From: Richard D Beck Different Options By Michael Beck This is my first attempt at fanfic, so criticism is encouraged. You may copy it as you like, so long as you give me due credit and notify me in advance. Please send to dickbeck@ix.netcom.com. PROLOGUE The door smashed open, and Officer Riley pointed his gun at the revelers, shouting "FREEZE." A few did, but most of them were so out of it that they didn't even notice. The rest of the vice squad was pouring into behind him, but Riley didn't think he'd need their support. Despite popular belief, raiding drug houses is actually one of the less dangerous portions of police work. It had been known to take several days before the criminals figured out that this time it wasn't a hallucination, and they really were under arrest. It looked pretty standard, except one thing. They weren't using the usual drugs. The only thing that even looked like a psychotropic chemical was the strange greenish crystals on the floor. Riley didn't touch them, they were evidence. But as the thugs were being escorted out, one of them brushed against him. Two days later, Officer Riley was shot while ransacking the evidence room to get more of the crystals, already having spent his life savings on getting it from street sources. CHAPTER 1 "There you have it, people." Gooley concluded. The faces of the several dozen Trouble Consultants registered varying amounts of fear and shock. "Someone had developed a means of creating a drug that has the property of contagious addiction. You get addicted just by touching someone who already is an addict. Six worlds have already collapsed due to this stuff, dozens more are on the borderline, and it has appeared on hundreds." "As of now, the W3A is devoting all of its resources into combating this new threat. All leaves are canceled, all assignments are cut short. This stuff will destroy civilization as we know it if we don't find out where it's coming from, and soon." "Dismissed." "Not you, Kei. I'm afraid you're stuck with liaison duty." A number of other Trouble Consultants stopped to offer their condolences on the way out. After the last of them was gone, Gooley approached Kei with an expression of genuine regret on his face. "I'm really sorry, OK." Kei snorted. "You're sorry." "I know it's a miserable job, but somebody has to do it. We're supposed to cooperate on stuff like this and even if we weren't, we'd still need SIG's help. Remember, this is a totally new neurodrug we're dealing with here. And biochemistry is SIG's specialty, not ours." "Point taken." Kei grunted. When the W3A was founded for the purpose of protecting humanity from itself, it occurred to someone that humanity should also be protected from other intelligent races. For that purpose, the Stellar Integrity Group was created. Its purpose was to wait for an alien contact, and go and greet them with olive branch in hand and knife up sleeve. But time went by, and no aliens were found. No one even found evidence that there had ever been aliens. The Stellar Integrity Group shrunk, as ever more of its resources, personnel and equipment were diverted to the W3A. The result was, predictably, interservice rivalry. But during Class One Threats, the two organizations were required to work together. For that purpose, liaisons were appointed. Appointed, because no one ever volunteered. "Maybe if I shot myself in the foot, they'd let me out of it." Kei said. "Been done." Susan replied. "As has getting married, going insane and becoming pregnant. Those aren't going to work." The blond TC had been the last liaison to SIG, and Kei was asking her for advice. "Anyway," Susan continued, "the first thing to remember is that Contact Specialists are far less loose than we are. While I was there, I remember two guys being thrown out for "conduct unbecoming." They got really drunk in a bar, and sang some rather obscene songs." Kei stared. She did that all the time. "There's other stuff. Far more security, for one thing. They also have much stricter requirements for drilling than we do, as they don't have real combat to test themselves out on." "One more thing. I really don't know how to describe it, but the whole place has an aura of . . . well, fear. You'll see what I mean." The SIG's liaison was a large dog named Alexi. It came with a note saying that it was certainly more obedient than Kei was, and probably had a larger vocabulary. CHAPTER 2 The instant she left the transport, Kei saw what Susan had meant. She wasn't sure why, but somehow the entire SIG facility radiated . . . artistic paranoia was the term that came to her mind. The wall around the base was pretty, with intricate curlicues on the top and painted sides. To the average eye, that would have had been all to see about it. To Kei's experienced viewpoint, the pretty wall was anything but. Those pretty curlicues were monoedged, and had a lot of current running through them. The wall itself was made of one of the hardest materials known to man. And she noticed that at one spot some paint had flaked off. A dog had touched it, and was still twitching. The interior was a nicely manicured park, with many strange and exotic plants. Kei noted that most of those plants were of carnivorous or poisonous varieties. That same park had no cover for an attacker, and Kei noticed the telltale disturbances in the soil that suggested a minefield. As for the building itself . . . Kei was introduced to her temporary partner, Samuel Noskos. The guy was the most medium person Kei had ever seen. Medium height, medium weight, even medium facial features. Kei was glad she didn't have to find this guy in a crowd, it would be almost impossible. He spoke, and even his voice was medium. "Hello Kei. I'll be your partner. Intelligence believes that a possible source of the drug is the planet New Seattle. My ship is number 4128395, the Nightshade. Please be there in an hour." With that, he walked away, leaving Kei speechless. The instant he was out of her line of sight, Sam groaned. He was supposed to work with her? From what he had heard, she hadn't had an original thought in her life. He understood the logic behind the request for her, as the last thing those in the know wanted was someone involved who was smart enough to figure out what was really going on. He couldn't go out alone, that would be suicidal. But no one in SIG had been dumb enough to qualify, so they had been forced to go to the W3A. Besides, if it proved necessary to destroy the planet of New Seattle, a great deal less suspicion would be aroused if one of the Dirty Pair was in the vicinity. Kei walked past recruits drilling, singing as they did. And once the watchers saw that, They knew that they were screwed. They looked at each other in panic, And said, "What can we do?" But they could of course do nothing. Their thoughts were not their own, But the captain had decided, That he didn't want to go home. At that point in the song, Kei passed out of earshot. Nightshade was slightly larger than most W3A craft. It turned out to have much less internal space however. Just one bathroom, one kitchen, one gym, two sleeping quarters. This was because while TC spacecraft were just supposed to be transport, with the occasional possibility of fighting in one, it was possible to splurge. CS transports, however, were meant for a wholly different purpose. If need be, they were supposed to be able to open and maintain contact with an alien world indefinitely. Most of Nightshade's volume was taken up by immense computer and communication banks, the better to converse with aliens. It also had far more sensors, the better to analyze alien ships and worlds. It also had far more weaponry than the Lovely Angel did, the better to fight off attacking alien ships. And Kei knew that within that ship would be fully equipped biological, chemical and computer warfare labs, the better to wipe out an alien race if all else failed. As well as orbital projectiles, should it prove necessary to destroy a few cities as examples. Later, as they were leaving, she asked Sam about them. "Sam, do you, like, know how to use that biochem lab?" Sam nodded. "Yep. I'm qualified High Expert at Aerial Dispersal, and Agricultural Contamination. I ‘m not authorized to develop new bioweapons on my own though." That was enough for Kei. His specialties meant that this guy could, if he wanted, destroy an entire inhabited world. "Uh, what made you want to go into biochem?" she asked, just to make conversation. "It's required. All contact specialists must be able to operate the weaponry on board in the event that hostile action is required. In addition to normal skills, we're also supposed to specialize in at least two areas of mass destruction." "What made you chose those two areas?" "They were on the top of the list." CHAPTER 3 From orbit, New Seattle looked fairly ordinary. There was nothing to show that it was the core of that which could soon wipe out all of human civilization. They couldn't risk letting the manufacturer know they were here, so liasoning with the police force was right out. Sam and Kei rented a hotel room to plan their next move, ignoring the sly looks of the clerk. "Well," Sam began. "I considered a number of options on the way here for finding the blisscryst production facility. The first I tried was to preform a orbital spectrographic analysis for large quantities of water vapor, which chemical analysis suggests would be a byproduct of the blisscryst production facility. Unfortunately, this planet is 97% ocean and it hasn't stopped raining in the eight years since New Seattle was first colonized, so that didn't work." "I then attempted to locate it by an infrared scan. Analysis also showed a byproduct would be release of large quantities of heat. Unfortunately, the entire planet's average temperature is 41 degrees Celsius at all times of the year, so that idea flopped." "I then attempted to . . . " At the thirty-second description, Kei woke up from her nap and cut him short. "Just get to the bottom line here. Did you find the facility?" "Nope." "Then why are you telling me all this." "I thought you'd want to know." "Well, I don't. Do you have other ideas?" "Well, yes. Blisscryst production requires large quantities of a certain synthetic material not produced on New Seattle. There is a shipment of it coming in tomorrow. We will see what happens to that shipment, and follow it to the factory." "Oh." said Kei. "There goes the shipment." Sam said. "Am following." Kei replied. On the ship, a monitor chimed. The pilot looked at it, and wondered what he was smuggling this time that was so valuable. Oh, well, no matter. He began countermeasures. "There's something odd about that freighter." Sam said. "Other than that's it carrying a substance that may spell the doom of the human race?" Kei asked. "Yes. For one thing, look at how it's maneuvering with a full load. That implies a TMR-Thrust-Mass Ratio-" he added at Kei questioning look-"of at least seven. But I've never seen any cargo ship with one higher than four." "Why not?" Kei asked. "Because when you get past four-point three, fuel efficiency goes right out the window. For another thing, its registration numbers are unreadable, and you can lose your license for that. And for a third-" He never finished, for Kei had pulled the Nightshade into a tight spin to avoid the laser fire shooting out of the ship. "YOU IDIOT." Kei roared. "The only ships that don't have registration numbers are smugglers! And smugglers are always armed!" "Oops." Sam said, as the Nightshade went into another stomach-churning roll. The ship they were chasing headed toward some nearby mountains, and the Nightshade followed. For the next fifteen minutes, the two ships dogfought in the atmosphere. Unfortunately, the Nightshade was getting its figurative ass handed to it. "How does it accelerate so damned fast?" Kei wondered aloud. "The scan's completed." Sam shouted from the other side of the cockpit. "We should have had done this before. That thing has one mother of an inertial compensator, as well as plenty of armor, shielding-" their own ship jarred from yet another near miss, "-and weapons. They must cram the cargo in every spare space they can find to make enough blisscryst to account for the supply so far observed." "That's such a comfort." Kei replied drily, as she went into yet another set of evasive maneuvers. This one involved shooting underneath a low natural rock bridge, causing Sam to close his eyes in freight. When the transport followed, it couldn't fit under, and the bridge fell on top of it. "That was close." Sam said. "By the way, how did you know that the transport was going to do that? Try and fly under the bridge, I mean." "What else could it do?" Kei asked. "It could have had flown over the bridge, and had a perfect shot at us when we emerged." "Oh." Kei said. CHAPTER 4 "So, just who is this guy Tsung anyway?" Kei just couldn't figure out how Sam had gotten the guy in the transport that had crashed to talk so quickly. However, Sam hadn't let her watch the interrogation. (Actually, Sam had simply told the pilot that he had one of the Dirty Pair outside, and the unfortunate smuggler had sung like a canary.) "He was one of the guys busted in the Smith-Huang incident a few years back." Kei nodded. It had been the biggest crime bust of the century. The galaxy's most notorious law firm had been caught overbilling when one of its clients looked at his bill and saw that the same guy had worked on his case 273 hours in just one week. Facing life in prison, the lawyers had broken down and handed over their clients' confidential files, resulting in the near total collapse of organized crime, a number of financial centers, and the nostalgia industry. "The only thing he was guilty of was insider trading, and the cops had bigger fish to fry, like that guy who was discovered to have put mutagens in school lunches. So Tsung got some time in a federal country club, and was released. Now I'd say he's back in business." "Who is there?" Tsung said, looking up from the book he was reading. "Uh, do I know you?" Kei grabbed him by the neck. "LISTEN UP YOU MASS MURDERING CROOK. EITHER YOU TELL US-" "Uh, Kei. The reason he's not talking is that your crushing his windpipe." "Sorry." Kei said, embarrassed. Sam began the interrogation. "Listen to me you scum. Under ordinary conditions I'd use standard questioning methods on you, which involve asking you the same question over and over again for several days straight at which point you admit to your crimes just to get us to leave you alone. Unfortunately, I don't have time for that, so I'll just use the truth serum." A quick injection later, Tsung was telling them everything they wanted to know, and plenty of stuff they didn't. "So, that's what's happening. Say lady, you're pretty hot. Would you like to go out on a date after which I'll screw you?" "Sure she will." Sam said. Kei stared at him aghast. "As soon as you tell her where the blisscryst is being produced." "Sure, anything for a foxy lady. It's being produced in a factory on Herkin's Island." Just then, a bullet shot through Tsung's skull. CHAPTER 5 Dropping the headless body, Kei and Sam spun toward the source. It was a thing. It was humanlike, but so are chimpanzees if you take the notion far enough. The creature in the door had two arms and legs, and one head, but other than that it wasn't very human-looking. The skin was a dirty green thing that looked like it was covered in warts, and where Yuri would have had expected eyes was a sort of brownish band running all around the head. The creature also had six fingers. But that didn't make the creature ugly. Ugly implies a difference from a state that one refers to as beauty. But this thing was somehow so . . . so alien that concepts such as beauty and ugliness simply didn't apply. "Die, humans." The thing rasped. Suddenly, an invisible fist smashed into Kei, knocking her back to the other side of the room. It felt like there was something crushing her, pushing down on her- More shots rang out. Sam had managed to reach his gun, and was firing on full auto. The bullets seemed to stop a few inches away from the creature, frozen in midair. And though Kei didn't know why, the temperature in the room seemed to be getting hotter and hotter. Kei felt the unseen grip weaken. Sam shouted at her. "Fire your bullets at it. Now!" Kei didn't need the urging. Her bullets stopped as well, and things got hotter and hotter. Then, the monster keeled over and died. "Bye, Fhydo." Sam said. "Just one more left." He turned, to see Kei staring at him. "What is going on here!" Kei demanded. "Shush, not so loud." Sam replied. At her glare, Sam began. "As you may be aware, the mission of SIG is to deal with all alien races, should any ever be met. But, fourteen years ago, a alien race was met." "They were on the world of Ashdkli, and called themselves the skrinal. They looked much like humans, convergent evolution you know." Kei didn't know, having failed biology in high school, but she thought she understood the concept. "They had an advanced civilization, but one that had gone in a technical and sociological direction almost totally different from humanity's. They had no genetics, no metallurgy, no engineering, no chemistry. . .instead, they had devoted themselves totally to psionics." "Their whole civilization was based on it. They didn't care about anything else. They only cared about stuff like quantum theory and complete relativity insofar as they could help them with their psi powers. They lured us in close, and then they struck." "Humans, you'll remember, have very weak psi powers. I could go into why, but that would take too long right now. We hadn't paid enough attention to Skrinal culture before we came in." "We knew that all skrinal were psionics of the highest order. What we didn't know was that this wasn't natural, but rather the result of selective breeding." He paused, swallowed, and went on. "Roughly eighty percent of all skrinal births were non-psionic. All children were tested at birth, and if non-psionic were killed." Kei gasped. "My god. . ." "What's more, we also discovered that the reason this policy had been enacted was that several centuries before the ninety-nine point four percent of the skrinal race-all non psionics-had been systematically exterminated by the psions. In case you're wondering Kei, that's roughly twelve billion intelligent individuals. They beat out every mass murderer in human history put together." "They tried to take over the minds of our crew, so they could do that to the human race. But didn't have experience with human thought patterns. They had enough trouble doing it that the captain was able to release the atacat on Ashdkli. The skrinal didn't have space travel, they couldn't get away. In two months, all life on Ashdkli had been wiped out. We thought." This surprised Kei. Nothing survived atacat. Atacat was short for atmospheric catalyst, a chemical that catalyzed the joining of nitrogen and oxygen to form nitrates. Activation energy was reduced so far that the reaction in a planets atmosphere was initiated by the world's own sunlight. Only SIG was permitted to have it, as a last ditch measure against genocidal aliens. "They managed to force down the ship, and the highest ranking psions used it to escape their world, leaving billions behind to die. Ever since, the SIG has been hunting them down and killing them. Only one, Mrjlka, remains, now that you just killed Fhydo. And he is here, on New Seattle, producing the blisscryst. Before you ask how we know all this, we. . .interrogated the first few skrinal we captured. They were most informative. We knew that Mrjlka was here because only he would produce blisscryst. Blisscryst isn't profitable, and its only use would be as a instrument for genocide. Which Mrjlka most assuredly wants." Kei simply stared in horror. "But. . .but why didn't you tell anyone?" Sam sighed. "We wanted to, believe us we did. But, whenever the big boys, myself included, wanted too, there was this thing, like a siren song, that lured us away from telling the truth." "What was that?" "That the further past the point of no return we got, the more the book and movie deals would be worth." "Now, about Mrjlka. He's got incredible psi abilities. He's not a receiving telepath, so he can't read our minds. He can project hallucinations and emotions though, so look out for those. He can't teleport or warp, so we don't have to worry about that. However, he can make the electromagnetic spectrum jump in hoops, however, so don't underestimate him. Ditto for his control over magnetic and electric fields. However, he has no feedback powers, so we won't have to worry about him taking over our bodies directly or him healing fatal wounds." "Physically, the skrinal are far more powerful than humans, the result of two point seven gravities on their homeworld, as well as a number of extremely large predators. The average skrinal has four times a normal humans strength, seven times his reaction speed, nine times his endurance and muscular and skeletal system that can absorb close to twenty times as much damage. So don't fight him in hand-to-hand combat." "On the upside, they're far more vulnerable to toxins than we are. Also, they don't internally regulate temperature, so we can take twice as much heat and cold as they can. By the way, that's what happened to Fhydo. As his telekinetic shield stopped the bullets, all the kinetic energy was converted into heat. That's what I was aiming to do, not actually hit him." Our biggest advantage, though, is that skrinal just aren't very imaginative. We don't know if this is a result of natural tendencies or cultural conditioning, though the result is the same. They can't readily adapt to new situations. That was one of the main reasons we've always been able to stop them-they've always been to disoriented by their new surroundings to really react in a appropriate manner. They just can't comprehend that we aren't pathologically paranoid, like them. They don't understand trust, in machines or people. So, we'll be going up just against Mrjlka and nothing else." Then Kei realized something. "That song they were singing at the loading docks. This is where it came from isn't it." Sam nodded. "It seemed like a good security precaution. No one would ever take a song seriously." CHAPTER 6 Kei scanned the area with her goggles. No sensors anywhere. That confirmed what Sam had said, that the skrinal couldn't bring itself to trust machinery. Sam signed to her, "anything?" "No." Kei signed back. They crept ahead, into the dragon's lair. Just then there was a flash of white hot pain, and they both passed out. They awoke chained to a wall, with a thing in front of them. Mrjlka looked a lot like Fhydo. The only difference Yuri could see was that Mrjlka's skin was slightly orangish in shade, which probably didn't mean much. Humans came in shades far more different from one another than between the two skrinal she had seen. "Hello, Mrjlka." Sam said. hello noskos The voice was not in Kei's ears, but in her mind. Somehow every syllable, if that was the right term, received exactly the same inflection as all the others. you're here to kill me "Correct." Sam replied. "Why are you doing this?" revenge humans after you destroyed my race you know that those of us who survived set out to destroy yours all the rest of us failed but I shall succeed "You just may." Sam said. "Tell me, how did you come up with the contagious addiction idea." I didn't it was the trick my grandparents used to sufficiently disorganize the lessers in the great cleansing after you stopped gajitr's biobombs and wquop's economic disruptions and peghdf's obscene sexual practices and all the other plans that my kin came up with I figured I‘d go back to the classics if I may ask how did you know it was me "No profit in blisscryst." Sam replied. "It kills off all the users before they get a chance to pay for it. Only a skrinal could come up with such a plan." you're probably right but be that as it may I'm going to leave you to starve to death down here because I don't have time to do anything really nasty bye now Mrjlka apparently hadn't had much experience with human technologies, a fact indication by his having had forgotten to lock either the chains or the cell door. Sam and Kei set the explosives they had brought, and left, but not in time. "Sam!" Kei shouted as the falling rubble separated them "I'll get out some other way." Sam shouted. He did, and met Kei outside. "Kei, I'm glad your all right." said, reaching out his hand. "Sam, I have a question." "What?" "When did you become right-handed?" Mrjlka didn't have time to activate his powers before Kei lasered him down.. ‘Well, that's the end of the blisscryst." Kei said, looking at the debris that had once been the manufacturing plant. Sam-the real Sam this time-nodded. "Agreed. This was certainly the only one, as Mrjlka would never be able to trust another with the secret of making blisscryst. And yes, I will, much as I hate the concept, testify about the skrinal when we get back. We probably wouldn't have been able to-LOOK OUT!" He was dying. It was intolerable. Not just that he had been defeated, but defeated by a female. Of an inferior species, as well. Not even his immense powers offered hope of survival. This body was too far gone. But, there was an option. The hated female had enough psi potential to enable him to use his powers, if she was his vessel. He hated the thought of doing so, but their were no cloned bodies here for him to use. All he had to do was touch her . . . It was too late. The barely living body of Mrjlka had touched Kei's ankle, and Kei began to scream. CHAPTER 7 Kei was falling. She fell through a pit of blackness, with strange whispers all around her. It was terrible. Then she stopped falling, without any sense of slowing down. She was in what looked like a tower dungeon, with Mrjlka coming towards her holding flames in his hand. "It's time for you to die, female." he roared, sending the flames towards her. Kei dodged just in time, only to discover Mrjlka again in her path. She spun around and ran, barely avoiding the flames he shot at her. She ran around and around the empty, barren keep, but always Mrjlka seemed to be blocking her path. She was getting exhausted, and she knew that she wouldn't be able to dodge the next blast. How had Mrjlka taken her here? This must be some kind of dreamscape, created by Mrjlka. She couldn't suffer physical damage here, but she was willing to bet that if one of those fireballs hit her she would be no less dead for it. Sam watched, machine gun raised, for any sign of who was winning the psychic battle. Two previous skrinal had used this trick, to take over an operative's mind. He knew that by policy, he was supposed to have shot Kei by now, to avoid even the barest possibility of the alien's escape. But he just couldn't. Wait a minute Kei thought. If Mrjlka can control things here, why can't I? With that thought, she just barely managed to create, she wasn't sure how, a shield to protect herself from the next blast. Mrjlka advanced, smiling horribly. "Not bad. But this is my home ground, and you cannot stop me here, within my place of power." Then Kei realized something she hadn't seen before. This whole place was shaped a bit oddly, not like any castle she'd ever seen. Or more accurately, not like any human castle she'd ever seen. Which meant that Mrjlka had called upon his memories of Ashdkli for this castle. But maybe she could control the dreamscape's setting as well. With an effort of will, she converted the dreamscape to her own home ground. The place she knew better than any other, the place where she could not be destroyed or defeated. The mall nearest to her apartment formed around her. Mrjlka never stood a chance. Kei, collapsed, gasping. "My God." she gasped (obviously). Sam smiled. This really was Kei. The skrinal had had no word for God, as that implied a power greater than themselves. Ditto for a word for destiny. In fact, the skrinal had had no words for religion, ideology or politics, as such terms implied the existence of more than one set of beliefs. EPILOGUE The scandals were horrible. They were being called the Third Watergate. (The second had been when a analysis was preformed of the 1860 election results and it was discovered that Lincoln had rigged it. Though the term Watergate had lost much of its authority when a revolutionary new technique was used to discover just what Nixon had erased, and the missing portions turned out to contain Nixon's piccolo lessons. Though after hearing it, it was generally agreed that he had been right to erase them.) The SIG had been disbanded in the aftermath of the discovery of their erstwhile attempt at protecting the human race. Kei was a hero, or rather a heroine, and immensely grateful to finally be getting away from all the crowds and congressional subcommittees and getting back to the W3A. The former directors of the SIG needed every bit of their book and movie deal money for their lawyers. She didn't understand why everyone was making such a big deal about New Seattle though. Kei certainly hadn't been responsible for every business on the place putting all of its assets into disaster recovery and insurance that the planetary economy had collapsed. She embraced Yuri, both of them grinning. "So, how'd you like your temporary partner?" Kei asked. "He was okay." Yuri replied. "If he hadn't been a dog, he'd have been perfect. Watch this. ‘Hey, Alexi, go get a snath!'". The dog trotted off. "He'll be back in about an hour, with a snath in his mouth. I don't know how he does it, but he does.". "What's a snath?" Kei asked. "And I want you to know that I wouldn't do what you said if you spoke to me like that." She had no idea why everyone was laughing. That night, the dreams began.