Ghosts of the Past...

[Dab]

Aurelia left the comm room after encrypting and sending the message to the AW fleets currently active.

She headed back to Luciaden's room.

Aurelia looked around as she walked into the room. "Where did Luciaden go?" She asked to the room's single occupant.

"Equipment room called up here. Asked if he could come in and take a look at the machinery we brought back on the Chimaera."

She carefully hid a sneer. Great. Stuck up here, left to explain everything to Soren herself. She shrugged to herself. Well, short of any disastrous events occurring, there was precious little else she could do.

And if she was going to be her for awhile, she might as well get comfortable. She pulled back the chair to the computer station in the room. "So. Where did we stop?" She asked as she dropped herself into the chair.

"Oh yes, me having that same dream, if it can really be called that. See, what you experienced was not a dream. Its definitely too orderly and clear for it to be a dream. What you experienced was a memory."

"A.. memory? Who's mem..." His voice trailed off. He recalled the dream.. Long white hair, dark red skin. "No.. No, that can't be." He breathed. "They said.. They said he was going to be frozen." He stuttered.

"You didn't think they would keep him frozen forever did you? They would have brought him back at some point or another."

"To torture him again?"

"No, not quite."

Aurelia closed her eyes lightly. Unlike Soren, she had done this awhile back, giving her plenty of nights to toss and turn through these nightmares. Fortunately only the first would do anything to you.

Eyes still closed she began speaking.. .. ..

He found himself lying on a cold surface. He wondered what had happened to him that would result in his blindness. For surely that was why he couldn't see anything. Until his vision slowly started to clear. At first everything appeared as a dark gray haze. Then color slowly worked with way back into his retina. He was laying on a metal table, horizontally. Staring up at the celling. The room was kept too dark to see anything farther than a foot or so.

He opened his eye-lids. Not the normal human-like eye-lids most would think of. The second, thinner layer that captured color and light, and protected his eyes from heat. Once it had been pulled out of the way, his plain eyes could see the way they were meant to usually see. His eyes were magnets to heat. The heat was pulled in through the eye to a heat sensing retina.

Suddenly the dim room turned to a blue light. He turned his head as far as it would go either direction. Picking up about 3 of the C'tan. He could also see a small blotch of orange, meaning a slight heat, perhaps that of a power source. It was attached to a slightly darker blue outline. Some kind of table perhaps? He tried to reach out with his mind, and see how many C'tan were in the room, or watching. But he found he couldn't hold his concentration for very long. [i]drugs.. They must have been drugging him to keep his concentration and clear thought process down. Some kind of intoxication drug.

Suddenly, perhaps finding that he was awake, the 3 C'tan he could spot moved up towards him and the table. He closed his inner-eye lids so he could see what machine they were carrying up towards him. Seeing the machine gave him no insight. He had never seen it before, but it did vaguely resemble a surgery device. One that could get inside one's body to heal, or alter it.

He had seen such devices at a Miralukan test facility before. He remember seeing it poking into the brain of another Miralukan. Altering its brain searching for more effective ways to higher the psychic aspects of their brains. The one he had seen had, like every other of his species had, dark red skin. Unlike the others, this one had vertical yellow strips running along his neck. And dark hair. He had felt no pity for the other, he was nothing more than a lab rat. Raised in an embryo tank.

One of the C'tan fed what he guessed was a drug into a needle in his arm. He immediately began to felt drowsy, and no matter how he tried to stay awake, his mind kept slipping into thoughtlessness. Until he had finally fallen unconscious.[/i]

"What happened?!" Soren blurted out. One look at his face and Aurelia was made blatantly clear that he was fully entranced in the story. She preferred to call it a nightmare.

"I had thought it was obvious. The device they had brought up to him was an antique version of the C'tan's modern enlightenment machine. Turning the enlightenee into barely anything more than a zombie, who did every order he was given."

"Then..." Soren's face was an expression of utter confusion.

"Why isn't he a puppet for the C'tan?" She finished the question for him. The answer is simple. Luciaden's mind was too complex. Too sophisticated that the enlightenment machine implanted into his head, had absolutely no effect at all. Luciaden had no idea that they had inserted something that should have made him follow every order. By the time he woke up.. .. .."

Again, Luciaden's eyes slowly began to take in light. This time he decided to skip the waiting. Opening his inner eyelids he looked out. One of the C'tan had gone. The one who had been messing around with the machine shortly before they had drugged him to sleep again. The other two, guards he assumed, were still standing near the door.

And, unlike last time he had awoken, he had no concentration issues at all. Did they think they had so little to fear from him, that some psychic powers would do him no good? Or had the simply forgotten to give him the intoxicating drug?

Whatever the reason was he was glad for it. He could feel the presence of three C'tan minds around the area. The two he could see, and another behind a wall somewhere. Probably a mirror designed to look like a wall from this side.

One of the guards noticed him moving, and hit a button on the wall. Then restraints on the table reeled back into their slits on the table. Freeing him.

Before he could figure out a reason as to why they were letting him go, one of the guards spoke. Well, not exactly spoke, he couldn't understand what he had said. But the rough translation had been thought in the C'tan's mind, which allowed him to interpret the command. "Come." the alien had ordered. And obviously, as the impatience he could feel implied, it had expected its order followed. With no resistance on Luciaden's side.

Well he would play along for now. He should be able to get himself in a position to get free eventually. He just had to make them think they were in control. though why they would think that in the first place, he couldn't imagine.

Both C'tan turned their backs on him and headed to a door out of the room. At about a distance of ten feet Luciaden followed. One of the alien's had been reaching for the door control, or at least he thought it was the door controls. The other Alien extended a hand towards a replica of the control on the other side of the door. A security precaution he guessed, to make both controls have to be pushed at once.

The time he had been waiting for had come. Neither alien had their attention towards him. He took off in a sprint, his footsteps making loud enough noise to alert the two beings of his quick approach. they turned to look at him, but the alien on the right had barely faced him before he was in striking distance.

Before the being could move, Luciaden pulled his arm back, still running towards them, and punched the alien straight in the head. The strength of his inertia and muscles making a strong enough impact to slam the C'tan's head into the wall. He continued pushing with his fist until it wouldn't go any farther. The strength of the blow had in fact been strong enough to make an indent in both the wall, where the aliens head had hit. And in the alien's face itself. At the spot where his hand had slugged him.

Quickly turning towards the other alien, who in the amount of time it had taken to take out the first, had only managed to get a small metal item out and was pulling it to its face. A communication device, obviously. Also, obviously, his attack had taken the being by complete surprise. Before the C'tan could start speaking into the comm device he threw himself at him. Tackling the being against the wall. The comm device flew out of his hand as his hand bounced against the wall.

Luciaden pulled his arm back, and with commando strength muscles, slammed the C'tan straight where the stomach was on most humanoids. A big Whoof sound came out as the breath escaped the being lung or lungs. The C'tan bent over, arms clutching at its stomach. Luciaden brought his elbow down right at the point the head was attached to the rest of th body.

He heard a loud snap and the alien dropped to the floor, likely dead. He bent down to pick up the gun-type weapon attached to the being's clothing when he heard the door behind him open. Knowing he couldn't turn in time to shoot the other C'tan, he turned and pulled up his gun.. .. ..

To be continued..

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