Fic: Arc, Part One (Terinu, PG)
May. 20th, 2009 06:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalI know I should be working on something more commercial. I just like my woobie little Vulpine, okay.
Terinu and related characters and images are copyright Peta Hewitt![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chaypeta and used here without permission.
Lili woke up in darkness, the oxygen mask still over her face, the quiet whine of the mini-doc’s autoinjector fading in her ears as it finished pumping the revival drugs in her veins. She stripped off the glove of her survival suit and grasped Marty’s paw. Underneath his insulated glove she could feel a faint hint of warmth. Alive. They were both alive, at least for the next few minutes, though they were still trapped in this cargo container, stacks of plastic bins holding freeze dried military rations surrounding them. She felt a tickle on her nose as she removed her mask and her breath condensed in the space-cold atmosphere of the container, but didn’t risk flipping on the small hand light in the cargo pocket of her suit. If they were still in space and she was awake, that meant their transit time had been badly miscalculated and she and her brother would face a long, slow death by suffocation. Or rather she would. Marty wouldn’t wake up at all under those circumstances.
Several minutes later there was a thump somewhere outside the cargo container as the latches were pulled back. She rested her paw on the box cutter in her pocket, waiting as the bins were pulled out one by one. She would have been happier holding a pistol of some sort, but they never could risk the power reading from its energy pack lighting up some remote scanner. The final bin hiding them was lifted away, and the face of a fellow vulpine, female and unsmiling, looked down on her.
“Why is he still asleep?” the vixen asked. She looked suspicious and nervy, which wasn’t anything new to Lili, but still sent the fur on the back of her neck rising up.
“Marty…” she began to explain.
“No names,” the vixen cut her off sharply. “Not until we’re somewhere guaranteed outside monitor range.” Her pelt was cream, almost completely white in color, her eyes bright blue. It was quite a contrast to Lili and Marty’s own pelts, both slate grey, with black at the hands, legs and ears. She might have been even described as pretty, if her face wasn’t set in what Lili guessed was a perpetual frown.
“You mean we aren’t now?” Lili said.
The vixen shrugged. “We should be, that doesn’t mean anything though. Wake him up so we can get moving.” She stepped over a crate and made to remove Marty’s mark, and Lili batted it away.
“No, let me do it. I have to be the first thing he sees when he wakes up. Otherwise he might panic.” Not technically true. Marty didn’t panic over anything anymore, even in situations when any right minded vulpine would be left weak-kneed and gibbering. It was more for her own sake that she made the demand. I need to see that you’re alive, that my little brother is somewhere inside your mind still.
She pushed up Marty’s sleeve and set his mini-doc to administer the anesthetic’s antagonist. The little machine hissed and then her brother’s eyes fluttered open. She pulled away his mask and let him take a sip of water from a flask hung on her belt. “We’re here, Marty,” she said. “We’re safe.”
“Yes,” he agreed, swallowing down the water. He looked up at the nervous vixen with mild curiosity but no particular alarm.
“Let’s go, we’ve wasted too much time,” the white vixen said. She tossed over a carryall to Lili. “Put these on. You can stuff your survival suits and gear in the bag once you’re done.”
Lili and Marty slipped into the shapeless brown coveralls, then gave the bag back to the vixen. The white furred female checked her chrono, then motioned them to follow her out of the crate and into a cavernous cargo bay. They dodged a robotic cargo arm that was grabbing ration boxes and putting them onto an electric cart, to be moved to other ships that would spread the rations across to the Varn Dominion’s vast military.
“Follow me. We’ll move to a safe area once we’re out of the cargo bay. If anyone asks you anything, you let me do the talking. If you have to say anything, you were transferred from A Section just today, and you don’t know why. We’re in D Section right now, not that it matters. They’re all the same except for the letters on the walls.”
Lili grabbed Marty’s hand and rushed to catch up with the vixen, how was marching across the cargo bay at a smart pace. “Who are we supposed to be?”
“You’re Grey Cargo D 49, he’s Grey Maintenance D 87.”
“Those aren’t names, they’re unit designations,” Lili said.
“They’re your names here. I’ll explain it when we get to a safe spot.” She slid an ID card through a reader and pressed her palm against a scanning plate. The door slide open and they followed her down a personnel corridor painted battleship grey. “We’ll go forward to Quadrant 5. That’s the coupling section. It’s a chance for some privacy, other wise you’d be in the segregated barracks.”
Lili followed her another fifty meters, passing no one, her paw tight in Marty’s as they kept pace with the odd vixen. At least until Marty came to an abrupt halt at a corridor junction.
“We should go this way,” he said, gesturing to the port corridor.
“Don’t be stupid, that’s close to the C Section locks. Too many people there,” the white vixen said.
“There are people waiting for us if we move forward,” Marty said calmly. “I don’t think we would care to meet them.”
The vixen frowned, then touched the com link inserted in one ear, “This is White Supervisor D 6, I’ve got the cargo offloaded but there’s a slight routing anomaly. Is the corridor ahead clear?” She waited a moment, the frown on her face deepening. “Right, I’ll just route it around. F.A.B.”
“Well?” Lili asked.
“There’s a security sweep up ahead. Just a random check to make sure no one has smuggled any contraband onboard, and to keep us nice and paranoid. If we’d run into it without the ID’s we need to ready for you, this little visit would have been over before it had started.” White D 6 waved a paw in exasperation at Marty. “How did he know about it though?”
“It’s what he does,” Lili replied, following again as White D 6 headed up the port corridor. “I had a human try to tell me it was Precognition activated by traumatic mental stress. Marty says he talking to the Holy Den Mother. Take your pick, they’re equally confusing to me.”
White D 6 stopped in front a medium sized storage bay, waving them inside and shutting the door behind her. “All right, this bay doesn’t have any security scanners, or at least it didn’t when we checked it two shifts ago. We can sit tight here until the sweep is finished. While we’re here, you can tell me who the two of you are and why I was told I absolutely had to help smuggle you aboard this station.”
“Well, I’m Lilineth Greycoat and this my brother, Marturari.”
“Brother,” White D 6 repeated, as if the word was alien to her. She was staring at them both with a curiously hungry expression. “I never had a brother.”
“Yes, well, we were sent here by the Resistance. Marty is… was… well, he speaks to the Holy Den Mother you see. Or at least that’s what he calls it when he does things like warn about that security sweep. We’ve been going from planet to station to planet, stalking to other vulpine, reminding those who might have let their faith falter that She still watches over us.” Evangelizing was the human term. There was no equivalent in the vulpine language. There was no need for it. Everyone believed in the Holy Den Mother. It was just that some needed a little jolt to remind them that there were larger things in the universe than obeying their “Wise Masters.”
Lili had never considered herself particularly devout prior to Marty’s rescue from the prison/experimentation center where he had been held for over two years. The Holy Den Mother had been more a shared secret with her family and other vulpine, spoken about on the sly or in twisted euphemisms in front of the Varn or their other servitors. Aside from some very quiet and secretive ceremonies held a few times a year, she had barely thought about Her at all.
That had changed when they had rescued Marty. Marty had changed. Her little brother, who had fallen so far from the family’s grace when they had discovered his inability to carry on the family piloting tradition, had been resentful, unhappy and ashamed at his disability. When they had gotten him back… Sometimes she wasn’t even sure if he was her brother anymore. It was as if the Holy Den Mother had taken his soul and replaced it with another’s. A soul that was quiet, unafraid, and utterly indifferent to anyone who demanded they be feared by him.
White D 6’s expression changed to one of confusion. “Who are you talking about?”
“What do you mean?”
“Who’s this Holy Den Mother you’re talking about?”
Now it was Lili’s turn to be confused. “Wait… what… you mean you don’t know even know who she is?”
TBC
Terinu and related characters and images are copyright Peta Hewitt
chaypeta and used here without permission. Lili woke up in darkness, the oxygen mask still over her face, the quiet whine of the mini-doc’s autoinjector fading in her ears as it finished pumping the revival drugs in her veins. She stripped off the glove of her survival suit and grasped Marty’s paw. Underneath his insulated glove she could feel a faint hint of warmth. Alive. They were both alive, at least for the next few minutes, though they were still trapped in this cargo container, stacks of plastic bins holding freeze dried military rations surrounding them. She felt a tickle on her nose as she removed her mask and her breath condensed in the space-cold atmosphere of the container, but didn’t risk flipping on the small hand light in the cargo pocket of her suit. If they were still in space and she was awake, that meant their transit time had been badly miscalculated and she and her brother would face a long, slow death by suffocation. Or rather she would. Marty wouldn’t wake up at all under those circumstances.
Several minutes later there was a thump somewhere outside the cargo container as the latches were pulled back. She rested her paw on the box cutter in her pocket, waiting as the bins were pulled out one by one. She would have been happier holding a pistol of some sort, but they never could risk the power reading from its energy pack lighting up some remote scanner. The final bin hiding them was lifted away, and the face of a fellow vulpine, female and unsmiling, looked down on her.
“Why is he still asleep?” the vixen asked. She looked suspicious and nervy, which wasn’t anything new to Lili, but still sent the fur on the back of her neck rising up.
“Marty…” she began to explain.
“No names,” the vixen cut her off sharply. “Not until we’re somewhere guaranteed outside monitor range.” Her pelt was cream, almost completely white in color, her eyes bright blue. It was quite a contrast to Lili and Marty’s own pelts, both slate grey, with black at the hands, legs and ears. She might have been even described as pretty, if her face wasn’t set in what Lili guessed was a perpetual frown.
“You mean we aren’t now?” Lili said.
The vixen shrugged. “We should be, that doesn’t mean anything though. Wake him up so we can get moving.” She stepped over a crate and made to remove Marty’s mark, and Lili batted it away.
“No, let me do it. I have to be the first thing he sees when he wakes up. Otherwise he might panic.” Not technically true. Marty didn’t panic over anything anymore, even in situations when any right minded vulpine would be left weak-kneed and gibbering. It was more for her own sake that she made the demand. I need to see that you’re alive, that my little brother is somewhere inside your mind still.
She pushed up Marty’s sleeve and set his mini-doc to administer the anesthetic’s antagonist. The little machine hissed and then her brother’s eyes fluttered open. She pulled away his mask and let him take a sip of water from a flask hung on her belt. “We’re here, Marty,” she said. “We’re safe.”
“Yes,” he agreed, swallowing down the water. He looked up at the nervous vixen with mild curiosity but no particular alarm.
“Let’s go, we’ve wasted too much time,” the white vixen said. She tossed over a carryall to Lili. “Put these on. You can stuff your survival suits and gear in the bag once you’re done.”
Lili and Marty slipped into the shapeless brown coveralls, then gave the bag back to the vixen. The white furred female checked her chrono, then motioned them to follow her out of the crate and into a cavernous cargo bay. They dodged a robotic cargo arm that was grabbing ration boxes and putting them onto an electric cart, to be moved to other ships that would spread the rations across to the Varn Dominion’s vast military.
“Follow me. We’ll move to a safe area once we’re out of the cargo bay. If anyone asks you anything, you let me do the talking. If you have to say anything, you were transferred from A Section just today, and you don’t know why. We’re in D Section right now, not that it matters. They’re all the same except for the letters on the walls.”
Lili grabbed Marty’s hand and rushed to catch up with the vixen, how was marching across the cargo bay at a smart pace. “Who are we supposed to be?”
“You’re Grey Cargo D 49, he’s Grey Maintenance D 87.”
“Those aren’t names, they’re unit designations,” Lili said.
“They’re your names here. I’ll explain it when we get to a safe spot.” She slid an ID card through a reader and pressed her palm against a scanning plate. The door slide open and they followed her down a personnel corridor painted battleship grey. “We’ll go forward to Quadrant 5. That’s the coupling section. It’s a chance for some privacy, other wise you’d be in the segregated barracks.”
Lili followed her another fifty meters, passing no one, her paw tight in Marty’s as they kept pace with the odd vixen. At least until Marty came to an abrupt halt at a corridor junction.
“We should go this way,” he said, gesturing to the port corridor.
“Don’t be stupid, that’s close to the C Section locks. Too many people there,” the white vixen said.
“There are people waiting for us if we move forward,” Marty said calmly. “I don’t think we would care to meet them.”
The vixen frowned, then touched the com link inserted in one ear, “This is White Supervisor D 6, I’ve got the cargo offloaded but there’s a slight routing anomaly. Is the corridor ahead clear?” She waited a moment, the frown on her face deepening. “Right, I’ll just route it around. F.A.B.”
“Well?” Lili asked.
“There’s a security sweep up ahead. Just a random check to make sure no one has smuggled any contraband onboard, and to keep us nice and paranoid. If we’d run into it without the ID’s we need to ready for you, this little visit would have been over before it had started.” White D 6 waved a paw in exasperation at Marty. “How did he know about it though?”
“It’s what he does,” Lili replied, following again as White D 6 headed up the port corridor. “I had a human try to tell me it was Precognition activated by traumatic mental stress. Marty says he talking to the Holy Den Mother. Take your pick, they’re equally confusing to me.”
White D 6 stopped in front a medium sized storage bay, waving them inside and shutting the door behind her. “All right, this bay doesn’t have any security scanners, or at least it didn’t when we checked it two shifts ago. We can sit tight here until the sweep is finished. While we’re here, you can tell me who the two of you are and why I was told I absolutely had to help smuggle you aboard this station.”
“Well, I’m Lilineth Greycoat and this my brother, Marturari.”
“Brother,” White D 6 repeated, as if the word was alien to her. She was staring at them both with a curiously hungry expression. “I never had a brother.”
“Yes, well, we were sent here by the Resistance. Marty is… was… well, he speaks to the Holy Den Mother you see. Or at least that’s what he calls it when he does things like warn about that security sweep. We’ve been going from planet to station to planet, stalking to other vulpine, reminding those who might have let their faith falter that She still watches over us.” Evangelizing was the human term. There was no equivalent in the vulpine language. There was no need for it. Everyone believed in the Holy Den Mother. It was just that some needed a little jolt to remind them that there were larger things in the universe than obeying their “Wise Masters.”
Lili had never considered herself particularly devout prior to Marty’s rescue from the prison/experimentation center where he had been held for over two years. The Holy Den Mother had been more a shared secret with her family and other vulpine, spoken about on the sly or in twisted euphemisms in front of the Varn or their other servitors. Aside from some very quiet and secretive ceremonies held a few times a year, she had barely thought about Her at all.
That had changed when they had rescued Marty. Marty had changed. Her little brother, who had fallen so far from the family’s grace when they had discovered his inability to carry on the family piloting tradition, had been resentful, unhappy and ashamed at his disability. When they had gotten him back… Sometimes she wasn’t even sure if he was her brother anymore. It was as if the Holy Den Mother had taken his soul and replaced it with another’s. A soul that was quiet, unafraid, and utterly indifferent to anyone who demanded they be feared by him.
White D 6’s expression changed to one of confusion. “Who are you talking about?”
“What do you mean?”
“Who’s this Holy Den Mother you’re talking about?”
Now it was Lili’s turn to be confused. “Wait… what… you mean you don’t know even know who she is?”
TBC
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no subject
Date: 2009-05-20 10:19 pm (UTC)yep likely to set some on edge.
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Date: 2009-05-20 11:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-21 12:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-21 12:07 am (UTC)