Old Demons

Posted on Fri Sep 26th, 2014 @ 1:07am by Vendenje Kamdram

Mission: The Art of the Hunt [Incomplete]

Syvanis Marlow reached out and grasped the nearly frozen emergency hatch release. The release was a massive wheel, attached to the hatch by spokes around a poorly maintained cylinder. It was nearly frozen due to exposure. Syvanis gripped the wheel tightly, his gloved paws tensing, his thick, powerful frame pulsing and shuddering as he growled in effort.

Syvanis Marlow sighed. The massive Caitian, clad in a heavy enviro-suit that protected him from the vacuum of space, gave the wheel one last tug. He had almost given up, but he thought he felt it give a little. If he survived this, he would never neglect the minor things of the Laciata’s Bug, his ship, again.

Syvanis was a freighter captain, and had been for nearly 100 years, having outlived almost his entire family, including two children. He had commanded the Laciata for most of that time. This was the first time he had found himself locked outside of his own ship.

Nearly sixty years prior Syvanis had shifted from dealing mostly in spices, to being a water merchant, and a damn good one at that. Water, while plentiful in some regions of space, was not in all. There were some planets that would pay a high price for it, and he had made a minor fortune dealing it. It didn’t come without risks, of course. Like all things, if there is a legal market for it, there’s probably an illegal one as well. And Syvanis had had plenty of run-ins with the unsavory.

Nothing even came close to the madness inside his ship.

The hatch gave. There was a hiss, and then a massive blowback as the release spun, and this blowback snapped the metal hatch open and nearly sent Syvanis tumbling. The black-furred Catian held fast, and pulled his thick frame inside.

He pulled the hatch shut tight behind him, and then slammed a fist against a blank panel. Atmosphere began pouring into the chamber, and air-scrubbers did their work with the dumb efficiency of over-priced tech. After a moment or two Syvanis had stripped off the suit and snatched up a disruptor from a nearby weapons locker. All of the lockers had been specifically coded so that only four people on the entire ship could open them - three of those people were already dead.

The Laciata had drifted days before. Kathoni had detected a debris field, and Syvanis had ordered her to drop out of warp to investigate. They weren’t salvagers by trade, but perhaps by heart they were. They all knew the value of it, in either case, and money talked.

The salvage had been from the remains of a starship, and a big one it had seemed. Federation? Syvanis wasn’t sure, and Kathoni refused to be definitive about it. In either case, they had found some very nice things. An entire warp core had managed to survive, though Tajivik was certain there had been a crack in the containment, and that it was unstable. Was it? Syvanis hardly cared, the core wasn’t for the Laciata, and even damaged they could probably make a decent amount from it. On top of that they had found several intact replicators, emitters, and even an intact weapons system. All had been brought aboard. What Syvanis and the others had not expected to find was life.

The man was human, or at least Syvanis had thought he was human. He wasn’t so sure anymore. The man had yellow skin that had begun to go white, and blonde hair that was more a dark, dirty gold than blonde. His eyes were like narrow slits and black as nightmares. Over his left eye was a bit of metal, and Tajivik rightly pointed out that the man had once been a Borg, and that the metal that went around the eye was an implant.

It was how they found him that disturbed Syvanis though, at first. Now? So much disturbed the Caitian. So much, he shuddered. The man had been entirely nude, locked inside a heavy crate-container. The Laciata’s scanners had been unable to penetrate the container, so he had brought it onboard to see what was inside. The man stood there, wordless and quiet.

“D’ya have a name?” Rashadra purred. The man simply stared straight ahead, not moving, not speaking, not blinking. Thinking back at it, Syvanis couldn’t remember if he was even breathing.

Pah, Syvanis thought. His entire crew… They were his friends. Not his litter-mates, mind, for they were all far younger, but each a proper Caitian, and each now gone.

When the man did finally speak it was barely a whisper, and even Syvanis’s fine hearing couldn’t understand it. “Sorry?” he said. “Say again?”

The man looked at him, as though noticing him for the first time. His body, emaciated and whip-cord thin, tensed tightly, and the tiny man exploded from within the container, flying at them. It was all any of them could do to draw their weapons, but he was on Tajivik before the poor lion-like Caitian could defend himself. Syvanis still felt sick at the sound of his friend’s death.

The disruptor was in the human man’s hand, but Rashadra was fast, her yellow and black form a blur against the pale lights of the cargo-hold. She fired, but her shots went wide. The human fired back, and his found their mark, and ended Rashadra.

Bless Kathoni, thought Syvanis. The heavy-set striped beast went for a direct approach, snatching the human up in his massive paws, an arm in each hand. He squeezed so loud that Syvanis was sure he had crushed at least one wrist. The human barely registered the damage, lunging foward and curling his body tight, his knees pressing against his chest. And then, like a flash, his legs flew out and his body came down with such force that it took Kathoni with him. As they went down the lithe human flitted in and under the tiger, firing the disruptor in a brutal fashion at Kathoni’s most weak points. The Caitian died, but not before he suffered.

Syvanis had not, for many years, felt so isolated. Without support and certain of his own demise, he retreated.

But he was done running. The human had occupied his bridge, and was holding the dagger that had belonged to Syvanis’s family for many hundreds of years. He looked up as Syvanis stepped onto the bridge.

The human spoke again, and Syvanis hesitated, pointing his weapon at him. This time, he understood. “Andrew Sage,” the human said. “Where is he?”

“S-Sage?” Syvanis seemed surprised. He knew Sage. He’d dealt with him in the past. Had this man really just slaughtered his crew over Sage? “I don’t understand… Who are you?”

The man was a blur again. Syvanis started to fire but he lost all sensation in his paw, instead feeling only a sharp ache and a sense of loss. The paw dropped to the ground, and with it the weapon. The blows from the knife in the human’s hand were like hammers slamming into Syvanis, and the Caitian slipped back, pressing against the bulkhead as he slid down, gasping sharply for air.

The human knelt down and looked at the Caitian. “Where is Andrew Sage?”

Syvanis gasped for air, struggling to breath. Struggling to live. The human sighed. “Hametsu,” he said. “To answer your question.” The lights overhead flickered. Syvanis, struggling to focus, thought it was strange. He thought it was strange that, in what was likely to be his final moments, he was thinking about the strangeness of the lights flickering.

Syvanis watched him stand up and walk away, and knew that he was already forgotten by the man. He felt his body shift, and lay on his back, quiet. He thought about his crew, and regretted not doing more to protect them. He closed his eyes, and saw his mate’s face staring back at him. He recalled the vivid memories of his cubs, so very long ago, and a weak smile crossed his face. He would see them again soon, he told himself.

The human barely noticed when Syvanis died. He hardly cared. His attention and focus was elsewhere. Fifteen years he had been locked in that box.

Hametsu tapped out a series of commands. No direct dealings. Hametsu started to close the tab but a name caused him to waiver. It was a name he knew. A name that Sage knew, as well. He smiled. It was a start.

He set course for Cestus II and smiled. “I will find you, Emma,” he whispered. “And we will be together…” He sat in the command chair and let his head roll back.

“Together, just like the old days.”

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[All NPCs played by: Vendenje Kamdram]