Don't trust a space cat [Loki]

[Pavel Chekov]

Space the final frontier. Or is there another final frontier? One shall never know but for now space is the final frontier in the time of starfleet and their best ship. The USS Enterprise, the best of the fleet and the best crew known to the Federation though that was quite the little debate what with the youngest captain in Starfleet history. One knew not what to expect with a young fresh-faced captain that was well-known for cheating but he got results with his crew and the ship became the place that everyone wanted to be on. However, getting assigned onto the Enterprise was both difficult and sometimes only ever dreamed about as the crew didn't take long to become a family that worked best together. The crew was a machine and if one part broke down the rest would fall but, truth be told, this mostly related best with the seniors of the ship who were also some of the youngest but none minded.

It was on this honourable ship that the young Pavel Chekov served on as the navigator as did he serve as the youngest of all the crew with his age being only a mere seventeen. Only person ever known to graduate at seventeen was Pavel which never did serve the boy well with the jealous elders who take much longer to graduate but he tried his best to ignore it most of the time. Sometimes the ignorance worked and others it didn't but that blatant attempts at ignorance would always be there until he was well into his elderly years yet maybe later than that. Who would wish to acknowledge the jealousy either way? One would expect none to be the answer to the question.

Seated before his station, Pavel starred blankly as his fingers moved swiftly across the panel before him to help keep the ship on task and not flying into something that none would really want to run into. Meteors, black-holes, and other ships? Best to avoid hitting those at all costs which is exactly what the brunette was aiming to do. Wouldn't want the ship to get ruined again, how many times had the ship been ruined? Quite a few, the boy lost count a while back. It had become the normal that the ship would get fixed just in time to win a fight, a miracle in some ways, and the present time would hopefully avoid a moment like that.

With the hope of avoiding a fight where they'd just barely scrape through, a voice rang through the bridge with an urgency that Pavel wished wasn't there. Urgency in a voice rarely proved good in Chekov's experience. The voice belonged to the person seated next to the brunette, also his best friend, who was the one to send out a probe as requested by the captain for the Enterprise had been exploring only to come across a planet to be charted if at all possible. The helmsman, Hikaru Sulu, informed the captain that something alien but humanoid was on the planet yet the rest of it was deserted. Odd, the best way to describe only one living humanoid alien being on a deserted planet.

Orders were soon given to have a team go down to the planet to find out what the life form was. Not long after the away team went onto the planet did they return with the life form only for them to put it in the cell on the ship. Confused and curious was an understatement for how Pavel felt with the return of the away team especially when he learned they put the life form in a cell.

Hours past before the relief for the present members of the crew on the bridge arrived sending them off to rest or eat a meal. Of course, as soon as Pavel had entered the lift to go to the recreation room and had just called out the floor he wished to go to that his captain told him that he needed to go to the cell. Why did he need to go to the cell? Well, it seemed that no one else could fix something there which made no sense to Pavel but he wasn't about to question his captain even if he was friends with him.

So, with his new orders, the boy called out a different floor and headed off to the cells. Once at the window covered wall type rooms, the boy hurried in and began to fix the comm system in the room. Apparently, someone, an idiot as the boy preferred to see them as, had short circuited the system in the room which Pavel was not impressed with at all. As soon as the brunette was down to work, his mind began to drift not paying any mind to the alien in a plastic cage.

[Loki]

The deserted planet of Rakshur was an unforgiving place. It was a barren rock, where once life flowed. Now, just a desert of dust and stone. It was known in the galaxy as the planet of the dead. People did not come to Rakshur, unless they did not want to be found again.

A flash of green light erupts over the dark grey and black landscape. The shape of a man stumbles out of the portal. He is dressed in green, black, and gold in clothing that looks strangely close to armor. He is pale, long black hair drawing over his face like a curtain as he limps once or twice across the rock. His breathing is labored, his arm is wrapped around his middle.

The blood across his abdomen looks stark upon the green tunic that it bleeds through.

The man eventually goes to his knees, green eyes looking around at the deserted planet. This, he thinks, is a good place to rest. The enemies he ran from will not look for him here. Once healed, he can return to his home planet and all will be well.

He lets himself sink to the ground, curling up on his good side like a child. He closes his eyes and lets his body naturally begin to heal his injuries.

As he does so, he finds himself lose consciousness….

---

”Jesus Spock, what the hell is he?”

”Can you not treat him?”

”No treat him? The guy is self-healing right on my table! I don’t even /have/ to treat him.”

Loki wisely remains still as voices reach him through the darkness. He was no longer on that barren rock of a planet. Hands have peeled away his armor, and are now poking around his wound. Fear runs through his mind, and he has to crush every instinct instead of grabbing those hands and crushing them in response.

He remains still instead. Until finally the hands retreat to pull his armor back into place.

”He must remain in the cell.”

”He ain’t a prisoner, Spock.”

”Standard procedure dictates that all unknown life forms must remain in some form of isolation once they have entered the ship….”

”Yah well… I’m not poking or prodding him anymore until he wakes up. Doesn’t sit right with me.”

Loki hears the door to his apparent cell open then close. And then he is alone again.

Even then, he chooses not to simply open his eyes and get up. He still feels weak from the energy required to transport himself away from the creatures hunting him, plus the energy required to heal himself. He has no energy to escape this place, whatever this place is.

He lets himself slip back into unconsciousness again…

---

He wakes to the sound of someone moving around. The sound of sparks and soft mutters in a language…. Was that Russian?

Loki carefully opened his eyes, immediately shutting them with a grimace at the bright white light that descended down on them. He let them slowly adjust, before sitting up and taking in this place he had been taken to.

He was in a cell, just as the clinically cold voice from before had said. The walls were stark white, the glass before him almost tinged blue. Before him, messing with something on the wall, a young boy was steady at his work. Oblivious to the creature that had woken behind him.

Loki checked his injury, fully healed now, with his energy almost always returned to him. He carefully stood, walking slowly to the glass wall of his cage.

He tilted his head to the side, observing the boy as he worked, before lifting an arm in a fist and bringing it above his head toward the glass:

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The glass shuttered under the blow as Loki playfully knocked. He waited until the boy turned to look at him, smiling. “….Hello,” He cooed, “Who are you?”

With his magic, he reached out to the cameras on the walls. Letting them play back to when he was still unconscious with the boy working diligently on the device on the wall.

“Where am I, boy? Why are you keeping me a prisoner here?” He assumed the role of a confused if not innocent creature. Perhaps if he played on the boy’s pity, he would let him out.

[Pavel Chekov]

Soft murmured curses in Russian along with the sound of the boy's tinkering was all to be heard in the near silent holding cell bay. How much time passed was unknown to the brunette as he worked diligently. It was well-known and common throughout the ship for many to become so immersed in their work that they noticed not that time was passing by them as quick as it did. Even with the ability to travel throughout space at light speed, one could not keep track nor slow down time for that was not part of their abilities yet that did not mean some would not try just that most didn't.

Being so immersed in one's work was always both a good thing and a bad. Pros and cons of focus always differed between where one was at the time. An example of a dreadful time to be completely focused upon one's work would be when one has an unknown person will unknown intentions in a cell not far from them. Even if a person in a cell might appear to be sleeping one never knew if that was true or false. Why one could not know if the person actually was dead if they did not go and check which was exactly what the young navigator was not doing. Tinkering away with little complaints in Russian was all the boy was up to, none would expect any different from anyone.

Who would check upon a sleeping guest without reason? Definitely not one who wanted to enjoy their break instead of working for their shift had ended not long ago. If the young man had a choice of working or enjoying his break, he'd choose his break especially upon that day. That day's break was when he was supposed to be having 'lunch' with his dear friend Hikaru in the recreation room however his new orders changed those plans causing him have to be late. It was unbecoming to be late for a lunch date with a dear friend. On the other hand, it would be problematic to deny the orders of one's captain so Pavel hadn't much choice in the matter at hand.

However, what Pavel had not expected nor noticed was that the Enterprise's guest had awoken to find him working. What alerted the boy to the other presence in the room was loud knocks against the cell wall. He jumped. When obsorbed into one's work, it's not much of a surprise one would be startled upon being separated from it. Slowly, Pavel stood up and turned to face the 'prisoner' with a look of curiosity upon his youthful face. The curiosity only increased as the boy saw the man smile at him and speak, it didn't seem right but he wasn't about to dwell on that for he couldn't leave the questions unanswered.

"Hello, sir. Ensign Chekov, Pavel of the starship Enterprise and who are you?" The boy asked with his Russian accented voice, clearly the boy still had some work to do on his pronunciation but it went fairly well that time.

With slow movements, Pavel walked closer to the only thing separating him from the person in the cell. However, he made sure to keep his distance for that was at least something that was drilled into his head at the academy. Don't trust a stranger quickly as just as quickly that trust could be turned against you even naive, sometimes, little Chekov knew that. Khan was a good example of strangers and trust put in the wrong person.

"This iz the starship Enterprise of the Federation and we found you on a deserted planet as we flew by. It's regulation for someone of unknown origins to be placed in custody especially vith your vounds. Vhat caused you to be as vounded as you vere?" Pavel tried his best to explain where the man was and why he was there but his accent combined with his trouble with 'V's and 'W's caused some difficulty to be understood. However, it was known that he had to ask why the man had arrived as injured as he was.

[Loki]

Loki watched the boy as he jumped like a fox watched a rabbit. Young thing, perhaps far too young to be out here in the middle of space. Yet here he was, out in the middle of nowhere with a madman stuck in a cage. The question on Loki’s mind was could the boy see it? Could he see the monstrous blue skin that haunted Loki’s nightmares and made his Aesir skin crawl at the very thought of what lurked underneath?

Perhaps not, Loki noted how curious the boy seemed by him. Like Loki was a bug in a jar, to be examined. Perhaps this was their intention for him, Loki wouldn’t be surprised. That was the original intention of the Chitauri when they first found Loki after the Void spat him out….

He wouldn’t let such a thing happen to him again. He hadn’t escaped one torturer to fall into the hands of another.

"Hello, sir. Ensign Chekov, Pavel of the starship Enterprise and who are you?"

Loki tilted his head to the side like a curious cat, “…. You are Russian.” He stated it as a fact. Russian…. Like the Widow. The people were a people of Earth, which meant that this boy and perhaps this ship were from Earth.

But that made no sense, humans could not travel the stars. They were unable to… but here was this boy, this human, that obviously had managed it….

It was time Loki entertained the fact that he had not only been sent through the cosmos, but through time itself. He could be millennia into the future, Asgard could be destroyed or ruled by Thor. Or this could all be some strange illusion his mad mind had forced upon him.

Whatever it was, Loki needed off this ship so that he could travel the World Tree in an attempt to return to his own time and place in the universe.

Loki watched as the boy came warily closer, not close enough that Loki could create an illusion through this glass. There was something about the cage that made him feel drugged. Perhaps something in the air, or perhaps they had given him some form of sedative as he slept. Regardless he needed to shake it off, to concentrate and focus.

Loki leaned his forehead against the cool glass, “I won’t hurt you….” He cooed, expression innocent and open. Green eyes glittering with tears, “I’m just so scared….”

"This iz the starship Enterprise of the Federation and we found you on a deserted planet as we flew by. It's regulation for someone of unknown origins to be placed in custody especially vith your vounds. Vhat caused you to be as vounded as you vere?"

The god leaned away from the glass, looking off to the side and letting his eyes grow distant as if in memory. “… I don’t remember. Someone attacked me….. then left me there.” Loki looked back over at the boy with eyes bright and wide, “Can you not let me out?....”