Chapter 113: Federation?

I flew the ship back into the base, I didn't really want to slip through the folds of reality again if I had to, that was a rather madness inducing sight. As I gently brought my ship down to land a troop of aliens in Protector uniforms, a red and white ensemble that I could definitely see myself slipping into somewhere down the line. Yet, instead of greeting my return like a hero, they had their weapons brandished and pointed straight at the ship. I knew I should have felt concern, but all things considered I was riding on a high after saving the day and unlocking a bunch of insane powers. I felt unstoppable. I felt a buzz of concern in the back of my mind from the Zietriss, but I knew everything would probably work itself out in the long run. In this universe it seemed like things could only ever go right for me, and that was something I could get behind. 

I sauntered out of my ship with my hands held up, though even the cargo bay doors swishing open seemed to have the Protectors on edge. I guess they were a little bit scared, considering my display of power they had every right to be. 

"Hey now, come on guys, didn't you hear my speech out there?" I asked, a self assured smirk on my face. "I'm a protector, here to help!" 

"I'm sorry, did you just call yourself a Protector?" Malek asked, throwing her flight helmet to the side and pushing her way through the armed task force with an angry snarl on her face. She was clearly the same species as Andi, though her skin was a pale green and her eyes shone with an an amber hue. "Protectors follow orders, they stick to formation, and most importantly they don't raze ships alone. You're no Protector, you're a madman," she spat, getting up in my face. 

I took a step back, shocked by the anger that was radiating off of her. I had destroyed the enemy ship, surely that was the end goal? It was what they had wanted. Before I could ask why she was so mad that I had completed the mission almost alone she gave the order to fire, and I collapsed to the ground. 

My mouth was dry. My head was aching. It felt like a hangover day, but I was long beyond pretending that this was all a dream and that I was going to wake up back in my bed on Earth. I opened my eyes a crack and was blinded by a brilliant white light, I hissed in pain and scrunched them shut. I tried to lift my hands up to rub the irritation from my eyes, but instead found my arms shackled to two hard objects at either side of my body. 

"What's going on?" I managed to croak out while my eyes adjusted to the harsh light of the room. 

"Oh so you're awake then," a voice snarled, Andi's voice. "About damn time." 

She swam into focus, along with Malek and Quatz, and a fourth unknown alien. Its head was much like a lizard, and instead of being bipedal like all of the aliens I had seen so far this one was a quadruped. Its body was long and slender, and it had two narrow, spindly arms that protruded from its front that ended in three fingered claws. If it had wings I would be hard pressed to claim it wasn't a dragon. 

"The patient needs water," the creature hissed, scuttling away from the group and fetching a glass from somewhere off to the right. I tried to follow its movement by my head was also locked into place. 

"Don't understand," I croaked again, drinking the water the lizard-like alien provided gratefully. 

"Oh you don't understand Craig?" Andi asked, scowling. "I'll tell you what I don't understand Craig. I don't understand why an alien being with no connections or ties to the Federation, who belonged to a species that has no Essence from a place the Federation has never heard of before would suddenly appear out of the depths of space with no warp signature or trail. I don't understand why said creature would then immediately pledge themselves to the Federation with no knowledge of what the Federation is. I don't understand why that same being, who had no previous signs of Essence, would then suddenly be overflowing with the stuff. I also don't understand why said creature would want to become a Protector, and then would disobey orders immediately to go and fight in a battle they had no part in being involved in. Not to mention the fact that the creature would then go on to disobey even more orders and go rogue during a highly important mission," she had been pacing back and forth during her speech, but stopped at the end, and looked me straight in the eye, "That's what I don't understand." 

"Look, there's a perfectly good-" I started, before Malek cut me off. 

"Oh we don't need you to talk Craig, Dr Kredal is here for the explanation," she said, gesturing to the lizard creature, who looked decidedly sheepish about the whole ordeal. 

"We will perform intense reading of Patient's brainwaves," the creature said, nodding fervently as if that explained it all. 

"Sorry, what does that mean?" I asked, straining at my bonds. 

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"He means he's going to read your mind Death-Walker, if there even is a mind in that essence-less skull to read," Quatz spat. I couldn't help but feel hurt by that, I thought we had bonded in the armory. Obviously not. 

"It is a simple procedure," the doctor stated, while bringing down something that looked strangely like a giant energy gun down from the ceiling, "Only causes brain liquidation 60% of the time!"

"I'm sorry did you just say brain liquidation?" I asked, though everyone in the room seemed to ignore me. 

Before I could get another question out the mind reading device powered up and launched a white hot beam of energy straight into my forehead. I screamed as loud as I could and tried to arch my back in the chair, it felt as if the thing were boring a hole straight through my forehead and into my mind. Carving out my memories one by one and displaying them for anyone to see. It was mind bendingly painful, yet something wouldn't let me blackout. It was as if the mind reading device was keeping me awake, forcing me to relive every memory at rapid speed until I was empty and used up. At least I got to see my life pass before my eyes before my brain melted, I guess the cliche wasn't always wrong after all. 

As suddenly as the pain started it stopped, and my scream tapered off into a hoarse sobbing, only the echo of the torture smoldering on my forehead. Andi, Quatz and Malek were huddled around the good Doctor, clearly watching a supercut of my life's best bits. They seemed to go through a mixture of emotions as I sat there, still tethered down, my mind reeling from the force of the psychic assault the machine had performed on me. After what felt like an eternity a steely anger settled over Andi's face. 

"Okay, I've seen enough," she spat, before turning that anger toward me. "So, when Quatz called you a Death-Walker he wasn't actually that far off, was he?" 

"Kind of… got it in… one," I wheezed, levelling my gaze with hers. I was in pain, but they knew what I was now. From the harshness in her eyes I could tell Andi didn't approve of my origins, and I had the sneaking suspicion that the Federation might not have been everything they had implied. 

"By Federation law I should execute you where you sit. Whatever sick necromancy was used to bring you here has made you an abomination, and a threat to our Federation," she explained, her hand resting on the pistol that was on her hip. "You were killed on your own world, and brought here straight after to live anew. I will not permit your pestilence to thrive here." 

She whipped the weapon out of its holster and aimed it straight at my head. I couldn't help but feel betrayed, they had looked after me and it seemed like they were going to accept me into their ranks. It seemed that even in this new world I couldn't help but mess everything up at the first chance I got. 

"Andi… Please… I'm here to help," I tried to plead, fighting past the scratchiness of my throat and pounding of my skull. 

It looked like I might have gotten through to her, there was a second of doubt on her face, but before she could give in she strengthened her resolve and refocused her aim. It looked like I was done for, the reaper brought me to this universe for nothing, I wondered what would happen if I died a second time. Would it be a straight trip to the Maw?

With that thought a pulse of energy ripped straight through me, and the pain in my head cleared enough for me to feel the pulsing of power from the Zietriss once more. I wasn't done yet. I could still summon my ship here, though what that would do to the structural integrity of the already damaged space station I did not know. 

"Make peace with your Gods, Craig Lyre, if such a creature as you even has any," Andi instructed, the weapon in her hand powering up with an ominous hum. 

"I… am sorry," I forced out, calling out to my ship and dragging it through space and time once more. 

Much like before in the training room a fierce wind whipped up in the room, knocking Andi off balance and launching beakers and needles into the air. Her shot went wide, the hot plasma barely missed my head and instead ploughed straight through the metal of the chair I was sitting in. Quatz clearly recognised what was happening and grabbed his captain in two of his four arms while shielding her with the other two. Both the alien doctor and Malek sprinted after the large alien, they were confused but understood enough to realise that this rom was not somewhere they wanted to be. The last thing I saw before the Zietriss closed around me and plunged me back through the rip in reality it had caused was the deep red of the space stations alert system. I was officially a fugitive of the Federation. 

The ship breached standard space off the port of the space station, clearly the reality rending teleportation trick didn't have the biggest range in the world, that or the poor girl's power supply was just as drained as I felt. I had no idea where I was going, no idea where the Federation controlled and where I would be safe, I didn't even have any idea what systems would be populated and what wouldn't be, so as I slowly faded out of consciousness once more I set the autopilot with one command, as far away from this station as the ship could fly.

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