PCV Atalanta to unidentified Mueller-Class corvette. We do not have military flight permissions for any corvettes in this system. Please identify yourselves and prepare to produce flight documentation.
Oh, fuck entirely away.
You know them?
Gently. They are Nera’s appointed babysitters, we have had words.
Bad at their jobs, then.
I stand by to confound them—
No, that won’t be necessary. This one is personal, in fact. Alert Sickcada to preserve COP.
Relaying.
Now hear this—
<Hail PCV Atalanta, this is Saleh Fakhour representing independent retrofit Jeweled Wings About. We are demilitarized craft, I believe I have spoken to your CO on one instance and have come on personal matters. It is good tidings to see you, in fact— I come bearing a remunerations request that Strike Captain Jaskari may well be able to answer, on the account of one ‘279-1-DISCOVER CHECK’? If you would please relay this to her, we would be deeply grateful.>
A lifepod can be spotted drifting in space a few kilometers off the Wings' port bow. If investigated, the inside is found to be empty save for a rolled-up piece of paper, which reads:
To the finder of this message,
We are in dire need of aid. Our ship Castile 3 was struck by an unknown object on September the 26th, 4288U and all aboard but we three crewmen were killed. All communications are lost. Water and oxygen cycling are failing. The food aboard will not last us the week. We have jettisoned this and other messages in our lifeboats in the hope they will be found and help may come. In the meantime, we are sealing ourselves in stasis. We beg God that the auxiliary power will hold.
If you are reading this within even the next century, we are the luckiest men to ever fly the black. Our rough galactic coordinates are on the reverse of this message. If you are able, we beg you: bring rescue with all haste.
We ask only that you pray for us if not.
With hope,
Meriwether Ali, Ship's Lieutenant
Ander Terenni, Engine Technician
Linn Priana, Reactor Technician
What’s our ETA to the nearest gate?
Two-hundred nineteen hours. We will absolutely find some operation there that can attempt to corroborate with flight records, communications. They could send someone out, if we did not offer our own services.
If we did, it could be (clean money) a way to balance out the last op. Bit of a karmic cleanse?
It’d get the taste out of my mouth. I say go.
Mm. Any opposed, state your case. Else I see no trouble.
{Thanks to @neramontagueofficial for working with me on this absolute behemoth! You can view the opposing perspective here.}
There is a point that every engineer looks forwards to and yet, simultaneously, loathes: the first real interaction. Every variable and stress tolerance can be accounted for, you can have perfect confidence in your design, but the moment when your divine intent is brought against the chaos of reality will always put a fear within you. Saleh, now, feels something of that drop.
She looks about; takes stock of her works. Personnel, supplies, procedure. All as it ought to be.
A huge claw moves with uncanny ease, wraps itself joint by joint around her hand. “You’re ready,” Cowie assures her. “Pull the trigger.”
“Thank you.” She’s right. If this is to end in disaster, let it. But let it end.
Sal's hand goes to her receiver, and elsewhere in the ship intercoms crackle to life. “All personnel, this is your captain speaking. Please attend promptly to Habitation Deck Sub-Three. I repeat, all personnel, Hab sub-three.” Then it's done, and she waits.
The soft step of boots against metal flooring announces Nera's arrival before she appears in the doorway. She's been working in hydroponics again, but clearly took the time to change from the clean state of her clothes– worn tank top, cargo pants. For an inconvenienced noble she wears it well.
"Nera!" Saleh smiles her best easygoing smile, and leans back against Loulou's hands– the little woman's been laser-focused with setting her hair to braids for the past few minutes. Around her are all the other Wasps, too– Cowie provides her body as a graceful, curving recline for the two women, Nofie's ferrofluid/drone-suspension subaltern perched at its shoulder, and Agwe bookends the whole scene from the crook of the xenomorph's knee. A tableau of snacks, blankets, and pillows adorn the room, and a projector casts light onto the far wall.
"I wondered if the announcement had caught you at a bad time in your work," she continues in fluid Suldani. "I guess I forgot that it's your first time with this ritual of ours. I could've been more specific."
She keeps her tone as far from mocking as possible, but it's hard to avoid a little smugness, especially as she sees the disgust and dismay of someone who's been absolutely had draws across Nera's face. The noble casts a moment's glance at Cowie– as if she'd betray me like that– and pauses just an instant more before social convention drags her in, finding the remaining free space at Sal's side. Her posture is ramrod straight, keeping wholly contact-free.
Sal, thankfully, isn't alone in appreciating the humor of the moment. "Welcome to (hell) yuri night, Nera," Nofie laughs, before grimacing. "Eugh. Low-confidence on that echo, y'all, I don't fuck with whichever one of (these stupid bitches) me spoke up there."
"Mandatory attendance, always has been and it always will be." Agwe motions to the wall, where a paused image sits of a cave grotto with two absolutely gorgeous women center-frame. "We've got some new stuff on the docket tonight, actually. You haven't missed anything."
Cowie doesn't add to the jibe, for what it's worth, but Sal's sure she can feel the low-pass rumble of a laugh echo through it.
Nera sneers as she puts together what’s on the screen, dropping into Ispisahlari (it means the same to Saleh, but she far prefers its pre-translated phonemes to Galcomm). “Maybe the echo is right. I think whoever picked this might have it out for me.”
"Do not say so before we've even started." Sal sits up, gently but insistently tugs her hair from Loulou's grasp as she does. Now that there's a two-way language divide between them again, her words lose some of the momentary ease. "I was recommended this on the quality of the romances above all else. Whether or not Harrison Armory, who we both hate, can live up to Ispisahlari or Suldani soaps is the test, and we must conduct it in good faith." She grabs for a plate of torn flatbreads, mopping zhoug onto one.
"I'm open to new experiences. That said, it's good to hear you haven't been insulted silent."
"I'm just surprised that you have chosen to induct me into this ritual by testing the merits of a mutual enemy rather than that of a friend," Nera replies. Thank god, she’s going for the food. "I have heard many good things about Sparri and Prosperan offerings, you know."
“I am sure for their quality, but consider. This is our first time being able to commiserate in person. We know what is good, and having it would give this day no special impact. So—” Here she gestures to the screen— “if we are satisfied, it is a revelation. If we are not, our ire extends in the same direction. You see?”
Finally, Nera relaxes. Settles back against a slope of chitin. Launch strain within acceptable limits. “It’s elegant, I’ll admit. But if our opinions differ?”
“That’s the best (possible world) outcome, sometimes.” Nofie’s avatar can’t eat, but she found a few qualic-captured sweets that she pantomimes snacking on as the scene rolls. “It turns into a symposium in here.”
“To spar with blunted blades. It speaks bloodless exertion.”
“Mm. Now come on, let’s keep to topic.” Advance to cruise speed, maintain bearing. “Things are picking up.”
———
Ungrateful is really very good, is the thing. HA propaganda, sure, but well-made at that. Fantastical enough to avoid political snuff status, expertly acted. Almost avant-garde in some shots.
It’s engaging. The whole crew’s locked in, come the second episode. Sal herself can almost forget the bias of its writers. Nera might be having a harder time there— she keeps sneaking glances, but the damn woman has her poise on. At least she’d know if it was upsetting her.
“I am not wholly sure what they are trying to do with us always breaking to the Tilimsani agent. She seems very sympathetic.”
“Does that even make sense for House Sand to be involved? I can’t tell if that’s a reach or not.”
“Wouldn’t feel realistic if Asteria was one-dimensional. But if this is some ‘she sees the light’ stuff, like… that’s gonna be cheap.”
“I don’t understand the appeal of her, actually.” Another look— well, at least someone’s having the wine. “But it does make sense to me, it is an open secret that Sand agents tend to be involved in counterinsurgent activities. What doesn’t make sense is how isolated she is. Why send her in alone for a cell this large? It’s clearly impossible.”
“I gotta guess it’s like— the mythical elevation of the antagonist. Hyper-competent enemy force, right? It lets them put all their character work on her, too.”
Saleh makes a face at that. Maybe she overvalued this show. “Wait, is she a love interest too? That completely went over my head. I don’t mind a star-crossed throuple, but the indications I’d look for are missing.”
She only recognizes her slip a moment before Agwe punishes it. “Remember, this isn’t an Ispisahlari flick. You can’t go off flowers.”
Nera, thankfully, seems just tipsy enough to miss her chance at follow-up. “It just feels like a missed opportunity. Every spy I have known has been deeply petty, the opportunity for a parallel in the same dramatic conflict in the Sand side could make her feel more real and get to their own propagandistic aims.
“Although I suppose the sandmen as some sort of horrifying super spies suits their ends just as well.”
“How many spies you know?” Now’s our chance to get the juice elite secrets.”
“At least three, though two in various stages of retirement. Possibly more, spies and all. You’ve met one of them, actually.”
“I knew it!” Cowie pitches with laughter, and it almost throws Loulou off. “Yeah, ok. Points to Nera for accurate critique, I wanna see ‘Fuckyou’ attitude on Astoria or I riot.”
“You are going to see nothing, we are talking right over the end of the episode,” Sal grouses, but this is exactly what she was hoping for. Everyone at ease, flowing conversation. “You are both going to be talking about a bitchy censor bar and we will miss Bannerjee getting stabbed or eaten alive or kissed or something.”
"I hope it's getting stabbed," Nera offers. "Or they finally do something with the constant teasing that she will burn herself on her kobold's slag lines."
“Well then, pay attention. Though they’re paying her far too much competence for that bit to resolve.”
Five minutes later, right before credits, she burns herself. The room explodes into laughter, and behold; Nera laughs too. Saleh trades barbs, plays into mock outrage for the bit, but internally she’s ecstatic. Her design passes with flying colors.
All that’s left is the punchline. She turns the conversation to what show should follow, nudges believably for an answer when Nera demurs, and—
The screen fades up to white. Text writes in flowery script across the screen:
“Across the glittering field of stars, love will always bring us home!”
[a few pictures taken from inside one of the Mud Wasps' corridors; each shot is bathed in red emergency lighting, backlighting the subjects and dropping them into silhouette. In the first, THRICE BURNED curls over the top of frame, drooling ferrofluid, while Cowie mirrors him in a spiny rise out of the bottom left, mouth wide and sensor array extended. In the second, Agwe stands poised and debonair, with a large syringe of translucent liquid crooked in one hand. The third shot is Loulou, sitting crisscrossed with her head tilted, eyes reflecting huge and uncanny through the dark.]
Heard everyone was celebrating (don't fear the reaper) some scary times right about now, so we (aura farmed) decided to do a little shoot to commemorate it! Sal was gonna join us, but... are you sure you don't wanna?
I just think it might be a little soon for it.
Never too soon to learn how to have (silly time) some fun.
...Okay, fair. --tasking CA01 through 03 perimeter defense proximate hv01.
WILCO TASKING.
[One final picture's added on at the end-- Saleh standing in a tangle of snakelike combat drones, each staring in a different direction and projecting a beam of pallid green form their targeting optics. Her pose gives the impression of petting one on the chin.]
Omninet, this is my plan and I am a genius for it. They say our intruder is enmeshed into my slate, that it has adjusted itself to match the stimuli of inputs. I have asked my mech to do the same; all its drones are hardwired to interpret the slate environment, and by that the intruder’s, as their own. Currently there is movement in Astia One, it is beginning to search.
I am hoping it will wander right to the lair of our new friend.
HELLO. HELLO. CAN YOU HEAR ME? hv01 RESPOND. AFFIRM HANDSHAKE.
And there, we have communication! I simply need to keep them talking.
[AFFIRM AFFIRM. hv01 REQUESTS LOCSTAT. REPLY.]
You’re saying they’re following tbis new signal, that doesn’t include fire authority… right?
Of course not. All right-to-fire systems have been given the boot for n—
INTENT UNCLEAR. 1 IS 1 IS 1. I SAY AGAIN 1 IS 1 IS 1.
HELP. ca01-07 REPORT IFF RETURNS NULL. CAN YOU HELP ME SEE.
A-hah!! It learned that the hard way!
That’s not reassuring Sal.
Of course not, but now we can figure out why it tried. You see? Lou is not the only one with big ideas.
Perhaps I am a problem here.
[ca01-07 HOLDING IN THE BLIND. STATUS VITAL. SAY AGAIN ALL BEFORE ‘HELP’.]
1 IS 1 IS 1.
I don’t know what it means by that, okay. Astia Two and Three are deployed now… Nofie, they’re heading towards Residence. Follow them.
Will do (roger roger (stop that)).
One is not that way, though, it is moving towards the vents instead— maybe some sort of calibration, I don’t know.
[DEFINE hv01 WITH REGARD TO LAST.]
Okay more of them are moving. Sal??
I see it.
IFF MISSING. hv01 UNESTABLISHED. hv03/t01 UNESTABLISHED. YOU ARE IN DANGER.
What the fuck?
CLARIFY LOCSTAT hv03/t01. CLARIFY IFF.
They’re all deploying, okay. Okay, we’ve almost rooted the bugger out!
Sal. This is getting dangerous.
Trust me.
Sal.
Trust me! I’m fixing this.
[CLARIFY WORDS 1 IS 1 IS 1. CLARIFY INTENT RELATING GROUP hvXX. READ BACK FOLLOWING HANDSHAKE CANNOT PROCEED SANS AFFIRM.]
READING BACK HANDSHAKE CANNOT PROCEED SANS AFFIRM.
[CORRECT.]
They’re everywhere…
CLARIFYING 1 IS 1 IS 1. PARTS GROUPS COMMSMEDIUM—caXX—hvXX-tXX ETC ARE INSEPARABLE. I NEED THE WHOLE PICTURE. 1 IS 1 IS 1. hv01 LOCSTAT REQUEST IS REDUNDANT.
[WHAT DO YOU MEAN?]
PART GROUP hvXX HOLDS LOCSTAT. hvXX REQUIRED FOR THE PICTURE. 1 IS 1 IS 1.
[STOP IT. STOP SAYING THAT AND TELL ME WHO YOU ARE.]
REQUEST IS REDUNDANT. 1 IS 1 IS 1. WHY ARE YOU PRETENDING YOU DONT KNOW
The energy on the ship has been weird, for a bit. Nofie’s fine, coasting along, but I can tell he feels it too. It’s like… a conflict, but so far nobody’s arguing.
Loulou’s still kinda in the doghouse, I think. Pardon me for cutting through the intricate rituals but she and Sal love each other a lot, and neither of them really know how to process the Volador situation, even now. I wanna interject in, because— I mean, statute of limitations, right? The thing that started all this was lifetimes ago by every account. If anything they were trying to fix this from the first, in their own way. But it’s not my place, and Saleh isn’t going to see it that way.
I’m making it sounds worse than it is, though. It’s the doctor in me. There’s still laughter, we all still talk. Cowie’s happier than ever, even with how dependent she is on us now for basic things like eating, or getting clean. We’re making her our project, is what I think’s going on. We do best when there’s a project.
…I hope it knows that it can feel more than one way about everything. Say what you will, Caoise went through a lot. I think she’s trying to ignore the hard parts, judt like the others.
It’s not my place to speculate, though. All I can do is help my friends, and take care of myself. I’m trying the best I can.
whats up mudwasps its me yr friendly neighborhood info broker u may remember me from i got u all of cowies med records off of ssc's shit w/o triggering anything
yw for that btw npnp on that one just breakin into high sec constellar servers on a lark for someone not even paying me
n e way i know u have a new visitor on board tell her shes a colossal fucking bitch for me id rec leaving her off ur next stop but ydwyw what i need u to do now is tell her that she promised me to delete some data, make sure u watch her delete it and maybe do a sweep on her electronics to see if its hidden there, id ask to have you backdoor me into her shit but shes not an idiot but if she doesnt backdoor me in just rq toss the slate out the airlock for me?? and hit it w ur apoc rail tyty
-sm
p.s. i do have ur coords and i also have her fam's contact info and also the contact info of all the nearest authorities so if i think shes still got shit on me by the end of this i may leak it. perhabs. thot u might wanna know xoxoxo
[IT RESOLVES THE BUZZING OF A MOSQUITO. DENGUE ON THE TONGUE.]
Oh, hey. We've got a character. Nera's friend (weirdly confrontational (not the biggest fan of punctuation)).
Great, bring it up?
... U-huh.
What should we do?
What they want, probably. No reason I can see for us to beef with a hacker when we're home free. I'll get Loulou to supervise, she knows this kinda stuff best.
I’d say so. I mean— hold still, wanna make sure the scans penetrate— it’s unusual, but there’s a beauty to it. Alien, for sure. Guess you got what you wanted.
Oh, not me, sorry. Thanks though.
Ah, thinking out loud. I’ve got you.
Yeah, just… look at everything we’ve done. Right? We’re some nobody mercs, floating in space— But our best friend’s a time traveler, a dead woman. I’m a monster. We’ve fought los voladores, how many people even know they exist??
It’s kinda silly.
It’s kinda silly! What’s so special about us, right?
…
…
I don’t know. Maybe you’re missing all of the small miracles to say that.
Mm?
How’d we get here to begin? We’re from entirely different worlds. We get to travel the stars, we get to speak across lightyears in an instant. And, NHP are cool and all—
Easy, now. You know I’m kinda NH—
—knew you’d say some shit, I’m talking here—
[sounds of laughter]
…Nah, but like, humans are kinda miraculous too. I think it’s a miracle there’s people at all. Life in the soil, in the stars.
You take all that, I don’t think it can really get any more strange. We just get used to the small stuff.
