Original Fic -- Stolen Planet - Rebellion -- Chapter 5
Same rating as last time - PG 13+ for language and whumpage.
Chapter 5
The malfunction on their ship positioned to the east of Bristol was worse than Lanea had expected. Not only would this problem seriously hinder Himmell’s progress, it would also give her a valid reason to stay away from his lecherous clutches for a few days longer.
On examination of the equipment, she could see so many blown circuits it would be easier to build a new replicator than repair everything wrong with this one, which was even better news.
It was most likely a result of the rain. The vessel had come under attack from rebels a few days ago. The hull had been breached, windows cracked and the weather had done the rest. Water in the circuits; that was her assessment, and it was one Himmell would believe. Building a new replicator could take as long as a week, but this time it would work the way she wanted it to. Knowing the councillor would be expecting a damage report, she contacted him at Greenwich Garrison.
Clad in his dressing gown, his face loomed huge on her viewing screen as she hailed him.
“Greetings, Councillor Himmell,” she fawned, bowing low.
Despite his best efforts to control it, his face split into a gloating grin as he watched her subservient display of loyalty. “Greetings, Lanea. What news?”
“I’m afraid things are far worse than I’d expected, Councillor,” she said grimly. “The replicator has suffered severe damage. I’ll have to replace it. I can salvage a few parts, but I’ll need you to download the plans and arrange transportation of the additional components so I can rebuild it on site. That will be the quickest way to recommence replication.”
“Then, you’re going to be away from Greenwich Garrison longer than I’d planned,” he sighed, looking genuinely disappointed. “How long do you anticipate it will take?”
“Five to seven days. It depends if all goes well.”
“I’ll give you three,” he replied. “I’m sure am intelligent woman like you can manage it in that time. It’s a simple construction after all.”
Hardly, she thought, but she kept the annoyance from her expression. “I’ll do my best, Councillor,” she replied.
“No time to waste, then. I’ll get the blue prints downloaded and arrange transport of the new components to you as soon as you let me know what is required.”
“Thank you, Councillor.”
She was about to end the transmission when he spoke again. “Notche Eina hasn’t returned from his mission; none of his team has. We’re sending another team to search their hunting area, but it could be days before they carry out a complete sweep. I’m afraid he may have been neutralised. I thought you would want to know; he was one of your favourites, after all.”
The screen darkened, his words leaving her chilled and horribly empty inside.
*****
No matter how hard he tried to get his head around the idea, Nevin didn’t like the thought of being hypnotised. He squirmed as Laura stuck another electrode to his temple. There were now four across his forehead, six on his chest and he even had wires sprouting from his fingertips. He felt more machine than man, something else that left a hugely unsettled and inexplicable feeling in his gut.
“Are we done with all this stuff?” he asked.
“It’s to make sure you’re safe while you’re under. We wouldn’t want anything to go wrong,” Emma said.
“Wouldn’t we?” Ryan asked, wandering through to take a pew while munching on a bowl of pasta in tomato sauce he’d re-hydrated.
The smell was mouth-watering. Nevin couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten, and he meant that quite literally. He honestly couldn’t remember.
Emma covered her mouth in shock as she, too, realised they hadn’t fed him yet. “Are you hungry?”
“Starving, more like.”
“Well, how about I cook you up something tasty once this session is over?”
“Oi, this isn’t a bloody hotel,” Ryan protested. “He’ll eat what he’s given, when he’s given it.”
She rolled her eyes, and mouthed, “Sorry”.
Nevin shrugged. It wasn’t her fault.
“We’re monitoring all your vital signs,” she continued. “That way, if you become distressed we can wake you up before any harm is done.”
“Distressed? You didn’t say anything about distressed.”
“Don’t worry,” she said, stroking his cheek. “You won’t remember any of it once we wake you up.”
Ryan visibly tensed at the way she touched him, his mood darkening. “If you don’t want to do this, we can find some other way to help you remember. I hear pain can promote amazing clarity of thought,” he suggested.
The hairs on the back of Nevin’s neck bristled as if moved by a breeze, the exact same thing that kept happening around Laura. He realised now it was déjà vu. He’d heard those words before.
“Nevin?”
“Okay, let’s get it over with.”
“All right,” Emma said, her voice soft and soothing. “Let’s begin by tensing the muscles in your legs and feet -”
He rolled his eyes. “Oh, please don’t make me do that crap. Isn’t there an easier way?”
“He’s right. Why don’t we give him a mild sedative, speed things up a bit,” Ryan suggested, reaching for his apparently ever-ready medical kit.
“I don’t think that’s really necessary, Ryan -”
“No, come on, I’m with him. We don’t want to listen to all that shit. We just want to get him relaxed and under.”
He loaded up the syringe in readiness and approached the patient.
“That thing comes anywhere near me and I swear I’ll break your face,” Nevin said with far more force than even he had expected.
His outburst stopped Ryan dead in his tracks. The doctor was by no means a diminutive man, but Nevin was far bigger and stronger than he would ever be. “That’s nice isn’t it?” he said, trying to laugh it off. “Try to help him out and that’s the thanks I get.”
“I’m serious, Lucas. You put that needle in me and you’ll regret it.”
Ryan backed off and handed the loaded syringe to Laura, asking her to administer it for him. She was less than impressed with the order, but obviously felt she couldn’t refuse. Nevin instinctively drew away from her as she neared him. She ignored the reflex and plunged the needle deep into his vein.
In a matter of seconds, the room began to tilt. His brain expanded as if he were floating out of himself. All he could hear was the sound of Emma’s voice counting him down, telling him to relax and think pleasant thoughts...
Pain!
He couldn’t force his eyes to stay open long enough to see anything, but he knew he was in an infirmary of some kind because he could hear the machines and smell the chemicals. There were people around him. From the glimpses he caught they were working, monitoring equipment.
A voice, a male voice, gave an order. “Proceed with the implant.”
He’d heard that voice before. Was it from a dream?
Someone approached him - female, young, dark haired - it was Laura, wasn’t it? She would help him. Gently, she pushed his head forward, her fingers tracing his vertebrae as if searching for something. The sensation of cool metal on his skin made him cry out again -
“No!”
“Rest, Matt. Calm…calm. Now let’s go back. Let’s go back to your time on Horizon,” Emma suggested. “Perhaps we ought to break him in more gently,” she added, scowling at Ryan.
“Fine, you take over then.”
“I will! Matt, open your eyes and tell me what you see.”
“Shit! Light! It hurts!”
“Okay, try to detach yourself. Describe what you see?”
“I can’t see anything. It’s too bright.”
“Go back to before the light. Where are you now?”
“On the shuttle.”
“Who’s with you?”
“Stevens, Garcia and Claus...I mean Schmidt.”
The monitors registered significant increases in both his heartbeat and skin moisture since the session had begun. Even now, these simple memories of the shuttle flight were causing immense agitation.
“Try to stay calm, Matt. Nothing can hurt you. Now, tell me what happened next.”
The hairs on the back of his neck bristled as he heard and felt the awful scraping sound of their craft colliding with a solid surface, a surface that was otherwise invisible. He knew they had no other craft in the vicinity, certainly nothing with the capacity to cloak, so either the sensation was being caused in some other way, perhaps by forces pulling at the craft, or whatever cloaked vessel was there was not one of theirs.
“What in god’s name is causing that?” Now alarm bells were ringing. He was their team geek, the one with all the engineering know-how. If Schmidt thought it was weird too then there had to be a problem
The sound brought Stevens and Garcia back into the cockpit. “What’s up? What did we hit?” Stevens asked.
“Not sure. We seem to be experiencing a slight anomaly,” Nevin said, keeping his voice calm so as not to alarm his crew.
“What the - there’s nothing out there,” Stevens breathe, checking the scanner information over Schmidt’s shoulder. “There’s nothing else showing at out location at all.”
Garcia crossed herself, as if she thought some evil power was at work there.
Stevens leaped into the co-pilot seat and together they began furiously overriding the shuttle’s programming to take back manual control. For one comforting moment they were pulling away, putting distance between their craft and the ‘nothing’ in their wake.
Then, they ground to a halt. The engines were working overtime, but they were going nowhere. In fact, they were now slipping backwards again.
“Have you got this thing in reverse?” Schmidt yelled.
Nevin shot him a look that suggested he should shut up or risk the consequences. He powered the engines higher than any flight manual he knew would recommend. They revved and screamed under the strain, but they could only hold them static. A moment later, they were slipping back once more.
From his removed position, Nevin remembered what happened next before he heard it. The noise was unobtrusive at first, but gradually built up to an almighty crescendo the strength of which brought them to brink of collapse. They covered their ears, but it made little difference as the sound penetrated everything, shaking the very fabric of the ship.
Then light flooded the cockpit, stinging their eyes until they were forced to close them against it.
One by one, they passed out under the sensory onslaught.
In the real world outside of Nevin’s recollections, they listened silently to his tale. It had never occurred to them that the crew of the shuttle had been abducted before the craft disintegrated. The official report had stated a fault in the propulsion system resulted in the explosion that had torn the craft apart.
“What has he been through?” Emma finally whispered, watching him now resting peacefully in the unconscious stage of his memory. But there was more going on in his head than any of them knew.
Nevin peeled open his eyes. Things were hazy, as if he was looking through the mist over the River Thames from Greenwich Garrison on a winter morning. Then, he became aware of that smell again, clinical and clean. But, it wasn’t an infirmary; it was more like a laboratory. Like video replay, the scene was unfolding all over again.
First, the pain registered in his dulled brain, then the activity of the people around him. He tried to move as the girl with the coal-black eyes came toward him again, her expression compassionate as he tried in vain to pull away from the gun in her hand. The barrel pressed to his skin...
“Aaaarrgghhh!”
The scream was so blood curdling it sent shudders through every one of them. His body convulsed against the seat with the sheer force of the memory, straining his bonds to breaking point.
As the others rushed to subdue him, Emma fumbled through the words to bring him back to consciousness. “I’m going to count backward from ten and when I reach zero you’ll wake up with no memory of this. Ten...nine...eight...”
He was unfeasibly strong, all three of them struggled to hold him as he thrashed again. “Count quicker!” Laura yelled.
“Fivefourthreetwoonezero - wake up!”
Nevin’s eyes snapped opened.
An awkward silence descended as they held on to him to be sure he had fully recovered his senses. As he looked accusingly from one to the other of them, they slowly released their grip.
“Regression Session One ended at 10.15 am.” Emma switched off the recorder and watched as Ryan squatted down beside the captain. “Looks like I might owe you an apology mate,” he said looking for something in his eyes that might suggest subterfuge. “I guess we’ll see.”
Nevin wasn’t sure how to take this sudden, if minor, change of heart. His head was still woolly from the sedative and he wondered if his congeniality might actually be a hallucination. “What did I say?”
Previous Chapters:
http://shepsgirl72.livejournal.com/15023.html
http://shepsgirl72.livejournal.com/15870.html
http://shepsgirl72.livejournal.com/16112.html
http://shepsgirl72.livejournal.com/16139.html