Star Trek -Outwardly Mobile
The Truth is Out There
By
Jay P Hailey
2002 -
Age was not being kind to Spender.
"Smoky." Mulder said. He couldn't keep the resentment out of his voice.
Spender didn't even take the hand rolled cigarette out of his mouth. "They're right on your tail, aren't they, boy?"
"Tell me." Mulder said. He found his weapon in his hand, pointing at his nemesis.
"Who is it? The government? They're desperate. Bartlett's cleaning house. They don't want what you know to get out and spread." Spender said. His gray hair was long and unkempt.
Mulder just glowered at Spender.
"You know he's going to shoot you, right?" Scully said. She didn't seem especially concerned.
"The telepaths. Khan hurt them, but they aren't out of the game. You know more about them than any non-telepath alive. You're an obstacle, Fox. It's what you do best." Spender grinned.
"I'm not here about them. I'm here about you, you son of a bitch." Mulder's anger festered in the dark. "You turned my Mom's final year into hell. She didn't know."
Spender began to roll a new cigarette "I loved her, Fox."
"Bullshit!" Fox yelled "You don't have our emotions, you don't know what love is!"
"I've been pretending to be human longer than you have actually been human, boy!" Spender snarled back, "Don't lecture me about life here."
Mulder peered at the alien in human form in front of him.
"God, I loved those days. Things were so much better then. Clearer. Our families at the lake. I had a wife. She didn't mean much to me then, just a carefully maintained piece of cover. I miss her now." Spender leaned back absorbed by memories.
"Tell me." Mulder said.
"You already know plenty." Spender said.
"I have to know!"
Spender stared at Mulder for a long while. Mulder slowly let his weapon down.
"We haven't heard from control since 1987, Fox." Spender said.
Fox blinked "Control?"
"The beings running us. We're just the puppets. I got tired of being a puppet. I rebelled against the mission." Spender said. "I hated you. Humans. I hated you all. But after six and a half decades, hate can't last."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Mulder asked.
"You wanted to know, now I'm telling you." Spender said sharply. "There were never more than 500 of us on Earth at any given time. We were given your faces, your bodies. We moved among you. The mission was to stop you. Our masters saw you as a threat."
Mulder nodded. He'd already pieced together a lot of this.
"I was one of the successful ones. I was able to integrate myself with your factions. I was able to work inside your systems and perform my missions. Those who promised unity, peace among you I killed. Those who promised dissention, violence, war, I promoted." Spender said. "I was good at my job."
"But." Scully prompted.
"I got to where I actually liked some people. Your mother and father, Fox." Spender said. "They infected me."
"Sounds like Galaxy Quest horse shit." Mulder sneered.
"If I'd known what those people really meant I'd have killed them all." Spender said. "You have no idea how dangerous they really are."
Mulder blinked
Scully looked at her watch. "Mulder we're almost out of time."
Spender laughed. "You've been out of time for a while. They've set up a cordon first. They learned from your last escape."
Mulder's shoulders slumped. "He's right. Scully, you can leave, head down the road. They'll arrest you, but it won't be that bad."
"I have an alternative." Spender said.
"What alternative is that?" Scully asked.
Spender rose slowly "Come with me and I'll show you."
He shuffled down a darkened hallway. They were in a cave somewhere in New Mexico. "Took me about 40 years off and on to find it." Spender said. "Lovelace was a maniac but he wasn't stupid. He left clues pointing in all the wrong directions."
He shuffled down a set of stairs. "The beings running us controlled our access to space. The goal was to restrict your access as well. We haven't seen a supply ship for a while. It's all about control. We had no ships in case people like you were to kill us or torture information out of us."
They crossed a landing. Spender dug in his pocket and pulled out a set of car keys. He pressed the alarm button.
With a tweedle boop sound the lights came up in a chamber. The chamber was large, a hundred feet long and fifty feet tall.
The walls of the Chamber were reinforced with wrought iron reinforcements - wrought iron walkways and stairways around the edged looked positively Victorian.
In the center of the chamber sat a sleek looking ship. It was all swoopy lines and showmanship.
"What the hell is this?" Scully asked.
"It's a UFO," Spender said. "Since my falling out with my fellows I've been rehabilitating it."
Mulder and Scully looked at each other stunned. Then they looked back at Spender and both yelled at the same time.
"You must be joking," Scully yelled.
"You want us to trust you that far?" Mulder was incredulous.
Spender's reply was sharp. "You've always said that the truth was out there, Fox. Well here's your ticket. What's left for you here?"
Mulder turned away, angry.
Spender continued "You're wanted for Murder. And escape. All sorts of wonderful charges. Dana, you'll be wanted for aiding and abetting his escape. Stay here and I can guarantee you'll never be together."
Scully thought about it "He's right Mulder. We're up against the wall, here."
"What's in it for you?" Mulder asked.
Spender dug out his pouch of tobacco and began to roll a cigarette. "I need help. Even among my kind I'm old. I'm on the outs as well. You kids have decades ahead of you. More with Galactic medicine. I need your help to find the Vegans. The people who put me here."
"Why?" Mulder asked.
"For the same reason you've been chasing me for half your life, Mulder. I want to know why. I want to know why they put me here and what sort of people they are. I want to know the truth." Spender said.
"I can't trust you. You've lied to us before." Mulder said.
"I have. It's in my nature to lie. But lies serve their purpose. Now we're at the end of the road and only the truth will serve my purpose." Spender said. He lit his cigarette and inhaled deeply.
"There will be no smoking on the spaceship." Scully said, firmly.
Spender grinned "You want the non-smoking lifeboat?"
Scully pointed her weapon at Spender "What to keep us from killing you and taking your spaceship anyway?"
Spender took the cigarette out of his mouth and looked at it carefully. "You couldn't fly it."
"Fly us to Cuba or I'll shoot you." Scully said.
Spender grinned and turned towards the ship. "You coming?"
Mulder and Scully watched him.
He stood in the hatch and made a show of throwing his cigarette away.
The sound of helicopters penetrated the cave. Pursuit had caught them.
Scully looked at Mulder. "I'm not seeing much of an option, here."
Mulder looked at her with his eyes shining. "Let's go see what's out there."
They boarded the ship.
-end-
Disclaimer: Paramount owns all things Trek. I claim original characters and situations in this story for me.
This story posted by permission of the author. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.