Time Warriors Chapter 8

Dawn’s nimble fingers were lightly caressing the horizon as Allyssa scuffled down dark streets, keeping to the shadows, following the outline in front of her as it made its way toward the desert.

As she mechanically examined the alleys for telltale signs of Cronch, Allyssa cursed her own inattentiveness and Theo’s drunken idiocy. She had been prepared for almost anything – Theo getting smashed and becoming completely obnoxious, angry chumps trying to attack her, even wholesale assaults by other people in the bar – but had been totally unprepared for what actually happened.

While she was playing pool, carefully stringing her prey along so he came back for more, Theo walked off – actually left the bar – with a Cronch.

Allyssa had played five games of pool with the spacer before she finally realized that Theo wasn’t back at her table. The last game they played had been ‘double or nothing;’ he had scowled at the end, at last realizing what had happened when he saw Allyssa sink three balls simultaneously, two of them in side pockets.

“Another game?” she had asked archly, smirking at him.

“I don’t think so,” he replied. “You’ve already won all my wages for the next couple of weeks.”

“Ah, that’s too bad,” she grinned. “Better pay up, then.”

As he hunted through his pockets for money, Allyssa looked over at Theo’s table to catch her eye – but there was no Theo. Frowning, she craned her neck to look over at the bar – no Theo. Leaning across the table with Theo’s half-eaten wings, Allyssa squinted into the dark corner by the rear entrance – and Theo wasn’t there.

“Where the hell is she?” the Gant muttered to herself, now more than a little perturbed.

“Here,” said a voice at her elbow, “this is everything I have on me.” The spacer stood next to her and was pushing a wad of bills into her left hand. “I still owe you about 50 credits, though. I’ll have to go back to my ship and get the rest.”

Allyssa looked at the bills stuffed into her hand, looked over at the bar, and frowned. “No.”

The man had turned away from her and was disassembling his cue. He stiffened, turning back to her with a perplexed expression. “What?”

Slowly the woman shook her head, the dim light in the room casting eerie shadows across her angled face. “I said no. I’m not waiting for you to get back from your ship – how do I know if you’re going to come back? – and I’m sure as hell not going there with you.” She was silent a moment, and then said, “ I want something else.”

The man looked at her oddly. “Exactly what did you have in mind?” he asked, his gray eyes flinty in the gloom.

“Heh – just come with me.” Allyssa walked over to the bar; the spacer shrugged, stowed his cue and followed her. The man stood behind her and crossed his arms across his jumpsuit, looking grim as she sidled up to the rail, waving for the bartender’s attention.

“Hey!” she said, nodding as the large man acknowledged her. “You remember my friend? The little dark haired one? Where is she – where’d she go?”

The bartender squinted, grabbed several bottles from underneath the bar and slid them over to customers at the opposite end as he considered his answer. “She left a while ago,” he responded, nodding toward the door.

“Damn!” Allyssa groaned. Looking first at her left hand and then at the man behind the bar, she peeled off several bills from the bundle in her left hand and pushed them across the wooden surface. As she did, she asked, “Did you notice her when she left? Did she leave with anyone?”

“Sure,” the bartender replied as the money disappeared in one large fist. “She left with those Cronch.” Seeing the expression on Allyssa’s face, he continued, “I warned her about them, I did. But she told me that she could take care of herself. Told me to piss off – that she was older than me and my grandmother put together.” He grimaced as he remembered, wiping the bar down with a large rag. “Lots of fire, that one. The big Cronch liked her. He took her back with him.”

“Yeah, that sounds like Theo,” Allyssa muttered, clearly annoyed. “Back? Back where? Where did he take her?”

The bartender looked down at her hand, and with a scowl she realized what he wanted. Another few bills slithered toward him.

In one fluid motion the money disappeared and he gestured in the general direction taken by the Cronch. “Out in the desert somewhere,” he said, waving vaguely. “Somewhere toward the Alerian Sink. End of this road and to the left. That’s where they usually land, anyway -- that’s where they do their ... business.”

“Thanks,” Allyssa said, nodding. She turned away from the bar and stared at the man standing behind her, her eyebrows drawn together. She jerked her head toward the exit; he nodded once and followed her without a word.

Once outside, Allyssa said in a low voice, “You want to work off your debt? Find my friend for me. She’s small, dark haired, has a big mouth, and apparently is being dragged around by some Cronch right now.“

“I don’t owe you enough to rescue her,” he warned, his gaze unwavering.

She stared back, unimpressed. “Agreed. But you do owe me enough that you’ll find her and then tell me where to find her. And you won’t find her dead – I know her too well.”

He thought a moment. “All right,” he finally said, and offered his hand to her.

Quaint, she thought, amused. As she accepted it, she also noticed how clean he smelled, how strong his hands were – that’s enough, she reprimanded herself sternly. Concentrate on finding Theo now. Later you’ll have time to play.

She watched him make his way out of the bar and decided to give him a ten minute head start.

The Argarians appeared to be extremely generous people – generous, in fact, to a fault. Bulma had seen some of their laboratories, and from the looks of their equipment, she knew that the pieces she wanted were fairly rare. She would have been truly surprised if she had been able to find everything on her list, let alone have them give it to her.

“Aw, come on, Bulma, you don’t need any more of those things, do you?”

She swung her head around with a scowl firmly planted on her face as she glared at Kuririn. Sweat stood out on his forehead in tiny droplets and his clothes were streaked in places with grime; he appeared to be as frazzled as the hair on her head. Gohan was standing next to him, his weariness showing in the droop of his shoulders and the weakness of his smile. Gokuu, Vejiita and Piccolo were grunting and arguing with each other several meters behind them, a large pile of metal machinery shining on the ground between them.

“I need as many of them as I say I need, and I said that I needed all of them!”

Kuririn had no idea that time travel equipment could be so heavy. He and Gohan had been drafted into Bulma’s mini shopping expedition, and now they were hauling things from every part of the city, almost as if they were birds trying to build a nest. He had no idea what he was collecting nor did he understand what the pieces were going to be used for – he simply provided the hard, backbreaking labor to get the material from here to there.

“Gokuu! Of course we need to take all of this back – Bulma can’t put these things in a hovercar,” Piccolo said, his voice coming from the back of the area, exasperation in his tone. “ It’s much too dangerous. You know what kind of driver she is; one sharp turn and they’d all end up in someone else’s living room. Much better if we take it –“

“Bul—ma!” Gokuu whined, standing behind Kuririn, “Do we really hafta bring all this stuff back to our place? Look at this stuff! Where’re we gonna put it?” His face was as dirty as Kuririn’s shirt, marked with grime in several places; it looked as though he had held some of the pieces in his hands, then rubbed his hands against his cheeks and forehead.

Bulma’s scowl deepened. “Yes, I need them all! I need everything that’s on this list!” She waved a piece of paper at Gokuu. “That’s why we’re out here – to get the things I need for the – for the machine.” She had been on the verge of saying, “timegate,” but had fortunately caught herself.

The last thing we need is some Argarian telling his neighbors about timegates that haven’t been built, she thought sourly as she glanced suspiciously at the surrounding area. They appeared to be in a deserted section of the building, but she could never be sure.

Bulma was extremely aware of the interest their strange little band generated as they flew from building to building in downtown Port City 4. Once she had made her wishes known to that nice Lieutenant Grant, there had been no question as to whether or not she could receive the equipment – from that moment on, it was simply a question of when it would happen. At first, searching for the parts had been a novelty – almost like a treasure hunt – because the Argarians had given her the general location of the parts and equipment she needed but had been very vague as to specific location details. Now all she wanted was to get out of there and go ‘home,’ wherever ‘home’ happened to be.

“What else is there for us to find?” Vejiita strode over to Bulma and tore the paper out of her hand. Her angry cry and lunge for the paper were easily turned away, as he held her at arm’s length, reading her notes.

“Give that back to me! What do you think you’re doing?” Bulma roared, pushing against her mate as fiercely as she could. “You have no idea what I’m looking for or what we’ve already found, so give it back. Right now!”

“I don’t think so,” he said, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. “Seems to me that everything on this list has been checked off, meaning that we’ve found everything.” He looked at her meaningfully and shifted his weight, so his body was directly facing hers. “That means that we don’t need to be here anymore. What do you say to that, Kakarotto?”

“We don’t?” Gokuu said hopefully. “Can we go home?”

“No, baka, we’re not going home – we’re going to take this woman back to her father and my whelp, and then we’re going out again – after you’ve cleaned yourself up.” Vejiita slipped a protesting Bulma into his arms and levitated above the sidewalk in front of the building. “Just pick up those pieces and follow me.”

“Dammit, Vejiita, you can’t do this!” Bulma shrieked in his ear, beating her fists on his shoulders, trying to get his attention. “I’m not finished!”

Vejiita smirked. “Heh – you are now.” Without another word, he lifted into the air and flew back to their Argarian apartment.

“Wow,” Kuririn said as he watched the pair skim over the top of the downtown buildings. “I’d never be able to do that to Juuhachi.”

“Chi-chi doesn’t like flying much,” Gokuu said, bending to scoop some machinery into his arms, “so I wouldn’t be able to carry her around like that, either.”

Kuririn and Gohan looked at each other, then looked at Gokuu. “That’s not exactly what I meant,” Kuririn said slowly.

Perplexed, Gokuu frowned slightly at the shorter man. “Really – it wasn’t? Then what did you mean?”

“Never mind, Gokuu,” sighed Kurinin, shaking his head at the Saiyan. “If you don’t know, you really don’t need to know.”

Cheerful again, Gokuu exclaimed, “Ah, good!” He leaped into the sky, carrying the parts he had picked up in his arms. “Let’s get back to the apartment and help Bulma put this together!”

Nodding, the other men bent to their task, picking up the enormous pile of machinery in front of them. As they worked, Piccolo stared at the eastern part of the city with his arms folded, a strange expression on his face.

Something’s happening, he thought, straining his senses, and it’s happening now ...

Ugh … there's cotton in my mouth….

Moving from unconsciousness to consciousness was always a chore for Theo – she was not a 'morning person' by any stretch of the imagination. It made no difference how long she slept, either; she always managed to wake up bad tempered and cranky, ready to pounce on the first unsuspecting person in her field of vision.

…eh… this cotton has gritty stuff in it … how disgusting …

Without opening her eyes or moving a muscle, she automatically took stock of her body's systems. Starting with her toes, she wiggled and flexed muscles in her feet, her calves, her knees and her thighs. Moving higher, she continued her invisible flexing through her buttocks and torso, rippling through muscles in her arms and finally ending with those in her neck, head and face. What she found wasn't as surprising as it was embarrassing.

Damn, she groaned to herself.

The pain in her head was throbbing and unrelenting; she felt as though the blood in her brain was trying to punch its way out her veins, beating on the inside of her skull. Slitting one eye so she could peer through her lashes, she saw a fuzzy expanse of gray, punctuated intermittently with large, dark, lumpish shapes. A shallow breath through her nose confirmed her suspicions.

Sand … I'm laying on sand … and it's in my nose and my mouth …

Her first reflex was to spit it out and shake her head, but she suppressed that urge to continue evaluating her predicament.

Which isn't very good, she realized miserably. As she took stock of her body, she discovered several things: one, it was still night; two, she was freezing; and three, her hands were tied behind her back.

Looking down at herself, she was relieved to find that most of her clothing was intact. Her pants and tunic were thin and offered little protection against the cold, but the fact that she was still wearing them meant that whoever did this to her probably didn’t molest her.

But they sure didn’t do me any favors, either, she thought. All my other stuff is gone, including my boots.

Struggling against the pain in her head, Theo shifted her weight so that she was lying on her side and slowly drew her knees up to her chest. Panting slightly, she opened her eyes and focused on the objects in front of her. They looked like large rocks tossed randomly in one small area … until several of them moved.

They’re not rocks, Theo thought, aghast, they’re people. What is this place? How did I get here?

Guttural sounds of heavy laughter rolled over her, and she strained to catch the words. As she squinted down past her feet, part of her situation immediately became crystal clear. Groaning at her own stupidity, Theo could make out a fence – hastily made, but a fence nonetheless – and several armed Cronch walking toward it, each dragging some poor unfortunate through the sand. It was clear that their captives were not accompanying the mercenaries by choice, as one was digging his heels into the earth and pulling in the opposite way while the other was completely passive, allowing himself to be hauled by his arm, his legs trailing behind.

Cronch ... I can’t believe it ... I let Cronch do this to me.

Small pieces of memory floated back at Theo, causing her to wince in embarrassment. Several huge Cronch surrounding her at the table, all encouraging her to drink a little more, just a little more ... which she did, giggling and insulting them all ... and then the one they called Sterbol, that gigantic one with the bristly crest that ran from his forehead to the nape of his neck, laughed and swung her out of her chair and up in the air across his shoulder as the Cronch left the bar. She almost threw up as she hung there, her head moving from side to side as the cool night air slapped her cheeks. Theo vaguely thought she should do something – it wasn’t right for her to be hanging upside down, across the shoulders of a total stranger, after all – but couldn’t figure out what that something was. Her brain felt thick and ponderous, worthless for trying to think. As uncomfortable as she was with his shoulder thrusting through her stomach, she had nearly slipped out of consciousness, his even cadence providing a lulling rhythm, her head lolling gently against his back.

Eventually she had been thrown to the ground, which brought her close to full consciousness. She remembered the Cronch’s face as he peered at her, dark eyes snapping in the darkness as he loomed over her.

“I’m leaving you here, little one, but I’ll be back for you. And so will your pool playing friend, I’ll wager.” Sterbol’s large hand had appeared out of the shadows, his fingers sliding across her jaw and anchoring at the base of her skull, his thumb tracing the line of her chin then moving up and brushing her lips. “We’ll keep you safe until she shows up. Then we’ll have some fun, won’t we?”

Abruptly he released her head and neck, flipped her on her belly and tied her hands behind her back. Even that was done with a purpose; not so tight as to cut off her circulation, but tight enough so that she was forced to remember who did that to her. He left her immediately afterward, her face pushed forward in the sand, chuckling to himself as he walked away.

Her last coherent thought rang in her mind for several minutes before she passed out.

Rotten bastard, she thought, infuriated.

Now clenching her teeth together to keep them from chattering, Theo rolled from her side to her knees, ignoring the swelling pain in her head. She spit sand out from her mouth and rested, panting with exertion as she kneeled in the sand, her eyes fastened on the people outside the fence.

The Cronch were coming right toward her; despite the agony pulsing behind her temples, she wanted to see how they opened and closed the gate in the fence. Her dark hair screened her face effectively as she watched them unfasten the gate and toss their prisoners into the pen with little difficulty.

There’s no physical or mental lock, she realized. Good – they’re not expecting anyone to cause trouble.

As she looked around the stockade, Theo could see why the Cronch believed there would be no problem. Most of those in the pen were twice as small as the renegade warriors, and many of them were female. Numerous races and species were represented , though; it almost seemed as if the Cronch had gone through the warehouse district, rounded up a random sampling of the population and tossed them in the compound. Young male warriors from any species, however, were the most obvious omissions in the prisoner cache.

A touch of gray lit the horizon. It would be dawn soon, Theo realized, and then … it would get hot. Incredibly hot. What would they do with their captives during the day?

“When’s that transport coming, Rabc?” the Cronch with the bright red crest asked as he threw his prisoner into the pen. The prisoner slid on his face until the sand finally ground his forward momentum to a halt. It was a man – he appeared wiry, his hair was gray and he was wearing a gray jumpsuit with an empty gun holster.

Theo blinked. I’ve seen him somewhere before, she thought.

“Should be any time now,” Rabc answered, looking at the sky. “We were told they wanted at least thirty-five of them, and there seems to be that many here. Someone should have called them by this time.”

The wiry man picked his face up from the sand and spit; as he shook his head, fine granules flew in all directions. He saw Theo staring at him through her curtain of hair and snorted.

“So there you are. Damn brainless woman,” he snapped under his breath. “If you can’t hold your liquor, you shouldn’t drink.”

Theo stared at him in shock, not moving. Is he talking to me? “What – what – what do you mean?” she whispered, her voice thick. The blood was pounding in her head so loudly she thought he could hear it.

The man knelt on the desert floor, pretending to be dazed for the benefit of the watching Cronch. His hands were tied behind his back as well. “I mean,” he said through clenched teeth, “that if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be here. Your partner can certainly be persuasive when she wants.”

“My partner?” Theo repeated, her bleary eyes fastened on the person in front of her. “What do you know about my partner?”

“Not as much as I’d like,” he retorted, shifting his weight from one knee to the other. “For example, I have no idea why she’d be paired up with someone like you. I agreed to track you down – and look,” he finished bitterly, wiping his mouth on his shoulder, “I’ve found you. So has every Cronch in the area. And now, because of you, they’ve found me.”

“I didn’t ask you to come find me,” Theo rejoined with a touch of asperity, trying not slur her words. “It’s not my fault you got caught.”

“Nothing ever is your fault, is it?” he retorted, staring back at her. “I know your type. A waste of air.”

“Really?” Theo was incensed, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck rise. She had talked to this man all of three minutes and already intensely disliked him. “And what, exactly, is my type?”

The man’s lips thinned to a straight line as his eyes reduced to pinpricks of gray steel. “You’re spoiled, self-centered and self-indulgent – stupidly so, because you placed yourself and your partner in danger. You got drunk and got yourself captured by some of the biggest, brainless things in this sector of the galaxy, and now your partner has to go and kick their collective ass just for you. Totally useless.”

“How dare you!”

“You asked,” he pointed out, shrugging, unaffected by her anger.

“Heh, look – this one’s awake!” Large boots tramped over to Theo; suddenly she found her feet dangling in midair, a huge, meaty hand clamped tightly around her neck, pressing her jaw toward the sky and cutting off her oxygen.

Her eyes rolled back as she gasped hoarsely, “...can’t ... breathe ... let ... go ...” Her arms strained against the ropes restraining her hands to no avail as her body twisted helplessly in the air.

The Cronch named Rabc examined her critically, moving her body so that her feet flailed against his thighs. “Yeah, she’s not bad, but she’s pretty scrawny. Here – look,” he said, yanking the front of her tunic so hard that it split open to the waist.

Theo’s struggles became louder and more frenzied as cool air hit her chest.

“Shut up and stop squirming,” Rabc told her, shaking her and giving her neck a hard warning squeeze. “We wanna see what Sterbol won’t share.” Peering closer, he smirked and said, “Not bad for something so skinny.” His free hand fondled her breasts as he leered at her. “Feels pretty good, too. No implants – not like those Galactic bitches at the port. “

Blinding rage filled Theo’s mind as the Cronch manhandled her, her anger pushing her headache pain to the back of her head. You’re gonna fry, you ugly overgrown – She was incoherent as she reached for the wellspring, the source of her power, to send a psychic blast along his nerves that would render him senseless –

-- but nothing happened.