(no subject)

[jeriendhal]

The surgeon and Softpaw left to their duties. At Rufus’ request, he and Hazel were permitted a few minutes alone with Mac, a guard outside the door to escort them back to their cell suite when they were done. He looked down at the wounded intelligence officer, wondering what thoughts the poor fellow might have had in that moment before the chip’s ICE had struck him. Had he time to realize what was going to happen, or had it been a merciful surprise before the darkness claimed him?

“We should go back to our cell,” Hazel said, arms crossed, standing at the far end of the room from Mac’s bed. “What’s the point in hovering over the poor fellow? It’s not like he can hear us.”

“Don’t you find a little fascinating, looking at your possible fate?” he asked. “That could have easily been me you know, after my heart attack, or any number of times when I nearly overdosed on my drugs. Trapped in a helpless shell, mind half-destroyed, unable to move or speak.”

“You. Are. Morbid,” Hazel said flatly. “It didn’t happen to you, it happened to him. Worrying about Might Have Beens is just another way to drive yourself crazy. Crazier”

He made a noncommittal noise, grabbing a chair to sit beside Mac and look into his face for a long moment. Quietly, he said, “I am never going to claim to like you, Lt. Flashpaw, but you deserved a better fate than this for simply performing your duties. You may not choose to believe me, but Goddess willing I would change places with you if I could.”

He stared into that naked, empty face for a long moment. Then, much to his shock, he saw Mac’s left eyelid flutter open, only to close a moment later. “Did you see that, Hazel?”

“See what?” Hazel came closer, as Mac’s eyelid opened wider this time. “Hey, is he awake?”

“I don’t know. Mustn’t get our hopes up. It might just be random twitching.”

Blink. Blink.

“Maybe you’re right.”

Blink. Blink.

Rufus stared at Mac’s eye, which was open now, but the eyeball unmoving. He put his face in Mac’s line of sight. He felt his meat hand tremble as he gripped the bed’s side rail. “Was that a “No”? Once for yes, twice for no.”

Blink.

“Get the doctor!”

“Right!” Hazel opened the door and shouted at the guard to round up the doctor and Lady Softpaw. They both entered a minute later at a run. Once Rufus explained the situation the doctor spent several minutes shining his little mini-torch into Mac’s eye and making repeated inquiries. which the little security officer responded to like a desperate game of Twenty Questions. After about a half-hour’s examination he had satisfied himself that Mac was actually making coherent replies and not just blinking at random.

“All right,” the doctor said. “He’s able to respond to questions, and seems to be able to manage normal cognition. That’s very encouraging. At least he’s a bit better off than a houseplant.”

“Don’t forget that he’s laying right in front of you, doctor,” Softpaw reminded him sharply. “Can we get more information from him? Maybe by reactivating his cyber-glider gear and letting him use a computer?”

“Absolutely not. That would almost certainly guarantee further damage, milady.”

“Look, all we need is the code to unlock his memory core, right? Can’t we get that through the eyeblinks?” Hazel asked.

“That may take a while,” Rufus said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. He went back into Mac’s line of sight. “Machiavelli, were you able to download the information we need to contact the Galapagos?” He was rewarded with a blink. “Do you think you can give us the passcode to open your files so we can retrieve it?” There was a long pause, then Mac blinked again slowly. “Is it alphanumeric?” Blink, blink. “Just numeric?” Blink. “Good, that makes things a bit easier.”

Rufus tried to go up the list of numbers to get the first digit, going from one through nine, but Mac indicated a negative on each of them. He was wondering if they had made a mistake about his level of cognitive ability when Hazel reminded him, “Zero is a number too.”

“Ah, of course. Is the first number zero, Mac?” He didn’t know if it was possible to do an eyeroll without a moving eyeball, but he was pretty sure Mac managed it before blinking an affirmative. From there it went more quickly. “All right, zero-seven-zero-four-one-seven-seven-six. Is that correct, Mac?” He got another blink. “All right, that’s it then. Thank you, Machiavelli. We’ll get the data then…” Rufus frowned. Damn, now they had a mission again, which presented a considerable dilemma. No it doesn’t, he thought firmly. He is a badly wounded member of the Service. It’s your duty as a Farmer Lord to make sure he gets prompt medical attention. “We’ll go to Newspring and pass it along to Count Lakewalker. I’m sure he has more capable agents who can make use of it.”

“Rufus, we may not have time for that,” Hazel said. “If the human got anything out of Drisden before he was killed, they might be able to figure out where the Galapagos are. We need to find them first and give them a warning.”

“I know that, but Mac may not survive long enough for us to make the trip to Dominion territory and back. We must get him to a proper medical facility as soon as possible.”

“I think I may have the solution to your dilemma, Lord Rufus,” Softpaw said. “I recently purchased a pair of old two-seat fighters with superluminal capability. I could allow you and Miss Swiftfoot to borrow them for the flight to Dominion territory, while we trasnport Lt. Flashpaw to Newspring.”

“Er, we’d only need one fighter I think,” Rufus said, glancing at Hazel. “But I do thank you for the generous offer. May we see them?”

“Certainly, milord.” Softpaw led them down to her ship’s compact docking bay. “One of them is an Sniper unit, which I’ll admit needs a bit of work. I couldn’t believe our luck when we found the other one though.” They stepped through the airlock into docking bay. “I mean it looked like it had just been refurbished… Milord, are you crying?”

Rufus blinked, his vision blurred with tears, before he wiped his hand across his face to clear it. Sitting in front of him was a slim, needle shaped vessel, painted white except for a black circle on the side, which covered the old chess piece logo. But he’d have known the ship anywhere, every ding and mark on her hull, every loving repair and every stain from neglected maintenance. It was his ship, the White Knight.

TBC

Comments

[badasher.livejournal.com]

How appropriate our knight errant finding his long lost charger. Time once more for him to saddle up but this time with his Lady Love by his side. I like it. Very much so.

Wish reality could match fiction sometimes. heh.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

You and me both man. Thank you.

[mjkj.livejournal.com]

Wow, that is nice... — ...but that is torture pure...

...will he be able to keep it afterwards?

*comforts Rufus*

When will he overcome his space sickness?

At least he has a good pilot at hand ... but that is nothing like flying it himself...

mjkj

[mjkj.livejournal.com]

Yep, he runs into lost love indeed...

[mehhayperson.livejournal.com]

Aaaaaw, Rufus.

I feel like I should say something about Mac as well, like "sucks, dude" or something equally deep, but with the happy of the last part, all my brain feels like is "AAAAWWW, RUFUS".

Aaawww.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

That seems to be the general consensus. "Awww, Rufus got his fighter back. Oh, and um, too bad for that guy who had half his brain fried and permanently paralyzed too." ;p

[mehhayperson.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sucks for him, but you know, at least Rufus is happy! Every cloud has a silver lining! And every...brain damaged cyberglider has an enemy get a ship returned to him....or....something.