FanFic - DP/UF - Crossroads [10]

[MegaZone]

-------------------------------------------------------------------TEN

"When a faraway voice sounds as close as you feel...that's
AT&T."
--Advertisement

As he had requested, Ziggy was up and running on the wardroom
table when he and Kei returned to the ship. He logged in and was
greeted by Ziggy's majordomatrix AI, Vision, a female AI in the style
of Eve, but a bit less...conservative.
"Hi, Gryph," Vision said in her standard, sweet voice. Like
Eve, she was a singer. Her visual representation appeared on the
holoscreen, a fetching woman with brown hair (except for the peculiar
shock of green in front) and all the stage presence of Eve. (That
particular bit of the code was the same.) "What can I do for you?"
"Prepare for shutdown, Vision...got another tenant coming in
temporarily."
"Shutdown?" Vision asked, alarmed. "Who's taking my place?"
"No one, Vision...you'll be back up as soon as possible, I
promise. Eve-1 needs a place to crash until the new ship is ready."
"Eve!" Vision's eyes went wide(r). "She's still running?"
Gryphon nodded. Vision had known Eve, back when Ziggy was connected
to the SDF-17's system on a pretty permanent basis. "Well, in that
case, let me pack my things." There was a brief pause as the VISION
logo appeared on the screen; then the picture of the AI returned and
reported, "Ready for shutdown..."
Gryphon popped open the third drive bay, tabbed the red
control, and waited; when the LED cycled green, he pulled out the
large, blocky molecular-circuitry cartridge that contained Vision.
Snapping an adaptor around the red EVE crystal, he slotted it, tabbed
the control, and waited.
Eve appeared on the screen and looked around, a mildly
claustrophobic look on her face. Gryphon pulled an RS232 cable out of
his duffel bag and connected Ziggy to the wall panel.
"Let the games begin," he muttered, and sat down at the
keyboard.

The viewer in Zoner's room chimed and flickered; the EVE test
pattern appeared as she adjusted the color map, then Eve herself
appeared. Zoner was not looking at the screen; he was looking out the
viewport.
"Zoner?" Eve addressed Zoner tentatively.
Zoner spun around. He was even hearing ghosts. They say the
first thing to go is the mind, this is not a good sign, Zoner thought.
Well, might as well answer, "Eve?"
"The comm-screen."
He crossed the room and stopped dead in his tracks. "Eve?!
How? I thought you went down with the Son. This is the real you
isn't it? This isn't one of Ben's tricks is it?"
"No, this is the real me. Ben rescued the memory from the
wreck of the Son."
"So he sent you to talk me into leading them didn't he?"
"Well, not really. He just thought that you might want
someone to talk to."
"Eve..."
"Ok, I guess he felt that you would change your mind after
talking to me."
"It's not going to happen."
"Well, do you want to talk anyway?"
"What the hell, can't make anything worse."
"So what's wrong?"
"This may take a while," Zoner sighed as he flopped onto the
bed and opened the nightstand. He pulled out a set of interface
cables and connected the jacks on his neck to the comm-screen. "This
should be easier for the both of us." Zoner pressed the large green
'Go' button and fell into infinity.
A new icon appeared next to Eve in the reality that was the
Lovely Angel's communications network. It looked vaguely like a large
man, but many sections seemed to be constructed of circuitry.
"Zoner! When did you?"
"Soon after leaving the ship. After I heard about the loss I
sort of wigged out. So I decided to bury myself in work, I taught
myself cybertech. And I used myself as the guinea pig for most of it.
I do good work, if I do say so myself."
"You don't look very cybered."
"Well, it's easier to surprise people that way. I kept a lot
of the surface meat, but the insides are metal. Sort of a T-eight
million. But enough of that."
"Yes, what did you want to talk about?"
"I'll start from the beginning. When things went to hell I
booked. I just left the ship. I was responsible for sending all
those people to their doom. I shouldn't have left, I was weak. If I
broke then I can break again. A commander cannot allow his emotions to
effect his judgement. In short I failed. In that failure I betrayed
my trust in myself. That was worse than my feeling that Ben had
betrayed me. Much worse. If I can't trust myself, I can't trust
anyone else. And if I can't trust anyone else I certainly can't love
anyone. Without love life doesn't matter. The only reason I'm still
alive is due to pure luck and Omega-2. I haven't been very careful
with myself lately... Damn it Eve, I got cold. You know, in the last
hundred years I don't think I've loved anything, not once did I cry -
not for any of those that I killed, the only time I approached
happiness is when I was avenging someone. I was trying to avenge all
the people I let down. You know me, I never forgive myself for
anything. I still hate myself for shit I did in seventh grade for
goddess' sake! That was what, about four-hundred some odd years ago!
There is no way I'll ever be able to forgive myself for abandoning my
friends to die. Never. I let them down, I let me down, I washed out
at the worst time."
"Zoner, there's no way you could have known...."
"FUCK THAT! It doesn't matter if I couldn't have known or
not. I SHOULD HAVE NEVER LEFT MY POST! THAT WAS BAD ENOUGH, I JUST
PICKED THE WORST TIME TO DO IT!"
"WILL YOU JUST SHUT UP FOR A MINUTE!"
Zoner was just a bit stunned, Eve had never lost her temper
like that before. "Seems I managed to piss you off too."
"Well, I'm not going to sit here and listen to you drill
yourself into a hole. You're a friend, and a damn good one. You did
a terrific job for roughly three hundred years, you just made a
mistake and Murphy's Law took over. You're only human..."
"Not any more," Zoner snorted.
"Ahem... As I was saying, you're only human, and you feel
emotions. Or at least you did," Eve added as Zoner scowled.
"Everyone was stressed. Ben ran, Kei left, Yuri made some bad calls,
the whole crew was affected."
"That's just it, they needed me to keep things together. So,
in their hour of need I ran. I should have kept it together long
enough to get everyone else shaped up. I did it all the time, and the
one time it was the most important I cocked it up. If I backed down
once I'll back down again."
Eve shook her head. "You really don't get it, do you?"
"Get what?"
"That's what you're doing right now."
"Exactly. I'm doing it now before we're staring down the
barrel of a wave motion cannon."
Unreality flickered; Zoner was sitting at a table, looking at
a large projection screen. Eve was wearing an old WDF uniform with
some unidentifiable but ornate rank badge on it. "I'm afraid it's too
late for that." The screen glowed to life, showing a map of
spacetime, depicting a region MegaZone was familiar with. Cygnus Beta
he recognized, and Sol, and Salusia. And what the hell was that big
red dot?
Eve drew a box around the red dot and magnified it. The
blowup depicted the Halstead system, an unremarkable system near
Cygnus Beta that contained nothing of note, save a space station
created by an interstellar conglomerate and taken over by another.
The station showed in its usual position, orbiting the third
planet...but the system was full of blips. Hundreds upon hundreds of
them, in orbit around all the planets and moored in stationary
positions around the star's gravity well.
"What the hell--?"
Eve was silent, magnifying again on the large blip right next
to the blue dot indicating Halstead Station. Three scans later, it
had come into enough resolution to show details. It was a starship,
wedge-shaped, with vast expanses of flat deck, gun turrets everywhere,
and a flying bridge above the impulse thruster bank.
Dreadnaught.
"Uh...how recent is this picture?"
"It's coming in from a sensor drone. Live and direct." She
slapped the table in front of her with the (obligatory) riding crop.
"The time for existentialist bullshit is over, Zoner. You're needed.
Now get off your sorry self-pitying ass and do your job. You're the
only one who can."
"Eve, you don't seem to get it yet. If they are up against
that then I am not the man. I have no idea what to do, nor the
confidence to do it. I'm just going to paint a yellow stripe down my
back, tuck my tail between my legs, and run. I figure I either do it
now or in the middle of a battle. Besides, it's about time for Ben to
get a command. I figure he's up to it more than I am. So go show him
the fancy maps and photos, I'm not your man."
"He's seen the photos, he's getting a command. You've been
out of the technology loop for a hundred years, my friend. We're
beyond the level of a single ship now."
"All the more reason to forget it. If I don't know the tech I
can't use it effectively. Ben knows it, Ben can command it. They
only job I'll take is solo fighter jock. Just me and the WarpZone.
That way when I run I'll only clusterfuck myself."
"Excuses, excuses, and more excuses. You don't believe them
any more than I do. Maybe you haven't noticed, but there's a shortage
of superdimensional fortress commanders around. You're eminently
qualified and history speaks for itself about your competence. Who
led the Wedge Defense Force for four times the average sentient
lifeform's span? To victory, time and time again? The WDF never lost
under your command. Not once. You left. Big fucking deal. People
retire all the time. Macquivr isn't much of a commander. Everyone
knew that. The vessel might have been better served with Mandeville
commanding, who's to say? Maybe he's one who fucked everyone over,
why don't you go whip him for a while? Maybe it's all Gryphon's
fault, go beat him up. No, no...I have a better idea."
She walked over until she was standing right in front of his
seat and leaned down, bracing herself on the corners of the desk, her
nose almost touching his. "Maybe you should take it all out on the
one whose fault it really is."
The screen behind her blipped into an image of Largo.
Zoner sighed.
"You have a flair for the dramatic, Eve, did you know that?
Still, I put q in the command. I chose him, my fault, not his. He
wasn't ready, and I should have seen that. Hell, I should have made
you the commander. You knew the ship better than I did. Listen, I'm
just not ready."
With that Zoner yanked out the interface cables. "I'm sorry,
Eve. Goodbye."
"If you leave now you'll never forgive yourself," Eve called
after Zoner's retreating form.

He marched straight to the Daytona from Hell and buckled in.
"Sorry Yuri," he whispered to no one in particular and punched the
throttle open.
In only a few minutes he was linked to the beta and warping
out of the sector. But he kept replaying his conversation with Eve
over in his head. He dropped out of warp between systems and shook
his head.
"DAMN SHE'S GOOD!" he screamed before reversing course and
dropping back into warp.

<<< Edie Brickell & New Bohemians: Forgiven >>>

"Welcome back," Eve chimed as he re-entered the Angel.
"Very funny, Eve, very funny. Ok, so I'll stick around for a
while. At least I can pick up some new tech."
Eve said nothing. She knew the real reason he had returned and
there was no reason to gloat.