Shindigs in Space (f) - (3 Parts)

[Blah!?]

Before I begin: No, this is not Serenity/Firefly fanfiction.

This story is set up to work like a series. I planned it out that way for a variety of reasons, the most prominent of which being I don't have nearly enough time to write something this long at one time.

The series is also based on an old role play for a fetish RP site. If you want to check out the original material, go to the I Nem Forum Here. The site is still up, but I'd hardly say that it's running.

Yes, I am planning to parody a variety of other sci-fi material, which I have already done with the title. I'll give you a digital cookie if you can tell me where it's from.

Special Thanks go to Fifi for creating the I Nem Role Play Forum, and to Otaku for allowing me to use his characters and ideas from the role play.

---

Captain Martin Shoanol adjusted his bowtie as he stepped forward into a rather posh-looking restaurant. The lighting was dim, with small candles on the tables. Everyone else inside was dressed in either a tuxedo, a dress, or some other sort of proper yet alien clothing. Mar, as he preferred to be called, ran his hand down his back and flipped one of his own tuxedo’s tails. He tended to feel uncomfortable in an environment such as this. The young captain had never been one for formalities. Mar strutted around the room, trying to look as arrogant as possible. He really didn’t care much about what others thought of him, but sometimes he just liked to put on a show.

Several tables away, Mar spotted his ‘date.’ He rubbed the small scar just below his left eye and proceeded toward her table. At first glance, she looked very human, but there were a few dead giveaways that she was something else. The most prominent of which were the young woman’s long, pointed ears. Upon noticing this, a commoner would make the connection that she was an Eldar woman and leave it at that, but there were a few other differences. Her long blonde hair was very human-looking, but her eyes, those bright blue eyes, were far to light a shade to be had by any earth-dwelling being. Lastly, her long, turned-up nose, with its perfectly flat, triangular underside, protruded out quite far from her face and came to a tiny point as sharp as the end of a needle. Galiwen Cerabaen, a member of Mar’s crew, raised her hand and waved to her captain as she spotted him approaching.

Mar took a seat at Galiwen’s table and stared into her eyes, the most ridiculous grin coming across his face. The Eldar woman returned the gaze, a smaller, almost timid smile countering the captain’s grin. The table was silent for a few moments. Galiwen had known Mar for too long, she knew better than to speak to him when he had his ‘game face’ on. That meant that he was plotting something. After a prolonged moment of silence, Mar began to hum “Happy birthday to you,” in a loud and obnoxious tone. Galiwen blushed and waved her hands at him.

“Stop it! You’re embarrassing me!” she blurted between giggles. Her soft cream cheeks took on a light shade of pink.

“Aw, come on, Gwen, it’s your birthday! I’m going to be treating you like a queen for the rest of the week, so you’re due for a little preemptive torment,” Mar said, his tone of voice remaining obnoxious and almost lustful. He moved his arm, placing his elbow on the table and resting his chin in his hand. Gwen’s tiny, slit-like nostrils flared; she was sniffing the air.

“Our wine’s coming,” she said, letting her hair down from its previously styled form.

“Remind me again of how you always know,” Mar said, rubbing his forehead.

“I’m an Eldar. We’re good like that,” Gwen explained, tapping the tip of her nose.

“So, how old are you now?” Mar asked, taking a glass from the waiter as soon as he arrived.

“One hundred and fifty eight, in human years of course,” Gwen answered, taking a sip from her own glass. For an Eldar, this was fairly young, roughly the equivalent of a twenty-five year old human.

“Damn, I hope I live that long. And look that good,” Mar said, vaguely suggestively. He took a sip of his wine and met Gwen’s eyes again. She was beautiful by any standards, almost to the point of it being criminal. The young Eldar was also strong and independent, but when not feeling threatened, she took on an almost child-like innocence, making her appear more vulnerable and in need of care. Mar’s train of though was interrupted as Gwen’s eyes fluttered quickly as she raised a hand almost to her face.

“Is something wrong?” the captain asked, not wanting any harm to come to his very close friend. Gwen waved her raised and shook her head.

“No, I’m fine,” she lied, placing her hand back on her lap. Something was amiss, nothing life-threatening, but rather something bothersome. Gwen knew exactly what it was; a feather was nearby. With her heightened senses, the young Eldar could practically smell every individual particle entering her nose, and she could tell where each came from. Earlier in the evening, Gwen had seen an overdressed woman with a large, decorated hat enter the restaurant and sat behind her, but she hadn’t put much thought into it. That woman must have had a feather as a part of her ridiculous outfit, and by now, its particles must have spread around the room. Gwen felt the gentle tickle in her long nose quickly expand into a full-blown sneeze, and so she pinched her nostrils with her fingers to hold it in.

“Heh… Heh… Heh-CHMP!” the young Eldar barely managed to stifle her sneeze, and she still felt more on the way. She rubbed her nose gently with a lone finger and sipped her wine, trying to take her mind off of her allergies.

“Bless you,” Mar said blandly, downing the rest of his wine, “are you sure nothing’s wrong?”

Gwen nodded, refilling her wine glass. She herself thought that it was obvious that something was completely wrong, but she didn’t want Mar to worry.

“Heh… Heh-CHMPG!” Gwen sneezed again, even larger than before. Mar shot a somewhat concerned glance at her to make sure that nothing horrible had happened, and then he returned to his drink. The young Eldar’s nose had become very tickly with feather particles, but she refused to let is show as much as she could. She felt an even larger sneeze creeping into her nasal passages, and she tried her best to hold it back.

“Heh… Hehh… Hehhh… Haaaa…” Gwen’s head reared back in anticipation, her flared nostrils still small. However, at the last second, the sneeze backed down, causing the young woman to sigh with relief. Finally, Mar figured that there was some sort of trouble afoot, and he decided to confront Gwen about it.

“Alright, that’s enough. You’re not alright. What’s going on?” he asked, known that Gwen would confess her troubles if he came across as serious. The Eldar in question gently rubbed her nose once more and stared timidly into the captain’s eyes.

“I’m allergic to feathers,” she explained, tying her hair back into a long ponytail, “someone must have one nearby.”

Mar glanced around the room and quickly spotted the culprit. Just as Gwen had suspected, the woman sitting behind her was sporting a hat with an incredibly large feather attached to the brim. The captain took one last sip from his wine glass and turned back to his companion.

“It’s the woman behind you. Now, go tell her off. That’s an order,” Mar said with a grin. His smile faded when Gwen actually turned around.

“No, wait, I was just… Kidding… Shit,” Mar mumbled, realizing that he was too late.

Gwen had already turned in her chair, and was reaching out toward the woman. The young Eldar tapped the woman on the shoulder and waited for her to turn herself. Based on her expression, the woman was either in a bad mood, did not want to be disturbed, or both. In spite of this, Gwen decided that she would continue to confrontation anyway.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” she said politely, “that feather of yours is aggravating my allergies, so do you think you could put it someplace else?”

The woman glared, as though Gwen had just laid out a very thorough and personal insult. She gripped her hat tightly and held it up between herself and the Eldar woman.

“How’s about right here?” the woman asked sarcastically, rubbing Gwen’s face with the long, soft plume, making an effort to brush it under her nose and in her eyes. The young woman quickly felt a sneezing fit building quickly in her nose. She turned back to Mar and dug frantically in her pocket for the soft handkerchief which she kept there. Gwen placed the linen square over her long nose and pressed her nostrils together once more, trying to keep her sneezes in. She stifled three quickly, and just barely managed to hold in a large fourth sneeze.

“Er, we should go,” Mar suggested, standing up and extending his hand to Gwen. She accepted the gesture and stood. The young captain led his sneezy companion to the door of the restaurant, only then turning to look back at the obnoxious woman. He shrugged his shoulders and put on a confused look. The woman mouthed “dump her,” and continued to stare after the pair. Mar smiled stupidly and nodded, then quickly flipped his expression to a scowl and held up his middle finger.

Gwen stood quietly in the center of the restaurant lobby and blew her nose, being careful to rid herself of as many feather particles as possible. Mar walked up swiftly behind her and placed his arm around her shoulder, rubbing her arm gently. Gwen finished with the handkerchief and placed it in her pocket, rubbing her nose again with her free hand.

“That’s called being an asshole, and I assure you, it’s a very human thing,” Mar explained, pulling Gwen in close. She sighed and shook her head.

“It’s fine. I was just about ready to leave anyway,” she confessed, pinching the bridge of her nose.

Before Mar could comfort Gwen any more, his pocket began to beep steadily. He reached down into his tuxedo jacket and removed a small headset. Placing it in his ear, the device’s software identified the caller as Jason Harwood, another of Mar’s employees. He responded to the call and put on a more serious version of his ‘game face.’

“Talk to me,” the captain said tersely. Much like himself, Jason had a tendency to skip the formalities.

“Captain, we’ve got ourselves a job.”

---

This is just an introduction. I assure you, I will cut the fluff and get down to it in the next installment! The plot WILL thicken.

Lastly, so long as I have at least one reader and enough ideas, I will go on. I want to keep this alive for as long as possible.

[2NewGuy]

Ecellent start. Great details. I look forward to see where "you go with it" next.

[chui]

*giggles* ok..so this is totally awesome...i love sci-fi parodys!!!

i hate to admitt, im lamentably lost at the title....and i was so looking forward to a cookie

[Demosthenes]

I want to keep this alive for as long as possible.

Oh, I do to!

[Blah!?]

*More Notes!* (yay... not.)

Enter the villain, albeit very briefly. Don't worry, all will come together soon! I'm probably going to devote the entire third chapter to Otaku's crazy brainchild and his prisoner, and there I'll explain as much about the antagonists as makes sense at the time.

I'm sorry that I didn't reply to any of your comments! I haven't been ignoring you, I just wanted to keep this thread as clear as possible. Go ahead and keep leaving comments, but I might not respond to them until I get the next part posted.

On that note, you can probably expect an update every week or so, time permitting. I'm fairly busy during the week, but I still take the time to put on the finishing touches when I find a moment to do so.

Also, I suppose I could do a little after-section of each chapter where I explain all of the references (commonly known as rip-offs) that I used. I'll get that going if people want me to. If that's not a popular idea, I'm still planning on revealing all the secrets at the very end.

This particular chapter's going to have to go up in two parts, so hang in there for just a bit.

Lastly, I would like to sincerely apologize for this installment here. It's very long, and there's only one sneeze. Allow me to explain: Whenever I sacrifice plot for sneezing, the story as a whole never works out. I know I said this last time, but I assure you that it'll start ramping up in the next chapter! The immense lack of sneezing will be made up for soon, I promise you! On the whole, I don't think I did a terribly good job with this chapter, but I had to put it in for the sake of the story.

---

In the outer reaches of space, a lone Galactic Alliance transport ship floated lazily on low power. The vessel was following a well known path, so local law enforcement saw no need to send an escort to accompany the civilian ship. Under normal circumstances, the ship would in fact have been perfectly safe. However, in recent years, a certain malicious cult had become more and more brave, willing to venture deep into the heart of Alliance space, albeit secretly.

Out in space, and aboard ships for that matter, time could not be effectively measured by daylight hours. Still, around this time, most of the transport ship’s passengers were preparing to retire for the ‘night.’ One of these passengers was special, but neither she nor any of the others aboard the ship had even the slightest idea as to why. In her private quarters, a very young lady named Stephanie Hill slipped out of her casual clothes and climbed into bed. As soon as she had pulled the bed’s thick quilt up to her neck, a powerful sedative began mixing in with her air supply. This discrete gas was meant to cause no harm, only to send its victim into a prolonged period of sleep. Stephanie was quickly rendered unconscious, and a more sinister plan was set in motion.

A young man dressed in an Alliance soldier’s uniform patrolled down one of the many corridors aboard the transport ship. The public areas of the craft were deserted; the passengers were asleep and the rest of the crew was elsewhere doing their various jobs. Double checking to make sure that absolutely no one else was about, the young alliance soldier secured a rebreather over his mouth and stepped silently into a private room labeled “S. Hill.” Unaffected by the sedative in the air, the imposter soldier came to stand next to the bed, staring down at the sleeping woman below him. He removed a tiny device from his pocket, something resembling a mechanical beetle, and squeezed it firmly until a red light on its ‘head’ illuminated. After placing the device gently on Stephanie’s quilt, the soldier hurried out of the room.

A moment passed without activity. The metallic beetle sat motionless atop the bed, rising and falling slightly with Stephanie’s breathing. Without warning, the tiny machine shot up on its legs and began to crawl forward, toward the young woman’s head. It skittered along the quilt, hopping over the seams and correcting its movement to account for the varying terrain. Eventually, it reached Stephanie’s chin, but it quickly scaled the imposing cliff. After crossing over the young woman’s mouth, the mechanical vermin found its self at the base of Stephanie’s nose. From there, it squeezed into her left nostril, where it would lie in wait.

-

“Well, it’s about time you two got here,” Jason Harwood belted in an incredibly bored tone. Gwen’s dress had remained unchanged during the walk back to the space port, but Mar had unbuttoned his jacket and undone his bowtie, letting it hang ‘party style’ around the back of his neck. As the pair walked toward Mar’s ship, the captain scoffed, spotting a can of Green Boar in Jason’s hand.

“You still drink that stuff?” he asked, gagging on laughter. “Anyway, what’s this job of ours?”

“I’d say it’s pretty simple. An Alliance patrol came across a derelict freighter a few days ago, and they want anyone worth his weight in piss to get over there and do some salvage work. The coordinates are all loaded up, so are we going to go, or do you two have something else in mind?” Jason explained flatly, clearly not the least bit interested in his captain’s doings. Mar chuckled to himself as he walked toward his crewmate. Jason was a simple man; he was always either angry or drunk, and he appeared to be the former. Though, one could never be too sure.

Mar stopped just as he was about to board his ship. He took a step back and stared up at the vessel, looking over its sleek form. Every time the young captain did this, he remembered the day he had gotten his hands on such a worthy ship. The Loki Laufeyjarson, named for the Norse god of trickery, was one of the most advanced ships available for legal ownership by a civilian, and then some. Every since his resignation from the Galactic Alliance navy, Mar had never been much of a law-abiding man. The Loki carried a wide variety of modifications, very few of which were legal. Thankfully for the crew, several of these enhancements concealed the others from routine scans, making the ship appear more innocent than it truly was.

“Hey! Are you coming or what?” called Gwen, snapping Mar back into the present. He grinned and shook his head, proceeding up into the ship. The young Eldar appeared to have returned to her usual happy self, a far cry from her feelings at the restaurant. Mar was glad to see this; Gwen never had any variations of distress. When she was upset, she was always completely miserable. The captain closed the Loki’s loading ramp and hurried up to the bridge. From there, the ship lifted off and rocketed into space, its crew eager to fatten their wallets.

-

“Excellent news, Serena! I have decided not to kill you!” an eccentric voice boomed through the loudspeakers in a secluded holding area. The chamber’s lone captive rolled her eyes; she was getting tried of hearing this sort of thing over and over again. That nutcase just liked to hear himself talk. Serena, a young Galactic Alliance agent taken prisoner after a battle, made no effort to escape from her bonds. She simply sat and tried to filter the sound of her captor’s voice into the limited background noise of the brig.

“After all, a live prisoner is better than a dead one!” the arguably insane Blood Dawn commander Rorrjack continued to himself, looking over the bridge of his ship, the Gravemind. The inhumanly muscular man was still a fairly new member of the cult, yet his strong will and pure, unrelenting cruelty had put him in command of a prototype battleship. He only vaguely suspected that this was because even the highest officials of the Blood Dawn regarded him as even less sane than themselves, and so they gave him command of a completely automated ship which only required one crewman aboard to direct the computer.

“Captain!” called a deep, guttural voice from only a few yards away. It was Zzarkad, the only other living member of the Gravemind’s crew. Standing at an average of nearly seven and a half feet tall with blue scales in place of skin, the Draconians were a very imposing race. Their reptile-like features combined with their incredible physical strength and ability to breathe fire, the Draconians were mislabeled as ‘dragons’ when first encountered by humans; they just fit the mythical descriptions too well. Once the mythical creature stereotype wore off, quite a bit of distrust remained between humans and Draconians. As of the present, they are not officially enemies, but many of them just don’t get along well.

“There’s another ship entering our sensor range. It doesn’t look like an Alliance flunky.”

Rorrjack moved to his alien companion and glanced downward at the radar display below. At the center, there was the Gravemind, and almost directly below it was a derelict freighter, adrift due to a reactor failure. Some distance away, an Alliance transport ship rolled gently through space, its engines all but destroyed by a barrage of fire from the massive Blood Dawn battleship. At the moment, said vessel was hardly a concern. However, a fourth ship had entered the area. It was a relatively small craft, likely a privately owned cruiser.

“Do they know we’re here?” Rorrjack asked, hardly concerned about his own safety, but rather the secrecy of his little salvage operation. While awaiting a reply, he ordered the Gravemind’s computer to power up the ship’s shields and prepare all weapons.

“We should be just outside of their sensor range,” Zzarkad replied, thoroughly scanning the ship. Rorrjack grinned slyly to himself. Everything was going exactly as planned.

“That transport’s broadcasting a distress signal, so our new friends should investigate that ship rather than this derelict here, and by the time they’re done, we will be too. And if they do start coming this way, we’ll blast them out of the sky!”

“What if it’s a trap? What if our little loyal rat set us up?”

“Then she’ll suffer eternally, that’s how we do business around here.”

-

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me!” Mar blurted out loud, resisting the urge to throw his headset across the bridge.

“What is it?” asked Gwen from the rear of the room, standing idly in the doorway with nothing to do.

“We’re getting a distress call from a disable transport ship nearby.”

“Forget about them! We’ve got money to make!” interjected Jason, providing is ever-vigilant insight.

“How can we just leave that ship? There might be survivors. But, I guess it’s still your call, Mar,” Gwen said, stepping forward further into the Loki’s bridge. Mar made a fist and held it for a moment, his knuckles turning white. After a moment of thought, he removed his headset and placed it calmly on the console in front of him.

“Jason, get me a gun.”

-

The Loki slowly approached the drifting transport ship, scanning over its hull for docking ports. Mar quickly found just what he was looking for and moved his own ship to latch onto it. The Loki’s onboard computer took control from there and completed the docking sequence, forming an airtight bond between both ships. The captain stood from his chair and faced the bridge’s one and only door, just as Jason returned from the armory. He tossed a mid-sized plasma gun to Mar, who caught it with one hand and slung it over his back.

“Jason, you’re with me. Gwen, stay here and run regular scans. I want to know the moment anything else enters our range,” Mar said in a commanding tone. Both of his crewmates nodded, preparing for their jobs. Jason stepped back out of the bridge toward the Loki’s airlock, and Gwen remained in the room, taking a seat by the sensor console. Mar turned to her and grinned.

“One more thing,” he said, releasing the safety on his plasma gun, “if I’m not back in half an hour, you get some guns and you come rescue me.”

---

“Gwen!”

“What? What? What?” Gwen squealed, nearly dropping her headset. The communication line had been silent for so long that Mar’s exclamation had taken her completely by surprise. The Eldar woman did her best to regain her composure, and silently waited for a reply.

“We’ve got a survivor, and we’re bringing her back now. I need a sit-rep. You said the transport was drifting when we docked, no?”

Gwen quickly scrawled over the radar systems, checking to make sure that nothing was wrong. Something quickly caught her eye, something that required immediate attention. The young woman’s eyes widened and she shuddered in fear.

“M-Mar?” she stuttered, trying to remain as calm as possible.

“M’yes?” the captain replied from the other end of the line.

“You’re going to want to get back here right about now.”

“Oh shit. Don’t tell me, it’s the Blood Dawn, right?”

Gwen nodded silently, as if Mar could see her somehow.

“Did you nod?”

“Yes.”

-

Stephanie Hill groggily opened her eyes as the last of the sedative in her system wore off. She blinked once to clear her foggy vision, and looked around to take in her surroundings. The young woman was laying face-up, her head on a slightly older woman’s lap. The remainder of the room was occupied by an overturned table, a bed, and a pair of men armed with large rifles. Stephanie looked up at the other woman and deduced that she was an Eldar based on her pointed ears and nose. None of the others in the room, which appeared to be a private room aboard a ship, seemed hostile, not even the ones who were armed.

“Where am I?” Stephanie asked, noticing the Eldar looking down at her.

The woman mouthed ‘on a ship,’ and then returned her gaze to the door beyond the overturned table.

“My name’s Stephanie,” she continued, trying to figure out more about what was going on. Even based on what she had already seen, the young human still didn’t have the slightest clue as to the situation. As soon as she uttered her last syllable, one of the armed men strode over to her and smacked her lightly on the head. Combined with this act and the previous silence, Stephanie decided that it would be best if she didn’t speak at all. Instead of asking more questions, she sat up on the Eldar’s lap quietly and rubbed her nose slightly.

“Heyshoo!” The eternal silence was broken. One of the men stared at the Eldar woman and raised an eyebrow. Stephanie looked up at him and mouthed ‘I sneezed.’ The two crewmates exchanged unsure glances, neither knowing where to go from there. Suddenly, the ship lurched and the ceiling lights failed, plunging the room into darkness.

-

“Damn it!” Mar swore, bashing the wall with his plasma gun. “Looks like our little ruse is up. That was an EMP torpedo, knocked out all of our systems. The reactor should still be in one piece, but we’re going to run out of air if we don’t move on it.” The captain turned around to address the room as a whole. He held his weapon over his shoulder as a stern look came over his face.

“Everyone stay calm. We’ve done this a hundred times before. So what if they’re the Blood Dawn? Just keep your cool and everything will work out. Jason, get to the bridge and lock it down. Burn anything in there that isn’t me, Gwen, or this young lady here. Gwen, get our guest down to the Planetary Excursion Transport and make sure she’s secured. After that, meet up with me in the main corridor and we’ll clear out whatever’s left on this damned ship. I’m going to the engine room to get a little jump-start.”

“Wouldn’t Stephanie be safer if she just stayed with me?” Gwen asked, walking up to Mar and returning his gaze. The captain clearly didn’t have time for any sort of debate; he glared at the Eldar and held up a finger.

“Get her inside the PET!”

[Blah!?]

H'yello everybody! It's time for another very, very, very, very, very, very(etc...) late update! Just a few things before I get into the meat:

Forget what I said in the last part about weekly updates if you haven't already. I suspect that you all have, but I'm just making sure.

Now that I have lots of free time, I'll probably be able to get new chapters out much more frequently than I have been, but despite that, I've decided that I'm going to write shorter ones, both so that I can release them more quickly, and so they won't drag on as much. Chapter 2 was an utter and drawn-out failure, and I'd rather not make insanely long sections with very little value.

Once again, many thanks to Otaku for creating our insane villain, our not-so insane villain, and our lovely little prisoner.

As a very late reply to title speculations, it's two Serenity/Firefly references in one. Shinding + Objects in Space. But, for all intensive purposes, I guess Pigs in Space works, too.

And now, the event you've all been waiting for... (I hope)

“Rorrjack, the unidentified ship has released itself from the disabled transport,” Zzarkad announced to his commanding officer. He stared down at his console in disbelief.

“Well? What are they doing? Preparing to attack?”

“That’s the problem, they’re not doing anything. Their ship isn’t moving. They’re just drifting.”

“Then let them. Their engines are probably dead.”

“I’m not sure. They could be preparing to jump. If they report our presence here, half of the Alliance fleet will be searching this sector for us. Even if they do not know our exact location, odds are they’ll-”

“Never tell me the odds! Fine, let’s play it safe. Launch an EMP torpedo and disable the ship, then board it and find me some new friends. If they resist, destroy them. Now, I’m off to tell our guest that some new neighbors are coming to town.”

Without another word, Rorrjack turned and left the Gravemind’s bridge. He stepped into the lift at the rear of the room and headed down toward the brig, the place where he had spent most of his time over the past few days. After a brief lift ride, the Blood Dawn officer stepped into the ragged prison that was the Gravemind’s lowest deck. He could tell that his prisoner had spotted him; she let out a very resigned sigh and slowly dropped herself to the floor. The young woman locked in the cell rested her chin in her palm and gazed blankly at the floor; she seemed to have given up completely. Rorrjack smiled to himself and reached into his pocket.

“Aw, lighten up, Serena!” Rorrjack said rather loudly as they chains that held his captive retracted and held her tightly to the wall. Serena struggled against the chains briefly, but she quickly calmed down; this had only happened fifty times already. Her captor removed an unfamiliar device from his pocket. It resembled a large personal data assistant, but Serena knew better than to believe that. Nearly everything that Rorrjack carried with him was some sort of torture device. Even with this knowledge, the young captive was still skeptical as to what this new ‘toy’ was.

“What’s the point of moping about your cell all day anyway? I try my best to keep things interesting,” Rorrjack continued. Serena rolled her eyes in response.

“I have to admit that I admire you Alliance folk for your technology. Specifically your weapons and ships amaze me, but I envy a few of your other possessions, like this here,” the Blood Dawn officer said, holding up his latest device. “It’s quite a simple tool actually, but that’s part of what makes it useful. It’s meant for the everyday housewife to use in place of air freshener. You see, it facilitates miniature chemical reactions to produce specific odors on command. However, some models can be used to do more than just clean up around the house.” Rorrjack fiddled with the device and held it out toward Serena’s cell.

“But, the one thing I cannot stand about your Alliance is your methods of torture. They’re all so boring! ‘Samey,’ if you will. That’s why I feel that it’s my duty to be creative. I rarely ever use the same torture method more than once. It’s just no fun like that. So, at long last, are you ready to talk?” Rorrjack paused briefly. “That first transport, what was on it? Why else would you direct us toward a second so quickly? There must be something of value aboard.”

Serena did not reply; she simply stared at her captor sternly, not even breaking eye contact. Rorrjack was unfazed by Serena’s lack of compliance. He chuckled to himself and activated the device in his hand. The cell block was quickly filled with the smell of coconuts, something which the officer certainly did not expect. Rorrjack scrambled to correct his mistake, but he quickly stopped as he saw Serena close her eyes and flare her nostrils. The young woman reared her head back, her mouth hanging open, and Rorrjack couldn’t help but stare.

“Ah-CHEEW! Ha… Haa… Haaa-CHEW!! HA-CHIIOOO!” Serena began to sneeze violently, barely able to breathe between explosions. “C-co… Coahhh… CHEEEW!! C-coconuts!?” she exclaimed in a very surprised tone. “H-how… Ha-CHIEEW! How d-did you know?” Rorrjack smiled with delight.

“Well, now I’ve got your attention. Coconuts? It was a lucky mistake, really. Anyway, are you ready to talk to me now, or should I continue?” Rorrjack once again filled the cell with the scent of coconuts without allowing his prisoner a chance to speak.

“Ah… Ahh… Ahhh… AHH-CHIIOOOOO!!! P-pleah… HA-CHEEW! Please! Turn it off! CHIOO! Ah-CHIEW! I-I’ll tell you! HAA-CHEEEEWW!!!”

“Well? I’m listening.”

“There’s nothing on that ship,” Serena said with a deep sniff, “just passengers.”

“Just passengers? Who was onboard? If there was no important object, there must have been an important person, no?”

“No one of importance. Wait! No! Stop it! Ah-CHIOO! Ah… HA-CHEEEW! I-I don’t! AHH-CHIIEEEEWWW!! I don’t know anything!”

“Right, now you just keep telling me that. We’ll see how that turns out.”

Before either the captor or the prisoner could make another move, the Gravemind’s intercom system let out a buzz. Zzarkad’s voice boomed through the ship’s speakers, and Rorrjack turned away from Serena’s holding cell.

“Sir, the target ship has been disabled and we have completed the docking process. How shall we proceed?” Rorrjack grinned once again; this was excellent news. More people to interrogate.

“Send in the drones to capture the crew,” the officer commanded. “And activate stage one remote access.”

-

Stephanie Hill ran along one of the Loki’s narrow corridors, following Gwen toward the ship’s cargo hold. The young girl was fairly athletic, and she had no trouble keeping up with the Eldar woman, but her pace slowed as she felt a sharp pain at the back of her nose. Stephanie came to a halt and held a hand up to her face, feeling a sneeze coming on.

“Heh… Hehh… HeyeSHOO!” Stephanie fell to her knees with the force of a particularly powerful sneeze. Gwen took notice and turned around to help.

“Are you alright?” the Eldar woman asked, holding her hand out to Stephanie.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” the young girl said, taking Gwen’s hand. She rubbed her nose with her index finger as she stood up. Ever since that little pinch in her nose, Stephanie had started to feel a slight sneezy feeling. A small tickle hung about the edges of her nostrils, but she tried to press on. Unknown to the two companions, a specialized pheromone was steadily leaking from Stephanie’s left nostril, leaving a trail in the air behind her. This pheromone was undetectable by humans and other, similar life forms, but machines were attracted to it almost magnetically. Machines such as the Blood Dawn’s drones.

The two women continued on to the Loki’s cargo hold without incident. Gwen approached the Planetary Excursion Transport and opened one of its side hatches. Without a word, she ushered Stephanie inside and helped her hide in one of the vehicle’s storage compartments. A loud, metallic clank resounded through the room, and Gwen swiveled around to search for the source. Finding nothing, she turned back to Stephanie.

“Stay right here, and don’t move. The captain’s going to have the ship back online soon, and then we can get out of here. Until then, you just need to stay hidden incase we’re boarded.”

Stephanie nodded and wrapped her arms around her tucked-in legs. “Okay, got it.” Gwen closed the storage compartment and hurried back out into the Loki’s cargo hold. The loud clanking sound echoed across the chamber once again. Even with her advanced sense of hearing, Gwen was unable to determine the location of the source. She heard the sound once again, but only seconds later, the Loki’s emergency lighting system shut down; the reactor was almost back online. When the cargo hold’s primary lights flickered to life, the room was empty.

-

“That’s done it, captain. All systems are online, running at full capacity,” Jason said over the Loki’s intercom. He spun around in the chair of the bridge’s engineering station, keeping an eye on the door. The intercom’s speaker let out a burst of static preceding Mar’s reply.

“Good, but I’ll do a more thorough check later. For now, I need a sitrep. Do a full scan; we need to know what’s going on before we make our move.”

“Internal and external sensor sweep running… We’re still docked with the Dawn ship, but I could break us off at any time. No intruders appear to be aboard, but… Captain, computer’s only picking up three biosigns.”

[MissMercy]

Pst...keep going..

[Pilgrim]

None too shabby, old friend. I appreciate your use of my old characters. Truth be told, I'd forgotten them entirely. Glad someone's getting something out of them.