Project Sleepwalker Awakens

Posted on Tue May 29th, 2018 @ 12:15am by Lieutenant Commander Siivas McKenzie & Lieutenant Velth Andurean
Edited on on Tue May 29th, 2018 @ 12:15am

0 words; about a 1 minute read

Mission: Past Tense
Location: Sulamid, beneath the Dark Sea, Primordial Creche
Timeline: 2285
Tags: BonneChanceTrio,timetravel

Siivas came awake, floating in fetal position in chilled liquid, his core body temperature lower than normal but not rising slowly. He sensed through his mind and found the memory of coldsleep, remembered the experiences of the respirator tubes in his nostrils and the injections that would keep his cells from deteriorating in the near-freezing fluid. The fact that he was conscious and the respirator was feeding him warmed atmosphere meant that he was meant to be awake now and that meant more than a decade and a half had passed.

It wasn't his first time in cryogenic suspension but this was far more pleasant that his first and longest experience. He felt the liquid near him stir and knew Andurean was conscious and moving slowly, trying to return feeling to his limbs. ~Don't move yet~ Siivas sent the thoughts to his lover ~Your body is too cold and we've been locked in these positions for almost twenty years. Wait for your body temperature to raise to near-normal~

~Ugh~ Andurean's reply made Siivas smile and feeling that echo, Andurean too smiled.
They waited, sensing around them. They felt the Sulamid above them and then as the fluid warmed, one of the Sulamid slid into the crche with them and checked them over. It touched them both and they felt a soft presence of a Sulamid telepath make itself known ~I am Kekalarrinuusmaral, crche-watcher, you may call me Nuus. Can you move?~

Siivas and Andurean stretched and flexed their muscles, no warmer they were stiff but not terribly weak. They used their limbs to orient their bodies towards the smallish Sulamid. ~You seem familiar Nuus~ Siivas observed.

~I am of Proot-Priit~ it replied, the first name indicating the parent that spawned it and the second the parent that fertilized its egg ~Six spawnings ago~ So roughly eighteen years old at this point.

Siivas indicated acknowledgement and welcome and the Sulamid turned pink ~My parents are unable to be present as they are currently off-planet, they send salutations and regrets. They have made arrangements to meet you when all arrive at the target, in the specified time. I suggest that we emerge from the pool and provide you with nourishment after we bring your core temperature to normal~

~Agreed~ Siivas acknowledged.

~Breathe deeply~ Nuus advised them both and as they expanded their chests, it deactivated the machine and pulled them from the anchoring tethers and then to the surface. Despite being half the diameter of a fully-grown Sulamid, Nuus had no difficulty lifting both grown males from the water and setting them into the heating field of the camping kit it had prepared. Nourishing broth-pacs sat ready to be sipped next to the heating unit that made the small space snugly warm, thermal-thins were provided and absorbent towels to take off the moisture. Warm thermal-cloth suits were folded neatly with footwear and as Nuus placed them inside the ring of the campsite, it reached out and pulled up the edges and sealed them, forming the tent-like dome structure that quickly became warm.

"I will remain outside until you are ready to join me," Nuus explained verbally.

"Thank you," Siivas replied and carefully dried himself and got Andurean's back, who in turn got his, as they warmed up. Andurean's serpent came out of the membrane weak but alive, pale and chilled but quickly returned to its normal vitality. Siivas handed Andurean a broth-pouch and then got one for himself but gave some to Andurean's serpent first. The fact it allowed this with no objection at all not only got an eyebrow from Andurean, but Siivas, who stroked it gently as it lapped up the broth.

It ignored them both blithely but from the way its muscles flexed underneath Siivas' fingertips, it was clear it liked the attention. Siivas was delighted; Andurean watched and queried his serpent who remained, stubbornly, unresponsive on the subject.

In short order they were dressed, fed and unsealed the tent and stood ready.

Nuus was waiting for them. "Ready," Siivas announced and Nuus waved at them.

"Energize," it said and the two of them felt transporter beams grab them and yank them away.

Somewhat later


Siivas and Andurean stood on the bridge of a Deltan cruiser, like all of them cleverly disguised as a mercantile vessel but this one was more obviously not your average utilitarian ship than most of its predecessors. The Union had decided that their aesthetic was injured by having to fly around the quadrants in luxurious bricks (because that how they described most of those ships appearance from the outside) and that the external needed to reflect the internal, as in the pre-Starfleet days.

Thus, the new DUS Eleganza, reflected the same internal organic flow and bending curving lines on the outside design. Deltans, unlike Starfleet and many of the other advanced cultures in the quadrants, mounted their nacelles externally. Deltans felt that aesthetically this was displeasing to the eye and created an imbalance from what should be natural forms reflected in space. So, to meet their artistic needs, the new Eleganza seemed as an aquatic mammal captured mid-stroke in time, enlarged and made into a warp-capable sculpture to carry people and goods.
Long and sleek, the vessel's hull shimmered with iridescent highlights, the flattened and rounded front half had two "arms" that seemed to lay next to the body, the "fingers" of the flippers were in fact the impulse drives and glowed softly yellow. On the "bottom" of this a recessed navigational deflector created a "bump" in profile that resembled an open mouth, as if reaching for prey before it. The end of the ship ended in a pointed torpedo-like shape with more fluid shaping and definitions, suggesting muscles playing underneath the outer skin. Nowhere on this ship, did there appear to be warp nacelles.

Indeed, there weren't any visible externally because they were internal to the ship and there was only one needed, though a second smaller one could be used if the primary one were damaged and could not easily be repaired. And like all Deltan ships, this one hardly an exception, it was stealthily armed and well-shielded against predators in the vast black sea of the universe.

Helios stood at the command console, a couch stood erect behind him, ready for him to back into it and for it to recline him so he could rest while manning the consoles. Siivas' great grandson usually didn't sit when he was working, it kept him more alert. Stars streaked by on the wraparound monitor ahead of them and three of his staff manned reclining consoles in the wide space with their own displays.

"Has everyone been alerted?" Siivas asked Helios, who watching the console intently just nodded.

"We're being shadowed," Helios reported. "They're not cloaked, they're using a pirate trick," he added.

Andurean was in his armor and stepped to one side and tapped into a console, looking at the telemetry. "Its one of mine," he said a moment later.

Helios looked at the young male priest sitting at another console who silently nodded, feeling the intention-driven request and opened the channel. "On your console," the Deltan youth commented.

Andurean nodded and entered text and sent a coded transmission. A moment later and he received another one back. They traded text transmissions several more times and then the other ship disappeared from sensors and seemed to have moved off. He looked up, "A package is waiting for me at our destination."

"That was fast," Siivas commented.

"We made it worth his while," he turned his gaze on Helios. "Firebird is too important for just one group to manage."

Helios nodded silently in agreement and looked at Andurean, his expression open agreement with the sentiment but he said nothing. Andurean said nothing, Siivas smiled slightly and remained silent as well.

Ten days later


Helios sat in his office looking at the console display before him, the disparate and various parties movements having been turned into an animate graphic showing how they each interacted with one another towards the objective. He frowned slightly as he considered how difficult this was going to be as soon as Starfleet officially got involved and how this was going to have to be handled in order to get what they wanted from the Operation.

He felt like he was missing something something familiar... familiar? No, "family". Silently he called up the information he needed and scanned the file, smiling as he found what he needed. Yes, he had already leveraged their resources in the Tal, Lahl, Ahn and Ahm lineages, all branches of the same in fact and so firmly threaded through Starfleet history and tradition they wielded fairly significant and subtle powers.

But whatever powers they wielded, Starfleet was still Human dominated even now and Human leverage was what was needed. And he grinned as he looked at the copper-tressed images before him, tapping them with finger tips as he considered how best to present the data.

Four days later, 217PM local Risan time

Donal Ren was a busy man. He was well-built, muscular, ate poorly but worked out and ate a special diet of "empty foods". They were nourishing but lacked fast and calories in excess of his daily needs, so his weight and health remained the same. He dressed well, was a fine figure to the ladies of most species and as a Human, he was seen as something of a First-Class Citizen.

He was wealthy in information, he was wealthy in power and he was wealthy in holdings. And in the future where "money" no longer mattered, he was wealthy in what people needed and wanted, sometimes legitimately and often, not. And as a very busy man, he had enemies and very few friends and as such had security and people he paid to keep him alive. His offices were in a building with transporter buffers on them, full of beings armed for war and designed like a bunker.

So he was rather a touch surprised when in a soft whine, two figured appeared in front of his desk and solidified into two men, one very short and one fairly tall. He was reaching for his gun and his alarm when he froze, recognizing the tall one and realizing what would happen if this went badly.

The guards waiting outside had heard the transporter anyway and burst in, pointing pistols at the backs of the figures' heads. Neither had moved and as Donal could only see the shorter one's face, his expression placid but who had the eyes of a murderer, the other one wore a light-bending outfit only one group wore and there was plenty of reason why. He really didn't want to learn if the tales were true first hand.

He almost wet himself when he heard the distinctive short hiss of a roused serpent a half-second later.

"Are you alright mister Ren?" one of his guards asked quickly.

"Yes," Donal replied, feeling better since he still hadn't seen the snake to know if it was real.

"There is a battlecruiser is orbit directly over this building Ren," the smaller man, a Deltan by the looks of it, told him in a voice that would have sent a more sensitive person off to cry somewhere. "You can't get out of here fast enough to avoid being vaporized.. Besides, we're just here to delivery a message from someone you owe a great deal to." He paused, "So if you like the two standing behind us, you might want to send them off before I show you anything or we'll have to kill them, because Mister Fel requires it."
This time Donal actually did piss himself a little.

He owed most of where he was to Mister Fel. Whomever that was had supplied him with material and men when he had needed it the most and had taken a modest percentage ever since. Donal had made himself extremely wealthy in materials of all sorts since then and Fel had kept in touch, using a very unique way of accounting what was owed and allowing Ren and others like him to work it off. If they "donated" more share to Fel, they worked off their accounts faster. Several had earned themselves free and clear and Fel had left them alone. But that meant Fel wouldn't come looking for his investments if someone took out one of his special people, so in its way, Fel took care of those who owed him.

Ren hadn't paid Fel off for this reason alone, because he liked the insurance and the assurance that not even the Syndicate was stupid enough to send people to take him down. Fel was a big fish and even the Syndicate knew it. And Fel was quite happy to let his "clients" keep doing whatever they were doing as long as the payments kept coming. Fel sometimes sent people with requests and as such, Ren usually gave professional courtesy to grant whatever it was. Usually the cost was small and in some way he gained something at least as good for it, often much more valuable to someone, some where.

"You two need to get out," Ren told the guards.

"But Mister Ren-"

"Out. Or do you want to be dead? I'll do it myself if you don't get out now," he told them and after glancing at one another, they withdrew and backed out. They weren't paid to argue, just do a certain thing and do as they were told.

Once the door shut behind them, the Deltan smiled. And it was tremendously unpleasant. Ren knew people that enjoyed killing. He knew people who couldn't enjoy sex unless someone died in the process. He'd made quite a bit of money off of people rich enough to pay for that service, some of them had been Deltans and they were his best clients. This one was like one of those except that his companion was one of those that killed for money. When the Orions used the term "hostile takeover" in business, they meant one of those had been used and the previous owners or board of directors were all dead, along with however many people they had tried to put between them.

No one had ever captured a Duelist and lived to tell the tale and nobody had ever managed to get physical traces of one, since they suicide if captured, usually taking out a fifty meter radius at the same time. It was rumored they were hugely augmented Orions under there, black-skinned with red hair, marked that way to show what they were if they were ever seen without their masks.

The Deltan used sleight of hand and flipped a round gold disk to Ren, who caught it instinctively and examined it. It was solid gold with a transparent aluminum disk in the middle with a tiny drop of Ren's blood caught in it with a unique code, which Ren instantly recognized as his. He had three of the five required to get it all back, this was the fourth.

It was even listed as the fourth of five, as it should be.

Ren sighed.

"What do you want?" he asked heavily.

"Radiant Point," the Deltan replied, "for about a day. And I suggest if your insurance policy doesn't cover meteorite damage and starship crashes, that you buy some."

Ren was dumbfounded, his jaw dropped open to stare at the two of them.

 

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