Breaking Protocol, part 2
Jan. 3rd, 2007 02:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tygati^___^ Done! Part 1 here
---
Moon orbiting a Gas Giant, Location Unknown, Quadrant Three
His head hurt again. As did everything else, come to think of it. Unconsciousness was remarkably unpleasant after crash-landing on a barren, lifeless moon, and the waking-up even more so. As Sigma gingerly opened his eyes and glanced around, he inwardly winced at the destruction.
Only two lights were still on, and those at minimal power. Most of the control consoles had been twisted into unrecognizable shapes or broken clean in half, electricity sizzling intermittently from the shorn circuitboards. He could hear the faint hiss of a coolant leak somewhere, and the air was getting noticeably colder.
Gritting his teeth against the pain, Sigma unfastened his safety restraints and rose cautiously from his chair. He could make out the indistinct form of Tau Ceti slumped over what was left of the control console, his dark hair fanning out and obscuring his face. Stepping carefully over the wreckage on the floor, Sigma reached out to touch the man's neck and was relieved to note a faint, if rapid, pulse.
He got Tau Ceti out of the harness, picking him up and carrying him to a section of the bridge relatively clear of rubble, marveling at how light the man was. He wished he knew what was 'normal' for Tau Ceti's species, as he had no way to tell if anything was wrong. There was a shallow gash on the man's head that had already ceased bleeding, but his bulky clothing obscured any other possible injuries.
Sigma straightened and surveyed the rest, noting that, while unconscious, none of them appeared notably injured. The front consoles and part of the floor had born the bulk of the damage. And unfortunately, that damage was extensive. There was no way the ship would ever fly again. Frankly he was amazed that the life support systems were still functional. His gaze swung back to Tau Ceti, wondering how in the universe the man had managed to keep them alive.
"Nmmph..." Tau Ceti's eyelids flickered, then a pained expression creased his face as he slowly opened first one violet eye, then the other. He blinked a few times as his vision focused, silently regarding Sigma, then solemnly proclaimed, "Ow."
A low chuckle escaped Sigma's lips. "Something like that," he agreed. "How do you feel?"
"Like I had an up and personal encounter with the agri-loving Shatterstar," Tau Ceti grumbled, carefully sitting up and wincing at each new movement.
Sigma blinked. "The what?"
Tau Ceti blinked owlishly a few times, then grinned rather sheepishly. "Nevermind."
Sigma regarded him for a moment, then shrugged and offered him a hand. Tau Ceti looked briefly surprised, then accepted gracefully, getting somewhat awkwardly to his feet and swaying slightly.
Sigma frowned. "Are you all right? You hit your head and you may have a concussion, but I don't know anything about your species..."
A faint, bitter grimace twisted the edges of Tau Ceti's mouth. "Nobody does," he replied cryptically, reaching up to press a hand to his forehead. "Other than the pounding in my head and a few bumps and bruises, I think I'm okay. I suppose it's safe to assume that given we aren't all splatters on the deckplates that I got the ship down in one piece, more or less?"
"We're alive, for whatever good that's going to do us," Sigma replied, frowning and looking over the wreckage again. "By all rights we shouldn't have survived that crash, so we probably have a little bit of an advantage in that it's unlikely anyone will be looking for us... but at the same time, our systems seem to be completely down and we have no way to signal for help."
"Mmm..." Tau Ceti listed to one side and Sigma hastily caught him, more than a little worried.
"Tau-"
"M'okay," Tau Ceti refuted, though he still leaned rather heavily on Sigma. "Just get me back to the communications console..." He paused, grimaced, and corrected himself. "What's left of the communications console, and I'll see what I can do about piecing things back together."
Privately Sigma didn't think even Tau Ceti could fix something that had been obliterated, but then he had gotten them down alive, so maybe Sigma seriously needed to start believing in the impossible. At least when the impossible crossed paths with Tau Ceti.
He helped the green man over to the wreckage of the communications console ("Hmm, I think I saw some sort of impressionistic art that looked like this once," Tau Ceti commented) then made his way back to where the others were beginning to wake.
Sigma slowly organized the small crew into pairs, sending them off into the depths of the ship to ascertain if anything at all was still intact and whether there was any serious damage that would put their lives in danger. He himself headed down to the main engineering room to check on the life support systems and verify how much power they had before that gave out.
It wouldn't do to start panicking now. Granted, they were on a barren, airless moon in a system that the IG had been trying and failing to locate for months in a ship that was barely better than scrap metal, but they were alive and amazingly uninjured. The life support systems were functional on a low level and the one power cell that had survived the crash appeared stable. He estimated they would be able to survive two to three months before the power gave out, barring any unforeseen emergencies.
Such as that coolant leak.
Making his way back to the bridge, Sigma was surprised to find that the coolant was no longer leaking and Tau Ceti had half the bridge systems disassembled, their parts scattered everywhere. The man had a small circuitboard in his mouth and three more in his lap as he tinkered with them.
"So, how bad is it?" he asked.
Tau Ceti looked up at him and blinked, then carefully took the component out of his mouth to reply. "Good and bad. Good, in that I can work with it, and bad in that I don't think the emergency message I tried to send out while we were attempting not to get our atoms scattered across the cosmos actually transmitted." He scowled and kicked at the nearest bit of electronics. "Stupid hunk of junk pirate ship."
Sigma chuckled quietly. "You fixed the coolant leak?"
"And the ruptured phase conduit. Whatever idiot designed this ship obviously didn't do so with emergency landings in mind."
Attempting vainly to stifle his laughter, Sigma started inspecting all the storage compartments in search of anything remotely useful. He wasn't really expecting much, not on this ship, but there might be something they could use. Rations, at the least. Maybe some bit of equipment that Tau Ceti could magically transform into some outlandish device to transport them all to Zero.
He snorted at his own thoughts. Now he was just being ridiculous.
Two hours later they'd located a lot of really useless junk and a handful of ration packs. Sigma reflected silently that their food would give out long before the life support did, and dying of starvation and dehydration was not amongst the most pleasant ways to go. He didn't voice any of that, however, just passed out a measure of food to everyone before taking Tau Ceti's portion over to where the man was doing something with the wiring underneath the deckplates.
"Hey."
Violet eyes peered up at him in bewilderment. Sigma grinned. "Dinner," he clarified.
Tau Ceti shrugged and went back to whatever it was he'd been doing. "Too busy," came the muffled reply. "You eat it."
"You need the energy," Sigma countered, making himself a clear section of floor in which to sit and parking himself next to Tau Ceti.
"I'm fine," Tau Ceti retorted without looking up. He shifted around a bit and grasped blindly for something, muttering beneath his breath when it didn't immediately turn up. A moment later Sigma started as something green and slender wafted over the disassembled pieces, curling around one and hoisting it over toward Tau Ceti, depositing the piece into the hand that reached out expectantly for it.
"What... was that?" Sigma asked, baffled, as he reached out and prodded at the long appendage, near the very end where there was a tuft of silky black hair.
"Gyaah!" Tau Ceti jerked, sitting up quickly as the long green thing coiled defensively around him. "Don't do that!"
Sigma blinked. "Do what? What is that?"
Tau Ceti glared. "My tail."
"Your what?"
Tau Ceti sighed. "Tail. I know it's a hard concept for you humans to wrap your minds around, but yes, I have a tail. It is attached to my body, and sensitive, so I would appreciate it if you would warn me the next time you take it into your head to poke at it."
"You have a tail." Sigma's mind didn't quite seem to be grasping the concept.
"Yes, I do." Tau Ceti glared again. "No, it is not a deformation or a mutation, it is normal for my species."
Sigma blinked. "I didn't say anything."
"I've heard it before."
"Huh..." Sigma tentatively reached out and lightly stroked the slender appendage thoughtfully. "It suits you."
Tau Ceti blinked, holding perfectly still as Sigma touched him, giving him a most peculiar expression. "I'm trying to decide if that was an insult or not."
Sigma chuckled quietly. "Not in the slightest. You're..." He hesitated, choosing his words carefully. It was obvious from Tau Ceti's reaction that he'd had a lot of trouble with his appearance in the past. "Unique. Interesting. I've never met anyone remotely like you before in my life."
One of Tau Ceti's dark brows lifted. "A fact which you are undoubtedly grateful for."
Sigma shrugged, wincing at the pain of the shoulder wound. "I don't know about that. You're certainly more capable than most of the people I know." A slight pause and a hint of a smirk. "As well as considerably more stubborn."
Tau Ceti's smirk was positively proud. "Good. I work very hard to be the most skilled brat in space."
"You're succeeding admirably," Sigma returned.
Tau Ceti laughed, then grabbed his ration pack from Sigma and wolfed it down almost in one bite. His eyes fairly danced, taunting Sigma to say something about it, then he ducked down beneath one of the not-so-badly-damaged consoles and resumed his work.
Bemused, Sigma picked his way back across the rubble to the clear section of floor and sprawled out, adjusting himself so that he could watch Tau Ceti as he worked. The man was unquestionably fascinating. On the surface he was all fire and arrogance, completely confident in himself and his skills, so self-assured it seemed as though he feared nothing.
Then there were those brief glimpses Sigma got every now and then in which it was almost painfully obvious that a few ill-chosen words hurt more than any wound could. Something about his appearance, the way he looked. Sigma wondered if it was actual shame about his species, or simply because he was different.
Very few races possessed tails, after all. And something Tau Ceti had said earlier gave Sigma the impression that his people were not very well known. That alone would draw attention to the man wherever he went, as watchers would attempt to figure out what exactly he was.
But then, if it bothered him that much, why wasn't he still on his home planet where everyone looked like he did?
Sigma mulled it over for quite some time, watching the slight shiftings as Tau Ceti did this or that to modify the machinery, then blinked as an unexpected thought occurred to him. He felt... relaxed. He wasn't going over mission briefs or ship specs, wasn't flinging himself into desperately trying to find a way to get a message back to the IG; he was lying casually on the floor and trusting that a man he barely knew would come up with a solution.
That thought should terrify him. It didn't. Instead, he was waiting. Waiting for Tau Ceti to finish, to share his plan, to tell Sigma how he could help. It was strange, and yet at the same time it felt reassuring. As though this was how life was supposed to be. Cooperation amongst Equals.
His eyes felt heavy, his muscles weary. A brief glance at the other four showed that all but one of the red-skinned humans were already asleep, and that last one nearly so. He was on a mission; he didn't normally sleep at all during missions, but until Tau Ceti finished whatever he was doing, there wasn't really anything for Sigma to do, and his battered body could really use the time to rest and mend. Still...
"You going to get some rest at some point?" Sigma called out softly, pitching his voice low so as not to disturb the others.
"Later," came the muffled reply, Tau Ceti's backside sticking out of a hole in the floor where he'd ripped off one of the deckplates and climbed partway in to the tangle of wires beneath.
Sigma opened his mouth to persist, then closed it with a rueful smile. Who was he to demand anyone take the time to sleep? "Don't stay up too late," he said instead, pillowing his arms behind his head and closing his eyes.
"How late is too late?" came the bemused response.
"When your eyes start to cross," Sigma returned with a slight chuckle, sitting up slightly to look at him.
There was a brief pause, then a quiet laugh. "All right," Tau Ceti said, climbing up out of the wires long enough to flash him a grin. "I'll take a break when my eyes start to cross."
Sigma watched him dive back down into the electronics, then closed his eyes. He was fast asleep when, some time later, Tau Ceti regarded him thoughtfully for a long moment before pacing over and dropping a thin blanket across his sleeping form.
When Sigma awoke his body was stiff and he took nearly a half hour slowly working the soreness out of his muscles before getting to his feet and looking around. The bridge was almost unrecognizable, so extensive were the changes that had taken place while he slept. Several systems were up and running, though even the most cursory glance showed that whatever they were doing now, it wasn't what they'd originally been intended to do.
Tau Ceti was nowhere in sight, though his handiwork was everywhere, and Sigma spent several minutes wandering from one bundle of modified electronics to another, trying to guess what they were for. It could have been anything, really. If Tau Ceti could turn a bundle of transfer circuits from behind a basic wall panel into the most sophisticated hologram inducer Sigma had ever seen, there was absolutely no way to tell what he'd done with the broken ship parts.
One by one the others awoke and Sigma handed out ration packs. He'd just given one to the fuzzy purple creature, who he'd learned was a Daneubian named Tiluk, when the hall doors swished open and Tau Ceti reappeared, wearing the most patchwork excuse for a pressure suit Sigma had ever seen.
"It's perfect," he announced, completely oblivious to the ration pack Sigma tried to offer him as he went sailing past.
"What's perfect?" Sigma asked, picking his way a little more carefully through the randomly strewn rubble and electronic components to where Tau Ceti had dropped into one of the seats.
"The moon," Tau Ceti replied, swiftly punching in commands and bringing up a diagram on his monitor. "Partially hollow with an iron and silicon core, threaded everywhere with copper. Absolutely perfect."
Sigma arched a brow. "Perfect for what?" he inquired dryly.
A sly smile spread across Tau Ceti's lips. "To get people's attention."
At the look on Sigma's face, Tau Ceti laughed and elaborated. "I've wired the ship into the moon as best I was able with the limited supplies we had. If I've calculated correctly, there isn't a ship in the entire quadrant that won't be able to find us."
"As long as it's the Authorities that find us before the revolutionaries do," Sigma observed wryly.
Tau Ceti waved a hand dismissively. "Not a problem. IG ships use different encryption protocols than the rustbuckets those idiots fly."
Sigma blinked. "What?"
"Um." Tau Ceti scrunched up his face in thought. "I'll explain the details later. Let me think... if I was trying to explain this to the Princess..." He drummed his fingers on the edge of the console, then spun around in his chair to face Sigma. "Okay, like this. I'm going to channel a massive EMP pulse through the moon, which will be amplified by the silicon-metal core before being sent out in a single massive burst. It's going to disrupt systems trillions of parsecs away, more than far enough to get the attention of whatever IG ships happen to be in the area. I've taken the configuration and design of those ships into account and calibrated the pulse to allow them to recover faster, as well as set it up so that the formula for calculating the origin of my EMP wave will be written into their computers. Provided the lunkheads figure out what it's for, we should have visitors in two, three days tops."
A stunned silence met his announcement. Sigma slowly ran over the explanation in his head, two thoughts floating to the forefront of his mind. "So then, the revolutionaries' ships will stay down longer than the Authorities'?" He looked to Tau Ceti for confirmation.
Tau Ceti shrugged. "As long as they haven't stolen an IG ship, anyway."
Deciding to let that one slide for now, Sigma frowned slightly. "Where are you going to get that sort of power? All but one of the ship's power packs were damaged in the crash."
Grinning in a way that Sigma was swiftly coming to realize meant Trouble, Tau Ceti idly twitched his tail back and forth over one of his arms. "Well, I fixed about half of the power packs while you all were sleeping... and I may know of a way to generate the remaining power needed."
"You fixed the power packs." Sigma shook his head, wondering why he found that surprising. "You realize, with an EMP pulse of the magnitude you're proposing, you're going to end up with half the IG ships in the quadrant in this system."
Tau Ceti laughed. "That's the point. I told you, everyone is getting rescued, including all the people still locked up in that compound of theirs, and if those idiots down there take a long as I think they will to get their systems up and running again, they'll be on their way to Rehab before they know what hit them."
"I think not," an icy voice interrupted.
Sigma's head jerked up to meet the eyes of one of the red humans, a stunner aimed steadily at his head. The pale-skinned human had the other red one and the fuzzy purple thing cornered with another stunner, and both of them looked like they knew exactly what they were doing.
"Rebel spies," Sigma stated flatly, his hand tightening on the back of Tau Ceti's chair.
Tau Ceti sighed quietly. "I rather suspected something like this would happen, though I didn't anticipate two of you. I suppose I should feel flattered."
The red-skinned rebel smirked. "It isn't every day that one of the IG's pet Gremlins falls right into our laps. I'll admit, we weren't sure at first, but then you went and proved yourself rather nicely, didn't you? All for some stupid Authority."
There was a slight movement as Tau Ceti shrugged. "It seemed like a good idea at the time." He sat forward, eyes intense. "Why wait until now? Why not make your move while we were still on the moon with your base?"
This time the man grimaced and gestured at Sigma with the stunner. "Normal Authorities can't take down five armed men with their bare hands. We had to wait until we could catch you off-guard, and then we crash-landed on this stupid moon. We were just going to signal to our people and wait to be 'recaptured', but we can't let you go through with your plan, so... here we are."
Tau Ceti glanced up at Sigma briefly, his lips quirking into a slight smile. "Hmm, yes, he is rather special, isn't he?" he mused quietly as he regarded the man pointing the stunner at him. "If I might ask, what were you hoping to do with me once you had me?"
The rebel snorted. "We have our informants at the Palace of Eternity. We know full well what a Gremlin is capable of." He smiled coldly. "Men will do almost anything with the right... motivation."
"You mean torture," Tau Ceti corrected flatly.
The red-skinned rebel smirked. "Call it what you wish."
They regarded one another silently for several moments, then Tau Ceti said quietly, "You can't force a Gremlin to create against his will. Coerce, bribe, yes. But not force."
"Is that an offer?" the rebel asked, one brow arching. "You'll come with us if we reward you handsomely enough?"
Tau Ceti smiled, and Sigma knew he was the only one that noticed the expression didn't reach his eyes. "That's better," he murmured. "What sorts of trinkets can you offer to secure my cooperation?"
"Name it," the man shot back. "If we don't have it yet, we can get it."
"Can you now?" Tau Ceti asked aloud, slowly rising from his chair and spreading his hands to emphasize that he was unarmed. "What if I wanted, oh, a necklace of Earth Amethysts set into Tredad silver?"
The rebel man's brows shot up. "That's a lot of points."
Tau Ceti laughed. "You'd probably be amazed how much I get paid," he said, almost condescending. "But then, you really had no idea what you'd caught, did you? To you humans, all Gremlins are alike. One is just as good as another, just a funny-looking slave to make you fancy toys. You never stopped to think that maybe, just maybe, you'd gotten more than you'd bargained for..."
All the while he'd been talking Tau Ceti had been moving steadily closer to the red-skinned rebel. It took a moment before the man seemed to realize just how close in proximity Tau Ceti was and he took a step back, his voice squeaking. "Don't!"
"Or you'll do what?" Tau Ceti purred. "You're not going to shoot me. You want me too much."
Frantic, the man's gaze jerked from Tau Ceti to Sigma and his weapon steadied. Tau Ceti's violet eyes widened and he lunged at the man even as the shot went off, barely missing Sigma's head as he dodged to one side. He leapt across the wreckage, bringing one arm down hard on the back of the other rebel's neck, then turned to help Tau Ceti.
Who didn't need help at all. His hands were clasped tightly to the rebel's shoulders, the man's body twitching and jerking in an entirely unnatural way before Tau Ceti finally released him and stood. He turned and looked at Sigma, his eyes the coldest Sigma had ever seen them.
"Are you all right?" they both asked at once. There was a brief moment of surprise before first Sigma, then Tau Ceti began laughing quietly.
"I... oh..." Tau Ceti breathed, stumbling over to make sure that the remaining two members of their little group were unharmed. "I think I needed that."
"What did you do to him?" Sigma asked, nudging the cooling body at his feet. He hadn't thought it was possible to kill a man by touching his shoulders, but apparently Tau Ceti was out to surprise him again.
"Electric shock," Tau Ceti replied calmly, using a length of wiring to tie up the one remaining rebel. "Which is what I'm about to use to signal for help, if everyone is done with pointing weapons at my head."
Sigma arched a brow, then slowly shook his head. "Somehow, I doubt you'll have any more problems after that particular display."
Tau Ceti smiled grimly, then walked back over to his modified equipment. He pressed a series of buttons, then wrapped his hands around a wide metal rod emerging from the floor. "This had better work like it's supposed to," he muttered quietly beneath his breath, then electricity began crackling around him, arcing from his body to the rod and down into the ship, presumably then to proceed deep inside the moon. For several long moments he glowed brighter than the ship's lights, then quite suddenly the effect ceased as quickly as it had begun.
Before he was even really aware he was moving Sigma was across the intervening space, catching Tau Ceti as the man - Gremlin - collapsed. He had barely a moment to worry about what had happened before all the ship's systems went haywire at once, lights flashing wildly, unbroken screens displaying dizzying patterns, then they were plunged into utter darkness.
Sigma's breath caught. He knew Tau Ceti had said everything would recover from the pulse eventually, but their ship was one of the revolutionaries' and damaged at that. How long would it take before the life support systems cycled back up? Would they come back up, damaged as they were? With Tau Ceti unconscious, none of them had the knowledge to do anything about it. All they could do was wait. And hope.
Combat Class Star Ship 22139453, The Black-Widow
Sigma stared out the plas-glass window at the small rocky moon, the yellow-green gas planet looming massive behind it. The Black-Widow had arrived two days after Tau Ceti's message had gone out, with five more ships appearing shortly afterward, and more arriving every minute. It seemed that Tau Ceti had been serious about getting the attention of every IG ship in the quadrant.
The Black-Widow's slightly irritable captain had finished debriefing him approximately ten minutes ago and was now coordinating with the rest of the ships over the impending assault on the revolutionaries' headquarters. Sigma mused that he could see why the man was so tetchy, having experienced the gut-wrenching fear of being caught on a powerless ship himself, but that still had to count for one of the most unpleasant debriefings he'd ever experienced.
He'd learned via the man's Second that the Scythe had been located and its remaining crew rescued. Captain Lehennin, having taken the worst injuries, was in the medical center on Bangkok and was expected to make a full recovery, and the Scythe itself was even now undergoing repairs. The only thing that still remained incomplete was the Scythe's original mission to locate and retrieve the missing IG consultant, but the Black-Widow's captain flatly refused to let Sigma take part in the ground assault squad, citing Sigma's injuries.
Sigma had politely refrained from telling him he could take down five of the man's officers with his current injuries, ten if his shoulder wasn't still aching.
Instead, he'd chosen to wander aimlessly through the corridors, wondering where Tau Ceti had gotten to. He hadn't been in the debriefing; the captain had shown absolutely no interest in any of the three civilians even after Sigma had explained how the EMP message-pulse had been entirely Tau Ceti's doing. Somehow, that didn't really surprise Sigma at all. Tau Ceti was obviously something you had to see and experience for yourself. Otherwise, who would believe it?
He'd just finished mapping out the third deck and was on his way to the fourth when voices caught his attention. One he recognized immediately, Tau Ceti's smug, arrogant manner of speech almost impossible to mistake. It was the other that he was certain he was hearing wrong, deep and rich and more than a little bit exasperated. It couldn't possibly be...
Backtracking, Sigma found himself outside of a small meeting room normally reserved for when the captain needed to brief the senior officers. The door was partially ajar, being the old-fashioned kind that swung open rather than sliding, and allowed just enough space for Sigma to spot Tau Ceti as the Gremlin sat cross-legged atop the conference table.
"Really now, my dear Ice Princess, if you hadn't been slacking so badly on finding me I wouldn't have had to resort to such drastic measures," Tau Ceti was saying.
Sigma stiffened as the reply came, unable to deny what he was hearing. The person Tau Ceti was so cheerfully conversing with on the vid-screen was High Chancellor Kavalerov.
"Sending out an EMP pulse with enough strength to knock out every electronic system between Coni and Bangkok is a bit much," Kavalerov reprimanded. "Do you have any idea how much work you just caused me?"
Tau Ceti rolled his eyes. "You need to learn to delegate, Princess. Besides, there was no lasting damage done, and I just took care of your little revolutionary problem for you, so you should be thanking me."
There was a quiet sigh from the speakers. "Diplomacy is obviously beyond your comprehension, Tau."
"Like you're one to talk," Tau Ceti retorted. "You're just jealous that I get to go blow things up and you don't."
"Behave," Kavalerov warned, "Or I'll send you off to work on the Sweet Dream with your brother for a while."
"Oh, that's cruel and unusual punishment, Princess," Tau Ceti exclaimed, sitting up a little. "As long as I keep building you your little toys, you really have no room to complain." He stuck his tongue out at the screen.
Sigma leaned against the door jam, utterly baffled. Obviously the strange conversation could only mean that Tau Ceti was the High Chancellor's missing consultant, though he didn't look remotely like his picture. Then there was the small issue of Tau Ceti being the one to rescue them, which begged the question of why High Chancellor Kavalerov had felt the need to send out rescue parties in the first place.
"Eavesdropping is completely against regulations," Tau Ceti announced from where he'd crept up to the other side of the door while Sigma had been thinking. "I'm so proud of you."
"Corrupting law-abiding officers isn't something to be proud of," Kavalerov said dryly.
"Why not?" Tau Ceti asked. "You do it all the time."
Sigma flushed as Tau Ceti pulled him into the room and kicked the door shut firmly behind them. He nervously straightened his uniform and managed to salute properly, only to have Tau Ceti smack him in the back of the head.
"No, no, no," Tau Ceti scolded. "You don't salute him. You never salute the Ice Princess. You do this." Grinning broadly at the screen, he made a gesture that was widely understood to be more than a little bit rude on Zero and at least a hundred other worlds.
"I..." Sigma blinked at Tau Ceti, then at the image of the High Chancellor on the screen. "Wait, wait, wait... would someone please explain what's going on? Tau Ceti's the consultant we were supposed to find, isn't he?" At Kavalerov's affirmation, Sigma asked, "Then why doesn't he look like the image in the profile you sent?"
Kavalerov chuckled. "I have a guess, but I'll let Tau explain that one."
The Gremlin rolled his eyes. "The bastards broke my image inducer and I didn't get around to making a new one."
"Image inducer? Like the hologram you made back in the cell?" Sigma asked.
Tau Ceti grinned. "But smaller and more sophisticated. With it, I can look like anyone I want, though I usually stick with the mundane appearance that the Ice Princess sent you."
Sigma blinked. "Why?"
Tau Ceti hesitated, then shrugged. "Honestly? It's just easier. I don't have to deal with all that nonsense if nobody knows who the hell I am. I don't like a lot of attention."
"Oh." Sigma frowned, something finally registering in the back of his mind. His eyes widened. "Wait... now I remember why I know your name! You're the one that designed the Scythe! And half of the prototype ships in the fleet!"
Tau Ceti winced as Kavalerov started laughing quietly. "You shut up," the Gremlin shot at the screen, then crossed his arms and glared at Sigma. "I liked it better when you didn't know who I was."
Sigma hesitated a moment, then smiled ruefully. "Actually, to tell the truth, the trick with the hologram thing was more impressive than either the ships or the EMP wave." He shrugged. "There's just something incredible about taking a few power circuits out of a wall and building a holograph inducer out of them. You had a lot more to work with when you did the rest of it."
Kavalerov started laughing again as Tau Ceti stared at him, then laughed harder when the Gremlin flipped off the screen a second time. "I never thought I'd see the day when Tau Ceti was rendered speechless," the High Chancellor stated, amused. "Lieutenant-Commander Sigma Altair, correct?"
"Yes, sir," Sigma replied, automatically starting to salute again and hesitating partway as he looked at Tau Ceti. Kavalerov's amused voice interrupted before he could finish being confused.
"I would really prefer you not pick up on all of Tau's bad habits," the High Chancellor commented wryly.
"With all due respect, sir," Sigma said with a smile, "He's a lot closer to me at the moment and I've already seen what he can do when someone pisses him off."
"Hmm, you do have a point there," Kavalerov agreed.
Sigma shook his head slowly, looking from the glaring Tau Ceti to the bemused High Chancellor and back again, then frowning a bit. "Magics-capable aren't allowed to be in the Infinitum Government..."
"I'm not, technically," Tau Ceti replied, shooting Kavalerov a warning look. "Thus why they call me a 'consultant' and pay me quite nicely for my services. I get a nice cushy workshop on Zero and free rides to wherever I might want to go, though after this trip I think I'm going to stay home for a while."
"Zero?" Sigma said, surprised. "Not your home world?"
Tau Ceti's face went blank. The High Chancellor's quiet voice came over the speakers a few moments later. "Perhaps it would be in your interest to access the library files regarding Gremlins at your earliest convenience," he suggested.
A green hand waved dismissively at the screen. "It's fine, Pyotr," Tau Ceti said. He took a careful breath, then looked up at Sigma. "My homeworld was wiped out by a space plague two centuries ago. Two space plagues, actually. Those of us who are left live on Zero, though our birth rates are still so low that there are less than a hundred of us remaining." He shrugged. "Most of us are trying to advance your technology as far as we can before we completely die out and you're stuck with incompetent human engineers."
"Not all humans are as unintelligent as you think we are, Tau," Kavalerov chided, then added, "The banquet incident notwithstanding."
Tau Ceti's lips quirked upward as he turned to look at the screen. "I told you they'd do it."
Kavalerov shook his head, faintly bemused, then asked calmly, "When are you heading back to Zero, so I know when to have the staff don their armour?"
"I got kidnapped before I got to finish my vacation," Tau Ceti replied, violet eyes starting to sparkle again, "So you'll be seeing me in three weeks." He paused, eyed Sigma speculatively, then added, "Sigma's going on vacation too, and I'd appreciate it if you'd do the paperwork. We'll be on Bangkok, if you need us." He grinned. "Probably."
Before either Sigma or Kavalerov could protest, Tau Ceti cut the call. Sigma stared helplessly at the blank screen. "Wait, you just... the High Chancellor..."
"Don't worry about it," Tau Ceti told him, scooting closer. "I do that all the time."
The rest of his attempted protests were cut short as warm lips descended upon his and all thought processes promptly stuttered to a halt as Sigma realized that Tau Ceti was kissing him. Kissing him. The thought was so completely overwhelming that he didn't notice in the slightest when he started kissing the man back, hot and demanding and oh so right. He had Tau Ceti pinned against the conference table when something warm and silken coiled around him and slipped up the back of his uniform, Tau Ceti's tail teasing his skin before firmly pressing them closer together.
They were both panting softly when they parted, though between Sigma's arms and Tau Ceti's tail they didn't separate very far. The Gremlin smiled and licked his lips, violet eyes sparkling in a way that was proving highly distracting to normal thought processes and Sigma very much wanted to kiss him again but there was still one question he needed to ask.
"Just explain one thing to me..."
Tau Ceti smiled lazily. "Mmm?"
"You got us out of the cell, away from the compound, and called in the reinforcements. Why did the High Chancellor feel the need to send all those ships out after you when you were perfectly capable of rescuing yourself?" Sigma asked.
This time, Tau Ceti's smirk was positively devious. "The Ice Princess was trying to avoid something like the EMP incident," he replied. "How does he phrase it? I have a tendency towards massive overkill?"
Sigma shook his head, unable to keep the slight smile from his lips. "I'm amazed he hasn't sent you off to Rehab yet, given, well, everything."
Tau Ceti snickered. "Trust me, the Ice Princess gets even. That man is craftier than a Daneubian hellcat. He's the only human I've ever really respected and if you ever tell him I said that then Rehab will look like a pleasant vacation compared with what I'll do to you."
"I won't breathe a word," Sigma promised, his breath catching as Tau Ceti wriggled enticingly against him. Biting back a strangled moan, he tilted his head and leaned in for another kiss.
Planet 2147151 (Bangkok), Red Dragon Tower
"Nnmph."
Sigma lifted his head and blinked blearily at the message screen blinking at him in the darkness. He started to reach out for it only to have to pause and untangle Tau Ceti's tail from where it was wrapped around his waist, earning him a sleepy protest from the Gremlin.
"Sorry," he murmured quietly, brushing a soft kiss across Tau Ceti's forehead.
"Mmm, get back here," Tau Ceti ordered, punctuating his words with a yawn as he sat up to run his eyes along Sigma's body as the Authority picked up the small message tablet.
There was silence for several moments as Sigma read over the contents of the screen several times to verify, then he turned to stare incredulously at Tau Ceti. "I'm being reassigned."
Tau Ceti frowned and scooted across the bed, his tail reaching out to pluck the tablet out of Sigma's hands and bring it up to where he could read it. The glow of the screen made his face appear eerily beautiful in the darkness, then the Gremlin broke the effect by doubling over and laughing.
"What is it?" Sigma asked, retrieving the message tablet and reading it over for a fourth time. "I don't get it. Why am I being assigned to duty on Zero?"
Grinning, Tau Ceti plucked the tablet out of his hands and tossed it across the room, yanking Sigma down roughly on top of him. His hands traced tiny patterns up Sigma's sides, setting all his nerves aflame. "I told you," he murmured, leaning up to lick one of Sigma's nipples, "The Ice Princess is a crafty bastard."
Sigma struggled desperately to keep his thoughts in order despite the slow torment. "Wait, the High Chancellor reassigned me? Why?"
Violet eyes gleamed in the darkness. "Because he's obviously decided that you're wasted out there with those morons when your talents are obviously far better suited to one of his little pet projects." Tau Ceti chuckled quietly. "Welcome to the Princess's pets, Sigma Altair."
"Pets?" Sigma arched a brow.
Tau Ceti laughed. "Slaves, minions, or lackeys don't have the same alliteration."
Sigma shook his head slowly. "This is crazy. I mean, it's an honor to serve in the Palace of Eternity, but they don't really do much..."
"Oh, don't worry," Tau Ceti said calmly, "You won't be staying on Zero. As soon as he figures out exactly where your particular skills would be most useful, you'll be sent out on one of his toy ships." The Gremlin paused, then scowled darkly and rattled off a series of rather crude curses. "That agri-loving bastard!"
Sigma blinked. "What?"
Tau Ceti scowled darkly. "He did this on purpose, I know he did."
"Did what?" Sigma asked patiently.
"He knows I'll follow you wherever he decides to stick you," Tau Ceti grumbled. "It had better not be the Sweet Dream, or I'm so sending in the sheep army again."
"The Sweet Dream?" He didn't want to know about the sheep.
"It's... well, the Ice Princess can explain those later. Suffice to say my brother's on the Sweet Dream and we don't exactly get along," Tau Ceti muttered. "That devious, crafty, conniving..." He stopped, blinking into the darkness, then his entire expression shifted into something cunning and slightly unnerving.
Sigma winced. "You're plotting something."
Tau Ceti smiled sweetly at him. "Yes, yes I am."
Sigma shook his head. "Do I even want to know?"
White teeth gleamed in the darkness as Tau Ceti grinned feraly. "I am going to build the fastest, fanciest, most drippingly lavish ship in the universe to put all his little toys to shame, and then I'm going to name it the Ice Princess just to annoy him." He practically beamed. "How do you feel about being Captain?"
Grimacing, Sigma shook his head. "Not me. I'm a fine Second, but a captain needs to be someone who the crew will actually listen to."
"Mmm, I think you underestimate yourself," Tau Ceti murmured, tail stroking sensuously up Sigma's back. "But maybe by the time I get it designed and built you'll have figured that out for yourself. If not..." He chuckled. "Well, then the Ice Princess gets to draft some other poor unsuspecting soul into his clutches."
Sigma snorted and rolled his eyes. "You really need to get another hobby besides seeing how many ways you can annoy the High Chancellor."
Tau Ceti smirked. "I have one."
"Oh?" Sigma arched a brow. "And what's that?"
"Ravishing you."
That, Sigma reflected, was a perfectly acceptable hobby, even if it meant his entire neatly organized world was coming down around his head in pieces. He could adapt. His life was changing in major ways, but somehow he found he didn't really mind.
Whatever happened, Tau Ceti was worth it.
---
Moon orbiting a Gas Giant, Location Unknown, Quadrant Three
His head hurt again. As did everything else, come to think of it. Unconsciousness was remarkably unpleasant after crash-landing on a barren, lifeless moon, and the waking-up even more so. As Sigma gingerly opened his eyes and glanced around, he inwardly winced at the destruction.
Only two lights were still on, and those at minimal power. Most of the control consoles had been twisted into unrecognizable shapes or broken clean in half, electricity sizzling intermittently from the shorn circuitboards. He could hear the faint hiss of a coolant leak somewhere, and the air was getting noticeably colder.
Gritting his teeth against the pain, Sigma unfastened his safety restraints and rose cautiously from his chair. He could make out the indistinct form of Tau Ceti slumped over what was left of the control console, his dark hair fanning out and obscuring his face. Stepping carefully over the wreckage on the floor, Sigma reached out to touch the man's neck and was relieved to note a faint, if rapid, pulse.
He got Tau Ceti out of the harness, picking him up and carrying him to a section of the bridge relatively clear of rubble, marveling at how light the man was. He wished he knew what was 'normal' for Tau Ceti's species, as he had no way to tell if anything was wrong. There was a shallow gash on the man's head that had already ceased bleeding, but his bulky clothing obscured any other possible injuries.
Sigma straightened and surveyed the rest, noting that, while unconscious, none of them appeared notably injured. The front consoles and part of the floor had born the bulk of the damage. And unfortunately, that damage was extensive. There was no way the ship would ever fly again. Frankly he was amazed that the life support systems were still functional. His gaze swung back to Tau Ceti, wondering how in the universe the man had managed to keep them alive.
"Nmmph..." Tau Ceti's eyelids flickered, then a pained expression creased his face as he slowly opened first one violet eye, then the other. He blinked a few times as his vision focused, silently regarding Sigma, then solemnly proclaimed, "Ow."
A low chuckle escaped Sigma's lips. "Something like that," he agreed. "How do you feel?"
"Like I had an up and personal encounter with the agri-loving Shatterstar," Tau Ceti grumbled, carefully sitting up and wincing at each new movement.
Sigma blinked. "The what?"
Tau Ceti blinked owlishly a few times, then grinned rather sheepishly. "Nevermind."
Sigma regarded him for a moment, then shrugged and offered him a hand. Tau Ceti looked briefly surprised, then accepted gracefully, getting somewhat awkwardly to his feet and swaying slightly.
Sigma frowned. "Are you all right? You hit your head and you may have a concussion, but I don't know anything about your species..."
A faint, bitter grimace twisted the edges of Tau Ceti's mouth. "Nobody does," he replied cryptically, reaching up to press a hand to his forehead. "Other than the pounding in my head and a few bumps and bruises, I think I'm okay. I suppose it's safe to assume that given we aren't all splatters on the deckplates that I got the ship down in one piece, more or less?"
"We're alive, for whatever good that's going to do us," Sigma replied, frowning and looking over the wreckage again. "By all rights we shouldn't have survived that crash, so we probably have a little bit of an advantage in that it's unlikely anyone will be looking for us... but at the same time, our systems seem to be completely down and we have no way to signal for help."
"Mmm..." Tau Ceti listed to one side and Sigma hastily caught him, more than a little worried.
"Tau-"
"M'okay," Tau Ceti refuted, though he still leaned rather heavily on Sigma. "Just get me back to the communications console..." He paused, grimaced, and corrected himself. "What's left of the communications console, and I'll see what I can do about piecing things back together."
Privately Sigma didn't think even Tau Ceti could fix something that had been obliterated, but then he had gotten them down alive, so maybe Sigma seriously needed to start believing in the impossible. At least when the impossible crossed paths with Tau Ceti.
He helped the green man over to the wreckage of the communications console ("Hmm, I think I saw some sort of impressionistic art that looked like this once," Tau Ceti commented) then made his way back to where the others were beginning to wake.
Sigma slowly organized the small crew into pairs, sending them off into the depths of the ship to ascertain if anything at all was still intact and whether there was any serious damage that would put their lives in danger. He himself headed down to the main engineering room to check on the life support systems and verify how much power they had before that gave out.
It wouldn't do to start panicking now. Granted, they were on a barren, airless moon in a system that the IG had been trying and failing to locate for months in a ship that was barely better than scrap metal, but they were alive and amazingly uninjured. The life support systems were functional on a low level and the one power cell that had survived the crash appeared stable. He estimated they would be able to survive two to three months before the power gave out, barring any unforeseen emergencies.
Such as that coolant leak.
Making his way back to the bridge, Sigma was surprised to find that the coolant was no longer leaking and Tau Ceti had half the bridge systems disassembled, their parts scattered everywhere. The man had a small circuitboard in his mouth and three more in his lap as he tinkered with them.
"So, how bad is it?" he asked.
Tau Ceti looked up at him and blinked, then carefully took the component out of his mouth to reply. "Good and bad. Good, in that I can work with it, and bad in that I don't think the emergency message I tried to send out while we were attempting not to get our atoms scattered across the cosmos actually transmitted." He scowled and kicked at the nearest bit of electronics. "Stupid hunk of junk pirate ship."
Sigma chuckled quietly. "You fixed the coolant leak?"
"And the ruptured phase conduit. Whatever idiot designed this ship obviously didn't do so with emergency landings in mind."
Attempting vainly to stifle his laughter, Sigma started inspecting all the storage compartments in search of anything remotely useful. He wasn't really expecting much, not on this ship, but there might be something they could use. Rations, at the least. Maybe some bit of equipment that Tau Ceti could magically transform into some outlandish device to transport them all to Zero.
He snorted at his own thoughts. Now he was just being ridiculous.
Two hours later they'd located a lot of really useless junk and a handful of ration packs. Sigma reflected silently that their food would give out long before the life support did, and dying of starvation and dehydration was not amongst the most pleasant ways to go. He didn't voice any of that, however, just passed out a measure of food to everyone before taking Tau Ceti's portion over to where the man was doing something with the wiring underneath the deckplates.
"Hey."
Violet eyes peered up at him in bewilderment. Sigma grinned. "Dinner," he clarified.
Tau Ceti shrugged and went back to whatever it was he'd been doing. "Too busy," came the muffled reply. "You eat it."
"You need the energy," Sigma countered, making himself a clear section of floor in which to sit and parking himself next to Tau Ceti.
"I'm fine," Tau Ceti retorted without looking up. He shifted around a bit and grasped blindly for something, muttering beneath his breath when it didn't immediately turn up. A moment later Sigma started as something green and slender wafted over the disassembled pieces, curling around one and hoisting it over toward Tau Ceti, depositing the piece into the hand that reached out expectantly for it.
"What... was that?" Sigma asked, baffled, as he reached out and prodded at the long appendage, near the very end where there was a tuft of silky black hair.
"Gyaah!" Tau Ceti jerked, sitting up quickly as the long green thing coiled defensively around him. "Don't do that!"
Sigma blinked. "Do what? What is that?"
Tau Ceti glared. "My tail."
"Your what?"
Tau Ceti sighed. "Tail. I know it's a hard concept for you humans to wrap your minds around, but yes, I have a tail. It is attached to my body, and sensitive, so I would appreciate it if you would warn me the next time you take it into your head to poke at it."
"You have a tail." Sigma's mind didn't quite seem to be grasping the concept.
"Yes, I do." Tau Ceti glared again. "No, it is not a deformation or a mutation, it is normal for my species."
Sigma blinked. "I didn't say anything."
"I've heard it before."
"Huh..." Sigma tentatively reached out and lightly stroked the slender appendage thoughtfully. "It suits you."
Tau Ceti blinked, holding perfectly still as Sigma touched him, giving him a most peculiar expression. "I'm trying to decide if that was an insult or not."
Sigma chuckled quietly. "Not in the slightest. You're..." He hesitated, choosing his words carefully. It was obvious from Tau Ceti's reaction that he'd had a lot of trouble with his appearance in the past. "Unique. Interesting. I've never met anyone remotely like you before in my life."
One of Tau Ceti's dark brows lifted. "A fact which you are undoubtedly grateful for."
Sigma shrugged, wincing at the pain of the shoulder wound. "I don't know about that. You're certainly more capable than most of the people I know." A slight pause and a hint of a smirk. "As well as considerably more stubborn."
Tau Ceti's smirk was positively proud. "Good. I work very hard to be the most skilled brat in space."
"You're succeeding admirably," Sigma returned.
Tau Ceti laughed, then grabbed his ration pack from Sigma and wolfed it down almost in one bite. His eyes fairly danced, taunting Sigma to say something about it, then he ducked down beneath one of the not-so-badly-damaged consoles and resumed his work.
Bemused, Sigma picked his way back across the rubble to the clear section of floor and sprawled out, adjusting himself so that he could watch Tau Ceti as he worked. The man was unquestionably fascinating. On the surface he was all fire and arrogance, completely confident in himself and his skills, so self-assured it seemed as though he feared nothing.
Then there were those brief glimpses Sigma got every now and then in which it was almost painfully obvious that a few ill-chosen words hurt more than any wound could. Something about his appearance, the way he looked. Sigma wondered if it was actual shame about his species, or simply because he was different.
Very few races possessed tails, after all. And something Tau Ceti had said earlier gave Sigma the impression that his people were not very well known. That alone would draw attention to the man wherever he went, as watchers would attempt to figure out what exactly he was.
But then, if it bothered him that much, why wasn't he still on his home planet where everyone looked like he did?
Sigma mulled it over for quite some time, watching the slight shiftings as Tau Ceti did this or that to modify the machinery, then blinked as an unexpected thought occurred to him. He felt... relaxed. He wasn't going over mission briefs or ship specs, wasn't flinging himself into desperately trying to find a way to get a message back to the IG; he was lying casually on the floor and trusting that a man he barely knew would come up with a solution.
That thought should terrify him. It didn't. Instead, he was waiting. Waiting for Tau Ceti to finish, to share his plan, to tell Sigma how he could help. It was strange, and yet at the same time it felt reassuring. As though this was how life was supposed to be. Cooperation amongst Equals.
His eyes felt heavy, his muscles weary. A brief glance at the other four showed that all but one of the red-skinned humans were already asleep, and that last one nearly so. He was on a mission; he didn't normally sleep at all during missions, but until Tau Ceti finished whatever he was doing, there wasn't really anything for Sigma to do, and his battered body could really use the time to rest and mend. Still...
"You going to get some rest at some point?" Sigma called out softly, pitching his voice low so as not to disturb the others.
"Later," came the muffled reply, Tau Ceti's backside sticking out of a hole in the floor where he'd ripped off one of the deckplates and climbed partway in to the tangle of wires beneath.
Sigma opened his mouth to persist, then closed it with a rueful smile. Who was he to demand anyone take the time to sleep? "Don't stay up too late," he said instead, pillowing his arms behind his head and closing his eyes.
"How late is too late?" came the bemused response.
"When your eyes start to cross," Sigma returned with a slight chuckle, sitting up slightly to look at him.
There was a brief pause, then a quiet laugh. "All right," Tau Ceti said, climbing up out of the wires long enough to flash him a grin. "I'll take a break when my eyes start to cross."
Sigma watched him dive back down into the electronics, then closed his eyes. He was fast asleep when, some time later, Tau Ceti regarded him thoughtfully for a long moment before pacing over and dropping a thin blanket across his sleeping form.
When Sigma awoke his body was stiff and he took nearly a half hour slowly working the soreness out of his muscles before getting to his feet and looking around. The bridge was almost unrecognizable, so extensive were the changes that had taken place while he slept. Several systems were up and running, though even the most cursory glance showed that whatever they were doing now, it wasn't what they'd originally been intended to do.
Tau Ceti was nowhere in sight, though his handiwork was everywhere, and Sigma spent several minutes wandering from one bundle of modified electronics to another, trying to guess what they were for. It could have been anything, really. If Tau Ceti could turn a bundle of transfer circuits from behind a basic wall panel into the most sophisticated hologram inducer Sigma had ever seen, there was absolutely no way to tell what he'd done with the broken ship parts.
One by one the others awoke and Sigma handed out ration packs. He'd just given one to the fuzzy purple creature, who he'd learned was a Daneubian named Tiluk, when the hall doors swished open and Tau Ceti reappeared, wearing the most patchwork excuse for a pressure suit Sigma had ever seen.
"It's perfect," he announced, completely oblivious to the ration pack Sigma tried to offer him as he went sailing past.
"What's perfect?" Sigma asked, picking his way a little more carefully through the randomly strewn rubble and electronic components to where Tau Ceti had dropped into one of the seats.
"The moon," Tau Ceti replied, swiftly punching in commands and bringing up a diagram on his monitor. "Partially hollow with an iron and silicon core, threaded everywhere with copper. Absolutely perfect."
Sigma arched a brow. "Perfect for what?" he inquired dryly.
A sly smile spread across Tau Ceti's lips. "To get people's attention."
At the look on Sigma's face, Tau Ceti laughed and elaborated. "I've wired the ship into the moon as best I was able with the limited supplies we had. If I've calculated correctly, there isn't a ship in the entire quadrant that won't be able to find us."
"As long as it's the Authorities that find us before the revolutionaries do," Sigma observed wryly.
Tau Ceti waved a hand dismissively. "Not a problem. IG ships use different encryption protocols than the rustbuckets those idiots fly."
Sigma blinked. "What?"
"Um." Tau Ceti scrunched up his face in thought. "I'll explain the details later. Let me think... if I was trying to explain this to the Princess..." He drummed his fingers on the edge of the console, then spun around in his chair to face Sigma. "Okay, like this. I'm going to channel a massive EMP pulse through the moon, which will be amplified by the silicon-metal core before being sent out in a single massive burst. It's going to disrupt systems trillions of parsecs away, more than far enough to get the attention of whatever IG ships happen to be in the area. I've taken the configuration and design of those ships into account and calibrated the pulse to allow them to recover faster, as well as set it up so that the formula for calculating the origin of my EMP wave will be written into their computers. Provided the lunkheads figure out what it's for, we should have visitors in two, three days tops."
A stunned silence met his announcement. Sigma slowly ran over the explanation in his head, two thoughts floating to the forefront of his mind. "So then, the revolutionaries' ships will stay down longer than the Authorities'?" He looked to Tau Ceti for confirmation.
Tau Ceti shrugged. "As long as they haven't stolen an IG ship, anyway."
Deciding to let that one slide for now, Sigma frowned slightly. "Where are you going to get that sort of power? All but one of the ship's power packs were damaged in the crash."
Grinning in a way that Sigma was swiftly coming to realize meant Trouble, Tau Ceti idly twitched his tail back and forth over one of his arms. "Well, I fixed about half of the power packs while you all were sleeping... and I may know of a way to generate the remaining power needed."
"You fixed the power packs." Sigma shook his head, wondering why he found that surprising. "You realize, with an EMP pulse of the magnitude you're proposing, you're going to end up with half the IG ships in the quadrant in this system."
Tau Ceti laughed. "That's the point. I told you, everyone is getting rescued, including all the people still locked up in that compound of theirs, and if those idiots down there take a long as I think they will to get their systems up and running again, they'll be on their way to Rehab before they know what hit them."
"I think not," an icy voice interrupted.
Sigma's head jerked up to meet the eyes of one of the red humans, a stunner aimed steadily at his head. The pale-skinned human had the other red one and the fuzzy purple thing cornered with another stunner, and both of them looked like they knew exactly what they were doing.
"Rebel spies," Sigma stated flatly, his hand tightening on the back of Tau Ceti's chair.
Tau Ceti sighed quietly. "I rather suspected something like this would happen, though I didn't anticipate two of you. I suppose I should feel flattered."
The red-skinned rebel smirked. "It isn't every day that one of the IG's pet Gremlins falls right into our laps. I'll admit, we weren't sure at first, but then you went and proved yourself rather nicely, didn't you? All for some stupid Authority."
There was a slight movement as Tau Ceti shrugged. "It seemed like a good idea at the time." He sat forward, eyes intense. "Why wait until now? Why not make your move while we were still on the moon with your base?"
This time the man grimaced and gestured at Sigma with the stunner. "Normal Authorities can't take down five armed men with their bare hands. We had to wait until we could catch you off-guard, and then we crash-landed on this stupid moon. We were just going to signal to our people and wait to be 'recaptured', but we can't let you go through with your plan, so... here we are."
Tau Ceti glanced up at Sigma briefly, his lips quirking into a slight smile. "Hmm, yes, he is rather special, isn't he?" he mused quietly as he regarded the man pointing the stunner at him. "If I might ask, what were you hoping to do with me once you had me?"
The rebel snorted. "We have our informants at the Palace of Eternity. We know full well what a Gremlin is capable of." He smiled coldly. "Men will do almost anything with the right... motivation."
"You mean torture," Tau Ceti corrected flatly.
The red-skinned rebel smirked. "Call it what you wish."
They regarded one another silently for several moments, then Tau Ceti said quietly, "You can't force a Gremlin to create against his will. Coerce, bribe, yes. But not force."
"Is that an offer?" the rebel asked, one brow arching. "You'll come with us if we reward you handsomely enough?"
Tau Ceti smiled, and Sigma knew he was the only one that noticed the expression didn't reach his eyes. "That's better," he murmured. "What sorts of trinkets can you offer to secure my cooperation?"
"Name it," the man shot back. "If we don't have it yet, we can get it."
"Can you now?" Tau Ceti asked aloud, slowly rising from his chair and spreading his hands to emphasize that he was unarmed. "What if I wanted, oh, a necklace of Earth Amethysts set into Tredad silver?"
The rebel man's brows shot up. "That's a lot of points."
Tau Ceti laughed. "You'd probably be amazed how much I get paid," he said, almost condescending. "But then, you really had no idea what you'd caught, did you? To you humans, all Gremlins are alike. One is just as good as another, just a funny-looking slave to make you fancy toys. You never stopped to think that maybe, just maybe, you'd gotten more than you'd bargained for..."
All the while he'd been talking Tau Ceti had been moving steadily closer to the red-skinned rebel. It took a moment before the man seemed to realize just how close in proximity Tau Ceti was and he took a step back, his voice squeaking. "Don't!"
"Or you'll do what?" Tau Ceti purred. "You're not going to shoot me. You want me too much."
Frantic, the man's gaze jerked from Tau Ceti to Sigma and his weapon steadied. Tau Ceti's violet eyes widened and he lunged at the man even as the shot went off, barely missing Sigma's head as he dodged to one side. He leapt across the wreckage, bringing one arm down hard on the back of the other rebel's neck, then turned to help Tau Ceti.
Who didn't need help at all. His hands were clasped tightly to the rebel's shoulders, the man's body twitching and jerking in an entirely unnatural way before Tau Ceti finally released him and stood. He turned and looked at Sigma, his eyes the coldest Sigma had ever seen them.
"Are you all right?" they both asked at once. There was a brief moment of surprise before first Sigma, then Tau Ceti began laughing quietly.
"I... oh..." Tau Ceti breathed, stumbling over to make sure that the remaining two members of their little group were unharmed. "I think I needed that."
"What did you do to him?" Sigma asked, nudging the cooling body at his feet. He hadn't thought it was possible to kill a man by touching his shoulders, but apparently Tau Ceti was out to surprise him again.
"Electric shock," Tau Ceti replied calmly, using a length of wiring to tie up the one remaining rebel. "Which is what I'm about to use to signal for help, if everyone is done with pointing weapons at my head."
Sigma arched a brow, then slowly shook his head. "Somehow, I doubt you'll have any more problems after that particular display."
Tau Ceti smiled grimly, then walked back over to his modified equipment. He pressed a series of buttons, then wrapped his hands around a wide metal rod emerging from the floor. "This had better work like it's supposed to," he muttered quietly beneath his breath, then electricity began crackling around him, arcing from his body to the rod and down into the ship, presumably then to proceed deep inside the moon. For several long moments he glowed brighter than the ship's lights, then quite suddenly the effect ceased as quickly as it had begun.
Before he was even really aware he was moving Sigma was across the intervening space, catching Tau Ceti as the man - Gremlin - collapsed. He had barely a moment to worry about what had happened before all the ship's systems went haywire at once, lights flashing wildly, unbroken screens displaying dizzying patterns, then they were plunged into utter darkness.
Sigma's breath caught. He knew Tau Ceti had said everything would recover from the pulse eventually, but their ship was one of the revolutionaries' and damaged at that. How long would it take before the life support systems cycled back up? Would they come back up, damaged as they were? With Tau Ceti unconscious, none of them had the knowledge to do anything about it. All they could do was wait. And hope.
Combat Class Star Ship 22139453, The Black-Widow
Sigma stared out the plas-glass window at the small rocky moon, the yellow-green gas planet looming massive behind it. The Black-Widow had arrived two days after Tau Ceti's message had gone out, with five more ships appearing shortly afterward, and more arriving every minute. It seemed that Tau Ceti had been serious about getting the attention of every IG ship in the quadrant.
The Black-Widow's slightly irritable captain had finished debriefing him approximately ten minutes ago and was now coordinating with the rest of the ships over the impending assault on the revolutionaries' headquarters. Sigma mused that he could see why the man was so tetchy, having experienced the gut-wrenching fear of being caught on a powerless ship himself, but that still had to count for one of the most unpleasant debriefings he'd ever experienced.
He'd learned via the man's Second that the Scythe had been located and its remaining crew rescued. Captain Lehennin, having taken the worst injuries, was in the medical center on Bangkok and was expected to make a full recovery, and the Scythe itself was even now undergoing repairs. The only thing that still remained incomplete was the Scythe's original mission to locate and retrieve the missing IG consultant, but the Black-Widow's captain flatly refused to let Sigma take part in the ground assault squad, citing Sigma's injuries.
Sigma had politely refrained from telling him he could take down five of the man's officers with his current injuries, ten if his shoulder wasn't still aching.
Instead, he'd chosen to wander aimlessly through the corridors, wondering where Tau Ceti had gotten to. He hadn't been in the debriefing; the captain had shown absolutely no interest in any of the three civilians even after Sigma had explained how the EMP message-pulse had been entirely Tau Ceti's doing. Somehow, that didn't really surprise Sigma at all. Tau Ceti was obviously something you had to see and experience for yourself. Otherwise, who would believe it?
He'd just finished mapping out the third deck and was on his way to the fourth when voices caught his attention. One he recognized immediately, Tau Ceti's smug, arrogant manner of speech almost impossible to mistake. It was the other that he was certain he was hearing wrong, deep and rich and more than a little bit exasperated. It couldn't possibly be...
Backtracking, Sigma found himself outside of a small meeting room normally reserved for when the captain needed to brief the senior officers. The door was partially ajar, being the old-fashioned kind that swung open rather than sliding, and allowed just enough space for Sigma to spot Tau Ceti as the Gremlin sat cross-legged atop the conference table.
"Really now, my dear Ice Princess, if you hadn't been slacking so badly on finding me I wouldn't have had to resort to such drastic measures," Tau Ceti was saying.
Sigma stiffened as the reply came, unable to deny what he was hearing. The person Tau Ceti was so cheerfully conversing with on the vid-screen was High Chancellor Kavalerov.
"Sending out an EMP pulse with enough strength to knock out every electronic system between Coni and Bangkok is a bit much," Kavalerov reprimanded. "Do you have any idea how much work you just caused me?"
Tau Ceti rolled his eyes. "You need to learn to delegate, Princess. Besides, there was no lasting damage done, and I just took care of your little revolutionary problem for you, so you should be thanking me."
There was a quiet sigh from the speakers. "Diplomacy is obviously beyond your comprehension, Tau."
"Like you're one to talk," Tau Ceti retorted. "You're just jealous that I get to go blow things up and you don't."
"Behave," Kavalerov warned, "Or I'll send you off to work on the Sweet Dream with your brother for a while."
"Oh, that's cruel and unusual punishment, Princess," Tau Ceti exclaimed, sitting up a little. "As long as I keep building you your little toys, you really have no room to complain." He stuck his tongue out at the screen.
Sigma leaned against the door jam, utterly baffled. Obviously the strange conversation could only mean that Tau Ceti was the High Chancellor's missing consultant, though he didn't look remotely like his picture. Then there was the small issue of Tau Ceti being the one to rescue them, which begged the question of why High Chancellor Kavalerov had felt the need to send out rescue parties in the first place.
"Eavesdropping is completely against regulations," Tau Ceti announced from where he'd crept up to the other side of the door while Sigma had been thinking. "I'm so proud of you."
"Corrupting law-abiding officers isn't something to be proud of," Kavalerov said dryly.
"Why not?" Tau Ceti asked. "You do it all the time."
Sigma flushed as Tau Ceti pulled him into the room and kicked the door shut firmly behind them. He nervously straightened his uniform and managed to salute properly, only to have Tau Ceti smack him in the back of the head.
"No, no, no," Tau Ceti scolded. "You don't salute him. You never salute the Ice Princess. You do this." Grinning broadly at the screen, he made a gesture that was widely understood to be more than a little bit rude on Zero and at least a hundred other worlds.
"I..." Sigma blinked at Tau Ceti, then at the image of the High Chancellor on the screen. "Wait, wait, wait... would someone please explain what's going on? Tau Ceti's the consultant we were supposed to find, isn't he?" At Kavalerov's affirmation, Sigma asked, "Then why doesn't he look like the image in the profile you sent?"
Kavalerov chuckled. "I have a guess, but I'll let Tau explain that one."
The Gremlin rolled his eyes. "The bastards broke my image inducer and I didn't get around to making a new one."
"Image inducer? Like the hologram you made back in the cell?" Sigma asked.
Tau Ceti grinned. "But smaller and more sophisticated. With it, I can look like anyone I want, though I usually stick with the mundane appearance that the Ice Princess sent you."
Sigma blinked. "Why?"
Tau Ceti hesitated, then shrugged. "Honestly? It's just easier. I don't have to deal with all that nonsense if nobody knows who the hell I am. I don't like a lot of attention."
"Oh." Sigma frowned, something finally registering in the back of his mind. His eyes widened. "Wait... now I remember why I know your name! You're the one that designed the Scythe! And half of the prototype ships in the fleet!"
Tau Ceti winced as Kavalerov started laughing quietly. "You shut up," the Gremlin shot at the screen, then crossed his arms and glared at Sigma. "I liked it better when you didn't know who I was."
Sigma hesitated a moment, then smiled ruefully. "Actually, to tell the truth, the trick with the hologram thing was more impressive than either the ships or the EMP wave." He shrugged. "There's just something incredible about taking a few power circuits out of a wall and building a holograph inducer out of them. You had a lot more to work with when you did the rest of it."
Kavalerov started laughing again as Tau Ceti stared at him, then laughed harder when the Gremlin flipped off the screen a second time. "I never thought I'd see the day when Tau Ceti was rendered speechless," the High Chancellor stated, amused. "Lieutenant-Commander Sigma Altair, correct?"
"Yes, sir," Sigma replied, automatically starting to salute again and hesitating partway as he looked at Tau Ceti. Kavalerov's amused voice interrupted before he could finish being confused.
"I would really prefer you not pick up on all of Tau's bad habits," the High Chancellor commented wryly.
"With all due respect, sir," Sigma said with a smile, "He's a lot closer to me at the moment and I've already seen what he can do when someone pisses him off."
"Hmm, you do have a point there," Kavalerov agreed.
Sigma shook his head slowly, looking from the glaring Tau Ceti to the bemused High Chancellor and back again, then frowning a bit. "Magics-capable aren't allowed to be in the Infinitum Government..."
"I'm not, technically," Tau Ceti replied, shooting Kavalerov a warning look. "Thus why they call me a 'consultant' and pay me quite nicely for my services. I get a nice cushy workshop on Zero and free rides to wherever I might want to go, though after this trip I think I'm going to stay home for a while."
"Zero?" Sigma said, surprised. "Not your home world?"
Tau Ceti's face went blank. The High Chancellor's quiet voice came over the speakers a few moments later. "Perhaps it would be in your interest to access the library files regarding Gremlins at your earliest convenience," he suggested.
A green hand waved dismissively at the screen. "It's fine, Pyotr," Tau Ceti said. He took a careful breath, then looked up at Sigma. "My homeworld was wiped out by a space plague two centuries ago. Two space plagues, actually. Those of us who are left live on Zero, though our birth rates are still so low that there are less than a hundred of us remaining." He shrugged. "Most of us are trying to advance your technology as far as we can before we completely die out and you're stuck with incompetent human engineers."
"Not all humans are as unintelligent as you think we are, Tau," Kavalerov chided, then added, "The banquet incident notwithstanding."
Tau Ceti's lips quirked upward as he turned to look at the screen. "I told you they'd do it."
Kavalerov shook his head, faintly bemused, then asked calmly, "When are you heading back to Zero, so I know when to have the staff don their armour?"
"I got kidnapped before I got to finish my vacation," Tau Ceti replied, violet eyes starting to sparkle again, "So you'll be seeing me in three weeks." He paused, eyed Sigma speculatively, then added, "Sigma's going on vacation too, and I'd appreciate it if you'd do the paperwork. We'll be on Bangkok, if you need us." He grinned. "Probably."
Before either Sigma or Kavalerov could protest, Tau Ceti cut the call. Sigma stared helplessly at the blank screen. "Wait, you just... the High Chancellor..."
"Don't worry about it," Tau Ceti told him, scooting closer. "I do that all the time."
The rest of his attempted protests were cut short as warm lips descended upon his and all thought processes promptly stuttered to a halt as Sigma realized that Tau Ceti was kissing him. Kissing him. The thought was so completely overwhelming that he didn't notice in the slightest when he started kissing the man back, hot and demanding and oh so right. He had Tau Ceti pinned against the conference table when something warm and silken coiled around him and slipped up the back of his uniform, Tau Ceti's tail teasing his skin before firmly pressing them closer together.
They were both panting softly when they parted, though between Sigma's arms and Tau Ceti's tail they didn't separate very far. The Gremlin smiled and licked his lips, violet eyes sparkling in a way that was proving highly distracting to normal thought processes and Sigma very much wanted to kiss him again but there was still one question he needed to ask.
"Just explain one thing to me..."
Tau Ceti smiled lazily. "Mmm?"
"You got us out of the cell, away from the compound, and called in the reinforcements. Why did the High Chancellor feel the need to send all those ships out after you when you were perfectly capable of rescuing yourself?" Sigma asked.
This time, Tau Ceti's smirk was positively devious. "The Ice Princess was trying to avoid something like the EMP incident," he replied. "How does he phrase it? I have a tendency towards massive overkill?"
Sigma shook his head, unable to keep the slight smile from his lips. "I'm amazed he hasn't sent you off to Rehab yet, given, well, everything."
Tau Ceti snickered. "Trust me, the Ice Princess gets even. That man is craftier than a Daneubian hellcat. He's the only human I've ever really respected and if you ever tell him I said that then Rehab will look like a pleasant vacation compared with what I'll do to you."
"I won't breathe a word," Sigma promised, his breath catching as Tau Ceti wriggled enticingly against him. Biting back a strangled moan, he tilted his head and leaned in for another kiss.
Planet 2147151 (Bangkok), Red Dragon Tower
"Nnmph."
Sigma lifted his head and blinked blearily at the message screen blinking at him in the darkness. He started to reach out for it only to have to pause and untangle Tau Ceti's tail from where it was wrapped around his waist, earning him a sleepy protest from the Gremlin.
"Sorry," he murmured quietly, brushing a soft kiss across Tau Ceti's forehead.
"Mmm, get back here," Tau Ceti ordered, punctuating his words with a yawn as he sat up to run his eyes along Sigma's body as the Authority picked up the small message tablet.
There was silence for several moments as Sigma read over the contents of the screen several times to verify, then he turned to stare incredulously at Tau Ceti. "I'm being reassigned."
Tau Ceti frowned and scooted across the bed, his tail reaching out to pluck the tablet out of Sigma's hands and bring it up to where he could read it. The glow of the screen made his face appear eerily beautiful in the darkness, then the Gremlin broke the effect by doubling over and laughing.
"What is it?" Sigma asked, retrieving the message tablet and reading it over for a fourth time. "I don't get it. Why am I being assigned to duty on Zero?"
Grinning, Tau Ceti plucked the tablet out of his hands and tossed it across the room, yanking Sigma down roughly on top of him. His hands traced tiny patterns up Sigma's sides, setting all his nerves aflame. "I told you," he murmured, leaning up to lick one of Sigma's nipples, "The Ice Princess is a crafty bastard."
Sigma struggled desperately to keep his thoughts in order despite the slow torment. "Wait, the High Chancellor reassigned me? Why?"
Violet eyes gleamed in the darkness. "Because he's obviously decided that you're wasted out there with those morons when your talents are obviously far better suited to one of his little pet projects." Tau Ceti chuckled quietly. "Welcome to the Princess's pets, Sigma Altair."
"Pets?" Sigma arched a brow.
Tau Ceti laughed. "Slaves, minions, or lackeys don't have the same alliteration."
Sigma shook his head slowly. "This is crazy. I mean, it's an honor to serve in the Palace of Eternity, but they don't really do much..."
"Oh, don't worry," Tau Ceti said calmly, "You won't be staying on Zero. As soon as he figures out exactly where your particular skills would be most useful, you'll be sent out on one of his toy ships." The Gremlin paused, then scowled darkly and rattled off a series of rather crude curses. "That agri-loving bastard!"
Sigma blinked. "What?"
Tau Ceti scowled darkly. "He did this on purpose, I know he did."
"Did what?" Sigma asked patiently.
"He knows I'll follow you wherever he decides to stick you," Tau Ceti grumbled. "It had better not be the Sweet Dream, or I'm so sending in the sheep army again."
"The Sweet Dream?" He didn't want to know about the sheep.
"It's... well, the Ice Princess can explain those later. Suffice to say my brother's on the Sweet Dream and we don't exactly get along," Tau Ceti muttered. "That devious, crafty, conniving..." He stopped, blinking into the darkness, then his entire expression shifted into something cunning and slightly unnerving.
Sigma winced. "You're plotting something."
Tau Ceti smiled sweetly at him. "Yes, yes I am."
Sigma shook his head. "Do I even want to know?"
White teeth gleamed in the darkness as Tau Ceti grinned feraly. "I am going to build the fastest, fanciest, most drippingly lavish ship in the universe to put all his little toys to shame, and then I'm going to name it the Ice Princess just to annoy him." He practically beamed. "How do you feel about being Captain?"
Grimacing, Sigma shook his head. "Not me. I'm a fine Second, but a captain needs to be someone who the crew will actually listen to."
"Mmm, I think you underestimate yourself," Tau Ceti murmured, tail stroking sensuously up Sigma's back. "But maybe by the time I get it designed and built you'll have figured that out for yourself. If not..." He chuckled. "Well, then the Ice Princess gets to draft some other poor unsuspecting soul into his clutches."
Sigma snorted and rolled his eyes. "You really need to get another hobby besides seeing how many ways you can annoy the High Chancellor."
Tau Ceti smirked. "I have one."
"Oh?" Sigma arched a brow. "And what's that?"
"Ravishing you."
That, Sigma reflected, was a perfectly acceptable hobby, even if it meant his entire neatly organized world was coming down around his head in pieces. He could adapt. His life was changing in major ways, but somehow he found he didn't really mind.
Whatever happened, Tau Ceti was worth it.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
EIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *squeals happily*
Date: 2007-01-03 11:35 pm (UTC)I love Tau. *____________* Seriously. Seriously. He's a gremlin! *dies the death of happiness* And his tail! *snickers* And the kiss! *melts into happy puddle*
And Sigma! XD The poor man, I thought he was going to have a heartattack when he walked in on Tau talking to Kavalerov. XD!!!
*____________________________________*!! I'm too beside myself at the moment to be coherent. Seriously, you're shorting out my brain cells here. I love that there were actually rebel spies in their group. I love that Tau's solution to getting them off the planet. I love how he puts Sigma at ease and how the two of them are together. (Seriously, the ship they're on? Is going to be seriously badass. XD I can't quite picture anyone messing with them. Or at least, messing with them and living to tell the tale...)
Gyah! GYAH!!! *tackle glomps*
Re: EIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *squeals happily*
Date: 2007-01-04 04:48 am (UTC)As for the ship... ^^;; I already have all its specs detailed out and M helped me figure out who's going to Captain her. *sweatdrop* I think I just set myself up for a sequel... *headshake*
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-04 12:36 am (UTC)You have outdid yourself. This is even better than the other Gremlin ficcie you did!
All you talk of the Ice Princess makes me sad tho... After Jade got imprisoned for his crimes, Pyotr has been a lot more powerful, but all by his lonesome... Must ask Maderr about that, unless... You? ^_~
Image inducer, eh? I'm reminded of a BLUE-skinned kid with a tail from X-Men Evolution.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-04 01:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-04 04:52 am (UTC)Maderr has started a sequel dealing with Pyotr, called 'Meant To Be' and I bug her about it every month or so. ;) It will be written. I will make sure of it.
*snicker* The holograph inducer was sort of a last-minute addition, and the 'inducer' part was blatantly stolen. ;)
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-04 01:29 am (UTC)The reparti tween the High Chancellor and Tau Ceti and poor Sigma stuck in between them.
Lovely that they are together. Good use of tail by the way.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-04 04:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-04 02:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-04 04:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-04 04:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-04 04:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-04 12:54 pm (UTC)Come to think of it, I totally should have read Kidnapped first. But I was too curious ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-04 04:55 pm (UTC)o.o You haven't read Kidnapped? What is wrong with you people?!?! *flailflail* Go! Read! Worship the greatness that is Maderr! Comprehend my undying love for Pyotr Kavalerov!!! *Flail!*
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:Icon
From:Re: Icon
From:(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-04 01:15 pm (UTC)Ice Princess?! Ahahaha! Tau Ceti's relationship with Kavalerov is so awesome! And I love that he has now 'adopted' Sigma. It is very crafty. He gets Tau Ceti and Sigma together, so it is almost like he is being nice... but he has his own manipulative gains as well.
I must also totally agree that tails are so smexy and you wrote that one is quite well. When Sigma was first petting it I was imagining Tau Ceti's eyes rolling up and him thinking, 'Gah, you have no idea, do you?' I mean, he said it was 'very sensitive.' I'm sure that means more than 'don't poke.'
*snuggles* Must read the drabbles soon. Might explain the sheep, I'm thinking... ^_^
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-04 04:57 pm (UTC)Yay tails! ^____^ And yes, Tau's tail is sensitive exactly the way you're thinking of it. ;)
*snicker* Sheeeeeep. ^_______^
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-04 03:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-04 04:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-04 07:30 pm (UTC)And of course, having recently re-read Kidnapped, I loved seeing poor Pyotr again. *grin* He certainly won't be bored with those two around!
P.S. The Sheep Incident drabble in the other post cracked me up. LOL
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-07 06:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-07 05:51 pm (UTC)::glomps on you:: Just bah, have nothing but glee. GLEE. You're so not allowed to ever not write. ^___^ ::glomps on you again:: *____* sooo pretty.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-07 06:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-13 01:26 pm (UTC)This was fantastic! I loved how singleminded and duty bound Sigma is - and how Tau's just as single minded but the least respectful person ever. He calls Kavalerov the Ice Princess!
Line I loved: "Eavesdropping is completely against regulations," Tau Ceti announced from where he'd crept up to the other side of the door while Sigma had been thinking. "I'm so proud of you." Splendid.
And he's a gremlin, just like Spark! One inconsistency, though - I thought Spark was meant to be the fourth of six children, but in this story you said that the gremlin birth rate was low? Was Spark a long time before this, or something? And Spark was an uberGremlin, just like Tau - any relation?
Anyway, Tau pretty much rules. I can't wait to see what havoc he shall cause in later drabbles!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-13 05:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-09 11:21 am (UTC)I really enjoyed it, except - and this is going to sound rather strange - I found the romance rather sudden! I think I was expecting it to wait until they were put on the same crew and involve a lot of slow 'getting to know you' 'well maybe humans aren't that bad', but then there was kissing! And I was surprised.
But I really enjoyed the plot and the characters and everything. So there we go.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-11 08:48 pm (UTC)But Tau Ceti is rather forward, and I'm totally blaming him for seeing what he wanted and latching onto it, regardless of how Sigma felt about it. *grin*
yummy
Date: 2008-04-06 09:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-16 06:01 am (UTC)Tau is <333333.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-16 06:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
From: