Board Thread:Archive/@comment-24866242-20140517080038

Katrylle Morgahn posted July 25, 1996 01:56 AM

(Kat)

As she watched her new room-mate, the orange kitten she had bought at the RDI, sniff about the room, she chuckled. She realized he was not looking for mice, but trouble. Joke, named after her surrogate father figure and #1 prankster of the Raiders, disappeared under the bed momentarily, only to reappear quickly, sneezing and chasing a dust bunny. Laughing at the brave little hunter before her, she scooped him up and dusted off his nose.

"Guess I oughtta let the maid in once in a while, eh, Joke?"

The kitten tilted it's little head, his gold eyes shining with something close to human intelligence just before he reached out and batted her nose.

It was at that moment the vision hit her square between the eyes. Her common sense told her she still sat on the desk chair in her room, Joke still cradled in her upraised hand, but the vision told her she was on a knoll looking over a burnt meadow. The shells and body parts of several Mechs littered the ground before her, some carrying Darrak's mark, others she recognized as Doom Bringers. Several hushed voices whispered in her ear, blaming the distruction once again on her.

"You shouldn't have told them."

"You should have died with Jack and the others."

"Death follows you everywhere."

Slapping her hands over her ears, she released a scream to wake the dead, the sound echoing off the walls of her Doom Bringer quarters. Joke, having been dropped unceremoniously to the floor, arched his back, hissed and dove under the bed, refusing to emerge for several hours. She saw none of this, however. After the initial scream, she buried her face in her hands, sobbing and trembling, oblivious to the world outside her room.

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When she did eventually emerge, having grown frustrated with trying to coax Joke from under the bed, she made no eye contact with anyone she happened to pass in the hallway, the pale look of death on her face keeping most at bay anyway.

Slamming through the personnel door to the Mech bay, she began to sprint to the Angel, the consideration that the door slamming against the wall might have startled a few inside the bay passing through her mind only to be shoved into the dark recesses where she tried to convince herself she didn't care.

Making her way quickly to the cockpit of the Angel, she began flipping switches before her butt even hit vinyl, bringing the 20 ton beast to life. She did have the presence of mind to request clearance from command, barely receiving confirmation before clearing the hanger doors, leaping into the air and transforming to full Fighter form, roaring off in an Easterly direction and gaining enough speed to cause a sonic boom just outside RhyDin's city limits.

Once in the air, she felt her shaking ease, the vibration and hum of the metal surrounding her soothing her somewhat. She decided long before her hasty departure that she would never reveal any of what she had seen. She preferred to look foolish with some lame excuse of a spider or such than to have the guilt of Doom Bringers' deaths on her head. She knew Jugger would hear of the commotion, if he hadn't heard the scream itself. She'd have to come up with a good excuse if she was to make it past his scrutiny. 