"Eh? Did any of you hear...?" -- Starbase Rugby: High Command (Co5)

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Search | Check update time ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 21:49:35 01/20/02 Sun
Author: M'Ceef the Elder
Subject: "Eh? Did any of you hear...?"
In reply to: M'Ceef the Elder 's message, ""He bears the weight of this whole station on his frame..."" on 13:22:25 10/20/01 Sat

He was turning his chair around. His chair. Rationally he knew this and yet, when he turned to face Balos, Arctic and Barrage, he was standing. No hoverchair. No oxygen mask. Green field. Blue sky. Warm breeze.

"Astral plane..." he murmured...or perhaps thought. In the slightly more than a century he had lived, metaphysical phenomena still possessed a locked duality for which he had never found the key.

"Not Earth....residual imagery from my session with the Captain...?" When M'Ceef had first approached Howitzer, told him the truth about his brother and the Council of Five, he had planned on removing the psychic blinders which he had placed upon the Captain at the time he was recruited. Howitzer took full and capable charge of Starbase Rugby without ever questioning who had contacted him, and to whom he had accepted. So complete was the technopathic handiwork that Howitzer had not even remembered Roadrage, his own brother, as the Councilor to whom he owed his new position. It was this brother, who seemingly took his own life during the WR@ invasion, whose position on the Co5 Howitzer would be filling.

Dare the Captain trust the frail old man he found in his rigidly secure quarters? His knowledge of SBR and disturbing familiarity with the main computer system and all its overrides seemed strong evidence toward his case, and if he was telling the truth, Howitzer needed to remember his brother so that he might properly mourn him. And so M'Ceef, with the Captain's permission, was allowed past the psychic buffers the Captain and most of the higher ranking security and military officials had as standard issue, allowed to walk into Howitzer's mind and unlock his repressed memories. But instead of Cybertron, or COM, or any of the red-and-black Autobot's old stomping grounds, M'Ceef faced a village in flames, a disturbing black knight with a red sigil, and a garishly coloured rodent. Save for the unusual wildlife, all the imagery pointed to the planet below Rugby: Manar. The Co5 knew of Howitzer's one visit to the Fairy Queen's domain, and of the risk he undertook in having them send his spark mystically ahead of his body to confront WR@NA, the WR@'s twisted leader. Perhaps the imagery was some residual side effect of that experience, but it presented M'Ceef with the dilemma of a block even HE could not penetrate. Shaking, he returned to reality hoping the Captain, even without his memories restored, would still trust him. Howitzer had, and M'Ceef had led him here to the Council's secret chamber.

M'Ceef walked toward a stream and knelt down, looking at his own reflection now. Had he ever been so young? This was not Manar; that much he knew. If it was, it wasn't any landscape he had glimpsed in Howitzer's memories. These were not the Captain's; could M'Ceef be dreaming? The stream might be Earth, or possibly Nebulos. But for him to suddenly find himself drifting like this was contrary to all the control he exerted over his mind on a daily basis. True, the self he beheld was his ideal, perhaps from the happiest times on Nebulos with his wife and child. But this was not his memory. It was someone else's....or something's?

The Elder clearly felt the shadow over him though the stream reflected naught but his own hawk's nose and brooding, dark eyes. He whirled as the Metroid engulfed its victim, forcing him underwater! Symbolic though the creations of the mind might be, drowning metaphysically would have the same impact on his body as though he really were drowning. Beneath the waters he saw the mingled memories of the creature's victims, hapless unsuspecting souls all, its most recent being a welder lured in from a building yard.

Mental strength translated to physical on this plane, and M'Ceef fought his way sputtering to the surface, groping for land. The landscape remained the same but, to his horror, he found the riverbank as fluid and immaterial as the stream, the colors running together like wet paint. He found himself surrounded, but knew he faced only one creature. These were NOT his memories...they belonged to someone else, someone who had encountered the Metroids under similar circumstances to this nightmare and had brought one back as a souvenir. M'Ceef heard a soft giggle, like that of an infant, and turned to see the true face of his enemy before the Metroid shoved him below the waters once more.

The Councillors rushed to his side as he sputtered in his chair, double-checking his oxygen tank. The Metroid remained outside the chamber, having no need of any closer physical proximity. At this range, and bolstered from its recent feast and other sources, even the shields in place offered little protection, only delaying the inevitable. Had the Metroid been in the room the omnipath would likely have been dead already. As it was, chances were slim that the lurker would be found outside the door before M'Ceef stopped breathing and the Council of Five were Four once more....

"You're about to instruct ME, my dear, on the techniques of astral physics? ME?
You forget yourself."
-Charles Xavier, X-Factor #70 (Sept. 1991)

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

"GET.....OUT.....OF.....MY.....MIND!!!!!" -- M'Ceef the Elder, 15:58:12 02/18/02 Mon