Ritter's Reckoning

La Terre Landing Pad 

A large section of the forest of giant ferns has been cleared here. The ground is perfectly flat, and covered with hard, grey plas-ment. The landing pad is rectangular in shape, with each side several hundred meters long. The wide flat space tends to make the light purple sky seem even larger. The perceptive obsever might notice the small specks of birds in the sky above the lush fern forest. The air is warm and humid here, and small white clouds drift through the lavender sky, occassionally dropping a few moments worth of warm rain.

Freyssinet blinks, "You were aboard sanctuary? With Senator Gumble and the other castori?" Gracie steps down, and looks at the castori with great interest, "You've treated wolfs?"

There's a brief spark and shimmer of energy from the temporal rift - measurably smaller in the past few days. A figure tumbles out of the gash in space and time, thumping onto the tarmac of the La Terre spaceport.

Filikan nods sagely to Freyssinet. "Indeed, I have treated many different species, including... eh?" He stops in mid-sentence as he hears a thump from the direction of the rift.

LeBeau is looking between Gracie and Filikan when the light show from the rift catches his attention. Soon the figure tumbles out and as he looks over to the being laying there.

Gracie squeals and hides behind her papa's legs, "What's happening?" Frey sighs, "Those rifts seem to attract more and more travellers." she hurries toward the fallen and yet unidentified man, "Are you all right?"

The newcomer from the rift is prone on the pavement, face buried in the sleeves of his suit jacket from where he put his arms up to protect himself. He hears the woman's voice and rasps: "Elianor?" Bartholomew Ritter glances up at Freyssinet. He raises a hand, opens his mouth to say something else, and then this haggard politician's eyes roll back into his head and he passes out.

Filikan squints his eyes at the man as he tries to place him. "By the stars... could it be...?"

LeBeau places a hand down to comfort Gracie as Frey approches the prone man. He then starts to shuffle forward with the girl still behind him. "Anyone you know Frey?"

Freyssinet freezes, and even steps back as she recognizes Ritter, paling. "It can't be... no..." she steels herself, and comes closer to turn the man and check him - both health-wise, and to confirm her fear.

Ritter is alive, but unconscious. He has all the telltale signs of someone suffering from exhaustion and a bit of malnutrition.

Freyssinet stumbles back, "It's not possible... Remy, tell me I am mistaken.. Can't be..."

Filikan waddles over. "Unless we are both seeing the same mirage, madam, then it would appear you are not." he says with a twinge of fear in his voice. "Hmm... these portals look to be more trouble than they're worth..."

LeBeau moves within view of the man who has passed out and is unconscious on the landing pad. It take a moment but then realisation hits him. "It does look like him, an seeing that he just popped out of the rift its hard to say just what it is really."

Gracie peeps out of her papa's legs, "Who is it, papa? Why're you all worried?"

"Eryn," mutters Bartholomew Ritter as he struggles back toward consciousness. "Get away from the win..." His eyes flash open. Weakly, he looks around at the people surrounding him on the La Terre landing pad. "How did I get here? Where's Eryn?"

LeBeau puts a hand down on Gracie's shoulder and holds her close to her leg. "Its nobody princess. Don't worry about him."

Freyssinet retreats as Bart seems to waken up. "That's exactly what we want to know. What is the last thing you remember doing?" she asks, voice low and quite hard. At the mention of Eryn, tears come to her eyes.

Filikan takes a step back himself as Ritter wakes, as if he was an incarnation of evil itself. He keeps silent as Frey starts the talking.

"Pushing the button," Ritter answers, struggling to sit upright. He does so by bracing one hand against the warm concrete of the landing pad. He squints, then uses his free hand to rub his eyes. "Still a little flash-blinded. It didn't work, then?" He frowns. "The Lem'ing will be here any moment. La Terre will fall."

Freyssinet now has tears streaming down her face ; she steps forward and slaps Ritter, strongly. "You... You beast! You monster! You killed us all! You would have even killed your daughter if she had been on planet!"

LeBeau stays away to let Frey and Ritter have their 'reunion' of sorts. Remaining where he is now to look over Gracie.

The force of the slap catches Ritter by surprise, flash-blinded as he is. He recoils from the blow, jerks his hand off the surface of the pad, and flops over sideways. He curls himself into a defensive fetal position, knees up, arms clutching his abdomen, head tucked toward his knees. "Stop it!" he growls. "I didn't have any choice!"

Filikan shakes his head slightly. "It is like the evil one returns to haunt us all..." he whispers. Upon hearing Ritter's 'excuse' he narrows his eyes. "There is always a choice... genocide is the cowards choice!" he says with a bit of uncharacteristic courage.

Freyssinet shakes her head, her voice choking. "The Le'mings hurt no one in any other planet, they were just after the shipyards. You? You chose the easy way. Sleep with Yazmar, forget about me, shoot Thazz. And that... Give us a good reason not to call a crowd here, they'll rip you off your life before you can even say a word."

"I couldn't let *them* have it," Ritter replies, still bunched up on the ground. "There wasn't any time to warn anyone. I..." His brow furrows. "Wait. You said I *did* kill everyone. It *worked*." He works his way back into an upright sitting position again. Looks around the landing pad. "If it worked and if I killed everybody, then why are we all here and alive?" His fingers touch the reddened flesh of his cheek where Freyssinet smacked him. "And what the hell right do you have hitting me if I screwed it up?"

LeBeau kneels down beside Gracie and kisses her forehead. "Princess. Daddy wants you to run back onto the ship ok. Mommy and I will be back to see you shortly."

Freyssinet nods to Remy, "Good idea." Gracie pouts, "Why?" moving forward, "WHo're you? Why did you kill people?" Frey grabs her daughter, "Gracie, we told you, on the ship!" to Ritter, "I guess that's your punishment, being sent in the future. Us? We were dead. The Kamir made us come back, no thanks to you."

Filikan shakes his head, looking to Frey. "He's mad... he's still convinced that all those lives were expendable.. hmm.. to be tossed aside like nothing so much as dust from the floor!" He then looks to Ritter, waving a pudgy furry finger at him. "You deserve the death you have escaped by coming here. Now that you are here, I say we turn you over to the people of La Terre, and let them decide what to do with you. Hmm.. no doubt they would be 'happy' to see you."

"That doesn't make any sense," Ritter says, trying to wrap his mind around the paradoxical discussion that's evolving around him. "I killed you, but you're alive, and now you're all angry because I killed you, yet you're alive. My bet: The Lem'ing have done something. They stopped the explosions. They put me in some simulated world. And now they're letting crazy people yell at me for no damned good reason."

Once he is sure Gracie is safely aboard the Wolf, LeBeau makes his way over to Frey's side and looks at Ritter. "I see something haven't changed. Its still all about him."

Freyssinet takes a long breath, "You killed us. We were all dead. Then the Kamir - remember, the crazy glowy beings? Made us come back to prove their good will. Since, 4 years have passed." she glances at Filikan. "There.. would be some poetic justice in it. But he was..." her voice breaks, "My husband, and even if I have no more feelings for him, I can't have a maddened crowd lynch him." she steps back, taking Remy's hand. "Put yourself that well in your head, Bart. We're in 3006. And things changed indeed."

Ritter peers at Remy. "So they have. I can actually understand what that mouth-breathing Cajun says now, for one." He gets to his feet, bracing himself against a technical diagnostics cart next to one of the shuttles. "I'll be going, then."

Filikan raises an eyeridge. "You can't be serious. A murderous genocidal maniac running loose in the galaxy!? We'd lose a dozen planets within hours!"

LeBeau gives Frey's hand a gentle squeeze and then smiles at her as he pulls his hand from hers. "If you'll excuse me hun there is something I have wanted to do for a long long time." He then steps forward and balling up his fist drives it towards Ritter's face.

Freyssinet starts, "You can't go wandering like that, they'll kill you like they killed Eirlys." but as Remy goes to give some outlet to long-pent-up anger, she stays there, frozen.

The former leader of La Terre is half turned to go when LeBeau's fist hammers cheekbone and nose. Ritter is flung back over the diagnostics cart, which topples with a metallic clatter as he goes sprawling on the concrete. Panicked, he starts crawling toward the closest visible boarding ramp, shouting: "Get me off this planet! I'll pay anyth..." A couple of teeth and a slurry of blood spill from his mouth. "Anyfin'!"

Filikan gets some additional courage. "Hmm.. you're not getting off this planet... you won't hurt others!" he shouts, and waddling as fast as his stubby legs will take him, he makes to bowl right into Ritter. "Get away from that ramp!"

Freyssinet moves forward to stop Filikan, "A minute. He can't stay on la Terre, I am serious, people will lynch him..." she glances to Remy for advice.

LeBeau rubs his knuckles after his fist cracks into the side of Ritter's face. Watching the man start to run off and then Filikan start to move after him. "Let him go. He has already seen some of what he'll have to answer for from a number of people. I think we can't do much worse."

"Ticketed passengers only," a Grimlahdi flight steward grunts at Ritter as the crawling human is tackled by a tenacious Castori. The steward pushes a button on the intercom just inside the airlock and says, "Captain, we've got a security problem outside the shuttle. Looks like a fight of some kind."

Freyssinet gasps, "oh no.." she runs to the steward, "Don't call any security, please, we'll settle that ourselves."

It would appear that it's too late. At that moment, several of LTDF's finest are filing out of the spaceport and stepping onto the landing pad, making their way toward the shuttle.

Filikan rolls right over Ritter as he makes impact, and rolls around as he attempts to get leverage and get back on his stubby legs.

LeBeau reaches back out to take Frey's hand in his. "I think we should let deal with this hun. No reason to get anymore involved.

Freyssinet shakes her head for Remy, "I can't leave him like that..." but as the LTDF soldiers arrives, she pales, "No..", she hurries toward Ritter and FIlikan, "Doctor, let him go..."

"He's being mauled by a bear!" one of the soldiers shouts as they close on the shuttle. He stops and draws a bead on Filikan with a pulse rifle. Another soldier puts a hand on the barrel and angles it toward the ground, muttering, "Sanchez, you are *such* a moron. That's a Castori." The soldier identified as Sanchez squints through the shadows at Filikan and then says, "It's dark! How was I supposed to know? We've got bears in New Paris, y'know. Knock over my trash cans all the time..." Ritter slaps at Filikan's hands, saying, "Leave me be! I don't even know you!" The soldiers are now about fifty feet away.

Filikan lets out a yipe as his paws are slapped, and he clambers back and gets to his feet, dusting himself off. "Hmm.. that may be... hmm.. but I know /you/, Bartholemew Ritter.. and your evil deeds are forever written in history." he says.

Freyssinet looks between Ritter and the soldiers, panicking, "We got to find you somewhere..."

"Ritter?" The soldier who stayed Sanchez's hand from killing Filikan peers through the darkness and catches a glimpse of the bleeding, unshaven man in the amber glow of the lights recessed in the curve of the shuttle's wing. "Not *the* Bartholomew Ritter, right? Because he's *dead*." He aims his rifle at Ritter. "Don't even think about moving." To the Castori, the soldier snaps: "Get away from him! And pray he runs, because I just want the excuse."

Filikan steps back a few paces at the soldier's urging, keeping a close eye on Ritter...

LeBeau grabs Frey's arm so she can't run off and try anything stupid. "I don't think there is anything else we can do now. Just hope he does as they ask so they have no reason to just shoot him."

Freyssinet shakes Remy's arm if she can, and comes to stand between the soldier and Bart, "Calm down, there must be some mistake..."

"Get out of the way, Elianor," Ritter snarls. "You wanted me to suffer. *You* wanted this. Now it looks like you're going to get it." He gets to his feet, limps around Freyssinet, and puts his hands up in the air to signal his willingness to cooperate. "I didn't start this. They assaulted me." He points at LeBeau. "Punched me in the face." Then he points at Filikan. "Tackled me as I tried to get away from these lunatics." He smiles bloodily, a gap or two where teeth are missing. "I'd like protective custody, please."

Freyssinet shakes her head, tears coming again to her eyes. "I... never, Bart. never." she steps back, retreating to Remy.

Filikan stays out of the soldier's way. "Protective custody... hmm.. lunatics, he calls us. Hmm.. that's quite amusing."

As Frey steps back towards him LeBeau extends a hand towards her so she can take it for support if she wishes.

"If you really *are* Bartholomew Ritter," the soldier growls, "you're going to wish they finished you off when they had the chance. If you're *not* ... well, you might think it's some kind of hilarious joke, but I ain't ever been accused of having much sense of humor." He motions toward Ritter with his rifle. "Cuff him, Sanchez. Let's take him in and check his story."

Freyssinet grabs Remy's hand, still watching intently between Ritter and the gards.

Filikan stands silently out of the way, keeping an eye on the proceedings.

LeBeau gives Frey's hand a squeeze and just watches as the guards move to cuff Ritter and haul him off.

"Oh, I'm pretty sure it'll all check out," Ritter grumbles as he's cuffed and led away by the LTDF soldiers. The Grimlahdi steward raises the boarding ramp of the shuttle so they can close the airlock for launch. A pad technician approaches Freyssinet and says, "You and your friends must clear the pad, please. Launch is imminent."

Freyssinet nods to the steward, and moves away with Remy, still stunned-looking.