Mindshard (ON HOLD)

Chapter 3: Interruption

     Bags over their shoulders and with their heads on swivels, the two humans followed Deks as the Sidhe walked towards a doorway in the back wall, now the closest to them.  As he walked, Finn marveled at how the material underfoot felt beneath his booted feet.  It was pliant without being spongy, almost like mattress padding.  Yet the more force that was exerted onto it, the more resilient it became.  Cases in point were the shuttles.  Easily weighing multiple kilotonnes, their spindly legs nevertheless pressed only slightly into the giving floor, about the same amount Finn’s boots managed to displace.

     Ahead of the wiry xenobiologist by a stride, Vaughn was using the brief journey much as her companion was: to get a good look at the bay’s interior.  Along with the shuttles, there was a relatively broad variety of craft occupying the bay floor, the bay also doubling as some sort of repair depot in addition to housing a shuttle fleet.  Vehicles ranging from blocky transports roughly double the Chryronus’ size to sleek, streamlined attack fighters, all weapons and engines, each one of them in some state of disassembly with crews scrambling over them, hard at work.

     But the veteran officer was quick to note the repairs had nothing to do with battle damage.  Instead it appeared to be more like regular maintenance, upgrading and refitting worn parts and that sort of thing.  Still, she was just as quick to note, there seemed to be an inordinate number of war craft being worked on.  Whatever the Pax’s state of peace was currently, they certainly appeared to be in possession of a great deal of advanced military technology, well maintained, upgraded and ready to go.

     Deks waved at the door and it irised open in a similar fashion to human doors, with half the armor plating and none of the sound, more evidence of the Pax’s advanced technology.  He then led them through the portal, along the brief passageway beyond and through another airlock-type door into the corridor beyond.

  “This way.”  He pointed to his left with a smile, indicating their path lay through a heavily trafficked corridor, filled with Sidhe of all shapes and sizes and in various types of uniforms, each quietly bustling on their individual tasks.  Sidhe like Deks, with swarthy brown skin and soft brown hair, and the alien that met them first, taller, more slender, blonde and beautiful, predominated.

     But here and there, the two humans were surprised to see a third type of Sidhe, markedly different from their two cousins, rare and fey, moving through the throng.  Instead of nut brown, or golden tan, their skin was blue-gray, their hair shocks of the purest white in the place of blonde or brown.  And where the other two types had no problem brushing shoulders with each other, they went out of their way to give the gray skinned aliens a wide birth. Each passed through the throng surrounded by a bubble of clear space that allowed easy movement, even those engaged in conversation with their fair-skinned compatriots.

     Regardless of what kind of Sidhe each was, they all stepped aside to give Deks and his human guests a wide berth.

  “Damn, I’m starting to feel like Moses.”  Finn grumbled as Deks led them through a passageway walled by Sidhe bodies.

     Now beyond the airlocks and the bay, with its pristine atmosphere tainted only by the actinic rush of electric arcs, the air in the corridor more accurately reflected the Sidhe day-to-day scent, magnified by the closeness engendered by the throng.  Now it was liberally spiced with strange aromas: a hint of clean, mountain air, mixing with the verdant lushness of jungle undergrowth and the tart tang of conifer.  Added to that when they stepped past one of the gray skinned Sidhe was a darker scent embodying shadows in the deep places, fire and twilight.

     Finn had to fight off the impulse to reach into his bag for a notebook, his mind bubbling with all the observations he was making.  The Sidhe may not take kindly to him jotting down notes about them as they walked through the crowd.  Before he could wryly comment on it to Vaughn however, he felt a light tug on his sleeve.