SEASON EIGHT

EPISODE 9: HIDE AND SEEK
PART ONE

By: X_C

 SPACE: THE FINAL FRONTIER. THESE ARE THE VOYAGES OF THE WWF TITANPRIZE. IT'S MISSION: TO EXPLORE AND ENTERTAIN NEW SOCIETIES AND NEW CIVILIZATIONS.  TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO WRESTLER HAS GONE BEFORE!

TITANPRIZE CREW:

Captain Vince McMahon
First Officer, Commander Shane McMahon
Chief Engineer, Commander Stephanie McMahon
Chief of Chiefs, Commander Linda McMahon
Chief of Security, Commander Kane
Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Taker
Diagnostics Officer, Lieutenant Commander Jericho
Tactical Officer, Lieutenant Commander Austin
Transporter Chief, Lieutenant Commander Debra McMichael
Communications Officer, Lieutenant Rock
Counselor Al Snow (assisted by H.E.A.D.)

... And many more!

WWF TITANPRIZE-CAPTAIN'S READY ROOM

    "Captain's Log, Stardate 081300.00. Once upon a time, I truly believed that Mick Foley was god. After what I have just witnessed in the Smackdown, I now truly believe he is Satan! How could this happen? Rock and Angle are at each other's throats, my darling daughter's divorce has turned bitter, Lt Commander Jericho is stubbornly refusing to play nice with Lt Benoit on projects that could get the Titanprize home! Dr. Taker reports that Ensign Hardy will not be able to return to Engineering for a week thanks to the severe concussion he received at the hands of Ensign Christian. I would like to punish the pretty boy severly, but my son Shane seems to see something positive in the lad...."

    What the heck was his prize ship coming to? Four hundred years from Federation space and the crew was tearing itself apart instead of trying to find a damn solution?

    Some fine Morale Officer Foley was turning out to be!

    "Captain Monkey Crap!" Lt Rock barked over the comm. "Aurora-12 is within visual range. Efforts to hail their candy asses have failed...."

    The catchphrases and taglines of the Great One faded into sweet, merciful oblivion as McMahon's mind wandered, which it often did when the Rock launched into one of his promos.

    Aurora-12 had been an answered prayer materializing on long-distance scans seven days ago; a lush tropical paradise flowering with both exotic medicines and technology. Among the crystalline turquoise seas and ivory-white beaches were rich titanium mines and brilliant scientists producing chemicals the Titanprize desperately needed to fly.

    The mysterious Princess Rai'el had promised them everything they desired. All she asked for in return was  cultural and biological knowledge concerning the species aboard the Wrestlefleet vessel, and McMahon had happily obliged. Too easy? Too good to be true?

    It didn't matter. Future generations of Federation officers would take this ship back to Earth and it was the current captain's duty to keep the Titanprize alive long enough to pass his rank on to Shane. Shane would have to be trusted to do the same. Aurora-12 would help fuel his crew's home for many more light years to come, and McMahon couldn't turn his back on that.

    ".....surface appears rocky and dehydrated. Oceans cannot survive under the harsh acidic atmosphere. Life signs-"

    "Wait!" McMahon cut in sharply. He'd been brought out of his blissful stupor by Ensign Lita's voice coming over the comm at Tactical. "This is Aurora-12, the planet we scanned to death over a week ago?"

    "Aye sir." Lita replied. "All life signs, both plant and animal, have completely disappeared. It should be officially catalogued as a Class-R planet due to its lack of organic-"

    "I didn't ask for suggestions dammit!" Vince knew his temper was flaring more hot than it should have been, but how else did a leader react to his people's hopes and dreams evaporating into thin air? "That world had millions of people on it 24 hours ago! I want answers and I want them right now!"

    "Geez Pops." Shane bristled indignantly. "Maybe if you'd just let Ensign Lita finish her report-"

    "Shut up weasel boy!" Lita hissed. "I can handle myself just fine thank you! As I was explaining, Captain McMahon, there is a power source firing in the core of the planet that cannot be identified by our computers. There are also minute traces of chronoton particles in the air, consistent with a large scale holographic image dissipating-"

    "A trick?" McMahon roared, pounding a fist on his desk so hard it almost shook the ready room. "Bait to lure us in? What the hell do they want?"

    "Pops-"

    "Good work Ensign Lita." The Captain took a deep breath, steadied himself. "Is it safe to send an Away Team?"

    "Well..." She hesistated. "I'd have to consult with Dr. Piro or Dr. Taker first."

    "Do it!" Vince McMahon didn't get played like this, not in any quadrant of space!

    Aurora-12 had a big surprise coming to it. The hunter was now the hunted.....

JEFFRIES TUBE 68A

    "You can't hide in here forever you know." Matt squeezed his lithe Aerialian body into the single most claustrophobic Jeffries Tube on the ship. Course, maybe it just felt crowded cause his stupid brother was camped out in there. "Here's your food, idiot."

    "Ow!" Jeff fished the high-impact projectile out of his sleeping bag. It was too easy to get at him when he was sleeping in quarters...."Decaffeinated soda? Come on man, you know I need a rush!"

    Matt's look was deadly.

    "Right. Thanks then." Little brother gratefully unwrapped his candybar. "I know I can't hide here forever cause it'll take Lita at least three days to scour all the ductwork on the Titanprize. I hope that wench Stephanie finds a nice place to stick herself."

    "Wench?" Goodness! Had devoted little Jeffrey just slandered the princess? "Geesh, maybe you guys need some pre-marital counseling or something."

    "Drop dead."

    "Maybe later." Matt said pleasantly. "Oh just lighten up Jeff. Everyone on the ship knows Stephanie wouldn't touch you with a ten foot pole."

    "Somehow this painfully obvious fact has eluded Lita." Jeff complained. "You wouldn't believe the horrible threats she's made against my life. Remember when we were both eight and she made me eat Aerialian fire spiders?"

    Matt snickered. "Sometimes I forget you've been an idiot since birth."

    "She's going to give said Aerialian fire spiders to Lt Benoit down in Science and Research." the younger Hardy was sulking. "He's going to mutate them and let them eat me!"

    "Oh man." Tears splashed on the cold steel floor, Matt was laughing so hard. "Lita is so totally in love with you! I can't believe she thought Stephanie was teaching you how to.....uhhhhh......pleasure a woman in the Holodeck."

    "I've read books!" Jeff retorted, face flushing as red as his hair. "I don't need Steph to show me how!"

    "So you've at least talked to Lita then?" Matt was just going to pretend he hadn't heard that.

    "Uh-huh." Jeff nodded. "And things are looking hopeful. She said she'd marry me if I was the last male of any species left alive in the known universe! So you know, I'm keeping my fingers crossed."

    "Good thing you got the looks in the family. " Matt shook his head. "Cause you sure as hell didn't get the brains."

    "You picking on me for a reason?"

    "Have I ever needed a reason?" Wow. There wasn't much that felt worse than a big brother's guilt, if the twinge of pain in his chest was any indication. Matt was so damn relieved that Jeff wasn't getting hitched...it took every bit of willpower he had not to show it.

    Pretending he wasn't in love with Lita required a strength he didn't know he had.

    "I gotta go get ready for a match." Matt was crawling back towards the Jeffries tube hatch. "Foley booked me and Christian for the Smackdown at 0900 hours. "

    Jeff perked up. "Want that I should bring a steel chair?"

    "I want that you stay put!" Matt snapped. Great. Another thing to feel guilty about: tearing into his little brother like that. But if he had to yell and scream at Jeff to get through to him, that's what Matt would do.

    Mockery, boyish pranks, even the occasional beatdown...that was all fun and games. Wacking baby brother over the head with a steel chair so hard Jeff forgot his own name for eight hours was crossing the damn line!  Matt was out for blood and Jeff didn't need to shed any more....

JEFFRIES TUBE 71A

    Close...so close now. The hunter could smell the blood of his prey and was circling in for the kill, like a cruel and hungry vulture.

    Soon they would hear him. Soon they would see him. He could feel the noose tightening around his neck, suffocating him.

    He jerked a hand through his unkempt silvery-white hair, a nervous spastic, gesture. The young Aerialian who'd slithered into the pipes forty-eight hours ago was quick and clever. He wore the uniform of an Engineering ensign. He would be good at perceiving the tiniest details, anomalies in scent, sight, sound; he would be scientific and look for the source of these shifts in reality.

    And then Eric would be discovered, pulled from his safe haven and thrust into the cold, harsh hands of justice. He'd come to grips with his own sins, had stopped trying to wash the blood from his own hands. Bishoff carried in his soul the intimate knowledge of Nytron crimes he himself had manipulated into living nightmares. He saw his victims' faces when he slept, saw their fingers pointed at his chest, his empty heart, heard their screams as they suffered.

    Russo was there too, in the shadow world of his dreams, mocking him with icy laughter. His vow to Eric was even colder....if Bishoff was caught, like a rat in a maze, then McMahon would destroy him. He would turn over to Russo, and only God could help him then.

    And as Russo had proven time and time again, there was no higher power than the Nytron leader. There could be no mercy for Eric Bishoff.......

    The young Aerialian must never be allowed to discover him.....

DECK 35

    "Please boys and girls, settle down." Miss Elizabeth clapped her hands together and offered the ragtag classroom before her a weary smile. It was hard to be angry with the children, hard to be impatient with the little ones who'd given her a place, a reason to belong.

    Most weren't meant to be here. When that demonic Russo had captured the Titanprize, a flood of young people, from Aerialians to Houdinians to Earthlings had flowed through the corridors of the starship, studying, researching, eyes wide with awe as they learned what Wrestlefleet Academy one day might offer them.

    And they had been without their parents, the families that loved and adored and cared for them. They were still alone, though Miss Elizabeth was trying to ease their pain and confusion by filling their lives with knowledge, by showing them that someone out there still had time for them. She could never be their mother, but she could still make a difference.

    Sure, it might sound like cliche to some, but she felt lucky, blessed even. McMahon could have thrown her in the brig for being a rebel's girlfriend, but he'd been fair enough to realize she was innocent of Nytron crimes. She was just a witness to them, a witness who would feel the sting of emotional scars forever.

    "Class, I have a very special surprise for you today! Commander McMahon-Helmsley and Lt Commander Jericho from Engineering are here to show us how the warp core works!"

    She saw it in a few eyes - the bright sparks of interest. All the children would have to find a passion for the ship, for Wrestlefleet. There was no other future out there, not as long as they were adrift in strange space.

    "Just remember." Jericho spoke in a low voice, while Stephanie fussed with a padd. "They're as scared of you as you are of them. Of course, that's when they attack you know. When they smell your fear."

    "I wonder if they'd smell your no-selling titanium melting in corrosive acid." Stephanie muttered. If there was ever a place she didn't want to be, it was here facing these children. She wondered if other women heard their biological clocks going off and wanted to hit the snooze button like she did.

    "And how do we welcome our special guests, class?"

    "Y2J Y2J Y2J!"

    Stephanie groaned and rolled her eyes. Jericho wore a charming smile as he sat up on Miss Elizabeth's desk.

    "My goodness." Miss Elizabeth grinned. "You got a bigger pop than Lt Rock did last week!"

    "It doesn't matter who gets a bigger pop!" a boy cried out.

    "The young certainly are impressionable." Jericho said with a sigh. "Okay, this is how we're gonna do things. I don't want to bore you little twits to death, and that's why I didn't bring Ensign Angle along with me."

    A collective groan.

    "Why don't you tell the Commander and I what exactly you guys wanna know about the warp core, and we'll use our brilliant minds to answer your questions. I will, anyways."

    Stephanie elbowed him.

    "Are you really stronger than the whole entire crew put together?" a Houdinian child demanded.

    "I don't know about that..." Jericho grinned. "But I can do this!"

    Stephanie shrieked with terror and embarrassment as she was swept above Chris' blonde head, supported only by one firm android hand. "Put me down you big, stupid show-off! I mean it!" Her face flushed hot and bright red as the class giggled.

    "Course, my lovely Commander doesn't care for that much."

    Stephanie straightened her dress uniform, trying to maintain her stately officer's dignity. "Have I mentioned that Lt Commander Jericho is not only the strongest man on the Titanprize, but also the most obnoxious?"

    "Class, don't we have any scientific questions to ask the Chief Engineers?" Miss Elizabeth asked mildly.

    "I'd like to know why the warp core is blue." The girl's dramatic red and yellow hair marked her as Aerialian.  "Ensign Hardy explained it was chemically balanced to match his hair, but I think he was kidding."

    Stephanie started, "Yeah well Ensign Hardy is an id-"

    "The warp core is blue because superheated plasma burns blue." Jericho cut in smoothly. "When something gets really, really, really hot, it becomes white or blue. Plasma fuels the matter and anti-matter reactions in the core, so the core is the same color as Ensign Hardy's hair.  Now how about you kiddies telling us a few things you know?"

    "I know my role." one boy offered seriously.

    "I'm sure you do." Chris managed a faint smile. Good ol' Crocky. "Does anyone know how the exchange of matter for anti-matter makes the ship fly?"

    "With all due respect, sir." A fair-featured Resian girl raised her hand. "Ensign Hardy taught us what powers the Titanprize, and it's not the chemical reactions in the warp core."

    "Oh lord." Stephanie buried her face in her hands. "Have I mentioned yet that Ensign Hardy is an id-"

    "What did Ensign Hardy teach you?" Chris smiled patiently.

    "The ship is powered by you and Commander McMahon-Helmsley making sparks in Engineering." the Resian answered politely.

    His positronic net assured him this was amusing, so he smiled at Stephanie. While Chris was certain she was plotting some horrible fate for poor little Jeff, he could still feel his wires crossing when she blushed and smiled back.

    That was the only way to explain the pleasant buzzing in his brain.

    "They're gonna kiss!" a girl shouted.

    "Ewwww! They're in looooovvvvveeeee!"

    "Is he your boyfriend?" the Aerialian with the red and yellow hair asked.

    "My boyfriend?" Stephanie blanked out. Where was her quick McMahon wit now? "I...uhhh....ummm, well Lt Commander Jericho is not my boyfriend really, he's more like my...um....."

    Plush carpeting smacked her across the face as the ship pitched and rolled as if being tossed on the crest of a tidal wave. Every last drop of breath she had was forcibly exhaled as gravitational flux crushed her lungs and squeezed her throat, the fear effect magnified by intermittant yellow and red alerts screaming in her ears until they threatened to bleed....

    "That ruled!" a young Kanatian squealed.

    The world was still again. The children looked impressed , as if they'd just gotten an adrenaline rush off the coolest roller coaster in the universe. And there was that stupid, smirking, smiling, perfectly balanced 'bot hovering over her, hand extended.

    "Eat dirt, Jericho."

    "Jericho!" McMahon barked over the comm. "Get your ass to the bridge! Aurora-12 has locked onto the Titanprize with a tractor beam of unknown origin! Energy and matter are being leeched off the warp core! Severe power fluxes are shipwide! Move it!"

    "Aye Cap."

    "Daddy?" Stephanie wobbled to her feet.

    "Commander, you're in Engineering! That damn planet is not going to bleed this ship dry!"

    "Aye Daddy."

ENGINEERING

    "I got it." Jeff lowered his voice as he leaned over Matt's console, effectively blocking his view of the brightly flashing monitor. At this rate of energy loss, the balance between matter and anti-matter in the warp core would be lost in sixteen hours, triggering a massive and instantly fatal explosion. Matters of life and death rarely rained on Ensign Hardy's parade though.

    "Got what?" Matt whispered back, pushing his brother's annoying purple head out of the way. "A comedic deficiency disorder?"

    "Cold, dude." Jeff sighed. "You are so totally jealous of my quirky charms!"

    "Get some first."

    "Seriously. Check it out." Jeff uncurled his fist, revealing a palm-sized silver cannister with a tiny, blinking detonator strapped to its gleaming surface. "We are soooo gonna serve up a big bowl of justice soup to Edge and Christian for every chairalicious act they have committed against us!"

    "Jeff..." Matt groaned. "English please."

    "It's an aerosol bomb." Jeff said simply. "We crawl through the Jeffries Tubes, plant this baby in the vent above their quarters and set it to release sweet, sweet poison into the atmosphere."

    "Poison?"

    "Er...well...not poison." Jeff admitted. "But something equally cool I thieved from Piro's bag of tricks while faking a blackout in Sickbay. See, seven hours after exposure to this toxin, those valley boys will find their lustrous locks falling out in shiny golden clumps. Nice, huh?"

    Matt grinned. "They'll be suicidal. I mean, Chyna had to prevent Christian from leaping out an airlock after he discovered that zit on his nose."

    "Brother." Jeff said solemnly. "What we have done here will redefine sucktitude on every level known to man. It is an act of sheer and utter heinosity unparalleled in human history."

    "Alright Jeff."

    "Don't be such a square!" Kid brother was sulking. "This is awesomeness of the highest magnitutions! They're going to be singing a different conchairto when we're through."

    "I swear to god, Jeff. Don't make me kick your ass."

    Jeff frowned. "There's gonna be serious ramapercussions from that statement."

    "Oh that is IT!" Matt lunged after his brother, who had wisely employed his lightning-fast Aerialian velocity to scrape out a split second headstart. "Come on Jeff. Take your beating like a man!"

    "Hah! Shows what you know. I have yet to become a man!"

    "You can't run forever!" Matt cleared a lab table and cornered his brother. "I know where you live!"

    "Big deal!" Jeff slid under the table and sprinted across the room. "We share quarters! It doesn't make you Sherlock Holmes to figure out where I live!"

    "Matthew!" Stephanie snapped her fingers at him. Hey, she didn't need a baby. She had Matt and Jeff Hardy to parent! "I want the computers calibrated to compensate for the lost energy. Get cracking, genius."

    "Aye sir." Matt shot his brother a dirty look. The little brat was trying to catch his breath between waves of tear-inducing laughter.

    "And you." Stephanie poked a finger at Jeff's chest. "Put your little bomb away and go sit in the corner. Play with the diagnostics and see if something doesn't click in your twisted mind."

    "Geez." Jeff slouched over to the diagnostics array like a beaten dog. "I don't know why people think I hit the sheets with you, Steph. Your sense of humor doesn't exactly scream sexy."

    Stephanie bit her tongue so she wouldn't scream anything. She just turned around and calmly faced the soft turquoise light of the warp core, comforting herself with the steady hum of the energy pulses. Her tri-corder clicked with a steady rhythm, counting the seconds until the ship evaporated in a sparkling cloud of plasma.

    Please let it take Jeff first, she thought with a sigh.

    Silence. Blissful silence. She was almost lulled to sleep by the blue-red wash of light emanating from the plasma generator.

    Red?

    Crimson streaks glowed like shooting stars threading their way through the heat of the warp core. Vibrant ruby raindrops slithered down the glossy surface of her console, brushing her fingers with a hot, thick liquid touch. The air was charged with an electric, coppery smell.

    God....it was blood. It had to be everywhere....soaking the walls, the floors......

    A dark, distorted shadow loomed over her.

    Every fiber of her being quivered with terror, a terror so cold and black it came from a place beneath her soul. She turned to stare down her demons....

    ....and screamed.

THE BRIG

    Ghosts. Wrestlefleet science didn't believe in their existence. They surely wouldn't believe in a human ghost, one of flesh and blood, one they believed was trapped behind a wall of high-voltage electricity.

    Russo smirked. Ensign Buh Buh thought he was so damn bad, making his broken down Nytron prisoner  the Dudley brother's own personal bitch every night for kicks and giggles. Oh yeah, he'd take the wood, the splinters, the ache in his muscles.....

    Devon could testify his goofy glasses off and that wouldn't change the truth. The power flux that had rocked the ship had also rendered the force field that held him useless. Completely useless. He could've stepped through the curtain of light at will.

    But why give McMahon the easy way out? Why make his potential to spread chaos and violence obvious?

    There was a hatch above his head. He stared up at it every night while his back complained about the rock-hard bunk beneath him. And he wondered, wondered how he could manually disable the damn force field that kept him sealed in this hideous Wrestlefleet tomb.

    He didn't need to wonder anymore.

    Russo stretched out on his bed, the tension in his bones melting away as beautiful fantasies danced across his seething brain. He could almost taste the fear that tainted the air...could almost savor the cold little core of hopelessness that would soon be eating through Vinnie Mac's gut.....

    I'm gonna kill your daughter McMahon. You've taken everything from me, right down to my pride. An eye for an eye, McMahon, an eye for an eye.....

SICKBAY

    Dr. Taker wasn't happy, and that didn't bode well for the crowd gathered around the Hardyz bio-beds.

    The dead man didn't like his patients being harrassed, especially when they were patients who'd been on the wrong end of an Aerialian dagger. Poor little punks had splashed enough blood on the floor of Engineering to fuel another human being for god's sake. Slashed from behind...had to be a coward wielding the knife, a gutless coward who now held Stephanie's fate in his hands....

    Taker didn't like weak men who couldn't look you in the eye while they tried to take your life. He especially loathed a man who would steal an innocent girl after cutting down her guardian angels. Be a damn, crying shame if the dark doctor got his hands around the villian's throat before security found the son of a bi-

    "Hey you little punk!" Shane was wriggling six feet above the floor, the collar of his uniform twisted through Taker's fingers. "What in the hell do you think you're doing?"

    "Uhhhhh...." Okay, it probably didn't look good, his itchy little hand next to Jeff Hardy's ventilator.

    "You never give up, do you Boy Wonder?" Taker spat on the floor and heaved McMahon out the door. "Next time you'll leave on the end of my foot."

    "You'll have to pardon Shane, sir." Lita smiled wryly. "I think it's almost an involuntary reflex with him."

    "You sure it wasn't weasel boy who stabbed us?" Matt could feel himself drowning in a fog of painkillers, though he had to say the most recent hypospray wasn't killing much pain. Funny, even with the resistance to agony Aerialian nerve cells provided, a six inch blade being plunged into his spine could still send white hot flares of pain through his back. "He is the master of the sneak attack, after all."

    "He was on the Bridge." Chyna smiled. "And he tossed his cookies when he saw all the blood splattered in Engineering, so I doubt he could have held his lunch long enough to stick you guys. Sorry."

    "Matt." Lita hovered over him, frowning worriedly as she brushed damp black hair out of his eyes. "Who did this? Honest to god, you look like death warmed over. You're hurting - I can tell. I can always tell when you're sucking it up trying to be prideful and stubborn. Dr. Taker can give you-"

    "Lita!" He jerked away from her touch. Matt didn't want to be cruel, but since he felt like someone was still twisting the knife inside his spinal column, he didn't have the patience for her touching platonic concern. She could go shower her sweet affections on baby brother for all he cared. "I'm fine. I'll live. I can handle a knife in my back - I'm used to it."

    She blinked. "Matt...."

    "Where is she?" Jericho virtually materialized out of thin air, his android speed so amazing his grand entrance into Sickbay would've been missed had someone blinked. "Where the hell is she?"

    "Where is who?" Matt asked impatiently. Couldn't these people just get out of his face and let him suffer in silence?

    "Stephanie." Jericho answered through clenched teeth. "She's missing. With all the power surges on the ship and the energy drain going on, we can't get a lock on her bio-signal. Who the hell took her, Hardy?"

    "Jericho, you son of a bitch." Taker moved his near seven feet of bulk in front of the android, eyes grayer and harder than a storm cloud. "I don't know if this just ain't registering in your positronic pea brain or what, but my two patients have been viciously stabbed and parted from most of their blood. They're in severe pain. They don't need this crap right now."

    But Chris was fearless. Without an emotion chip, there could be no terror, no being intimidated by the dead man.

    Still....despite having a high-tech piece of scrap underneath his fingernail,  he felt considerable rage and helplessness knowing he could not locate Stephanie. Princess was now the prize of some maniac, a psycho willing to kill Matt and Jeff to take what he wanted. The fury started to rise again.....

    "Tell me what you saw Matt. Tell me who took her."

    Matt closed his eyes, tried to remember. He recalled seeing Jeff slump to the floor in a pool of his own blood....not being able to cry for help because a dagger had left him momentarily numb before consciousness slipped away....

    "Steph had been facing the warp core." he said finally. "She was still alive when I blacked out. We were attcked from behind...I don't know Chris. I'm sorry."

    "Damn." Jericho muttered. "It's alright Matt. Not your fault."

    He watched Jeff's eyes flutter open, saw the momentary flash of terror in their green depths before everything evened out. . "Ensign Hardy?"

    "Sir." The one word was so quiet Chris had to lean in to hear it.

    "How do you feel?"

    "Well, I'd feel a lot better if I didn't have this tube in my throat." Jeff whispered. "But it's a step up from that Aerialian dagger I suppose."

    "They didn't get your vocal cords." Chris pointed out.

    Jeff beamed. "Lucky for all my fans."

    Jericho rolled his eyes. "Did you see your attacker?"

    "Where's Matt?"

    "To your left." Lita pointed out. "Can't you sense all the sunshine he's radiating?"

    "Lita!" Jeff smiled happily. "You've come to accept my marriage proposal! All it took to get a yes was a near fatal stabbing!"

    "I'll accept your proposal after you make your first funny joke."

    "What?" His smile faded. "I don't think I like what you're implying."

    "Hah!" Matt said scornfully. "Jeff already did something funny. He was born."

    Lita laughed. "Oh well, now that was hilarious. I guess I'm gonna have to marry your brother now sweetheart."

    "Go ahead and marry Matt." Young Hardy pouted. "But I swear to god I'll dance at your wedding."

    "Flirt later." Jericho sighed. "Jeff, did you see your attacker?"

    "No. I was running a diagnostic. Then I was gushing blood all over the place. Then I woke up here."

    "Stephanie." Chris was getting frustrated. "What about Stephanie?"

    "I'm touched by your concern, Lt Commander." Jeff said dryly. "Steph totally yelled at me and then went to run tests on the warp core. Before I collapsed in my own blood, I saw she was safe."

    "Why did Stephanie yell at you?" Lita demanded.

    "Uhhhh...some insignificant little things about me building aerosol bombs to sick on Edge and Christian while the ship was getting blown up or something. She gets so moody."

    "I'm starting to understand the whole idiot thing, you know." Lita said with a smile.

    Jeff smiled back. "Scary, isn't it?"

    Chris ignored them. He'd go turn Angle and Helmsley upside down and see what shook loose there. Logic told him there wasn't a single Wrestlefleet officer aboard the Titanprize burning with enough hate to stab the Hardyz and kidnap Stephanie.

    Only one man wanted to kill Stephanie. Only one man had vowed to torment and murder her while being dragged to the brig in humiliation.

    Vince Russo.

    But that slime was cozy in the brig, under the watchful eye of the Dudleyz. As much as he wanted to claw at the heart of Captain McMahon, Russo was helpless to do so.....

    Damn it to hell! With his only logical suspect rotting in jail, that meant Jericho had to find a crew member harboring some secret evil in their souls. This was more a job for Counselor Snow, someone with enough feeling for human behavior to peer inside a madman's mind. It wasn't a mission for an ice-cold robot.

    But he'd do it. He'd turn this damn ship upside down to find Princess....

JEFFRIES TUBE 85-RC

    Stephanie knew what fear was. She'd felt her blood run cold with it so many times.....

    Hunter, Shane, Daddy, Matt, Jeff... even Chris Jericho could stand between her and mortal danger, but they could never protect her from the psychological terror. And that was the part she hated the most, waiting for the axe to fall and the physical pain to begin.

    She knew fear. Stephanie had somehow found the iron will to crush her husband's Degenerate mutiny back in Federation space, had dared to face The Game's wrath. But she'd been quivering inside the whole time, especially when he'd turned the phaser on her....

    She knew what it was like to be hunted. Her brother's heartless friend, Lt Chris Benoit had tried to detonate her like a human bomb, a weapon aimed at his bitter rival, The People's Lieutenant. The rabid wolverine almost silenced her forever...until Rocky himself had played the hero. And all she'd been able to do was whimper like a frightened child in Benoit's vicious chokehold.

    There was also being around Lt Commander Chris Jericho....a whole other brand of anxiety.

    This... this emotion went beyond fear. It was deep, chilling horror, a feeling so cold that her bones felt like they were slicked with ice. Awakening, she'd seen stars. When the drug-induced nebula had cleared, she'd found herself staring into a pair of eyes she never wanted to see.

    The eyes of Eric Bishoff. Eyes that were wide and fearful and probably didn't look too much at reality anymore.

    The legends about Bishoff were as grand and terrifying as any earth legend from the Headless Horseman to Dracula. Even a frigid ghoul like Dr. Piro cringed when he heard the man's name. Eric was the dark heart of terror beating at the core of the Nytron rebel movement, a loathesome subhuman creature capable of untold sins and methods of torture.

    Stephanie had tried to scream, found herself muffled by a stale, sweaty cloth driven deep into her mouth. She'd choked. He would have his way with her. She couldn't fight him with razor sharp wire coiled like poisonous snakes around her wrists and ankles....

    "You're safe now." Bishoff nervously met her damp, salty gaze. His voice was soft and shy.

    Safe? In this cramped little hellhole, a mere crawlspace between Jeffries Tubes that smelled of trapped, musty heat and very real human fear? A claustrophobic hole lit only by a wash of sickly yellow flourescence? Oh yeah, real safe.

    "I-I'm sorry I gave you so much sedative." Eric murmured, distressed at her paleness and shaking. "It was crucial that you didn't struggle. I-I'd like to remove the gag, but I don't want you to scream for help. That would be very bad for you."

    Oh lord, maybe she could reason her way out of here....Stephanie nodded in understanding, hoping she looked small and pathetic and unthreatening.

    "Please don't play games, Commander McMahon-Helmsley. You look like such a tiny wisp of a person, but I know how strong you are. You survived Russo. Anyone who can survive Russo has got to be strong and sly. Please don't make me regret my faith in you."

    She shuddered at the mention of Vince Russo's name. Oh the way he'd leered at her sometimes...as if he could take her father's ship and his baby girl too....

    Stephanie gasped and coughed up dust as the gag was pulled loose of her throat. "Where did you come from?"

    Eric frowned. "Russo likes to bring his favorite toys along wherever he goes. For pleasure, he had my Kimberly. To satisfy his sick, twisted need to be a puppetmaster and inflict pain, he had me. It ain't right to go into the bloody details with a lady, so......"

    "He likes to hurt people." Stephanie said quietly. "In a ways I probably can't imagine."

    "It's like a fever burning in his brain." Eric's eyes darkened to a haunted gray. "A cancer that eats at him but makes him stronger. Now he's free to indulge the monsters inside him, the ones that tell him to hurt Captain McMahon..."

    "Daddy..." Stephanie realized she was being lured into his confidence, morbidly fascinated by his horror stories and the disturbing pictures his bizarre words painted. But other voices spoke to her too-the voices of X-Pac and Chavo and those who'd been burned by this man, inside and out. "I don't care what Vince Russo did to you, Bishoff! Why did you have to kill Matt and Jeff? They had nothing to do with....this."

    "Stephanie...no." Eric shook his head. The heartbreak in her eyes left her looking so vulnerable...."They're not dead. But Russo, he tried...he had those knives and he was so quiet and smooth like a ghost. By the time I realized....well I couldn't stop him...the blood was all over the place...."

    A flicker of hope. "I need to see them. It's the only way I can trust you."

    "Stephanie!" Now his voice shrilled with alarm. "Going to Sickbay is too risky. Russo must never see you. You musn't ever be exposed or available to him. He'll...." He trailed off, turning corpse-white.

    "Prove to me that Matt and Jeff are alive. You're asking me to believe an awful lot when you accuse a locked-up Wrestlefleet prisoner of attempted murder."

    "Don't you understand?" Eric's tone was spiraling towards hysteria. "He's not your prisoner anymore. You're his prisoner Stephanie, his hostage! Now that we're trapped by Aurora-12, he can be anywhere, hurt anyone! You'll have to wait until I destroy him before you can see your friends again."

    Stephanie licked her dry lips. Bishoff was lucid enough to comprehend that the Titanprize was in desperate straits, but his mind was clearly distorted by whatever nightmare Russo had forced on him. In the weak, trickling shower of light that creeped into their crawlspace, she could see jagged red scars on his flesh paling to pink and islands of bruises swimming beneath his sallow skin.

    "What does Russo want to do to me?"

    His eyes widened. "It's a secret Stephanie. And if I tell you, you'll never sleep again."