Chrysalis
Book One: Trial by Fire
By: Jessica "Allronix" Krucek

Chapter Seven

    A voice cut through the air. "I'm disappointed in you, Captain."

    The Queen.

   "Damn it all to hell," Zachary muttered.

   The Queen didn't hear him, or pretended not to. "Though I have to admire your determination, especially in tricking the cameras. If I had caught you a half-hour later, there would have been no indication of your actions at all, and you would have been dead."

   Zachary looked around, he saw he was lying in a regeneration capsule.

   "You've lost quite a bit of blood," the Queen said neutrally. "My guards almost didn't reach you in time."

  "I wish they hadn't," Zachary said bitterly.

  The Queen raised an eyebrow. "Not much gratitude towards someone who just saved your life."

  "I was committing suicide, remember?"

  "I don't want you to die," the Queen said calmly. "I want you to live."

  "Why?"

  The Queen bent down and whispered chillingly in his ear. "That's not important, Captain. You *will* live." She straightened. For a moment, Zachary saw something on her face. He debated saying anything about it, but decided to venture it.

  "You're worried, aren't you?" he asked. "Worried that I'll still die on you."

  "I am not worried," she snapped.

  Zachary couldn't help it. His strength and better judgment were shot. He laughed darkly. "Well, I'll be damned."

  The Queen whipped around. The expression on her face looked completely wrong for her. "What is so funny?" she asked, stressing every syllable.

  Zachary grinned lopsidedly. "For a moment there, you were starting to *sound* like her."

  The Queen's face turned into a mask of black anger. *Go ahead.* Zachary silently challenged. *Take my head off. Turn me into a Slaverlord. Run me through like you did to Niko. I stopped caring a long time ago.*

  The fury was masked over again, turning blank and cold. "I admire your attempt to manipulate me, Captain," she said evenly. "But it's not going to work. As soon as you are recovered, I'll put you in your cell and let you contemplate your actions."

  The Queen abruptly spun on her heels and walked quickly out of the room. He could hear her quickened footsteps on the tiled floors.

  *She's scared,* Zachary realized with astonishment. *I don't believe it. She can't drain the crystal, and she was genuinely frightened when I told her how much she sounded like her...Is it possible that Eliza is her weak spot?*

********
  The Queen was insulted and enraged. How dare that...that HUMAN claim...?! The Queen summoned her indignant rage and pulled out the large crystal from her pocket.

  "Your mate has proven...most uncooperative, Eliza," she whispered. "Just as you have...Well, I'll show you *both!*" Perhaps a long period alone was what the captain needed. Time to sit in silence. She already had the guard take away anything that could be used as a suicide weapon, and redid the camera. Oh, yes. Time to confuse him.

********
  But after three days, the experiment had definitely taken a different turn.

  "The cameras indicate, your majesty, that it is Captain Foxx's eightieth hour without sleep or food."

  "A hunger strike," the Queen realized. "Suicide by a different means."

  Orthallan mused. "He's almost Andorian. Stoic, humorless, and has such an aversion to captivity that he's more dangerous in the cell than outside it."

  The Queen pondered the image on the screen.

  "Shall I inform Delon to have the torture chamber ready?" Orthallan asked.

  "There is a fine line with torture. Too much and the captive no longer feels pain and starts to enjoy it." said the Queen. "Perhaps it is time to try something else...Orthallan, I want to see Captain Foxx in my private chambers. Bring him to me when I send for him."

********
  Zachary was brought to an unfamiliar part of the asteroid palace. The door opened, and Zachary was struck by the smell in the room. A banquet. Fresh bread and vegetables, a turkey in the center. The smell brought back memories of holiday dinners. Sitting around the table first with his siblings while his mother nervously prepared everything. And later, as he did the cooking himself, for a family of his own. He allowed himself to smile a little at the memories. Eliza was a wonderful wife, but she really couldn't be trusted in the kitchen.

  "Come, Captain," purred the Queen, buttering a roll. "Sit down." The Queen's guards pushed Zachary into the chair across the table from her. Zachary sat down, but made no further move.

  "I read a little about human delicacies," she said. "And decided to try some. I must compliment your species. Gherkin cuisine is terribly bland."

  Zachary's stomach growled. It would be too easy to just grab the apple taunting him from the fruit bowl within reach. "What is this," he asked. "Some sort of trick?"

  "No trick. I've noticed that you haven't eaten in what is now eighty-five hours."

  "I'm not hungry," he said, though it was far from the truth.

  "Come now," said the Queen. "Do you really think I want a prize specimen like yourself pulling a hunger strike?"

  "No," he said. "But I'm not eating."

  The Queen put down the piece of bread she'd been holding. "Don't you appreciate what I've done?"

  "I know what this is, your Majesty. You can make me wear the uniform. You can torture me. You can do whatever you like to me, seeing as you have every advantage here."

  "I could easily kill you, even without the guards," she said menacingly. "Now, I demand you eat."

  "You won't kill me," Zachary said quietly. "And you aren't about to put me in the Psychocrypt, either."

  The Queen stood up. "Don't you dare talk back to me!"

  "I'm tired of your threats, your majesty. Nothing you can do will hurt me anymore."

  The Queen straightened, skeptical.

  "You've taken my friends. You've taken my freedom..." Zachary's voice was dead, tired. Like an old man who was dying and resigned to it. "But you won't kill me because you can't completely conquer her, even though she's part of you."

  The Queen almost looked surprised for a moment, then her mask of cold arrogance was back in place. "That's where you're wrong," the Queen said.

  Zachary stood and walked over to her. "Then, why can't you drain her crystal like you can the Gherkins?"

  The Queen was furious, but Zachary managed to block her hand coming for his cheek.

  "Why single me out to torment?" he said. "I thought that it was because I led the Rangers, but it didn't really make sense. I saw you with the crystal, your Majesty. That's when it all made sense. You can't conquer her, so you'll conquer me."

  The guards rushed over to pull him away from the Queen. Zachary backed away, and bowed politely. "Good night, Highness." He passively held out his hands to the guards, and let them lead him out of the room.

  The Queen smashed her fist into the table and shouted a curse in her native tongue. She pulled her cape around her and balled her hands into fists, her lavender skin growing scarlet with incoherent rage.

  That...that...HUMAN!

  She abruptly turned and exited the room.

********
  The Queen strode into one of her laboratories. "DAMN HIM!!"

  She pulled the crystal from her cloak and put it on the platform. Locking the doors on all sides of the room (and making certain to check the airshafts), she sat in the elaborate controller's chair of the device. The dream machine slowly lowered from the ceiling as she vented her rage to the crystal before her.

  "I don't care if you die. I don't care if he dies," the Queen hissed. "NO ONE challenges the Queen of the Crowns."

  The machine activated at full strength, as the Queen pulled up all the rage and hate from even the darkest recesses of her mind. It was time to show that disobedient captain her full wrath. The red light surged through her like the hate. Inside, she heard the life-force of the rebellious human woman scream in protest.

********
  The Queen's guards dumped him on the bed. His face to the soft pillow, the self control was draining from him. He must be a mess. It had been two days or was it three? He couldn't fall asleep. He had to stay awake. He couldn't defend himself if he succumbed to sleep.

  He knew he should get back up from the bed. It was too dangerous of a temptation. Too comfortable. His body was starting to betray him. God, he was exhausted. Three days with no sleep. He didn't know how much longer he could hold out.

  "Have to stay awake," he muttered into the pillow. "She can't hurt me if I'm awake..."

  But he just didn't have the strength any more. And he was so alone. Maybe dreaming would be a comfort...even nightmares would help.

  *Just a few minutes,* a deceptive part of himself was whispering. *Maybe if I close my eyes for just a few seconds...Sleep...you can sleep for a few minutes...*

  Maybe he would be lucky and this would all be a dream...that's it. *Everything's a dream, Zach, just keep telling yourself that, and you'll be all right...Soon you'll wake up at BETA mountain.*

  Against what was left of his better judgment, Zachary's eyes closed, and the dreams began...

  ...He found himself back at his home, back on Earth. Was he alone? He heard laughter coming from the front room. Feminine...but it wasn't Jessi, it was...

  Oh God...*Eliza...* Could it be?

  He walked out to the front room. Eliza was eating breakfast, her blue eyes raking him over with amusement. "You're a sleepyhead today. I was wondering when you'd get up, dear," she teased.

  "Eliza! You're safe! You're here!" Zachary was astonished. It even *felt* real.

  "Where else would I be?" she said, puzzled.

  "I-" he started to say and stopped short. He walked over, next to her. She reached out and took his hand. Zachary shivered. It was real, solid.

  *This isn't happening...I want it so badly to be true...*

  He pulled her up out of her chair and into a crushing bear-hug. She was warm, solid...even the scent. "Oh God, this is too good to be true."

  She was laughing, "Zachary."

  Suddenly, Eliza's laughter changed. It became deeper and had dark overtones to it. The arms around him stiffened and grew icy, and she grew taller. He opened his eyes to find it wasn't Eliza, but a Slaverlord. He gasped, and tried to shove the slaverlord away from him.

  "Oh, no, *dear.*" said the Slaverlord in a twisted hybrid of Eliza's voice and the Queen's. "You're not home at all. You left me behind...and you call yourself a man of your word...Look at yourself!"

********
  The scene wavered and shifted. Zachary felt nauseous. He was back in his old home, eight years ago. He was a Ranger Lieutenant, living in Edmonton...What happened? Why was he here?

  He was looking down into the eyes of the 8-year old Zach Jr. "She deserved it!"

  Not fully realizing what he was doing, he answered angrily. "I told you NEVER to hit your sister!"

  "I didn't hit her."

  "I saw you hit her. You just told me she deserved it. Don't lie to me."

  "But DAD."

  Zachary looked down at his "son" in confusion... trying to figure out what was going on...

  Dimly, Zachary realized that he was replaying an incident...Oh, no. He had been out of patience. At work, everything had gone wrong. He was at wit's end, and Zach Jr's attitude had sent him over the edge. He felt his hand pull back. "You want to hit things?"

  He then did something he swore he'd never do...

  *Oh, God,* Zachary realized. *No. I didn't want to hit him...*

  He pulled back with his left arm and sent a hard punch to the boy's face!

  *No.* Zachary remembered. *That's not how it happened.*

  He seemed to be shifting back and forth from observing to pounding the boy. Over and over until the child's broken body had taken fatal damage.

  Zach Jr.'s mutilated face looked up at him accusingly. "You lied. You swore you'd never hit me."

  "This isn't how it happened."

  *But it's what you thought...you had thought about this...In your anger and rage...you held it in your thoughts.* It was fully Eliza's voice now.

  *No.*

  *You *thought* it, Zachary,* she said, in a firm, yet oddly non-threatening way. *If only for an instant - you still thought it. That's all this place is. I know you better than you know yourself, darling.*

  The scene shifted. He saw Eliza in front of him. Not the Slaverlord, but as a human woman. The voice coming from her, though, was that of the Queen.

  "Hitting him was uncalled for!" she shouted at him.

  "Eliza, he hit his sister. It won't happen again."

  "It had better not!" she yelled at him. "I'll be damned if you start turning into..."

  "That's enough," Zachary told her, despondent. "I never should have...How did I let my temper get out of line like that? I..."

  He looked up and saw that Eliza was a Slaverlord again.

  "You said you'd never hit him, Zachary," the Slaverlord hissed. "Remember...you said you'd never hit your kids..."

********
  The scene shifted with a jolt that sent him falling into a nearby chair. Looking down at himself, Zachary realized what had happened. He was 15 again. He was back in that dismal house, wearing the flannel shirts he favored in winter, feeling the heat from the wood stove, squinting in its dim light, and hearing the grumbling and sound of a whiskey bottle being opened. The smell of sweat and alcohol. He looked over, into the kitchen. Alan Foxx, his father, had poured himself another whiskey.

  *Dad? But you died...*

  Zachary got out of his seat. He had to get the hell out of here. Back to the present. Back to somewhere other than here if this is what he thought it was...Alan Foxx lurched up from his seat and towered over Zachary, blocking the door. Zachary wasn't small, even as a teenager, but Alan was a huge man, and a very mean drunk.

  "You aren't going anywhere. You don't mouth off to me, boy," he slurred. Zachary could smell the alcohol on his father's breath. He was weaving on his feet, and he began a diatribe against his son.

  "You embarrass me, you know that. You ain't gonna amount to nothing..."

  Zachary shivered. NO ONE, save Eliza, knew about this chapter. She'd caught Alan drunk. While he could still think, he cursed the Queen. Leave it to the old bitch to find these memories...leave it to her to use them.

  "I'm going to amount to something," Zachary spat. "I've just applied to the Ranger academy!"

  "Why, you know they won't want you either," Alan laughed again. "Buncha alien lovin' idiots. Whatsa matta, Zach? Don't think humans are good enough for you." He punched Zachary in the jaw, sending him into the door so hard that his teeth rattled with the impact. "Who's helping you?"

  Zachary put the back of one hand up against his bloody lip. "Mister and Missus Jackson."

  Alan stumbled back and took another swig of whiskey. "I told you to stay away from them. You still seeing their daughter after I tell you no - after I make ya promise not to see that Eliza girl, you still go behind my back! Never keep yer promises, do you, Zach?"

  "You can't make me, I LOVE her."

  "Ha! Just what do you know of love, boy?!" Alan scoffed, taking a swig of liquor. "You'll fail her like you fail me. She ain't gonna stay with you..."

  *Fail her...* Zachary thought. *He was right. The old bastard was right.*

  "That's right, Zachary," the Slaverlord said in a parody of Eliza's voice. "You failed me! You not only failed me, you failed our children. You took away their mother!"

  Zachary tried to move out of Alan's range, but Alan also shimmered and faded...the white shirt and pants turning into a Slaverlord's robes. "You're aren't going anywhere, SON..."

********
  An abrupt, nauseating lurch...Onboard the *Phoenix*...*Oh, God...not this!*

  "NO! I won't do this! Not again!" Zachary cried out. He wanted to escape this...wanted to run, but he was trapped in the nightmare.

  The hyperlink radio blared, droning like a Crown Guard. "Humans have been taken...Humans have been taken..."

  "Why did you let her die, Daddy?" Jessi asked angrily.

  Zachary couldn't move. He looked around. Slaverlords. They were ALL Slaverlords. He had a hard time finding his breath.

  "You could have saved her." Zach Jr. was staring at Zachary accusingly. "Coward...You left us all behind. She got us away."

  "You ran!" Jessi hissed. "You didn't know or care if we were dead."

  Zozo and Waldo were also there, glaring at him with disapproval. "You'll never amount to anything." Waldo said, sounding eerily like Alan.

  Zachary couldn't seem to catch his breath. He was either sobbing uncontrollably, or he was having a heart attack. He didn't know which. He hoped it was a heart attack. He'd maybe die, and it would stop.

  "You're just a pitiful human! You're not even good for cannon fodder! I don't know why we Andorians thought you could help us." the nightmare Waldo continued.

********
  "You failed your wife, you failed your children, and now you failed the Rangers!" The voice now was Niko, her battered form looking up at him just before the Queen's guard killed her.

  "I'm sorry, Zach. I tried..."

  "I'm sorry I failed..."

  "I tried and you failed me," Niko said.

  The Slaverlords flanking him were Shane and Doc.

  "You failed us..." accused Shane.

  "You broke your word," Doc admonished.

  Shane's Slaverlord hissed. "Another failure. Another person paying for your mistakes."

  "No..." Zachary whispered. "I fought...I..."

  "DID YOU?" Shane yelled. "DID YOU REALLY?"

  Then the Queen was in front of him, "You are a failure, Captain Foxx! Your team of 'Series-5' Rangers is gone. Two of them are now my servants, and the *dear* Niko is now dead!" She grinned with smug satisfaction. "And now, YOU belong to ME, Captain Zachary Foxx. Your mind is now MINE!" the Queen smiled. It was not a pretty smile, and he was filled with dread....

  He tried to run, but he was falling...falling. Back to that long corridor he'd seen in so many nightmares.

  Eliza stood in the red light of the far end of the corridor, as he'd seen her in many other nightmares, arms open and welcoming...but the smile was ice cold.

  "Come here, Zachary darling," Eliza hissed. "Come here and get what you deserve."

  He was about to join her in the red light. Pain...The greatest torture souls feel in hell: In hell that they must live and cannot die...*facilis decendus Averno*...And in the lowest depth a lower deep...to which the Hell I suffer seems a Heaven...Day of Wrath, that day of burning...Abandon all hope ye who enters here...

  He got to the border, but a moment of lucidity seized him, and he froze. *This is the Queen raping your mind! Don't look! Run!*

  "NO!" he shouted in denial. "THIS IS ALL A DREAM!" He turned away from Eliza, from the apparitions...from Zachary Jr. and Niko, from the broken bodies, from the accusing faces, from the howls, the screams, the memories...from himself.

  He just kept running and running, finally finding a place of total darkness, and hiding. At least in this darkness, the Queen couldn't harm him. At least here the nightmares wouldn't follow. The silence was oppressive, and he felt like he was swimming in rapids. Sooner or later, the darkness would claim him totally, but Zachary didn't care. Drowning in darkness was better than the endless torture of light.

He never even remembered waking up.

______________________________________________________

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