Reflections

The Dream

Deep red starlight filtered through the spherical cathedral window of her luxurious chambers. The bedroom, cast in shadows the color of blood, was silent and peaceful. Usually, this was one of the few places she could rest but not tonight.

With a jolt, she sat upright in her grand bed, her scarlet satin sheets damp with sweat. She expectantly glanced to her left and parted her softly curved lips as if to speak. Her words died with a short breath as the realization came that she was alone. She had forgotten, of course she was alone. However, her unremembered solitude wasn’t what disturbed her, for the dream returned. A dream which had been absent for many years, and she’d hoped would never come back.

Control, her thoughts drilled in his voice, never let yourself lose control. She drew a full, deep breath and felt the red in her delicate tanned cheeks smolder down. The torrents of the Cosmic Aura, invisible to most, were forced into a tranquil wave in her mind as she slowly soothed her emotions down. “Damn him,” she whispered with a warm smile, “even when he’s not here, he is.”

She let herself melt back onto the bed, tiny curling wisps of steam escaping the heavy silken mass of black hair which rested against the pillow. Unconsciously, her brow furrowed as her thoughts drifted.

How long has it been since I dreamed that? Years? A decade? Even though she wasn’t sure of how long, she was certain of the trigger that started it all. Oh yes, she recalled as she stared up at the window above her, the years melting away in her mind. The Rehabilitation Center, that was when this all started…

Chapter One

Justice

Angel let out a loud yawn as she tried to shut out her rehab counselor’s monotonous speech on self-improvement, and the better way of living in peace and harmony inside the ‘wonderful’ and ‘benevolent’ United Star Alliance.

“Wonderful” and “benevolent”, the young woman mused with a mixture of irony and fury. If that was so true, then why am I here? What did I do that was so terrible that I deserved to be locked up in this Alliance Rehabilitation Colony? Seriously?

For a moment, she struggled to block out the memories of her brief time with the Red Star Pirates, the fleeting thoughts enough to force her to admit some level of guilt. She absently rubbed the deep tan skin on her forearm as she bit her bottom lip, each memory layer stripping away until her thoughts were back at the primitive world where she and her fellow pirate shipmates had been stranded. In her mind’s eye Angel saw him alone, the brash pirate captain who swept her off her feet and saved her, allowing her to escape from her home world of Tenebrous. She remembered him as she last saw him, standing amongst the Alliance Stellar Naval crew who finally arrived to rescue them. He was charming, charismatic, daring, and way too stupid. No, not stupid, she silently corrected herself with an inner sigh, but he had to do it, didn’t he? Maybe it was to prove something to his crew, who blamed him for crashing their ship there in the first place. However, the truth never eluded her. She knew it was merely a feeble attempt to protect his pride. Angel fidgeted nervously as the scene played itself again in her mind, the pirate captain’s gun coming up, his target clearly the Alliance ship’s captain. She wanted to yell, to warn the only people who could save them from their self-imposed prison, but instead it was not the pirate’s weapon which fired, but her own. She recalled, all too easily, the surge of power flowing through her body as the energy bolt struck the first man she ever loved, killing him instantly. Then she internally flinched as she remembered the pain that followed, as the Alliance stun beams enveloped her, sucking her into darkness.

Angel pushed the infuriating memory aside, her palm still tingling from the imprint of the first time she took a life. Glancing around the office again she tried not to laugh. Her actions saved their fleet captain’s life, and the reward was twenty Solar years at a rehab colony, branded a pirate and a murderer. That’s the United Star Alliance’s brand of justice for you.

“And…” continued Doctor Reid, in her monotone speech, not even noticing her patient’s vacant eyes, “so it is like the phoenix which we are named for. We like to cast aside the inmate’s old life, burning it away if you will, to replace it with a fresh new outlook. This will lead the rehabilitated inmate to start anew, beginning over as a happy and productive member of the United Star Alliance…”

Angel tuned out the rest, her gaze focused on the shining gold plaque behind the counselor. In proud letters it read:

Phoenix

Deep Space Rehabilitation Station

United Star Alliance

Founded 2310

Doing quick arithmetic, Angel realized she and the station were about the same age. When she first arrived here last week, the doctor who gave her a physical, determined her age to be approximately nineteen. She had always wondered, but coming from a colony where luxuries such as birthdays were nonexistent, had never been sure. Somehow, Angel considered absently, I thought I was older.

The counselor continued for some time, until the realization finally came that her patient was no longer paying the slightest bit of attention to her, and she stopped for a moment to stare at the inmate sitting across from her. Angelina’s face was pretty, but her cheeks still had some baby fat clinging to her perfectly tan skin, which made her seem younger than her records showed. Her long black hair hung in thick waves that washed about her shoulders, and her dark brown eyes still showed a spark of defiance which the counselor knew wouldn’t last long in this place. “Angelina?” she said, her voice becoming sickly sweet. “Are we all right? Or are we having one of our daydreams again?”

“No, we aren’t. And stop calling me Angelina.”

Doctor Reid paused, her patronizing smile never wavering despite her patient’s indignant tone. “But that’s our name, isn’t it?” She paused again as her emotionless eyes drifted down to the electronic pad which rested in her long thin fingers, then slowly returned to their mark. “According to the DNA records we are Angelina Calida Sierra Pagán, which is quite an impressive name. We should be proud of our name, shouldn’t we?”

“I’m Angel,” she said with a quake in her voice which was less than angelic. “And seriously…why do you always have to say we or our, when you are obviously referring to me alone? Do you see more people in this room than the two of us? If you do, then maybe you should be the inmate, and I’ll counsel you for a while.”

The counselor’s face contorted for the briefest of moments, then her honey-coated smile returned. “Well, I can see we’re going to take some time getting used to it here, aren’t we? As a new member of our little community, we should try to make life a bit easier.” The doctor’s smile grew into a taunting grimace. “After all, getting sentenced to a rehabilitation colony is a far cry from hard labor on a penal planet, isn’t it?”

“I don’t belong here,” Angel replied while folding her arms and sinking further into the couch.

“We killed someone.”

“I saved someone.”

“The weapon we had did have a stun setting, didn’t it?”

Angel’s lips tightened. “No…yes…I didn’t have time to think about that; he was going to shoot the Alliance captain.”

“So,” the counselor said with the same painted smile on her lips, “I suppose we feel wrongly judged?”

Angel’s young eyes hardened, suddenly fixing on Dr. Reid’s. “Damn right. I should have let him kill her first, then shot…then maybe you idiots would have believed me.”

Doctor Reid’s smile faded as she suddenly became uncomfortable, her overconfidence shaken slightly by the vehemence displayed in Angel’s eyes. The counselor cleared her throat and attempted to regain control. “We’re a bit testy today, aren’t we? So, why don’t we talk about something else? My files say we are from the failed Terran colony world of Tenebrous. I know all forms of law and order broke down in that world leaving it in utter anarchy, and few people survived to escape the disasters there…that must make us very special.”

Angel’s voice cooled to a dry whisper. “Actually, it makes me very special…and makes you seem less than ordinary. Let me guess, you grew up somewhere nice and safe, like Earth.”

Doctor Reid tried to hold on to all her years of training at one of the Alliance’s best universities. She cleared her dry throat and forced herself to get back onto her intended path. “So, Angelina, sometimes even very special people can have problems, like nightmares.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“According to my records,” she continued, with eyes glinting like a cat’s who was about to pounce, “we’ve been having terrible nightmares. Maybe we can talk about them.”

“Personally, I don’t really care about your nightmares,” Angel said with a sneer, apathetically leaning back on the overly soft couch which was obviously designed to rob its user of any sense of relaxation or comfort.

“We’re not talking about my dreams, Angelina.”

“Though I can fully understand why you have them,” Angel continued, ignoring the irritating counselor. “You probably feel guilty about trying to screw with people’s minds.”

Doctor Reid’s bottom lip fell slightly open as her composure was momentarily lost, but it was quickly regained. “Perhaps we should conclude our session later this afternoon. After all, we don’t want to be late for our mental awareness treatment today, do we?”

“No…we don’t.”

The young woman stiffly rose from the heavily padded couch and left the room, slowly making her way down the antiseptic corridors of the rehabilitation colony toward the mental awareness clinic room. She was happy to be away from the presence of the condescending Doctor Reid but had little desire to go to her next appointment.

Angel walked along, seeing the blank faces of the inmates who passed by in the narrow, brightly lit halls, as she tried not to glance too closely at the vacant looks in their eyes. Although she had been here almost two weeks already, the high-spirited young woman somehow managed to retain most of her individuality, despite the hypnotic counseling sessions, and the mental awareness clinic. The latter of which entailed a dose of the mind-numbing devices used on the more violent criminals, like murderers, like herself.

When her mind was not being tampered with for ‘the good of the United Star Alliance’, she was allowed to socialize with the other inmates in the common room. However, this wasn’t enjoyable unless you didn’t mind spending an afternoon chatting with people whose grip on reality had long since left them. Worse yet were those who had been mentally drained to submissiveness by the cruel machines in what Angel nicknamed the ‘tomb of horrors’.

Lost in her thoughts, the young woman bumped into an inmate who was traveling in the opposite direction. Angel gazed up to find it was Jenkins, a gentle man who had been here for the last six years.

He glanced down at her with eyes of stone which were hollowed and empty. For a moment, Angel almost thought he was going to say something, however, he simply turned to walk away.

Driven by an impulse, she grabbed his arm and spun him back to face her again, though she avoided meeting his gaze.

“Jenkins,” she asked, her voice a whispered plea, “do you know who I am?”

The tall man remained silent for another moment, then slowly nodded. “You are Angelina,” he said in a numb voice devoid of emotion. “I am sorry I bumped into you. Have a nice day.” He then turned and walked off.

Angel let him go, suddenly drained of any desire to reach someone else. Then she smiled as she thought of Sinclair. He was the first inmate to reach out to her and make her feel she wasn’t alone. However, even this thought darkened her mind. Sinclair was the one other inmate here she dared call a real friend. What if it was his blank stare which faced her one day?

Taking a deep breath, unable to consider this train of thought, she turned back in her original direction and continued. Finally, arriving at the ‘tomb’, the young woman signed in at the retina scanner and sat down in the waiting area. She seriously considered leaving before her session could begin, but she knew the punishment would have simply been double sessions to make up for it. Her eyes rolled at the thought. The colony wouldn’t want anyone running around who had a will of their own now, would they?

The door slid open as the technician who ran the machines in the mental awareness clinic came in, followed by a flock of wide-eyed cadets who were touring the facility. He acknowledged Angel’s presence with a casual nod and a wave of his hand, signaling her to wait a few minutes, then returned to the lecture he was giving to the students.

“What does this machine do?” one of the future Alliance Naval officers asked, her eyes sparkling with concentration and curiosity.

“Let’s see,” technician Boone replied, trying to make something which was complex sound simple, “it emits a soothing wave of energy that subtly alters the thinking patterns of the patient.”

“How?” The same inquisitive student continued, her eyes darting to the intricate machinery, her lithe form turning away from the technician. For a moment she locked eyes with Angel, and the two exchanged brief smiles.

Angel’s smile faded rapidly as she watched the students with detached apathy. They’re young and energetic now, she considered, but one day they’ll be another bunch of nameless cogs in the Alliance machine…no different than those who sentenced me to be here. The inmate suppressed a yawn as the same young student, an alabaster white skinned alien from Proxima, continued to listen to every detail Boone was willing to divulge to her, eating it up.

“By slightly depressing the higher brain functions,” Boone continued, “it makes a violent patient more passive and open to…suggestions.”

“Sounds a lot like brainwashing,” the same student commented.

Wow, a cadet with a brain, Angel sneered to herself.

“So, I see our time is up,” technician Boone quickly responded. “Your next stop will be their resting quarters. Thank you for stopping by.”

The one student tried to remain longer, to have her question answered, however, she was sturdily ushered out of the clinic. When they were gone, the technician turned back to face Angel. “Ah, Angelina,” the torture master of the ‘tomb of horrors’ said, “good morning. How have we been today?”

His smile formed into the same plastic grin shared by her rehabilitation counselor, and everyone else in the asylum.

“I’m swell, Boone,” Angel said, her voice laced with sarcasm.

“Oh, we are grouchy today, aren’t we?” technician Boone said as his grin turned into a sneer. “But we’ll have a smile on that sour puss of yours soon now, won’t we?” He led the young woman to the behavior modification chair and gently strapped her in.

“Students getting on your nerves?” Angel asked with an innocent smile.

“None of your business, young lady,” he said, never letting his false smile falter. “I see we are being nosey today, aren’t we? Not that it matters. You won’t remember any of it anyway.” A touch of contempt escaped through his molded facade.

“Go to hell.”

“Temper now.” The torture master grinned while preparing the machine. “We wouldn’t want me slipping while handling this delicate equipment. I might accidentally set the levels too high. That would depress our higher functions to the point of us becoming a vegetable…and that would be sad now, wouldn’t it?”

“Bastard.” Angel said, her eyes afire with hatred.

She struggled against the restraints as her thoughts focused on ripping the smug grin from Boone’s face, but the bonds which held her were much too strong.

“We’re violent today also, I see. What a shame…a young, attractive girl like you…we should be more cooperative.”

His lips formed into a sneer as he reached out and stroked the stain of red which was rising in her cheek.

Angel forced herself against the restraints one last time, and although they did not give, she did manage to kick the technician in his groin with enough force to make him double over in momentary agony as he stumbled back.

“You little brat!” He said as he braced himself against the control panel and struggled not to collapse, his eyes watering from the pain. “You’re going to regret that. Actually…you won’t, since you’ll soon have the thought capacity of a fruit salad.”

He turned to the machine’s controls and wildly activated them, freezing Angel in throbbing pain as the luminous energy beam lanced out of the firing nozzle on the wall and struck her forehead. She could almost feel her brain unraveling as her cerebral fluid coursed with radiated power, setting fire to each nerve ending in her body. A soft cry barely escaped her lips, a child-like whimper that was swiftly silenced by her quickly drying throat. Her eyes fixed themselves on the bold Alliance insignia on the opposite wall as they glazed over, like ice atop a still pond.

It was then Boone finally allowed himself a genuinely self-satisfied grin and limped over to the room’s monitoring devices. One by one he turned them off and erased the last five minutes of events from the computer’s memory. Without hesitation, he returned to the controls and set them to maximum upper function depression, bypassing the safeties. “Goodbye, Angelina,” he said as he smiled down at the sightless, senseless young woman who sat paralyzed in pain. Her body relentlessly, uncontrollably trembling as the mind ripping waves washed over her. “After all, an accident can’t happen if I was in the room to stop it now, could it?” He shut off the main lights as he left, closing the door to the clinic behind him, sealing the room in shadowed darkness.

Minutes, hours, days passed in the tormented dreams and nightmares of Angel’s mind, sinking her further into oblivion. She never knew it was barely a few moments after Boone’s departure that the door slid open once again.

~ * ~

For a moment the ‘inquisitive’ student stared at the clinic room with a mixed sense of awe and confusion. She hoped to catch the technician alone to question him further, and was puzzled by his absence, especially when a patient was apparently in a session. She stood silently in the dark doorway, her alien eyes easily adjusting to the dim room. Slowly, her gaze was drawn to the young woman who was strapped in the chair, and a shudder went down her spine. Never had this cadet seen someone in so much mindless agony. It was as if every drop of the young woman’s humanity was being drained by the luminous beam which pierced her forehead in pulsating waves. The patient’s eyes began to bulge, the pain and horror written clearly within them for any to see. For a moment the Proximan cadet stared dumbly at the horrific sight, indecision freezing her actions. She quickly looked around, finally deciding on two facts. The first was there should always be someone monitoring this activity, and second the device was never intended to be set that high.

Realizing doing nothing would cause more harm than anything she could do, the cadet grabbed the beam control and turned it all the way in the opposite direction, hoping to cancel out its effects on the tortured inmate. There was an instant effect, but not the one the student had expected. The energy beam turned from a bright yellow to a bright sapphire, causing Angel’s face to contort as she let out a hideous shriek when the higher function draining beam was reversed. Panic ran through the student as she grabbed the first thing she could find, a photon microscope, and hurled it into the controls, shorting them out violently with a shower of sparks.

Angel’s rigid body went limp and fell back onto the chair as the beam was finally cut off. At that moment, technician Boone ran back in. His false mask of guilty concern was quickly replaced by one of condemning accusations when he saw the cadet and realized what happened.

“What’s going on here?” Boone asked. “What have you done to her?”

“Saved her life, I hope,” the young cadet said. “Why was she left unattended? She could have been killed.”

Technician Boone’s face froze as a flicker of apprehension ran through his body. Judgmental eyes melted to erroneous relief as he studied the naval cadet. “You’re right, you did save her,” he said with a forced sigh, “…thank heaven. I was called out for an emergency, and I’m guessing the controls must have slipped. I’m glad you weren’t hurt.” He walked over to Angel, a slight shake in his stance as his eyes judged her unconscious form. He glanced up at her bio-reading and studied her brain wave readout and allowed himself the smallest of grins. If he was lucky, enough damage had been done so she wouldn’t remember any of this, or anything ever again. He paused for a moment in hesitation, then reluctantly pushed the alert button, calling in the emergency medical team.