Loren had been on the meatship for a long time and there were still some places she hadn't been to. Take Engineering, for example. Which was why she was down here for a visit, just a look around really.

And if she happened to see anyone, well she was always up for making new friends. Provided they weren't Yeerks.

We missed the point of living, so caught up in this moment
We took out all convictions, and traded them for substance o/`

Ben was humming as he was working on his car with the MP3 player blaring. Granted he wasn't exactly the best mechanic but he had assisted Kevin enough times to work on a few things once in a while. Besides, it was HIS new car, and driving around always cheered him up.

Having gone down to the vehicle bay had proven fruitful, as both Kevin and his new car was there. Even Grandpa Max's Rustbucket was there and a big green ship which he was damn certain was his, considering, well, it was GREEN. He was half expecting to find Kevin or Grandpa Max tinkering with something in the immediate vicinity. He had scrounged up some things, and even found some of his old clothes in the RV. As such, he had changed out of his plantsuit and was wearing a pair of slightly too tight jeans and one of his lucky shirts from his kid days, now way too small on his frame but he didn't want to get his regular clothing grease and oil stained.

"There we go," said Ben, slamming the hood and keying the engine. It roared to life and a multitude of alien tech lit up in his car. "Now THIS is more like it!"

Shutting it off, he looked up at the ship and examined it. "Sure would like to check out that engine. ...why not?"

Twisting the dial of his Ultimatrix, Ben shifted in a burst of green light. "Spidermonkey! Ook ook!"

Bouncing up to the roof of the Rustbucket, he bounced upwards to the bottom of the ship and started to prod around for a hidden latch. "Kevin always leaves a latch here... Got it!"

The back opened up and he grinned. "Time to check this sucker out!"

The half spider, half monkey alien dashed around to the back and clambered up the large ramp. It was quite a large ship, no bigger than say a Millennium Falcon but it was definitely HIS.

Ben was going to like this.

Uhura was decidedly new at Sensorium control, but at this particular moment, standing in the blank white of the room, it didn't matter.  As always, she had a crisp, clear vision of what she wanted.  It was the gymnasium at Starfleet Academy and she wanted a proper workout.  Something that would help ease some of the frustration of being bottled up without much to do.  At some point, she resolved to talk to the Captain Kirk currently aboard the ship, but she wasn't sure she was...ready.  There was something decidedly odd about knowing your captain (from an alternate future that was the real one) was aboard.

She was avoiding the confrontation.

And it annoyed her.

It annoyed her about as much as the thought that their universe had been destroyed again, even after they had dispatched Nero, even after all they had gone though to do that.  Uhura frowned at the punching bag in front of her before beginning her stretching routine.  She taped her hands carefully, the noise reassuring, as she wound it around her fingers, around her hands.  It was an old technique and she didn't care.

Her fist met the bag hard and she scowled.  This wasn't going to be challenging.  It was just a bag.  She took a few more measured swings, scored several hits, and wanted something to hit back.  This had to be some sort of cosmic joke.

Title: Gemini, part I: Kobayashi Maru
Location: Stacy; The Pod Chamber
Notes/Warnings: Things may get a little bit gritty here. Strong possibility of PG-13 rating.




There was a reason why he never spoke about his family line.

There was a reason why he didn't tell Goliath or Arha or Jamie...or even Billy much about his line. There were simply things that families kept beneath the cover of night. Skeletons in the closet, as the Human saying went. Renne knew he had a closet and plenty of skeletons to fill it and that was why he ran, and why he didn't stop.

He crawled for hours.

Renne crawled from the pod caverns to the Observation Deck, to the Sensoriums and up into the City itself. He went into Angkor Wat and consciously tried to re-immerse back into a life he had known for years. Survival. Like an animal. Where there was only nature's law and it was simply what it was.
When that failed him, Renne began to run.

He didn't bother to think that the minutes of blacking out in mid-run were the manifestations of the flaw he'd kept quiet on all this time. He just kept running.

When Renne made it down to the caverns, he didn't even stop.

Shaking, drenched in sweat and tears he refused to acknowledge, he whispered into the dark.

"Rrrr-enne thin-k Rrrr-enne wahn-t go ba-ck, s-leep."