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Date Posted: 19:43:32 12/31/01 Mon
Author: Mercado
Subject: The armored Nebulan's thoughts were far from what awaited them at the apex...
In reply to: Nathaniel 's message, ""This would be faster without a passenger..."" on 18:16:05 12/29/01 Sat

Biggs had a solid lead, followed not too far behind by the young Ensign Braddock and, even burdened by his unwanted 'cargo', Nathaniel's wings served well enough to pace him alongside the climbers. But, with so many of his armor's systems malfunctioning in a place where the rules of physics were as anchored as a leaf on the wind, Mercado was finding his cybernetic armor to be a physical burden, heaped prominently upon his most recent emotional ones. Several times he lost his hand hold and slid a few feet, managing to dig in with his extended buzzsaws. Though they refused to spin for him, he silently thanked the moons of his homeworld that his armor had enough functionality still to extend them. Fingers of steel dug in but it was the muscles of the man within that pulled him back up, following the rest of his party.

Something Nathaniel had said earlier was still troubling Mercado. He had suggested that Mercado's memory of his brother was so vivid than even a recollection gone real would desire his death. This 'Raph' who travelled with them was solid enough, and the hateful words he spewed were consistent with what Mercado remembered. But the stark fact remained that Raph had died nearly a month prior, his spirit aligning with the WR@ for a time before the memories he and Mercado shared of their mother opened his eyes. The brothers had made a rough sort of peace before Raph moved on, and Mercado had accepted his death. Or at least he thought he had. Before entering Sheesh'a'ream, 'Raph' had goaded Mercado to the point where he snapped and slashed his 'brother's' throat. But it was Mercado who was real, Mercado who bled from the wound inflicted on a facsimile of a ghost, a haunting memory far too vivid. So the real question which now plagued the armored Nebulan was not whether he sought his brother's death...but his own.

Ebonhawk. His mother. Ligh. At the heart of 'Raph's' taunting were those Mercado cared for most, the ones he kept pushing away or losing. Ultimately he thought he would see his Decepticon partner again; though their last words had been terse, they were far from final. Mercado had long ago forgiven Ebonhawk for the minor brain damage inflicted upon his speech centers when the Decepticon made him his cyborg partner with little experience in such delicate operations. He had told Ebonhawk as much, and was recently starting to feel it himself. His parents ghosts he had long ago put to rest as well, but it was Ligh that really got to him. The real Raph had once told him his childhood sweetheart was no more, and so, when she turned up so many years later at Starbase Rugby as the genetically enhanced Lighdia, it was nothing short of miraculous. The miracle proved short-lived unfortunately, as in her anti-luddite fervor she nearly slew the man she once loved. Ebonhawk hunted her down to the desert world Arrakis, but a recovered Mercado caught up to his partner and found her first. The bliss they shared that day would prove all too fleeting as well.

"Keep thinking back to that day, does Mercado....not sense make does it! Slaying of Grax unfortunate, no less than deserve last of Raph's TLA agents! But passion...fervor...that in blood of Ligh, in her family! How doubt she that she was--no, IS--who she appears to be? Grax lied; of this Mercado certain. TLA may have changed her, but they did not make her! But where she fled...place of pure darkness...Mercado cannot follow. Is this why despair Mercado now? Why memories manifest to punish Mercado? Guilt? Anguish? Is this quest distraction only, letting problems of others take Mercado's mind of his?

Things....simpler once...

And, as is the way of Dah'Li, as he climbed, his surroundings began to echo his thoughts. Grey mists obscured his vision and, as he brushed them aside, the rocks before him were replaced by the rungs of a wooden ladder...

* * *


The youth scrambled up the ladder to the hay loft of his family's farm. Outside, the mid-afternoon shone brightly but a cool breeze whisked along the tall fields. Cado Sar curled up by a window, feeling the warmth of the sun and the cool of the wind at once, drinking in the inspiration. Excitedly, he pulled out his latest acquisition.

Cado had written any chance he could, ever since he was a boy, and he was passionate about it. His parents recognized this and, on a recent trip into the city, his father had brought home an electronic notepad. Despite the disruptive invasion years earlier by the Cybertronians, many Nebulans continued with their scientific advances, some even incorporating alien technology left behind. From time to time rumors surfaced of further Cybertronian visits, but none had equaled the scale of the original conflict between the forces of Scorponok and Fortress Maximus. Most were less disruptive than the now-mythical Darkwind and Dreadwing incidents. Some said that while the war was still raging in other parts of the galaxy, many of their brethren drawn into the conflict, parts of Nebulos were choice hiding places for the peace-loving robots.

It was all very unreal, and very romanticized. As Cado tapped his pen to his electronic pad, trying to think up a particularly difficult metaphor, part of his mind roamed to the stars. So lost in thought was he, that he didn't hear the creak of the ladder or the approaching footsteps, until his new 'toy' was snatched from his hands.

"Well, what do we have here?"
"RAPH! Come on, give that back! It's personal! Besides...I need to refine it!"
"What you need to do is help father and I load up the next delivery of vegetables to the consulate, but I suppose you deserve a break. This isn't that bad by the way....though I'm not sure about your topic..."

Cado grabbed the pad back from his brother, half-fuming at the intrusion and half-swelling with pride than an older brother he idolized had complemented his work. But as always with Raph, he was saying at least two things...

"You like it...great...but...my topic?"
"Come on Cado, who are you fooling. You aren't writing about the sky and the sun, you're pining for our blond-haired blue-eyed fiery neighbor. You're writing about Ligh."

Cado colored. It was difficult to hide things from someone he was as close to as Raph, but his transparency still grated at him. Ligh was beautiful, not much older than he, and the two spoke often. But it had never gone beyond that, and there were rumors about why such a beautiful girl and her equally striking mother lived out in the countryside, so far from Nebulos' capital. They had a look of royalty about them.

"Zarak's grand-daughter, Cado, that's the latest speculation. It's no secret that when he left us with the Decepticons to pursue Galen and the Autobots, Galen had left her with child. Galen. Merging with Fortress Maximus in the name of peace? What hypocracy! Let the history books say what they will, but either of those Nebulans betrayed their race they day they agreed to become the heads of those robots. Factions indeed!"
"What?! Get real, Raph! You present to me as fact what even the history books consider dubious assumption! And to make the leap that Ligh's mother Llyra is the same Llyra whose father was Zarak and whose lover was Galen--there's just no BASIS! Besides....a counciller's granddaughter or not, Ligh's just too beautiful to ever see this poor farmboy as anything more than a friend, or even just someone to talk to because...because I'm THERE."

Cado hung his head and turned away from his brother. To his surprise, and perhaps Raph's, he felt a comforting hand grip his shoulder not long after that.

"Cado...Cado, I'm sorry. I shouldn't be filling your head with all these fantastic stories. There's enough to worry about with our crops coming up short this year, and mother's cough getting worse and worse...and here I am creating a burden for you that isn't even there.

Don't sell yourself short Cado. You're a SAR. We get what we want, and she's not so beautiful that she hasn't noticed what a great guy you are. Moons, if she is so blind then you're wasting your time with that poetry! You want my advice? Show her what you've written sometime. I wish I could write my NAME half as good as you weave words. You have a gift Cado, and you shouldn't waste it. Life's too short NOT to use your gifts as often as you can, especially where it might bring you some happiness. You like this girl then go for it, with my blessing. In fact, go today. Mother's sleeping comfortably now and I can go with father to the city. I'll just tell him I couldn't find you."

Cado heard the departing footsteps of his brother but didn't turn around. He had been moved and didn't want his tears to show. Raph was right, as big brothers often are, and win or lose, he would show Ligh his poems that very afternoon...

* * *


"So much...less complicated...back then." murmured Mercado as the clouds outside his boyhood home gave way once more to the mists circling the rugged mountain he scaled with his friends. Because of his brother, he had enjoyed happiness with Ligh for a time, before his life turned upside down. His mother they would soon learn was dying, from the same poisonous radiation that was killing their crops. And once that radiation was connected with Energon, the fuel source of the machine life slowly returning to Nebulos, that tragedy would eat away at Raph's soul like a cancer until he grew into the hateful leader of a faction which brutally slew Cybertronians, a position that would pit brother against brother years later when Mercado had joined with Ebonhawk as a Targetmaster.

"...Less complicated, but now...now myabe Mercado know what done must be..."

And he continued to climb in silence...

"An intellectual is a person whose mind watches itself."
Albert Camus (1913-1960)

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