April in the Vapor Zone
Part 5.
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© Copyright 1999-2001 Stellar Spark Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs FanFic page by Stellar Spark https://www.angelfire.com/id/stellar Email: Stellar Spark (stellar@mailcity.com)
April in the Vapor Zone. Part 1. |
‘What’s she dreaming about?’ thought Jesse Blue, looking at April smiling in her sleep. ‘Definitely not about me!’ he sharply turned around and walked out of the bedroom.
“We’ll see what she’ll say after she wakes up!” he said to the first Outrider he met in the corridor, not caring of that the poor trooper didn’t understand a single thing he said.
‘They will not wake me up, they just have to wait… and I will not open my eyes…’ her hazy mind told her as she turned around in her sleep.
Howver, minutes later, she carefully had opened her eyes in such a way that no one would notice that she was awake.
It was then when she realized that she in a bed when she specifically remembred falling asleep on the floor. Forgetting of being cautious, she simply sat up in the bed and looked around before falling back into back into bed with a groan. Her head was throbbing so badly tht she thought it would kill her. Even the dim light in the room was hurting her eyes. As the pain subsided, she tried it once more. This time, she covered her eyse with her hand.
The room was unfamiliar to her with no windows in them. Light was coming off from a lamp nearby. Yet, no matter how soft the light was, it was causing her pain. She then saw the panel for the door. It was closed of course. The only furniture in the room was the bed, located in the middle of the room.
There was no point in getting up. Besides, she was cozy where she was right now, and her head would give her less pain when she was not moving. Minutes later, she had already drifted back to sleep, and returned to her dream.
Her very last conscious thought was about the execution. Could it be that they used the gas chamber to make it more merciful in the sleep?
* * *
Jesse Blue was worried - April should have woken an hour ago. On top of that, he could not give the order for them to head back to the Vapor Zone until she took a pill to soften her perception of two dimensions.
As far as he knew, it was going to be her first time, the most painful one nonetheless.
‘Why isn’t she awakening?’ he was pacing back and forth in her room, not daring to wake her up himself.
Right at that moment, April had a nightmare.
She had been walking though a crowd, and the people silently let her pass through. All those faces had one single expression on them - contempt.
She moved her gaze from one man to another, but it was all the same. She then came across her family - father, mother and Stellar - only to see the same expression on their faces.
“You’re not good enough to be my daughter!” the Queen said as she turned away from her.
“You have betrayed all the ideals we had and the Royalties of Lavana!” her father told her before turning his back to her as well.
“We have one destiny,” whispered Stellar and took a step towards her sister while offering her both hands. But at that moment, she disappeared and her place took something awful.
“Come to me!” hissed that awful thing, trying to grab her with its long claws.
April looked around. Now, she was alone with that awful monster in some heavy fog.
To save her life, it was enough to wake up, and it has usually worked. But this time though, something went different. She couldn’t move an inch, and the creature came closer and closer to her.
The fear made her legs turn into jelly. Even her voice was gone at that moment. She couldn’t call for help. And besides, whom was she going to call? - she was alone here - just she and her apparent death.
April started to turn in her bed restlessly. Jesse immediately was on her side, but didn’t dare to touch her. He looked into her face and saw that she’s trying to scream. He didn’t know what to do at this point, but when he saw the horror crossed her white, pale face, he shook by her shoulders hard.
“April,” he called, “Wake up!”
The horrible monster had finally gotten to her, and was now starting to shake her soul out of her.
“April!” it roared.
The dream suddenly changed abruptly. The monster was now gone. In its place Jesse Blue appeared, but that wasn’t much better either. Even though, she had opened her eyes,
her mind was still in her dream. She observed the new scene in front with much interest although she felt that none of this was happening to her.
“April, wake up! It's me, Jesse Blue!”
That voice finally jerked April out of her trance.
“I can see that!” with a hand she pushed him aside.
When he wasn't watching, she pinched herself to see whether she was awake or not.
Jesse walked to a small table which April didn’t noticed before (or it wasn’t here before?) and took a glass from it. He then offered it to her.
“What is it?” she didn’t look at the glass, but instead looked him straight in the eyes.
“This will help you live through the barrier between the dimensions as we make our way to the Vapor Zone.” He said carefully as he pushed her to take the glass.
April raised an eyebrow, doubting his words.
“Drink it, and you’ll feel better. Come on! It’ll stop the headache, too.”
Only the promise of getting rid of that terrible headache, April took the glass and drank it.
What difference did it made if Jess was going to take care of her instead of the executor on Santa?
She was alive so far - and that was the most important thing. Wasn’t that what she was praying all along for? So, she got it. Who could blame God that he decide to use Jesse? As long she was alive, there was hope, even it meant that she didn’t have anymore friends around her anymore.
The liquid didn’t had a taste, and its consistence was like an anise oil. The warm wave quickly went to her head, and the world wasn’t that dim anymore.
April laid back to the pillow.
“We still have two days before we get there. You’ll have time to recover.” she heard him saying, his voice sounding distant.
“What did you put in it?” April hoped her words sounded threatening, but in reality, it was no more than baby talk.
“Just some tranquillizer. I can’t allow you to break down now. Sleep now. In no time, we’ll get there.”
“Jesse…” he heard her whispering softly when he was about to live the room, “they’ll kill me…”
“No, that what’s you’re saying! The Outriders…” he knew that she had already drifted off.
He quietly walked out of the room, and closed the door behind him.
‘Really, what am I going to tell Nemesis? How am I supposed to explain her presence in the Vapor Zone?’
* * *
Her head indeed wasn’t aching any more, and the light wasn’t hurting her eyes. April slowlt got up from bed, and found out that her body was obeying her perfectly although a bit slow. She then realized that her mind was still hazed.
‘It’s that tranquillizer of his!’ she thought.
The door to the corridor was slighlty opened ajar. She decided to take a peek out. No one was around there, so she returned back into the room. She was looking around her room when found the bathroom.
‘I guess I do look terrible.'
To her surprise, she found some cosmetics near the mirror. There was more than a half of dozen different tubes usage of which April didn’t know. But she was sure that Jesse knew it all because he always looked after himself.
April washed her face, and then brushed her hair. Curiosity soon took over when she finally went ahead and read the labels on those tubes.
Now that she was looking much better, she walked out of the room to find her way to the bridge. She already knew that it was a ship when she had looked out of the room for the first time.
On her way, she found a plan of the ship hanging on the wall with all the possible routes indictated on it. Not very far from it, two Outriders were standing on the post.
April was tempted to disappear, but forced herself to walk straight towards them and asked them what level this was. She was amused to find out that they were very polite. In fact, they even had offered her an escort to where she was heading. April denied the offer, saying that she would find her way around and continue to walk alone.
She soon found the bridge when the ship was approaching the planet. The huge viewing screens were showing the surrounding space. April watched the screens - she had always thought that human space and space in other dimensions couldn’t be the same. But as far as she could see now, it was very much alike the one she was used to.
While she stood there, Jesse Blue walked up to her.
“What do you think of the Vapor Zone? Romantic, isn’t it?”
“I don’t see any difference,” calmly answered April.
“This planet is called Groor. It means “The Crack” in Outrider language. I have my personal residence here.”
Jesse Blue waited April to ask him more, but she remained silent - she simply didn’t care of anything.
“Don’t you wanna know where the Nemesis is?” he was surprised that she wasn’t asking him that question.
“If you wanted me know, you would have already told me about it,” was her only reply.
She didn’t pay him anymore attention after this, and kept watching the nearing planet.
‘Sooner or later, the gravitation forces will tear this planet apart. That is if the physic rules are the same as in our dimension.’ she thought. April saw some Outriders staring at her instead of the monitors.
“You better go now. We will land soon. You’re distracting my officers. It’s pretty unusual for them to see a Star Sheriff walking freely around here.” She heard Jesse's voice behind her.
“Let them get used to it,” She answered him coldly.
Jesse Blue gritted his teeth. He had forgotten how stubborn she could be. When she had been asleep, he thought how helpless she was… How easy it had been to control herl.
“Prepare for landing!” he ordered loudly. “Keep your attention to on your monitors!”
April walked to the Captain’s post, where the Outrider officer was working. He turned abruptly, and was about to make an snide remark when he saw the stern glare from his Trail boss. Silently, he then went back to work. April kept watching the Captain and the rest of the crew. Only when the ship touched the ground, she turned around to leave. She passed Jesse Blue like he was part of the furniture.
‘I bet she can pilot this ship now.' thought Jesse as an afterthought.
“Double the security on the ship. No one can board it without my permission first! The ones of free of duty can leave it!” he ordered, trying to reclaim his mistake. “When will you leave the Groor?” he then asked the Captain. “As soon as we get a new assignment, Trail Boss. And one more thing, Sir… I think it would be best if she didn’t come to the bridge anymore. I felt like I was re-taking my navigational exam again, and couldn’t move a finger. The same thing goes for the other officers. They weren’t informed that there was a Star Sheriff on board. When they saw her, they nearly crashed the ship onto the planet. We got away easily this time…”
“If you would crash the ship I would see you to be pulverize.” Jesse dryly commented.
The Captain immediately shut up.
“Let me cheer you up with some news here. She’s capable enough to hijack your ship right in front of your nose. So, you better run out of here as soon as possible.”
The Outrider swallowed hard, his eyes widening.
“I’ll do my best to avoid it! But Sir, you also have to keep her away from us...”
At that point, Jesse didn’t bother listening to him anymore, and simply walked out.
* * *
April walked around her cabin, and didn’t find any personal belongings to take with her. At thought then occurred to her that she ought to go to the base by herself. Or, should she wait for Jesse. Was it even safe for her to walk all alone among the Outriders? She probably needed him to keep his Outriders away form her - a living, breathing Star Sheriff in the Vapor Zone could be quite a shock for any Outriders.
Jesse soon appeared to escort her out. The ship was connected to the base by a plastic pipe leading to the docks. A transport was waiting there to take them through the many corridors and levels to reach their quarters.
From outside, April saw only that the base was made out of whole mountain with entrances and docks at the bottom and many windows at the top. The site was beautiful, but it didn’t come any close to what she had seen when the car ran out to a huge opening in the middle of the mountain.
April let out an excited gasp. The Trail Boss turned to face her, and smiled condescending. He liked her reaction.
The inside of the base was filled with bright lights. All corridors and windows were opened to the central chambers. It was a fantastic view.
“Do you like it?” asked Jesse Blue.
“If I had been the one who built this base, I would have added more inner separators for better construction stability.”
“It’s not a military base.” He noted with a smile. He was staying calm even when his ego was punctured by her criticism
“It doesn’t matter. Even the civil constructions have to be firm. During earthquakes…”
“There are no earthquakes here…”
“The name “Crack” was for the planet, right? Then, there should be earthquakes around here.”
‘She’s trying to get me…' thought Jesse. He then smiled as he spoke up again. “We’ have been here for almost two years. During all this time, our sensors didn’t register any seismic activity.”
“It’s the question of time. By the way, the additional separators would enlarge the living space, secure in case the air leak, plus you could make different climate zones.”
“Alright! You can have any mountain here, and do whatever you want with it!”
“I’m not interested!”
Jesse Blue was ready to loose his temper with her, but managed to catch himself in time. It was only now, that he realized that she wasn’t exactly the ideal that he had made her out to be.
April in the Vapor Zone. Part 1.
April in the Vapor Zone. Part 2.
April in the Vapor Zone. Part 3.
April in the Vapor Zone. Part 4.
April in the Vapor Zone. Part 5.
April in the Vapor Zone. Part 6.
April in the Vapor Zone. Part 7.
April in the Vapor Zone. Part 8.
April in the Vapor Zone. Part 9.
