Whose side are you on?

The Fleet's enlightened expansionism, or...

image [https://i.imgur.com/Nts19oL.png]

...the Kindreds' elegant ethos.

image [https://i.imgur.com/OhtOAJf.png]

Your choice may very well decide the fate of Arachnea. Choose wisely!

SIKE! Here's this week's chapter anyway. Enjoy.

He was woken by the gradual brightening of the room, the ambient lighting changing to simulate the rosy tint of a dawning suns. Rene rolled off the bed and dragged himself over to the water bowl, the hem of his baggy pants scuffing against the floor with every drowsy step he took.

Rene had spent the majority of his life inside Mound Ulysses where darkness was ubiquitous, the day and night cycles determined by the uncouth visitations of the knocker-ups, a class of civil servants whose job was to go around nudging people in the ribs with their hobnailed boots to make sure they got to work on time. He wasn’t accustomed to being roused so gently, and the lack of incentive made him cranky.

Other than that, however, the past few days of living on the lunar base had passed like a dream. The Commodore had ordered them all confined them to quarters for a few weeks to ensure their smooth adjustment to the moon’s gravity well—or so he claimed.

Rene knew better. He had been disheartened by the news initially, as he’d been planning to find some way back to the landing bay to recover Exar and get the spirit’s perspective on things. But now he was finding that he actually enjoyed his imprisonment. The dormitories had everything a man could need: a soft bed, running water from a bowl, hot showers, toiletries, racks of fresh clothes, and best of all, the food synthesizer.

This magic box sat on the faux marble countertop of the kitchenette that came with Rene’s already enormous dormitory room. Judging from the overlarge dimension of the place, the Exodians must have been goliaths several heads taller than the average man of the Fleet. Rene’s bed was so wide and luxurious that at times he felt like he was drowning in it.

“Dobroye utro, praporshchik,” said a clipped male voice from somewhere inside the ceiling.

“You’re speaking that nonsense again,” Rene grumbled as he rinsed his face and rubbed his bleary eyes.

“Apologies. Language settings modified. Archaic English selected. Good morning, ensign.”

“Morning,” he said without batting an eyelid. Two weeks ago, holding a conversation with an incorporeal presence might’ve spooked him, but so much had happened since then that he simply accepted it as another inexplicable facet of his new existence.

“How are you feeling?”

“Famished,” Rene eagerly padded over to the synthesizer, “What’s for breakfast?”

A menu materialized before him. Rene scrolled through the hundreds of options and said:

“Scrambled eggs and fried turnip cake please. And a cup of that ‘joe’ thing you gave me yesterday.”

“Milk and sugar?”

“You know it.”

“Synthesizing. Please stand by.”

A look of pure contentment came over Rene’s face as the box began hum, delectable smells wafting out of its interior. The box lit up from within, allowing him to peer through the tinted walls at an empty plate and cup sitting on a turntable. A pointed armature like that of a sewing machine descended and started to extrude a grey paste, applying it one wafer-thin layer at a time.

Watching the synthesizer at work was hands-down the favourite part of Rene’s day. Already he’d spent countless hours playing around with the box’s settings, watching the chosen delicacies manifest themselves into being before sampling each dish with the tiniest of nibbles. He would then hurl the rest of it uneaten down the disposal chute, where the spirit of the box assured him the foodstuff would be rendered down and recycled for the next meal. It was a bit surreal to think that the stuff he was having now were composed of yesterday’s leftovers. They certainly didn’t taste or look like it.

Within moments the food took shape, surfaces browning rapidly as it was seared by an invisible flame. Simultaneously a jet of steaming brown liquid filled the cup to the brim.

Ding!

“Breakfast is served. Have a very safe day,” the box announced. Rene took his meal out of the synthesizer and bustled out of his room, heading for the communal dining room. In the corridor ahead of him he could hear a frantic banging as of a cornered beast hurling itself against the bars of its cage.

Neroth’s acting up again, Rene thought dismally. Had the boy even slept a wink at all? So much for enjoying breakfast in peace. Rene set his breakfast down on the oval dining table and walked up to Neroth’s door, which was shuddering from repeated impacts.

Sentry drones posted on either end of the corridor wheeled into position, accompanied by a pack of quadrupeds outfitted with electric prodders.

“Prisoner, cease and desist!” the sentries blared in the Commodore’s pre-recorded voice, “Step away from the door, or we will be forced to deploy suppressive measures!”

“I’ll handle this,” Rene said, waving them back, “Oy, kid! You alright in there?”

He banged out the “shave and a haircut” couplet on the door with his fist. The racket on the other end subsided, and moments later Rene heard two meek answering knocks. Turning to the sentries he cocked a thumb at the door, which slid open to frame a scene of absolute chaos.

Yet again the boy had upended every single piece of furniture in his room, tearing the mattress and pillows to foamy shreds this time for good measure. Five-fingered scratch marks scored into the wall and floor panels showed where the occupant had attempted to dig his way out.

Rene found Neroth curled up in one corner of the ceiling, having tied the corners of his blanket to the light fixtures and bunk bed rails to form a tenuous sort of cradle.

“Been having those panic attacks again?” Rene asked, leaning casually against the doorframe. The blanket shifted slightly as the boy nodded.

“This place is too small,” Neroth explained, “I can’t prove it, but the roof keeps getting lower and lower—I feel like it’s going to squish me flat any minute now.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Don’t you have your own room back in Leaper land?”

“No. Me and the other braves slept in our own silk hammocks back at the Loom,” Neroth said wistfully, “But the Loom doesn’t have a roof. Only the sky.”

“And if there was a storm? How did you sleep then?”

“We’d cover ourselves in fatwax leaves. They were dry and snug as anything. I liked to hear the rain pattering through the leaves.”

Rene tried to put himself in Neroth’s shoes. Unlike the mound-dwelling masses of the Fleet, Neroth and all exoforms were creatures accustomed to wide open spaces and total freedom of movement. Being confined to quarters, even ones as spacious as these, had to be nothing short of suffocating for them.

“I’ll try talk to the Commodore,” Rene said, seeing a chance to kill two birds with one stone, “Maybe get him to grant you a few minutes of exercise out in the landing bays. Ancestors know I need to stretch my legs as well.”

“You’d do that for me?”

“Certainly. It couldn’t hurt to ask.”

“Maybe for you it couldn’t. The monster-man hates me even more than he hates the Gallivant.”

“Er…maybe don’t call him that out loud, eh?” Rene advised, conscious of the soulless eyes of the sentinels staring at them, “Speaking of Gallivants, is Zildiz up yet?”

“Think so. Hollered at me to shut up a while ago. Then she got all quiet and started talking to herself again.”

Wonderful, Rene thought. Now I’ve got two mental cases to deal with.

“I’ll go to have a chat with her too. In the meantime, I need you to control yourself. I’ll help you clean up your room after breakfast. Catch you outside in five minutes, alright?”

“I’ve already been caught. That’s why I’m in here, isn’t it?”

“It’s a figure of…you know what, never mind. Just climb up out of there, okay?”

A knobby little fist appeared over the hem of the blanket and gave him a thumbs up. Rene had shown him the gesture very early on and was pleased to see it had caught on.

But a morsel of guilt wormed its way into Rene’s stomach as well. He hated manipulating a child’s weaknesses like this. But he had to find a way to reach Exar just as much as he needed to win the cosmophages onto his side.

“Trust me, there’s nothing like a little shared misery to bind a set of people together,” the Commodore had said when last they’d met, “If they perceive you as a fellow prisoner instead of their assistant jailor, they’ll soon learn to trust you. It’s called the Stockholm syndrome."

“All due respect to Stockholm, but he didn’t have to bunk with a pair of flesh-eaters. What if they go stir-crazy and decide to gobble me up?” Rene had asked.

“There are many intermediate stages between general unhappiness and full-blown cannibalism,” said the Commodore with the air of someone who knew exactly what they were talking about, “I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you.”

The Commodore was barely paying attention to him as he poured over his endless warsim games, a look of frustration permanently etched into his wizened features. Assuming that the red dots represented the enemy and the blue dots the Fleet, the Commodore seemed to lose an awful lot more than he won, with most of the map turning red at the end of every match.

Rene doubted the Commodore had the time to keep them all under constant surveillance. But he sure wasn’t going to be happy to hear that the base’s facilities had been trashed yet again.

He turned the corner of Zildiz’s room and was thankful to find them the furnishings intact. Zildiz herself was squatting atop the backrest of her chair, the improbable posture showcasing her impeccable sense of balance and fine motor control. She had one arm raised and was staring at it, transfixed by the subtle shifting of the tendons in her fingers. The skin of her forearm was covered in teeth marks, reddened and inflamed by constant rubbing.

“What do you want, Fleet-man?” she said without looking at him.

“Just checking up on you,” Rene replied, “What’s the matter?”

“It’s just so poorly designed,” she mused, “How do you people stand it?”

“Stand what?”

“Being so flaccid. So powerless. You run around clothed in nothing but your innards, totally exposed to the elements. The slightest application of pressure on your epidermis and…”

She set her incisors against the ball of her thumb and bit down, hard. Bright beads of blood welled up and she watched them drip onto the floor with a look of morbid fascination on her face. Disturbed, Rene snatched a pillowcase from her bunk and wrapped it hurriedly around her wound. Zildiz sat unresisting while he clasped her hand tightly in his, something which alarmed him even further.

“Pull yourself together Zildiz.”

“Go and sit on a pointy stick,” she said listlessly, pulling away from him.

“I’ve already got Neroth climbing up the walls. I can’t have you going to pieces on me too. Come on, let’s go get something to eat.”

“What’s the point?” she pouted, “This frail and useless vestment of mine will wither in time, as surely as the suns rise over the hills.”

“I thought you Gallivants were made of sterner stuff,” he challenged, trying to goad her out of the slump she was in, “I mean, look at Neroth,” Rene added as the boy shambled past the door on his way to the common room still wrapped in his blanket, “At least he’s persevering. Are you going to be outdone by a Leaper? And a prepubescent one at that?”

“That spineless quim can play the good lapdog if he wants to,” she said, a bit of the old fire kindling in her eyes, “I’ve better things to do with my time than partake in your morning feeding rituals.”

“Like sulking in here alone all day long?”

“I am not sulking,” she said, quick to correct him, “I am…contemplating.”

“Well, I’m going to go contemplate a plateful of eggs now, if that’s alright with you,” said Rene, starting to leave. But he’d hardly taken a step when he heard her mutter:

“Scrambled?”

“Beg pardon?”

“The eggs. Are they scrambled?”

“I wouldn’t have them any other way,” Rene said. In fact, he’d deliberately ordered the meal on the off-chance Zildiz chose to be difficult today, knowing from past observation that she liked them that way.

“Very well,” she said with stiff dignity, “I will attend your morning feeding ritual this once. But I will claim your portion of eggs as spoils.”

“Done and done,” Rene agreed. She gave him a suspicious look before springing nimbly off the chair, landing softly on the balls of her feet.

As the only one person permitted access to a food synthesizer, the task of preparing all their meals fell to Rene. As always, he ordered the others the exact same thing he was having and they all settled down to eat, Zildiz and Neroth squatting on their haunches on the floor or the dining table itself. For obvious reasons they weren’t allowed to use utensils, so everyone had to make do with their bare hands.

“Computer, give us a show,” Rene said, waving his oily fingers at a huge curved screen that covered the far wall. It flickered on in response to the motion and offered a selection of still images for them to choose from.

Rene picked a smiling anthropomorphic mammal that had no counterpart on Arachnea, with brightly-coloured orange fur and eerily human facial features. His name was Cosmonaut Carl, and Rene had become somewhat obsessed with him lately.

Cosmonaut Carl worked as a miner, cracking open asteroids with controlled explosions and processing the ore with the help of his brainless robotic servant, Yottabyte. It was a dangerous and dirty job, but Carl endured it all for the sake of his commune back home. His life resonated strongly with Rene because it was almost identical to that of his own father, who had also slaved away in a mine until the rustlung had forced him into retirement.

Minus all the catchy showtunes, of course. Carl and Yottabyte did an awful lot of singing for a pair of menial labourers. The show began with the titular character seated at the helm of his space ship, clad in a full extravehicular activity suit.

“Hello again my young comrades!” boomed Cosmonaut Carl, swivelling his chair around and waving a paw in greeting.

“Hello Carl,” Rene waved back.

“Asinine animal,” Zildiz grumbled through a mouthful of eggs.

“Today we are off to the belt to gather organic carbon for our commune,” Carl obliviously continued, “But before we blast off, are we perhaps forgetting something? Tell me, what is the cardinal rule of space travel?”

“Set phasers to fun, and shoot all pirates on sight!” Yottabyte chirped with enthusiasm.

“Don’t be a silly billy, Yottabyte,” Carl admonished him to the accompaniment of canned laughter. He turned to his audience of three and repeated: “Remind me comrades, what is the cardinal rule of space travel?”

Cosmonaut Carl asked the same question at the start of each show. Rene opened his mouth to give the customary response, but someone else beat him to it.

“Safety first,” Neroth said in a distant undertone. Rene was pleasantly surprised by this.

“Harashod! Very good. And now it’s time for the safety song.”

A chintzy musical number began to play while Carl and Yottabyte sang:

“We decompress with pure oh-two,

Pure oh-two, pure oh-two,

We decompress with pure oh-two

Before we work outside…khzzssttt…”

Suddenly the music was strangled by a harsh distortion, Carl and Yottabyte freezing in the middle of their dance number. The show wasn’t the only thing malfunctioning either—Rene glanced over at the drones and saw them spinning mindlessly in place, their guns tracking imaginary targets. Rene stood up, heart thudding in his chest. Something was about to go horribly wrong.

There was a deafening bang above their heads and a piece of a ceiling panel came crashing down, splattering them all with turnip cake. A small object shaped unmistakeably like a cannonball bounced off the table and rolled onto the floor.

“Get down!” Rene shouted as he dove for cover, tackling Zildiz off the table along the way and throwing himself over her to shield her from the fragmentation. Meanwhile, Neroth scampered under his chair and hid his face inside the blanket.

“Sorry to crash the party like this,” said a familiar, smarmy voice, “What’d I miss?”

“Exar!” Rene cried.

“The one and only.”

“Where the hell have you been all this time?” Zildiz demanded of the sphere, thrusting Rene aside with a flustered look on her face.

“Rolling around through the ventilation system. I got some bad news, chief. We gotta break outta this joint, and I mean stat!”

“What for?” Rene frowned, “The Commodore can provide for all our needs.”

“Your new friend isn’t who you think he is. I accessed the base’s public servers and recovered some files he tried to delete. I know how he got into this place, and how many people he sacrificed to do it.”

“What are you saying?” said Rene shakily. He already knew the answer to that question, had sensed it as soon as he’d seen the twisted conjunction of metal and meat that the Commodore had made of himself. What Exar said next only confirmed it:

“He’s a killer, Rene. A mass murder. You heard him say it yourself. We’re not the first victims to wander into his lair, and we won’t be the last…”