The Imperial Starship Chocola

WRITTEN FOR:

FORUM

Other Worlds Contest  (18+) Science Fiction Short Story Contest. Closed #2078460 by A E Willcox

ALL THREE PROMPTS USED — IMAGE, SPECIFIED WORDS AND FLT

WORD COUNT: 4997

The Imperial Starship Chocola

The duty marine snapped to attention. “Admiral on the bridge.”

Captain Aksa stood and faced the sliding door to welcome his superior. When the filthy infidel entered, he grit his teeth and saluted. Two hundred years ago at the cadet academy he'd learned you salute the uniform not the man, but it was difficult to remember when a May had command over him on his own ship. Though theologians argued the various gods were merely different manifestations of the One True God, Aksa could never fully trust someone who worshiped Weetz by another name.

Admiral Yax grinned and didn't return the salute. No big surprise there. With gray hair that cascaded over his shoulders like a whore's and a scraggly beard, the elderly May didn't even bother with basic Navy regulations, like the crew cut and close shave. Aksa's own smooth skin itched just looking at him. He resembled the monkeys men were said to have evolved from on the Mother planet. The fact that a May had command of this crucial mission, whatever it was, was inexplicable. But the Empress—may Weetz bless her Progeny—had issued the order with her own sacred lips.

“Chill, son,” said Yax. “Take a perch.”

Being addressed as if he were the infidel's offspring rankled; Yax might be a couple of hundred years older, but Aksa's father died a hero at the battle of Matlat during the Second Infidel Revolt three hundred years ago. He returned to his seat and faced the console so he wouldn't have to look at the May. Navigators were all the same, but he'd never had to salute the others. In spite of his distaste, he couldn't help but wonder why the most senior navigator in the whole Navy had been assigned to his ship.

“Better strap down,” said Yax. “Where we're goin', you'll need it.”

Aksa gripped his armrest. Their mission was so secret that not even he knew where the Imperial Starship Chocola's destination. But the May knew, and that ruffled his pride.

“Time to party,” said Yax.

Aksa presumed that was the command to initiate jump preparations. “Aye, aye, sir.” He summoned his holographic screen, focused on the relevant command and blinked. Lights flashed around the bridge as his officers ran through their checks. Taking the May's earlier suggestion as an order, he also blinked at the web icon, and robotic arachnids sprang from their tiny homes in his backrest to spin synthetic silk across his torso, securing him with threads stronger than steel.

On his screen, the navigator's icon changed from amber to green. Yax had taken his place and was loading in the coordinates. Aksa might hate the May race, but he couldn't deny their importance to the Az Empire. They provided navigators for the entire Navy; they were the only ones with the psychic skills necessary to make faster than light travel risk free. Without a qualified May officer under the influence of their sensory enhancing drugs, one in a thousand jumps lead to the loss of an entire ship and its crew inside a sun, planet, meteor storm or black hole, and even a routine journey from one star to the next took between ten and twenty jumps rather than one. Thank Weetz for the stinky May race and their freaky brains.

As he entered the codes to hand over final flight authorization to the admiral, he reflected he couldn't remember the name of the Chocola's last navigator. She was a shy thing no more than a hundred years old who flinched whenever he issued an order. For some strange reason, navigators never served long on his ship before requesting a transfer. He shrugged. The May were notoriously soft, and the quarters he'd assigned them must be less luxurious than on more modern vessels.

One by one, the staff officers reported readiness to jump, though Commander Kwau sounded despondent. “My marines are strapped in and good to go,” she mumbled. “All twenty of them.”

Three quarters of the Chocola's usual complement of marines had been left behind to make space for sixty xenobotanists, and the hold space usually reserved for her armored vehicles now contained stasis boxes, the kind used to hold biological samples. It seemed crazy to Aksa, but when the Empress—may Weetz bless her Progeny—said jump, Aksa only asked, “To what coordinates, ma'am?”

“Hey, boss man.”

Was the Admiral addressing him? “Sir?”

“Get ready to strut your stuff.”

“Pardon?”

“When we get there, the locals ain't gonna play nice.”

Aksa smiled. That was more like it. Whatever that science stuff was for, it sounded like he still might see action.

“I'm gonna get jiggy with it, so hang on tight.”

Aksa blinked on the Engineering icon to initiate drive, Defense to ready shields for immediate deployment, and Weapons to power up the energy beams. Everything was one blink away from activation. “General stations,” he announced on the ship-wide speakers. “Web up for hostilities. Prepare for immediate jump. Embrace Weetz as your savior and accept death as your reward.” Out of courtesy, he turned as far as his web allowed to address Yax. “Drive initiated, sir. You have full helm control.”

“Show me what this baby's got, son.”

He blinked again on Engineering, then vocalized, “Jump in three… two… one… go!”

Reality distorted into a swirl of colors and impossible shapes, like an abstract painting by an insane artist. Aksa's stomach passed through his heart, spun around his skull, shot out into space a light year or so, stretching like heavy duty elastic, then shot back at the speed of light into his abdomen, where it crashed into his spine like a ship to surface shuttle had landed. By Weetz, he hated jumps.

Reality returned with a blinding flash. As Aksa willed his eyes back into focus, billowing white gas clouds appeared on every holoscreen. Alarms blared. Ahead, everything was green, but the rear view showed normal black. Where in Weetz's name had Yax jumped them? Red icons flashed on his screen, each demanding priority—proximity alerts, pressure warnings, extreme hull temperature increase. “Action stations,” he cried. “Shields! Ready weapons.”

“Whoo hoo, Quetzal be praised!” shouted Yax. Aksa muted the Admiral's ecstatic cries; navigators always uttered blasphemous phrases upon completion of a jump, and over the years he'd grown inured to it.

Artificial gravity had malfunctioned; the ship's fore was the new down, and the Chocola shook like she had been placed inside a toy rattle held by a hyperactive baby. Thank Weetz they were strapped in.

“Intelligence, who or what is attacking?”

“Sir, nobody, sir.”

He glared across the bridge at the relevant officer. “What do you mean, Ensign?”

“We're flying through planetary atmosphere.”

Atmosphere?

Yax coughed.

Aksa glanced back. “Sir?”

“The dude's not trippin', we're inside a planet's mesosphere. That's real gravity you're feelin'. ”

Gripping his armrests as the Chocola shivered like a freezing skunkrat, he gaped at Yax. A jump into a planet's atmosphere. Was that even possible?

The Admiral nodded in answer to the unspoken question. “Yeah, you can do it, but it's damn stupid. But it's the only way to get close without raising an alarm. And now we're gonna do something worse.”

“Sir?”

“Take her down, son.”

“Admiral, that's imp—”

“That's an order. I ain't shitting you. You're gonna land this big baby bird on the ground.”

“B-but nobody has ever landed a starship on a planet. It's theoretically possible. But the stresses…”

Yax's eyes grew wilder than a marine's in full battle mode, high on steroids and stimulants. “That's what the dudes at Headquarters said, so I asked them to assign me the craziest, son of a bitch captain in the whole Quetzal-damned Navy to do it. Your name was the only one that came up.”

Aksa's chest puffed with unexpected pleasure.

“Now,” said Yax. “If you would be so kind as to boldly land us where no captain ever landed before.”

He raised an eyebrow at the admiral's appalling grammar, yet couldn't help but feel delight at the prospect of achieving something nobody else had and bringing honor to his ancestors' name. Such a feat might even earn a paragraph in the Az Imperial Archive Scrolls. “Aye aye, sir!”

Ignoring the vibration induced blurring of the screen and the sensation of uncontrolled falling, he scanned through the holographic menus to a rarely blinked icon. A panel slid open between his feet, and a steel column rose into position. Once every decade, he used this joystick for docking maneuvers in spaceport prior to their regular maintenance service, but this was the first time he'd used such a crude device to actually fly the Chocola.

He twirled his fingers around the ergonomic grip and felt something he never had before. Resistance. This was nothing like docking in port.

He pulled back, his muscles straining as he forced the stick to obey his wishes. Though he only fought servo-motors imitating the forces acting outside, it felt as though he truly battled the elements.

Once again, warning lights flashed and alarms blared. Engineering sent a priority message about hull stresses, which he ignored. The sound of ripping metal overhead said some structural engineer got their sums wrong, and a crack rippled across the titanium deck. The stench of burning electronic circuits permeated the bridge, and gray smoke stung his eyes.

Faces flashed through Aksa's mind: his wife, his mistress, his other mistress, the two favorites of his ten daughters, one of his thirteen sons. Would he ever see them again this side of Heaven? He shook his head, realizing he didn't care. This was the most fun he'd ever had, period. Adrenaline surged through his veins as he edged the nose up and gradually converted their unchecked plunge into a controlled, diagonal descent.

“Engineering,” he said, “will she hold together?”

“I-I think so, sir,” mumbled a junior ensign with less than two decade's service under her belt. She'd never before seen actual problems, only encountered them on simulators.

“There's no time for thinking, girl! Will she or won't she?”

The ensign straightened. “By Weetz, yes she will, sir. An internal wall ripped away from the hull, but fastfoam filled the gap, and there was no breach. A few circuits have burned out, but nothing essential to life support or battle capability.”

His shoulders relaxed, and he blinked an icon on his holoscreen. The holoprojector displayed the Chocola's exterior as if the bridge's walls, ceiling and deck had become transparent. Above, clouds formed tiny white patches against an azure sky more beautiful than he'd seen on any other planet. Below, variegated shades of green covered the planet's surface from horizon to horizon. As they descended, it became clear this was a lush jungle. Had Yax jumped them to paradise?

He turned to the Admiral. “Sir, where am I headed.”

Yax pointed vaguely toward the magnetic west. “Thataway, I think.”

He thinks?

Again, the May answered his unspoken question. “Visions are kinda hazy, you know. But…and you're gonna love this…you're lookin' for the worst mother of a storm you can find, then you need to fly straight into it.”

“Storm?”

“Yeah. Black clouds. Thunder. Lightning. The works.”

Aksa shrugged. After the stresses of planetary entry, a simple storm shouldn't cause much trouble. He summoned the navigation screen and scanned the area to the magnetic west. Sure enough, cloud activity bearing two hundred and seventy degrees indicated a storm. He checked the terrain. Two unusual mountains showed on the topographical survey, both shaped like temples. What an omen. Weetz be praised!

“Sir, in your… erm… vision, were there any significant landmarks?”

“Yeah, now you come to mention it. Two hills kinda like giant dildos sticking up into the sky.”

Aksa squeezed his eyes shut against Yax's unintentional blasphemy. At least he now had a firm destination. He banked the Chocola and headed toward the mountains.

Upon final approach, he identified a suitable landing area. Hovering above the site, howling winds buffeted the hull, and powerful lightning bolts tested the shields. However, something else on the scan concerned him more than the weather. A bioscan indicated the presence of lifeforms and a small settlement of buildings constructed of not only natural materials but also more advanced materials, like metal alloys and plastics.

“Admiral, there's sentient life. Advanced, though maybe not to our level.”

Yax sighed in obvious relief. “Glad to hear it. I feared they might have the jump on us.”

“Sir? You were aware of a sentient alien presence at the destination?”

“I relied on it. And actually, you'll find they're human.”

He turned to look at his superior. “Is this an unauthorized colony?”

“Not exactly. We're in the Forbidden Zone.”

The entire bridge fell silent, and all the officers gaped at the admiral.

“The Forbidden Zone, sir?” asked Aksa, once he'd recovered from his shock. “B-but the quarantine?”

Yax waved his hand dismissively. “Aw, that's a load of phony crap made up to keep people away.”

“There was no plague?”

“Oh, there was a plague all right. Several, in fact. But it was us who caused the plague, not them. We gave them several pandemics before deciding quarantine was for the best.”

“Sir, I really don't understand.”

“Don't worry, son. Imperial State Secrets, and all that. Above your pay grade. Focus on this mission.”

“Aye aye, sir. Do you want us to land?”

“Have you found a cleared area near the dildos?”

He winced, but answered, “Yes.”

“There should be some orchards sorta to the east with small trees, around three times a man's height.”

Aksa checked the scan. Yax's vision had been accurate. A field to the east contained some three hundred trees of the appropriate size. “Found it, sir.”

“Great! Now, check for a smaller field north of that, with tiny saplings.”

“Got it.”

“Land as close as possible but don't damage the saplings. That's what we're here for.”

Aksa's brow furrowed as he followed his superior's command. They'd breached a five millennia old quarantine restriction, flown into the middle of the Forbidden Zone, actually entered a planet's atmosphere with a starship, and now intended to land in a storm… for plants?

“Getcha marines suited up,” said Yax. “The folks around here ain't
friendly.”

Aksa grinned. This day was shaping up quite nicely. Perhaps he'd even get to meet some locals and kill them. He hadn't done that in decades, and that was the main reason he enlisted in the first place.

Half an hour later, he stood in the main airlock with Yax, both wearing the most advanced armored service suits available, with weaponry to match. Chameleon circuits painted their whole bodies a patchwork of green and brown. The sixty xenobotanists also waited to deploy, wearing orange suits with no weapons but even stronger shield capabilities than the suits worn by Commander Kwau's marines.

Yax turned to address the marines and officers on their com units. “Now hear this, ladies and gentlemen. Things are gonna get rough out there. Quetzal knows what kinda shit they're gonna throw at us. But, guys, we have two priorities. First, we must get those saplings. Each geek is gonna scoop up a sapling and store it in their handy sample box. Second, don't kill anybody.”

Kwau's brown eyes widened behind her clear visor. “I beg your pardon, sir?”

“You heard me, Commander. There's a reason this place was designated the Forbidden Zone, and that's so we didn't accidentally kill the folks. You've got the best shields the Navy can provide, so you'll be fine and dandy.”

Kwau scratched her head, though it looked strange with her black tresses hidden in the depths of her suit. “But, you believe they'll attempt to kill us?”

“They honest to Quetzal will, lady, but there are reasons we don't wanna mess with this planet.” He switched channel so only Kwau and Aksa would hear. “I'll explain if we get safely away.”

He didn't like the Admiral's ominous tone when he said “if”, but he had a job to do. He blinked on the controls, and the outer hatch slid open. Outside air rushed into the airlock, but inside his air-conditioned suit he had no idea if it smelled as bad as the air on other worlds, which invariably stank of body odor and feces.

He nodded to the commander, and Kwau deployed her first ten marines to reconnoiter. They scrambled down the ramp, weapons ready, scanners activated and pointed in different directions. With the amplified muscles of their suits, they were out of eyesight in an eye blink, though his suit's sensors kept him informed about their locations. The rain beating against their helmet visors and the dark clouds overhead were somewhat depressing compared to the view of Paradise he'd seen earlier.

“Clear, ma'am,” shouted the sergeant in charge of the reconnoitering squad, and—not for the first time—Aksa wished his marines would learn you could whisper inside one of these things, and a man on the other side of the planet would hear if he wore a linked com unit.

He tapped into Kwau's scanner feed to get the readings first hand. The linked marines provided a three dimensional view of the surrounding orchard and jungle. Immediately, he focused on the most important discovery. A dozen humans hid in different surrounding bushes, each holding a small, electronic device aimed at his marines or the Chocola.

Aksa tensed. Weapons? No, of course. The sergeant wouldn't have declared all clear if they were weapons. Initial scans showed they were short range communication devices with inbuilt primitive sound and vision recording, flat not holo. How quaint. Apparently, the locals were recording their arrival. There was not a single weapon identified among them. Civilians, he supposed, and he itched to clear them away with a volley of energy beams. But orders were orders.

He turned to the admiral. “You may proceed now, sir.”

“Okay dokey, son,” said Yax and bounced down the ramp like a schoolboy entering an amusement park. If he was honest with himself, Aksa shared his superior's enthusiasm. This was true first contact with a race isolated from the rest of the humanity for five millennia, and it appeared they had regressed to a primitive level of technology. He wondered how his defenses would measure up to their weapons, though it didn't appear he'd get a chance to find out.

The xenobiologists sloshed through the mud toward the nearby lines of saplings, a kindergarten trip to the play park. Within minutes, the first returned with an active stasis box, the status light flashing red. Aksa was surprised they hadn't dallied to examine the other plants like he'd often seen such as these do on other planets; these saplings must be important to so significantly dampen their curiosity.

“Sir,” messaged Kwau.

“Commander?”

“I've got a local communicating at me. What're your orders?”

“Er… observe, I guess, but don't harm them.”

Out of curiosity, he tapped into Kwau's sensory array to discover what she was experiencing. A man who looked to be in his six hundreds was jabbering strange sounds at the commander and waving his arms. He'd lost half the hair on his head, presumably to some disease on this planet, and his wrinkles testified to his great antiquity.

The driving rain had drenched his strange, exterior clothes, made from natural fibers but colored black and brown by chemicals. The inner garment that showed through at his neck and cuffs was made from white polyester. A strip of cloth woven from insect larvae secretion circled his neck and hung down loose over his chest in the ancient fashion of a slave collar. How embarrassing it must be for the poor fellow, forced to wear grub spit as a symbol of his subjugation. The culture on this planet had truly regressed to a primitive level.

The man stopped attempting to communicate and stared into the sky. He hesitated only a second before sprinting away. Kwau looked up. There appeared to be some kind of large bird or reptile a short distance away. No, the scan said it was a machine, though Aksa found it difficult to believe when it flew so slowly. A marine sprinting in his service suit moved quicker.

Kwau watched as the machine grew closer, and Aksa wondered why the local had fled in such fear. The scanners indicated no weapons powering up, and the primitive aircraft didn't even carry shields.

A tree near Kwau exploded into fragments, splinters flying into Kwau's shield, burning on entry. The commander instinctively jumped behind another tree, though the evidence clearly indicated her shield was better defense than a tree against whatever just happened.

“Report,” barked Aksa.

“Captain, they're using some kind of projectile weapon. That's why my sensors didn't pick up a power surge.”

As the commander spoke, Aksa noticed the efficient officer had already messaged her network of marines to add projectile weapons to their sensors' checklist. With a start, he realized several of the humans observing their mission actually were armed, but with weapons so primitive they would only be found in a museum of curiosities back home.

Long range scanners picked up more aircraft approaching. Effective shields or not, Aksa thought they should make a move to leave.

“Admiral, are you about finished?”

“Patience, son. We're almost done.”

Aksa clenched his fists. “With all due respect, sir. Are you aware we're taking fire?”

“Well, to be fair, we are stealing their shit.”

“Sir!” messaged Kwau. “Are you getting this?”

Aksa assessed the commander's feed. After discovering how primitive the local weapons were, Kwau had adjusted her scanners to pick up all ancient weapons, and one of the approaching aircraft carried several nuclear warheads.

He shook his head in disbelief. Nuclear weapons hadn't been used since the Great Consensus three millennia ago, long before the foundation of the Az Empire. But, of course, these primitives had been separated from civilization for far longer. In Aksa's opinion, dropping nuclear bombs onto an enemy planet was justifiable, but what kind of barbarians used nuclear weapons within their own atmosphere? They would kill themselves along with their enemies.

“Would our shields resist a nuclear detonation?” he asked, relying on the commander's expertise. Ancient weapons were outside his area of knowledge, but she enjoyed soppy historical holos.

“Theoretically, sir, but I wouldn't like to risk it. I mean, it's not something anybody's bothered to test.”

Great! He'd been lucky with the planetary landing—the Chocola hadn't crumpled under the stresses—but he didn't fancy testing his luck to such an extreme twice in one day.

“Admiral, we have to go… now!” He winced as soon as the words left his mouth. He'd just issued a direct order to a fleet admiral during action, while under fire, and on a mission under the admiral's command. Technically, that was insubordination. Mutiny. A capital offense. He'd worry about it later; first he must get his people to safety.

“Okay, son. Keep your pants on. I'm getting the last of my guys back in now.”

Standing in the hatchway as the last of the marines bordered, Aksa ordered Engineering to initiate the main engines, overriding automatic safety precautions that required everyone to be strapped down for a launch from a planetary surface. Not that there was anything normal about it. At the academy, he'd launched a starship from a planet five times in simulators. But that was centuries ago, and nobody had ever done it for real.

Aksa sighed. He was tired of being first. He only hoped he wouldn't become the first captain in over a millennium to lose an admiral to enemy fire. He blinked at the hatch controls, then gripped an emergency, zero gravity handle.

“Engineering, launch!”

Still inside the airlock, he viewed storm clouds through the closing hatch as vibrations rattled the hull, and he held tight to avoid being thrown against the wall by the sudden increase of gravity, again in the wrong direction. Given time, he was confident Engineering could use the artificial gravity generator to dampen the effect of acceleration inside the Chocola, but getting away from this Weetz-damned planet was more of a priority right now. The hatch hissed as the pneumatic seals took effect.

For a fraction of a second, his body became weightless, then artificial gravity kicked in, and he released his pent up breath. At those speeds, the primitive aircraft shouldn't be capable of following the Chocola into orbit, but he'd rather put some distance between them and the planet in case he was proved wrong.

“Helm, take us out on full impulse speed.”

“Course, sir?”

“Any Weetz-damned direction as long as it's away from here.”

“Aye aye, Captain.”

His linked sensors showed him a rear view of the strange blue and white planet growing smaller behind them. Thank Weetz for that.

After removing his suit, he returned to the bridge to find Admiral Yax back in place in the navigator's chair. Swallowing his pride, he marched over and bowed.

“Admiral Yax, I offer my deepest apologies. Back on the planet, I snapped an order at you, and that was unforgivable.” He removed his sidearm, then offered it grip first to Yax. “I surrender myself for disciplinary action.”

Yax tossed his head back and laughed. Ignoring the offered weapon, he jumped out his chair and gripped Aksa's upper arm. “Chill, son.”

He shook his head. Had the admiral taken his drug ready for the next jump? He holstered his sidearm.

Yax threw an arm over Aksa's shoulder and led him off the bridge into the relative privacy of the corridor. The elderly May didn't have the distinctive smell of the drug on his breath; he smelled of mint. Could the admiral not wish to press charges of subordination because he valued him as an officer? Did Yax think it better to retain an experienced and competent captain rather than exacting revenge for the slight against his high station? Aksa scratched his head. His Az superiors would never adopt such an understanding approach to command.

Once they'd walked out of earshot of the bridge, the admiral leaned close. “Son, I'm gonna let you into an State Secret so huge you'll have to stick an Imperial Seal on your memories. I'm only gonna tell you. Well, you and Commander Kwau at her debriefing. But first, a question. How well would the Empire fare without faster than light travel?”

“Er… badly, sir.” He supplied the standard answer from the academy; this was a problem faced by the earliest colonists. “It takes centuries in stasis to travel from one colony to the next, and inevitably huge cultural and linguistic shifts occur.”

“And how do we ensure jumps are safe?”

“By using a navigator with the necessary psychic abilities to see where jumps end.”

“But you're forgetting something important, son.”

He looked into the eyes of the elderly May, and the answer became obvious. “Drugs.”

“Where do they come from?”

“A bean?”

“Yup. The cacao bean. Back on the May world, we roast beans and grind them into a bittersweet drink we call chocola.”

He gave a start. “The wine of the gods?” The sacred drink only imbibed by priests or members of the Imperial Family…or so he'd thought.

“Exactamundo. Drinking chocola enhances our senses, allows us to feel at one with the Universe, and teaches us love.” He reached over and embraced Aksa.

Stiffening, Aksa patted the admiral on the back. He sure hoped his superior meant fraternal love.

The admiral released him and smiled. “But we've had some terrible luck. An alien virus decimated our cacao trees, and there wasn't a single uninfected plant. The only hope for the Empire was a fresh source, and that's what we recovered today.”

Now Aksa understood why the Empress—may Weetz bless her Progeny—had given the command to Yax.

“But, why were there cacao trees on that planet?”

“Because that planet was the Mother.”

Aksa gaped. “Th-the Mother. I stood on the Sacred Mother Of Us All. I thought She was forever lost.”

“No, son. Not lost, only quarantined to protect Her and Her younger children from the nasty diseases that infest the universe. But sometimes, when the shit really hits the turbines and there's nowhere else to turn, you've gotta run home to Mama.”

He nodded in understanding.

“When I heard the best Quetzal-damned captain in the entire Navy commanded a ship called the Chocola, it was a clear omen.”

Aksa grinned. Yax's words sounded like something his father might have said. “Weetz be praised!”

“Quetzal be praised! And you too, son. Don't you realize you just saved the Empire from chaos and utter ruin? And that's exactly what's gonna be in my mission report and my official recommendation for your promotion.”

Aksa's jaw dropped. Did the admiral intend to assign most of the credit to him? Didn't he wish to use this triumph to further his own career? Any Az superior would hide Aksa's contributions in the small print of the mission report, but this May valued truth and the interests of the Empire more than his own selfish ambitions.

As he clasped Yax's hand, understanding dawned. The admiral was more altruistic and patriotic than any Az in part because he wasn't an Az. Where an Az would seek self aggrandizement and promotion, Yax sought only to serve the Empire in the best way he could. Though they served in different roles and worshiped Weetz by another name, maybe the hopes and dreams of the Az and May weren't so different after all.