Discoveries
Starfox: Liberation
Chapter 6: Discoveries
Life is an endless process of self-discovery...
-James Gardner
Alaric was in the engine room of his ship,
recalibrating the drive core and making sure that everything was functioning
smoothly. The last thing he wanted was for the drive to give out and get
stranded somewhere in space. As he worked, he found himself thinking about his
guest.
Krystal, the cerulean vixen, was turning out to be
interesting. Something about her seemed to calm his demons, even temporarily.
Their conversations distracted him from his brooding and his mission. That was
both a good and bad thing. It had been a day since they entered the shock gate
and they were about a little less than halfway to Katina, with maybe two more
days if the computer was functioning properly. From there he would narrow down
the location of The Undying, and see what it was that went wrong. Alaric was
still puzzling out how he was supposed to balance doing his mission, and
keeping her in the dark. He somewhat regretted letting her come with him, but
he was glad, however little he truly was, to have the company either way.
Silence had a tendency to make one recollect their past.
Alaric took off the observation panel to the core
and looked inside the blue glowing matrix. It looked to be functioning
perfectly, although he really should replace the outer housing as soon as he
could. It was rusted and partially decayed, which was probably breaking half a dozen
safety regulations. Thank the lord these Asimov freighters were built to last. Otherwise
they might have never been able to get this far.
"Having fun there?" Krystal asked him merrily. The
vixen was sitting near the entrance to the reactor room, sipping from a plastic mug of second
grade coffee. It was a part of the MRE's standard package, which meant that it
was probably the worst damn coffee ever made. Still, it was better than no
coffee at all.
"Not really." Alaric replied grouchily as he turned
away from the core. "Maintenance was never my favorite thing."
She grinned while sipping from the mug and flopped
her tail on the deck lazily with a soft drumming. "I can see that."
"Oh shut it." The man grunted roughly. He sounded
crass and more than a little bit rude, but by now she had come to understand
him better and knew that he wasn't really cross with her. Over the course of
the trip they seemed to have fallen into a slightly irregular rapport. All
though it was prone to rough patches every now and then if anything relating to
his past was brought up. Alaric would become viciously defensive.
Most of the reason Alaric was being less confrontational
was purely because he unconsciously craved societal interaction. He had been
deprived of it for more than seven years. The man was starved of that human connection;
ironically it was not a human that he was connecting with. But at the moment,
she was the best option and so he forced himself to tolerate her slightly annoying
presence. On the plus side, she had a pretty face to look at.
"You know..." He muttered gruffly as he tried his best
to clean the outer core of the reactor with solvent and what could be alluded
to as a mechanic's steel wool. "You could always pitch in and pull your own damn
weight."
The vixen nodded sagely and flicked her tail as she
dipped her shapely, cream furred muzzle into her mug and sipped gently. "True...but
then you wouldn't be able to say you fixed this ship all by yourself, think how
impressed people would be to hear that."
Alaric rolled his crimson eyes as he wiped his brow
with an exceptionally dirtier cloth then he started out with. "Uh huh...I think
you just don't want to get your paws dirty."
"....Perhaps." The vixen relented after a brief
silence eyeing with an air of amusement, as if she found all of this to be entertaining.
Alaric scoffed and turned away from her, finishing
with the left side of the paneling and starting on the right. "Damn freeloader...."
He grumbled to himself as he set about the arduous process of cleaning the
large swath of protective bulky armored sheeting that covered the reactor. "Don't
even know why I let her come along. Fucking useless..." He continued to gripe
irritably, making the azure vixen giggle at his expense.
An hour later, he finished with the dirty task, and
eyed the female fox disdainfully as he dusted himself off. "Thanks for the
help." He uttered sarcastically.
Krystal smiled brightly and stroked her tail
contentedly. "You're most welcome."
Hearing that, he stopped and gave her a hard look.
And yet even though his gaze was heated enough to rip hull plating of a battleship,
all it did was cause her to smile even more. After a minute, his left eye
twitched and he walked away without a word, exiting the compartment.
Krystal sighed and shook her muzzle before speeding
after him. "Oh come on, lighten up." She called out to him as he stormed off.
"Starting to think that I was better off in the
prison..." He muttered darkly to himself as he thundered down the hall towards
the bridge.
She caught up with him and had a difficult time
keeping up with his ruthless pace. "Can't you take a joke? I was just playing
around, I mean seriously, fun, have you heard of it?" She demanded as she
looked up at his unamused face.
"No..." He retorted stiffly.
Her muzzle twisted into disbelief. "Really...?"
"There wasn't much time for fun in my life." He growled and stepped into the bridge. "It was a
luxury I could ill afford."
Krystal was baffled. "What do you mean? Everyone has
time for fun, how can you not?"
Alaric walked towards the newly repaired captain's
chair and placed his hands on the back and looked out to the soft blue aura of
shockspace. "Not everyone has a life of pleasure and superfluity, as surprising
as that must sound to you." He scowled irritably. "Sometimes, people are given a
shitty hand and they're forced to play it, as was my case."
"But...never...?" She asked in horror. The thought that
someone could go their whole life without even a shred of enjoyment was an anathema
to her kind hearted nature. She believed that a life without happiness was no
life at all.
Alaric paused to give her question some thought.
There as not really any time he could recall where he genuinely enjoyed his
life. Even now, all he was working towards was the chance to attempt to have a
happy life. He guessed that the times he and his men were given to rest before
the next mission could be counted as somewhat happy. Yet, there was not much to
be happy about when you spent your life killing innocents and those who fought
for a better life themselves.
"Never." He told her with a sigh.
The vixen huffed and crossed her arms with a pouty
muzzle. That just would not do, she decided. Krystal was going to do something to
fix that. "Well, it seems that it is my responsibility to make you have fun."
She stated determinedly, slowly growing a smile the more she thought about it.
Alaric openly scoffed at her. "I don't think so."
Krystal's grin deflated, and she looked to him in
shock. "What...why not?" She demanded angrily.
"I have neither the time, patience, nor desire to pursue
fun." He replied coldly and moved to sit in his chair, which creaked dangerously.
"There is far too much for me to worry about to play silly games."
"But that's exactly why you have fun!" Krystal exclaimed
loudly and moved to strand in front of him. "Without fun, what point is there
to life?"
"Surviving." He responded simply.
'Clearly
this was going to be more of a challenge than I expected.' Krystal thought to herself. The vixen tapped her
fuzzy chin with a clawed digit as she tried to think of a way to get the human
to open up more and have fun. Then a light flashed in her eyes and her tail
began to wag as she had an epiphany.
"What do you like to do?" She asked excitedly.
"Fight." He answered simply.
Krystal's tail ceased its wagging and she rolled her
head back in exasperation. "Alright," She tried again, "What else do you enjoy doing?
What makes you feel the most relaxed and laid back?"
Alaric took a moment to think about her question. He
decided to play along, if nothing more than to amuse her. He thought back to
when he had spare time to himself, to what he did when he had that opportunity.
Alaric did remember that he liked to sit in the armory and work on his
equipment, when he fixed things he felt more at ease and allowed himself to
drift off and become distracted by daydreams about a better life. Anything that
made him temporarily forget about his life or past was what he supposed made
him 'happy'. But that was incredibly vague. It was more of a sentiment than
anything else. And because of that he did not know how to classify it in a way
she would understand.
"What do you like to do?" He suddenly asked her,
flipping the interrogation around.
Krystal was starting to think that he did not
understand, and she decided that she would show him the ropes so to speak. "I
like to snuggle up in bed and read a book, or have fun with my friends. Oh and
sometimes I like to meditate."
Snuggling in bed was definitely a no for Alaric, and
he never did things with his men that could be considered fun. And they were
not friends, more like a tightly knit family. "Meditation...?" He repeated
curiously.
"Yes, sometimes when I have a lot on my mind, I find
that sitting down and relaxing was the best thing." She explained quickly,
hoping that he would think about it.
But after a moment, Alaric shook his head negatively.
"That's not for me." He was a man of action, so sitting around until he felt
better did not appeal to him.
Krystal frowned and dropped her tail. There was
nothing it seemed that could change him...at least for now. She would pull back
and regroup with a better plan. Krystal vowed that she would find a way inside
his defenses. There was a normal person locked inside Alaric, and she was going
to free him.
Alaric stared at the vixen with concern. He did not
like the look on her muzzle one bit. He could tell when someone was planning, and
she definitely was churning the gears in her head.
He decided that his time could best be spent working
on the bridge and so he stood up from his chair and walked over to one of the
functioning consoles. With a few clicks Alaric brought up a task menu and tried to see if he
could somehow eliminate the glitches inside the ship's systems. As he worked
diligently, fingers dancing across the two dimensional holographic display,
Krystal took his seat and watched him work.
She liked the expression he made whenever he was
really going at something. He looked so determined and confident, as if he
could fix anything, do anything. And yet, at the same time she could see a
faint unhinged air about him, as if he could barely keep a hold on himself let
alone something else. Krystal was exceptionally perceptive, especially when it
came to people. It was not only because of her latent telepathic power. She had
learned it from her father, who was Cerinia's King. He had been an excellent
diplomat and empathetic ruler, and he had taught her much before he and the
others of her race died. He, along with her mother, had been the driving force
in Krystal's life and she missed them dearly every day.
She was so deep in thought, that she did not notice
that she had been sitting there for quite some time. Alaric took her out of her
musing when he hesitantly shook her shoulder.
"Are you still alive in their?" He asked gruffly and
with a hint of amusement in his tone.
Krystal flushed in embarrassment at having been
caught so off guard and nodded quickly. "Yes, just lost in thought was all."
Alaric seemed to eye her gently for the first time. "Yes,
I suppose we all get lost in thought every now and again. I was just letting
you know that I'll be heading back to my cabin."
Alaric did not wait for an answer and walked out of
the room, leaving the vixen to her thoughts once more. She watched him depart
and leaned back in the chair, which threatened to break if she attempted to
lean any farther back. She hummed quietly to herself and thought about the real
reason she decided to go with him. Alaric was withholding information from her
about that ship. And she was curious to know what exactly that information was.
She had heard of the Solarans or humans, (whatever they liked to call themselves),
before her homeworld had been destroyed. But due to their far off location, she
did not know much about them. But she was willing to bet that they were not all
like Alaric. He was something else entirely. He was, perhaps, the strangest man
she had ever met, and that was what drew her to him. Something inside of him
was not working properly, and she wanted to be the one to make it right again. But
in order to do that, she would need to know more about his past, and how it
made him what he was now. The problem was, how would she get him to speak, he
was hostile if it was brought up. Krystal sat in the chair and patted her tail steadily.
It would take some doing, but she felt that she could get him to talk.
Alaric stepped into his cabin and plopped down on
the chair pulled up to the desk. His rifle and sword's hilt were laid alongside each other on the wooden desk and his armor stood up under its own power to the left of
his bed. He reached towards the rifle and picked it up, running a hand down the
smooth black framework and snapped it open where the barrel started to separate
from the main body. He carefully slid out the cylindrical magazine and deposited
it on the desk gently.
Alaric liked guns.
They were easy to understand and easy to fix. They
had one simple purpose, to defend the life of their owners. They did not talk,
complain, cry, berate, nor hate you. And you could always rely on them if you
took care of them. Guns could always be fixed, replace parts, oil parts, and it
would always keep going....unlike people.
Alaric did not like people.
People were impossible to understand. They had no
purpose besides what they give themselves. They talked, complained, cried,
berated, and hated. All the ones he had met were unreliable...and they could be
broken. And eventually, no matter what you did, at one point they would ultimately
and unequivocally cease to function. There was no stopping this, it was
inevitable, a fact of life. It did not matter if they had fur, scales, skin, gills,
paws, flippers, hands, muzzles, snouts, faces. They all had a limited time in
this universe. And there was absolutely nothing one could do to stop it.
Worst of all, they formed attachments with one another. It was also a fact of life. People
need other people; they need to not be alone. But, with attachments come consequences.
If the ones you are attached to die, the pain you feel is almost physical and
debilitating. It haunts you till your dying days, and the only way to escape
this is to either distance yourself from others until you die or hope to perish
before they do.
Alaric did not like pain.
And yet pain was something he was unfortunately all
too familiar with. He had been born into pain, raised with pain, taught with
pain, and ordered to inflicted pain. His life was a seemingly unending cycle of
pain.
As Alaric sat at the desk and fiddled with his
weapons. He thought about his life. What was there to becoming free? He would
inevitably experience loss and pain. It was an unalterable and factually
assumption. What was truly the difference between freedom and damnation? To be
free is to be in pain. And to be shackled it to be in pain. So why would one
want to experience either...why did they not just end it?
The answer was simple.
Fear.
Fear of the unknown, fear of what lies beyond the
end, fear of what death may bring. That is what stayed the slice of the knife, the pull
of the trigger, the leap into the abyss.
Fear was what kept people alive, it was the one
thing that every living thing shared. Everyone fears something.
To be fair with Alaric's dark conclusion about
life, the human had never experienced the joy that life brought that often
counteracted the terrors it carried. He had not experienced family, friendship...love.
Those were foreign concepts he could not come to terms with. Concepts he barely
grasped the meaning of. They were so strange as to almost be abhorrent. He
considered those things to be flaws when they are in fact...our greatest strengths