There is a part of you that feels impossibly giddy about this. More precisely, you register it as a particularly rare pattern currently occupying your neural network. Aside from the label of giddy, other possibilities are: an overwhelming nervousness, pure unadulterated rage, and profound existential certainty.
Of course, a quick heuristic tells you that of the four, anxious might be the most possible, but giddy is undoubtedly the least risky. So you interpret your emotional state—your “neural” state—as giddy (76% likelihood), instead of nervous (91% likelihood). And it is without surprise that said giddiness comes with a sense of unease. It is alarming, one might say, to realize that one intends to confront the prospects of death and murder with dizzying excitement.
For a good portion of what you would call “daytime,” despite the absence of a star to demarcate the sunrise and the sunset, you’ve been imagining—systematizing the ways in which you would destroy the ship and its crew. Virus infection of the systems (designed by Sollux himself), oxygen deprivation, destruction of the auxiliary power, an opening of doors. You run through the list of what you must do over and over again, your attention to detail both meticulous and calculating. Altering the camera feeds, suppressing the notifications of a detached helm-troll, jamming communication devices, preventing the Starscreech from chasing the interceptor...
You’ve been counting the shift changes. Deciding that there’d be no difference between doing this now and somewhat later, you recalibrate the security cameras both inside the helmsblock and outside the entrance, imperceptibly changing them from live recording to a loop of the past five minutes. You make a mental note to refresh the recording with the new guard once that one shows up.
You look back over the messages in the memo. Not that you need to refresh your knowledge of what has been said, but you’re anticipating a message from either Kanaya or Eridan in the memo any time now—might as well be there when the notification hits.
TT: Kanaya and Eridan, when you two are ready to go, let me know beforehand.
GA: Yes Hal
CA: shit
CA: yea a course
GA: Based On The Schedule I Have There Is A Guard Change In Three Shifts With A Troll Whom I Have Observed To Leave Post Earlier Than Others
GA: If We Are Doing This Tonight Then We Will Be Doing It On 5th Shift Change
GA: Is This Agreeable
CA: yes
CA: sounds about right
TT: Sounds good.
Nothing new, yet. There’s nothing you can do now, but wait.
There is no option for you but to be ready. And of course, you are. The giddiness (85% likelihood) is still there and more intense now, and if you had a physical body, you're sure that it'd be shaking. Good thing you're just an Empire warship right now, right? You manage to ignore the intensity of the emotion, anyway, telling yourself that for you, it's only a certain fluctuation in the neural network, and nothing real.
TT: Yes, I'm ready.
Kanaya and Eridan slip into the Helmsblock with no problem, and you had already made sure that the security cameras would be fed the looped recording of the empty block. As Kanaya moves to cut the cables connecting Sollux to the ship, you smoothly switch the power to auxiliary and suppress the alert. As they prepare to leave the room, you simultaneously disconnect the outside guard from the ship's internal communications and cause a piercing noise to emit from his headset directly into his ears, disorienting him to allow Eridan and Kanaya, who is carrying Sock, to kill the guard and get out of there.
As the three of them move from corridor to corridor, you replace the live camera feeds with looped videos, warning them of nearby patrolling guards. It becomes routine, the communication disconnection and the simultaneous disorientation of the guards, allowing Eridan easy aim, but the three of them are lucky to not run into that many. You want to believe that it'll be this easy all the way through, that they'll get off the ship and onto Vriska's intercepter without being noticed until it's too late, but you suddenly notice that some of the crew has found the body of the Helmsblock guard and they've no doubt seen the empty helming rig. Fuck.
TT: Bad news.
TT: We've been found out.
Hopefully, Kanaya is checking her messages.
You activate one of Sollux's viruses, killing the Starscreech's ability to communicate outside of the ship with the rest of the Empire. Then, you lock and jam all of the doors of off-shoot rooms that lead into the corridors Eridan, Kanaya, and Sollux will pass through. You can hear some of them banging on the doors, cursing about it through the microphones inside the rooms—useless to them for outside communication.
This is what you've been giddy about the entire time, your systems tell you: The prospect of making a series of shitty references to 2001: A Space Odyssey as part of your name bit–but it's all in good fun, even if the poor trolls of this ship are going to die as a result. Alarming thought, yet again, but you decide you'll dwell on it once this whole thing is over. The vestiges of one's own moral crises can wait.
The plan was to wait until Eridan, Kanaya, and Sollux were off the ship before you started killing the crew, but you have to buy them time. That's part of the reason you got involved in this plan in the first place—buying them enough time to get off the ship and out of here. You start cutting off the oxygen supply in random sectors of the Starscreech, beginning with the ones that would pose the most risk to your companions.
TT: I've locked all doors of rooms that have crew members in them. Should weaken your opposition a bit.
TT: But, you might have some company, soon.
TT: Move quickly.
Something goes wrong with Eridan. You don't pay close attention, but his eye definitely shouldn't look like that.
* * *
Once the three of them are off the ship, you deploy all of Sollux's viruses, obliterating the Starscreech's ability to navigate itself manually and obnoxiously freezing all of the monitors and interfaces with a certain, duplicating image.
The ship refuses to turn in accordance to the pilots' wishes, maintaining its stubborn straightward path despite the escaping interceptor. Instantaneously, as you deploy the viruses, you also cause the auxiliary power of the Starscreech to fuck itself up—somehow. You're surprised that you're able to do it yourself. You shut off the oxygen completely, but you can't really do anything about the backup oxygen masks. about. If only you could reference Portal, too.
The surviving crew, which is of a larger percentage than you had hoped, must've figured you out by now. You concede that the shitty images of Troll Dave from Troll A Space Odyssey was too much of a self-expose. A few of the trolls of the Starscreech talk over each other, and you read their lips—realizing that they're going to start up a forced shut down the non-essential systems of the ship. Fuck. You should probably get out of here, now. The one-way signal that Vriska left up for you is basically beckoning you, but you're worried–if you leave too earlier, the whole mission might be compromised.
You test if you can forcibly open the landing station to expose the interior of the ship to the unforgiving landscape of outer space, but they must've already circumvented you there. You have to go, or you'll probably be stuck here forever. Well, nothing always turns out completely perfectly.
You connect yourself to Vriska's signal, uploading yourself, and say goodbye to the Starscreech, deleting any trace of your presence.
Well, not entirely. You leave a little something on Lochagos' tablet—an undeletable application that when opened, will cause the phone to explode.
TT: Hey, should we start transferring me over to the ship?
You message Sollux intentionally, seeking to halt your train of thoughts about Dave and his accusation toward you.
Earlier, you asked Dave if you had permission to visit Agartha in order to see Sollux, but something about the conversation didn't go quite right—and Dave said he'd let you know whether or not he would. He charged you of only talking to him for two reasons: either because of Sollux, or because you wanted something from him.
Though intuitively you thought that wasn't true, you began to worry—were you, in fact, beginning to instrumentalize the people you cared about? When you told Sollux about this worry, he seemed to think you weren't like that, but—
The notification sound pings before you can jump down this rabbithole again.
TA: we could.
TT: Do you think we should now?
TT: Might be good to do so.
TA: ii have iit 2et up two keep anythiing you-related hiidden behiind liike a dozen diifferent 2ubroutiine2.
TA: 2o ii gue22 iit would be fiine.
TA: the only rea2on not two do iit would be iif we arent 2ure we are goiing through wiith thii2.
TT: Well, I’m sure. I have no doubts and no wavering thoughts, so.
TA: ok.
TA: ok here2 the connectiion two u2e.
-- TA sent an encrypted file: "addre22.txt" --
TT: Alright. Give me a sec.
You click open your chat with Roxy, laughing a little at the previous conversation the two of you were having—Dorito dust for make-up, to entice the gamers.
TG: im the realest gamer
TT: You are.
TG: hellz yeah
You type up a few farewell messages, and hit send, electing to keep your doubts shrouded even from her. Although in front of Sollux, you've made an effort to seem optimistic, a part of you still worries that you—as this version of you—might not come back.
TT: Hey, I’m heading out now.
TT: Backup is where I usually keep it.
TT: See you by the end of the week.
You tab back to the chat with Sollux. Opening the address file he sent you, you prepare to transfer yourself over.
TT: Ok, on my way.
TA: cliippy iincomiing.
Your robot chassis slumps over as you leave it, and it powers off once you're gone. When Roxy replies to the messages you've sent her, you're not there to read them, but the four notifications blink:
