Repeat Performance, Yet Not...(Part 2)

The Doctor

But as it stands, the only thing that Arlene will do is sleep here in a second! Courtesy of that pilot, if you must know. Why? Well, when a person gets pistol whipped from behind like that.....it's no wonder that Arlene goes to her knees and then collapses!

The pilot, an older human man with graying temples and a rather weathered look to him, looks at me straight in the eye after a quick patdown of Arlenes prone form.

"Yes, it was very necessary." he says softly, in a tone that will broach no arguments. "Especially for the grief she caused me last time around...."

Later, Arlen (still unconscious) will be dragged along with Blake's bunch for . . . . justice. Being that Blake's the closest thing to a lawful body of law around these parts, our visitors here didn't complain about turning her over, but best not to disclose what I fear will happen.

I . . . do hope that Blake doesn't shove her out an airlock (do think he's still too idealistic for that) and might just . . maroon Arlen on an alien planet or some such, but things went down too quickly for anything but giving her over....

Sigh, only so much even I can do....and frankly Arlen had much to answer for, but yet again.... No, it's not for me to be her judge, but a court of law (and as it goes I fear that court will be composed of Blake and his friends). Which is to say it doesn't look very good for her.

But as I said before she has much to answer for. Even could tell you a few things about her in that area, so forgive me if I don't go and try to rescue her from her fate.

That said, that is later. But all that said, that's about as far as I get with him (the nameless pilot) before "my" Avon starts shouting again for the others to get to their escape ships before that b.... before Arlene's comrades pay us all a visit. Shouting over asked questions (giving me a fleeting feeling of sympathy for the arrogant, unfortunate man, as I remember the times past when I had my own sessions with Companions who were in the habit of asking questions at the wrong time).

Later

"Nice to know that at least some things needn't be repeat performances," I say softly, stepping down from the platform.

The leader of the Roughnecks, one Lt. Rasczak, only gives a noncommittal grunt as he and the rest of his platoon step off the transporter platform and look back at the others, seeing how they're all taking the transporation.

Roughnecks look a bit shaken, but okay. Same for the pilot and the others (some of whom I have quiet a few questions, let me tell you, before this day is done)! Especially the Golem and the pilot!

That said, things had gone differently than they could have, let me tell you!

"Well Doctor," the Lieutenant sighs as he clunks up next to me in his battlesuit. "I must say that I and the others are definitely more . . . . prone . . . . to trust you after that little display with the. . . . What was that device that got us up . . . here?"

"Some call it a transmat," I smile a little bit, "but I believe that those who made this starship call it a transporter."

"And my platoon and the . . . . my Federation was chronicled in books?" he asks softly, more to himself than to me. "Oh my."

He then gives a slightly disparaging glance over towards the one who'd told him, having found him not to his liking.

At least Avon now is quiet, perhaps remembering how his younger self had . . . not trusted him despite the Doppleganger effect. Oh, the two became instant brothers, but it’s a strained, untrusting siblinghood, let us just say.

Could make a tasteless joke about how he cannot even trust himself, but....

.....

Well, all that said, I must say that the lieutenant 's taking it well enough that piece of datum that "my" Avon blurted out in the course of things in one of his many cutting remarks he seems to be in the habit of spewing out....

....

Man had NO business telling Rasczak "bought the farm" in the book! Must have read it somewhere in his universe, I guess (some pre-Atomic literature survived, after all) and he’d tried to strike out against the Rasczak.... Thank the heavens that Avon had been dismissed (rather vulgarly) by all the Roughnecks over that last part....

I fear that I sometimes must agree with my other Companions about Avon: man couldn't be polite even if his life depended upon it! Given that his life will soon be over unless I and my Companions can do something for his inadvertent Shadow addiction, one can only conclude that he utterly hates being dependant upon others. He has the worst time with trust, getting burnt badly by loving and trusting a woman who'd betrayed him into Federation hands (something to do with computer embezzling, I'm told).

Well, that all said, I'd been able to gain enough trust in the first place, despite his and his troops feeling I was insane after those Federation ghosts had shown their ectoplasm faces. I am half human (something I do not tell to the universe at large but nothing I feel ashamed of) so was able to see what the others were shouting and cursing about! And being that I have advanced rather along in my mystical studies, I'd learned some of the needed spells that could drive off those ghostly Blue Shirts (ghosts of Star Fleet Federation Science and Medical personnel, I believe). Quick learners, mad or not, those Blue Shirts. Goodness only knows how long the average Redshirt would have taken. Not saying that Redshirts are dense (on average they are average), but intelligence wise the higher intelligence types go for the blue and not the red. Much quicker on the uptake, in their after-life for usually it takes quiet a bit of time to learn how to psychically instill killing fear within the living....

Turns out that the only reason those ghosts hadn't managed to kill

Which, later on, is what we found what had happened upon the Federation Landers. All dead from fright! Only reason why the Roughnecks (who'd appeared on the scene, right at the landing zone) weren't soon joining with them was because of a Private Jenkins, who had psychic powers of his own. Powers able to shield his comrades first and then Blake's troops when they'd come to investigate (and mount a defense against) the landers.

I'd been able to convince the Roughnecks and Blake's folks (who'd been unnerved by the ghosts, nonetheless) that the only way to silence the ghost was to destroy the thing binding them to this realm. So, after a lot of burning of colorful uniformed bodies, we come to here.

Just as well. Rather hate to think how bloody things would have gotten for the invasion if they'd been so foolish as to attack the Roughnecks. An event that could have happened rather easily, I fear.

See, the interesting thing here is that the Star Trek ghosts, the Roughnecks, and those invaders all belong to Federations. Just not . . . . the same Federation. Misunderstandings had already happened, the Roughnecks having thought a ship in orbit around . . . they place I'd been was one of their Federation vessels that they could use to get back to where they were needed. If they'd still been under that mistaken assumption when they'd met the Federation troops of Blake's universe and then encountered their brutality in action against Blake's troops?

First it would have been orders to halt (which would have been futile, Fed troops saying they were under orders) and then the Roughnecks would have tried to arrest the fiends (soldiers and officers) for obeying and giving "unlawful orders" (as well as "crimes against humanity" perhaps.

....

Ah, but remember, Starship Troopers fight alien enemies and NOT human enemies. Rather got the feeling from the book I'd read, once, that humans fighting humans had gone out of . . . style.

Well, that's what I sense, anyway. That and from what I'd gathered from what they'd said and done afterwards (when the native Blake's crew had "bugged out" to a fall back point, stocked up to the gills with the now dead invader's ships and weaponry) that these Roughnecks (and perhaps their Federation) was closer to the Heinlien novel than the Hollywood version of the tale.

Goodness, how both my wife and the Military folk get angry over the later . . . .

Nevemind.

So, anyway, I had been able to salvage an old style Star Trek communicator from the dead and used it to try to contact the Defiant (who’d somehow ended up in orbit, in a ghostly state herself). It was a last desperate hope, after my own more modern combadge failed to raise anyone.

The combadge of Picard’s era worked on a higher frequency than those of Kirk’s time AND are so very difficult to work down into that frequency range. Better to use the old communication equipment, really.

Well, got in contact with Betty up there (who’d gotten up their somehow before me!) and after they’d beamed me and the others up....here we all are!

And I've just turned now and noticed somebody besides one of my Companions and fellow tranportees!

1. "Crichton?" I blink, seeing the man standing next to Betty at the transporter controls. "What the devil are you doing here?"

Go Back