Date: 23 Mar 00 23:09:12
From: rimshot@planetaccess.com
Subject: Panther in the mist 4

Through great effort I bring you the latest chapter.  Please send me any
comments you'd like to.

Rimshot@planetaccess.com


Panther in the mist 4:


	Zak knew in some part of his mind that he'd been hurt badly by the
conduit exploding, but it was a very distant problem.  Panther walked out
of the low fern-like plants, causing the mist to swirl.  His ethereal
feline shape was like a cross between a cougar and a tiger, with the
stripes alternating crimson and black.  Electric red eyes stared back at
him, and Zak was delighted, placing his hands on the big cat's head and
scrubbing its ears.

	He also heard and understood what Panther was telling him in his
mind, that his body needed immediate repairs.  Zak saw what Panther
suggested to keep him alive and approved, tingling with the warmth that the
other's mind projected.  The cat tried to get him to go back to the real
world, but Zak resisted, not wanting to leave the serenity of the mist and
the jungle.  Panther licked his face roughly, then walked back the way he'd
come, leaving Zak wanting for more.  He stretched out on the soft moss to
rest, feeling the mist envelope his body.  It was a remarkable feeling.

	"I don't know, Baaca."  Tony threw up his hands in frustration.
"They started appearing when I pulled him out of the cargo bay.  I have no
idea why their there."

	"They look like the same kind of metal as the Panther interface."
Baaca studied Zak's arm through the clear side of the Re-Gen. tank.  "I've
never seen them spread like that though."

	"When we first put him in the tank, he was dying.  There was a
helluva lot of activity in the link, then suddenly Panther disengaged."
Tony held up a read out pad and pointed at a graph on the screen.  "I asked
Panther to specify, and he said Zak would live.  That was it.  I haven't
heard anything since, and Zak had massive nerve damage to his left side.
Now he's fine."

	Baaca leaned against the wall and folded his arms, shaking his
head.  In the tank, an intricate array of red and black stripes of various
thicknesses' now extended from Zak's jaw down his left arm, onto his chest,
and down his left side and leg.  For all intents and purposes, they looked
like tiger stripes.  Baaca had touched them and found them to be metal,
almost exactly like the Panther link on the side of the boy's head, but
much more flexible, feeling just like skin but appearing to be metallic.
"You said that he'd suffered nerve damage.  Did you scan the stripes for
neural activity?"

	Tony looked dumbfounded for a second, then leaned in and adjusted
his equipment.  The screen over Zak's head changed, and the readings became
normal for human nervous system activity.  "Holy shit."  Tony breathed, his
jaw dropping.  "Panther grew him a nervous system."

	"Panther?"  Baaca said into his comm.  The raspy deep voice of the
computer answered after a long pause.

	"Baaca."

	"Explain the augmentations on Zak.  Command priority."

	"Repairs."

	"Are they permanent?"

	"Affirmative."

	"You said Zak approved?"

	"Affirmative."
	Baaca sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.  Sometimes getting
the computer to answer was like starting fusion with bare hands.  "Is there
danger to Zak?  Has link properties ever been used like this before?"

	"No danger."

	"How long does the Re-Gen. cycle have?"  Baaca asked Tony, putting
his comm back on his belt.

	"About four hours.  I was gonna wait here."  Tony felt Baaca's hand
on his shoulder and he covered it with his own briefly.  He watched the
Captain leave, then took Zak's hand in his.  It was hard to not stare at
the stripes as they grew.  Some were as wide as his thumb, while others
where almost to small to see.  If he hadn't been worried, it would've been
quite arousing the way they molded onto the curves of Zak's body.  He
leaned his chin on his arm and before long drifted off, entertaining
thoughts of Zak covered in the stripes.

	Tony dreamed of the flash again, and of Zak flying backwards across
the memory module.  The gravity lessened as Panther made for space, and
Tony tried to reach out and grab Zak's hand.  The ship shuddered and
groaned around them, and in the weightlessness, Tony clutched Zak to him
and pushed off for the upper hatchway.

	Tony started awake with a gasp.  The console over Zak's tank beeped
quietly, and the fluid was draining out.  He adjusted a sleep inducer and
attached it to Zak's forehead.  With a little help he moved the sleeping
form to his quarters, arranged him on the bed, then called Baaca.  For the
next two and a half hours, Tony assisted with repairs to Panther, routing
supplies from Earth to the maintenance crews and double checking completed
systems using the workstation in Zak's quarters.

	A rustle of fabric brought him out of the work and he turned to see
Zak blinking.  He moved to the side of the bed and smiled, smoothing Zak's
hair out of his face.  Zak reached for his hand and grasped it weakly.
"Hey, sleepy head.  I thought you weren't coming out of there."

	"Where am I?"  Zak whispered, looking around the room.  It was
different, larger, and he thought it might be Tony's quarters.  A wave of
nausea swept him, and he closed his eyes.

   	"Panther moved you to the Senior Comp Handler's quarters while we
were in Phoenix.  This is your room now."  Tony squeezed Zak's hand and
sniffed.  He had always prided himself on being in control of his emotions
and not forming attachments.  Despite that, a tear rolled down his cheek
and he was overwhelmed by a sense of relief.

	"Why?"  Zak whispered, touching the trail the tear left.  His brows
knitted together as he noticed one of the stripes on his arm, and his
attention turned away from Tony.  "Panther did this, didn't he?"  He
touched one of the stripes on his arm and almost winced, a look of pain
crossing his features.  Not physical pain, something worse.

	"He said it was permanent, Zak.  He said you agreed because you
would've died."  Tony swallowed a lump in his throat.  "If it helps any,
it's very sexy."

	Zak smiled slightly and closed his eyes.  "Will you stay, please?
I don't want to be alone right now."

	Tony nodded and stood up to turn out the light.  He undressed
quickly and climbed into bed, cradling Zak to him.  Zak fell back to sleep
almost immediately, but it took an eternity for Tony to sleep.  I was hard
to feel for someone again.  He didn't want to open up, or to love, but it
was starting to feel like he didn't get to vote on the idea.  He gently
pushed Zak's hair back, looking at his face relaxed in sleep.  God, it was
so hard not to feel.

	Zak woke up at 0530 ship's time.  He was stiff and sore, but felt
almost human.  He carefully disentangled himself from Tony and padded into
the bathroom, having to stop himself from walking into the closet by
mistake.  The shower felt fantastic, the hot water blasting away the kinks
in Zak's shoulders.  He set the controls to shorten his hair to shoulder
length, and with a bit of wildness, reset it to bleach it all the way blond
along with the rest of his body hair.  Just before he shut off the water,
he touched at the stripes on his arm.  He'd tried to ignore them, but they
were unavoidable.  He pulled on them, scrubbed at them, and tried to get
the computer to change their color to flesh tone, but it was useless.

	When he stepped out, Zak stood naked in front of the full-length
mirror.  It was hard to understand, but his mind both hated the metallic
ribbons and kind of liked them.  He reminded himself that he had okayed
Panther's idea, although it didn't seem like an option at the time.  He
traced the patterns with his eyes from over the left side of his eyebrow,
down past his ear and under his jaw to his shoulder, touching where they
intercepted each other.

	His tan was clearly visible through the gaps in the stripes as Zak
brushed his hair.  In fact, they looked like paint for the most part, sort
of like an expensive tattoo.  They stretched onto his back over his
shoulder blade, and onto his chest almost to his nipple, then thinned out
towards his waist before stretching nearly to his pubic hair.  They covered
the outer half of his leg all the way to his foot.  The alternating sizes
and shapes combined with the alternating crimson and black made them appear
to move by them selves.

	Zak snorted and shook his head, dialing clothing out of the
computer.  He chose a white cotton tank top from the files Panther had
provided containing twentieth century clothing, then followed up with a
pair of close fitting silk boxers in red.  It was kind of cool to not be in
the ship's suit, and a little rebellious.  Finally he pulled back his hair
and fastened it.  He looked for the Panther link but couldn't find it.

	"Panther, synthesize an uplink unit please."  He said into his
comm, sitting in a chair at the side of the bed.  The Comp Handler's
quarters were much larger than his other ones.  He looked around and
noticed that there was another room through a door, presumably a work area
and kind of lounging area.

	"Unnecessary."  Panther's wispy graveled voice purred in his head,
causing Zak to jump.

	"Jesus Christ, Panther!  You scared the shit out of me."  Zak
chuckled and leaned back in the chair, folding his legs underneath him.  It
dawned on him that he had spoken out loud, but Panther had not.  The hair
on the back of his neck stood up, and his hand went to his left temple.  He
could feel the contact points, but there wasn't an uplink.  "Panther, how
did you do that?"

	"Uplink integrated.  Module unnecessary."  Zak felt warmth of
emotion drift into his head, and pleasure.  Panther was like a house cat
twining around his legs, except in his head?  Jesus it was hard to
understand.  He sent back a mental pat on the head, half-laughing when the
mind Panther sort of purred loudly.

	"What are you laughing at?"  Tony asked, sitting up and rubbing his
eyes.  He glanced at the clock and groaned, pulling the covers back over
his head.

	"Tony, Panther integrated my uplink."  Zak shook the other's
shoulders and dodged a thrown pillow.  "Come on, dickhead!  Sit up and
listen to me!"  He yanked the covers off, leaving Tony trying to grab at
them.

	"All right!  I'm up."  Tony rolled into a sitting position and
pushed off for the bathroom mumbling to him self.  "If the goddamned cat
lives in your head, I don't understand why I have to get up when it does."
His voice trailed into the room as the door shut.

	Zak laughed.  "He has a point, Panther.  You're kind of a pest to
everyone but me.  Any thoughts on that?"  He sent through the link.  While
he talked to the computer he tidied the room and made the bed, then went
into the other room to dial up breakfast.

	"Synergy."  Panther growled.

	"Synergy?  That's a bit of a wide pile oh shit, ain't it Panther?
That could mean anything."

	"Affirmative."  The humor in Panther's voice dripped sarcasm,
sending Zak into another laughing fit.  It was almost identical in nature
to an answer he would've given, like Panther was learning from him.

	"You better cool it, Panther.  Some people don't like my sense of
humor."  Zak set his and Tony's meals on the table and sat down with a cup
of coffee.  "Switch to audible link, Panther.  How is your new module?  Is
it operational?"

	"Zak and Tony completed the task assigned."

	"Damn, Panther, that was almost a complete sentence.  You better be
careful or you'll start making sense."  Tony walked in and sat down dressed
in a short robe.  Zak leaned across the table and kissed him good morning.

	"What you lack in manners, getting people up at un-godly hours of
the morning to put your imaginary cat out, you have made up for in your
cooking."  Tony said as he attached his breakfast.  "What were you
incoherently babbling about your uplink?"

	"When he regenerated me, he integrated it.  All of these stripes
are part of it as well as nerves."  Zak held up his arm and rotated it for
them to look at.  "I don't need that little uplink box thing anymore.
Panther's in my head right now."

	"I have no doubt."  Tony smirked, flaring his nostrils and shaking
his head.  "I could hear him trying to claw his way out all night."

	"Boy, you are just full of shit today, aren't you?"  Zak grinned
and jabbed Tony in the ribs.

	"Knock it off, Zak.  I don't have to report to Baaca until 0700,
and I WILL rape you."  Tony jumped out of his chair and struck a pose with
his hands up, looking like a satirical karate fighter.  Zak giggled and
dove side ways, trying to make for the bedroom.  He was intercepted.  They
rolled onto the floor laughing.

	Zak twisted and ended up on his back with Tony sitting astride his
stomach.  He reached up and tickled Tony's sides, causing him to roll
uncontrollably onto his side.  Tony's robe pulled open, and Zak took a hold
of Tony's jewels, causing him to gasp.

	"You cheat!"  Tony snarled, then pulled Zak down into a kiss.
"Yeah, I do," Zak panted, "But I learned it from you."  He kissed Tony
again, probing with his tongue and accepting Tony's.  Tony pushed him away
gently.  "What?"

	"I thought you were gonna die, Zak."  Tony's face was serious, and
his eyes were a bit watery.  "You scared the hell out me."

	Zak leaned down and kissed him again, then kissed his nose, his
eyebrow, his adam's apple.  "I'm not.  I'm right here."  He whispered,
trailing his tongue down to Tony's chest.

	"Aw, shit.  I think we'd be more comfortable on the bed, Zak."


	At 0800, Baaca called a meeting to discuss the current situation.
The handsome young captain watched his officers enter the situation room
just behind Deck One and take their seats.  He was pleased when Zak walked
in wearing his red and gray ship's suit and sat in the right chair, then
began to call up information from his table terminal.  He was obviously
feeling much better.

	Tony stopped at Baaca's chair and dropped off a data chip, then
took the Medical Sciences seat next to Zak's.  Krill ambled in and sat down
at Engineering, and the other lesser departments sat at the far end.  Two
positions were empty.  Ship's Stores, and Replication.  Both had died in
the attack.

"You've all seen the reports on the Jur-Kalchik corvette that made it
through to Earth.  It launched a total of sixteen fighters and lost all of
them.  It took out two fuel freighters, most of Port Phoenix, and the
Monaco."  There were gasps around the table, and he gave them a minute
before he continued.

	"I have been told that we expect more of these mad dash hit and
runs, and that the fact that they got through our defenses almost without a
scratch sure as hell didn't go un-noticed by any number of races that would
love to see our asses tacked to a wall."  Baaca touched a control, and a
holo of the Sol system appeared over the table.

	"We are assigned as the flag ship for this area.  We will effect
repairs and take on enough extra crew to go to a state of battle readiness.
All departments will have full rosters before the end of the day tomorrow.
Questions?"  The captain sat down and took a sip of coffee.

	"Captain," Krill growled through his translator, "The number three
Grav engine won't be repairable out here.  We have to set down for that."

	"No.  We jettison it.  There is a new one being towed out this
afternoon ship's time."

	"Do we at least have time to salvage it for parts?"  The bear
looking engineer asked, trying not to sound disgusted at the thought of
loosing such valuable equipment.

	"What ever you can remove and stow by tomorrow at 1400.  That's
when the other supply ships get here."

	The meeting lasted nearly two hours as each department discussed
its concerns.  Zak called up the things they brought up through Panther and
learned about parts of the ship he never even knew existed.  When Baaca
turned to him finally, he checked the data on his screen.

	"Sir, Panther has assigned three people to Comp Sciences.  I'll
meet them when they come on to the ship and get with you so you can meet
them.  The first one is a guy named Tal Shan.  He specializes in hardware.
We're going to need him to fix all of the main lines that got ruined by the
attack."  He scrolled through the screen again before continuing.  "The
second one is called, uh, Kiss-Tak.., I can't pronounce it.  He's a
reptilian from Kainarra.  He specializes in plasma energy conversion and
Bio Matter.  The third is a human named Lerrin.  He's a data storage
specialist."

	"You've assigned their quarters and duty assignments?"  Baaca
asked, impressed with Zak's progress.

	"Their all set."  Zak looked around the group a little nervously
then back to Baaca.  "Panther asks that all of the new guys be restricted
to level one computer access until he gets to know them."

	"So be it."  Baaca stood up and stretched his back.  "That's it.
We'll meet in the morning."  Everyone stood up except for Krill who was
asked to stay.  Zak followed Tony into the hallway.  Panther showed him how
to get to the computer lab, and he led Tony there.

	"It kind of sounded like they expect some major shit to happen,
doesn't it?"  Zak asked, taking his maroon jacket off and putting it over
the back of a chair.  The lab was actually only on room, with several
workstations around the walls, and a giant viewer near the door.  Opposite
the viewer was a raised half- circular workstation with a comfortable
chair.  He sat in it and leaned back, amazed at how comfortable he was in
the room.  It felt like Panther was literally everywhere around him.

	"I think we might be headed for an all out war."  Tony turned one
of the chairs around and sat facing Zak.  "They've just kind of pissed
around with us for almost twenty years, and I think the fleets gonna teach
them to pay attention."  Zak looked troubled and sort of bit at the nail on
his thumb.  Tony tilted his head to one side then the other.  "You okay,
Zakster?  You looked a million miles away."

	"More like six hundred years."  Zak looked at the stripes that had
grown over his left hand and felt emotions building up inside him.  He
swallowed hard.  "Do you ever wish you had died with your family?"  Tears
rolled down his cheeks.  "I wish I was home."

	"I get kind of down every once in awhile," Tony responded, wanting
to go to Zak but resisting the urge.  "But I would rather be here helping
save people than be dead.  I miss my old life, but I have you now.  I was
just kind of here until Baaca brought you back.  Now you're my family."

	Zak nodded, unable to speak for a moment.  "Yeah, I'm really luck I
found you, or however you guys put it, but I miss being a kid.  I was only
seventeen.  I fucked off a lot."  He waved his arms around the room and
laughed.  "Now I have metal integrated into my body so that I can read the
mind of a computer on a starship that thinks it's a giant tabby cat."

	"So where's the problem?"  Tony asked innocently.  Zak looked
shocked, then broke up laughing, followed shortly by Tony.  They laughed
hard, maybe to hard, and released the tension built up by the seriousness
of the meeting with Baaca.  Tony wiped tears from his eyes as they wound
down.  He stood up and walked over to Zak, placing his hand on the other's
cheek.

	"We need you here, Zak.  I need you.  I'm sorry about your family,
and I'm sorry about mine, but I'm not sorry that we lived."  He kissed Zak
then turned to leave.  "I'll be in the medical ward.  Give me a call when
you're ready for lunch."  Zak nodded, and he left the room.

	Zak watched the door slide shut and shook his head.  He felt a lot
better, and really needed the warm glow that Tony caused him to feel.  He
began training simulations with Panther, directly loading schematics and
operations into his head and running programs and repair sequences on the
workstation.  He was unaware of the passage of time until his comm went
off, startling him.

  	"Are we eating today?"  Tony asked.  "I'm starving."

	Zak stood up and grabbed his jacket.  "Sorry, I got really deep
with Panther.  See you there, okay?"  Tony signed off and Zak touched
several controls, setting the console for when he got back.  "Panther, run
the perimeter checks on the forward arrays and I'll be back in half an
hour."  He pulled on his jacket and moved towards the door.  "Oh, Panther,
contact the next ship to arrive and find out if they have the parts you
wanted."

	"Affirmative.  Go."

	Panther's voice contained more than just a tinge of humor, and Zak
stopped and looked at his workstation.  "I'm going, I'm going.  No one
likes a smartass, Panther."  He grinned and patted the console before
leaving the room.

	He found Tony already seated and doing severe damage to a plate of
sort of turquoise spaghetti.  He tried not to pull a face as he sat down.
"Do you have any idea what that looks like?"

	"Zak, I waited to eat over two hours because of you and your over
grown house cat.  Please order something and eat it without delaying my
intake of life giving sustenance."  Tony finished with a smirk and tore
into the dish again.

	"Are you in on some joke with Panther today or something?"  Zak
asked, reaching over and plucking a piece of noodle off Tony's uniform.
"It seems like everyone I meet thinks that I need a dose of shit."

	"Panther is giving you shit?"  Tony smiled and chuckled.  "Poor
Zak.  That machine is the most humorless calculator ever built.  If it's
giving you a hard time, you're a puss."

	Zak dialed up a salad and pulled it out of the slot.  "Panther has
a lot of humor."  He seasoned it and tried a mouth full.  "Granted he
wasn't very good at feeling when I got here, but he's come a long way."

	"Panther has feelings?"  Tony asked incredulously.  "He's not
designed to have them, Zak, he's a computer."

	"Yeah, with living tissue in his matrix."  Zak suddenly felt a bit
defensive.  "They're real primitive, but he has feelings."

	Tony set his fork down and looked at Zak, trying to figure out if
there was a joke attached here.  "He isn't supposed to have them, Zak.
Sure, he gets finicky, put he doesn't feel like you and I do."

	Zak tapped the side of his face, indicating the uplink site.  "I
feel them Tony, just like I do from you.  Panther is not only self aware,
he feels in similar ways to us.  He is fond of Baaca, and protective of
Krill.  He thinks of you proudly, like a teacher and a student because he
taught you to be the medical tech."

	"What about you?"  Tony asked quietly.  "The old Comp Handler
didn't have anywhere near the amount of wiring that you do.  What does
Panther think of you?"

	"I can't describe it."  Zak muttered, pushing lettuce around his
plate.

	Late that night he still couldn't describe it.  He'd thought about
it all day, and the closest Zak could get to describing Panther was a
brother.  Panther had become like an extension of himself, chatting in his
mind or leaving him alone if he wanted.  He glanced over at Tony sprawled
on the bed and felt irritated about the entire question, although he
couldn't figure out why.

	He got up from the chair and walked into the bathroom, leaning over
the sink to the mirror.  The stripes had quit growing last night, and he
traced one of them with his finger.  He could feel his finger on his cheek
as though the metal wasn't there, and his finger couldn't tell the
difference between skin and stripe.

	Disgusted, he turned off the light and walked back to the bed,
dropping his boxers on the way.  He climbed in and slid up to Tony's back,
and surprisingly, fell right to sleep.

	In the dream, the panther slid out from behind a rock and licked
his hand.  Zak knelt forward and hugged it, feeling its pleasure through
his mind.  The panther butted his head gently, then turned to walk into the
jungle, turning back and beckoning him to follow.