A life According to Hoyle - Part 4
Posted on Mon Oct 1st, 2018 @ 11:27pm by Gunnery Sergeant Flarn & Major Cornelius Tremble
Edited on on Mon Oct 1st, 2018 @ 11:48pm
3,003 words; about a 15 minute read
Mission:
Episode 4 - The Sum of Our Parts
Location: Choral Thai Station
Timeline: MD002 0900 hrs
She laughed and cast a look back over her shoulder as she turned onto the walkway, "Why dear, you met her earlier. I guess she didn't take the time to introduce herself. She's a fairly important member of the State Science Authority, so do try and be whatever she desires, yes?"
All Neil could do is watch the doors close at that and he felt his fists ball and he said, "Computer. End simulation."
When nothing happened he swore and sighed, slumping against the far wall and muttered to himself, "Well, it was worth a shot. Maybe I'll wake up and it'll all be a bad dream."
May 29 2394 0900 hrs (relative time)
He could hear someone yelling at him, trying to get his attention while he tried to ignore them. It wasn’t like when he was overly tired as a boy and trying to ignore his mother or laying in his bunk as a boot when the DI’s came in for reveille, trying to eek out one more second of peace.
“Hey, you! Wake up!” two voices seemed to say as he processed that before thinking, ~Great, now I’m getting even more voices in my head.~ Neil thought.
In the haze of his mind, an image solidified before him. That of Crewman Jaydon Hoyle. Glancing downward, Neil saw his own handsome, familiar form and peered up at Hoyle then. “Great, now what? Was it a dream? Your dream I wandered into. The black leather, whips, chains and blood?”
Hoyle snorted at that and crossed his arms, “Hardly, though I guess I have to thank you for keeping me/us alive, but man are you thick! I’ve been trying to get your attention for days now but you’ve been too busy playing with that harlot Tremble,” the crewman groused as he glanced around.
Neil stared at the man for a moment, then remarked. “It gets stranger than that, buddy. Where I come from, I’m Cornelius Tremble.”
Hoyle stared at him, then started sniggering, which rolled into a belly laugh. “You.. She.. You…” it took him half a minuted to get his composure and he put his hand on Neil’s shoulder for support. “Hey, now that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard. You realize that she and I…” Hoyle trailed off, catching the glower in Neil’s eyes and he stepped back, humor still lacing his face and eyes.
“Ok, ok,” Hoyle said, wiping at his eyes. “Funny, but that explains a few things I guess. The Savarrava experienced some anomalies when we approached the station, which is what I was checking on when everything went grey. Took me awhile to realized I had lost control of my body. I thought I was dead for a while. What happened to you?”
Neil took that in for a few beats, then shrugged. “We were responding to a distress call and I guess our ship got caught in something. Rumors were that the Cardies were messing about with temporal studies and I’m guessing something went sideways.”
Hoyle stared at him, blinking and said “Whoa, that’s a pretty scientific explanation. What exactly do you do where you’re from? Engineer or medical specialist?”
Neil regarded the shorter man and his wit for a moment, then replied “Better. Federation Marine.”
“What’s that?” Hoyle asked.
“It’s like being a medical specialist, but better. They try to put beings back together, we take them apart,” Neil said, deadpan.
Hoyle registered that for a moment and sobered, “And that explains the arena.”
Neil just looked at him for a moment, then asked “A better question is how we correct this? You’d like your body back I gather and I certainly don’t want to be stuck here longer than I need to.”
Hoyle shrugged at that, “I’m in no hurry. I’d likely be dead if you weren’t so good at, err..taking beings apart. But, the real answer is I don’t know. I can guess that you’re body is still where you’re supposed to be. That Delia is here may mean that you couldn’t physically be in two places at the same time without bad things happening to a reality and this is the result. How to change it, I don’t know.”
Neil registered that for a moment then focused, “Talking about smuggling. What did you do to get summarily sentenced to death in the arena?”
Hoyle squirmed a bit at that and shrugged, “Making ends meet as a crewman on a space freighter doesn’t exactly pay for a misspent youth and family.”
“Your family,” Neil asked.
“Part of the misspent youth,” Hoyle nodded. “Still, they love me for some reason and I do what I have to, to provide.”
Neil wasn’t sure he bought that, but didn’t say anything. He staggered suddenly and felt a wave pass over him and saw Hoyle start to fade as the crewman yelled, “Try not to die!”
“Hey, you! Wake up!” two voices seemed to say as he processed that before thinking, ~Great, now I’m getting even more voices in my head.~ Neil thought.
In a haze, he slowly came to and realized the leather clad, masked woman was slapping him in the face.
Again, apparently as both sides of his face were stinging. He saw another blow coming as he apparently didn’t react to the first two(?) and muscle memory kicked in. He caught her gauntleted forearm and stepped forward, invading her space fast and shoved her to the ground.
Pain enveloped his being then, all of his nerve endings erupting in fire, the pain driving him back as she brought up a control unit, her thumb rolling over the control, more pain rolling through him until he nearly blacked out.
Nearly. The pain subsided, the residual pain bleeding off slowly as he looked up. Amelia had gained her feet by then and was regarding him. “Now now, my pet. That was hardly called for, but pleasantly stimulating. Try it again and I’ll run your jot all the way to ten and leave it there to fry your nervous system.”
Neil pushed the pain away and climbed to his feet, slowly. “So, more thraggling games? What now, patty cake?”
Flarn saw them take Hoyle, at that moment he was not sure where or why. So he used this Trill's good looks to his advantage. Over the course of the next two hours he learned all he needed to know.
The next step was to plan so back to the pub he went. He sat and and drank for what seemed like days, but was actually just a half hour. Flarn was not a tactician, he followed orders, he executed other's tactics. Ultimately he decided that a full frontal assault of sorts would be in order.
Flarn made his way to what was only known as the play room. Oddly enough he received little to no resistance along the way. There were murmurs that he was expected. After it seemed that the Vulcan had taken a liking to him.
He arrived at a vestibule and was challenged by a guard. "You Trill, no one gains entrance without authorization. Especially not a prisoner." Flarn snorted, well if he was still a Tellarite it would have been a resounding snort, but as a Trill it was more of a sniffle. He answered the guard with a head butt. Flarn was satisfied when the guard's eyes rolled back into his head and he slumped to the ground.
Flarn primped for a moment, he had never seduced anyone before but desperate times called for desperate measures. Once he felt that he was as ready as he ever could be. He stepped right in...
"Why don't you pick on some one who would enjoy it?" The Trill/Flarn said with devilish grin.
Amelia turned as the Trill entered and rolled her thumb over the control stud, sending pain screaming into Neil's nervous system and he crumbled like a paper accordion. He mustered all of his willpower when Flarn entered and gestured toward the woman and said, "Get the control unit she's holding."
It came out as, "Ghnnnkdkg."
Flarn ran up to Amelia, he fully enjoyed the fact that this body moved quicker than his real one. He smacked the remote out of her hand and it went skittering to the floor. "I told you to pick on someone who enjoys it." Flarn spoke as he punched the woman square in the chest which sent her staggering back.
Neil spasmed hard, his nerves on fire; his teeth grinding and his senses whiting out. He was dimly aware of Flarn clashing with Amelia, but his mind was unable to focus and even his ability to scream was nixed.
Amelia recovered from Flarn's punch, cursing in heavily accented Romulan. Amelia backpedaled, plucking an object from her belt but Flarn closed the distance too quick as she fired off a beam weapon. He trapped the weapon hand, twisting it with his thumb digging into the joint at the base of the thumb.
She cried out and cringed as she experienced pain of her own and which caused her to uncontrollably lean ahead, trying to get away from the discomfort. As she processed the distraction, Flarn took advantage by stepping across her leading right leg and hip-tossed her to the deck.
She yelped as Flarn stripped the weapon from her now nerveless fingers. He finished the move by twisting her arm behind her and kneeling rather too hard on her kidneys causing her to gurgle a scream of her own, her forehead digging into the decking as he thoughtfully put most of his weight on her. After fiddling with the weapon for a moment, Flarn fired an experimental blast at the control unit that lay blinking five feet away. The device vaporized instantly.
The pain tearing like barbwire through Neil abruptly cut off and he breathed heavy for a few beats, sitting up to regard the scene as he tried to shake off the residual pain and said, "You did that just like a good security officer. Nice technique."
"Like a good Marine sir. Ohhh Rah" Flarn smiled and pulled Amelia's arm for good measure. She returned the gesture with a grimace.
"You both are DEAD!" Amelia told them through gritted teeth, "I'm going to jot you both, run them to full and have you ejected into space. You have no idea who you're dealing with!"
"She has a point," Neil said as he climbed unsteadily to his feet. "No telling how long we have, but we're going to have to move this along. Any ideas?"
"Ideas," Amelia blustered, "I'm surprised you two can even form words. Now, let me go and I might forget some of this, though of course there must be payment."
Neil eyed Amelia, then shifted his gaze to the Trill, "You could just finish ripping her arm off and beat her to death with it."
"Yes sir" Flarn said as he wrenched the woman's arm and she screamed in pain. "I have an idea... Either this woman helps us get out of here or I am going to kill her and eat her."
Neil was trying to take stock when Amelia bit out, "Let. Me. Go. Or your family will die. Slowly. Painfully."
That gave Neil pause. He didn't have a family to worry about here.
But Hoyle did.
He gestured for Flarn to stand her up and walked over, looking inter her eyes for a long moment. They were nut brown and slightly almond shaped. Heavy makeup had been applied around them to make them look more intense, but he was more interested in what lay beneath.
There was excitement there. Even around the pressure point hold Flarn was using, he could see that. Neil glanced around the room again, knowing there were likely pickups and sensors they couldn't see.
So, where were the guards?
He felt nothing as much as they were taking part in a game. So, they had a prisoner who had threatened them with death unless freed. Perhaps he'd been expected to comply through the 'Jot' pain effector and they hadn't expected Flarn. But, in that case Flarn shouldn't have been able to make it through to the funhouse here.
Neil felt uncharacteristically unsure, but then this wasn't exactly a combat situation. After several beats, he walked over to a monitor. "Computer, show me where we are."
Over the next few seconds, Neil noted that they were approximately two minutes away to a docked ship. Given the proximity, it seemed to pat. On the other hand, they were locked into a game that they didn't know the rules and the part they were to play.
This seemed like more than just a fantasy they were playing out for her behalf, though there was some of that in it too. But, they were too far in not to try and play it out.
"Alright, looks like a ship we can get too. Maybe that will give us some more options," he said, turning. "Bring her and keep her quiet if you can."
* * *
Five minutes later they were in front of a hatchway, locked. Amelia hadn't struggled much and only tried to cry out twice. All of which Flarn shut down without a hitch. Regarding the lock, Neil tried accessing it without any luck and knew he couldn't fiddle with it too much or by rights it should set off a security flag.
He was no hacker and he knew the longer he sat there staring at the lock like a monkey doing a math problem, the longer they were at risk. Suddenly, he felt his head spinning and white light filled his consciousness.
Moments later he felt the light receding and he was leaning against the bulkhead near the keypad entry. The lock was cycling over and Flarn had a curious look on his face.
"Don't ask," Neil responded to the wordless question. "I don't know myself." He shook his head, trying to clear out the cobwebs, even as he trailed along behind Flarn and Amelia. Flarn started securing her into a jump seat as Neil slid into a pilots seat and tried familiarizing himself with the controls.
It all looked familiar, but he it would be slow going. Glancing over his shoulder as Flarn approached, he asked "I don't suppose your secondary training included piracy?"
"No sir, but I am familiar with commandeering a vessel." Flarn finished securing Amelia and then took the seat next to Cornelius. "Well these don't look too hard. Let me see, yes here we are." Flarn pushed a series of commands on the console and a small phaser blast burst forth from the craft. The phaser hit the docking clamp and the small craft was free. When he pushed the last command the vessel lurched forward at impulse speed and then he eased it into warp. "Well we are making our get away. But the question is how the hell do we get home?"
"Now that's the question, isn't it? Neil thought aloud as he turned to look at their hostage. Amelia now had her eyes closed and seemed to be breathing normally. As a whole, that really didn't fit.
The whole thing didn't fit.
Abruptly, he stood and looked at Flarn. "It shouldn't have been that easy. We know I've got some sort of compliance device and that has to have a tracker. I'm actually pretty sure it would be set so I couldn't leave the station without it activating. We're basically property."
Gesturing toward Amelia, Neil continued. "She mentioned before how interesting I was. How I wasn't what had been expected. Thus far, we've explored a bit and taken things in. Moving too slow for an eager, curious mind. So, the next logical step might be to apply stimuli."
Gesturing at the cockpit, he narrowed his gaze on Amelia who was obviously sleeping or listening. "By her body language alone, she doesn't appear concerned or worried. Now we could experiment on our own: threaten and provide physical stimuli of our own to see her reaction, but she could be a hologram or a puppet herself."
Amelia's eyes cracked open at that and met his gaze evenly. She didn't say anything and Neil nodded. "Yeah, I'm not going to play anymore." Striding back to the lock, he looked back at Flarn. "If this doesn't work right, well. Good serving with you."
Before Flarn could say anything or react, Neil overode the hatch control and started the cycle. An emergency forcefield popped up, and he override the one leading outside, leaving Flarn and Amelia safe in the bubble of the cockpit.
He felt the vacuum sucking him out and then the light flashed harshly and sharp, sharp pain filled his chest. He screamed as he saw Cordelia's form standing before, smiling slightly as she forced a very sharp blade up through his ribs. Inch by inch.
"A shame, really but this couldn't have gone forward very long anyway now that the mouse figured out how the rules and refused the game. But, mother always did say that the way to a man's heart was between the fourth and fifth rib with a very sharp knife."
Gurgling as blood filled his throat and incredible pain filled him, Neil could only stare into his own eyes as the light faded from Hoyles.
A Joint Post By
Second Lieutenant Cornelius Tremble
Marine Commanding Officer, USS Pioneer
Staff Sergeant Flarn
First Sergeant, USS Pioneer
PNPC Malbrooke
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