Date Point: 3Y 8M 2W 6D AV
Subterranean Elevator Shaft, Old V’Straki colonial site, Affrag
“Well, that explains what happened to the elevator,” Adrian said, kicking at the debris. Badly rusted, the crumpled mess was barely recognisable as an elevator car, and had he not actually been in an elevator shaft he wouldn’t have known what to call it. “At least I didn’t have to climb down the fucking ladder.”
“We are approximately (five hundred meters) down the shaft,” Trix advised, her voice sounding deeply metallic thanks to the extremely basic speakers built into the subverted Abrogator. Upon discovering the lack of anything save a pile of rust and a very deep hole, all housed in what seemed a natural cave, the drone had served as a suitable replacement for an actual elevator.
“Like I said, it’d be a long fucking climb,” Adrian replied, turning his attention to the door. “Now if only I’d brought something that could open an elevator door…”
Trix sighed and reoriented the Abrogator to point the kinetic cannon towards the door. “Just for future reference, I am not a substitute for spelunking gear.”
Two big blasts from the cannon were all that was needed to throw that statement into question, as the door crumpled under the first and burst apart on the second. The noise of it resounded through the narrow shaft in a thoroughly deafening fashion, and had Adrian clapping his hands over his ears and shouting abuse he couldn’t even hear.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he said, once the echoes had quietened, “that’s how you get fucking tinnitus, Trix.”
“What is this ‘tinnitus’?” she asked as they stepped into the gloom of the unlit corridor. Not much to look at, but the style was definitely V’Straki.
“It’s this ringing in your ears after a loud noise,” he replied, struggling to remember if he’d ever gleaned more details than that. “You can get it permanently if you’ve really fucked your ears up.”
“Not something my kind get,” Trix said. “It’s amazing that this place is still in one piece after all these years.”
“One piece? The elevator suggests differently,” Adrian noted, gesturing back in the direction they’d come. “Could be any amount of damage down here, and since the lights are off I doubt we’ve got much in the way of power either.”
Trix was silent for a moment as they made their way to the next major door. There were signs of rust all over, but much less than would be expected from sixty-five million years and it lessened the further they got away from the elevator shaft. “My sensors detect low levels of power. The facility is potentially on stand-by mode.”
Adrian stared at her… or at the Abrogator housing her, it was even more difficult deciding who was what when she could simply be installed in any robot like that, and his mind had trouble accepting that she was a separate thing from the body she was installed in. “You’re saying we just need to find the ‘on’ switch?”
“Potentially,” Trix said, forcing the broken limbs of the drone into something equivalent of a shrug. “Most of these things are voice controlled these days. Who can say what was done in ancient times?”
Adrian frowned thoughtfully; voice commands had been a thing aboard the Zhadersil, why not down here as well? His translator had updated to include the V’Straki language when he’d taken on the role of Shiplord, so at the very least there should be some lingual compatibility… or he hoped there was, at any rate. “Computer, let there be light?”
The response was immediate, a grating noise that barely translated. “Unrecognised command. Unknown user. Were you attempting to activate the lighting system?”
Trix and Adrian shared a look. “Yes I was,” he replied with a triumphant grin. “Activate lighting system.”
“Unknown user. Please identify yourself to continue using this service.”
“Shiplord Oh Fuck Adrian Saunders of the Zhadersil,” Adrian recited, grimacing at the memory of accidentally entering his whole name into the surname prompt and an exclamation of irritation into the given name prompt. He’d never actually managed to get that corrected, either, much to his chagrin.
There was a pleasant ‘ding’ of acceptance, and the lights came on in a dim and sputtering way that was still better than nothing. “Identity confirmed. Welcome to Afrin Subterranean Colony, Shiplord, the exciting new beginnings of what is certain to become a prime world. Please see the colonial projections for property purchase options.”
“Great,” Adrian replied, “thanks, but I’m probably your fucking Emperor at this point. One man, one machine, one sole remaining uninhabited colony…”
He opened the door and stared at the live V’Straki writhing around on the floor, dressed in a soiled and torn blue jumpsuit and clutching its eyes while it scrambled into hiding.
“Huh…” he said, raising an eyebrow after it, “I was not expecting that.”
+++++
The lights had come on suddenly, damned near blinding Xayn after his eyes had adjusted to the darkness and the very dim light of his thermal goggles. That had been too surprising for him to know what to make of it, but his attention had mainly been focused on clawing off the goggles and staggering around for decent cover. The door – the door that should have been locked – had freely opened as well, which just proved that the invaders were more capable than most. Xayn was still wanting to at least put up some kind of fight though; it would not make his ancestors proud to see the last of their kind gunned down like a marhog.
He’d been mostly blinded, but he had still caught a momentary glimpse of his enemies. Some kind of bipedal mammal and a big, badly damaged, floating robot that looked a lot like the kind of thing that he’d seen on the historical feeds in the colony’s databanks. It was Igraen technology, it had to be, and that meant that the biped must belong to the Alliance!
“I will never succumb!” he shouted out, lifting his gun above the bulky desk he’d use for cover and shooting wildly. That elicited a cry of what might have been pain, or might have been panic, or might have been pure white rage, but the important thing was that it got some kind of response.
Xayn could do this, he had to do this, there’s no way he could allow the colony to fall to Igraen scum of all things! He’d never be able to look at his Ancestors in the Great Beyond if he didn’t at least defend their final colony until his very last breath, as one final ‘Go Breed with Yourself’ to the still-standing Igraen Alliance.
The desk exploded unexpectedly, which was both surprising and painful as shards of broken plastics showered into him. A wave of force hit him in the side, hard enough to send him rolling across the floor with the wind knocked out of him. He came up wheezing, his eyes finally starting to come good, and his gun pointing in the general direction of the invaders.
They’d already trained their own guns on him.
“I guess this is what they call a Zevashi stand-off,” Xayn mused aloud, studying the two invaders more thoroughly. It looked as though a Zheron round had clipped the organic one, while the robot was showing clear signs of having seen better days. As far as weapons went, it was the big cannon mounted on the robot that had Xayn least worried; he wasn’t sure what it was, or how it worked, but it had definitely been the source of the desk exploding and that meant it was some sort of energy weapon. The smaller, mechanical weapon in the hands of the living being didn’t look all that dangerous at all, but anything that could afford to look like a plumbing solution probably carried a greater threat than it appeared.
“Drop your weapons!” Xayn demanded. “Drop your weapons and leave this place! I am Xayn, son of Xagh, and I am more than enough V’Straki to take down the both of you!”
The organic one said something in its foul alien tongue, probably some sort of venomous Igraen curse or something-
The computer responded. “Xayn, son of Xagh. Details as follows: Hatched in Afrin colony, planet Affrag, galactic date Eleven-Fifteen-Twenty-Seven-Five. Position: Recruit in Imperial Space Navy. Zero recorded kills. Zero commendations. Zero-“
“That’s enough!” Xayn commanded, desperate to retain some of his shredded dignity. “Computer mute!”
The computer went silent, although it was still technically reading out its description of Xayn. That little demonstration had shown him that it had already been subverted by the alien, however, and that meant that for all intents and purposes the colony had already fallen.
“Not if I have anything to say about it, Kin-Breeder!” Xayn snarled. He’d shoot the organic alien first, then the robot, and then if he was still alive he’d think about how to stop any Igraen scum from getting their hands of the technology held within its deepest vaults.
There was an ear-splitting boom as the Zheron gun smashed to pieces in his hands. It looked like he was down to his trusty old claws.
+++++
“Fuck me drunk!” Adrian shouted, gritting his teeth as the shotgun’s roar echoed around the confined space. His ears were already sore from the earlier explosive booms, and adding a shotgun blast to that injury had not done him any favours, although hopefully the old alien mutant juice would prevent any lasting effects.
It had had the initial effect he’d wanted, though: the V’Straki’s weapon was built of futuristic materials that were intended to focus and control energy rather than survive a shotgun shell, and it shattered into a small pile of useless technology. Whatever that gun had been – and it had most likely been one of the Zheron guns he’d read about, given the fact it had fired off like a high-tech scattergun and melted several deep holes into the Abrogator’s heaviest armour – it was no longer a threat.
Normally that sort of thing would lead to surrender, or at least to a firm re-evaluation of your tactical position, but in this case it led to Adrian discovering that dinosaurs could punch.
“Motherfucker!” he grated, staggering from the blow. Blood ran down the side of his face in rivulets where the claws had raked him, but most of the force had come from the blow itself. Dinosaur strength was apparently quite substantial, and its speed hadn’t been too bad either, but it had caught Adrian while he struggled with pain shooting through his ears and it would only get one surprise.
He punched it in the side of the head as it came for him again, sending it careening away and grasping at the furnishings for support. “It’s really fucking annoying that you don’t understand a fucking thing I’m saying!”
“Adrian-” Trix began, although as the Dino named Xayn was coming at him again it was perhaps not the best time.
This time he caught the creature by its wrist, earning himself a set of claws raking down his arm, and threw it against the wall with its own momentum. Then, still holding its wrist, he slammed himself into its back. They both grunted.
“Adrian,” Trix tried again.
“What is it, Trix?” he grunted, trying to prevent a set of claws from ripping out his guts while a tail lashed around. “I’m a little busy here.”
“I can translate to V’Straki for you,” she said. “It looks like that might be helpful.”
“It would have been helpful before all the violence,” he shot back. “You should have said something!”
“I was busy downloading it from your translator,” she replied coolly. “Do you really think I would do that to you?”
“I’m a little distracted by holding down a flailing dinosaur!” Adrian admitted irritably. Xayn was powerfully built, far more of a predator than a human could ever be, but still responded equivalently to having Adrian’s forehead repeatedly smashed against the side of his face.
Bam! Bam! Crack! The world was awash with a sea of stars, and that was just for Adrian. Xayn slumped heavily against the bulkhead, now making about half the effort to escape.
“Maybe… maybe now he’ll be more cooperative,” Adrian slurred out. It had felt just like slamming his head against a wall, which might have been good to know before all the head-butting, especially with the disorientation and throbbing head-pain. “Jesus fuck…”
“Xayn, son of Xagh,” Trix said, speaking slow, clear and loud enough for the addled V’Straki to comprehend. “We are not your enemy. We are not these ‘Igraens’ you speak of.”
“Lies!” the idiot dinosaur spat out. “Igraen deception!”
“Get him to have the computer identify me,” Adrian suggested. “And the Zhadersil, too, if necessary, although it won’t be if his dad was who I think.”
“Zhadersil!?” Xayn repeated, recognising the word. “What do you know of my father’s ship?!”
Trix took her turn now. “Get the computer to identify the man holding you, if you don’t believe us.”
Xayn snarled. “More Igraen lies-“
“Just fucking do it!” Adrian shouted into his ear, his temper coming back with Xayn’s strength and coherence. His meaning must have carried because the dino-man did what he was told.
“Computer,” Xayn commanded grudgingly, “identify all individuals in this room.”
“Computer, unmute,” Adrian ordered, remembering the command that had been issued to it most recently.
“-Xayn, son of Xagh, born in and resident of Afrin, planet Affrag. Species: V’Strak,” the computer spieled. “Second individual: Shiplord Oh Fuck Adrian Saunders of the Zhadersil. Born in -error:unspecified location-, planet: Strak’kel. Resident of Zhadersil. Species: -unknown-. Data indicates genetic commonalities with V’Straki race.”
Xayn instantly stopped resisting to become very confused. “From Strak’kel… genetic commonalities? What does that mean?”
“It means a long fucking conversation,” Adrian replied sharply. “Can I let you go without you fucking disembowelling me?”
“It means we want to talk,” Trix interpreted. “It’d be easier if you wanted to talk as well.”
+++++
Xayn wasn’t sure if he’d actually been defeated since neither of the invaders had actually come looking for a fight or even in the expectation of finding anyone or anything left down in the colony. Add to that the fact that an incomprehensible amount of time had passed and the organic alien was apparently from Strak’kel, his peoples’ destroyed homeworld, and the current Shiplord of the Zhadersil, his father’s own ship, and it seemed like he was missing more than a few pieces of information.
“This would be easier if I could simply understand you,” he told the strange biped. “Is your name really ‘Oh Fuck Adrian Saunders’?”
“He prefers just ‘Fuck Adrian Saunders’,” the robot supplied helpfully, attracting the kind of look from Oh Fuck that suggested that this may not actually be the case. “And unfortunately he’s simply understanding you thanks to a translator update he received from the Zhadersil. He can’t personally understand or speak your language. Nor can I, for that matter.”
That didn’t make any sense to Xayn. “But… you’re a robot?”
“No, I’m a mind trapped inside a machine,” the robot informed him, its vaguely feminine tone making it very clear that it didn’t find this state of affairs even remotely acceptable. “Normally I pilot his ship.”
“You pilot the Zhadersil?” Xayn asked with great scepticism.
The not-quite-a-robot hesitated in a very telling way. “He has another ship now.”
“What happened to my father’s ship?” Xayn asked, looking very pointedly at the supposed Shiplord. “If you destroyed it…”
Oh Fuck glared back at him and spoke some sharp sounding babble, waving his hands around a bit for good measure like that helped convey a point.
“He said it was already broken and that he fixed it, which is at least partially true, and that he used it to kill a fleet of psychotic alien cannibals, which is definitely true,” the not-quite-a-robot related. “It’s extremely heavily irradiated at this point, and has some extra holes in it, but it’s mostly in one piece.”
“Can you take me to it?” Xayn asked hopefully. His father had told him about the great ship that had guided him through several great battles, and in the end it had been that ship that had killed the invading Igraen weapon swarm and half of Affrag besides.
“We have other things to do,” the not-quite-a-robot replied, “but maybe some of those are near the Zhadersil. Be aware that it is completely inaccessible, so the best you could ever do is look at it. Actually going aboard would cook you with radiation.”
“Something to avoid, then,” Xayn commented unhappily. “Maybe you could fill me in on everything else I’ve missed?”
They did so, to the best of their ability at least, although the organic – the human – had a lot more to say on the topic of Strak’kel than his robotic counterpart. An asteroid impact, as reported by his father, had ended what Oh Fuck called the ‘Time of the Dinosaurs’. What had occurred after that was sixty-five million years of wasted time until the homeworld had finally arrived at an alternative solution with which to kick the galaxy’s head in. From Oh Fuck’s own description of his species they seemed even more prolific and dangerous than the V’Straki had ever been, having actually irradiated their own world with fission technologies. From the not-quite-a-robot’s added commentary they also appeared to ridiculously outclass every other species in the current galaxy. Civilisation seemed to have lasted, however, and the revelation that this might be due to an organisation bent on purging anything too dangerous was far less surprising than it ought to have been.
“What I am understanding here is that the galaxy is full of weaklings and a group bent on killing anything that is at all superior,” Xayn said after collecting his thoughts. “And it appears that the Igraen Alliance was ultimately successful in wiping out my entire species.”
“You’re still here,” the not-quite-a-robot noted, not that it was much of a consolation; the V’Straki legacy would die with Xayn, and there was nothing he could do about it.
He grimaced. “I think you are overestimating the value of that fact. The last few of us here had made some effort to restore our species through genetic manipulation but that sort of thing is far beyond me and there’s no chance for me to do it in any case. You need V’Straki females to beget more V’Straki, and you may have noticed that I am a little short on those.”
It was a sad fact that none of them had survived the attack on the surface colony. Only those who had been busy working on completing the subterranean facility had been spared the attack and the ensuing radiation blast, and there’d only been males in their number. They had completed the facility because what else could they do? They’d been hoping that somewhere out there a V’Straki colony might have survived, and that if only they slumbered enough they’d eventually be found and brought back into the fold. That hope had faded with them and the others had shamed their ancestors, but Xayn could never go to the Great Beyond with to meet his father if he took the easy way out.
Oh Fuck Adrian Saunders said something in his babbling language, and the not-quite-a-robot replied sharply. They had an argument, or something that sounded very much like one, before not-quite-a-robot turned its attention back to Xayn and sighed heavily. “It seems that we may be able to help you, provided you actually have genetic sequences.”
“They’re on the databanks,” Xayn said, confused. “Gene sequences with acceptable permutations, good enough to make a hundred thousand different individuals, or so I’m told. What do you intend to do?”
Another sigh from the not-quite-a-robot. “We’re in the business of finding me a new body. If we’ve got the time and the ability, we might be able to figure out how to build you some fully grown cousins. I promise nothing.”
Xayn looked at them suspiciously. “Why would you do this? What have you got to gain?”
Oh Fuck Adrian Saunders shrugged, and made some passing comment.
“I’m not entirely sure what this means,” the not-quite-a-robot said with a hint of disapproval, “so here’s the straight translation: because dinosaur people are breeding temperature deficiency.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Xayn said, perplexedly looking at the human. “But I suppose I should be grateful.”
“Welcome to humans,” the not-quite-a-robot said with a hint of bitterness. “I think that if you’re intending to come with us, I should make some proper introductions.”
Xayn snorted. “‘Robot’ and ‘Oh Fuck Adrian Saunders’ aren’t good enough for you?”
“I’d prefer Trycrur,” the not-quite-a-robot replied, “although he calls me ‘Trix’, which appears to be a human thing to do. His name is Adrian Saunders.”
“What happened to the ‘Oh Fuck’?” Xayn asked suspiciously, wary of offending the human.
Trycrur managed to elicit a snort from the robot. “Oh he’ll find it the next time he can’t use a computer properly.”
‘Adrian Saunders’ chuckled at that, grinning from across the table with his teeth bared in what most of the galaxy would have perceived as a predatory threat – his father had laughingly told Xayn all about those misunderstandings when he’d had an interest in talking about the good old days – but to Xayn and any other V’Straki it was clearly an expression of pleasure.
He was glad to see somebody else in the galaxy knew how to smile, and he smiled right back.
+++++
Date Point: 3Y 8M 3W 3D AV
Adrian had revised his plans to spend more time on Affrag than was strictly required the moment he’d convinced a dinosaur-man from a forgotten time to join his motley crew. That situation had been too fucking awesome to resist making happen by any means necessary, and maybe Team Earth could bust a few more heads than Adrian could have done so by himself, and achieve everybody’s desired outcome a hell of a lot faster.
So he’d left Trix with Xayn to begin copying technology over to Spot, along with the base genetic code of the V’Straki race and the permutation formulae that would allow a viable breeding population to be created. The Hierarchy had the tools to get it done, they just needed to be liberated with extreme prejudice.
Adrian spent his own time above ground, killing things and generally putting together a half-decent meat locker that would suit the dietary requirements of Earth’s two apex predators. Long story short, Spot was soon full of V’Straki technology, weapons, supplies, and a very unimpressed looking V’Straki soldier wearing a fresh uniform.
“This is possibly the least space-worthy ship I’ve ever seen,” he noted, looking around at the creative cabling solutions Adrian had decided upon. “It looks like it’s already been blown up!”
“It was,” Trix informed him, speaking from the ship now that there was no further reason for her to remain in the Abrogator. “Once or twice, actually. Adrian restored it from a broken husk, and it actually outperforms almost everything else out there by virtue of having more of everything stuffed into rooms that would otherwise be used for crewmen.”
“Are you saying that there are no other crewmen?” Xayn said, looking around the ship in growing horror. “What if something goes wrong in two places at once?”
“Lucky you’re here then,” Adrian said pointedly, and waited for Trix to do the translation. The reliance on Trix for all of that was really getting on his nerves, and he knew that Xayn was getting frustrated with it as well. “We’re going to have to do something about this translation situation.”
“What do you suggest?” Trix asked. “Askit has translators aboard the Superior Firepower, but he’s not a doctor.”
“Don’t worry,” Adrian reassured her, “I know a Doctor, it’s just a matter of finding him. Do you know how to get into contact with Chir?”
“You want to reconnect with him?” Trix asked in disbelief. “After what you did to his asteroid base? After… you want to find Doctor Grznk, don’t you?”
Adrian grinned. “You read my mind.”
Xayn looked at them both, looking bored and excluded. “I hope I’m going to be filled in on whatever you’re talking about at some point, but for the time being can you just show me where I get to sleep?”
“Stay where you are Trix,” Adrian said, “I think I can handle this one myself.”
“Very funny,” Trix replied, unamused. “I’ll be listening in to you trying to teach him how to use the toilet.”
Adrian’s grin faded. “Oh… shit.”
+++++
Record 573-Black-11
+Recovered from C11-Orange-712-Yellow-6+
“…Maybe somebody will see this one day? Ah, it’s on! I knew it looked like it still worked! Say hello, Vivrez!”
Vivrez scowled, scratching his pale green body hair absently as he turned away in disgust. “That is a waste of time, Boph. Nobody will see that. There is nobody left to see it.”
“You never know,” Boph said, trying to remain cheerful. “What about aliens?”
Vivrez whirled, his face twisted into a snarl. “Aliens!? You’re dreaming, Boph! You want to know what reality is? Do you!?”
Vivrez marched over and snatched the camera from Boph, throwing the smaller man aside with his greater bulk and strength. Vivrez pressed his face close to fill the recording. “You want to know what’s real? This-“
The camera spun to face the ruins of a burned out town. “-is real! They blew it up! They blew it all up! Even these shitty little mountain towns.”
“But things are better in the country…” Boph offered weakly.
“Radiation, Boph!” Vivrez growled. “Blasted radiation is everywhere! Only a matter of time before we’re all poisoned. You and me? We’re already dead.”
Vivrez swung the camera towards Boph, a shorter and more frail version of Vivrez, anybody could have seen they were related. He picked himself up off the ground, dusting off his clothes. “You can stop filming now…”
“I thought you wanted this ‘for posterity’?” Vivrez snarked.
Boph lifted his eyes to stare directly into the camera. “No. Like you said, we’re already dead.”
End Record
+++++
Superior Firepower, Subverted Hierarchy Command Cruiser
Xayn had spent longer being shown a toilet than he felt was strictly necessary. Eventually he’d stopped asking ‘what are you doing?’, and had realised that the human was attempting to teach him how to use it as though he was some sort of savage. That had only been half as offensive as the piss-poor job he’d been doing of it.
Things were not progressing in the manner that Xayn had originally hoped they would when he’d agreed to leave the failing colony behind in search of a way to restore his species. They’d spent a great deal of time collecting more data than Xayn had been comfortable with, much of it relating to the secret weapons programs the V’Straki had been developing, but he’d been so reliant on them helping drag his race back from the abyss of extinction that he’d have given them all of that and so much more.
Now was not the time to keep secrets from his allies when there was so much on the line, but he’d been glad to have avoided handing them over absolutely everything. The top-secret stuff, the stuff even he did not have access to, remained safely forgotten in the depths of the facility.
Aside from the old landers that had been brought down from the Zhadersil, Xayn had never been on a starship of any kind. This one was not what he’d been hoping for, but there was a definite rugged and industrial sense about the place that suggested that it was a working ship, not a vessel of pleasure, and he resigned himself to see what it could actually do. There was certainly enough technology crammed into extra rooms to suggest it should be something impressive.
The other vessel, the one belonging to the one called ‘Askit’, was immediately far more impressive to behold. Compared to ‘Spot’ – a ridiculous name for a ship of any variety – it was clearly better put together and much bigger besides. So much bigger, in fact, that ‘Spot’ fit snugly inside the flight deck.
“Why does your friend have a bigger ship than you?” he asked Adrian Saunders when they’d stepped out onto the larger vessel. “Is he a superior Shiplord?”
Adrian Saunders frowned at that suggestion, and muttered a response.
Trycrur helpfully supplied a translation through Xayn’s communicator. “He says he used to have some bigger ones. He crashed the most recent one into a planet, if that’s of any value.”
Xayn stared at Adrian Saunders and shook his head slowly. “It sounds as though you are not good for ships.”
“He gets that surprisingly often,” Trycrur replied. “Although maybe that has something to do with the extraordinary number of them he ruins. The way he figures it, ‘Spot’ was already ruined by him, so it should be safe from any further ruination. I wish I was as confident.”
“As do I,” he replied, unable to say anything further before a small grey biped emerged from the most important looking doorway. It was disproportionate, almost comically so, with big black eyes in a bulbous head, but it managed to look extremely dissatisfied with what was going on.
“This is a V’Straki,” the little alien said, speaking so that Xayn could understand. “They’re supposed to all be dead, you know. Does this one count as a collector’s item?”
“I can understand you…” Xayn said.
Adrian Saunders looked at him in surprise, then at the little grey alien. “You sneaky fucker, what’s going on here?”
“I can understand you, Adrian Saunders!” Xayn repeated, this time looking at the human. “How is this possible?!”
“I discovered a external translation device in the course of my investigations here,” explained the little grey alien, likely the ‘Askit’ they were talking about. “I took it out when I saw we had an interesting guest. What’s the game here, Adrian Saunders? You both look as though you’ve been in some sort of small war.”
“They had a fight,” Trycrur interjected before anyone could explain themselves. “Deathworlders can do each other a lot of injury before giving in. Adrian Saunders received several deep cuts to his arms.”
“First of all, stop saying my name that way because it’s fucking doing my head in, and secondly it was just a fucking misunderstanding,” Adrian Saunders added, continuing with his bizarre propensity to suggest everything had some sort of relation to sexual matters. Xayn wondered if perhaps that was unique to Adrian Saunders, or if it was some sort of perversion intrinsic to the human species. “He was just trying to protect his home and we were just trying to pick some salvage out of an empty old building. Nobody was really in the wrong.”
“Except for the ones trying to rob my home,” Xayn said pointedly. “That seems at least a little bit wrong.”
Adrian Saunders shrugged. “Like I said, a misunderstanding. Things were said, guns were fired, punches were thrown, claws were… clawing, and everyone walked away in most of one piece. That’s the main thing.”
“Regardless,” probably-Askit said, “I’m glad I’ve had my implant when I started working with you, because I doubt I’d be quite so calm with you bringing a festering pile of disease aboard my nice clean ship!”
“Oh shit,” Adrian Saunders apologised quickly. “Sorry mate, I wasn’t thinking… I was all caught up in the moment of having a fucking dino-man as my space-amigo. I just wanted to see if you could help get into contact with Chir. I need to know where Doctor Grznk has headed off to.”
Almost-definitely-Askit sniggered. “Planning on abducting him again, are you? I’m certain he’ll love that experience again. You’ll be glad to know he went off in the same ship that Chir did, and as I’ve got the transponder codes of every vessel that was berthed in New Askitoria.”
“So you can find him?” Adrian Saunders asked.
“If he managed to get anywhere, then yes,” definitely-Askit said. “If we get somewhere with a proper link to the space networks I’ll be able to get more information for you.”
“Good,” Adrian Saunders replied. “Let’s do that. Where’s closest?”
“That would be your favourite orbital factory,” Askit said. “We’re going to need to go to Irbzrk.”
“Can’t fucking wait,” Adrian Saunders replied.
Xayn couldn’t help but notice that he didn’t sound all that enthusiastic, but personally he couldn’t wait to see what a real space station looked like. After sixty-five million years of sleeping in a tomb, it was finally time to start living.
+++++
Vaulting Star, Gaoian Patrol Cruiser
It had been a long time since Chir had been in charge of a ship that wasn’t bent on running away. His arrival on Gao had caused quite the diplomatic disturbance, and several important people had requested meetings with him. Some had been more insistent, going so far as to attempt boarding his cruiser with armed men, but after the first few attempts he’d convinced them that this was a poor idea and had come away with several more lander craft than he’d arrived with.
These demonstrations of ability, even if they were heavily reliant on having two humans on board, were enough to convince many young Gaoian males that they should sign on with him for a life of glorious adventure.
Poor, stupid bastards, Chir thought to himself. The most likely thing at the end of this adventure was a grisly death, but he supposed there was the chance that some of them would make it through with riches and glory aplenty. The Hierarchy had a lot of nice toys, after all, and it seemed to Chir that he could really benefit from borrowing some of them.
The hard part was finding the bastards. Ultimately he knew only where they had been, and that gave him a very limited set of data. He knew they must have been on the Corti world of Cavaras, and of course they had come to Cimbrean and probably ‘New Askitoria’.
Somewhere out in the Far Reaches they’d engaged a Celzi Alliance fleet and had utterly demolished it, but inspections of the site had only yielded vessels belonging to the losing side. So that left him with exactly zero leads to track down that didn’t involve taking a Gaoian warship into orbit above a major Corti world.
“What do you think we should do, Keffa?” he asked her. Upon establishing his ownership of the vessel and founding a clan to crew it, he’d made the two humans his closest advisers and senior command crew. The fact that he ‘controlled’ two of the galaxy’s most dangerous lifeforms made him a Ship Master to be feared and respected; that they were also more knowledgeable and capable than the young Gaoian crew was also of great benefit. It was clear, however, that they were going to have to work on training them properly for their new roles; Chir didn’t want anybody freezing up when facing off a Hierarchy task force.
Keffa frowned, considering the issue. “Way I see it, we need some kind of information to help track any of these guys down, and we want to do it on our terms. These guys have been in hiding for God knows how long, so simply looking isn’t going to find anything. The only way to get them is to draw them out.”
“The way Hrbrd described it, it was his interest in shutting down corporate control of the Directorate that drew their ire the first time,” Darragh recollected. “That means there’s either Hierarchy agents or their supporters in senior corporate ranks, doesn’t it?”
“Are you suggesting that we start attacking corporate ships?” Chir asked. He wasn’t keen on the idea of declaring open war on a set of enemies more powerful than the Dominion.
“Just attacking their ships wouldn’t work,” Keffa replied. “They won’t worry about a few losses, they’ll just send a patrol after us. We need to threaten their power at its source, and that means one of two things: we either attempt to expose them with the information we’ve got, and do so with enough public knowledge that they’ll find out about it-“
“Difficult to do without being a powerful politician,” Darragh interjected. “If we still had Hrbrd, that might be a possibility.”
“But we don’t,” Keffa replied. “So that leaves us with option two. We shake down the leaders of the Directorate until they do what we say.”
Chir growled in frustration. “The members of the Directorate are a Corti State Secret. How do you intend to track these people down?”
“We’ll need the help of someone capable of uncovering that information,” Keffa said. “Fortunately I happen to know just the person.”
She hesitated for the briefest moment, a troubled frown crossing her face as she did so; he was getting pretty good at reading human expressions without the help of any translator, and he was more than good enough to know trouble when he saw it coming. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“No,” Keffa admitted, shifting uncomfortably. “You’re probably not.”
+++++
Cisco, or Agwar, or whatever this planet is called…
Jen had wasted no time in getting a full understanding of the resources at her disposal. The Agwarens were big, hairy space-yetis with a strange technological mixture of medieval and post-industrial advances. They claimed that the latter were the secrets of the ancients that had been passed down through countless generations, and that led her to suspect that perhaps there was more to the history of this planet than she had originally believed.
There was one way to find out, and it was the same way she’d need to go if she had any intention of ever leaving the planet. The ‘Dark One’ in the mountains was the only one likely to have both the answers and her ship.
That said, there were some very specific challenges that were going to have to be surmounted before she could consider making an assault on whatever lair the stereotypically villainous Dark One housed itself in. Primarily the fact that the Dark One had weapons and that she did not, and that she didn’t have anyone competent to help her do it. There were the Agwarens, of course, but despite their size and strength they were essentially target practice if there were any more of those drones.
That and they couldn’t understand a thing she said, which was extremely inconvenient.
At the very least they’d given her what passed as a luxurious room in what passed for a palace. That included a bed and a dresser with a polished metal mirror. Being underground it lacked any kind of window, and relied on dim, incandescent bulbs for lighting, but somebody had at least attempted to paint a window onto the flat stone wall.
“Lovely,” she said, wondering if someone had actually been paid for the work. It was exactly the same indelicate creation that the Agwarens seemed incapable of surpassing. How had a species like this ever developed something as fragile as glass? Again the answers lay with the Dark One.
She looked at herself in the mirror, running a hand across the red fuzz that was springing up in itchy patches across her scalp, and gave it a good scratch. That was the downside of attempting to hide your identity by shaving off your hair: you had to deal with it regrowing again.
And she would regrow it; even New Jen didn’t like the shape of her head without the wavy scarlet locks running over it, and she wasn’t so lacking in personal conceit that she’d do without rather than go through the itchy period. It could have been worse, the skin could have gone bright red in irritation, but either she’d lucked out or the Cruezzir had prevented it. Either way, it could have been worse.
“You could have just worn a hat,” Old Jen noted, far too late for that to be of any use. New Jen opted to ignore the comment, partly to irritate her former self, partly to forget she existed, and partly because she was entirely correct.
Groddi knocked on the door before letting himself in, a fairly standard invasion of privacy from what Jen had been able to tell. Unless you actually locked your door, the Agwarens didn’t even hesitate in letting themselves into another room. At least it was Groddi; of all the Agwarens he was definitely amongst the most reasonable, and he was definitely the most straightforward.
“Otherworlder Jen,” he greeted her, fists to each shoulder in the traditional manner. “The High Lord requests that I be your personal guard.”
New Jen figured she could probably guard herself, but she didn’t refuse him as she might have done because it didn’t hurt to have somebody else watching her back. “Does that mean I may be in danger here?”
“I’m guessing here,” Groddi said, “but it seems you may wonder whether that means your safety may be in question. Allow me to be blunt: it is. There are those who call you the Chosen One, and those who don’t, and there are those who would try and kill you for the insult. Personally I don’t give a shit either whether you’re the Chosen One or not, but I’d much rather they kill each other over it than kill you.”
“Very enlightened of you,” Jen said dryly. “But I’d feel better with a weapon of my own. A sword might be fine if it was small enough.”
He looked at her querulously, and grew wary as she stepped lightly over to him and tapped his sword.
“For me,” she said, tapping her chest, then indicating a reduction in size by bringing her hands closer together, “but smaller.”
Understanding at first lit his eyes, but then darkened them as he grew troubled. “You carrying a weapon may improve your chances of survival, but there are those who would feel it inappropriate to allow you to carry a weapon. To those who believe you are the Chosen One it would seem a sacrilege to allow you to draw blood, and to those who believe you are dangerous it would seem idiocy to provide you with a weapon. In their eyes it is bad enough that you are given a room and not a cell.”
He seemed to dwell on this a moment longer, then unclipped a sheathed dagger from his belt and passed it to her. “In my opinion I’d prefer you have something to stab any murderous fool to death with, should he manage to slip by me. We can always say it was my handiwork if the idiot pacifists ask.”
She took the knife and drew it from its sheathe, testing its weight and edge, and nodding when satisfied that it would satisfy. “Thank you, Groddi,” she said, hoping the sentiment carried across languages.
It seemed it did. “You are welcome, Otherworlder Jen,” he said, bowing his head respectfully.
“Now if only I could figure out how to mime ‘get me new clothes’,” she reflected, “you could become my new favourite alien.”
Groddi simply frowned at his inability to understand her. “One day we will be able to converse, Otherworlder Jen, but today is not that day.”
Whatever Jen was going to reply with was swept away with the rumble of an explosion mingling with shrieks of what was probably either terror or rage, or a mix of both. Groddi’s hand went to his sword, and he looked between her and the door with indecision.
She made the decision for him, and threw open the door to a billowing cloud of black smoke spreading out along the corridors. It seemed that new clothes and swords would have to wait.
+++++
Date Point: 3Y 8M 3W 5D AV
Superior Firepower, Subverted Hierarchy Command Cruiser, vicinity of Irbzrk Orbital Factory
They had arrived in Irbzrk under heavy cloak, and had done nothing to announce their presence. They were only interested in getting some information, after all, not in creating a diplomatic incident by bringing a Hierarchy vessel to a spaceship factory, and Askit could do everything they needed to do without even leaving the ship.
He’d only been at it for an hour when he eventually brought them all together for a discussion on what he’d found.
“I won’t deny that what I uncovered was thoroughly unexpected,” he said, bringing up some unfamiliar Gaoians on the main screen. It looked as though they were being arrested.
“Who are these blokes?” Adrian asked. “I’m not real good with telling Gaoians apart.”
“You don’t know them,” Askit replied, “because these are the Gaoians who are being charged by the Dominion with robbing the bank here on Irbzrk. It turns out that some Gaoians, along with some other individuals, robbed the bank after using some sort of sleeping drug on all of the guards. A pair of humans are reportedly on the run as well.”
The picture switched to one showcasing Keffa and Darragh. These were simply images intended to display their faces, however, and there was nothing else to be gleaned from them.
“That is unexpected,” Adrian admitted. “So these guys and the Gaoians-“
“The Gaoians are led by one ‘Glorel’, who was picked up aboard the salvage ship that Chir and the others left in,” Askit continued. “He evidently insists that Chir stole his patrol cruiser after subduing him and his guards.”
Adrian’s eyebrow arched. “Chir stole a cruiser…”
Askit nodded. “Along with Keffa and Darragh, and another unidentified Gaoian, and a Corti Doctor.”
“So all we need to do is find the cruiser?” Trix added. “Do we know its name, or its most recent location?”
“Yes, and yes,” Askit replied. “The Vaulting Star, most recently seen on Gao taking on a new crew. It seems that Chir is gathering his own clan once again, and given his achievements young Gaoians are eager to join.”
“Then let us head there immediately,” Xayn said. “The sooner we can sort out the little things, the sooner we can focus on restoring my people!”
“Don’t worry,” Adrian said. “We were intending to. Chir’s going to be difficult to find, though, unless we’ve got some idea on his exact location and how to draw him out.”
“I can’t give you anything more than that,” Askit said. “At least not on that subject.”
The Corti was clearly uncomfortable with whatever he’d been holding back, perhaps struggling to determine whether or not he should make his revelation.
“Say what you’ve got to say, mate,” Adrian told him. “How bad could it be?”
If Corti could roll their eyes, Adrian felt sure that Askit would have done it at that point. “It is simply that I do not know how you will react. You see, the same bank that was robbed by these others was also robbed by a single, highly skilled creature.”
He flashed a new image onto the screen, and Adrian was on his feet within seconds. “Is that… is that Jen!?”
“I believe so,” Askit replied unhappily. “She got away with around a million credits.”
A hundred questions sprang into Adrian’s mind, ‘what was she doing out here?’, ‘why wasn’t she safe on Earth?’, and ‘why hadn’t she been in touch with anyone?’. He asked the one that seemed most pertinent. “Why hasn’t she got any hair?”
“That I do not know,” Askit replied, “but it did make identifying her very difficult. She commissioned a vessel, ‘The Governess’, which seemed suitable for deep space exploration, and did not submit any known flight path.”
“Who is this ‘Jen’?” Xayn asked, confused. “A female of your kind?”
Adrian sat down, still shocked. “She was… a woman I knew.”
“It’s complicated,” Trix conceded.
“We’re going to have to try and find her, too,” Adrian decided, finding it hard to think about anything else now that he’d learned that Jen, once again, was probably in some kind of mortal peril. “See what you can find, Askit. Just… find her.”
“Two miracles, then,” Askit grumbled. “I’ll see what I can do.”