| SRR Morrahe`Vnu | Chapter Forty-Seven: High School Football, and Deserted Ships | | |
[Behind the Red Door]
D`Tarik and Katara find themselves standing on the sidelines of a high school
football field, populated by humans, complete with fans, cheerleaders and
players running around playing a game of foot ball. On a hill in the
distance is the large school building. Standing nonchalantly on the other
side of the field is Rylan, who appears to be talking to the cheerleaders,
though looking just a *bit* confused as to where he is.
"A coliseum....?" Katara questions, then spies someone familiar, "Hey! Isn't
that...." she pauses, then pouts again, pointing in Rylan's direction, "I
think we've found the rekkhai...."
DT glances to her, "Why do au look so upset..." he peers through the crowd
and spots the problem. Rylan had turned his attention from scanning the
crowd back to the girl who had been jumping up and down in her short skirt,
passing a rather appreciative eye over her. "Oh...um, don't worry. That's
just Rylan for au...." he offers with a shrug.
"Well...." she watches the men on the field clobber each other, "How are we
supposed to get over there?"
"Hmm...ummm..." he glances around, "We walk around the field." he motions in
a direction to take.
Katara pouts again and turns her head away from him as she walks. "I didn't
say it bothered me. Why should it? The rekkhai doesn't know me after all."
then adds sounding almost hurt, "I'm just a barmaid...."
The cheerleader that Rylan had been checking out was still going in full
form, "RA RA RA! YAY!!! GO TEAM!" She bounces her head full of air back
and forth as the cheer seems to be over and she turns to see Rylan.
Ry watches a bunch of men on the field suddenly get clobbered as she was
jumping up and down, then grins at the girl, "I think au probably distracted
them more then anything else....."
That was all the introduction she seemed to need. "HI! Like oh-my-god! You
are sooo cute! I have never seen you here before like...are you that guy
dating Sally Smith? Because I heard they broke up...and I was OH-MY-GOD! I
can't believe it! And then he says......" the girl goes on for many minuets
like this, bouncing every so often with each 'ohmygod!' she interjected.
Rylan, having no clue what the girl was saying, just keeps giving her an
appreciative eye, nodding his head to whatever it was she was babbling on
about, a small sly smirk constantly on his face.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the field, DT looks to Katara and frowns,
"Au know, even if au are are 'just a barmaid', that does have quite a role of
importance...I mean people need food and drinks." he smiles, "And I'm sure
Rylan will stop paying attention to them once he sees au." then he lowers his
head and whispers, not meaning for her to here this last, "I know I would...."
Katara, having heard it anyway, smiles back at him and says quietly,
"Hann'yyo..... that was sweet." she kisses him lightly on the side of his
face with the scars on it.
DT's face turns bright red. "Umm....okay...so....Let's go get Rylan then!"
he holds a finger up in the air and doesn't move beyond doing that. Katara
smiles and shakes her head at this, then takes his arm and leads him around
the sidelines. He thinks to himself, *It must be the scars....chicks dig
scars.* then nods to himself.
Rylan watches the whole group of cheerleaders as they are now jumping up and
down doing that same kinda cheer that the one had done before with a
'would-au-look-at-that' expression plastered to his face as the flash of
panties keeps making an appearance.
DT finally notices Katara has him by the arm, "Ummm...jolan`tru......" he
just blurts out stupidly.
Katara realizes she's practically dragging an officer along, "Oh...sorry
rek...doctor..." she looks to the ground apologetically and lets go of
his arm as she keeps walking.
"By the way, it's D'Tarik." he smiled, then is suddenly pushed down.
Katara had smiled back then cast another glance in Rylan's direction. Her
blue eyes narrowed in anger as one of the human girls was getting just a
little too close....had, in fact, reached out to touch the side of Rylan's
head. Hearing the soft 'oomph' from behind her, she turned and saw D`Tarik
on the ground. "Au okay?" she reaches down to help him up.
A bunch of rather large boys stand there with cans or bottles in their hands.
The largest of the four mockingly laughed, "Hah....awww the little girl
going to help her geek boyfriend up?"
Katara doesn't answer the human as she didn't understand the language at all,
and helps DT to his feet. DT reaches into a pocket and pulls out two test
tubes with black liquid in them. As Katara helped him up, he opens one of
them, and smiles to the large boy, "Bite me!" then throws it in his face.
The human grabs his face and starts screaming, the bottle he had been holding
shattered on the ground, sending the alcohol everywhere. "Run!" DT grabs the
girls hand and bolts for it, but is suddenly snagged back by the collar and
thrown to the ground. The other three friends of the injured human jump him
and start pounding.
Rylan who had been trying to decipher the rapid-fire non-sense syllables of
two of the cheerleaders while his eyes kept checking them out, the sly little
smirk still on his face, leaned closer to one of the girls as she motioned to
him. The curious human female smiled to her friend, then reached out a hand
and gently touched the tip of Rylan's ear, then leaned in closer to him to
gently nibble on it. Ry grins, then suddenly turns his head and kisses her.
After a moment, then cheerleader pulls away, then takes him by the hand to
lead him off the field and under the bleachers.
Katara draws the disruptor and shoots the boys who had been beating up on
D`Tarik, vaporizing them. D`Tarik lays on the ground looking quite battered
with his swollen shut eyes, split lip, bloody nose, and bruised up face.
Helping DT back to his feet, Katara kept the pistol level at the others
around them, watching them carefully "Any io else what to be shot?? I'm
more than happy to oblige..." No one made a move against them, and she helps
DT walk down the sidelines again.
"Owey..." poor D`Tarik said with a slight slur because of his fat lip, as he
reaches into another pocket and pulls out a pen-looking thing and starts to
repair his face....again.
Still with the weapon drawn, her arm around DT to help him walk, Katara asked
gently, "Au okay...?"
DT finishes the task rather quickly, as it was rather easy to do...he had a
lot of practice doing that very thing after all...and answered as he took his
arm from around her and walks on his own power. "Ie. I'm okay now." he
smiles weakly, a little embarrassed. "Do au have another disruptor?"
Katara shakes her head, and holds the pistol out to him. "Na...sorry..." she
looks down, wondering if she'd get in trouble for her admission, "And I
stole this io....."
"Well au keep it...au can probably use it better then me." he shrugged.
Suddenly a man jumps Katara, knocking her over. DT had just about enough of
this kind of non-sense and responds immediately by grabbing the man by the
collar and punching him dead in the face, knocking him out. He shook his
hand a minute, offering another to Katara to help her up.
Katara, looking more angry then hurt, takes his hand and stands up, then
shoots the man that knocked her down. "Hann'yyo...." she says to DT, then
glances back over to where she last saw Rylan. "Where is he?" she asked
worriedly, "He's na there!"
"I don't know...." D`Tarik glances around them, noticing that a lot of the
people were going away as the game had basically stopped. "Let's go over to
where he was...but watch out for attacks, let's take it real slow...." he
paused a minute, then added with a smile as she had thanked him earlier,
"And na problem....I don't mind keeping au safe."
But by the time they reached Rylan's last known location, all the
cheerleaders had run off. There wasn't a sign of Rylan anywhere. "I don't
know where he went Katara..." DT shook his head, scanning the landscape
around them. "Hmmm....Now I'm worried as well..."
"But he was *right here*!" she protests, her own worried eyes scanning for
any trace of him. Thinking he might be on the other side of the tall
bleachers, she heads off around them. As she came around the side, she
stops. Looking like she was trying not to cry, she turns, heading back the
way she had just come from as DT rounds the corner. "He's busy. Let's
go...." she manages as she walks past him.
Not understanding, D`Tarik looks under the bleachers, then shakes his head
and walks over and lightly kicks tr`Tuhmek. "Rylan, au idiot!" The
cheerleader freaks royally at this interruption, and throws dirt in DT's face.
Spitting dust out of his mouth, DT turns and heads back, walking over to
Katara, trying to think of how he should handle this.
Ry apologizes to the cheerleader, makes up some excuse then heads out to see
what's up with DT, refastening his clothes on the way. "What the hell was
*that* about DT?" he demands angrily as he comes out from under the
bleachers. DT only points to the girl crying on his shoulder. Rylan stops,
looking confused, "What happened?" he asked, not realizing that the girl
liked him in the first place.
D`Tarik shakes his head, not sure if he should hug Katara or not. At the
moment, his hands are dropped to his sides. Keeping his voice quiet, but not
able to keep the note of anger out of it, he grumbles to the taller boy, "We
will talk about it later, Rylan."
"Na..." he immediately dismisses that, still clueless, "What's going on?"
then directs to the girl, "Au okay?"
Katara lets go of D`Tarik and sniffles a few times, trying to dry her eyes.
"Ie...I'm fine...." D`Tarik sighs and shakes his head at that. Neither one
looking at Rylan.
Ry had just been about to ask what they had been arguing about when he
finally gets it. Mumbling, "...fvadt..." under his breath he casts a glance
to DT, "Do au mind...."
"Sure Rylan...." D`Tarik leaves the two, walking behind the bleachers, and
wondering absently where the cheerleader went.
Rylan, looking very apologetic, tries to find something that will make this
awkward situation turn good, and for once just can't joke something away.
Instead, he shrugs, and stumbles forward, "I'm sorry.....If I knew au were
interested....I never would've....done that." he glances towards the
bleachers, then back down to the ground and shrugs again, "I thought au
just....thought of me as some helpless drunk...I didn't know."
"Don't worry about it...." she shakes her head and sniffles, not looking at
him. "I don't like au anyway. We need to find a way out of here now....."
she turns her back to him, apparently waiting for DT to arrive so they could
leave.
"Well, how did au expect me to know?" put on the defensive, he almost yells
at her, "Areinnye, au never even told me ninte name!" he shakes his head,
frustrated with the whole thing and at a complete loss as to what to say to
her, "I'm sorry anyway!" he does yell back that last, stomping off angrily
in the opposite direction. A few feet away he suddenly stops, picks up one
of the benches and hurls it at the bleachers as he goes by, turning to kick
the other one over, then continues on towards the school building.
D`Tarik, who had never found the cheerleader that Rylan had been preoccupied
with, had tracked down another who had seen a few boys get vaporized. She's
curled up into a protective little ball, crying hysterically, which only
makes D`Tarik feel protective of her. Just as he's about to reach out to try
and calm her down, the bleachers echo loudly the contact of the bench that
Rylan had furiously hurled, and the cheerleader goes into a fresh outburst of
hysterics. D`Tarik shrugs and gives up on the now screaming girl, with the
thought that she's only a hologram after all, and runs back into the open,
wondering who he should deal with first: Rylan or Katara. Thinking that it
might help Rylan more at this point to set Katara straight, he turns to see
the barmaid crying a whole new set of tears. Concerned, DT immediately bolts
over her her, pauses, then puts his hand very lightly on her back. "Au okay?"
She shakes her head, still crying, "I knew he didn't know I existed......I'm
such an idiot...."
"Na au'rh na....far from it." He had almost said, 'Au just made the mistake
of falling for Rylan...' but stopped himself in time. "Rylan....just has,
umm....issues." he pauses a moment, "I'm sure if au give him another
chance...he...." D`Tarik's words trail off. He just doesn't feel right about
sending the poor girl Rylan's way, knowing the taller boy all too well. The
only woman D`Tarik had ever known Rylan to treat decently was Llunih.
Katara hears the hesitation in his voice, then cries all the more and looks
away, "Au don't believe that ninte-self!"
"Na....au don't understand." he tries again, "Rylan just has.....problems.
It might be in ninte best interest to just stay friends with him....for now.
Then....maybe work ninte way towards something more later. He deserves
somebody as great as au." D`Tarik gently lifts her chin up to make sure she
sees him smile.
"What kind of ...problems?" she sniffles, "I thought he just had a few a bit
too often...."
"Na...well, we can get in to those another time...but I do want to help au
the best I can...." D`Tarik hesitates a moment more, not sure just what he
could tell her. Then finally settles on what he knows, "He's had family
problems...I believe..." he shrugs uncertainly, then admits "But I don't
know what fully. He won't even talk about it to me. But look don't cry..."
he tries again "Be happy that au actually care for somebody. That's always
good. So cheer up..." he tries to smile encouragingly, then the smile dies
as he thinks nothing of what he's saying is doing any good, "But if au need
to cry...my shoulder is here..."
Katara had turned her eyes to watch the retreating figure of Rylan, and as
D`Tarik finishes she suddenly asks in a quietly demanding tone, "Au know him
well, then au tell me the truth. Was he angry because he got caught....or
angry because he really didn't know?" she looks back to DT, waiting for the
answer.
"I would say he was angry because of a combination of the two." he says with
a weak smile.
Katara hangs her head at that and turns away, "I see..." she heads off,
"Let's just get out of here. Okay?"
Cursing himself, D`Tarik grabs her by the shoulder, "Wait....that came out
wrong." he tries to explain, "If I know Rylan -- which I do -- he really did
na know."
"That's the truth?"
"Ie..." he nods, "the full truth. I really don't think he knew. Rylan does
na hurt women, and I know this hurt au. I bet right now he's thinking about
how lucky he is to have au like him..." he puts his hand on her shoulder,
"Understand?" he added hopefully.
Katara faintly smiles and nods, then follows after Rylan who had almost
reached the school on the hill. "Hann'yyo...."
Watching her walk away, D`Tarik says quietly though she can't hear it, "Go
after him...he needs au..." Then finds himself missing Emni a good deal.
Rylan, still grumbling angrily, kicks over a bike-stand. A few minutes later,
he picks up a garbage pail and hurls it through a window. Not seeing
anything else he can immediately pick up, he stomps over to a tree and breaks
off a good length of branch, stripping it of the smaller leaves and branches
as he heads back over to the school again. Wielding the branch like he's
Babe Ruth, he swings it at another window, shattering it, and moves onto the
next.
Katara had started to run over to Rylan, but stops a few feet away just to be
on the safe side as the third window is smashed. "Au know....au could put
somebody's eye out with that thing." she almost smirks at that. Ry glances
to her, and tries to think of something to say. Then punches out another
window, cutting up his hand.
"Au know, that's really na going to help." looking at the empty spot where
the glass had been she shook her head. "Au don't have to be so mad. After
talking to the Doc...I mean, D`Tarik...I understand." she tried to explain,
then takes a few more steps closer to him, "I'm sorry too. I should've been
honest with au. I do like au..." When he still didn't say anything to her,
Katara's eyes lowered, then noticed the bloody hand. Pointing to it, she
asked "Maybe we should get that hand looked at?"
Ry looks down at his hand then shrugs. "Na...I think it goes rather well
with my shoulder..." he said with a ghost of a smile, a half-hearted attempt
at a joke. "I am sorry..." he tried again, "I *never* would've hurt au like
that if I'd known." he shrugs again and looks away, "Au'rh better off na
liking me so much anyway. I tend to fail at things.....I mess things
up...." he motions around them with the broken-off branch, "This is probably
something I did...."
"Well, everybody does that once in a while. Na-body's perfect....."
He looks back to her at that, "Au don't want me. Au'd only end up hating
me anyway." he motions off towards DT near the bottom of the hill, "That io
is just finding that out now. I only bring down people around me...."
shaking his head, he turns and walks towards a door of the building, intent
on going inside.
"Well, I like au anyway." she walks after him, "And as for him..." she
points to DT, who waves almost comically from the bottom of the hill, "He far
from hates au. Let's just work on getting out of here first, then maybe we
can talk."
Rylan stops to turn as she enters the school's hall behind him, "Well....if
au like to live dangerously...I certainly won't stop au." he smiles, "So,
blue-eyes...what do I call au?"
Seeing the customary smile return to his face, Katara smiles back, "There au
go...and it's Katara." she blushes slightly and teasing, bats her eyelashes
at him.
"Katara." he smirks at the eyelash batting, "Beautiful name, but hardy does
au justice." Motioning off down the hall he asks, "Shall we see if we can
find a way out of this mess then, Katara?"
"Seems everybody thinks that about my name lately." she smiles, "Well...if
we are going to get out of here, don't au think we should get D`Tarik?"
Ry walks closer towards her and peers out the door's windows, "Na...he's
coming along." he turns to her and smiles. "We can wait here though. He
won't be long."
"Good point..."
Rylan slowly leans in closer to her, waiting to see if she'll pull back,
pleased to note that she doesn't. She only looks at him expectantly.
D`Tarik suddenly walks in, and figuring he would have to lighten the mood
calls cheerfully, "Anybody miss me?" then sees the pair just as Rylan pulled
the girl closer to him and kissed her. D`Tarik turns right back around, and
walks out.
And then their surroundings starts to flicker again....
[After the Flicker....]
The trio now find themselves floating on the oria of an apparently highly
damaged warbird. The gravity is off, as well as the air, but the program had
at least granted them the favor of putting them in enviro-suits, and equipping
them with disruptor rifles. The emergency power is on, the panels and consoles
around them glow with a dim green light. The Oria itself is damaged as well,
and it's quite apparent that there had been a battle not only outside of the
ship, but inside as well, as dead Romulans float around them. The actual
damage of the deck is odd, as there seems to be holes about the size of a
quarter all over the place. There are hundreds of them in the walls, and in
the floating dead soldiers as well.
Suddenly realizing they can't breath from actual lack of oxygen, Rylan
suddenly ends the kiss and hits the button on Katara's enviro-suit belt to
turn on the bubble of air, then quickly does the same to his own. Seeing the
rifle slung over her shoulder he asks, "Can au use io of those?"
"Well, kind of..." she answered, sounding none too sure.
DT floats there, absorbed in examining the holes in the dead Romulans around
him, one of which appears to the Leih of the warbird, and notices that there
are other holes in some of the computer consoles as well.
"Hmmm....fascinating....."
Ry nods to Katara at her answer, "It's na much different...more of a kick to
it as it's more powerful." He explains about the rifle, "Just line up ninte
sight and shoot. That's all there is to it." he smiles, then looks over at
the medical officer, "What's up with the holes, DT?"
"Na sure, Rylan. Hmm....they seem to hit in a lot of the same, if na really
close to the same, spots." he floats over towards the turbolift door which
is also full of holes. "Hmm...I think they all came from this spot, but were
shot out in all directions...."
Ry presses a button on the suit's belt, and activates the grav-boots.
Standing solidly on the floor, he reaches up and presses the button on
Katara's belt as well, helping her down. "Oh, Right!" D`Tarik saw that, then
activates his own boots, "Au know, this suit is really uncomfortable over the
top of my lab coat...." he grumbles.
"Was it a weapon of some sort, or something more organic?" Ry questions,
ignoring the grumbling about comfort for now; then shudders at the memory of
the conversation about 'phase slugs' at Dinner with the Leih.
"I'm na sure." D`Tarik shrugs, "We should search the bodies and such...see
if we can find what caused the holes...." he takes a step and falls over,
"Ahh!" Ry smirks, shaking his head at the smaller boy's clumsiness, and
grabs a body as it's floating by. Concentrating on the holes, he takes a
multicorder from his belt and starts to scan.
"Au alright?" Katara calls to the medical officer.
D`Tarik regains his feet, "Never mind...found io!" he holds up a palm-sized
black ball, then answers Katara with a smile, "Ie...I'm fine...hann'yyo for
asking." then immediately turns his attention to his find, studying the ball.
"What the hell is it?" Ry questioned, walking over to the ops station.
"Na sure....but do au notice..." D`Tarik looks down, "The gravity is off,
but yet they are na floating around...."
Ry busied himself with checking over what's left of the ship from the ops
station, "Run a scan on it....see what au can find...."
"They are light as hell...." he takes a scanner off his belt and scans the
odd object, "but this thing....has the density of something that weighs about
500 pounds?" he says in a confused tone.
Rylan shuts down whatever's running in the labs of the ship, leaving some
power to Medlab just incase there are survivors, then diverts most of that
power to the damaged shields, and distributes the rest to the life support,
allowing air to come back on. "Rylan! Can au get gravity going again?"
D`Tarik asks, surprised that Ry had managed to pull air out of the damaged
warbird. As Rylan's fingers flew over the consul, shutting down replicators
and other such non-essentials, and prepares to divert that power to life
support as well. His fingers hesitate just over the buttons as D`Tarik
interrupts again "Actually, wait...Na. That would be a bad idea."
"Why? Why would that be bad?" Ry raises a brow in his direction.
"Well think about it." D`Tarik shrugs, "I mean, I think this scan is
wrong....about these balls density....But if they don't float even in zero
gravity....and yet weigh nothing...then think about what could happen if
gravity is restored. Check and see if gravity was manually shut down, or if
it's off from damages."
Ry nods at the suggestion, and checks out the log, "First it was hit out,
then power rerouted, then was abruptly shut off." he nods again, and looks
back at DT, "Good thing au said something, I was this close," he holds up his
thumb and index finger, narrowly apart, "to turning that back on."
"See, I'm smart..." D`Tarik smirks, then looks over to see how Katara is
managing.
Ry diverts the newly gathered power to the ship scans and nods over at
Katara, "On that station in front, helm, read our co-ordinances and see if
there's anything in the area. It's na hard...there's a print out and a grid
right there..."
Katara, looking very unsure of herself, heads over to helm and peeks at the
panel. "Umm...I can't read the co-ordinances. The readout's na here....but
there's a *huge* thing right in front of us....it's bigger then this ship."
she looks worriedly back at Rylan.
"Oh, I'm going to get hurt *again*, I just know it...." D`Tarik grumbles with
a sigh, then walks over to the console
Rylan looks up at the girl's remark, then diverting some of the newly
re-routed power to the visual screen, Rylan calls up the image of a huge
black sphere with a blue ring of energy around it. "I've never seen anything
like that...." he shakes his head. He heads over to TAC and monitors any
transmissions from the orb, "We can't run a scan on them, or they'll know
someone's still over here...."
"Well, they apparently boarded the ship....so how do we know they are na
still here?" D`Tarik questions
Ry shrugs, checking out the weapons systems, "Ie. They might still be at
that....but I rather na bring *more* of them over if there are, or have them
beam out only to fire on us. We have almost no shields..." he sighs, "And
no weapons whatsoever..... great!"
"Well maybe the program will change soon....I hope." D`Tarik answered.
Rylan picks up his scanner again and sets it to scan the for non-Rihannsu
life-forms on board the warbird. "I hope so to...." he answers D`Tarik, then
pauses, "But until then, we're stuck here so we better try something else."
He looks up for a minute, thinking, then suddenly asks, "Remember how we got
out of the first program DT? The io in the holodeck?"
"Ie, au found the panel...."
Handing the scanner to Katara, Rylan instructs, "Keep an eye on that and tell
me the minute it beeps. Na-thing's here yet....but that may change." Then
calls up a diagram of the ships layout on the ops station as he addresses DT
again. "Ie. Well....somewhere on this ship is a computer lab.....It would
stand to reason that since we got out of the holodeck through the holograms
panel before, that we can do it again. Granted it turned out to be the real
panel, but au wouldn't have been able to tell that until after I turned it
off. Maybe we can use the computer lab to 'fix this program' and get us
out.....I hope!" then added with a shrug, "I know how that sounded too...but
at least, it's something we can try anyway."
"Well au know...from their weird technology..." he points at the balls on the
floor, "That they could still be on the ship....this is a weird program....."
D`Tarik worries.
Rylan raises a brow at that, "Scan those balls again, DT.....check for
different readings other then carbon lifeforms....."
"Okay..." the medical officer picks up one of the balls and starts to scan it
for everything he can think of.
Katara looks back and forth from DT to Ry, feeling very out of place, but
very much wanting to help. "Umm..." she begins apologetically, "I don't
know how to change the scan to look for something different...."
"Here, let me help." D`Tarik smiles, and walks over to help her.
"Hann'yyo..." she smiles gratefully.
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