Flashback

                            By:

                         Fox Cutter

03/13/97:

Slipping together the last few connections, I pulled myself
out from under the console, stood and jabbed a few buttons.
In response, the lights on the command deck flicked, then
turned on. The blue emergency lightly shutting down for the
first time in months.

Letting out a whoop I slapped the side on the control panel.
I had finally gotten the last bits and pieces aligned and
set up properly, and by the looks of it the last few
problems with my ship had finally been stomped out, and
destroyed!

"Computer," I called out.

"Yes, hello?" The computer responded, a little less serious
then he had sounded when Oriana first got it up and running.
I expected that working with all the new equipment and
fuzzed up what ever made it speak.

I ran a hand though my hair. "Run full diagnostics, and
every other test you can think of. I want to see what's left
not running on this tub."

"Yes sir, right away sir." It chirped, and went to work.

I let out a content sigh, and sat down in one of the command
chairs. Picking up a padd, I looked over the information I
would need to register the ship for general use in Council
space, and also for using the mega-folds. Though it was of
little use as I still didn't have a name for it.

"Nice ship." I heard Sora say from behind me. I jumped a
bit, dropping the padd. She had been gone for the past few
days, getting some fine tuning done on her translator, as
well as get a full physical and have a thousand other tests.
I hadn't expected her back for another day.

Picking up the padd, I turned in the chair. "I re-did a lot
of it on my own."

She nodded, then blinked, noticing me. "You cut your hair!"

I smiled, running my fingers over my much shorted beard.
"Ya, well. Going for long hair to short hair I can handle,
but going from short to long," I shrugged, "I just decided
to give up on it, and chopped most of it off yesterday."

She smiled, sitting down in one of the six chairs on the
command deck. It was one especially made for her and her
wings. It was also next to mine (I didn't have much of a
crew, so where would I put it?).

"It looks good on you."

"Thanks. How did everything go?"

She did her usual shrug with her wings. "As well as they
expected I guess. Though they had me do some strange stuff
with the translator."

"Let me guess. Turn it off, say the name of your species and
your world, using a buffer, then turn it back on again,
telling it to save and recalibrate on that buffer."

She moved her head back a few inches. "How did you know?"

I smiled. "Typical with the translator when implanted into
an unknown species. It's a way to solve the 'world'
problem."

She leaned forward a bit, twisting her ears some. "the
'world' problem?"

I nodded. "Ya, the translator using a set of 'like word'
algorithms. Don't ask me how they work or I'll start to
whimper. The main problem with this system though is that
some words aren't meant to be alike. So the translator needs
to know when you're saying the actually name of your world
or species, so you will mostly say that, and not have it
translated into the same word of what ever language you're
speaking."

She twisted her ears again, pulling her wings tight. "I
think I understand that."

I chuckled. "It's confusing yes, but understandable. If you
remember I had you do the same thing the second day after we
meet, for the exact same reason."

She blinked at me, then smiled. "Oh, so you mean when I said
Tralarn you would have heard..." she paused for a second.

"Earth."

She nodded. "And when I said I was a Tralin?"

I smiled, "Human."

She blinked. "You think that would be something people could
fix."

I shrugged. "It's one of the big errors with the algorithms.
You can only get a translation so perfect from just hearing
it alone. You will always have to get it and muck around
with it a bit."

She smiled a bit. "Yes, that's rather typical actually. You
get really high tech, but you still have to get in and use
your paws on it." She shrugged. "Oh well, what can you do."

Suddenly everything went black.

This wasn't like the power went out in the ship, there would
be emergency lights and the lights through the command deck
windows. This was different, it was more like I had falling
unconscious, but not that either. I had been knocked out
enough times to know how that felt, and there always usually
wasn't time enough to analyze it either.

There was sort of an infinite feeling about it all, though
in a finite way. Suddenly though, I heard words in my ears,
ringing over and over again, some how changing in voice and
tone.

In a flash the light had returned, and the world had
changed. I was standing in a large cave like room. It looked
to be carved out of solid rock and was about fifty feet
long, by twenty feet wide.

There was a series of work benches and tables around the
cave, most had people working at them, all of whom were
Raccoons. The whole place looked familiar in some way. A
though struck me then, my body felt wrong. Glancing down, I
found out why. I didn't have one!

Before I could go any farther on that train of though, I
heard someone say, in a deep, and patronizing tone. "What
can you do?!" It was almost yelling.

Casting my gaze over a few feet, I saw the back of a large
muscular man's back. He had just started to chew someone
out.

"What you can do," He bellowed, "Is stop this elitist god
damn attitude. You can stop trying to hold yourself above
the rest of us, and realize there's more you can do then
whine!"

I tried to move around the large raccoon a bit, and found
that I could. I really wanted to see who he was yelling at.

"You've landed yourself right in the middle of a fucking war
zone!"

I finally got a look over the raccoon's shoulder, and saw
who he was yelling at. My first surprise was that it was a
young human, who looked to be in his mid-teens. He was a bit
gawky looking, with a pair of bent glasses on his face, and
staring down at the floor.

It hit me like a speeding train, I knew this place, and I
knew this speech, and everything else. I was looking at
myself when I was fifteen-years old!

"You may be a Natural," the raccoon said, sticking a finger
at me. "But that doesn't mean anything with out a fold, and
that's right in the middle of the battle field. So what you
can do is sit down and keep out of the rest of are way so we
can end this damn war and we can ALL go home!"

I watched my younger-self slowly nodded, then turn and start
to walk out of the room.

Then suddenly as it all started, it ended. I found myself on
the floor of the command deck, bent over, with Sora yelling
into my ear.

I raised my hand. "I'm alright." I whispered.

"What the hell happened?!" She said, helping my back to my
chair. "Right in the middle of the conversation, your eyes
roll back in your head and you fall over. It's very rude to
say the least."

I bent over, resting my head in my hands. "Gods, that's
never happened before." I muttered.

"I would say." Sora said, still standing over me.

I sat back up, resting my head against the back of the
chair. "I expected this, but not this bloody soon!"

"Expected what Fox?" Sora was looking a bit more concerned
then before.

"The flashbacks."

The gave her a bit of a start. "Flashbacks?"

I nodded a bit, rubbing my head. "Ya... not your normal
flashbacks though. There everything, sight, sound,
everything. Though from a third person point of view." I
shook my head a bit. "It's a normal thing for a Natural.
Opening the folds does something to are brain chemistry for
a short while. It last longer the more powerful a Natural
you are. The point is that it screw up how are memories get
written in the brain. So at times, when something sets off
the memory, instead of remembering as normal, you experience
as a flashback."

She nodded a bit. "I suppose it's not to terrible of a bad
thing."

I shook my head. "Yes, in it's own way it is. But something
things are not meant to be remembered, let alone re-lived."

Both of us lapsed into silence. It was broken after a minute
or so when the computer spoke up.

"Hey guys," it said, "everything is working up to snuff. We
should be able to take off anytime you want."

I smiled a bit. "A bit of welcome news. Though I still need
a name, as well as something else." Then standing, I walked
over to another console, and started typing at it.

"That some thing else is?" Sora asked, following me over.

I finished typing, and sent my message off, then turned back
around to face her. "I just a message to Oriana asking if
she wished to be here for the madden voyage. She helped with
more then a little bit of this, and deserves to be here for
it."

"Will she get it?"

I nodded. "Yes, she sent me a message a couple weeks ago
telling me she was back on Prid, and once again pointing out
I wasn't to try and find her."

"Do you think--" she started.

"I have no idea, but I do hope she comes though. She is a
friend, and it has been months. I miss her."

Sora nodded and the quiet returned. Eventually I suggested
that she look through the ship, and find herself a cabin on
board.

She agreed, and went to do just that. I waited a few
minutes, then turned back to the console, and started typing
in a new message.

This one was to Page though. It was short and simple. Oriana
has asked me not to try and find her. So I simply asked Page
to find her for me.

I really did miss her.