it fell from the dead hand of the first, and pocketed it inside the velvety black pouch they had brought especially for the jewel. Kahjinn priests had helped in mapping the fortress, and the men frantically searched the far walls. It was here, they just had to find it. Pushing at every laid stone, and pulling at every protruding sconce, portcullis decoration, and any object dangling from the wall, it just wouldn't budge.

In one blur of motion, the Queen threw another doll into the single lit candle, the wood of the doll was terribly dry and burst into flames. She was savoring each new delight.

The second man dropped the pouch as his skin blistered all over his body, he writhed in agony as his flesh smoldered and crumbled away into ash all too slowly. Eyes bulging with fear, the two men remaining at the wall had tried everything they thought might work. The activator was somewhere else, and they shouted as much to Konoshi as he reached the sarcophagus, easily bounded on top of it, and swung his sword downward with all his might. The Queen held a hand up, and Konoshi was immobile.

She wagged a finger at him, as if he were a mischievous child to be taught a lesson. Konoshi's muscles seared with pain as he fought to move against the supernatural grip of an invisible fist that held him in midair. It was useless and he could only stare back at her, praying one of the others would survive..

Holding a third effigy up, her repertoire of punishments was just getting started. She held it forward towards Konoshi, it was his turn now and he couldn't look away. With her other hand, she made a swirling motion around the body of the doll, gradually picking up the speed. Konoshi felt very strange as he began to spin around in midair, faster and faster..the grip turned to a pull on every part of his body, he could move now, except for the fact that he felt like he was being flung around so hard that his sword flew from his hand, and his head flailed back and forth as his neck muscles strained to keep it from flying away. A yank from unseen forces as his body whipped about and he was sure that he heard popping sounds from inside. The spinning motion was wild now, briefly he could make out the Queen, looking up at him, sneering at his helplessness. There was nothing to throw up, but Konoshi heaved just the same, the spittle and stomach acids splashed onto the floor. Other fluids would be next, Konoshi knew as his body was being flung apart. He tried hard to concentrate on what the other men were shouting at him as they searched the far walls..

"sooo....eeeere......elllllllllssssssss..." his brain was becoming mush, and he fought to piece together the words they were saying...'somewhere else?' he guessed... and prayed..

Timing was everything.

He was so nauseated from the thrashing his body was taking, that he knew he could attempt only one throwing motion. He willed his eyes to focus, pain did that for you sometimes, and he palmed a throwing star from the sheath at his wrist. The Queen saw it instantly, she would never allow it to harm her, but she mused at his bravery.

"Aaaaannnnnddd...." Konoshi waited until he thought his target was coming back around .."NOW!!"

He let the momentum that held his own body in check fling the throwing star towards his target. The Queen stopped her swirling gestures and raised one palm up to block the star with a shielding motion. Only.. the star sailed past her several inches above her head, to strike the candle behind her. Cleaved in two, the entire thing fell over. The far wall dropped neatly into recesses in the floor. The secret exit, for every fortress has one, opened up and broken sunlight flooded into the chamber.

Shrieking at its suddenness, the Queen abandoned everything in favor of covering up. She was never far from her oversized robes which were lying in a pile..inside the sarcophagus. Her concentration broken, no magik was assisting her as she strained to lift the heavy stone lid from the still shadowed side of the stone coffin. With the incantation broken, Konoshi dropped to the floor at that point, his legs felt so weak and rubbery that he was surprised he could stand at all. Vertigo was still messing with his head though, and one dizzying step sent him tumbling into the arms of the two other men.

"NO!" Konoshi slurred out, "Don't help me! Just take that thing out of here now!"

The men looked at each other, and with a nod, silently agreed, the general could hang their asses later, if he wanted. Konoshi was coming with them. They draped his arms around their shoulders and the three were on the run of their lives..

"Idiots!.."

"Yeah sure, maybe, but we don't have a wife and kid!"

"Had to bring that up didn't you!" just the thought of them made Konoshi stronger and their pace quickened. He could argue with them, but that would probably just end up getting all of them killed now. His warrior comrade handed him the pouch with the jewel safely inside. Konoshi fumbled around a bit with the braided straps that held it closed and secured it to his wrist.

They were too close to escaping for her to waste anymore time or strength on the lid. The quickening spell took the least amount of concentration, and so she bounded with inhuman speed off floor and walls to catch them. She couldn't afford caution now, so where shadows weren't available, she jumped through the sunlight to reach the next. Each time, exposed skin burned easily, and didn't heal over. Still, before they could get halfway up the exit corridor, she leapt from one last corner shadow and barreled straight into the three men with enough momentum to knock them over. Quickly, she spotted the pouch fastened to Konoshi's wrist and grabbed it in her powerful hands. Konoshi pulled his arm back from her and they were soon wrestling and rolling along the ground, Konoshi pulling his arm tightly to his chest, desperately trying to keep her from wrenching the pouch away. The Queen climbed onto his back and leaned in to sink her fangs into his neck, when one of the other men grabbed her under her head to pull her away while the other pried her from Konoshi's back. She relaxed and allowed herself to be pulled up and away as Konoshi stood. They were in the shadows again, and she gathered her strength, while she unhooked her holdout weapon, a chain whip. Arms pinned behind her, she let it drop to her right foot, wound it around once and cracked it at Konoshi. With a moment of lapse in judgment, Konoshi raised the wrong arm to block, and the whips' razor-sharp tendril ends sliced the pouch from his wrist.

"AAAAHHH!!" Konoshi yelped in shock and pain. This bitch was pretty good.

The pouch fell to the floor and the Queen broke from their choke hold to jump at it. Konoshi got there first and seized it, but she was up and running at him just as quickly, so he threw it over to the second warrior..the Queen turned also, and soon between the three warriors, she leapt back and forth as the pouch was being thrown from one man to the next in a deadly game of keep away as slowly they worked their way towards the exit. Even as the sunlight grew, she didn't give up as they were very close now to the outside. The desert winds were blowing harshly into the chamber, and were on her side this time.

Mid throw, the pouch was caught by the wind and carried far back into the chamber. Disregarding the warriors, the Queen followed the pouch back into the shadowy depths. She saw it resting on the floor by its scaly nest. Picking it up, she clutched it to her chest, closing her eyes and breathing a sigh of relief. Then she headed back towards the exit to see if she still had opportunity to kill.
Shaking and drained of most of their strength and feeling somehow defeated, the three warriors made their way across the desert floor to the mounts waiting for them. The wind blew strong always, but the sand was at bay on this side of the fortress for the time being. The retreat had been signaled and most of the Kahjinn army had pulled away. The one last shot for everyone everywhere had been taken.

"I lost it.." Konoshi wearily climbed onto his mount. When he was on, he looked back towards the secret exit. "And now, my little Ayumi is going to know.."

"C'mon, don't worry 'bout it now, everybody sacrificed something. And we're still alive too.." The two other men began to ride away while Konoshi still gazed at the exit...

The Queen had made her way back to the exit, she edged out as far as the doorway shadows allowed and victoriously held up the pouch with the weighty gem inside. Once she knew Konoshi locked eyes with hers, she broke into a gleaming wicked smile, her fangs positively dripping with saliva, mocking his human frailty..

'So,' Konoshi drew his face stoic as he gazed back at her, 'the general was right, and so was my father. Timing is everything.' Since he was a young boy, Kahjinn doctrine for training a warrior including everything from martial arts, multiple weaponry use, rudimentary psychic abilities, brutal survival quests, and countless other disciplines, many from distant worlds and ancient cultures.

Including 'Sleight of Hand'

Konoshi withdrew the mysterious jewel from inside his tunic, holding it high up for the Queen to see. An 'Oh!' barely formed on her lips when the fortress underground power was restored and the mighty stone exit door boomed shut, sealing her inside. Ayumi's pet rock was now in the hands of the Queen. Konoshi knew it would take much ice cream to make Ayumi forget about it. He'd been through worse...

The warriors rode away. The diversions had worked. At great price to be sure, but without the jewel, the Dark One would never succeed, as long as they could hide it forever. After long, Konoshi knew even he could not be allowed to contain the knowledge of its whereabouts. How best to do that, he would consult the elders...
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"You've just added years to the delay," the Dark One spoke down from a snowy, fluctuating transmission on the monitor in the Queens' chambers. She prostrated herself in front of the monitor, knowing it was purely futile. But he was far away in the galaxy, she thought about it, she could run in shame and pray he never find her again. And he couldn't harm her now being so far away, could he? her fearful mind wondered. The image of the Dark One proferred an outstretched hand to her from the monitor,

"Come closer.."

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Tapestry

Track A..........Departing the Station

Acting Captain Katina stood on the bridge of the DarkStar, looking with deep concentration into the starry void that filled the foward viewscreen. No matter how hard she concentrated, she could not will her ship to go any faster towards their destination, Arcadia colony. Already a series of major incidents happened and they hadn't even crossed a third of their journey. Lieutenant Manta had nearly killed her and Volkova also injuring other crewman, and midshipman Bezrel was found to have committed gross derelictions of duty due to an addiction to Dreamstones. The lid had been clamped down on these events but Arcadia colony couldn't be close enough as far as Katina was concerned, it was going to be such relief once they got there she thought to herself. She was nearing the end of her duty shift and looked foward to some more R&R with Volkova, who was making her rounds of the ship, making sure nothing else would screw up her captain's first command assignment.
'Less than an hour to go, finally' Katina noticed as she glanced at the bridge chronometer, she wondered about lieutenant Manta's trial in less than 24 hours and why it was requested so quickly, didn't he want time to prepare? She reminded herself to bounce this matter off of Volkova to get her thoughts, although she already knew where her partner stood when it came to Manta..'
"Captain?" navigator Lieutenant Santiago had a consterned expression as he turned from the helm to glance back at Katina.
'Yes lieutenant, what is it?" Katina replied, dragged out of her tumultuous thoughts, rubbing her throbbing forehead, maybe keeping focused on immediate duties would distract her from an awesome headache that was not going to go away
"Well ma'am, I hesitate to bring this to your attention, because it seems pretty minor, but.."
"Report lieutenant" Katina said, feeling her last nerve getting worked..
"Yes ma'am, but it's just I don't know if I'm imagining things or..maybe the instrumentation..or.."
"SPIT IT OUT, MISTER!!" Katina barked, instantly sorry because her whole head now throbbed because of it, would she survive even less than an hour without spacing somebody she thought, 'get a grip!' she told herself.
Flinching noticeably, Santiago didn't speak even knowing he was disobeying a clearly direct order.
"I'm sorry Santiago, I didn't mean that, it's just I have so much to worry about and it just came out wrong." Katina said, her face now resting in the palms of her hands.
"It's alright captain, I know that what you and lieutenant Volkova just went through will take some time to get back on track."
"Thank you, but it was still no reason to come down on you. Well, back to the matter at hand, what have you got?"
Turning back towards the helm, he brought up an overlay grid on the large front viewport "I was running the long range scans
for standard checks of anything that might be an obstruction on our plotted course, when I came across this," deftly bringing up a computer generated enhancement of their projected course, the viewport seemed to jump at them in distance,"This region is actually still 14 hours away on our course but sensors picked up an anomaly directly on our route. And then they stopped detecting it."
Her curiosity piqued, Katina questioned him. "What do you mean? It moved from our path?"
"No ma'am," Santiago replied "it's as if it wasn't there to begin with, I mean half of our sensors dropped to zero when they were scanning the area, and the other half shot off the charts. And just as suddenly they were back to nominal. But it happened so quickly, that I couldn't get confirmation on it!"
Sitting very straight in her captain's chair, Katina studied the virtual course plotted for her on the viewport. "Well.., the prudent thing to do would be to steer very clear of that area then," she hated to do it but she was charged with the safety of everyone on board, "Lieutenant plot an alternate course as much as fuel and supplies will allow..without bringing a mutiny on my hands" she smiled with her last remark, this voyage was going to be long enough and now, even longer.
"Aye captain" Santiago plotted a new course, which resembled too closely the old one. Katina knew it wouldn't be much of a difference because even though the ship was allowed extra fuel in case of emergencies, it was not very much, resources on Earth were very tight and the military headquarters squeezed harder than anybody. Doling out only what was necessary for transport of passengers and cargo. Naval Brass had, after all, campaigns to think of.

Track A.........Full Steam Ahead!!

As she walked to her quarters, Katina retained her regal composure as she believed a captain should, giving a curt salute and polite smile to the occasional crewman passing her by. Inwardly, she felt the accumulation of all of her aches and couldn't wait to fall face first onto her bunk. 'I hope she's beaten me to it' Katina thought of Volkova, remembering she gave full permission to the lieutenant to enter the captain's quarters under the premise that the captain still needed personal attending to after her ordeal.
'And I definately need some attending to right now!', Katina thought with a big smile growing on her face, and a gleam showing in her emerald eyes.
Opening the hatch to her quarters, she walked in noticing the light was dimmed. As she approached her bed, she could see the small figure of Volkova lying on one side of the bed facing away from her. 'Damn!' Katina thought,'She's asleep, I should try not to wake her but this isn't quiiiiiite what I had in mind..oh well..'
Hearing the hatch open and close and subsequent footsteps, Volkova raised her head a little, but did not turn around.
"Who's there!?" Volkova asked, in mock shyness
"Oh, you know who, funnygirl.." Katina replied, a little surprised that she wasn't really asleep afterall.
"Aye Aye Cap'n!" Volkova said with her deepest voice she could muster, then sat up and exaggerated a salute, but still did not face Katina.
"I told you not to call me that when we're off duty!" Katina said, laughing at Volkova's antics. "Remember, it's Leeena, and you're Yuuulia. Also why are you still in uniform? How can you rest still wearing your officer's coat? I know I can't do it and...ohh!"
As she finally turned around to face her, Katina noticed that the dark-haired beauty was only wearing her coat..and nothing else.
Drinking in Volkova's naked beauty with her eyes, Katina almost tripped over her words as she walked closer to her,
"Mmm, I just love a woman in uniform!" Katina said, and then added "or even better..out of one!"
A seductive smile played across her lips as she slipped the coat from Volkova's shoulders, staring into the radiant blue eyes that reminded her of the clearest blue tropical waters that she would surely love to dive into, Katina could hold back no more and gave her love the deepest passionate kiss her weariness would allow. Sensing this, Volkova eased her back ever so slightly,
"Just relax Lena and lie down" Volkova spoke in soft tones, beginning to undress her partner, "I think you're in need of my special care, again!"
"And what might that be?" Lena asked with a mischievious grin, knowing full well but liking to hear it anyways.
The passion evident in her voice, Yulia replied back "Well for starters..."

After many hours had passed and Katina and Volkova had finally been asleep after their lovemaking, they rested in each others arms, facing each other, heads drawn closely together, Volkova, running a hand through Katina's hair. The color of her hair was like fire, and just as mesmerizing, Volkova thought, as her gaze wandered down into Katina's eyes, noticing the questioning gaze upon her lover's face.
"Yulia," Katina hesitated before continuing "I know what needs to be done later on today, and I know that it's clear what the regulations state for an act of treason, but I don't know if I can actually carry out the sentence. Punishment by exposure to space, that's an act so horrible it scares me to think about doing that to Manta even after what he did to me."
"You won't have to Lena," Volkova replied " I'll be there to carry out the dirty work, it's the least I can do to return the favor for what he tried to do to US."
Katina studied the face of her partner, not liking how much hatred she saw in it. This was definately bad all the way around for everybody, the last thing she wanted to see was Volkova's humanity being stripped away. Being in the military meant of course possible danger and even death but that was in combat situations, it seemed completely different to her to outright kill somebody who would be unable to physically defend themselves. Just put them through the hatch and drop them into cold space. 'No!' Katina thought, 'I have to take responsibility, I can't possibly let anyone on my crew carry this burden. They will face their own perils, this won't be one of them..'
"Yuli..listen..when it comes time to.."
She never finished her sentence. The ships alarms went off without warning, dropping the lighting into an eerie red..
The floor seemed to slope instantaneously, everything not bolted down sliding to the far bulkhead, Katina and Volkova unceremoniously being rolled out of their bed and into the bulkhead. They could hear the hull of the ship groaning under the stress of some force acting upon it and feel the ship continuing to pitch to one side. As it came nearly to a ninety-degree pitch to where it had been before, the bed came crashing down upon Katina and Volkova as they lay sprawled on the the far wall.
"Watch Out!" Katina cried as she raised her arms to deflect the king-sized bed, Volkova holding her arms up as well. Fortunately, their physical training proved enough for them to deflect the bed and bounce it off to their side, which was now the ceiling. They could feel the inertia in the ship increasing as if it was circling something, but no longer rotating around its own axis,so they remained sitting on the far bulkhead wall. Looking up, Katina was thinking furiously of how she was going to reach the hatchway to her quarters. "We have to get up there!" Katina said turning to Volkova, pointing up at the hatchway, eleven meters away. "Have to get to the bridge!"
As if on cue, the comm came to life. "Captain to the bridge!" Santiago's voice called, sounding bewildered but trying to reign in the underlying terror in his voice.
There was more than one comm in the captain's quarters, and Katina jumped as she realized she was now sitting on one. Looking down between her legs, she slammed her palm down on the panel,
"REPORT!" Katina yelled, this was no time for niceties.
"Captain, I believe the anomaly we discussed earlier has us in its gravitational pull!" Santiago replied "I'm sorry ma'am, I guess I wasn't imagining things earlier."
Katina secured the comm open so she could continue to respond even though she was no longer near it. Deciding to climb the built-in cabinets and dresser on the far wall, Katina and Volkova began their ascent to the hatchway.
"Real or not, I thouht we plotted a course around that sector!?" Katina called out, halfway up the dresser.
"Unfortunately ma'am, it was apparently moving in the same direction we were, we couldn't have known that however, since it didn't register at all on the sensors, until now."
'Great, now is just perfect!' Katina thought, continuing to climb, "How bad is it Santiago?"
"I think we're stabilized for the moment, captain, in fact I'm able to bring gravity compensators back online now. Santiago out."
"No! Wait! Santiago.." Katina, unable to finish her sentence, dropped sideways off her dresser with a resounding thud onto the floor as the artificial gravity suddenly reasserted itself. Hearing a cry of surprise from Volkova as she hit the floor as well, Katina saw in horror as the bed mattresses, which were moments before on the ceiling, came crashing down on Volkova.
"FUCK!" Volkova cried out as the mattresses buried her, "OWW!"
"Yulia! Are you OK!?" Katina got off the floor and rushed over to move the pieces of what was her bunk off of Volkova.
With her hair completely disheveled and looking visibly shaken she sat up amidst the mess of clothing and other articles strewn about the room, "I'll..um..I'll be okay, let's get to the bridge.."
"Right!" Katina said, helping her up gently with one hand. "Let's get going!"
"Wait!" Volkova called behind her. " We're still naked!"
"Oh, that's right!" Katina finally realized, her mind solely focused on her duty as captain in a crisis situation. "Well, he said we're stable at the moment, but we still need to hurry, and forget what I said before, I'll be fine on the bridge, you check the rest of the ship and report as soon as you can. "
"Aye Captain." Volkova answered, this time with no trace of humour in her voice. This was as serious as things got and she took her duty quite seriously. They quickly dressed and parted towards opposite directions of the ship. Katina, headed through the passageways towards the bridge, feeling a slight pitch in floor, the artificial gravity was working overtime, but wasn't quite enough.

'Life is never what it seems, and every man must meet his destiny' Tiresius, 83 b.c.

Upon entering the bridge, Katina didn't bother with her captain's chair and headed straight for the helm station, leaning by Santiago, she studied the readouts on the ops panels next to him. It was crazy, all sensors read normal, except they were still being dragged by something, unseen yet inarguably, there.
"I'm not the resident astrophysics specialist, but this isn't a black hole. I mean we'd know it if it was wouldn't we?"
"That's true Captain. We would at least notice light being stretched and bent around the event horizon, like a whirlpool in effect."
"So lieutenant, what are we looking at then. Or rather not looking at, since I'm staring out the viewport and don't see a thing!" Katina studied the space in front of her, looking at the stars in the distance, but none betrayed even a hint of anything out of the ordinary.
"Captain, ma'am, I'm sorry I just don't have enough information yet especially since most sensors report normal. All I know is that
this gravitational pull is coming from somewhere close to us and at the moment we have enough power to maintain our distance from it, but ma'am?"
"Yes lieutenant?" Katina answered, a sense of dread in her voice. She had to hear it. She didn't want to hear it.
"We've burned an additional twenty percent fuel supply just to maintain this distance. At this rate we'll be in the middle of whatever it is in less than four hours.."
"And the lifeboat?" She asked, hoping with hands clenched behind her back.
"I believe if I turn the bow of the DarkStar towards whatever we're facing, the lifeboat can ride our momentum out of this. Her chances I think are pretty good..if she leaves right now." Santiago said nervously, knowing that Katina was cursing the order that would mean the abandonment of her first command of a ship. A dismal failure.
"Send the distress call lieutenant and launch a ship's log beacon." One more order to give, Katina thought as she turned back towards her captain's chair.
Slowly releasing the comm switch at her captain's chair, Katina took a long breath before speaking to address the entire ship. Tears began to well in her green eyes, struggling to retain her composure, she leaned towards the panel, concentrating on the words that by regulations she had to know just in case of this type of scenario, but couldn't believe she actually had to say them.
"All hands," Katina paused, "this is the Captain," and paused again, this time a little longer, "abandon ship!"

Chaos.
That was about the gist of it. The lifeboat could hold everyone on board, and even space left over for enough supplies to get them to safety. The problem was getting everybody TO it. Katina knew she could rely on her crew to get the escape preparations done quickly. They had been drilled many times as standard order, and so they knew their duties to a razor's edge. The civilian passengers they were transporting were a different story. As would be in any day and age, Civvys, as Katina liked to refer to passengers as, did only one thing very well in crisis situations...

Panic.

Luggage and personal belongings were being shoved about and dropped as passengers ran into one another in a hurry to get to somewhere else on the ship. No one was quite sure where, but running about haphazardly seemed to be of paramount importence.
Then as the general flow of the crowd became snarled in the narrow corridor, they seemed to turn at once towards the crew, who were at first waving the passengers to follow them.
"Is it the apocalypse!!? It's the APOCALYPSE!!" A man, a minor diplomat from Earth, was shouting as he was shaking the shoulders of the nearest midshipman. To his credit, midshipman Evans kept his own temper in check. Breaking the man's grasp he replied so that all the passengers, who were expressing similar concerns in the same unpleasant mannner, could hear him.
"NO it is not sir. But we have encountered something enough to warrant abandoning this ship. I assure you however that the lifeboat will take us to a safe location." He refrained mentioning he didn't know what safe location exactly, since they were parsecs away from anywhere, but maybe they would get picked up by another ship, before supplies ran out, or the oxygen recyclers gave out. No, these were things the passengers didn't need to know at the moment. Best let matters play themselves out, Evans turned to look at the faces of the passengers, faces mixed with fear and uncertainty. They needed direction, Evans thought, but even as he did, he could feel himself becoming blustered and ashamed for it. 'Damn it! Not at a time like this!' He reprimanded himself, forgetting at the moment of how he should proceed. A wash of relief flowed through him however, as he saw the captain hurrying down the passageway towards the group.
"Evans! Why are they still standing here!?" Katina shouted out.
"I'm sorry Captain, I was just trying to answer any pertinent questions they had, but.."
Again the questions poured from the passengers like a dam bursting, Evans own voiced drowned out soundly.
"Captain! What about my dog! Please tell me there's room!" an older lady shouted, holding a small, trembling poodle.
"Captain if her dog goes, so does my ferret!" A young man, barely a teen, said as he held his pet high up in one hand.
"Captain! What about all my valuables, surely you don't expect me to leave all five suitcases behind!" another man asked, shocked that even thought of it could be suggested
And so it continued, with increasing similar questions starting to overlap each other, vying for the captain's attention, until it sounded like one incoherent, loud wail.
She did not have any time for this, Katina thought. "SHUT UP!! ALL OF YOU!" she screamed so loud, it even surprised her. The passengers upon hearing this had the same shocked silent faces, as the questions turned to quiet mumblings of 'What did she just say?' and 'How dare she..'
Ignoring what she was hearing, Katina spoke forcefully, knowing time was not on her side.
"Listen to me! These crewmen are here to do everything they can to ensure YOUR safety. At this moment it means that you WILL remain quiet and follow them straight to the lifeboat. We have to get everyone aboard RIGHT NOW. You can take your pets, but that's it. Everything else stays. Now..GET MOVING!" , raising her voice once more, Katina seemed to spur the passengers into motion as they quietly followed the crewman towards the lifeboat hatch.
Squeezing past the group, Katina ran to the nearest comm panel."Lieutenant Volkova, what's your location?"
"I'm in medical, we're squaring away supplies. Captain we could use an extra hand." Volkova replied. "There's been a lot of commotion moving the injured from pounding the ship took, so we're not finished as soon as we thought we would be. Captain, I haven't been able to check the brig."
Katina new what she was referring to, hoping that the energy barriers had held to the prisoner confinement areas. "I'm sending help now, I'll meet you there then we can head for the brig." Releasing the panel, Katina motioned for two midshipman to follow her.
Upon arriving at the medical bay, the crewman relieved Volkova of the supplies she was carrying and proceeded towards the lifeboat.
Katina waited a moment as they left, then turned towards Volkova and handed her a stungun, set to maximum.
"Here. We're not taking any chances." Katina said as she handed her lieutenant the gun, identical to the one she was carrying.
"Right. Ok, let's get this over with." Volkova said with a grim expression. Regulations she thought, the only thing preventing her from ending Manta's life right now. They hurried to the brig, which was located in the bowels of the ship, directly under the main fuselage of the ship. Complete comfort was not a priority for prisoners. As they entered the area, the lighting was still red, but the alarms had been silenced. They could still hear the ship groaning and creaking from the stress it was fighting, but other than that it seemed calm in the area, and very silent. With utmost caution, the pair approach the cell Manta was supposed to be in and gazed inside. Both breathed a sigh of relief as they noticed the man lying on the bunker facing the wall. How he could sleep through any of this, Katina thought, was a mystery.
"Manta! Wake up! We're escorting you out of here." Katina said, holding a pair of cuffs to secure the prisoner. But the prisoner did not respond. "Manta!" She shouted again, then as there was still no response she released the force field and walked cautiously inside. Volkova already had her gun raised to provide backup for her captain, she would not miss Manta at such a close range.
Katina moved up to Manta, and then realized his hair was not the color she remembered. Horror washed over her as she pulled the man to lie face up on the bunk.
"Oh No! Bezrel!!" She finally saw his face, and the cafeteria knife that was driven straight through his chest. Katina turned to face Volkova seeing a thousand different emotions play across her face. Volkova had promised Bezrel that she would personally see him beat his addiction to Dreamstones and now that was to be no more. Another failure.
"I've got to find him right now!!" Volkova spat out, fury rising in her.
"I know, but we have to stick together, no separations, not even for a moment." Katina replied, uneasy at the prospect of physically combating someone so soon after recovering from the last ordeal. She knew that once the ship had been caught in trouble, Manta would wait for any opportunity to present itself, such as a momentary power loss, as had happened to the security forcefields in the brig. More than enough time for Manta to make his move, and now, Katina wondered what his next one would be. Then a thought struck her and she quickly found a comm panel.
"Evans! This is the captain, is the armory secure!?" Katina had hoped that Manta hadn't made his way there.
"Aye Captain! First thing I did when all this shit started happening! Pardon my french!" She could hear him prepping the lifeboat for launch.
"That's alright, I just needed to be sure, Katina out." she replied and felt a little better knowing she and Volkova were armed with guns and Manta was not. Now to find him. "Let's start with engineering." she said turning towards Volkova. As they left the brig and turned into the adjoining passageways, the ship lurched foward wildly, knocking them to the ground. Santiago called through the comm panel.
"Captain to the bridge!" Katina heard his voice cry out in shock. Picking herself off the floor she leapt for the comm panel.
"Report!" She spoke into it. The ship was moving much faster now she could sense, and in a new direction.
"Captain whatever that thing is, it just increased its pull tenfold and its still on the rise, it's as if something is turning in our direction, but sensors still don't detect anything!" Santiago hesitated briefly, "Ma'am that four hour estimate is gone, we no longer have the power to maintain against something this strong. We're heading into it." He seemed almost calm saying it, his resolve broken.
"Can we get the lifeboat away?" Katina asked, trying to do the calculations in her head.
"No ma'am, we can't even perform the maneuvers needed to provide her some momentum. We're stuck." Santiago said.
Katina cursed under her breath, she knew that the search for Manta would have to wait. And she knew Volkova did not want to wait, but she wasn't willing to let the lieutenant go off searching by herself. With the tone of her voice leaving no room for discussion, Katina turned to Volkova.
"Bridge, double time!" Katina ordered. And they sprinted the length of the ship towards the bridge, keeping a watchful eye for Manta, but not slowing for a moment. The corridors seemed to stretch as Katina ran, making her journey seem endless, the ship never seemed to be larger than it was right now, she thought. She felt a small comfort knowing that everyone else was secure in the lifeboat and Manta could not reach them and Santiago was sealed in the bridge until her arrival. She had made sure of that, not that Manta could have altered the ships course anyways. But she feared for the helmsman's safety, he might be an expert at hand to hand combat, but the element of surprise would favor Manta. Thus she ordered the bridge sealed for his protection.
Finally after what seemed an interminable time later, but was really slightly more than a minute, Katina and Volkova burst through the bridge hatchway after dropping the seal with Katina's personal command codes. They both proceeded to the helm station being manned by Santiago, when they stopped abruptly in their tracks. Gazing through the main viewport, the stars seemed to actually start to distort as the object of their predicament at last began to reveal itself.
Turning slowly towards their visual perspective, it did not seem especially impressive at first, except it was blindingly brilliant white, like a white dwarf star, but sensors calculated its width at only two meters, which seemed impossible,
because sensors also indicated its' length at nearly twelve million kilometres.
"Oh my god...." Volkova let out slowly, stunned as much as the other two people on the bridge were.

*~SoCcEr-GuRRl~* · ***~SoCcEr-GuRRl~***

omg!...
Omg!...
I mean...
OMG!

This is awsesome missionman8.......
and what a cliffhanger......

OH My GOD! Surprised/Shocked

_________________

~I AM A VICTIM OF MY OWN STANDARD~

Machiavellism · **Machiavellism**

One word: Amazing.

This will definitely be one of my top ten favorite stories. Wink

Your writing and descriptions are wonderful, and I really enjoyed reading this. Exciting, suspenseful, and well-written. I could go on and on...

And it's definitely different, which is a plus. Update soon? I'd really appreciate it.
_________________

Another project in the works. As if you all weren't sick of my writing.

Flare · **Flare**

yes this is definently amazing. There is no other way to describe it. Its well written also you did a good job with it.
_________________

Rolling, and throwing, consoling. Everything that goes this far. Joking and hoping, revolting. All
that sh*t that's who you are. Hoping, and
scolding, revolving. Peel it back, reveal the scar. Loathing, exploding, controlling. This is what
you really are.

Thanks Karo for the banner

missionman8 · **missionman8**

Thanks for the feedback! Especially since its positive! Okay here's the next quick installment.

Track A Roundabout!

We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.
Stephen Hawking

"A what!?" Captain Katina asked, realizing she was still holding Santiago's shoulders in a death grip, she relaxed and let go, still staring at the object on the front viewport, defying normal physics saying it shouldn't exist and yet, did.
"A cosmic string captain," Santiago replied.
Katina thought quickly 'Must have missed the science lesson on this one'
Santiago ventured forth with his best explanation, "It's been a matter of theory up until now obviously, I mean one has never been encountered on record. It's like a tear in the fabric of space-time, it was believed that they were stationary, but now we know otherwise. The sensors are giving barely detectable readings on it even though its facing us now. Other than the effect its having on local gravity, its still almost as if its not there."
"But why are we seeing it now and not before?" Volkova interjected, regaining her composure.
Santiago rechecked his work, just to be certain, "Well that's about the only thing that sensors can reliably tell us, even though you won't believe it."
Katina looked down at him, "What do you mean?"
"Captain, this thing has only two dimensions and your looking at both ot them right now. It's slowly rotating and that's why before I only got a glimpse of it on the readouts. Once it turned to the side, it no longer registered at all. Because it has no side. Its a two dimensional object in our three dimensional universe."
Katina blinked, trying to wrap her mind around that one. "Santiago, how is that thing even in our universe?"
"Smarter men than I have probably tried to explain that one ma'am." he sighed, not knowing what else to say, save for one thing, "Captain, the gravitational pull isn't constant."
Katina realized he was on to something that could help them out, she wasn't seeing it.
"What do you suggest?"
"Well we can't fight its pull anymore, thrusters don't have even have a small percentage necessary to do that. But if we were to drive foward into it, almost to the center, we could then reach the 'side' of it where the gravity pull is much weaker and I think our momentum might throw us out. The trick is to not come into contact with the string itself, since we don't really know what it's composed of."
Katina looked up for a moment staring at her cosmic nemesis, then turned towards Volkova, who merely shrugged her shoulders, Katina smiled at that briefly knowing that this was their best chance.
"Lieutenant, plot the best course you can and prepare to engage thrusters at maximum." Katina sat back in her captain's chair, Volkova taking up operations. The rest of the bridge crew had been cleared and sent to the lifeboat. They didn't need extra hands for this travesty. They could manage it with just the three of them.
"Course ready captain," Santiago replied, Volkova now assisting his calculations from the ops.
"Lieutenant Volkova, shields at maximum." She ordered to the ops.
"Aye captain, shields at max." Volkova replied, knowing this was just something to busy her. The shields could have been a hundred times more powerful, and still not made a difference.
With possibly the last command she would ever make, Katina decided to use her favorite 'old Earth' command expression. "Make it so." she said, and the ship plummeted down the gravity well.

It would take them less than five minutes to reach the cosmic string itself, then, if all went well, they would 'side-step' by it with all of their gathered momentum and take a sixty-degree turn out of the gravity well holding them. The ride was actually relatively smooth Katina realized, now that they were no longer fighting the pull but rather working with it. The only hard part would be when they made the abrupt turn at the center. 'Right, we can handle that, things will be okay.' Katina thought, some semblence of confidence returning to her. 'Just need to give them some warning.'
When they were less than a minute away from the center, she opened a channel to the lifeboat,
"All hands, this is the Captain, we are about to make a hard turn to starboard, make sure you are secure in your seats. Captain out." This was it, Katina reflected, just time the turn correctly and we'll make it out, "Steady as she goes Santiago," she said as she started to clench the armrests of her chair, leaning foward as they approached the point of their maneuver. Volkova and Santiago already visibly beginning to tense up. She had to keep them focused, "steady.." she repeated to keep them alert, ten seconds to go, "aaand...." she watched the chronometer as it ticked away the last few seconds.. then..
"Captain!! Reverse thrusters just engaged! It's not from my console!" Santiago cried out, bewildered as ship changed course, in the wrong direction. The sudden change was not the one they had planned, so all were thrown from roughly from their seats.
"Then where..!!?" Katina shouted as she tried to stand, looking at Volkova who stared back with the same confused and mortified expression. Then as if through some nightmare she wished she would wake up from, Katina heard the comm speakers crackle to life..
"ARE YOU INSANE!!?" the voice of Manta screamed through the comm speakers, "I will NOT allow you to drive us into that thing!!"
Mouth agape, Katina stood straight up and realized she hadn't secured engineering, where Manta had now overridden the engines, but without navigation proved to be a futile move on his part. The damage was done, however, as all three on the bridge stood wide-eyed as the ship headed straight into the cosmic string. There was no time left to even think about heading for engineering, Katina spun around to get a message out to the rest, hitting the comm switch once again,
"All hands! Brace for impact!!" she shouted, turning back to the viewport just in time to see blinding light, only two metres across but impossibly wide, pass unabated through the maximum shields and into the hull of the ship, starting with the bridge.
The entire ship shuddered violently and spun about on all three axis as it seemed to be skewered by the two-dimensional cosmic string. The gravity compensators inside the ship, designed to automatically provide enough artificial gravity to overcome opposing outside force, pulled at their maximum output, which only succeeded in driving the three crewmen on the bridge straight to the floor. Katina struggled mightily but could not move more than a few inches.
"Override gravity compensators now!" she ordered.
"I can't reach them!" Volkova replied, Santiago in no position to help either.
Then it was upon them.
Moving silently through the bridge itself, the narrow beam of light started from the middle of the cieling and bisected the room down the middle as it began its descent towards the floor. Looking up, Katina could see that it was in line with her head as it dropped, but could no longer move out of the way. Turning with great effort she could see Volkova's face turned towards her own. As misfortune would have it, her head also beneath the white beam. Through the corner of her emerald eyes she could tell Santiago was well out of the way and hoped he could remain so.
"Good luck Santiago." she said plainly, hoping at least he would make it out of this.
"Thank you ma'am. I'm sorry ma'am." He replied, tears flowing from his eyes as he shut them, unable to bear witness to what was about to happen to his fellow crewmen.
As the beam was nearly upon them, Katina turned to look straight into Volkova's watering blue eyes, "Goodbye, my love." the grief welling up inside her as she was unable to move any closer to her lover to even touch any part of her as they met their fate.
"Lenaaa!!" Volkova cried out, as Katina watched the beam pass into her head. She screamed out, no longer able to contain her terror. Pure white flooded her retinas, and Katina screamed out as well.

Machiavellism · **Machiavellism**

Once again, wonderful update. ^_^

Damn you and your cliffhangers! You have to update soon, or I will be very upset.

And you don't want to see me upset...
_________________

Another project in the works. As if you all weren't sick of my writing.

Parrish122 · **Parrish122**

Damn good work!

I'm hanging on the edge of my seat, waiting to know what will happen next.

Parrish

littleoz · **littleoz**

Oh my god!! I love it

Well i've brought my hatred for Manta over from Parrish's story. Still need to hurt that guy Bash

I can't wait to read more Grin

littleoz
x

missionman8 · **missionman8**

I certainly don't want to make anyone wait, but reigning in the ideas, its like trying to rope a bus! Yeeehawww! But here's the next installment

Track A Centripetal Locomotion

And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats, none knew so well as I. for he who lives more lives
than one more deaths than one must die. Oscar Wilde

Three bodies lay sprawled on the floor of the bridge of the Darkstar. Two lay motionless, the third turning his head as high up as he could manage from the floor to gaze out the main viewscreen.
Santiago watched helplessly as the cosmic string continued its onslaught through the hull of the ship, for they had continued to spin and now the eerie shaft of cosmic light was peeling the ship lengthwise, shaking it violently every centimeter of the way. The hull would breach soon, he knew, it could only take so much and eventually the stress played upon it would crack it open as if it were no more than an eggshell. But it did hold, at least for the moment, as the cosmic string finally passed through the end of the ship. Santiago breathed a sigh of relief, as the shuddering ceased. They were moving faster now, Santiago could tell, and then he realized they were no longer being pulled, but rather pushed outward, away from the cosmic string itself!
After a few minutes, the artificial gravity of the ship lessened, and Santiago groggily stood, muscles acheing from unnatural forces pulling on them. He slowly moved towards Katina and Volkova, thankful that at least they hadn't been mutilated by the anomaly plunging straight through their heads. As he neared their bodies, a soft groan eminated from his captain as she turned slightly in his direction, causing Santiago to jump back in shock, he hadn't expected that. In a few more minutes Katina and Volkova began to rise slowly from unconciousness, Santiago, realizing that they weren't in any immediate danger, quickly returned to the helm station, furiously running through diagnostics and keying several commands. When he was able to pause, he turned back to his fellow officers, noticing Katina with her palm up against her forehead. Her red hair cascading around her still sickly pale visage. Volkova was holding her hands on top of her head, as if she were making sure it would stay there, ruby red lips pursed in a solemn expression.

Did you see the lights
As they fell all around you
Did you hear the music
Serenade from the stars

Wake up, wake up
Wake up and look around you
We're lost in space
And the time is our own

"Wh-what?" Katina asked to nobody in particular, "
"Captain!? Are you alright? Can you get up?" Santiago asked, holding his hand on Katina's shoulder to steady her.
"I...I think so. Santiago what happened?" Katina asked, still visibly shaken. Her strength returning, she managed to get into her captain's chair. Volkova worked her way into the ops chair, but still slumped foward causing Santiago to reach his arm out to prevent her from falling out of it.
"Captain, the cosmic string has exited the ship, but I saw it coming down straight on you, what do you remember?" Santiago asked, knowing maybe this wasn't the best time, but his curiousity got the better of him.
Katina tried to recollect the moments as the beam passed through her, "I'm not quite sure. I mean I remember shouting as it touched my face and then for a moment my mind felt like it was being yanked out of my head. Hard! Then I passed out. But even then I felt like I was near..or with.."

Did you feel the wind
As it blew all around you
Did you feel the love
That was in the air

"Like you were with me!" Volkova raised her head to look into Katina's sparkling green eyes, as it struck her that she had experienced the same ethereal feeling. It was an epiphany happening to both of them at the same moment. It had many terms to describe it, the two women personally knew it as ' soulmate'.
"Yes! That's it exactly!" Katina replied, hands held out in exasperation,"but how is that possible?"
"I'm not sure," Volkova responded, chagrined." I didn't think I was one to believe in anything like that, I've always considered myself very pragmatic. But then again, I also didn't believe in a FUCKING cosmic string!!" She laughed, clasping her hand over her mouth in the irony of the situation.

Wake up, wake up
Wake up and look around you
We're lost in space
And the time is our own Serenade- Steve Miller Band

"So we're breaking free of it?" Katina asked, cautiously elated as she moved to lean over Santiago's shoulder once again.
"At first I believed we were, but our momentum has slowed, I'm afraid we aren't close enough to the edge for the engines to be of any use even if they were operational.. But when I could first manage to get back to the helm controls, I jury-rigged all the controls to lock out any chance of the engines being overridden by Manta in engineering. Not that we'll have any better luck. The engines are offline and it'll take at least several days to repair them. We still have maneuvering thrusters, so we can point the nose of the ship to any direction, we just don't have the power to go anywhere. We're basically in an erratic orbit around that thing, at some point we'll run through the center again and then be flung outward. It's pretty random."
Katina didn't like to be without a course of action, and even less at the mercy of an enemy that didn't even belong to her universe. 'There has to be something.' she thought, frustrated that with all of her experience, or some part lacking of it, could not find a solution.
"Alright then," Katina said as she sat back in her captain's chair, feeling like she was about to roll the dice on a craps table. "we'll ride this out as long as we can, if this is truly random then I think we might be pushed even closer to the edge of it on the next pass outward. Lieutenant Volkova, maintain maximum shielding for as long as possible. And as we get near it, kill that damned artificial gravity."
"Maximum shields, aye captain. Standing by to zero gravity compensators." Volkova played her fingers across the ops console, glancing at Santiago, noticing that he seemed to have something urgent to say, but reluctant to do so.
"Captain, I think that's not such a good idea. Raising shields I mean." he finally managed to say, waiting for a possibly stern rebuttle.
"Why not?" Katina asked, no trace of anger in her voice, she had come to respect his judgement exponentially in the last few hours.
Santiago, emboldened by her calmness, pressed foward with his observations. "Captain, I think that most, if not all, of our damage was caused by our shields interacting with the cosmic string. If you'll notice that even when it passed here through the bridge, it didn't actually damage anything, even yourselves.." he motioned to Katina and Volkova. "My guess is that its because it's two dimensional composition can't actually come into contact with the matter of our universe. I think our best best would be to drop the shields completely as we're circling back and forth through this thing. Frankly ma'am, the hull integrity is down to fifty percent, the shields won't hold her together if we get throttled like that again if and when we pass through the string itself."
Katina and Volkova had suspected this, because they were still alive, but military training made dropping their shielding a most unsettling request. It went against the grain, especially Katina's corridor of thinking.
"So you're asking me to abandon our only source of protection." Katina said, hands steepled in front of her as she pondered the information.
"Aye captain." Santiago replied.
"And you really believe this is our only chance?"
"Yes I do."
Katina did not like to voluntarily abandon resources afforded her, but she realized that by not using the shields she could divert the energy to extend life support systems for that much longer.
"Well then, Lieutenant Volkova, drop shields." Katina ordered, Volkova blinking in surprise but choking down the protest she was considering.
"Shields at zero, captain." she replied.
"Fine. Lieutenant Santiago, " she turned towards the helmsman, "Into the abyss!"
Santiago hesitated for a moment, realizing she hadn't given a 'by the book' order or command,
but he had come to know that Katina had a flair for the dramatic, her posturing was clear, and the inflection in her tone was all he needed to know. He engaged the maneuvering thrusters to at least point the ship towards the string as they headed back into it. Definately it was, after all, an abyss, a startlingly brilliant white chasm, from which they might never escape.

On a cosmic scale, the Darkstar was little more than a toy being bandied about by a much larger object exerting its will upon the miniscule ship. Inside the ship, it was no better. With the gravity shut off, Katina, Volkova and Santiago could feel the cosmic string grasping at them all the more distinctly, distorting their sense of direction. Each one of them had, as part of naval recruitment training, gyroscopic experience, but prolonged sense of vertigo had the same effect on every human no matter how well their dispostion. Less than half a day earlier, Katina and Volkova had been feeding each other assorted fruits and chocolates in bed in the captain's quarters. Now, the vertigo threatened to make them sick to their stomachs and vomit.
They both closed their eyes and tried to remain calm as they floated in the zero-g, holding onto their respective chairs.
It would take roughly twenty minutes to reach the cosmic string itself and then the same amount of time to be pushed back out towards the edges of the gravity well they were stuck in.
Katina desperately wanted to order the artificial gravity to be turned back on, but knew they would be pinned to the floor again. There was no inbetween, a mechanical design flaw. Katina made a note to flog whoever engineered the 'marvel' that was the gravity compensator, if she ever made it out of this.
.When they were less than a minute away, Katina tensed even more, seeing Volkova do the same, They would at least be able to maneuver out of the way should the string pass through the bridge again. "Santiago, try to use the thrusters to turn the ship so that the beam comes into minimal contact with us." Katina ordered, perspiration forming on her head as she held white-knuckled onto the armrests of her chair.
"Aye captain." Santiago worked with one hand as he used the other to hold onto his console to prevent him from floating upwards.
"Here it comes!" Volkova said, as she watched her own readouts "Passing through the main corridor..Now!"
Katina closed her eyes at that, and yet felt, nothing, Looking up she asked, "impact?"
"Its definately passing through us Captain," Volkova replied verifying her readings, "in fact it's on the way out, and no damage!"
"Good call Santiago!" Katina said, referring to his earlier theory.
"Thank you captain, but we haven't moved outward yet. I know you might not like this, but I think we can give ourselves greater momentum if we spin ourselves through the string itself a couple more times." Santiago said, waiting for the thumbs up or down on his recommendation.
"You're right about that one," Katina replied solemnly, "I didn't like it the first time, but I see what you're referring to, spinning ourselves with centripetal force and hoping this things gravity will fling us out of here." she said, intrigued by the idea, but weary of dancing her ship around something they knew very little about. But they had run square out of options, Katina was ready to try anything. "Get to it Santiago, but try to put the string where it passed through the ship before."
"Aye captain," Santiago began as he engaged the manuevering thrusters, "First rotation in less than ten seconds." he said, as the ship began to spin of its own accord, deliberately through the beam of light.
"Passing through the main corridor again. Three metres aft of last time." Volkova declared as she monitored the progress of the cosmic string through the hull of the ship. "Again no damage." Katina sighed relief, as she felt the ship begin to shift slightly as the gravity of the string was starting to take hold of it once more.
"Five seconds to next rotation." Santiago called out, keeping Katina informed.
"Passing aft of main corridor, five metres, passenger corridor." Volkova updated.
"That's it!" Santiago exclaimed, "We're moving outbound again, we've even added to the momentum!"
Katina held herself in check, it had passed through her ship a total of four times and they were still in one piece, the first time had been the worst so she didn't want to become too excited, they still had about twenty minutes before even nearing the edge of the strings' grip, her optimism crushed repeatedly for the day, she would settle for just plain luck.

Machiavellism · **Machiavellism**

Relief.

Excitement.

Gimme another update.

I'm eager to see what happens next. Wink

You're doing great with this, and I'm very impressed.
_________________

Another project in the works. As if you all weren't sick of my writing.

missionman8 · **missionman8**

Thanks for the support, okay onwards! I like that it seems a bunch of people are reading this, but more feedback would be great! Did I mention feedback is welcome?

Track A..........Coming round the mountain

Halfway through their journey outward, Captain Katina ordered the artificial gravity turned back on. She could take no more weightlessness and was certain they were far enough away
from the cosmic string that they would not be instantly pinned to the floor. Their gained momentum from the deliberate spinning they had initiated was pushing the ship further to the edge of the strings grasp. As they continued to look for opportunities, Katina was glad to be sitting in her captain's chair rather than floating above it. As several more minutes passed by, she could tell they were moving faster than the last time outward, could it be..?
"Captain! We have enough momentum for the lifeboat to get away! Escape window in two minutes!" Santiago exclaimed as he rechecked his readings, Volkova looking at her own to confirm.
Hope threatened to explode her heart as Katina pounded the comm panel at her captain's chair. "Evans! Give me an update! Is the lifeboat still secure!?"
"We're still secure captain," Evans replied, "except for several of the passengers getting 'sick'
I think you know what I mean." not wanting to describe the details of their malidies, Katina didn't want to know anyways.
"Listen to me!" She said earnestly," In less than two minutes we're going to launch you out of here, as soon as that happens I want you to light-jump the hell away from here and keep going. Don't turn back!" Her tone desperate to convey the dire magnitude of the situation.
"Captain..ma'am, we won't leave you. You might still get thrown out with us." Evans replied.
"Evans, main engines are down, we aren't going anywhere. And outside communications are badly damaged, so once you jump we will be out of contact. Now I do not want to pass up what might be your only opportunity, so I ORDER you to make that jump as soon as your're clear, is that understood!?" Katina raised her voice so that he would understand the veracity with which she made her order and the sincerity she felt for their safety. She would brook no more dissent with the midshipman, no matter how helpful he was trying to be.
"Aye Captain," Evans sullenly replied, " Good luck to you, I hope you find a way out."
Closing the channel, Katina looked at the viewscreen, watching as the string popped in and out of their view as the ship slowly spun outward from it. Their momentum was already slowing considerably and she had to time the launch of the lifeboat perfectly, they had a very small window of escape indeed. Anticipating when they had reached as far as they could go, Katina shouted her order, "Volkova, launch the lifeboat!"
Lieutenant Volkova punched the release buttons and brought up the rear viewscreens."Lifeboat away Captain!" She replied, the smaller craft scrambling away from the direction they were facing.
Then seconds later, the lifeboat blinked out of their viewscreen, it had made the jump to hyperspace. "Godspeed Evans, may you never return to this forsaken place." Katina whispered, thankful that her crew had made it to safety. Her own ship was poised to head back into the string, she could already feel the slight tug on the ship, they might have had a chance themselves, had the engines been working.
Several minutes after saying goodbye to the lifeboat, she was studying the foward viewscreen, as they hurtled back inward towards the cosmic string, when Santiago suddenly looked up from his console, perplexed, he began speaking, "Captain..I think.." he started, as the twelve million kilometre beam of light started to reduce rapidly in size, shrinking rapidly and as it did so weakening in its gravitational strength,
until... it vanished!
"What just happened!?" Awestruck, Katina jumped up from her command chair and rushed between the helm and ops stations, looking down at her officers, waiting for an answer.
"Best as I can describe it, the tear in the fabric of space-time, just sealed itself. As to why, I don't know, but do we really need to?" Santiago replied, busily checking and rechecking his entire board. Volkova doing her own calculations at ops to confirm it.
"We're free of it!" Volkova smiled as she said it.
"You're right, at the moment we don't need to know why," Katina added, her mind prioritizing what they needed to do next. "All stop!" Katina ordered, their ship had still been moving foward and she didn't want to go any nearer to where the string had been. Maneuvering thrusters braked, and they hung motionless in the cold of deep space. Without main thrusters, it would be decades before they reached anywhere.
"Santiago, I'm going to seal the bridge again, I'll notify you when we've secured engineering. Then we'll put our heads together and work on getting the engines repaired. Lieutenant Volkova, you're with me." Katina motioned for Volkova to follow her out, both carrying their sidearms. As she closed the bridge hatchway and scrambled the locking mechanism, she turned towards Volkova, both knowing their first priority was to get Manta back into the brig.
"Remember, we don't split up for any reason. We just find him and that's that." Katina said, with an ominously dark expression, he had nearly killed her and Volkova before and now he was responsible for the near death of everyone on board. 'Yes, I just need to find him.' Katina repeated to herself.
Volkova had the same conviction, but definately saw things she didn't like coming from Katina. Katina was always the more compassionate one, Volkova thought, 'I would hate to see all of this change her for the worse forever.' She laughed inwardly as she realized, 'The voice of reason! Me! who would of thought!'
"I guess we're definately going to have to reschedule his trial!" Volkova smiled slightly, trying to add levity to her voice to bring Katina out of her black mood.
Completely missing the humour, Katina checked her own weapon and reset it way past the 'stun' settings to 'kill'. With a snort of disgust she answered back, "He should be so lucky!"
And with that they sprinted down the corridors towards engineering, Katina, this time eager for a confrontation, Volkova praying she wouldn't have to.

Track B....... 'dem Russians are a surly bunch

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.
Thomas Aldous Huxley

The evening was rather warm, as such were at this time of year in Moscow. To make it even hotter and sweatier, two-thousand people decided to crowd together in a partially roofed amphitheatre, bodies undulating about, screaming enthusiastically and gyrating to the music pouring from gigantic speakers that were on the stage. Two figures were on that stage, imitating the crowd in their enthusiasm, encouraging them to continue.
"All the things she said, all the things she said, running through my head, running through my head, this is not enough." Yulia Volkova sang out, suggestively grinding against her partner, as Lena Katina repeated the same lyrics as well, but drawing the last line out, "this is not enouuugh!" Both girls were clad in skimpy black lace minis, grey halters, and black boots, revealing plenty of their sensual curves to the audience, who devoured every inch of the sight of the two with ogling stares and outrageous cheering. As they continued their routine, they began to profusely perspire, which succeeded in revealing even more to the audience. The crowd noise level was deafening..
'Ya goryach (I'm hot)' Yulia thought to herself, and not in a figurative manner but quite literally. As they neared the end of the song, Yulia let out her last line "Yes I've lost my miiind"
'Oh baby, I'm really working this crowd now! They love us!' She was thinking as she stood over Lena who was kneeling and leaning further back towards the floor, fading out of the song with her part, "all the things she said, all the things she said, all the things she said.." and as the music faded, with the crowd ready to go ballistic, Yulia leaned in for the coup d'etat, 'this is gonna drive them nuts' she thought as she closed her eyes and planted a long slow kiss on Lena's lips.
They were stunned, Yulia thought as the deafening roar of the crowd suddenly turned deafeningly silent.
'Well...I never got this reaction before!' Yulia thought, then felt Lena shaking her.
"Yuli! Yuli! Look!" Lena was saying to her as she got up from under her.
Opening her eyes, Yulia was surprised to find that she and Lena were backstage in some hallway she didn't recognize.
"Shto!?" they both said simultaneously, wondering how they got there.

Track C....... Cold, cold heart

The apartment was quiet, but through the walls the city noises could be heard, street traffic, people bustling about in the afternoon sun, it was a pleasant day in New York City, everyone seemed to have something to do and someone to see. 'Except for me. Nobody cares about me.' Julia Volkova was saying to herself, shaking her head, tears pouring from her icy blue eyes, unkempt raven colored hair falling softly around her face. Dressed in baggy clothes, her diminuitive figure stared back at her through the hallway mirror that she sat across from. She had no friends, and certainly no one to come home to, it had been that way for years and she couldn't stand the lack of simple human comfort any longer.
"I wonder how long it will take for them to find me?" she thought, and as she did, brought a trembling hand to her mouth, ready to ingest the dozens of powerful tranquilizers she had purchased with a false prescription.
'God!' She looked upward, the tears uncontrollable now, 'Was just one person to care too much to ask for!?' she thought, blind with rage and sadness, She turned to pick up the glass of water she had placed next to her to help wash down the pills,
and grabbed..
an ankle?

Things hadn't changed. Although it was certainly breathtaking out here in Helena, her modest house sitting in a near open field of wildflowers, cool breezes wafting in from the open windows, gently billowing the decorative curtains, none of it mattering to her as she straddled a kitchen chair leaning over the back of it. Elena Katina had hoped against all odds that she would be the first person ever to outrun her personal tragedies. She had left New York City after her entire family was killed in a horrible subway accident near their home in Brighton Beach. She was supposed to have met them in Manhattan later in the day at Central Park, but as the day wore on into early evening with still no answer from the several calls she had made on her cell phone she began to walk towards the subway entrance. Then she had overheard NYPD talking about the accident with the subway on her line, and a cold chill ran through her. Later on as she returned home, a simple phone call confirmed the worst. Her next impulse was to run to her fiancee's apartment and seek his comfort. Crying the entire way, she finally reached his place and was placing the the key in the door. Roman would be mad she knew, because he had expressedly told her not to ever come over without calling first. But he would understand this time for sure, she thought, especially this. She had walked in not seeing him at first, then proceeded towards his bedroom, bursting with tears as she ran in..
" Roman! I...I.." she was screaming then suddenly choked on her next words, seeing him quickly sit up in bed covering his nude form, and that of the voluptuous young woman next to him.
Elena stared dumbfounded at the scene in front of her, not wanting to believe, but knowing it couldn't be anything else.
"What the FUCK are you doing here!?" Roman blurted out. "I told you to never come by without calling!" he didn't even attempt to get out of his bed.
"Don't worry, I'm never coming by again!" Elena screamed back at him as the anger enveloped her. Twisting the engagement ring off her finger, she threw it out the open balcony window as she ran for the door, slamming it behind her.
That was the last thing she recalled as every dark emotion she ever felt clouded her mind. She had to leave, she thought, but to where? A coworker had recommended Montana, 'Big Sky Country' it'll do you good' they had said. So she had taken the advice and made the move and found that it made no difference.
It wasn't really anybody's fault she thought, 'I made the bad choice of boyfriends. I could have made different choices.' With that she thought of the young man who always hung his head low whenever they passed in the apartment hallway she used to live in. He looked very girlish, but she didn't mind, she never felt uneasy around him. 'he was so shy, I should have at least said hello once in awhile. I wonder whatever happened to him' She mused that it was strange to be thinking of a virtual stranger at a time like this. Her move to Montana had not lifted her spirits any, but rather left her feeling even more isolated, no family left, no friends, she was utterly alone.
Leaving the kitchen to the bathroom, Elena looked at herself in the small mirror above the
sink, lush green eyes turned dull as they were glazed over with tears. Picking up the butcher knife she had brought in with her, she placed it against her wrist.
Fear began to take a hold of her, but she was determined to do it. It was curious, she thought as she stared at her upheld wrist with the knife poised to cut into it, that fear was something that was actually something tangible.
She could actually feel it take a hold of her.
Starting with her left ankle.

Tracks A B C D....... Dopple-what?

As Katina and Volkova sprinted the length of the Darkstar towards engineering, the lighting had been brought back to normal. It wasn't actually a red alert situation, the engines were out, but they were in no immediate danger. Opening the hatch that led from the foward compartments to the main corridor, Katina turned to Volkova, extending a hand to her shoulder to pause her for a moment as the hatchway rotated its way open.
"We need to watch out here, look at hard to see corners before we pass them."
"Right. I'll cover left and you cover right." Volkova responded, sidearm at ready. "Let's go."
As they jogged the first a few metres down the wide main corridor, Katina unsuccessfully tried to brush back a sense of anger as she saw that a few of the passengers had actually not taken the lifeboat.
" What are you people still doing here!?" She shouted as she and Volkova stopped in the corridor.
"I thought I made it explicitly clear that all passengers were to..to..um.." Her voice reduced to a whisper as she began to notice the passengers turning to face her. Although dressed strangely, their faces seemed familiar, in fact, too familiar. Katina and Volkova held hands to their own faces as they saw themselves standing five metres away, then turning to see themselves standing yet again three metres past that, and as the hatchway to the passenger corridor opened, stared at themselves yet a third time.
All eyes present, were wide open, regardless of being green or blue. Mouths hung open understandably, except for the pair emerging from the passenger corridor. Realizing that their mouths were hung open, they each placed a hand over it quickly and closed it shut,
hoping that the other three pairs of dopplegangers hadn't noticed...
their fangs.

Track D....... Reverse 10 lengths

Machiavellism - A powerful and brilliant force in the literary arts. At least that's what my dictionary says - missionman8

She glanced nervously at the dark sky which would soon be lit by the rising sun. Running a hand through her hair, she stood and dusted herself off. Her eyes traveled down to her partner who still sat there, gazing out over the city.
"Come on, ^Lena. The sun will be rising soon."
^Lena did not move, her eyes roaming over the sleeping city lazily. "How many years has it been?"
^Yulia frowned and sat back down, looking at her with a confused expression. "Since when?" When the red head glanced at her out of the corner of her eye, her confusion faded. "Oh.. um... twenty years, I think."
"Hm..." ^Lena sighed and closed her eyes.
Twenty years since ^Yulia had sired her... It really didn't seem that long. She smiled wryly. She'd spent at least two of those years trying to accept what she was, and about fifteen in happiness with the brunette. The last three, however...
"Thanks."
^Yulia blinked, tilting her head curiously. "For what?"
"For this new life."
"Oh." She smiled and leaned forward, embracing the taller girl who leaned against her. "You're welcome, ^Lena... I'm happy that I did."
^Lena closed her eyes for a moment, but then opened them again and pulled back, gazing out over the city once again. "...I'm tired, though."
"I am too," ^Yulia agreed, starting to stand. "Let's go home."
"No, ^Yulia... I'm tired of this."
The blue-eyed vampiress frowned, her brow furrowing in confusion. "What?"
"I'm not tired of you," ^Lena said softly. "I'm just tired of this. I'm not as strong as you are, ^Yulia. Even now I'm not. I can't do this..."
"What are you talking about?" She silently feared the answer, but ^Lena laughed.
"You go home. I'm going to watch the sun rise."
^Yulia stared at her, disbelieving. "You... can't be serious..." ^Lena did not respond and she stood, grabbing her arm, attempting to pull her up. "Come on, ^Lena. This isn't funny."
^Lena yanked her arm free, red hair obscuring her face from view. "I'm not joking. I love you, ^Yulia, I do. You're... everything I ever wanted..." She smiled sadly, watching as the sky slowly began to become a lighter shade of blue. "But I... just can't..."
"You can, damn it!" ^Yulia cried, frustrated. "Come on!" She attempted to pull ^Lena up again, but failed, as the red head stayed in place.
"Are you honestly happy being what you are?"
She stopped, tensing, her blue eyes widening. There was a brief silence and it ended when she looked down at her feet, mumbling a soft 'no'. She raised her head, though, and spoke more confidently. "But I'm dealing with it and you can too!"
"...I wish you'd watch the sun rise with me."
Silence stretched over them once again, and ^Yulia felt tears form in her eyes.
She loved ^Lena more than she'd ever loved anything else. That was why she'd made ^Lena a vampire... to spend the rest of forever with her. It confused her to no end. Why would ^Lena ever want to give up what they had? Why would she want to give up something that they had both worked so hard to get?
As if reading her mind, ^Lena spoke. "I don't want us to end... But spending the rest of our lives, which could be centuries, together... after a while, it WILL waste away. Nothing like this lasts. I want... I guess you could say I want to try to preserve it."
"..." ^Yulia looked away, flinching as the sun peaked just barely out, lighting the sky faintly.
"It's okay if you don't want to," ^Lena assured her. "But I'm not going back. Maybe it makes me weak, but I don't want to be like this anymore. Even if I love you... I can't handle doing what I do to innocent people, just to keep myself here. I can't handle knowing that I've done it to so many."
"You don't have to feed on humans--"
"But I already have. I can't just change now and have everything be okay; I already did it." She sighed and watched as the sun slowly, but surely rose higher. "You'll always be my everything, ^Yulia. My nothing too. But I..."
They were silent for a few moments and eventually, ^Yulia sat back down and leaned forward, hugging the other girl to her.
"It's okay," she murmured. "It doesn't make you weak, it's just... Not everyone is the same."
"Yeah. To each their own."
"...I'd be happy to watch the sun rise with you."
^Lena smiled to herself, snuggling up in her lover's hold. "To preserve this? What we have?"
^Yulia smiled as well, resting her chin atop ^Lena's head. "Yeah."
They said nothing else, for there was nothing left to say. No "I love you"s were needed, because they both already knew. And as the sun raised into the sky, sending out a burst of orange and gold into the sky, their final farewells were not needed either. Their embrace that they shared, even as the sunlight came over them, was more than enough.
The morning sun brought sheer agony at first as they held the embrace, ^Lena held all the more tighter onto ^Yulia, as she could feel ^Yulia pull her even closer. The burning sensation increased until..it stopped. Replaced with a refreshing coolness on their skin, ^Lena and ^Yulia lifted their heads to look into each others eyes.
"That wasn't so bad," ^Lena said to her, a little sadly, "but I thought we would stop existing altogether."
"It is pretty strange, I mean I can still touch you and everything." ^Yulia replied, "The important thing is that seems that even vampires have souls. But I'm glad," she added, "I get to be with you forever, now that we've crossed over to.."
um..to.."
where are we?"
They glanced around for the first time, noticing that their afterlife consisted of a nondescript narrow corridor with a few windows running down the side revealing that it was a very clear night. Then they turned to the side, noticing what seemed to be a very high-tech looking door.
Getting off the floor, they walked towards it, examining what appeared to be some kind of control panel. It wasn't hard to figure out, they could tell what represented 'open' and 'close' on it. They decided not to worry about the button that said decompress on it. Pressing the open button, they watch the hatchway cycle back into the wall revealing several persons beyond it.
"Who..?" ^Yulia started but unable to finish, as she noticed that three of the people were her. And the other three were ^Lena. Noticing the same thing, ^Lena came to the same shocked expression. What she did not know was weather the rest were vampires like her and ^Yulia.
Clamping one hand over her open mouth, she motioned for Yulia to do the same. Where fate had taken them, they did not know, but as they moved a few steps into the main corridor, they could tell everyone was sharing the same feeling of trepidation.

Parrish122 · **Parrish122**

Oh...my....freaking....GOD!

This story is so cool. Grin

I *love* it! I just love how you've sewn these different stories together, but done so in a way that makes the story all your own.

Please update soon. Smile

Parrish

cadetchik · **cadetchik**

LMFAO !!!!!
me dad was watchin star trek when i was readin this

this story is amazin
_________________
"Oh Look, It's Cadetchik, The forum Grinch"

XBox Live Gamer Tag ---->CadetChik<---- Go Add Me

Machiavellism · **Machiavellism**

Amazing!

And I'm even more impressed than I was before. I also agree with Parrish122. It *is* cool!

littleoz · **littleoz**

Oh....My....God!!!!!
This is so cool. I love it
The way you have pulled chapters out of other stories and added them to this works great

I'll be sitting patiently waiting for an update

littleoz
x

missionman8 · **missionman8**

Thanks for continued support! Now that the cat's out of the bag, so to speak, I want to thank Machiavellism for letting me use the epilogue from her wonderful story Bloodlust. And of course, Katina and Volkova come from Parrish122's awesome Sail to the Stars, but here follow a different set of circumstances as you continue reading.
The other story pieces are just that, fragments I wrote to introduce the other Lenas and Yulias. Update will be soon hopefully! Smile

missionman8 · **missionman8**

Okay things might be getting seriously mixed up, but hey! that's dramatic tension for you! Did I mention I love feedback. What do you think could be done better? Well onwards!

Merging Tracks A girls' gotta do what a girls' gotta do what a girls' gotta do.....

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. -- Albert Einstein

Quantum reality is really just that. Every possible outcome to each instance of every reality can and does occur, in its own universe. And sometimes, a single catalyst, such as a cosmic string, causes pieces of the universes to come together, at the most unexepected moments.
Making things all higgledy-piggledy.

As four pairs of what was apparently the same two persons, stood silently facing one another, each began to take stock of the situation.
Elena Katina was as stunned as everyone else standing before her was. She had been standing in her bathroom ready to cut her wrists open, ending the hopeless despair her life had become, then, in less than the blink of an eye, she noticed two things had changed.
One being, she was no longer in her bathroom but instead a large roomy corridor with seven other people, three of which, inexplicably, looked just like her.
And secondly, a small dark-haired girl was sitting by her side, grabbing at Elena's left ankle.
Deciding the latter was the more important matter, Elena looked down at her trying to get the girl to lift her head up.
"Um...excuse me..what are you doing?" she asked quietly. The girl at her feet seemed to realize something was terribly wrong and jumped up, confused at the sudden change in her surroundings.
"I--I'm SORRY!!" Julia Volkova shouted, looking at the people around her, then turning back to face Elena. Then she looked down to see a butcher knife in one of Elena's hands and noticed the beginning of red marks on her wrist. Elena saw the realization in Julia's eyes and quickly dropped the knife on the ground and held her wrist softly, her green eyes lowering down in guilt and shame, wishing that she had thought to cover up what she did not want anybody else to see.
Elena stared back at Julia, first noticing that her face was as tear streaked as her own. And as her eyes gazed downward, Elena in turn saw Julia holding a large quanity of pills in her still shaking hands, 'enough to kill her' Elena thought, realizing that Julia had been attempting suicide just like her, if in a different manner.
"Is this what happens to people like you and me. I mean what we were obviously trying to do....does it just make us go insane?" Elena asked her, gesturing to the others around them.
"Maybe...maybe we already were, you know." Julia replied, her voice faltering, hands opening to let the pills fall to the ground. "I mean for us to have come to the point of trying to..um..do that, a sane person wouldn't consider it. And as far as all of this, " she added, arms waving about her surroundings, "I know if I was in my right mind, I couldn't have dreamt this up, so I guess I am insane!" She let out a laugh at the absurdity of her situation.
"No. No I don't think so." Elena answered back, her brows furrowed in concentration, " I mean this feels absolutely real. Even if I don't understand why. My name's Elena by the way."
she shrugged and smiled slightly, extending a hand to the girl before her. If ever a time she needed reassurance, she thought, this was it.
"Julia." the pretty raven-haired girl replied, briefly shaking the redhead's outstretched hand. She wondered briefly if she could dare believe that she had finally found a friend. Even if she wasn't in her right mind, this lovely redhead felt special to her, not just because they had both been attempting something tragic, but she saw the same longing in her green eyes that she felt. 'I would give everything to always look into those beautiful green eyes and take away her pain.' Julia thought, 'Even if they lock me away in the sanitarium after this bit!'
They continued to stare for a brief moment into each others' eyes before turning to face what appeared to be the two people in charge of wherever they were. The redheaded one had shouted something at them about not being on a lifeboat. Whatever that meant. They decided to remain silent and watch for a response from the others standing around them.

With all of their perspiration not yet evaporated, the abrupt change in temperature made the t.A.T.u. girls feel very cold, raising goosebumps on their fair skin. Dressed in the skimpy outfits they had chosen for the evenings performance, the cool breeze, while making them shiver, did nothing to pacify their tempers at being yanked backstage, suspecting it was yet another prank being played on them.
For her part, Yulia, being the firecracker that she knew she was, wasn't about to listen to the ramblings of fanatics. Sure, these people had done a fantastic job on their faces to look SO MUCH like her and Lena. But that was where she drew the line on fans like these. To think! That they could start bossing her and Lena around, and what was this nonsense about a lifeboat? Noticing that the fans who were dressed in what appeared to be some formal garb, had spoken english, she replied back in the same language..pointing a finger at them..
"I to not know what you for to speak about 'lifeboat'!" she began in her heavy Russian accent, as she walked towards them, one hand dragging Lena behind her,
"But we to need go back to stage right now!" She shouted in broken english, but her meaning clear, as she tried to move past them. Then realized that she didn't actually know which way the stage would be, and she and Lena began to look around, feeling quite lost.

As the vampires walked out of the passenger corridor towards the rest of the small crowd, ^Lena turned towards ^Yulia, quietly speaking to her,
"We're definately among the living, I can sense that. Which means..we're the only vampires here. Can you believe this?"
"Nope. Even if they aren't vampires, why do they look like us? I mean exactly like us? Seeing the three that look like me is very creepy, but on the other hand I think I'm falling for you all over again. and again. and again....!" ^Yulia replied, smiling and nudging ^Lena in the ribs. She, even at a time like this managed to keep her fang-in-cheek humour.
"Right! And I can't figure out whether four of you is paradise or some kind of wicked punishment!" ^Lena laughed, answering back. She knew that their fangs were exposed for everyone to see, but had come to the realization that it didn't matter anyway, the scene was already absurd enough, so why not?

Captain Katina had to get control of the situation at hand. No matter how bizarre the scene before her was, it was still her ship and whoever these people were.. they were going to listen.
Drawing her posture to a formal military stance, she cleared her throat,
"Listen to me all of you, I know this is very strange, but you are on a ship, the Darkstar, and I am Captain Lena Katina, this is my first lieutenant Yulia Volkova, "she said gesturing to her right. Volkova nodded her head to acknowledge those present, blue eyes transfixed on the vampire pair, 'might have to take them down' she thought, sensing possible danger. They were confronting crisis after crisis without any letup, and now two were happening at the same time. They still had to hunt down Manta, and now this.
"Lena Katina...of course!" came a response from the 'real' Lena, smacking her forehead.
"Yulia Volkova!?..couldn't think of anything else?" ^Yulia added.
"And we're aboard, a what? a UFO? makes about as much sense as any of this!" Elena added.
Their comments began to overlap one another, and Katina felt a greater sense of urgency at settling the issue at hand.
"QUIET!" Katina shouted, bringing silence to the main corridor. "We have something important that we must do right now. A very dangerous man is loose on this ship, and we have to find him. Until then, I need all of you to follow me to where I can keep you safe." She motioned for the small group to follow her, and cautiously, they did. They reached the ships' galley without incident, Katina thinking that the group could at least eat if they needed to, and had adjoining latrines. Instead of choosing to spread out among the many mess tables, the group clustered and sat at only one.
"Now I'm going to seal you in here to keep you safe." Katina said as she watched the group starting to take their seats, "Help yourselves to whatever food you can find, and the latrines are through those connecting doors right over there." She said pointing to the far bulkhead.
Then as she and Volkova turned to leave, two of the others rushed over to meet them at the hatchway.
"I..I'm not sure this is a good idea. I mean...we could help you." ^Lena said, lowering her voice so that only Katina and Volkova could hear.
"Thanks for the offer," Katina replied with a slight gracious smile, while she and Volkova were rechecking their sidearms, "But this guy is very dangerous, I'd never risk it with innocent civilians. Please stay in here until we're back." Katina motioned for her to stand out of the way as the hatchway closed and was coded locked, effectively preventing anyone from getting in..or out.
As they heard the sound of footsteps fade quickly away, ^Lena and ^Yulia turned back towards their little group in the galley and gave questioning glances towards each other as to what they were possibly going to do. ^Lena had vowed to herself that she would never do it again, convincing ^Yulia to do the same, but their destinies had turned, as if fate were challenging them.
^Lena and ^Yulia didn't want to do it, looking at the small group of Lenas and Yulias sitting nervously before them, but if they were to allow themselves to live,
then the vampires would very soon have to feed.

*~SoCcEr-GuRRl~* · ***~SoCcEr-GuRRl~***

Machiavellism · **Machiavellism**

*FINALLY leaves feedback* I've found that keyboarding class is good for that. ;)

Muahaha, cliff hangers~ This is getting good, and it's only just started.

I'm looking forward to the next update!
_________________

Another project in the works. As if you all weren't sick of my writing.

littleoz · **littleoz**

Now thats one ship i would give anything to be on, all those Lenas.

Feedback heading your way..
I love this story, its so cool

I double that Uh Ho! *~SoCcEr-GuRRl~* said and raise you another Wink

littleoz
x

missionman8 · **missionman8**

You guys are great! Thanks for the support Smile

Right now I'm about halfway through the next part, I see by the uh-ohs that you all think a bunch of Lenas and Yulias possibly becoming lunch for their vampire selves would be a bad idea. But is that sooo wrong, hehe..

littleoz · **littleoz**

missionman8 · **missionman8**

Well, I guess a snack would be in order, poor little vampires, btw do you come from a land down under?

Couldn't wait to post this next part, does anybody think its better to post shorter parts or the longer ones like I've been doing? And does double spacing help make a difference?

Track A Long Train Running

Lieutenant Manta woke with a start, he had been knocked unconscious after being helplessly thrown against the bulkhead following his
unsuccessful bid to gain control of the main engines. The act had only succeeded in rocking the ship in every direction causing him to smash into heavy machinery within the confines of the engineering bay. As he regained his composure, he immediately went to check a nearby console on the overall condition of the ship. The most important thing he discovered, was that the lifeboat had been launched even though the Darkstar itself was no longer in danger. With this knowledge, he realized that only a skeleton crew remained. Possibly just Katina and maybe Volkova.

"I can still take care of them.." He said, with a sneer. "Have to get out of here fast though.." noticing that the locks on the engineering hatchway were being cycled. Even though he had scrambled the codes on the hatchway panel, he knew Katina would soon be able to override them and he was as yet unarmed.

"Got to get to a weapon." he pondered, but wasn't quite sure where to find one. He knew the armory had been secured, so that was hopeless. But he was sure that he could find something in other parts of the ship, so he began his ascent to the overhead ventilation ducts. Climbing into them, he replaced the grating behind him before heading forward into the vent shaft towards the rest of the ship. He laughed to himself at the 'surprise' he had left behind for Katina and Volkova once they were sure to make it into engineering.

"They'll never guess...until it's too late!" He said to himself quietly, as his face twisted into a maniacal grin.

After several unsuccessful attempts, Katina finally managed override the scrambled lock on the engineering hatchway. As she did so, the hatchway panel lighting turned green and the locking mechanism 'popped' open. In the instant that it took for the hatchway door to cycle open, Katina and Volkova crouched in firing positions on opposite sides of the opening, sidearms ready to shoot anything that moved. After several agonizingly long minutes of waiting outside the confines of engineering, nothing happened, so they proceeded inside, covering each as they slowly made their way deeper into the bay. It wasn't until they had made it to the far end of the bay, that they had
found the open grating in the floor that led to the service deck below the floor they were standing on. Because there was no place that Manta could have physically hidden himself in engineering, they were convinced that he had escaped down the service tunnel.

"No way are we going to follow him down there..." Katina said. The service tunnel was just too narrow to provide any maneuvering room should they need it against Manta.

"We can flush him out maybe, with coolant fumes, and wait for him to try to break out." Volkova replied.

"Right. Good idea." Katina said, "I'll put the grating back in place and then we can lock it down so he can't come back this way. That'll make it only one other place he can possibly exit."

As she slid the grate on the edges of the opening floor, she realized only after doing so, that it had come into contact with an almost imperceptibly small wire sticking just in its way. She wondered why it was there and less than a second later heard the harsh thrumming sound of generators
being pushed well past their limits.

"ITS A TRA....!" Volkova started to yell but could not finish, with no time to run she pushed Katina to the floor and shielded the redhead with her body as five generators around them exploded. Flames erupted in seemingly all directions around them and pieces of machinery hurtled with tremendous force, ricocheting off the walls, turning into lethal shrapnel. The pair covered their heads as best they could, deafened momentarily by the roar of the explosion. It took only a few moments for the explosion to dissipate. Then, raising her head upwards Katina tried to turn her body to look up at Volkova, feeling the smaller girls' figure remain limp on top of her as she wiggled out from under her.

"Yulia! Are you OK!?" Katina said, as she rolled over and sat up slowly. Carefully catching the lieutenant's head before it could hit the floor, Katina looked into her face first for signs of movement, then checked her pulse at her limp wrist.

"Oh no..." Katina let out, for the first time noticing several pieces of
jagged metal sticking out of Volkova's back.

Parrish122 · **Parrish122**

Personally, I like the big ol' updates. Grin

I think the way you double-spaced will probably make it easier for some people to read them. And the more people read them, the more likely they will comment. Smile

Yes, I think Manta would make a *perfect* snack for the vampires. Hey, he can finally be good for *something*. Wink

It might not be a disaster that the vampires will need to feed soon. Maybe the others can take turns donating blood? Once Manta has been drained dry, that is. Of course, I suppose we need to know how *much* blood they need (and how often) before we know if that would work.

One thing that crossed my mind about vampires--do they *need* to breathe? I'm not a major fan of vampire books, but I've read some stuff, and I don't remember that ever being addressed. I know I've read (and seen in film) where vampires have been shipped in coffins....so that would indicate to me that at least while they sleep they don't need air. If at some point the air being recycled becomes an issue, it could be helpful to have people who don't *need* air. Just a random thought. Smile

I'm loving the story so far, and can't wait to see what you come up with next!

Parrish

hotcakes · **hotcakes**

Hi there! I was supposed to be studying for my mid-terms but i was juz doin the 'usual browsing' her ein the forum, so i got curious n clicked on yer story. OH its brilliant!!!

Esp when u brought in all the characters from the other fics. Labelling them different tracks, Then it all hit me, Tapestry. Thats e title for yer fic eh?

I'm really liking this one. Plus ur hugeass updates r definately crowd pleasers. Im glad to have discovered yer fic.

Do keep up the gr8 work

_________________
Let your private's emotion cum to me

littleoz · **littleoz**

Oh No!!! I know there are a few spare Yulias around but i don't want anything bad to happen to this one and pieces of metal sticking out of your back are not a good thing. Damn Manta!!
I agree with Parrish, he can be the food.

I prefer big updates like you have been doing and also how you were posting it before without the double spacing, but i'll still be reading it however you decide to do it.

I love it.

littleoz
x

missionman8 · **missionman8**

Parrish122 --That's a very interesting thought , I hadn't realized that about the vampires, yes indeed...very interesting. This opens up possible avenues that I could take the story.

Hotcakes -- I'm so glad you could join us! Stay tuned, updates soon.

Littleoz -- If anything, I think Volkova was a good choice to take one for the team! :P

I hope to get the next update real soon, thanks for standing by Smile

missionman8 · **missionman8**

Hello all! Thanks for the input, here's the next update starting with the second half of Track A Long Train Running. Enjoy!! Smile

Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own --- Robert Heinlein

The light was flickering unsteadily in engineering, indicating that the sole remaining power generator was quickly failing. Katina knew that Manta was completely insane now. With much of the engineering bay destroyed along with the generators, it would probably be impossible to effect repairs to the main engines. They were a 'dead duck' in the cold of deep space.
But even as that thought chilled her it was nothing compared to the sight of the person she held gently in her lap.
Volkova had used her own body to take the brunt of the exploding generators.
Now, bloodied and riddled with metal shards protruding from her back, her unmoving body lay helpless, as Katina looked down at her, so in shock that she could not even cry, she instead wanted to scream.
This was her absolute worst nightmare, within the nightmare her ship had become.
She could feel herself beginning to lose control of her senses. The most bitter anger and hatred she had ever felt boiled within her as she checked her sidearm and made sure it was on the 'kill' setting. She thought of the mostly likely place Manta would be at now. As the rage consumed her, her heart raced and her pulse began to beat so furiously it made her entire body shake, almost negating her feeling the ever so slight movement from Volkova's body.
Instantly Katina looked down, freezing her movement, disbelieving what she had felt, but hoping it was true.
"Ohhhh.... Leeeenaaa...." came the barely audible moan from Volkova.
Katina burst into tears as she gently lay her beloved onto the floor.
"Wait right here!" she blurted out, irrationally believing that Volkova might get up suddenly.
The comm panels in engineering were completely destroyed, so Katina rushed out into the corridor to find a working panel nearby.
"Santiago! Can you hear me!!?" She shouted as she slammed her fist on the call button.
"Santiago! Come in PLEASE!" she repeated desperately, but then noticed the distinct crackle and hiss of open air. The bridge channel was open, but no one was responding.
She couldn't wait anymore, she knew how to apply a standard field dressing, all naval officers did, but she also knew that Volkova was losing blood rapidly and she had to get her to the medical bay. Rushing to a nearby supply room, Katina found a flatbed cart meant for carrying heavy equipment nestled against the far wall, buried under a mountain of spare parts. As fast as she could throw the parts off to the side, she cleared the bed of the cart and pulled it from the supply room. The oversized wheels moved easily over the debris as she rolled it into the demolished engineering bay. Time was critical, but she winced at the thought of further injuring Volkova as she swiftly picked her up and laid her on the flatbed cart. Volkova did not react however, as she was placed face down on the cart. She had lost conciousness again, her bloodied and scorched clothing evident of her injuries, that Katina had to choke back her tears at the sight of it. Mustering all her strength, Katina pushed the cart foward and out of engineering. Expediency was the issue now, so instead of being cautious, she merely ran over any debris
with the oversized heavy-duty wheels of the cart.
The medical bay was half the ships length away and two decks up. Katina rolled the cart as fast as she could, all the while keeping her eyes peeled for Manta. She did not know where he was exactly, which complicated matters drastically. But she was positive that he had something to do with her call to the bridge being unanswered. She did not know what he had done exactly and liked even less that she did not get a response from Santiago.
The most vulnerable part of her journey lay just beyond the turbolift doors as she reached the third deck of the ship. Quickly rolling the cart foward, Katina held her firearm with one hand, her emerald eyes darting from one part of the corridor to another, trying to sense any danger ahead of her. Her apprehension eased slightly as she had covered half the length of the deck that she needed to.
"Almost there Yulia," Katina softly said to her companion laying prone on the cart. "It will be okay." She said, trying to more convince herself than Volkova were she even aware of Katina speaking.
Katina willed herself to push the cart even faster, her muscles straining to the point that the exertion she placed upon herself was excruciating. But she didn't let up for a moment as the wheels chewed up the remaining length of the distance to the medical bay. Bringing the cart to an abrupt halt in front of the hatchway doors, Lena breathed a small sigh of relief as she pressed the panel to open the medical bay hatchway.
It didn't budge.
She knew she hadn't sealed the medical bay, so she pressed the panel again with no success.
'He's in there.' Katina realized as she stepped back from the hatchway, raising her weapon,
then just as suddenly, she realized her mistake as the deck lighting turned off, plunging her into total darkness.
She whirled around to face the corridor just as something heavy knocked her to the ground. His body mass being much larger than Katina's, Manta managed to knock the gun out of her hand as well, sending it flying down the corridor. Reigning in her panic, Katina could still sense his presence down on the ground so she kicked foward with all her strength, making a decisive connection with his jaw.
"Aaagh!! Bitch!!" Manta cried out from the pain, doubling over momentarily from the blow.
The strike bought Katina a few seconds, as she stood and scrambled blindly around her, desperately searching for her weapon.
Manta rose slowly, but he felt very assured that he could take Katina now that she was unarmed. Hearing her winded breathing from being knocked to the floor, Manta stepped towards her direction. He could not see her but he could feel the fear rolling off of her.
"Don't try to run captain, " He began, evil laughter in his voice. "This will only prolong the inevitable. And I need to kill you quickly because I have much work to do elsewhere. I believe Santiago still needs to be taken care of."
Katina hadn't used a secure channel to the bridge so she knew that Manta had overheard her call to Santiago.
"You're a monster! And I will never allow you to get to him!" Katina said as she backstepped away from him down the pitch black corridor. As she took another step backwards, her foot planted onto something that felt like a small bump.
It was her firearm!
In one swift motion, she silently scooped her arm down and picked it up, levelling the weapon towards the sound of his footsteps and firing point blank.
The corridor lit up in a deep purple briefly from the laserfire, and in that instant Katina saw that she hadn't been able to hit Manta dead on, but only barely glancing off of his right arm. The strength of the beam was enough however to burn into the flesh of his arm causing him to jump back from the pain. Turning around, Manta ran in the opposite direction, unaware of the cart in front of him until he crashed into it, tumbling it over. With a sickening thud, Volkova's body fell off of the bed of it, rolling to the floor.
It was unbearable to Katina, and she fired once more in Manta's direction, but the brief light of the laserfire revealed to her that Manta was scrambling on all fours into the turbolift at the end of the corridor. The lift doors shut, and Katina felt her combat training trying to kick in and pursue him, but she fought it down, as her heart reminded her that her lover lay helpless somewhere in front of her.
Feeling along the corridor wall, she eventually found the medical bay door panel again, this time overriding the scrambled lock that Manta had coded in. The lighting from the bay flooded into the corridor, Katina grimaced as she saw Volkova lying twisted on the ground. She placed her arms under Volkova's shoulders lifting the lieutenant off the floor, trying to be careful not to apply anymore pressure to her severely injured back. Even though Volkova's body was not very heavy, Katina was beyond exhaustion and the last of her energy was drained as she finally managed to place her onto the nearest bed. Katina walked unsteadily to the hatchway and sealed it, collapsing to the floor, her breathing ragged, she stared up at the bed and knew that she would need help to save the person that lay upon it.
After allowing herself only a moment of rest, she rose up and opened the medical supply cabinets, removing blood packs and intravenous tubing. Her first-aid skills were competent, as she applied the IV into Volkova's arm to replenish the fluids she had lost. But Katina knew she was no medic, and could do nothing for her internal injuries. She wanted to remove the shrapnel but did not know how to properly go about it, and had heard if not done correctly could actually cause even more severe damage. It was the best she could do for the moment, and then she leaned down to Volkova's face as her head lay sideways on the pillow. Kissing her cheek gently, Katina wiped Volkova's brow with a cool damp cloth. She stood up then and walked over to the prescription cabinets and took a pill from one of the dispensers. It would bolster her energy, which she needed desperately at the moment to help her reach the ships' galley.

Tracks B C D

"Yuck! This stuff is inedible!" Yulia exclaimed, as she stood in the galley kitchen in front of a preparation counter. She was holding a bowl of some sort of grayish substance, hesitantly tasting it off the finger she had stuck into it.
"Maybe you're supposed to heat it up first." Elena said, trying to be helpful.
"That's my Yulia, always thinking!" Lena interjected, causing her other two red-headed counterparts to laugh along with her.
"That's so true about my ^Yulia also, always quick to react but never afraid to try something new!" ^Lena added, smiling along with her newfound familiars. "What about yours?" she asked turning towards Elena, gesturing at Julia.
"Um..well, I don't know her well enough. I mean we..just..um..well we just met on this ship!" Elena shyly answered. She glanced at Julia who felt a little embarrassed that she couldn't actually partake in the happy moment.
"Oh, that's okay, they're right about that one!" Julia said, smiling sheepishly. "In fact, the more you come to know me, you'll swear that I'd eat anything if you stuck a fork in it!"
"Perhaps I'll have to keep an eye on you then, keep you out of trouble." Elena smiled back at Julia, her double-entendre clear to her. Her green eyes sparkled as she faced her, the hope evident in them.
Julia smiled back widely but said nothing, she was afraid to do or say anything that might spoil the moment. She had made a start with the beautiful redhead and would do anything to forge a deeper bond with her.
The rest of the group busied themselves around the large kitchen, allowing the two to have their private moment. They each saw the same kind of beginning happening between Elena and Julia that the rest had started out with. A few shared tender moments at first, manifesting into a deepening friendship, then the eternal bond of true love.
Despite their acceptance of the situation, an uneasiness filled the air and awkward silence fell over the kitchen galley once more.
The group had found enough edible food to prepare a small meal for everybody. Some were busy chopping and dicing various fruits and vegetables, others opening packages and containers to see if anything else could be added.
^Yulia fought to retain her concentration on the vegetables she was chopping, but her unyielding hunger was an insatiable distraction at that point, causing her to look repeatedly at the several persons around her.She did not feel strongly about the other Yulias present, she thought it morbid to even consider it.
But the other Lenas held a deep fascination in her.
'They are all so beautiful,' she thought, her deep blue eyes drinking in the supple young flesh of not one, but three Lenas.
'How could they not be, they may not be my ^Lena but they are still Lena!" She said as she stared at the exposed necks of the redheads, smooth alabaster skin waiting to be pierced.
The blood of one she had tasted years before, and that had been pure joy.
And the fact, that two more promised the exact same pleasure, was irresistable.
The scent of innocent blood permeated the kitchen. To a vampire it was simply... intoxicating.
She could feel her resolve to the promise she had made to ^Lena quickly fading.
The promise that she would never again feed on humans.
"We should leave here, I can't think anymore!" ^Yulia whispered urgently to ^Lena.
"I know, I feel it to, but we're locked in." ^Lena replied.
"Then let's at least go back to the the tables, we'll sit at the farthest one away from the others." ^Yulia pleaded with her.
"I think that would raise suspicion, we don't want to worry them anymore than they probably are.."
"I don't care! I can't take it anymore!" ^Yulia said as she threw the vegetables she had been cutting down on the counter. The others began to take notice of the two, eyebrows raising in question.
^Yulia found it hard to contain her anger and frustration as her olfactory senses flooded with the smell of ripe blood.
"How am I even supposed to pretend to want any of this, when that delicious aroma is all around me! I mean just look at this crap will you?" ^Yulia said as she held up a pack of the grayish substance another Yulia had sampled earlier and described as a mixture of 'incredibly spicy borscht with ten-alarm flaming hot peppers!' .
Ripping the pack open, she held it up to ^Lena's nose.
"Now does this even come CLOSE to something that can sustain us!" She asked ^Lena, who did not flinch away as she had expected, "I mean is this even..um..even, what is this?" She stopped speaking, as both vampires were now inhaling deeply into the pack between their noses. It did not smell bad to them, in fact, it smelled invigorating.
Dipping their fingers into the packet, they each scooped a dollop out and, after careful inspection, swallowed it.
Surprise lit up their faces. "Wow! That's pretty good!" ^Lena said, "in fact let me get some bowls, I want more!" Excitedly she rushed to the cabinets to retrieve bowls for her and ^Yulia.
^Yulia was way ahead of her though, her hunger wouldn't allow her to wait for a bowl, so she sank her fangs straight through the pack, sucking greedily at the mysterious substance. When ^Lena rushed back, she was disappointed to find ^Yulia with a messy face holding an empty packet.
"Thanks for waiting!" ^Lena said sarcastically.
"Ohhh..mmmm..sorry!" ^Yulia replied, licking her fingers clean. Decorum was not an issue at present. "But look! I found more!" she said as she held up another dozen of the packs. They emptied the contents of two into bowls and began to head out to the mess tables.
"Is everything thing okay?" Elena asked before the vampires had left the kitchen. "What was she saying about 'not being able to take it anymore?"
Satisfied that they would not hunger, at least for awhile, ^Lena turned back towards the other redhead,
"Oh...nothing."

As they returned to the table they previously had chosen, the group meal commenced quietly, each passing plates and serving to one another. Elena was the first to break the heavy silence by humming a melody lightly as she served a bowl of salad to the plates around her.
"That sounds beautiful." Julia told her, "I know I've heard it before but I can't remember.."
"It's called 'thirty minutes' from where I'm from. I should know, me and Yulia sing it on stage all the time." Lena said.
"What do you mean? You're a band?" Elena asked.
"Yes, she and I are called 'TATU', and we have become very popular on our earth. We sing that song and many others that I think you know, which doesn't surprise me anymore, because I realize that you must be part of the same thing where you are from." Lena replied with a smile.
"No, that is from a duo called TEMA, they look nothing like us, but they are my favorite, I wish I could be like them, or you.."
Elena looked at Lena and Yulia, "It must be so wonderful to be adored by all those fans."
"The fans yes, but they can get a little crazy. And as far as the strict schedule and a million interviews, sometimes I wish it would all just go away. Like I had never done it." Lena answered back solemnly. "Sometimes..it doesn't seem worth it. I wouldn't wish it upon someone like you. You might not think it, but I think you are more fortunate than we are."
"I'm not so sure, it would be nice to have someone be kind to you for a change," Julia answered, her blue eyes staring wistfully at the Yulia that she might have been in another life. It seemed so unfair.
"Besides, Lena," ^Yulia said, gesturing towards the surroundings of the ship. "be careful what you wish for."
"She right, " Yulia replied in rudimentary english, "We may not to be to go back to Russia afterall."
Lena thought to herself, 'what if my wishes caused all of this somehow?, I'd better be careful then, I might accidentally wish me and Yuli into a dungeon full of cobwebs. Spiders. ewwww...I can take anything but that!'

Machiavellism · **Machiavellism**

Finally giving feedback! *pats own back*

Nyaha, nice way of getting out of the blood-sucking problem. Wink

And that damn Manta. Urgh...

I hope to see another update soon! And I better. Squint

_________________

Another project in the works. As if you all weren't sick of my writing.

littleoz · **littleoz**

Glad you found a way to keep the vamps good for a while. Thats one problem out the way now onto another...Manta!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! that guy has got to suffer and i mean really suffer Bash

Oh Yulia has to be ok, she will be won't she? Yes of course she will, you are such a nice person, you wouldn't do anything else bad to her, now would you Grin

Update soon please

littleoz
x

missionman8 · **missionman8**

Hey everybody! I just want to mention I should be posting the next part hopefully tomorrow. Work sometimes sucks the enthusiasm out of me, but now I have a brief respite so I want to get something done in my brief respite. Don't want to make eager people wait for updates, and thanks everybody for comments! Keep 'em coming Wave

Parrish122 · **Parrish122**

Oh, I know how work can drain the life right out of you.

I'm glad to hear you'll be updating soon though. I'm very interested to see where you'll take this fascinating story.

Parrish

missionman8 · **missionman8**

Hi everybody, well thanks for your patience, I'm glad to put the next part up finally. What's writers block again? Smile

Track A Bearing Inwards

You have to know the past to understand the present. Carl Sagan

Opening the hatchway to the blackened corridor, Katina held the flashlight she had found in one of the cabinets, and pointed it around the corridor. Reasonably certain that Manta had vacated the deck, she stepped out and glanced back at Volkova, lying on her stomach, paled face turned to the side. Katina hated the thought of leaving her alone and utterly defenseless, her life hung in precarious balance from the numerous wounds on her body, and Katina needed help to shift that balance into Volkova's favor. Then using her personal command codes, she locked the medical bay doors behind her.
She ran for the emergency stairway and began her descent to the bottom deck three stairs at a time. Almost losing her balance as she exited the stairway, Katina stumbled out into the main corridor, swinging her gun around wildly, waiting for an ambush.
When it did not happen, she ran through the main corridor first towards the armory. She didn't very well trust the newly unexpected guests aboard her vessel, but she had no other choice at the moment. Quickly she unlocked the armory and bolted inside, sealing the door behind her. Finding a small supply bag, she stuffed six guns into it, making sure they were set to the highest 'stun' setting. She didn't know how the others felt about killing, so she didn't want anyone to hesitate firing the weapon if they had to. Then, after sealing the armory once again, she sprinted the remainder of the way to the galley. Upon reaching it, she unlocked the hatchway, out of breath, she rushed inside..
The group inside had stopped their conversation when they had heard the hatchway opening. Heads turned nervously toward it, as they waited to see who would enter. Then, Katina rushed in, looking as if she had just run a gauntlet, her naval uniform was scorched and torn, and several dried cuts were on her face and hands. Winded from her sprinting, she staggered over to the group who had stood up all at once to assist her.
"I..I need your help!" Katina let out in a hoarse breath.
"Of course! Sit down captain, what happened to you?" Elena asked, trying to assist her to a chair.
Waving her arm off, Katina remained standing, gulping in lungfuls of air, "No it's not me! I'll be fine. It's Yulia!" She said, her head hung low for a moment as the others could tell her voice was trembling.
Three confused replies came from the black-haired girls present, looking for the captain to elucidate.
"Me!?" Yulia asked.
"What about me?" Julia questioned.
"Do you mean her?" ^Yulia asked pointing to the first one.
"NO!" Katina replied, "I'm sorry. I mean MY lieutenant Volkova. She's been injured badly and I need to know if any of you knew anything about medical practice."
The group looked at one another, each wishing they could do something to reassure Katina, then Elena stepped up.
" I used to be a nurse, but it's been awhile."
It was all Katina needed to hear from her double, as she proceeded to hand out the guns she had procured from the armory.
"Here, take these. I've set them to a high stun setting so you won't actually permanently harm somebody in case of an accident. But it will take down the escaped prisoner if you encounter him. Just point and shoot. Now follow me, and try to watch each others backs, I can't risk leaving anyone behind, so don't stop running."
The group listened attentatively to Katina's instructions, as each examined the weapons placed in their hands.
Elena felt nervous about the prospect of firing a gun at someone else,
"Wait. Captain, I'm not sure that I can..." She couldn't finish her sentence, as Katina grabbed her by the hand and dragged her at a full run down the corridor towards the deck stairs. The rest of the group followed in a bunch behind them, hands unsure of the guns that they held. But what they lacked in skill, they hoped would make up in numbers.
They didn't risk the turbolifts in case Manta were to disable them somehow. Instead they took the stairs upward, footsteps trouncing loudly on the steps, stealth was not an option for the little group.
Without incident they reached the medical bay, quickly entering and locking the hatchway behind them. Elena was first to approach the bed, apprised of Volkova's injuries, she wasn't as shocked as the rest were at the sight of the wounds. Though horrible they were. She motioned the rest to help her carefully remove Volkova's burned and tattered uniform before laying her back down. Then in fervent motion, Elena set about gathering the various tools she would need for extracting the shrapnel and suturing the wounds. Her own knowledge of medical procedures coming back to her, she began a deep concentration on the task at hand. She had accumulated enough surgical knowledge as she had assisted in many operations, soaking up the knowledge enough that she had come to know almost as much as some doctors had about various procedures. Katina stood by her side as she worked, wiping the perspiration from Elena's forehead as she delved into saving Volkova. Katina was thankful beyond words that Elena had chosen nursing at some point in her life. It was a path Katina had decided against in favor of military command.
The others looked on at the helpless black-haired figure in the bed, various tubes running in and out of her, a breathing apparatus covering her face, diagnostic machines indicating her body weakly clinging to life. Katina noticed for the first time how the others were grouped around the bed. Three Yulias lined the opposite side of the bed, hands placed to each others backs, sadly looking down at their fourth counterpart , waiting to assist Elena with anything that she might require of them. Her redheaded counterparts surrounded the rest of the bed but giving enough room for Elena to properly go about her work on Volkova. Although the ventilation was still working at full capacity, surgical masks had been passed out to keep a measure of sterility in the medical bay, but even behind the masks there was no disguising the worry emanating from the many blue and green eyes looking down at Volkova.
Several hours had passed, and feeling that their presence was encroaching too much on Elena, they chose to sit on the other beds in the infirmary, all except for Katina who vowed that even if the ship were to burst into flames she would not leave Volkova's side. She cursed the thought, thinking how sinister Manta had already been.
With a huge sigh of exhaustion, Elena finally paused, Katina immediately wiping her soaked brow.
"Well we're done, I think." Elena said "The rest is up to her."
"Will she be okay?" Katina asked.
"Well if she were on my planet, I couldn't say. But these devices and machines," Elena responded holding up several advanced looking surgical tools. "Their wonderful! They actually did half the work on their own, more so than anything ever thought up on my Earth! I'm pretty sure she's going to be okay!"
"Thank you so much, from the bottom of my heart, thank you!" Katina softly said to her, then bursting into tears of relief, she hugged Elena, the rest watching as they gathered around the bed again, unsure at the sight of the two hugging where the red hair of one began and the other ended.
Then for the work Elena had just performed, a round of applause filled the room.

If I could stand beside myself, would I see me or maybe someone else? -- Dennis DeYoung - Styx

Sitting at Volkova's bedside, Katina stroked her lover's hair, delicately smoothing it back from her sideways turned face. It was matted down as she ran her fingers through it noticing that color was slowly returning to Volkova's pale cheeks.
'You deserve at the very least the highest medal of courage for what you did.' Katina whispered down to her, ' And I will ensure that you get it.' she said as she continued to stroke her hair.
She looked up briefly at the rest of the group, most sitting around quietly chatting amongst themselves. Elena lying on another bed, weary from the operation she had performed.
"You should all take this time to rest and clean up if you'd like." Katina said turning towards the others, "There's showers through those doors. It's the medical staff quarters, they are fully stocked." She said pointing to the adjacent room beyond a pair of swinging doors.
"You should do the same captain, I can keep an eye on her." Elena said gesturing towards Volkova.
With a worried look on her face, Katina again glanced down at Volkova, even a simple task such as cleaning herself up seemed a bit selfish to her, unsure whether she should leave her lover's bedside.
"She will be okay," Elena said, getting off the other bed she had been lying on to stand next to Katina, "We will be right here and we'll call you if anything changes." She said as Lena also went to stand by Katina's side, urging her away from the bed by softly turning her shoulders towards the medical quarters.
"Alright, thanks. " Katina finally gave in, "The first thing I need to do is get us all a fresh change of clothing. We seem to have become a bit of a mess. Spare uniforms are stored across the corridor so I'll be right back. I think I already know everybody's size."
"I'll give you a hand." ^Lena offered, following Katina out across the corridor. The lighting had been restored, so they were in no immediate danger of hidden surprises, but ^Lena felt better if she accompanied the captain the short distance across the way.
Upon returning to the medical bay, ^Lena and Katina handed out the spare uniforms and in pairs the group headed for the medical quarters showers.
"Well, I guess there's nothing any of us hasn't seen before!" Lena said to the rest, laughing as she and Yulia began to strip off their skimpy Tatu outfits, heading first for the shower. The rest of the group laughed with her, seeming nonchalant about the brashness of the pair standing nude in front of them.
"Not really," ^Yulia replied, "except I don't have a tattoo like that." she said pointing to Yulia's lower back, where an arabic symbol was plainly visible.
"Neither do I." Julia said, shyly looking in Yulia's direction. She remained standing just outside the medical quarters peering through the swinging doors half open. She felt decidedly uncomfortable about being around the rest in their different states of undress, especially those standing in the nude. "What does it mean?" she asked.
"It stands for passionate love." Yulia replied, looking towards Julia, "Perhaps you know the feeling?"
Hanging her head down, Julia looked at the floor, merely shrugging her shoulders.
"I'm sorry," Yulia said, feeling guilty at the assumption she made. "but I hope you will." She never meant to say things to offend or hurt others, but sometimes she had the habit of speaking without checking herself. She then turned and headed towards the shower where Lena was already under the spray, soaping herself up.
"Hurry up! Katina said we only have five minutes each!" Lena said, giggling and pulling Yulia into the shower.
Katina decided she would shower last, so she proceeded out to the medical bay to relieve Elena's watch over Volkova.
"You two can go after those others waiting in there. I'll take last." She said to Elena, motioning to Julia, who stood by the swinging doors with a sheepish grin on her face, her cheeks flushing with embarrasment. Katina only assumed that these two were familiar with each other. Julia and Elena had both felt an instant unfamiliar attraction upon their first meeting, but being told to shower together, it would be too much to ask for. Julia imagined she would shower with Elena gladly, if , as she hoped, the captain ordered it, then she thought, 'Come on, come on, do it! Remind her water must be in short supply on this ship!"
"It's okay, I mean I know I should definately clean up, but I don't want to make anyone nervous. I'll take last." Elena said to Katina, hoping Julia wouldn't notice her own embarrassment at the situation, even though she didn't really feel it.
"Well if circumstances were different, I wouldn't have it any other way. But we must be very resourceful right now, and even being given the opportunity to clean ourselves up a bit is a small luxury. So don't make me order you two!" Katina playfully said, a bright smile showing on her face.
"Yes ma'am!" Elena attempted a salute, and the headed for the medical quarters. "Well I guess its our turn." she said to Julia, who stood at the doors, dumbfounded but grinned lopsidedly.
'YESSS!!" Julia thought to herself. Her knowledge of Elena was growing in ways she had only dared hoped for.

When the entire group, including Katina, had returned to the medical bay after cleaning up and donning the spare military apparel provided for them, another range of disbelieving looks played upon their faces.
"Well this is just great!" ^Yulia started, looking at the rest of the persons gathered around her in the medical bay. "And I thought I had trouble telling everybody apart before!" she added, referring to the fact that everyone was dressed in the same uniform. Even Katina wore the same uniform without any military insignia.
"I know! Before at least we wore different clothes, but now?" Lena said, hands splayed outward towards the group.
"I'm sorry, I wasn't even thinking!" Katina said, holding her hand up against her forhead, "Clearly, this isn't my finest moment!"
"It's alright captain," ^Yulia said, "we know you're under a lot of stress right now. These clothes are just fine. I mean you've even managed to make sure that we could at least have a shower and something to eat. Your hospitality under these conditions is admirable."
"Speaking of food, " ^Lena said, holding up one of the packets she and ^Yulia had brought with them from the galley, "What is this stuff? It's positively delicious!"
"I knew you would think so!" Katina replied as she returned to sit dutifully by Volkova's bedside," All vampirics like it. Although I wasn't a hundred percent sure if you would, since you aren't from my universe."
Surprised that the subject had finally been broached, ^Yulia and ^Lena felt an intense curiosity at how Katina had presented it.
"So it doesn't shock you that we're vampires?" ^Yulia asked Katina.
"Oh no. Not at all, " Katina answered her, "I don't know how it is on the Earth you come from, but here we had our great enlightenment many centuries ago."
With that statement, everyone, vampires included, sat down on the empty beds and various chairs, leaning in towards Katina, waiting for her to divulge what she meant by her words.
Thinking carefully Katina began to explain, "Yes, well, the 'Great Enlightenment' refers to a period, let's seee..about two-hundred years ago. It was then that we humans began to become fully aware that we actually shared our planet with other sentient species. Although some were not sure whether humans could tolerate their existence, and at the time, when it came to vampires, who could blame us?" She glanced at ^Lena and ^Yulia, each knowing that Katina referred to the practice of feeding on humans.
"But even our great differences, which at first seemed insurmountable, eventually were overcome to allow us to unite, at first uneasily, as one true populace. With the advances in medical technology, bioengineering, molecular design and other fields of knowledge, means were soon discovered that allowed vampires to lead full lives without the need to...feed on humans or other species. The packs you hold in your hands are just one type of thousands produced specifically for your people They contain all the nutrients essential to your people, with the added bonus of being easy to produce in wide varieties. But even now some vampirics still break into medical supply facilities to steal blood. Old habits die hard I guess."
Listening intently, the vampires were stunned by the news. They never thought it could be any different, but they were glad to be wrong. Embracing each other, ^Lena and ^Yulia let tears of relief flow, as if a new beginning had just occurred for them.
"What do think? Do we let the past be the past?" ^Yulia whispered into ^Lena's ear.
"I'm not sure of anything right now, but it's better than I expected." ^Lena answered.
The rest of the group, who had been unfamiliar of the reality of vampires, now also breathed a sigh of relief. Katina had, in effect, just saved their necks, literally.
"So just like that, two hundred years ago, your people forged a peace with ours and those other races?" ^Yulia asked.
"Oh, I would definately say it wasn't just 'like that'." Katina replied, deep in thought. "There was much open hostility towards each other at first, lasting for many decades after we found out that humans weren't alone in the world. But even the fighting became so horrible, that it made us weary for peace. And so the real task began, as we struggled to find ways to put things right. And eventually we did. You may find that someday on your world. I hope so, anyways."
"Me too, now that I can actually contemplate living on as I am." ^Lena said, rubbing away the tears in her emerald eyes.
"It must be wonderful for the vampirics here to not have to endure the things we have and what we have had to do in order to survive." ^Yulia said, thinking about what she had done over the centuries to enemies and innocent victims.
"For those that still live, yes it is, I believe." Katina added, trying not reveal to much to them. Here aboard her ship, they were just as innocent as the rest.
"What do you mean?" ^Lena asked, noticing that there was more but Katina seemed reluctant to tell them.
"Well...as the peace between the species seemed to solidify over the course of time, the vampirics for the most part wanted to exonerate themselves for the many transgressions they had had to commit on the other species to ensure their survival. They felt one way, perhaps the best way, was to serve in the military. And a great majority have joined the ranks. Of those, many have perished, in the truest sense of the word."
"I don't understand, are you at war?" Elena asked, fearful of Katina's answer.
Having no choice but to answer honestly, Katina paused before replying, "Yes. We are fighting against a very powerful enemy, but my last reports said we were at a basic stalemate." she said, trying to add a small reassurance.
"We think we as a united front have the advantage when it comes to infantry. We know for a fact that vampirics are the most powerful species from our planet, and they have answered the call to combat this enemy. We believe that they will make the difference." Katina said directly to the vampires present. A small hint in her inflection.
"We want to make a difference for everybody," ^Lena said to her, "starting right here on your ship."
"Yes, what about that guy running around?" Lena said, "we don't know where he is do we!?"
"He's in the cargo bay. And I know that I wounded him earlier with my firearm. Which is why I felt we had some time to wait here for awhile."
"How you to know where he is?" Yulia asked.
"Because, I've manged to seal off all other areas of the ship that might be useful to him. Unfortunately I couldn't do the same to the cargo bay because he managed to damage systems all over the ship when he pulled his little stunt in engineering. The cargo bay hatchways probably still work but only manually. But don't worry, the only way he's leaving there is through space." Katina said, looking down at Volkova, who's progress was increasing well, but had come close to the edge.

Track A Abandon all hope, ye who enter....

After several attempts to access other critical areas of the ship went awry, Manta managed to make his way to the cargo bay, it was his last bastion, and he meant to make the most of it. Bringing up the ships cargo manifest, he began reading it for anything that might prove useful in hand to hand combat once, he knew, Katina managed to make her way towards him. But he was not entirely without options.
Using his earlier ploy, he once again rigged a simple motion detector to disable the lighting from the outside corridor to the cargo bay once someone had passed a certain point. Manta had managed to pry loose the deck plating along the corridor, leaving a large gap in the floor. It lay just around a slight curve in the corridor so it would not be noticed upon first entering it. The resulting hole in the floor was at least ten meters deep, meant for secondary storage of supply parts and materials for anything that might not fit in the cargo bay itself.
The floor at the bottom of it as cold and hard as steel plating was meant to be.
Satisfied he had left a deadly diversion outside, he proceeded back into the cargo bay, manually locking the doors behind him. Turning again to look through the manifest, he began prying open stowed cargo crates, searching for anything useful to his diabolical plans.

Katina had long since abandoned any pretense of an amicable outcome to Manta's situation. If anything she had waited too long, but would wait no longer. Checking her weapon, she left Volkova's bedside heading straight for the medical bay entrance.
Everyone else turned towards her movement, jumping up from the various beds they were sitting on.
"Whoa captain! You're not seriously going out there alone are you?" Lena said, not particularly sure she wanted to volunteer to accompany her.
"I have to do this. And as much as I appreciate the offer, none of you have any experience in a situation like this. I alone do."
"Wait! Captain!, " ^Lena said as she and ^Yulia met her at the door, "^Yulia and I have never been in the military, but we have faced our share of deadly fights before. You even admit yourself that vampires are stronger than humans. You turned our offer down before, please let us help this time." She pleaded, as both vampires were determined to right their past transgressions in some way.
"I did, didn't I.." Katina thought for a moment. This was way beyond regulations. "Okay, but only one of you should come, the other would be a big help to ensure the safety of the rest of those here."
Deciding was easy for the vampires. ^Yulia was still not above the thrill of the hunt.
"I'll go. ^Lena can stay back." she said as she turned to kiss her goodbye. ^Lena parted her lips to return the kiss, unsure of the decision, but knew that it made sense.
"Captain, where is the cargo bay." ^Lena asked Katina, stealthily hiding her intentions.
"First floor where I left you, but all the way at the end of the ship. So if you must return for food, avoid going anywhere in that direction. The best thing is for you to stay put here, however." Katina replied, not noticing the ramifications of Lena's question.
With that, Katina opened the hatchway waiting for ^Yulia to follow.
"Good luck captain." ^Lena said," Get that bastard will you?" she added towards ^Yulia.
"You know I will..." ^Yulia replied back. She knew all about what was evil, and Manta certainly was, so as her visage turned nearly feral at the thought of hunting him down, fangs protruded slightly from her mouth. She would take whatever his evil mind could conjure up and return it a hundred fold.
The hatchway sealed behind them, and they proceeded cautiously towards the cargo bay. At a careful pace, Katina guesstimated it would take ten minutes to reach it. An ominous air hung throughout the ship as they made their way through it.
Shadows played with her mind, as Katina fought to reign in her fear. In the old days, Katina mused, it would be absolutely frightening to see a vampire by your side, but now, she felt ^Yulia's presence to be a blessing.

After waiting several minutes, ^Lena checked the weapon she had been given and cycled the medical bay hatchway open.
"Wait a minute! Where do you think you're going!?" Elena asked her. "Captain Katina said to wait here."
"I'm sorry, but there's no way I'm doing that." ^Lena replied, "If that guy is deranged as he already has shown us, and if he already knows all about vampires, then we are all in danger, regardless. I think the captain needs more than just one backup."
"But.." Elena tried to argue, unable to come up with anything persuasive.
"She right,and I to want help my friends not be hurt." Yulia said with a heavy russian accent as she followed ^Lena to the hatchway. "Stay here Lenochka." she added as Lena tried to follow her out, but stopped at the heavy request made by her lover. Again a kiss goodbye was made, this time between the Tatu girls, and then ^Lena and Yulia made their way towards the cargo bay, not with caution, but at a full run.

A few minutes later after that, something unexpected happened within the medical bay. Diagnostic machines at Volkova's bedside were reading increased pulse and respiration in the lieutenant's biosigns.
Then without warning...her blue eyes fluttered open.
"Where.." Volkova's voice weakly let out, as she tried to gather her strength to speak
The others turned at the sound, Elena first to rush to her bedside, looking down at the patient with a warming smile.
Looking up, her eyes now focused clearly, Volkova saw the redheaded beauty with green eyes sparkling, her smile beaming down at her.
"There you are.." Volkova said, her voice now stronger, "I don't care what happened right now, I'm just glad to see you."
"Oh, you are still in recovery, " Elena said, her hand now smoothing the black hair across Volkova's forehead. "Please just lie still, you need more rest. Would like me to get you anything? Food, water?"
"I don't need anything right now, except for you to kiss me!" Volkova managed a grin and slowly raised her hand to pull Elena down to her waiting lips.
"Oh...wait...please.." Elena said, trying not to hurt Volkova but resisting her gentle tug. "I'm not her."
Volkova paused as she was ready to kiss her, then realized that she really wasn't Katina. Releasing her hold on Elena, she looked around and saw another redhead standing at the foot of her bed, another set of green eyes meeting with hers but shaking her head 'no'.
Volkova let out a sigh of exasperation. "Where is she?" she simply asked, rising shakily to sit up in her bed.
Elena didn't answer her right away, unsure of whether she should worry Volkova in her weak condition.
"Um..she'll be right back," Lena answered for her, "In fact, we have to tell her you're awake."
Elena glanced over at Lena with pleading eyes.
"We have an obligation to these two, they've done everything they can for us." Lena added before Elena could respond.
"I'll go with her." Julia said as both made sure they still had the weapons Katina gave to them earlier. Her aqua eyes gazed deeply into Elena's for a brief moment, she did not know her well enough to kiss goodbye. As far as Elena was concerned, circumstances allowed for several assumptions, one being, they knew each other well enough. Walking over to Julia, she leaned foward and kissed her tenderly on the lips. Stunned, Julia did not back away, she still felt nervous around the beautiful redhead, but melted at the touch of her lips.
"Be careful." Elena said to her.
"I will, thanks." Julia replied, confidence filling her heart.
As the hatchway again cycled closed, Julia and Lena threw caution to the wind and sprinted the length of the Darkstar towards the cargo bay.

"What was that all about?" Volkova asked while she stretched her limbs, her remarkable recovery still left her stiff, and she was one to not like laying down for too long. "Weren't there more of you two or us or whatever, more people when we first saw you in the main corridor?"
"Yes," Elena answered, "they'll be back. You shouldn't get out of bed you know, even if this technology is more advanced than anything I've ever seen, it can't replace good old bed rest."
"You'd be surprised." Volkova said, winking back at her while she stood up fully, "You still didn't answer me, where did everyone go?"
Unable to avoid her question any longer, Elena was forced to answer as no one was left to back her up.
"Well..your captain, Katina, went to track down Manta. At first with one of the vampires, ^Yulia, I think, and then.."
"WHAT!??" Volkova cut her off, looking around and spying a spare uniform on the nearest bed to hers.
"Why didn't you tell me!?" She added, a hint of anger in her voice as she dressed.
"Please, she has plenty of help now. And I don't think she'd want you to do anything so soon after.." Elena pleaded with her.
"I know, but they need ALL the help they can get against this guy. Look, you don't have to go but I can't stay here while she's in danger." Volkova said, reclaiming her firearm and heading for the hatchway.
Seeing that she had no real choice, Elena grabbed her own gun and followed Volkova out.
"Let's take it slowly, ok?" Elena said to her.
"Yeah right." Volkova said as she took off running, Elena amazed at her patient's recovered strength, pacing alongside her.

Manta was still rigging together an apparatus he had constructed out of the various parts he found in the cargo bay containers, as he heard the sound of footsteps, while still distant, were quickly getting closer. He made sure the cargo bay doors were locked, and then he waited..

Tracks A and D

Two minutes later, Lena and Yulia entered the cargo bay corridor. They ran through it until the motion-detected lighting shut off as they rounded the curve in the corridor, They felt the edge of the opening in the floor too late, and plunged ten metres to the bottom of it, knocking both unconcious.

Tracks D and B

Two minutes later, Lena and Yulia entered the cargo bay corridor. They ran through it until the motion-detected lighting shut off as they rounded the curve in the corridor, They felt the edge of the opening in the floor too late, and plunged ten metres to the bottom of it, knocking both unconcious.

Tracks B and C

Two minutes later, Lena and Yulia entered the cargo bay corridor. They ran through it until the motion-detected lighting shut off as they rounded the curve in the corridor, They felt the edge of the opening in the floor too late, and plunged ten metres to the bottom of it, knocking both unconcious.

Tracks C and A

Two minutes later, Lena and Yulia entered the cargo bay corridor. They ran through it until the motion-detected lighting shut off as they rounded the curve in the corridor, They felt the edge of the opening in the floor and abruptly stopped. Her momentum causing her to waver, Lena fought to regain her balance. Yulia, unable to stop her own momentum, crashed into Lena's back, knocking the redhead down into the gap. With her arms flailing wildly, Yulia lost her footing and fell through the opening as well...knocking both unconcious.

littleoz · **littleoz**

OMG!!!!!!! that chapter was amazing. I'm worn out now after reading that. I went through everything with them...shame i didn't go through the showers with them but hey..i can't have it all Devil

Manta must die!! Bash

I can't wait to read more it's brilliant.

littleoz
x

Parrish122 · **Parrish122**

Wow.....as always, I love it!

Parrish

missionman8 · **missionman8**

Hey gang! glad you're enjoying the story.

Oz, I don't mind you wanting your turn in the shower with them, but theres a line and guess who's first!! Grin

Ha!

missionman8 · **missionman8**

Hello all! I couldn't wait to post this next part, I'm glad that it seems many people are reading this, but remember more feedback is appreciated! And thanks to those who have been leaving it. Smile

Without further adieu..

What we have here is a failure to communicate -- Cool Hand Luke

Looking up, she blinked several times, as her eyes worked back towards clarity. The brunt of the fall was absorbed, she realized, by other bodies and limbs underneath her, but her head had still hit pretty hard, leaving her blackened out momentarily.
Slowly looking around, she saw that she was adrift in a sea of fiery red hair spotted with the occasional short cropping of black hair like her own. The others had befallen the same dastardly trap that she had, each regaining conciousness as well, quiet groans of pain echoing within their confinement. She looked the ten metres up from where she had fallen, noticing a small service ladder welded into one of the side walls. None of those around her were in any shape to climb, she wasn't sure about it herself, but they were so close to Manta, and the chance had to be taken. Forcing herself to forget her injuries, she willed herself to climb the service ladder. As she reached the deck floor again, she at first peered just slightly exposing her head to look into the cargo bay itself. The doors were open, and she could just see Manta at the far end of the cargo bay, wheeling what appeared to be a hastily constructed loadbearing cart, piled very high with containers. She knew exactly what he meant to do with it. Although he appeared to be struggling with pushing the cart because of the awesome weight it was carrying, he meant to push it straight into the hole and crush everyone in it.
Scrambling up the rest of the way, she ran into the cargo bay itself brandishing her firearm. Manta was unaware of her presence as he was obscured behind the heigth of the containers. Swiftly, she leaned her shoulders into the heavy bay doors, forcing them to close, and manually locked them.
Upon hearing the deep creaking sound of the doors closing, Manta paused his pushing efforts and glanced from around the containers. Amazement struck him at first, that she had made it so quickly out of the trap he had set. Then boldly, he stepped foward to confront her, he had no other exit, this was it.
"So, lieutenant Volkova, I see my first present for you in engineering didn't do the trick. Too bad." He said.
She simply stood at the cargo bay doors, cold blue eyes staring at him, sizing him up, her raven hair stirring in the gentle breeze coming from the overhead ventilation.
Manta continued, "Actually even before that, I wish I had finished you off before you and the captain threw me in the brig. Right now I wish that I could finish job, but I see that you are armed. What? I don't even get my military trial? You're just going to shoot me like the cowards that you and Katina really are? Is that it?"
Looking down at the gun in her hand, she held it up...and tossed it to scatter into one of the far corners of the bay.
Manta had not expected that.
He was overjoyed that he had hit a raw nerve with Volkova, calling her a coward.
'Hand to hand combat! She really hasn't learned her lesson!' he thought to himself, thinking back to when he had nearly killed her with his bare hands until others had rescued her. 'This time there's noone to help her. This is going to be easy.'
He looked at her with a devilish grin, supremely confident as his much larger body overshadowed her petite figure.
"Fine with me," he said, disregarding the gun in the corner, she was no longer a match for him at all "if that's how you want to play it. You're even dumber than I could have imagined!"
That remark brought about a distinct change in her facial expression. She had only been curious before about what he really looked like in person. Now with all the recent memories of the heinous acts he had committed, her anger welled up from within her as she methodically began to walk towards him. Hands splayed for attack, blue eyes glaring wickedly,
Vampiric fangs protruding.
Her mouth twisted into a gleeful snarl, as she smelled fresh blood ready to be taken...the hard way.
Manta took a step backwards. He knew Volkova was not a vampire.
"Who..the..?" he tried to say in disbelief. She looked just like the lieutenant. It made no sense.
"For you.." ^Yulia answered with a wanton lust for his demise, " the harbinger of your doom..."

Manta had not yet turned his body to run for the discarded gun, when ^Yulia's inhuman speed closed the gap between them. At first her razor sharp fingernails clawed across his chest upwards as she launched herself over his head, twisting her body around in mid-motion to land squarely on his back.
He screamed out in pain as she wrapped her legs around his waist, her head leaned back slightly as she opened her mouth fully, bearing her fangs, which were as white as a cosmic string, before sinking them deeply into his jugular.
She did not remain affixed to her prey. Her primal instincts took over and she was determined to enjoy it thouroughly. So she released him to let him stagger a few steps and then collapse to his knees.
He let out a sickening horrified scream, his hands desperately clawing at his neck to stop the profuse fountain of blood spewing from it.
The dull metal gray of the cargo bay walls were increasingly becoming spattered with his crimson blood as he repeatedly staggered and fell trying to get away from ^Yulia, who merely remained a pace behind him, following his grisly trail.
"I...I..don't see what it is to you what I've done. I don't even..know..you..." He said as he gasped to get the words out.
"Don't you?" ^Yulia replied, leaning down to him "I was already witness to what you tried to do to your own crewmen. Your betrayal is just the beginning, though, I heard you really wanted to kill them because of what they are."
"I don't CARE about vampires!" Manta shouted back at her, his hands were now covered in his own blood.
"That's not what I'm talking about!" ^Yulia screamed back at him, she walked around to face him, "You wanted to kill them or anyone like them because of who they choose to love. And because of that, that makes you a very, very cold and heartless individual."
She then stood up and thought for an instant as she looked at him, his defiant and bitter hatred for her evident on his face as he realized that she was a lesbian... just like the rest that he hated for being gay. His prejudice and bigotry he clung to insanely..
"In fact," ^Yulia growled at him, a deathly calm shrouding her face, " that's how you deserve to be....heartless.."
"Wh.what!!??" Manta said, utter fear and panic filling him.
Her inhuman strength coarsed through her body as her arm shot foward through his ribcage...ripping out his pulsing heart.

The terrifying scream of someone in their deathrows could be heard through the heavy cargo bay doors. The others had recovered from their fall and were standing on the outside of the cargo bay, listening to the screams on the other side. The last cry had been the loudest, and the most sickening, causing the group to step back, some covering their ears at the sound of it.
"I guess he won't be a problem for you anymore..." ^Lena grimly said to Katina, who even though knew a military officer should be able to handle certain situations, cringed openly at the sounds emanating from just beyond the doors.
The sound of something thudded against the floor and then could be heard being dragged away from it.
A minute later, they heard the lock clang open on the cargo bay doors, slowly sliding open, but only enough for ^Yulia to peek out to see that the rest of the group had gathered on the other side.
"^Yulia! What happened? Are you OK?" Katina asked her, shocked at the amount of blood on her mouth and uniform.
"What?" ^Yulia said, dazed from the abrupt adrenaline decrease in her body. "Oh.. yes.., I'm okay. I don't think you should come in here though."
"It's okay, we're going to need to bag his body anyways, military training prepares us for things like this." Katina tried to convince herself, as she and Volkova slid the doors further apart. Walking cautiously inside, they still were in shock at the amount of blood that splattered the walls and floor of the cargo bay. It was everywhere.
Their real revulsion occurred upon seeing Manta's body. ^Yulia had dragged the torn body she had evicerated behind the stack of cargo containers in the far end of the bay. Katina turned immediately from the ghastly sight, Volkova hunched over, struggling not to vomit.
^Lena turned to the rest who were frightfully standing at the entrance to the bay, unsure if they should enter.
"Stay back! Don't come over here!" ^Lena said, holding her hand up to warn the rest. They were only too happy to heed her warning as the blood stained bay was an ample enough indication to not venture into it.
"Take the rest back to medical.." Katina said to Volkova. "I'll um..ah..I mean we'll take care of this." she motioned towards the vampires.
Volkova saluted her and left without a word. Katina was in no mood for anything less.
"Come on." Volkova said to the others standing at the entrance as she led them away from the cargo bay.
Manta had been taken care of, but all of them struggled to block out of their minds, how.
Only ^Yulia had taken pleasure in that fact.

hotcakes · **hotcakes**

Oh yes!!! Manta finally got what he deserved!

N just to let you know that i LOVE the quotes you put in

Can't imagine seeing so many yulias and lenas naked tho, thats juz sooo Devil

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Let your private's emotion cum to me

littleoz · **littleoz**

Machiavellism · **Machiavellism**

Finally off my too-lazy-to-give-feedback phase... at least for the time being. ;)

GREAT updates! I wish I could tell you just how great this story is (and perhaps flatter you as much as you've flattered me Grin

), but I'm not good at that.

So... I guess awesome will just have to do! Even if I don't leave feedback, don't worry, I'm just extremely lazy~!
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Another project in the works. As if you all weren't sick of my writing.