All The Kings Horses

Posted on Sat Dec 8th, 2018 @ 11:19am by Captain Remas McDonald

2,696 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: S1:3: Myriad Problems
Location: Abborax's Ship
Timeline: MD 61 8.31AM

Arivek appeared, as quickly as he had disappeared, directly in front of the Starfleet Computer Core that sat in the Myriad cargo bay. Thankfully, he had considered this situation already, and if he weren't in such a hurry, he would stop and praise his superior intellect for thinking so far ahead. But for now, he'd have to wait. But he promised himself that if he made it through this, and back to the Traveller, he'd give himself the biggest compliment he'd ever heard.

Tapping at the console, Arivek began to set a few different pre-coded algorithms into motion.

"Computer, relay my Starfleet code along this frequency, all bandwidths," he said. It wasn't much, and it might not even reach the Traveller, but it was worth a shot. He had to tell Remas he was here and that he was ready to help.

Another set of commands and soon a group of interesting-looking aliens appeared.

"I'm sorry to steal you all from what you were doing," Arivek said as he turned to the group. "But...I need your help."

"Kek...you!"

Kella looked like death warmed up. She was lying on the floor, still in the jumpsuit she and her brother were dressed in. But the sleeves of hers had been torn off, used as impromptu bandages around her hands. They were soaked through, but her pain bright eyes glare as bright as Myriads at Ari. Her words were slurred, and sweat soaked her bow. Detus dutifully used some of his own torn jumpsuit to pad it away, his flicking up to Ari's request with a similar vein of hatred.

"HUM! How rude!" Barsoon said, stepping forward to bridge the gap between Ari and the others. "I mean your sister is still alive, a feat of grace I would not have bestowed upon her had she acted thusly within my own court! But now he is here, asking for our aid, and we should capitalise on it! Demand lands! Treasures! Concubines!"

He turned towards Ari, his eyes aglow with possibilities.

"How many sexes does your species have?! Are there more than four?" He asked hopefully.

Arivek ignored the man, walking closer and kneeling beside Kella. "I'm so sorry about what happened to you. And it seems that this is just a single incident in a series of facts I was incredibly wrong about."

He gently put a hand on her shoulder. "But my ship is out there trying to save me. And I need your help." He looked between the two of them. "If I can get out of here, so can you. Come with me to my ship and we'll take you anywhere you want to go."

"This is a promise that was made by the Myriad called Abborax," Riser said, it's crystal orb form shrunk down to match Ari's kneeling level. It rolled around and came to rest at Ari's shoulder. "We have found words to be less than useful in our deals of late."

"Riser has a point," Detus said, still padding away from the sweat on his sister's brow. "I mean, right now, I'm having a hard time swallowing down my anger towards you. But, when I was a trainee medic with the guild of healers, there's this oath we take. A pretty serious deal, but its the only thing keeping me from trying to kill you."

He let out a soft, hopeless chuckle and looked up at the ceiling.

"Our parents were overjoyed when we got picked for the Suma. Burning Stalks, the whole town was thrilled: the war hero and her kid brother off to the stars. And here I am, using basic primary aid to keep my sister from going into shock, to keep her from..." he shook his head, swallowing something back down. "We can't escape. We tried, before. The Suma's planetary lander was how we escaped the ambush. Abborax has it in his collection, but every time we try to light up the fusion torch one of his Proxies stops us. So unless you have some way to keeping Abborax from stopping us, you're stuck here with the rest of us."

"Yes, I know," Arivek said, trying not to stare at the woman lying on the ground. "What can I do to earn your trust? I'll do whatever you ask, but it has to be quick. I know how Remas is fighting Abborax and she's given me a bit of time. It has to be now."

"What do you mean a little time?" Detus said, eyes blinking in confusion. "You mean...Abborax is out? Because if you're saying that we could use the lander to make an escape. I mean I'm not the pilot Kella was-...Kella is, but I could use the fusion torch on it to melt a hole in the hull to make an exit. Then your ship could pick us up."

"Not so fast," Arivek said, holding a hand up. He gestured behind him to the large structure held in place. "This is my ship's Computer Core. I can't leave this behind. And I don't know long Abborax will be preoccupied so we don't have a lot of time. We need to work together." Arivek stood and held out his hand to the man.

"We can't take that!" Detus said, looking at the core. "Its as big as a cargo crawler!"

"The horned hominid is factually correct," Riser said, expanding outwards a little as though giving himself room to think. "Combined mass and inertia make the device unsuitable for transport via the means we have at hand. It would be better to escape, and perhaps use your vessels matter transporters to retrieve it later."

"Or I could destroy it!" Bar'soon said gleeful, somehow finding the length of pipe he had been using before and holding it up. "Break it into smaller pieces so we could carry it away in your pockets!"

"That's not a terrible idea," Detus said, frowning. "I...I mean you used such a device to bring us here. Could you use the systems on Abborax's ship to teleport the core and us out of the ship? Into open space?"

Arivek scrambled to his feet, placing himself between the aliens and the Computer Core. "Not so fast," he said, his eyes directly on Bar'soon. "Both my ship and Abborax's ship have transporters that we can use to get the Core and us off of this vessel."

He hated to sound so annoyed but there wasn't time for this. "Look, we're wasting time. If you don't want to help with my plan, go to your ship and try to escape yourself. But I don't have any more time to waste. I don't know how long Abborax will be delayed and I won't leave without the Core." Arivek turned and walked to the console, leaving the others behind.

For a moment Ari was alone, and then the looming shadow of the four armed alien stepped alongside. Ullar's broad face smiled pleasantly at Ari, and he looked bemused at the console.

"My first month here among the sky people is very strange to me. They speak differently, act on a whim I cannot fathom. And yet we are kin, no? We are life, able to find reason and passion to do what is necessary to continue on," he said in a low voice. "In truth, I see myself in young Detus. He is alone now, and he is frightened for his sister more than his life. And you have come with no plan, save the plan to save yourself and maybe as happy coincidence we pitiful few."

Ullar shrugged.

"It is not my place to comment on this. But I am willing to help you because helping makes problems smaller for all of us no?" he cracked both sets of hands. "I do not know what this is, but I am a good follower of instruction."

Ari looked up at the man and a small hint of a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "If this works, it's going to save all of us." He glanced back to where the siblings were crouched on the ground. "And if we get her back to my ship, we can save her."

"This is good thinking blue man, is good." Ullar said with a growing sense of confidence.

Arivek pulled up a set of algorithms, their code displayed on the screen. "One thing that Abborax didn't consider is that when he plugged the Computer into his ship's systems, I'd be able to access some of them. Not a ton, mostly the non-secure systems. But it's enough." His fingers flew over the console as he spoke. "I believe I can open up a tachyon burst through the deflector that should render his holographic projections inoperable. Meaning he won't be able to just appear in this room. He'll have to walk his holographic ass down here."

He took a deep breath. This burst would do a lot to keep Abborax from being able to project himself into other rooms as quickly as before. But there was a risk to his own program by doing this, a permanent risk. But he had no choice. The Traveller was doomed without the Computer, but they'd be able to go on without him.

"I'm initiating the burst." On cue, a flash of light appeared throughout the room and quickly dissipated. Arivek's form glitched and sputtered a few times, but soon his body took form and he was fine. A sigh of relief passed over him.

Ullar merely squinted at Ari. The two siblings and Riser didn;t seem to notice, and Bar'soon...well Bar'soon was Bar'sooning one would suppose.

"Now, the only way he can get here is by coming here himself," he said, turning to Ullar. "I need him to not get into this room. Understand?"

"This I can do," Ullar said, and walked over to Bar'soon. "Little King, hand me your sceptre."

Ullar didn't wait for the hand off, instead plucking it from the deposed royals hands and giving it an experimental swing. He nodded in satisfaction, and strode purposefully to the door to stand gaurd.

"And what can I do?" BAr'soon asked, weaving his fingers together. "I will have you know I am versed in the art of cany'wei, I used to watch my bodyguards practise all the time in the palace courtyard. Their glistening naked bodies, toned muscles. The thrusting! The grabbing! The breaking of bones! It was captivating! And deeply erotic. What?! I have a pulse you know."

Arivek looked up at the man, "Do you know anything about shield harmonics?" he asked. "Because I need to know what frequency this ship is using."

Bar'soon opened his mouth to speak but a chirp of the console interrupted.

Arivek turned back to the console to see the three sweetest words he'd ever read Traveller Actual receiving. A smile spread over his face as his hand started to tap on the side of the station with excitement. "My ship has confirmed they can see my messages," he said. "Riser, please help Bar'soon," he said over his shoulder. "I need that frequency now."

The Engineers fingers went to work, trying to type the most delicate, and straightforward reply he could. I'm sorry. Shield frequency coming soon. He hit send and swallowed hard.

"That would be difficult to do," Riser's melodic voice said, as its violet crystalline form expanded and branched outwards. "For starters, Bar'soon does not hold the intellectual capacity to understand what you are asking of him. Also, this ship does not possess a shield in the traditional sense of the word. It instead uses a subspace buffer to syphon incoming energy into null space that occupied the same space-time structure as this vessel. It is a technology adapted from trade items given by the Senitnet Five Nexus. In hindsight, as I am a member of the Sentient Five Nexus, I can see what you might call irony at our situation."

"Huum...and you say it with words, do you?" Bar'soon said, stroking his chin in a thoughtful and thoughtless way.

"I do," Riser said, and rolled to Ari's side. "Might it be possible to use to the near-field communication protocols of this computer core to act as a sensor beacon? Your ship does possess matter decoherence and reorganisation technology does it? We could use that as a means of escaping."

"You mean the transporters? Yes, we have perfectly fine transporters, but I assumed this ship had shields that we'd have to deal with..." Arivek thought for a moment, "So leaving is just that simple? The Traveller beams us out and we're fine?"

Before Riser could respond, a loud thud was heard at the entry door to the room, causing all of the prisoners to jump.

"Shit, we're out of time," Arivek said. "I'm going to light us up like a Christmas tree."

The thumping from the door grew louder, not in percussive force but in the number of fists reigning down on it. It sounded like a small army was out side, all trying to claw and scratch their way in side.

Come to me Arivek.

The voice whispered into the Engineer’s ear like a breath of wind. Husky and warm, it was the sound of a chiding mother wishing her child to come home before it grew too dark.

I have such things to show you...

Now the voice was colder, darker, the chorus of a thousand voices that had just realised they weren’t in the good disembodied place. This was not Abborax’s doing, as his Proxies hammered against the hatch way with increasing ferocity. This was the voice of their leader, the High Executor.

Countless wonders to delight...and a Myriad terrors to appease my ire.

No one else seemed to be reacting to the voice. Cetus was gently pulling Kelly closer to the core. Bar’soom was over seeing the movement with suggestions and helpful critique. Riser was hard to read, given he had no face or body language to read. Ulnar, the four armed brute in his volcanic glass armour, stood by the door ready to intercept the first Proxy to make it though.

The voice made Arivek stop, his hand hovering slightly above the station screen. His transporter beacon had already been sent, it was only a matter of time before they were all beamed out of here. But there was something appealing about the offer.

This was the type of decision Arivek hated to make. To choose between unknown and immense knowledge brought by the Myriad or doing what was conventionally right and returning to the Traveller to uphold his oath as an officer. But how long would that oath truly last? In a few hundred years, Starfleet and the Federation might be obsolete, and yet Arivek would still be exactly as he was today, perfectly healthy and ready to soak up all the knowledge in the universe.

And here it was, the opportunity of a lifetime. An opportunity that would definitely be rescinded if he left now. He turned and looked at the others in the room, the prisoners that the Myriad was keeping as trophies of its knowledge and power. He felt bad for them, their lives were in his hand. But in a few decades, those lives would be wasted, as would this opportunity. And truly the call to knowledge was that tempting.

He took a deep breath, closing his eyes. He would regret this. Not today, not tomorrow. Probably not even in this lifetime. But in a hundred years, he would look back at this day and life would tell him he had chosen wrong. But the choice was made.

He shook his head, clearing out the voice that still echoed and slammed his hand down on the console. In a bright flash of light, Ari saw the Computer Core begin to dematerialize. Then each of the aliens in sequence.

The room was almost empty when he could feel the small beads within him shimmer. Then the darkness came.

 

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