Fic: Spin Recovery, Part Twenty-Three
Feb. 15th, 2008 01:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalI don't know why this particular scene came to me so much faster than the previous one. Maybe it was the interaction between Rufus and the [spoilers].
Once he was off the manor’s grounds he drove aimlessly, with no destination in mind, sticking to the highways to maintain speed, feeling the wind rushing across the open frame of his ground car and plastering his fur against his skin. It made him feel alive, alive and free.
Just keep driving, he thought. He could keep driving until he reached the edge of the continent. But it wouldn’t do any good. He’d still be stuck on this bloody planet, still trapped in the system. Would I have been born a commoner between the stars, with no House to hold me.
He wanted the stars back. He wanted to fly, to leave the ground and all the groundling concerns for the Cold and Dark. But he was stuck to the earth, shackled by his injuries and addictions and relative poverty.
He pushed his foot down on the accelerator and heard the engine roar, felt the nimble little car’s tires vibrate, barely maintaining their hold on the road as he dashed between passenger skimmers and freight haulers. In his mind, he could imagine he was in his fighter again, making a low level strafing run on some ground target, sidestick in his hand, the trigger of his chin guns underneath his claw. Does Bethany realize that I have killed? Beyond the Blue Horizon I have the blood of perhaps a dozen lesser pilots and who knows how many pirate galleon crew members on my hands. He tried to imagine their positions reversed, he the proper Vulpine Farmer Lord, she the pilot, dancing between the stars, dealing death when pirates sought her out.
It made him laugh out loud. His mother and Bethany, with their proscribed, proper lives, had no real conception of how the universe worked. They had never been hungry a day in their lives, had never felt real fear, as Death loomed close and sang into their ears, had never lived.
I want to live, even if it means dying fast. Not just exist in a never ending limbo. It was a need, as bad as the one he felt daily in his gut for his drug and just as unattainable.
In the distance he could see the lights of spaceport, glowing in competition with the setting sun. A cargo shuttle was taking off, rising silently until the roar of the engines struck his chest like a hammer in the car’s open cockpit. He wondered if the pilot onboard was Vulpine and whether they appreciated the gift they had been given, the privilege of rising up to orbit, to fly free.
He let the ground car slow, turning onto the exit towards the spaceport’s cargo docks. He didn’t have a pass to enter the busy industrial area, but he drove along the outside of the fence, wondering if he’d find what he was looking for in the line of slightly run down, seedy looking businesses that made up Brushtail port’s unofficial Startown. All manner of aliens were walking along the street, though none were quite what Rufus was looking for…
Turning down a narrow street, he spotted the creo male leaning against the wall of a building, dressed in loose cargo pants and a leather vest, arms crossed, watching the passersby with studied casualness. Rufus pulled up beside him and leaned out to ask, “Do you know somewhere I can pick up some party favors?”
The creo sneered down on him. “What kinda party?”
He felt his hand tighten on the car’s sidestick. “The kind you have by yourself.”
“Maybe. What exactly are ya looking for?”
“Juno, if you’ve got it.”
“Can ya pay?”
Rufus let go of the side and dug into his pocket for a small handful of platinum credit bars. He flashed two at the dealer. “That enough?”
“Four bars.”
“Two and a half.”
“Three. Ya know how hard it is to run stuff past the port authority’s noses?”
“Done.” He licked his lips, feeling his stomach knot up in anticipation. “Let’s see your goods.”
The dealer reached into his pants pocket, pulling out a small case. He popped it open, displaying the disposable auto-injector filled with golden fluid. Rufus fought the urge to snatch it out of his hand, instead fishing out a third bar and passing all three to the creo dealer. In return he was given the case with its precious injector.
His throat felt suddenly dry, his stomach was a knot of pain and he could feel his hand shaking. He stuffed the case into his shirt pocket before he dropped it, then shifted his car into drive and peeled away. He needed to find a place to park. Not here. He’d have to go home. No, that wouldn’t do. Rent a hotel room, just for a few hours. Yes, so he could have peace for once, just a few hours. Just a few hours of heaven, before he had to face the world again.
He was just pulling back out onto the highway when the unmarked police skimmer behind him suddenly began flashing its green and blue lights in his rear situation camera…
Rufus let out a loud curse and briefly considered jamming his foot on the accelerator to try and get away. But no, that would just result in the cruiser firing a directed EMP pulse at him and frying his ground car’s precious electronics. So instead he let his foot up and came to a stop along the shoulder, killing his engine. The police cruiser glided up behind him and parked. A moment later a male uniformed constable came strolling up, resting one hand on the roll bar of Rufus’ vehicle and another on his stun stick.
“Good evening, sir,” the constable greeted cheerfully. “Could you step out of your vehicle, please?”
“Yes, Constable,” Rufus replied flatly, stepping out. Now certain he wasn’t going to try and restart his engine and make a break for it, the male constable motioned for his partner, a vixen, to join them.
“Could you put you hands… hand, sorry, on top of your vehicle, sir?” the male constable asked.
“Yes, sir,” Rufus replied, grasping the roll cage and spreading his feet wide at the constable’s next order, feeling his face flush with embarrassment as he was patted down and the Juno taken from his pocket, along with his wallet.
“Any weapons on you or in the vehicle?” the vixen asked.
“Just a toolkit in the boot,” he replied.
“Any other drugs?”
“No, Constable.”
“What’s your name, sir?”
“Ru Ofanius.”
“Well Ru Ofanius, you are under arrest for solicitation and possession of illegal drugs,” the male constable announced, still using his same cheerful tone. “We’re just going to check over your vehicle now if you don’t mind.” Without waiting for an answer he took firm hold of Rufus’ wrist and snapped a cuff on it. His momentary puzzlement over what to do with the other cuff was solved when he ordered Rufus to sit on the ground, locking it around his right ankle and quite effectively hobbling him.
As they began to look over his ground car’s open frame, Rufus asked conversationally, “So was that creo fellow back at the startown one of yours?”
“Oh, we really couldn’t say, sir,” the vixen said. “Rest assured, everything was recorded though for the prosecutor’s office to go over though.”
“Yes, about that,” the male constable said, finally opening up Rufus’ wallet and getting a good look at his ID card. The amused look dropped off his face, to be replaced by one rapidly growing discombobulation, as he realized just who they had arrested.
“What?” his partner asked. When she got a good look, she let out a quiet, “Oh, fragg.” They both looked down on him, cuffed, sitting on the tarmac, as if they sincerely wished they had never had the misfortune to lay eyes on him.
“If it’s any consolation,” Rufus said, smiling ironically up at them, “my mother is going to be far more upset with me than she will be with you.”
“It’s not your lady mother I’m worried about, milord, it’s my precinct captain,” the male said gloomily. He glanced back at the cruiser, where no doubt there was a little camera recording this entire incident and transmitting straight back to their precinct headquarters’ computer system, neatly filed and waiting to come to the attention of the prosecutor, who was likely personally acquainted with Rufus’ mother. It was far too late for the two unfortunate constables to back in time and pretend they’d never seen the drug exchange, so as to avoid whatever hammer was going to fall on them.
“It would be best if you took me in, constables,” Rufus told them. “Let someone higher than you worry about what’s to be done with me next.” Strange, he really ought to be furious with them for this humiliation, for preventing him from finding the heaven he’d been seeking. But he couldn’t muster the outrage. Of all the indignities he’d suffered in his life, surely getting arrested to by two law officers whose only fault was being diligent in their duties was nothing to get upset about. It just wasn’t worth the effort.
“Do we impound the car?” the vixen asked her partner.
“No, there was nothing in it.” He looked at Rufus with embarrassed diffidence. “Milord, if I un-cuffed you, might I have your word you won’t do anything foolish?”
“My Word as a Brushtail,” he replied. So the constable un-cuffed his ankle, Rufus tapped a command in the autodrive to send the car home and then he allowed himself to be stuffed into the back of the cruiser, wrist cuffed to ankle again.
“Thank you,” he told them, as they pulled back out onto the highway.
They both glanced back him in puzzlement. “For what, milord?” the male constable asked.
He sighed. “For preventing me from doing something tremendously stupid.”
“Oh,” the constable said. A moment later he asked, sounding puzzled, “But why were you even… what were you doing, milord?”
Poor fellow, trying to reconcile the behavior of a common criminal with the title in front of Rufus’ name. Did the male think that he was some undercover spy or secret vigilante, like a hero from an old Dominion War drama, putting himself in the criminal underworld to gather information? “I was there, doing what I was doing, for the same reasons every other person you arrested for the same crime was doing it,” he told the constable. “Don’t try to imagine there was more to it, because there wasn’t.”
He closed his eyes, listening to the hum of the cruiser’s power plant as it skimmed along the road. At least, he reflected, things couldn’t get any worse.
TBC
He's wrong of course...
Once he was off the manor’s grounds he drove aimlessly, with no destination in mind, sticking to the highways to maintain speed, feeling the wind rushing across the open frame of his ground car and plastering his fur against his skin. It made him feel alive, alive and free.
Just keep driving, he thought. He could keep driving until he reached the edge of the continent. But it wouldn’t do any good. He’d still be stuck on this bloody planet, still trapped in the system. Would I have been born a commoner between the stars, with no House to hold me.
He wanted the stars back. He wanted to fly, to leave the ground and all the groundling concerns for the Cold and Dark. But he was stuck to the earth, shackled by his injuries and addictions and relative poverty.
He pushed his foot down on the accelerator and heard the engine roar, felt the nimble little car’s tires vibrate, barely maintaining their hold on the road as he dashed between passenger skimmers and freight haulers. In his mind, he could imagine he was in his fighter again, making a low level strafing run on some ground target, sidestick in his hand, the trigger of his chin guns underneath his claw. Does Bethany realize that I have killed? Beyond the Blue Horizon I have the blood of perhaps a dozen lesser pilots and who knows how many pirate galleon crew members on my hands. He tried to imagine their positions reversed, he the proper Vulpine Farmer Lord, she the pilot, dancing between the stars, dealing death when pirates sought her out.
It made him laugh out loud. His mother and Bethany, with their proscribed, proper lives, had no real conception of how the universe worked. They had never been hungry a day in their lives, had never felt real fear, as Death loomed close and sang into their ears, had never lived.
I want to live, even if it means dying fast. Not just exist in a never ending limbo. It was a need, as bad as the one he felt daily in his gut for his drug and just as unattainable.
In the distance he could see the lights of spaceport, glowing in competition with the setting sun. A cargo shuttle was taking off, rising silently until the roar of the engines struck his chest like a hammer in the car’s open cockpit. He wondered if the pilot onboard was Vulpine and whether they appreciated the gift they had been given, the privilege of rising up to orbit, to fly free.
He let the ground car slow, turning onto the exit towards the spaceport’s cargo docks. He didn’t have a pass to enter the busy industrial area, but he drove along the outside of the fence, wondering if he’d find what he was looking for in the line of slightly run down, seedy looking businesses that made up Brushtail port’s unofficial Startown. All manner of aliens were walking along the street, though none were quite what Rufus was looking for…
Turning down a narrow street, he spotted the creo male leaning against the wall of a building, dressed in loose cargo pants and a leather vest, arms crossed, watching the passersby with studied casualness. Rufus pulled up beside him and leaned out to ask, “Do you know somewhere I can pick up some party favors?”
The creo sneered down on him. “What kinda party?”
He felt his hand tighten on the car’s sidestick. “The kind you have by yourself.”
“Maybe. What exactly are ya looking for?”
“Juno, if you’ve got it.”
“Can ya pay?”
Rufus let go of the side and dug into his pocket for a small handful of platinum credit bars. He flashed two at the dealer. “That enough?”
“Four bars.”
“Two and a half.”
“Three. Ya know how hard it is to run stuff past the port authority’s noses?”
“Done.” He licked his lips, feeling his stomach knot up in anticipation. “Let’s see your goods.”
The dealer reached into his pants pocket, pulling out a small case. He popped it open, displaying the disposable auto-injector filled with golden fluid. Rufus fought the urge to snatch it out of his hand, instead fishing out a third bar and passing all three to the creo dealer. In return he was given the case with its precious injector.
His throat felt suddenly dry, his stomach was a knot of pain and he could feel his hand shaking. He stuffed the case into his shirt pocket before he dropped it, then shifted his car into drive and peeled away. He needed to find a place to park. Not here. He’d have to go home. No, that wouldn’t do. Rent a hotel room, just for a few hours. Yes, so he could have peace for once, just a few hours. Just a few hours of heaven, before he had to face the world again.
He was just pulling back out onto the highway when the unmarked police skimmer behind him suddenly began flashing its green and blue lights in his rear situation camera…
Rufus let out a loud curse and briefly considered jamming his foot on the accelerator to try and get away. But no, that would just result in the cruiser firing a directed EMP pulse at him and frying his ground car’s precious electronics. So instead he let his foot up and came to a stop along the shoulder, killing his engine. The police cruiser glided up behind him and parked. A moment later a male uniformed constable came strolling up, resting one hand on the roll bar of Rufus’ vehicle and another on his stun stick.
“Good evening, sir,” the constable greeted cheerfully. “Could you step out of your vehicle, please?”
“Yes, Constable,” Rufus replied flatly, stepping out. Now certain he wasn’t going to try and restart his engine and make a break for it, the male constable motioned for his partner, a vixen, to join them.
“Could you put you hands… hand, sorry, on top of your vehicle, sir?” the male constable asked.
“Yes, sir,” Rufus replied, grasping the roll cage and spreading his feet wide at the constable’s next order, feeling his face flush with embarrassment as he was patted down and the Juno taken from his pocket, along with his wallet.
“Any weapons on you or in the vehicle?” the vixen asked.
“Just a toolkit in the boot,” he replied.
“Any other drugs?”
“No, Constable.”
“What’s your name, sir?”
“Ru Ofanius.”
“Well Ru Ofanius, you are under arrest for solicitation and possession of illegal drugs,” the male constable announced, still using his same cheerful tone. “We’re just going to check over your vehicle now if you don’t mind.” Without waiting for an answer he took firm hold of Rufus’ wrist and snapped a cuff on it. His momentary puzzlement over what to do with the other cuff was solved when he ordered Rufus to sit on the ground, locking it around his right ankle and quite effectively hobbling him.
As they began to look over his ground car’s open frame, Rufus asked conversationally, “So was that creo fellow back at the startown one of yours?”
“Oh, we really couldn’t say, sir,” the vixen said. “Rest assured, everything was recorded though for the prosecutor’s office to go over though.”
“Yes, about that,” the male constable said, finally opening up Rufus’ wallet and getting a good look at his ID card. The amused look dropped off his face, to be replaced by one rapidly growing discombobulation, as he realized just who they had arrested.
“What?” his partner asked. When she got a good look, she let out a quiet, “Oh, fragg.” They both looked down on him, cuffed, sitting on the tarmac, as if they sincerely wished they had never had the misfortune to lay eyes on him.
“If it’s any consolation,” Rufus said, smiling ironically up at them, “my mother is going to be far more upset with me than she will be with you.”
“It’s not your lady mother I’m worried about, milord, it’s my precinct captain,” the male said gloomily. He glanced back at the cruiser, where no doubt there was a little camera recording this entire incident and transmitting straight back to their precinct headquarters’ computer system, neatly filed and waiting to come to the attention of the prosecutor, who was likely personally acquainted with Rufus’ mother. It was far too late for the two unfortunate constables to back in time and pretend they’d never seen the drug exchange, so as to avoid whatever hammer was going to fall on them.
“It would be best if you took me in, constables,” Rufus told them. “Let someone higher than you worry about what’s to be done with me next.” Strange, he really ought to be furious with them for this humiliation, for preventing him from finding the heaven he’d been seeking. But he couldn’t muster the outrage. Of all the indignities he’d suffered in his life, surely getting arrested to by two law officers whose only fault was being diligent in their duties was nothing to get upset about. It just wasn’t worth the effort.
“Do we impound the car?” the vixen asked her partner.
“No, there was nothing in it.” He looked at Rufus with embarrassed diffidence. “Milord, if I un-cuffed you, might I have your word you won’t do anything foolish?”
“My Word as a Brushtail,” he replied. So the constable un-cuffed his ankle, Rufus tapped a command in the autodrive to send the car home and then he allowed himself to be stuffed into the back of the cruiser, wrist cuffed to ankle again.
“Thank you,” he told them, as they pulled back out onto the highway.
They both glanced back him in puzzlement. “For what, milord?” the male constable asked.
He sighed. “For preventing me from doing something tremendously stupid.”
“Oh,” the constable said. A moment later he asked, sounding puzzled, “But why were you even… what were you doing, milord?”
Poor fellow, trying to reconcile the behavior of a common criminal with the title in front of Rufus’ name. Did the male think that he was some undercover spy or secret vigilante, like a hero from an old Dominion War drama, putting himself in the criminal underworld to gather information? “I was there, doing what I was doing, for the same reasons every other person you arrested for the same crime was doing it,” he told the constable. “Don’t try to imagine there was more to it, because there wasn’t.”
He closed his eyes, listening to the hum of the cruiser’s power plant as it skimmed along the road. At least, he reflected, things couldn’t get any worse.
TBC
He's wrong of course...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-02-16 12:22 am (UTC)First part of this piece made me think of Pink Floyd's 'Learning to Fly.'
A soul in tension thats learning to fly
Condition grounded but determined to try
Cant keep my eyes from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit, I
I'm so glad he got caught before he could use that thing. Even if his mother is going to skin him and use his tail as a duster.
That last line. *shiver*
no subject
Date: 2008-02-16 12:42 am (UTC)Thank you, I was worried about that. Up until this point Rufus has had a pretty easy time with his recovery. I was wondering if this bit would look out of place compared to what had gone on before.
The Pink Floyd song fits. I hope when you come to the states you can make it one of our local Sci-Fi conventions. There's an artist who did a lovely illustrated version of that song with an anthro mouse that I always enjoyed looking at in his portfolio at his table. I'd like you to see it.
Oh, and that last line has DOOM written all over it. Suffice it to say Ru isn't coming home for a while.