Wishful Thinking by Allison McDonnell

[Reviews - 0]
Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer

- Text Size +

Damage control didn't begin to describe what needed to be accomplished on Alonzo's part. He'd barely slept and was up at the crack of dawn as he continued to strategize the best way to right his wrong without causing further emotional damage to two people that he cared about.

After much inward debate, the pilot had finally decided to stick with a slightly amended version of his original plan to approach Devon. This way, if he could persuade her to open up to Danziger about her feelings for him and let them finally tell one another the things that both of them needed to hear, they could at last move forward and begin a relationship. Moreover, it would no longer be necessary for them to venture into what they believed to be the recesses of their mind to achieve their innermost desires.

And best yet, after their mutual declaration of love was out in the open in the real world, neither leader needed to ever know that their conversations and actions had already previously played out on the Dreamplane. Alonzo even went so far as to speculate that, if Devon and John were ever to discover way down the line that they'd once experienced a courtship of sorts on the alternate reality before actually beginning a relationship, the knowledge might actually serve to strengthen their overall partnership. Anything was possible.

Alonzo stayed pretty much to himself all day as he intensely focused on working out the details of his impending conversation with Devon, as well as to more than occasionally dwell on the well-intentioned, but colossal mess he'd made. As a result, he never realized that he'd walked almost the entire twenty-four click hike and had barely said more than two words to anyone.

Just after Devon had called a stop for the day and Danziger had taken control of the construction of their latest temporary campsite, Julia took Alonzo aside out of concern. She told him that many of the others in Eden Advance had noticed a recent change in his behavior. He'd become distant and often looked troubled, prompting her to ask him if something was weighing heavily on his heart.

As much as Alonzo had wished to confide in her as to what he'd done, he'd decided to hold off a little longer in order to allow himself some time to correct his errors. Julia's love and devotion had come to mean more than anything in the world to Alonzo and he didn't want her to think any less of him. And at the moment, he was just plain ashamed of his actions.

Much later that same night as the attendance around the campfire dwindled down to only Alonzo, Devon and Danziger, the pilot put his plan into motion. He mentioned that John was scheduled to work the first guard shift of the evening, but he looked exhausted. Alonzo then generously offered to take the mechanic's place in order to to allow him to get some much needed rest.

After hemming and hawing a bit, Danziger finally agreed, thanking Alonzo for the gesture and offering to work one of his sentry shifts in the near future. He then climbed to his feet and exchanged his goodbyes before heading off to bed. Alonzo noticed Devon's gaze lingering on John as he made his way toward his quarters, and she quickly averted her eyes back to the firelight in embarrassment when she realized that she'd been caught red-handed by the sleepjumper.

This was just the opening that Alonzo needed to make his move.

"You should tell him," he said matter-of-factly.

Devon was completely blindsided by the drastic turn in conversation and she immediately began to squirm in her seat as she looked for the closest exit.

"I don't know what you mean," she lied terribly.

Alonzo leaned forward. "Devon, you know exactly what I mean," he countered. "And it's pretty obvious that he feels the same way about you."

The leader's eyes went wide, seemingly stunned by Alonzo's pronouncement.

"John," she sputtered before making a second attempt. "He doesn't-"

She closed her eyes and let out a slow breath, defeatedly. "It's more complicated than that."

"I didn't say that it would be easy," Alonzo expressed with sincerity. "But I also don't believe that it's as hard as you think."

After a brief pause, he furthered, "Just talk to him, okay? Tell him your concerns. His answers might surprise you."

Alonzo couldn't conceal the briefest of smirks. "Besides, I gotta feeling that some small part of you even enjoys having a bit of complication in your life," he suggested. "Danziger, too."

As Alonzo continued to speak, a dozen emotions were warring inside of Devon and it was impossible for her to choose how to react on the inside, much less how to appropriately respond on the outside. The leader was experiencing everything from elation to fury to confusion to nausea.

When it came to discussing her personal life, over the past weeks, Devon had been the recipient of several heavy-handed but craftily benign comments about Danziger from Bess. Of course, this was not exactly surprising behavior from the resident matchmaker and she'd taken it in stride.

And though it hadn't occurred since the day that Devon had surprised her family and colleagues by accepting a proposal of a two year marriage contract to Uly's father, Yale could conceivably dole out advice when it came to the matters of Devon's heart.

Even Julia offering a pragmatic opinion on the subject of Devon's unrequited feelings for Danziger wasn't completely beyond the realm of possibility. But Alonzo? It just didn't make any sense to her.

Meanwhile, the intervention continued.

"Look, when we brought you out of cold-sleep, the first word out of your mouth was 'Uly,' but the second was 'John.' You asked for the two people who were most important to you; the ones you needed more than anybody else in the world," Alonzo expressed as he continued his oft-rehearsed remarks. "Devon, John is the man of your dreams. And it's time for you to face it and do something about it."

Devon had yet to regain her bearings and it showed.

"Have you spoken to him? I mean, how do you know that-"

She halted her query mid-sentence, suddenly feeling ridiculous. This was the first and only time since her day-long adventure in the East coast spider caves that she'd slipped and voiced her affection for Danziger aloud. And ironically, Alonzo had been the recipient of her confession then, too. But Devon had never been the type of person to wear her heart on her sleeve and she wasn't about to make a habit of it now.

"I'm not comfortable talking to you about this," she declared bluntly, shaking her head in disbelief.

Alonzo remained undeterred. In fact, he was surprised that she was being as receptive to his uninvited counsel as she was. A part of him had worried that she'd react negatively to this intrusion of her private life. At the very least, he'd figured that she might flee the scene before he was permitted to get to the crux of the matter.

He chose to answer her questions, both asked and unasked, while still carefully leaving out the pieces of truth that he'd had no right to bear witness to in the first place.

"I'm telling you all of this because you and Danziger are my friends. And I know how he feels because I see how he looks at you."

The pilot broke into his most convincing smile, one which had gotten him out of many a scrape back when he was breaking hearts on the Space Stations.

"Trust me on this, Devon. I guarantee that you both'll be happier when it's all out in the open."

Devon was silent for several, long moments and Alonzo could practically see the wheels turning in her brain as she mulled over his recommendation. When she finally replied, for the very first time in the conversation, there was a healthy dose of confidence to her tone.

"I'll think about it," she relayed as she shot to the standing position.

Not wanting to waste any more time, Devon wished Alonzo goodnight and immediately retreated to her tent, presumably to further process the pilot's words and to work out the details of how to best deal with Danziger.

Now that Alonzo was alone, he breathed a huge sigh of relief that his discussion with Devon had been such a success. And if all went well, Devon and Danziger's budding romance would at last progress the way it should have been in the first place if Alonzo's interference hadn't gotten them so far off-track. Moreover, he could finally lift this terrible weight off of his shoulders and permit himself to return to the happy-go-lucky former version of himself.

Of course, it was practically a foregone conclusion that Devon and John would again meet on the Dreamplane once they'd both fallen asleep. However, Alonzo was playing the odds that because the pair hadn't figured out the truth yet, one more night wouldn't make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. And quite frankly, he didn't have much of a choice but to roll the dice and hope that it worked out in his favor.

As far as Alonzo was concerned, life getting back to normal in Eden Advance couldn't happen soon enough.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Devon let out a satisfied breath as she and her lover repositioned the covers and their bodies on her single-occupancy cot. As Danziger landed flat on his back, she snuggled against his side with her arm and leg securely draped around his torso.

She was going to miss this.

As much as it worried her, she had finally resolved to ignore every instinct screaming at her to do otherwise and had planned to heed Alonzo's advice by telling John that she'd fallen in love with him. And after that, Devon understood that everything would change between her and Danziger and probably not for the better, despite Alonzo's assurances to the contrary.

Of course, Devon had considered divulging her feelings for John more than once. In fact, the very day she'd returned to camp after being healed by the Terrians, she'd all but decided to come clean with him and hope for the best.

But then she'd fallen asleep and the courage that she'd lacked while awake, she'd found while she dreamed. And once she had allowed herself to fully surrender to her desire and act on those powerful feelings, she didn't want it to stop. During the past few weeks, she'd actually looked forward to going to bed just to be able to see and spend time with Danziger's image.

However, this posed several difficulties during Devon's waking hours. Now if she chose to confront John with the knowledge that she loved him and was then soundly rejected, she worried that not only would her friendship and working relationship with him be destroyed, she would also lose her ability to retreat into her dream world.

After all, how would she ever be able to look at the vision of Danziger and see his desire reflected back at her and not know for certain that it was all a lie? How could she savor every whispered promise of love and a lifetime commitment, each gentle and not-so-gentle caress as they explored one another's form, knowing full well in her heart of hearts that this was exactly what she'd wanted- what she'd needed- but could never be?

As such, she'd arrived at the sobering conclusion that she was willing to settle for keeping the real Danziger at arm's length, as long as the copied version of him remained her devoted paramour while she slept. To do otherwise would be too much of a risk.

Her nightly dreams of John were also causing a growing awkwardness between them during the day. She could no longer look at the mechanic without flashing to the memories of making love with his mirror image, and wondering if the real experience was anywhere close to as pleasureful as it was in her imagination.

Devon was also conflicted because there were actually times that she resented Danziger for not behaving more like the dream version of himself. It aggravated her to no end that he almost never seemed to take the initiative to show her the nurturing, more vulnerable side of his personality that she often saw him sharing with True and Uly. And Devon certainly wished that he would reconsider his decision to abandon her and The Eden Project once the colony ship arrived. That was, by far, his greatest and unforgivable sin.

And if matters weren't already complicated enough between them, Devon noticed that recently Danziger had seemed to sense her reluctance whenever she was forced to have contact with him and, in turn, was pulling away from her in kind. In truth, he really hadn't been very sociable where she was concerned since the day of her return three weeks before. However, when they did speak, Devon was troubled by his progressively aloof behavior in her presence, and she'd speculated that her expression and mannerisms might be giving too much away. And the idea that Danziger could possibly be reading her most confidential thoughts was certainly an additional incentive to refrain from too much interaction.

But over the past weeks, she'd come to the realization that her avoidance tactics weren't working either. As much as she treasured her nightly dreams with John, the ugly truth that her fantasies were little more than hollow charades was too obvious to deny. And with each passing day as she and the real Danziger grew farther and farther apart, she missed him. She yearned for his often brash and sometimes unsought opinions regarding just about every decision she made on behalf of Eden Advance. She longed for their spirited discussions when one or both of them felt that they weren't being heard. She missed his unyielding strength and camaraderie which she had grown to rely on. She just wanted her friend back. But she also knew that she wanted more.

Something had to give.

Devon momentarily shut her eyes and nestled her cheek against John's still slightly heaving chest, relishing the sensation of his calloused fingers as they began to trace unseen lines along her back. She let out a small chuckle, both from the tickling sensation of his chest hairs brushing against her nose and from the absurdity of the entire situation.

It was amusing to her that the fantasy version of Danziger was just as disheveled as the real version of him. The Devon of the Space Stations would likely have insisted on making several adjustments to his clothing and physical appearance in order to create a suitor that would be deemed more presentable. And when all was said and done, John would probably have ended up resembling something akin to his much better-groomed image during Bess and Morgan's virtual wedding reception.

But seeing and interacting with the tailored, unsullied VR version of Danziger had been an eye-opening experience for Devon. The look simply didn't suit him at all; nor did it suit her, for that matter. She realized that she preferred him just the way that he was, though she'd occasionally resist the urge to ask him to comb through that mess of entangled curls that he called hair.

Meanwhile, Danziger could hear and feel Devon's mirthful snickers and was eyeing her with more than a bit of curiosity.

"What's so damn funny, Adair?" he rumbled.

Devon's smile slowly evaporated. "Nothing. I just-"

She paused as she contorted her body to face him directly. "I've made my decision. But there's going to be consequences and I'm probably going to pay dearly for it. There's a good possibility that you'll never look at me the same way again. You might even hate me for destroying our friendship."

The slightest of chortles escaped her lips as she extended her hand and traced the line of Danziger's pronounced jawline. "Or who knows? Maybe you'll love me for it. Alonzo certainly seems to think so. That was a real shock to my system when he cornered me tonight at the campfire."

Danziger pitched his head back in bewilderment. What the hell did Alonzo have to do with anything?

His confusion went unnoticed as Devon continued with her confession. "The only thing that I'm sure of is that what I'm doing now isn't working. This isn't enough. I need more. I need you. The real you. Not this deluded, idealized copy that tells me everything I want to hear and lets me treat you like my sexual puppet."

Devon was forced to stop for a few moments because Danziger had begun to shift awkwardly and she needed to maneuver her body more comfortably against him.

"I want to spend time getting to know you. I want to know about your family and your life growing up in the Quadrant," she furthered. "I want to know about your relationship with Elle, and if True reminds you of her just as much as Uly reminds me of Charles."

Devon briefly paused again when she felt Danziger draw in two quick intakes of breath which seemed to coincide with her speaking the names "Elle" and "Charles." It took her by surprise and she searched his startled features looking for answers before finally rationalizing that she was likely projecting her own anxiety onto his image.

She also took note that this was the most she'd actually conversed with Danziger in weeks. Usually, they'd been all but consumed with the fulfillment of physical desires and this had left little time for much else.

Not that she was complaining.

She proceeded with her declaration. "The real you is obviously too pig-headed to see what's right in front of your face, so I'm going to do whatever it takes to make you realize that this is your home. I'm willing to beg, threaten, even personally strap you to the Transrover if I have to, in order to keep you from leaving on the Jamestown. This is where your family is, John. This is where you belong."

Devon took a moment to inwardly recall the highlights of Alonzo's perceptive comments from a few hours before.

"He feels the same way about you."

"John is the man of your dreams."

"Tell him your concerns. His answers might surprise you."

"I know how he feels because I see how he looks at you."

Energized, Devon again shifted her position; this time, pulling her body upward and over Danziger's, effectively straddling his torso. Her face was mere inches away from his, permitting her to view several fresh beads of perspiration forming on his brow.

"How do you look at me, John?" she whispered seductively, sifting her fingers through his sweat-soaked hair as she leaned in to brush his lips with hers. "Is it anything close to this? Just how different are you from the man that I dream about every night?"

Devon edged forward to kiss him again, but this time Danziger recoiled from her advances. His eyes were large and his voice was halting.

"Something's wrong."

Devon was slightly befuddled by the mechanic's sudden retreat, but she remained unflustered. In fact, his actions only served to strengthen her resolve.

"Nothing's wrong," she assured him, tilting her face forward with the intention of picking up where she'd left off. "For the first time in a long time, I'm thinking clearly. My dreams-"

"Devon," Danziger interrupted, his hands seemingly coming out of nowhere to firmly grip the sides of her head to hold it in place. "These aren't your dreams. They're mine."

She broke into a coquettish grin. "Don't be ridiculous."

Danziger didn't return her smile. "I'm not," he countered, his apprehension increasing with each syllable. "These are my dreams. Been havin' 'em for a couple of months now. Last few weeks, it's been almost every night."

Devon was slow to believe his words. "What are you saying? That you're really John? That you and I are-"

She paused to take a hard look at Danziger's shell-shocked features and her face went ashen.

Her voice raised at least a full octave as she shrieked, "This... this is really happening?"

It was as if a grenade had exploded between their two bodies as they propelled themselves away from one another. Although up until that very moment, Devon and John had been exposed to one another in every conceivable sense of the word, suddenly modesty reigned supreme. Devon flew backward and barely landed on her feet, ripping the blanket off of both of them in the process in order to prudely drape it around herself. This left Danziger hastily clawing for the only item within his immediate grasp- a pillow which he strategically positioned to conceal his most private of parts.

But there was no way to hide their horrified expressions.

"I don't believe this! How is this shankin' possible?" Danziger bellowed, scrambling to locate his pants. "I'm dreaming this, right?"

"Yes, but so am I! We're both here!" Devon snapped back in between staccato breaths, mortified and beyond embarrassed as she tried to shove her arms through the holes of her shirt while still shrouded under the blanket. "Whatever this is, it's obviously not a regular dream. It's almost as if-"

Her posturing went ramrod straight and she emitted an alarmed gasp.

"Oh dear God, I think we're on the Dreamplane!"

The theory prompted a double-take from Danziger.

"What? How?" he barked in quick succession before taking a moment to think it through. "Nah, no way. I haven't seen a single Digger here."

As they furiously redressed while facing opposite walls, Devon felt as though she was about to lose the contents of her stomach. And she was starting to see Alonzo's coincidental advice in a whole new light.

"The man of my dreams," she whispered under her breath as she pivoted back to face Danziger.

The leader shut her eyes briefly and emitted a deep shudder before declaring loudly enough for Danziger to hear, "Alonzo. He knows."

She did her best to ignore John's deer-in-the-headlights reaction and instead searched her memory for additional clues of the sleepjumper's involvement. One of her previous dreams immediately came to mind.

"He brought me here once," she murmured.

She was taken aback when Danziger's entire demeanor unexpectedly darkened and he appeared as though he'd just been sucker-punched in the gut.

"Wait a minute, are you saying that you were here with Alonzo, too?" he exclaimed in a tone loaded with so many raw, explosive emotions that Devon dared not try to decipher any of them.

However, the implication was clear and this prompted Devon to quickly dive into a much-needed explanation before the situation could deteriorate even further.

"Back at the winter camp, Alonzo brought me here to warn me that it was you who'd been overtaken by the Terrian spirit, not him. He came up with the plan to save your life," she elaborated. "At the time, I thought that it was just a dream; my subconscious' way to help me understand that you were the one in danger. Obviously, I was wrong."

As she spoke, for the briefest of moments, Devon wondered if it had been Alonzo who had repeatedly transported them to the Dreamplane without their knowledge or consent. However, she quickly nixed the idea. Alonzo was their friend and, as such, could never have acted in such a cruel, underhanded manner.

At the same time, a now seemingly defeated, fully-clothed Danziger sank down on the edge of the cot to replace his boots, momentarily forgetting that it didn't matter if he was shoeless or not because, in reality, he was still sound asleep in his real bed.

"So you're basically tellin' me that 'Lonz has known about all this for a good while now and didn't say a damn thing," he declared bitterly. "He just let us-"

The mechanic's words drifted off into oblivion as he rubbed at his temples with his thumb and index finger.

After another few seconds of tense silence, there was a sudden burst of aggression as John began to punch himself repeatedly in the thighs with as much force as he could muster.

"What on earth are you doing?" Devon hissed as she lunged forward to grab at his arms to stop his apparent tantrum.

John roughly shook himself free of her grasp, refusing to make eye contact as he erupted in fury.

"I'm trying to wake up from this shankin' nightmare, so I can get some goddamned answers!"

Realizing that the infliction of physical pain alone wasn't enough to get the results he'd needed, Danziger decided to take it up a notch.

"Dammit, wake up! Wake up!" he began shouting at the top of his lungs, increasing the speed and intensity of each blow to his legs. "Wake up! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!"

Danziger's revised plan worked like a charm and reality hit him head-on as his eyes shot wide open. He was immediately thrust to the brink of hyperventilation as he wildly kicked off the blankets and flung himself out of his cot, landing with a thud on the compacted dirt. He hastily struggled to his feet and faltered several paces backward, nearly landing on his tailbone.

John created such a commotion that True was jostled awake. And the sight before her was most certainly grounds for concern.

At first she feared that her Dad might have taken ill based upon his pale skin, his shallow gasps and the generous amounts of perspiration streaming down his face. But when his observed his haunted, distraught expression, she knew him well enough to understand that it must be something else entirely. If fact, if True didn't know any better, she would have guessed that he'd just seen a ghost.

"Are you okay, Dad?" she asked, her cocoa eyes brimming with worry as she realized that he was physically shaking.

"Go back to bed, True-Girl," he stammered much more harshly than he'd intended.

After inwardly berating himself for addressing his daughter in such a severe tone, he tried in vain to steady his emotions before lying through his teeth, "I'm fine. Just need to get some air is all."

Danziger didn't wait for True's response and stumbled out of his tent in his socks after forgetting that he'd replaced his boots on the Dreamplane, but not in the real world. The mechanic's strides across camp increased in intensity as his initial discombobulation evolved into seething anger. By the time he'd set his eyes upon Alonzo warming himself by the campfire, he could no longer contain his rage.

"You knew! And you did nothing!" he bellowed as he quickly approached.

John didn't give the seated pilot time to react before grabbing him roughly by the lapels of his jacket and lifting him up to his eye level.

"What the shank is wrong with you?" he roared, shaking Alonzo with unleashed fury.

As soon as Alonzo was able to register what was going on- and what had obviously transpired between Devon and Danziger during the past few hours while he'd been on guard duty- he knew that he was done for.

He was too filled with remorse to put up any resistance to the assault.

"I'm so sorry, John! I didn't mean for any of this to happen," he relayed in between violent tremors as the mechanic jerked his body back and forth like a rag doll.

It was if Alonzo's words caused a bolt of electricity to surge through Danziger. With widened eyes, he abruptly released Alonzo and faltered back a step.

"Wait a minute, you did this? You put us on the Dreamplane on purpose?" he asked in disbelief, his expression a mix of shock and betrayal.

Alonzo tried to regain his footing. "At first, yes. But things got out of control-"

Hearing all that he needed to, Danziger swung with all of his might, his fist squarely connecting with Alonzo's nose. A torrent of blood spurted outward as the sleepjumper was propelled several feet before ending up flat on his back.

"Hey, hey, hey!" came a rapid succession of yells from Walman as he exited his tent just in time to witness an enraged Danziger tackle Alonzo and then begin to beat the pulp out of him.

The crewman rushed toward the pair and tried in vain to restrain John as he landed punch after punch. Most of the group was roused awake by the ensuing uproar and, as soon as they poked their heads out of their respective quarters to investigate, they were also pulled into the chaos. Worse yet, True had mimicked her father's path to the campfire and was frozen in place, horror-struck by his brutality.

"Daddy, stop!" she screamed.

Danziger was too focused on exacting his pound of flesh from Alonzo to heed her desperate pleas and it was necessary for Mazatl, Cameron and Baines to join Walman in the endeavor to pull Danziger off of the still non-combative Alonzo.

Once the duo was finally separated, Danziger continued to punch and kick wildly in an attempt to free himself of their collective grasp and resume the pummeling.

"What the hell is goin' on?" Baines grunted as he and the others struggled to hold Danziger at bay.

John again tuned out everyone but the subject of his vengeance.

"You're a dead man, Solace!" he hollered at the injured pilot. "Get up! Get up!"

At about the same time, Julia and Devon appeared at opposite corners of the campsite. And their reactions couldn't have been more diverse.

"Oh my God, Alonzo!" Julia cried out, diving into the fray to assess the damage that had been inflicted upon her lover and, if necessary, to physically shield him from further harm should Danziger break free.

"What the shank is wrong with you?" she shouted at the mechanic in outrage, unknowingly repeating Danziger's own question to Alonzo just minutes before.

Meanwhile, instead of immediately taking command, Devon was noticeably acting out of sorts and silently remained on the sidelines, her expression undecipherable. She at last compelled her feet to move toward the group and came to a standstill next to a still thrashing and hollering Danziger.

As soon as their gazes met, Danziger's aggression wilted into submission and he stopped fighting against his temporary captors. He shook his head in disgust and motioned toward a battered and still-horizontal Alonzo.

"It's him, Devon. He orchestrated the whole damn thing."

While John's disturbing words sank in and Devon's worst suspicions were realized, she looked as though she was simultaneously experiencing all five stages of grief, with the noticeable exception of acceptance. As a result, the already worried crowd of Edenites watched in bewilderment as Devon didn't just choose not to diffuse the volatile situation, she appeared to throw gasoline onto the fire.

She turned to Alonzo and spat, "How could you do this to us? This isn't a game! We aren't pawns for you to move around a chess board at your whim!"

Devon's breathing quickened as she began to pace back and forth in front of the downed pilot. "You told me to trust you! My God, what were you thinking?"

No longer confident as to who her friends really were, Devon's next turned her ire toward Julia. The leader's eyes were hard and unforgiving.

"Did you know about this?"

The doctor's response reflected her exasperation. "Know about what?" she exclaimed. "Have you all lost your minds? What's gotten into all of you?"

"It's my fault," Alonzo mumbled as blood poured freely from his nose and bottom lip. "I didn't kn-"

"Quiet! Not another shankin' word!" Danziger growled, not interested in hearing his explanation, and trying to spare Devon and himself any further humiliation in front of the group. "We got nothin' more to say to each other!"

With a sudden burst of force, John writhed his body from his fellow Edenites' control, liberating himself.

His voice was low and dangerous as he loomed over the pilot. "You stay the hell away from me, ya' hear?" he seethed, angrily jabbing his finger at him to emphasize the seriousness of his warning.

John then opted to remove himself from the altercation before his temper crested again. As he turned, his eyes locked onto Devon's and their pained gazes lingered on one another for several moments before he broke contact and pushed his way through the small crowd of obviously shaken onlookers.

He marched past his daughter who had been pulled into Bess' protective embrace.

"Let's go, True," he commanded, unable to meet her tear-filled eyes.

As True pulled herself from Bess' grasp and obediently followed her Dad back to their quarters, Alonzo made another attempt to tell his side of the story.

"Devon, let me explain-"

"No," Devon interjected, her tone severe and eerily quiet. "You've done enough."

She let out a slow, shuddering breath before forcibly transforming herself into business mode and pivoting to face the others.

"Everyone go back to bed," she directed. "We're getting an early start tomorrow and it's going to be a very long day."

Without another word, Devon quickly withdrew from the scene and vanished into the sanctuary of her tent, leaving the crew to stare at each other in stunned silence for what seemed like an eternity. As such, many of them visibly jumped when a panicked voice finally pierced the stillness.

"Well, don't just stand there! Help me get Alonzo to the med tent!" Julia exclaimed as she struggled to pull the badly bruised and bleeding pilot to his feet.

The group collectively rushed to Alonzo's aid with Mazatl and Cameron relieving Julia of her physical burden by hoisting him upright, eliciting a series of pained moans from the nearly unconscious sleepjumper. As carefully as possible, Mazatl and Cameron then each draped one of Alonzo's limp arms around their shoulders and lifted him until his feet no longer touched the ground. Julia sprinted ahead of the trio in order to ready a cot and a plethora of hypos to treat Alonzo's injuries as he was carried to the med-quarters.

This left the others in Eden Advance with little else to do but quietly speculate amongst themselves what possibly could have transpired between their three friends which culminated in the disaster they'd just witnessed.

Eventually everyone retreated back to their quarters for the night, but most found it very difficult to return to a peaceful slumber.

You must login (register) to review.