Makes You Stronger
"Took you long enough," Methos' distinctive raspy voiced came through the ship's intercom heavily laced with the amount of alcohol he consumed over the last hour. "Not that it matters to me how long you were on your little good will mission or what you were doing to accomplish it. Hunt's in a bit of a snit."
"How much of one?" Harper asked as soon as he completed a tricky docking maneuver, the Maru's onboard computer system chiming in synch with his verbal and keyed in commands. He patted the black box sitting on the floor beside the pilot's chair, like he would have patted a pet dog. Inside the case was the diary that once belonged to the mad Pereseid, Hastauri. Harper figured that if he could find the right market and buyer he stood to make quite a bundle, even factoring in the cut he would give to Trance and Richie for having contributed to finding the diary in the first place.
Once they ship had come to a stop, Harper let out the landing ramp and led the way off the Maru. Richie, following Trance down the ramp of the ship, nearly collided with with her when she came to a dead halt. The fine blond hairs on the back of Trance's neck were standing on end, and Richie instinctively felt the short reddish blond hairs on his nape as when the "Buzz' that signaled the presence of another Immortal. 'Damn inconvenient,' he thought in the silence of his own mind. 'Methos' it has to be. We're the only Immortals around, but it does the damn 'Buzz ' have to go off every time we're in each other's vicinity. Can't be any of the other crew members.' The damn Buzz works better than may alarm clock." Richie thought to himself.
For, Methos stood half in and half out of the open entry to the docking bay. Methos stood with arms folded across his chest, clad in the distinctive black uniform, one that matched Dylan's minus a force lance, and draping in wrinkled creases and fold over his tall but lanky form, where Dylan's was more solidly built.
"Didn't know Dylan sent errand boys to deliver his messages. If he wants to see me, I'll be happy to talk him then." Harper replied, apparently oblivious to the tension in the faces and postures of both Trance and Richie.
"I'm willing to let that slide, boy," Methos replied, a sneer sliding across his lips, "because for one, you're not worth my time, and two, sometimes it's better to serve than be served.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Harper demanded.
"Ryan," Methos called, while the good captain has a little talk with our engineer, you and I need to have a little chat by ourselves."
"Figures," Richie shrugged. "First he declares he doesn't want anything to do with me, sloughs off all responsibility, now, he wants to talk to me. Wish he would make up his mind, for Pete's sake!" Richie shrugged, sharing a knowing glance with Trance as they reached the end of the ramp and followed Methos out of the docking bay into the adjacent corridors.
"I assume you what this is about?" Methos asked, once he was certain no one was within hearing.
"It isn't about how well our 'good-will mission went," Richie replied.
"Don't be obtuse, I don't have time or the patience for it." Methos grabbed Richie by the lapel of black sweatshirt, and darted a glance into his the younger Immortal's ice blue eyes meeting his own intent stare for stare. A lengthy silence followed. Methos was the first to break it. "I don't know what's come over me lately. Maybe it's the alcohol, but it's the worst case of time lapse in history, but we need to talk. Come with me." That said Methos made an abrupt 180 degree turn with Richie forced to walk at a fast trot to keep up.
"The others, they're getting suspicious,' Methos began, taking a seat at the rumpled edge of his bed.
"I don't blame them. We haven't exactly been subtle. And please don't blame the young for making that mistake, I got more than enough of that from Macleod when I first was trying to figure out what this Immortal thing was about."
"I appreciate that, Ryan," Methos nodded. "It appears Macleod managed to cram a few lessons into that thick head of yours and make them stick."
"Uh, speaking of heads...."
"Relax, Richie," Methos tried on a smile and decided it didn't want and settled the lines of his mobile face back into a scowl. "If I had been interested in taking your head, I would have done so long ago."
"Why do I not feel at all reassured by that?" Richie griped.
"It shouldn't at least, not to the extent that all your guard to slip. We may not be a danger to each other in that respect, but do you have any idea what danger it would be if anyone found out we were Immortal?"
"I can," Richie swallowed a small bit of moisture in his suddenly dry mouth. "And you're right when you said that they are getting suspicious. " Trance I think she knows, but we've more or less circled around the issue, and she's agreed to keep what she knows just between us for now.
"You told her?" Methos demanded. "You colossal, dunder-headed fool!" Methos yelled, lurching around the room and throwing pillows and loose clothing about in a frenzy.
"Chill," Richie grinned. "No, we just had a little discussion about, what did you call, about the time jet-lag and we reached an understanding. Well, as much as anyone ever understands Trance Gemini."
Once he had calmed down, Methos looked at Richie. "All right, just so we understand one other. If Trance knows, then I guess it's all right. We have to trust someone on this ship and it might as well be her. Captain Valentine is my affair and is the Nietchzean."
"Sounds fair." Speaking of Trance, you're going have to face the music sooner or later.
"What do you mean?'
"I mean, Trance has been after me to talk you into to coming to the infirmary for a full medical physical, to the best of Captain Hunt's knowledge, you've got a phobia about doctors and needles, and that's why you've be avoiding it. Trance wants you to come because she's 'concerned' about those electro magnetic spikes that showed up when we first arrived."
"Electro-magnetic spikes?"
"Yeah, I guess its what happens inside us when the healing factor kicks in, except only bigger and brighter when a Quickening happens."
"You've thought this through." Methos dobut tinged with a grudging respect softening the raspy tones of his voice.
"Occasionally, I am capable of thinking." Richie grinned.
"Very well. One last thing, I doubt the Game will have much in this century and universe. I've been the Andromeda's massive computer database to scan for any events, no matter how obscure they might be to find any recorded data of events similar to the ones about Immortals in our own timeline," Methos said.
Richie took a deep breath. "And did you find anything?"
"No. Some odd things about genetic engineering and Neitzcheans, but that's about it."
"So, I guess it's just us," Richie sighed. "You sound disappointed.
"Looks that way." Methos sighed. "I've spent the great part of the last 2,000 some years trying avoid participating in the Game, and it was only recently that I had to abandon my day job as research Adam Pierson that forced me back in."
"I'd forgotten about that," Richie replied, leaning back in the chair. "Look I'd better go, after Harper and Trance finish their report to Captain Hunt, they'll be looking for me."
"Go, Richie." Methos waved and closed his eyes. Richie took that as he cue to leave and left without a backward glance. "Sucks to be you sometimes, don't it Old Man?"
"I don't particular care for being summoned to a meeting by people who can't even arrive on time..." Dylan shouted to be heard over the white noise of the ship's engines. Forced to stop in mid-sentence in order to clamber over a stack of abandoned deck-plating that Harper and Richie had disassembled in the process of teaching the young man the finer points of taconite versus titanium components. Somewhere that project had been scrapped in favor of is linear rods. Dylan shook his head in mock fondness, Harper was a mechanical genius of that Dylan had no doubt, but Harper's particular genius seemed to manifest itself in unorthodox and cynical fits and starts. Richie seemed to have a knack for it and showed himself to be a quick learner, but he had a tendency to give up too soon.
Richie made a bee-line to the table of finger-food and loaded up his plate. Harper glanced at Richie and wondered if he could persuade the young man to help in his covert surveillance of Beka. Harper also felt vaguely resentful that the new crew member could put away an amazing amount of food and never gain an ounce, while Harper, while nowhere a health nut like Beka or even Tyr, could try that and his waistline would suffer.
"Man, how do you manage to do that?" Harper demanded.
"Do what?" Richie asked, puzzled.
"You know, put away all that food?"
"I guess I just have a fast metabolism."
"You might want to spare some for the rest of us, Richie," Beka teased, smiling.
"Oh, sorry." Richie blushed as set down the tray of baked and fried calamari shrimp platter, "I don't like seafood anyways."
"He is approaching. I never signed off on this nonsense, so do not expect to hide and jump out when the man of the hour arrives." Tyr interrupted.
"Tyr, lighten up, "Trance sternly demanded. "It's a party. You're supposed to have fun."
At that instant Dylan came storming through the gauzy fabric that Harper had strung in an effort to create atmosphere. Dylan came through the final barrier, a purple velvet curtain that had been strung up in the manner of the ancient sea mariners stringing up hammocks to serve as sleeping quarters in the cramped conditions of a sailing ship. "All right, enough is enough. Some one had better have a damn good explanation for this!"
"There is, " Harper shouted and launched himself forward to grab Dylan's arm and steer him towards. "Gee, there goes the whole surprise part of the celebration." Sorry about keeping you out of the loop, boss, but if we had let you in on the secret it wouldn't have been much of a surprise, right?"
"I suppose," relented Dylan, his irritation with the situation subsiding.
While she tried to smother it, Beka felt much of her careful self control slip away at the expression on Dylan's face and Beka broke out into a fit of the giggles which had the added bonus of Dylan collapse into a chair. His mouth worked, words bubbled to his mouth the way that condensation was forming on the bottles of chardonnay on the banquet tables. She knew the others were staring at her, but she didn't care. And snagged a bottle of bubbly, uncorked the cap, titled the bottle and poured more than was probably healthy into her mouth.
Trance stepped forward relieving Dylan from Harper and politely but forcibly maneuvered Dylan into a chair. "It's time for the gifts." and handed over a velvet covered box with a golden ribbon tied into a flower shape. Dylan took it and hefted in his hands for a few minutes before sliding the index finger of his left hand around the tie in the bow and unraveling the construction. Once he had lifted the lid of the small box, he removed a wafer thin data floppy. "Thank you, Trance."
"You are welcome," Trance smiled. "Play the data, I'm sure we all will find it most illuminating."
Dylan hand the information floppy to Beka who inserted into the slot on computer interface and instantly in a flare of multicolored lights a stellar grid appeared about equidistant off the floor. Dylan sucked in a breath and for a few heart stopping seconds found himself unable to let it out again. It wasn't just because he recognized a slipstream coordinate map when he saw one, it was because he instantly recognized the gift that Trance had given home, his past, a way to connect with a bit of what had been lost in the last 300 plus years: a way home. A way to reach the lost home on the Commonwealth, a way to reach Tarn Vedra.
"Do I want to know how old he is today?" Richie asked and received a sharp nudge from Trance's elbow in his lower ribs. "Shush, time is relative, Dylan is 50, give or take the 300 years he spent in frozen in stasis, so I am not sure we should account for that duration of time."
"Gee, you'd think it was some kind of trade secret, you can't blame a guy for asking, Richie complained.
"Hah, we should all look so good when we're 300 plus years," Harper laughed.
"I knew there was a reason I kept him around," Beka smiled, but the tightness of the skin over the bones of her face made it appear more of a grimace of pain. The icy blue of her eyes gleamed with a feverish luster that Seamus Harper could not recall seen before, not even in the midst of a fierce fire fight in her beloved Eureka Maru. And Beka and he had been together through quite a bit. He knew it would irritate her no end to ask her outright if she was felling well, Beka's pride and her confidence in herself was such that such a question would be taken as an insult, Harper resolved to make polite small talk during the party and then afterwards when he could spare some free time to keep tabs on Beka's movement without letting her catch on to what he was doing.
"As ever Mr. Harper, your timing is impeccable," Dylan greeted his engineer with a wry remark that conveyed both frustration and a certain dry humor.
Harper shook like a dog shedding water from its coat, recovered his calm expression and anxiously asked: "Do you want my to give a report on the success of the good-will mission?"
"No just yet," Dylan replied, "To borrow an old expression, we have bigger fish to fry.'"
"You should have warned beforehand, Captain Hunt, I would have brought the cocktail sauce," Tyr remarked.
"Find something humorous in that Tyr?" Dylan said.
"No, Sir," Tyr replied an expression of stoic attentive on his dusky black-skinned face, a twist of lips that could be mistaken for a smile and tilt of his head as he exchanged a glance with Beka. Dylan wondered, not for the first time, if Tyr put on expressions like the actors of the ancient Greek dramas and tragedies exchanged masks to fit the circumstances. On the heels of that thought, Dylan wondered if allowing a Nietchezan to become part of his crew again would come back to burn him after what had befallen himself and his former second in command, Gaheris Rade's betrayal. ('Keep your friends close, keep your friends closer,'" Dylan thought to himself.
"As you may or may not be aware, we've been more successful in acquiring new signatories to the New commonwealth charter than anyone including myself ever anticipated."
Tyr, please, no comments from the peanut gallery," Beka interrupted," Nobody wants to hear the comments of the resident pessimist."
"Thank you, Beka. "As I was saying, we've been assigned escort duty for a commonwealth convoy enroute to Tarn Vedra with its point of origin."
The ship's android avatar arrived and with a gesture brought up a holographic representation of the spatial territory that they would need to cover to complete the journey from Point A to point B.
"Do you have any idea how difficult it will be to navigate through slip-stream. There are any number of ways that something could go wrong," Harper said, referring to the stellar map and the brilliant pinpoints of colored light that indicated routes, planets and individual territory that was either belonged to the Nizetecheans, non-aligned worlds, or where simply unknowns. "I just fix and build things, but I know enough about quantum physics, navigation and piloting through the slipstream that it will take a damn good pilot to get through all of that!"
"I assume you have someone in mind?" Tyr said. "Let us leave aside the valid point of the resident little professor, and the foolishness of trying to find something that no one has been able to find for the last three hundred years, there is a fine line between determination and stubbornness. Let it go, Dylan."
"No, I will not 'let it go," Dylan replied. "And to answer your earlier question, Captain Valentine has been chosen to lead the convoy."
"Me!" Beka exclaimed.
"You're the best pilot we have, and she will be spear-heading the convoy."
"Well, I am good, but the best... I don't know about that."
"I'll be contacting the commanders of the other vessels that will need to be informed to organize the convoy and then finalize with them the rendezvous point. Mr. Harper we'll need you to construct a sub-space communications buoy and then an appropriate means of launching into in space. Everyone, get to work. Rommie, you're with me."
Meanwhile Methos sat on the edge of the metal exam table in the infirmary holding the separate halves of a medical gown over his chest. His feet were bare and a cotton tourniquet had been slapped over the vein in his left arm where Trance had extracted a little of his blood. Methos detested doctors of schools, stripes on principle. He always had and suspected he always would. That was one thing that had not changed no matter how bizarre the circumstances in which he found himself in.
Methos darted suspicious glances around the gleaming metal room, glaring at the aperture where the voice of the ship's computer blared out in a mellow famine voice confirmed in a droll monotone the results and inquires that Trance made of it.
"The initial results of the blood work indicates that your genetic material is remarkably similar to that of the original Nietzchean settlers."
"Perhaps we should inform Tyr." Trance whispered, her tail coiling around her body.
"And what then, tell him he has a long-lost distant relative from the 21st century," Methos groaned. I have poked, prodded and probed by you, woman. I have reached the limit of the indignity I will endure."
"It is standard ship protocol that all members of the crew, including senior officers submit to a regular physical checkup. That includes you, Methos." Trance replied, outwardly calm and unmoved by Methos' verbal outpouring.
"Whatever happened to doctor/patient confidentiality," Methos asked when he calmed down enough.
"That is still observed, but you must understand that part of my duties as acting chief medical officer is to inform the captain of all potential security risks or physical anomalies on the part of any member of the crew."
"I really can't talk you out of this can I?"
"Methos, official duty aside, I fail to understand why you seem so over-protective of this regenerative ability of yours, I understand your need to keep a secret and I respect that, but it seems somewhat compulsive from where I stand."
"Why do you begrudge my secrets when you so plainly have secrets of your own."
"Touche," Trance nodded, "Fair enough, but you are evading the question. Rest assured I will get the secret out of you one way or the other."
"That sounds like a threat."
"Does it," Trance tilted her head to one side thinking the matter through. Her violet hued eyes glimmering the lighting from the overhead lamps. "I apologize if it came across as a threat, I merely feel that this is something that Dylan should know about."
"What he doesn't know won't hurt him."
"It would best if it came from you," Trance replied. "As it stands right now, you're free to go."
"Hurry up and wait, time is all we've got," Methos muttered on his way out of the infirmary. "Got any beer?"
"No," Trance replied. "Regenerative abilities or not, I am concerned about the amount alcohol you've been drinking, it could live to health problems such as liver poisoning."
"Let me worry about that," Methos replied and disappeared down the outside corridors while Trance stood in the doorway watching him leave until he turned a corner and disappeared from a view.
Rev Bem strode the empty ship corridors, his head drooping until it almost rested on his chest. His monk's robes draping him from head to foot and the dim lighting turning the dark red to a sepia brown. It was not his own troubles and concerns that caused to leave his quarters in the ship's night time hours, but worry over a crew mate's problems. 'Admit it to yourself, Rev, you are worried about Captain Valentine. You have known her longer than anyone, even Harper, and her behavior is more than mere stress could warrant. You have no proof, you have never had to question her orders, or how she conducts her life. But signs do not bode well. Then what should a good friend do? Tell Dylan, talk to Beka? Say nothing and hope she resolves this situation for herself?'
Rev Bem looked up, distracted out of his gloomy thoughts when he realized that he stood in front of the door that belonged to the object of his thoughts. While he had been preoccupied his feet had guided him to her quarters. Now a choice met, go in and talk to her or go away. "Beka? Rev said, knocking a on her door.
"Go. Away!" Beka shouted.
"That I will certainly not do. Do you require assistance?"
"No. Yes. Rev?" Oh, Hell. Since you're there you might as well come in."
"It is dark in here, should I order the ship to increase the illumination?
"No, I like the dark. It soothing and comforting. It means that I don't have to get headaches from the brightness of the light.
"Beka, talk to me. I am worried about you." Rev stepped across the room the carpet beneath his sandaled feet absorbing the sounds he made. He could sense rather than see where Beka was huddled, sprawled on the floor, his arms bare to the shoulder and her torso covered in loose black and silver mesh shirt. He knelt down beside her and was felt sadness more than anger when his unspoken fears were confirmed when the eye droplet containing the drug known as Flash. He picked up the eye dropper and the metal syringe that had been thrown into a corner by her rumpled unmade bed. "Tell me the truth,' Rev Bem demanded, his outward calm disappearing in his anger and fear for his friend, "Have you been taking Flash!"
"Yes. What of it! I'm a big girl, Rev. I can take care of myself. It's not like I'm addicted to the stuff. I need the rush, I need the extra adrenaline especially if Dylan expects to guide the convoy through slipstream. I'm the best. I'm the only one who can do it."
"Beka, do you have any idea how dangerous this is to your mind and body?"
"Of course it do. "Beka suddenly sobbed her whole body shaking with a sudden spate of the chills. "You know, Rev. It's funny. I'm always all the one who is expected to have it all together. I'm the strong one. The one everyone looks to have a plan and to know just what to do, and now I fell like I'm falling apart into a thousand pieces."
"What can I do to help?"
"Be my friend, Rev," Beka whispered.
Rev Bem hurled the hated metal tools as far as he could and held her trembling hands in his own. "To death and beyond, Beka."
"Thanks, I mean that. Leave me, now. I'll be okay. "Beka managed a shaky smile and got up to run a comb through her tangled blonde curls.
Rev Bem did not say anything just left her to compose herself and went back out into the hallway with much to think about.
Tyr's expression and stance was of a highly suspicious old soldier forced to put up with a boring and unnecessary inspection by the brass. Inspection; 'That's hardly surprising that he would be alert for any and all eventualities and some that I can't even imagine,' Beka thought to herself. Blinking in the harsh light of the command deck, a marked contrast from the dimness of her quarters, Beka took the seat in the pilot's chair once Tyr vacated it. Mentally running through her pre-flight check list helped her focus on what needed to done and stave off attack of the jitters and the uncommonly loud pinging noises in the back of her head. 'I've had and endured hangovers that did not feel anywhere as bad as this, hell, when it's said the high is great but the crash and burn is worse, they weren't kidding. Concentrate, kiddo. Dylan, plus a few thousand ships captains and their crews are counting on you." These thoughts circled around in her head and chased the other darker thoughts of the drug Flash coursing their her blood stream. The fine blonde hairs at the nape of her neck tingling with tension. Beka finished her pre-flight task, double checked the coordinates on her display screen and sent all ships message via sub space that she was ready to go, confirmation was short to follow.
Beka felt both the ship and her entire body leap forward when the ship entered the first window in the slip stream, rocking the ship in a giant cradle of energy. That energy allowed faster than light travel to points almost everywhere in the galaxy no matter how far distant they were from each other. Glancing at the galactic map displayed on navigational computer monitor, Beka kept counting down all the coordinates necessary to reach, hoping that the buoy and the device that Harper had rigged to make sure the other ships of the line were following the trail of breadcrumbs were still following, and all still in one piece.
Distantly, as if he were shouting from across a cavernous room, or from very far away, she could hear Dylan suggesting, then ordering, then pleading with her to take a break, to hit each dot along the slipstream without resting herself and the ship. Beka wanted to punch something, but her hands gripping the helm controls were frozen in place. Beka didn't feel like something about from the ship at this point, just something that existed for the sole purpose of giving the High Guard ship direction, commands, and making sure they all reached their destination.
"You did good, kiddo." Dylan smiled and assisted to get to a sitting position on the exam table.
Beka shook her, the buzzing sensation in the back of her head subsiding at last. "Did we make it?" And cursed herself for slurring the words. Her mouth tasted like something had crawled in and died. She spit out a gobbet of saliva and accepted the glass of water that Trance, who stood nearby, handed to over. "Drink it. It will make you feel better."
"I hope so, I can't imagine feeling any worse than I do now."
"Under normal circumstances with your condition, but frankly I'm torn being angry with you and impressed. Right now the anger is taking precedence."
"Okay, okay, I get it."
"You did like to your friends about taking Flash," Trance added.
"And you while under said drug's influence you pulled a gun on your fellow officers and your commanding officer." Dylan said.
"I thought I could control, I never stopped to think it would control me."
"It's a reason, but I'll take what I can get."
"Beka, you had us all scared. Promise me, you will never do anything like that again," Trance asked holding a medical scanner over her patient and inputting the data into Beka's chart. "Promise." Beka replied, turning her head to where Dylan stood at the side of her exam table. "Wait, did you say you were impressed?"
"I did. I didn't think anyone could successfully navigate through as many slip stream jumps as you just did." Dylan shook his head in mingled admiration and awe. "You emerge from that experience nothing worse for wear than a severe head ache and passing out from sheer exhaustion."
"I passed out?"
"Yes," Dylan grinned. "Tyr actually had to cut you out of your belt harness, extract you from the chair and carry you to the infirmary. I certainly did not to get in his way when that happened."
"I think," Beka said, slowly and distinctly, that when Trance releases from this place I shall need to have a chat with our Nietchzean friend. I don't like being treated like a cargo being loaded onto a freight transporter."
"Now I know you're feeling better." Trance laughed. "Give her time to rest and recover, Dylan. I'm make sure that she stays put until she's ready to return to active duty."
"Keep me informed," Dylan replied, "Do want the doctor tells you, Beka. I'll be on the command deck."