Fic: Arc, Part Eight

[jeriendhal]

Eight hours later the locks on the coupling chamber clicked open and the doors finally opened up. White D6 was waiting for them at the security entrance, a look of intense annoyance on her face.

“I hope you two enjoyed dodging your first work assignment,” she said coldly. “Come with me to the maintenance bay. There’s work to be done.”

“Yes, supervisor,” Lili answered meekly. They followed her down to one of the massive ship maintenance bays, nearly half a kilometer long and over two hundred meters wide, designed to allow repair and refitting of ships up to the size of a pocket cruiser in a coverall environment, without the necessity of bulky spacesuits. It was empty currently, the huge doors leading to station’s exterior shut, lit only by a scattering of emergency lights.

“I need you two to start running system checks on the bay’s manipulator arm system. It should take about six hours if you don’t slack,” White D6 said. Then she added in a much lower tone, “We’re going to be bringing everyone here in about two hours for your brother to speak to them. All the supervisors, all the team leaders, plus anyone else we can plausibly pull off their duties. Maybe about five or six hundred if we’re lucky.”

The hackles on the back of Lili’s neck immediately rose up. “Are you out of mind?” she hissed. “Marty needs to meet with everyone in small, I repeat small groups, no more than two or three people at a time. If you try to drag all those people in here at once, station security is going to notice!”

“If they see you two meeting with others outside their work assignments, that’s going to get noticed for certain. Look, we already have vulpines working the lower level security details. They can jigger the monitors in here so it looks like the only people here are you. Your brother gives his speech, we stick you in a cargo container and you move on to the next world. It’ll be done and over and no one will be the wiser.”

She didn’t have Marty’s gift of precognition, but Lili could feel her stomach clench in worry over the idea, no matter how compelling White D6’s argument. “I don’t like it,” she said. “Someone is going to see that work isn’t getting done.”

“We’ve been setting things up in the time you were in the coupling chamber. It’s going to turn out that the food being served in the mess halls the past couple of shifts was contaminated with a virus that’s going to give a bunch of crewfolk stomach cramps. Terrible slip up on Nutrition Section’s part. All those productive workers will be confined to their bunks for at least three shifts.”

Lili tapped her toe claws on the floor in a nervous rhythm. This was White D6’s station, and the Resistance wouldn’t have sent them here if they didn’t think she was trustworthy. And wasn’t this what it was all about, teaching these lost vulpine to trust each other and allow themselves to feel all the emotions the Varn had been suppressing in them? Marty can’t be right about me killing her. Not this time. “All right,” she agreed reluctantly. “We’ll do it your way.”

“Good,” White D6 said, nodded. In a sterner and louder tone she added, “There, now even you two slackers should be able to fix the system. Now get to work! I’ll be back later to check on you.” She stalked off, tail pointing out stiffly in annoyance.

“It’ll be over in a few hours,” she said to Marty, more to reassure herself than him.

“No,” he answered, leaning over the robot arm’s control console. “It’s just starting.”

* * *

They came one by one, occasionally a couple, and only once in a party of three. Males and females equally divided. Equally confused, judging from their expressions. It took more than two hours for what turned out to be nearly a thousand vulpine to all gather on the floor of the maintenance bay, as Lili’s apprehension grew by leaps and bounds. This had to be noticed by whatever Varn was supervising the station, or at least by their chosen security personnel. But Marty gave no indication he or the Holy Den Mother thought it was a trap, so she fought the urge to flee and find refuge before it was too late.

As the station chronometer chimed the end of Third Shift, Marty stepped up onto an overturned storage crate to face the crowd. They all quieted down, looking at him expectantly.

“How many of you here are mothers?” he asked. As the raft of faces looked up at him blankly, he clarified, “How many of you have carried embryos in your body?” Perhaps three hundred vixens raised their paws in answer to the question.

“Then you were mothers, however briefly,” Marty continued. “Now, of those who were mothers, how many of you felt… empty inside, once they were removed? I don’t mean merely as a physical reaction. I mean up here, and here.” He touched his forehead, then his heart. Of the three hundred mothers, a few wavered, but nearly all of them kept their hands in the air, though they still looked confused at the question.

“Then you know, in defiance of what has been taught to you in this place, that what was done to you, what was stolen from you, was wrong.”

Though he didn’t raise his voice very loudly, the pitch he used was enough to carry to the back of the crowd. It was a compelling trick, one that Lili had never failed to be impressed by. It was certainly getting the attention of the vulpine in the room, along with the strange, unfamiliar questions he was asked. Yes, he wants you to start thinking, wondering, questioning.

“You know that the life that was taken from your body should have remained, should have remained and been allowed to grow within yourself, not within a uterine replicator. Outside this station such devices are only used when the life of a mother or their unborn child is in danger.” He paused. “Your child. The life within you was not for the Varn to take, not for the Dominion shape. Were we somewhere else, in a better, kinder place, your children would have grown within you, until it was time for them to leave your womb, to suckle on your breast for nourishment, to grow tall and strong and intelligent under your guidance. And when the time came, to bring forth children of their own, to nurture in turn. Nurtured by you, and by your mate, the male who sired the child.

Marty had their rapt attention now. Occasionally a female and a male would glance at each other, glance at her flat belly, then reach out to grasp paws silently, hearing the Truth in his words.

TBC

Comments

[aynne-witch.livejournal.com]

damn cliff hangers!

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

More like "That's where I stopped today." Actual cliffhangers with Genuine Peril (tm) shall be supplied shortly.