Through great effort I bring you the latest chapter. Please send me any comments you'd like to.
Rimshot@planetaccess.com
Panther in the mist 4:
Zak knew in some part of his mind that he'd been hurt badly by the conduit exploding, but it was a very distant problem. Panther walked out of the low fern-like plants, causing the mist to swirl. His ethereal feline shape was like a cross between a cougar and a tiger, with the stripes alternating crimson and black. Electric red eyes stared back at him, and Zak was delighted, placing his hands on the big cat's head and scrubbing its ears.
He also heard and understood what Panther was telling him in his mind, that his body needed immediate repairs. Zak saw what Panther suggested to keep him alive and approved, tingling with the warmth that the other's mind projected. The cat tried to get him to go back to the real world, but Zak resisted, not wanting to leave the serenity of the mist and the jungle. Panther licked his face roughly, then walked back the way he'd come, leaving Zak wanting for more. He stretched out on the soft moss to rest, feeling the mist envelope his body. It was a remarkable feeling.
"I don't know, Baaca." Tony threw up his hands in frustration. "They started appearing when I pulled him out of the cargo bay. I have no idea why their there."
"They look like the same kind of metal as the Panther interface." Baaca studied Zak's arm through the clear side of the Re-Gen. tank. "I've never seen them spread like that though."
"When we first put him in the tank, he was dying. There was a helluva lot of activity in the link, then suddenly Panther disengaged." Tony held up a read out pad and pointed at a graph on the screen. "I asked Panther to specify, and he said Zak would live. That was it. I haven't heard anything since, and Zak had massive nerve damage to his left side. Now he's fine."
Baaca leaned against the wall and folded his arms, shaking his head. In the tank, an intricate array of red and black stripes of various thicknesses' now extended from Zak's jaw down his left arm, onto his chest, and down his left side and leg. For all intents and purposes, they looked like tiger stripes. Baaca had touched them and found them to be metal, almost exactly like the Panther link on the side of the boy's head, but much more flexible, feeling just like skin but appearing to be metallic. "You said that he'd suffered nerve damage. Did you scan the stripes for neural activity?"
Tony looked dumbfounded for a second, then leaned in and adjusted his equipment. The screen over Zak's head changed, and the readings became normal for human nervous system activity. "Holy shit." Tony breathed, his jaw dropping. "Panther grew him a nervous system."
"Panther?" Baaca said into his comm. The raspy deep voice of the computer answered after a long pause.
"Baaca."
"Explain the augmentations on Zak. Command priority."
"Repairs."
"Are they permanent?"
"Affirmative."
"You said Zak approved?"
"Affirmative."
Baaca sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Sometimes getting the computer to answer was like starting fusion with bare hands. "Is there danger to Zak? Has link properties ever been used like this before?"
"No danger."
"How long does the Re-Gen. cycle have?" Baaca asked Tony, putting his comm back on his belt.
"About four hours. I was gonna wait here." Tony felt Baaca's hand on his shoulder and he covered it with his own briefly. He watched the Captain leave, then took Zak's hand in his. It was hard to not stare at the stripes as they grew. Some were as wide as his thumb, while others where almost to small to see. If he hadn't been worried, it would've been quite arousing the way they molded onto the curves of Zak's body. He leaned his chin on his arm and before long drifted off, entertaining thoughts of Zak covered in the stripes.
Tony dreamed of the flash again, and of Zak flying backwards across the memory module. The gravity lessened as Panther made for space, and Tony tried to reach out and grab Zak's hand. The ship shuddered and groaned around them, and in the weightlessness, Tony clutched Zak to him and pushed off for the upper hatchway.
Tony started awake with a gasp. The console over Zak's tank beeped quietly, and the fluid was draining out. He adjusted a sleep inducer and attached it to Zak's forehead. With a little help he moved the sleeping form to his quarters, arranged him on the bed, then called Baaca. For the next two and a half hours, Tony assisted with repairs to Panther, routing supplies from Earth to the maintenance crews and double checking completed systems using the workstation in Zak's quarters.
A rustle of fabric brought him out of the work and he turned to see Zak blinking. He moved to the side of the bed and smiled, smoothing Zak's hair out of his face. Zak reached for his hand and grasped it weakly. "Hey, sleepy head. I thought you weren't coming out of there."
"Where am I?" Zak whispered, looking around the room. It was different, larger, and he thought it might be Tony's quarters. A wave of nausea swept him, and he closed his eyes.
"Panther moved you to the Senior Comp Handler's quarters while we were in Phoenix. This is your room now." Tony squeezed Zak's hand and sniffed. He had always prided himself on being in control of his emotions and not forming attachments. Despite that, a tear rolled down his cheek and he was overwhelmed by a sense of relief.
"Why?" Zak whispered, touching the trail the tear left. His brows knitted together as he noticed one of the stripes on his arm, and his attention turned away from Tony. "Panther did this, didn't he?" He touched one of the stripes on his arm and almost winced, a look of pain crossing his features. Not physical pain, something worse.
"He said it was permanent, Zak. He said you agreed because you would've died." Tony swallowed a lump in his throat. "If it helps any, it's very sexy."
Zak smiled slightly and closed his eyes. "Will you stay, please? I don't want to be alone right now."
Tony nodded and stood up to turn out the light. He undressed quickly and climbed into bed, cradling Zak to him. Zak fell back to sleep almost immediately, but it took an eternity for Tony to sleep. I was hard to feel for someone again. He didn't want to open up, or to love, but it was starting to feel like he didn't get to vote on the idea. He gently pushed Zak's hair back, looking at his face relaxed in sleep. God, it was so hard not to feel.
Zak woke up at 0530 ship's time. He was stiff and sore, but felt almost human. He carefully disentangled himself from Tony and padded into the bathroom, having to stop himself from walking into the closet by mistake. The shower felt fantastic, the hot water blasting away the kinks in Zak's shoulders. He set the controls to shorten his hair to shoulder length, and with a bit of wildness, reset it to bleach it all the way blond along with the rest of his body hair. Just before he shut off the water, he touched at the stripes on his arm. He'd tried to ignore them, but they were unavoidable. He pulled on them, scrubbed at them, and tried to get the computer to change their color to flesh tone, but it was useless.
When he stepped out, Zak stood naked in front of the full-length mirror. It was hard to understand, but his mind both hated the metallic ribbons and kind of liked them. He reminded himself that he had okayed Panther's idea, although it didn't seem like an option at the time. He traced the patterns with his eyes from over the left side of his eyebrow, down past his ear and under his jaw to his shoulder, touching where they intercepted each other.
His tan was clearly visible through the gaps in the stripes as Zak brushed his hair. In fact, they looked like paint for the most part, sort of like an expensive tattoo. They stretched onto his back over his shoulder blade, and onto his chest almost to his nipple, then thinned out towards his waist before stretching nearly to his pubic hair. They covered the outer half of his leg all the way to his foot. The alternating sizes and shapes combined with the alternating crimson and black made them appear to move by them selves.
Zak snorted and shook his head, dialing clothing out of the computer. He chose a white cotton tank top from the files Panther had provided containing twentieth century clothing, then followed up with a pair of close fitting silk boxers in red. It was kind of cool to not be in the ship's suit, and a little rebellious. Finally he pulled back his hair and fastened it. He looked for the Panther link but couldn't find it.
"Panther, synthesize an uplink unit please." He said into his comm, sitting in a chair at the side of the bed. The Comp Handler's quarters were much larger than his other ones. He looked around and noticed that there was another room through a door, presumably a work area and kind of lounging area.
"Unnecessary." Panther's wispy graveled voice purred in his head, causing Zak to jump.
"Jesus Christ, Panther! You scared the shit out of me." Zak chuckled and leaned back in the chair, folding his legs underneath him. It dawned on him that he had spoken out loud, but Panther had not. The hair on the back of his neck stood up, and his hand went to his left temple. He could feel the contact points, but there wasn't an uplink. "Panther, how did you do that?"
"Uplink integrated. Module unnecessary." Zak felt warmth of emotion drift into his head, and pleasure. Panther was like a house cat twining around his legs, except in his head? Jesus it was hard to understand. He sent back a mental pat on the head, half-laughing when the mind Panther sort of purred loudly.
"What are you laughing at?" Tony asked, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. He glanced at the clock and groaned, pulling the covers back over his head.
"Tony, Panther integrated my uplink." Zak shook the other's shoulders and dodged a thrown pillow. "Come on, dickhead! Sit up and listen to me!" He yanked the covers off, leaving Tony trying to grab at them.
"All right! I'm up." Tony rolled into a sitting position and pushed off for the bathroom mumbling to him self. "If the goddamned cat lives in your head, I don't understand why I have to get up when it does." His voice trailed into the room as the door shut.
Zak laughed. "He has a point, Panther. You're kind of a pest to everyone but me. Any thoughts on that?" He sent through the link. While he talked to the computer he tidied the room and made the bed, then went into the other room to dial up breakfast.
"Synergy." Panther growled.
"Synergy? That's a bit of a wide pile oh shit, ain't it Panther? That could mean anything."
"Affirmative." The humor in Panther's voice dripped sarcasm, sending Zak into another laughing fit. It was almost identical in nature to an answer he would've given, like Panther was learning from him.
"You better cool it, Panther. Some people don't like my sense of humor." Zak set his and Tony's meals on the table and sat down with a cup of coffee. "Switch to audible link, Panther. How is your new module? Is it operational?"
"Zak and Tony completed the task assigned."
"Damn, Panther, that was almost a complete sentence. You better be careful or you'll start making sense." Tony walked in and sat down dressed in a short robe. Zak leaned across the table and kissed him good morning.
"What you lack in manners, getting people up at un-godly hours of the morning to put your imaginary cat out, you have made up for in your cooking." Tony said as he attached his breakfast. "What were you incoherently babbling about your uplink?"
"When he regenerated me, he integrated it. All of these stripes are part of it as well as nerves." Zak held up his arm and rotated it for them to look at. "I don't need that little uplink box thing anymore. Panther's in my head right now."
"I have no doubt." Tony smirked, flaring his nostrils and shaking his head. "I could hear him trying to claw his way out all night."
"Boy, you are just full of shit today, aren't you?" Zak grinned and jabbed Tony in the ribs.
"Knock it off, Zak. I don't have to report to Baaca until 0700, and I WILL rape you." Tony jumped out of his chair and struck a pose with his hands up, looking like a satirical karate fighter. Zak giggled and dove side ways, trying to make for the bedroom. He was intercepted. They rolled onto the floor laughing.
Zak twisted and ended up on his back with Tony sitting astride his stomach. He reached up and tickled Tony's sides, causing him to roll uncontrollably onto his side. Tony's robe pulled open, and Zak took a hold of Tony's jewels, causing him to gasp.
"You cheat!" Tony snarled, then pulled Zak down into a kiss. "Yeah, I do," Zak panted, "But I learned it from you." He kissed Tony again, probing with his tongue and accepting Tony's. Tony pushed him away gently. "What?"
"I thought you were gonna die, Zak." Tony's face was serious, and his eyes were a bit watery. "You scared the hell out me."
Zak leaned down and kissed him again, then kissed his nose, his eyebrow, his adam's apple. "I'm not. I'm right here." He whispered, trailing his tongue down to Tony's chest.
"Aw, shit. I think we'd be more comfortable on the bed, Zak."
At 0800, Baaca called a meeting to discuss the current situation. The handsome young captain watched his officers enter the situation room just behind Deck One and take their seats. He was pleased when Zak walked in wearing his red and gray ship's suit and sat in the right chair, then began to call up information from his table terminal. He was obviously feeling much better.
Tony stopped at Baaca's chair and dropped off a data chip, then took the Medical Sciences seat next to Zak's. Krill ambled in and sat down at Engineering, and the other lesser departments sat at the far end. Two positions were empty. Ship's Stores, and Replication. Both had died in the attack.
"You've all seen the reports on the Jur-Kalchik corvette that made it through to Earth. It launched a total of sixteen fighters and lost all of them. It took out two fuel freighters, most of Port Phoenix, and the Monaco." There were gasps around the table, and he gave them a minute before he continued.
"I have been told that we expect more of these mad dash hit and runs, and that the fact that they got through our defenses almost without a scratch sure as hell didn't go un-noticed by any number of races that would love to see our asses tacked to a wall." Baaca touched a control, and a holo of the Sol system appeared over the table.
"We are assigned as the flag ship for this area. We will effect repairs and take on enough extra crew to go to a state of battle readiness. All departments will have full rosters before the end of the day tomorrow. Questions?" The captain sat down and took a sip of coffee.
"Captain," Krill growled through his translator, "The number three Grav engine won't be repairable out here. We have to set down for that."
"No. We jettison it. There is a new one being towed out this afternoon ship's time."
"Do we at least have time to salvage it for parts?" The bear looking engineer asked, trying not to sound disgusted at the thought of loosing such valuable equipment.
"What ever you can remove and stow by tomorrow at 1400. That's when the other supply ships get here."
The meeting lasted nearly two hours as each department discussed its concerns. Zak called up the things they brought up through Panther and learned about parts of the ship he never even knew existed. When Baaca turned to him finally, he checked the data on his screen.
"Sir, Panther has assigned three people to Comp Sciences. I'll meet them when they come on to the ship and get with you so you can meet them. The first one is a guy named Tal Shan. He specializes in hardware. We're going to need him to fix all of the main lines that got ruined by the attack." He scrolled through the screen again before continuing. "The second one is called, uh, Kiss-Tak.., I can't pronounce it. He's a reptilian from Kainarra. He specializes in plasma energy conversion and Bio Matter. The third is a human named Lerrin. He's a data storage specialist."
"You've assigned their quarters and duty assignments?" Baaca asked, impressed with Zak's progress.
"Their all set." Zak looked around the group a little nervously then back to Baaca. "Panther asks that all of the new guys be restricted to level one computer access until he gets to know them."
"So be it." Baaca stood up and stretched his back. "That's it. We'll meet in the morning." Everyone stood up except for Krill who was asked to stay. Zak followed Tony into the hallway. Panther showed him how to get to the computer lab, and he led Tony there.
"It kind of sounded like they expect some major shit to happen, doesn't it?" Zak asked, taking his maroon jacket off and putting it over the back of a chair. The lab was actually only on room, with several workstations around the walls, and a giant viewer near the door. Opposite the viewer was a raised half- circular workstation with a comfortable chair. He sat in it and leaned back, amazed at how comfortable he was in the room. It felt like Panther was literally everywhere around him.
"I think we might be headed for an all out war." Tony turned one of the chairs around and sat facing Zak. "They've just kind of pissed around with us for almost twenty years, and I think the fleets gonna teach them to pay attention." Zak looked troubled and sort of bit at the nail on his thumb. Tony tilted his head to one side then the other. "You okay, Zakster? You looked a million miles away."
"More like six hundred years." Zak looked at the stripes that had grown over his left hand and felt emotions building up inside him. He swallowed hard. "Do you ever wish you had died with your family?" Tears rolled down his cheeks. "I wish I was home."
"I get kind of down every once in awhile," Tony responded, wanting to go to Zak but resisting the urge. "But I would rather be here helping save people than be dead. I miss my old life, but I have you now. I was just kind of here until Baaca brought you back. Now you're my family."
Zak nodded, unable to speak for a moment. "Yeah, I'm really luck I found you, or however you guys put it, but I miss being a kid. I was only seventeen. I fucked off a lot." He waved his arms around the room and laughed. "Now I have metal integrated into my body so that I can read the mind of a computer on a starship that thinks it's a giant tabby cat."
"So where's the problem?" Tony asked innocently. Zak looked shocked, then broke up laughing, followed shortly by Tony. They laughed hard, maybe to hard, and released the tension built up by the seriousness of the meeting with Baaca. Tony wiped tears from his eyes as they wound down. He stood up and walked over to Zak, placing his hand on the other's cheek.
"We need you here, Zak. I need you. I'm sorry about your family, and I'm sorry about mine, but I'm not sorry that we lived." He kissed Zak then turned to leave. "I'll be in the medical ward. Give me a call when you're ready for lunch." Zak nodded, and he left the room.
Zak watched the door slide shut and shook his head. He felt a lot better, and really needed the warm glow that Tony caused him to feel. He began training simulations with Panther, directly loading schematics and operations into his head and running programs and repair sequences on the workstation. He was unaware of the passage of time until his comm went off, startling him.
"Are we eating today?" Tony asked. "I'm starving."
Zak stood up and grabbed his jacket. "Sorry, I got really deep with Panther. See you there, okay?" Tony signed off and Zak touched several controls, setting the console for when he got back. "Panther, run the perimeter checks on the forward arrays and I'll be back in half an hour." He pulled on his jacket and moved towards the door. "Oh, Panther, contact the next ship to arrive and find out if they have the parts you wanted."
"Affirmative. Go."
Panther's voice contained more than just a tinge of humor, and Zak stopped and looked at his workstation. "I'm going, I'm going. No one likes a smartass, Panther." He grinned and patted the console before leaving the room.
He found Tony already seated and doing severe damage to a plate of sort of turquoise spaghetti. He tried not to pull a face as he sat down. "Do you have any idea what that looks like?"
"Zak, I waited to eat over two hours because of you and your over grown house cat. Please order something and eat it without delaying my intake of life giving sustenance." Tony finished with a smirk and tore into the dish again.
"Are you in on some joke with Panther today or something?" Zak asked, reaching over and plucking a piece of noodle off Tony's uniform. "It seems like everyone I meet thinks that I need a dose of shit."
"Panther is giving you shit?" Tony smiled and chuckled. "Poor Zak. That machine is the most humorless calculator ever built. If it's giving you a hard time, you're a puss."
Zak dialed up a salad and pulled it out of the slot. "Panther has a lot of humor." He seasoned it and tried a mouth full. "Granted he wasn't very good at feeling when I got here, but he's come a long way."
"Panther has feelings?" Tony asked incredulously. "He's not designed to have them, Zak, he's a computer."
"Yeah, with living tissue in his matrix." Zak suddenly felt a bit defensive. "They're real primitive, but he has feelings."
Tony set his fork down and looked at Zak, trying to figure out if there was a joke attached here. "He isn't supposed to have them, Zak. Sure, he gets finicky, put he doesn't feel like you and I do."
Zak tapped the side of his face, indicating the uplink site. "I feel them Tony, just like I do from you. Panther is not only self aware, he feels in similar ways to us. He is fond of Baaca, and protective of Krill. He thinks of you proudly, like a teacher and a student because he taught you to be the medical tech."
"What about you?" Tony asked quietly. "The old Comp Handler didn't have anywhere near the amount of wiring that you do. What does Panther think of you?"
"I can't describe it." Zak muttered, pushing lettuce around his plate.
Late that night he still couldn't describe it. He'd thought about it all day, and the closest Zak could get to describing Panther was a brother. Panther had become like an extension of himself, chatting in his mind or leaving him alone if he wanted. He glanced over at Tony sprawled on the bed and felt irritated about the entire question, although he couldn't figure out why.
He got up from the chair and walked into the bathroom, leaning over the sink to the mirror. The stripes had quit growing last night, and he traced one of them with his finger. He could feel his finger on his cheek as though the metal wasn't there, and his finger couldn't tell the difference between skin and stripe.
Disgusted, he turned off the light and walked back to the bed, dropping his boxers on the way. He climbed in and slid up to Tony's back, and surprisingly, fell right to sleep.
In the dream, the panther slid out from behind a rock and licked his hand. Zak knelt forward and hugged it, feeling its pleasure through his mind. The panther butted his head gently, then turned to walk into the jungle, turning back and beckoning him to follow.