Now we're getting somewhere, aren't we?
...
Hold your questions please, not in the middle of my action!
...
(But no, no unsuspecting planet had its atmosphere boiled off by deflected laser beams, why would you even ask that?)
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Aboard The Lazy Descent, the air has donned a terrifying weight of tension, at least as far as Dirn's heart is concerned. The constant droning of firing lasers, cycling heat sinks, and various yelling voices added to the general ambiance and surely did wonders for his nerves.
And the smell. Whatever the smuggling crew had consumed the night before must have now been leaking out their pores, and the poor filtration units scattered across the ship couldn't keep up with the unanticipated strength of the ventilation units.
Why would you ever design a duct system that allows for this to occur, Dirn thought to themselves as they huddled over Alpha's small frame, a glowing data pad clutched in their hand.
"Hey! Have you managed to reach her?" a pirate yelled as they hurried past with a freshly loaded box of "excitement" as Dirn's sister would have referred to it.
Dirn shook their head and attempted another alternative routing through the ship's internal communications system.
Something was filtering out every communication method they tried to reach Alpha with. Dirn wouldn't be surprised if it was her intense focus on the battle that explained her metaphorical cold shoulder. Of course, with the synthetic frame inactive, it was a literal cold shoulder as well.
Still, Rebecca was adamant that this was not a proper explanation. She believed something was impeding Alpha's internal monitoring capabilities, as she hadn't yet slammed any bulkheads down on the advancing smugglers, vented their oxygen, or made any other moves to delay their progress towards pushing the pirates off the ship.
Rebecca seemed to believe Alpha, Dirn, and Dewey honorary members of their pirating crew, despite how temporary the alliance may be. And while Dirn wasn't even quite sure whose side they were on anymore, they doubted they were pirates. Temporarily aligned with pirates, sure, but that didn't make someone a pirate, did it? At least Dewey had been quite enthusiastic with sleep-darting his former associates, and without any more appealing options, Dirn had decided to follow his example. It had worked for the voyage so far, and they saw no reason to believe that it wouldn't similarly see them through this current spiraling situation.
Dirn made another futile attempt to reach Alpha, this time through the sanitation alert system, and was again met with silence. As expected really. Dirn had run out of "good" ideas after Alpha hadn't responded to Dirn's first communications request, and everyone afterward had also gone unrequited.
Dirn would have preferred a clear rejection over silence. Just as with every spurned lover before, though I wouldn't describe either Dirn or Alpha as the "lover" type. Spurned acquaintances?
Regardless, if Dirn received a clear rejection, then they knew something was wrong. With the silence, there's a tantalizing and frightening possibility that it wasn't with you who the problem originated from. For Dirn, this knowledge came from many hours of working through error-riddled computing systems.
Dirn had no idea how applicable this situation was to relationships between thinking entities as well.
They squeezed their eyes shut and placed a large knuckled hand across their face in thought.
Sanitation alerts: nothing. Direct communication requests: nothing. False alarms: nothing. Blasting messages through the internal cameras and microphones: nothing.
Dirn figured that if they could get access to a system that they knew Alpha was monitoring, then they'd be able to confirm that the problem wasn't just "Alpha isn't receiving the messages".
If only they could piggyback on any of the targeting, tracking, or other computers and subroutines tasks with assisting the functionality of the laser turrets. With the still constant hum of heat pumps cycling, that was the one thing Dirn could be certain that Alpha was currently in control of. However, there were approximately "far too many" recently armed smugglers between Dirn and the nearest weapons control node.
A heavy black synthetic leather boot clunked against the metal flooring to their left, and Dirn jerked back as Rebecca squatted down next to them. Where had Dirn's reflexes gone? They could have sworn that they had been better at the whole "object permanence" thing... Not as good as their sister that's for sure, but definitely above "jumping when someone squats next to you". Maybe it was Rebecca's eyes. They had seen others with such eyes before but on an otherwise normal human? Dirn still hadn't quite gotten used to them.
"Still no luck? Have you tried personal communications? I get Blood's attention that way sometimes," Rebecca helpfully suggested with a nod towards the tablet in Dirn's hands.
"No, and yes. A direct communication request was the first thing I attempted." Dirn replied in ignorance.
"Oh, sorry, that's not what I meant. What's her communication log look like? Can you see that?"
"I... I'm not following, how can I see that from here?"
With another nod towards the tablet in Dirn's hand and a beckoning open palm, Dirn wordlessly passed the device to her.
"So... Most personal communications are encrypted, but a good chunk that gets routed through a ship's systems aren't. Even then personal privacy protection laws usually restrict them, but certain messages are exempt from it...," Rebecca said, quietly enough that Dirn wasn't sure if it was for her benefit or theirs.
"Now... Usually, it's stuff like governmental notices that everyone gets. No use keeping those private if everyone gets them right?"
Sure, Dirn thought to themselves without much thought. They had long ago stopped trying to follow Rebecca's rapid movements across the tablet's screen. Their full attention was now dedicated to nodding along mostly mindlessly to whatever Rebecca was saying.
"We don't have the capabilities to forge one of those though, they're still signed so people know that they're really from whoever claims to be sending them... fakes will get automatically purged by any node in the system, and if we could send them directly to Alpha, well we wouldn't have this problem in the first place, would we?"
Nod. Nod.
"But! Aha! Here we are! A lot of companies are just too lazy to handle the extra work to encrypt or authenticate personalized messages, capitalists, aren't I right?"
Nod. Nod.
Rebecca squinted at the new list that appeared.
"Huh, she watches a lot of... 'Love's Last Stand: Cyborgs vs. Zombies'? That's cute, she's cute isn't she?"
Nod. Nod. Wait, what?
"Anyway, we can spoof this real easily, let's see if she responds to an alert of a new episode entitled 'Alpha we could really use your help in the cargo hold!'"
Dirn flinched as the robotic frame instantly sat up and flickered to a blue color. Long blue holographic hair sprouting from its scalp. As it turned towards Dirn and Rebecca, the faceplate flickered, and soon Alpha stared at them with partially focused eyes.
"Hey, first of all, don't get my hopes up like that, and second of all, I'm a bit busy right now, so what's up and make it quick."
In a strong authoritative voice that shocked Dirn, Rebecca quickly laid out the current situation.
"Mrs. P can't contact Blood. We couldn't contact you. Your old crew is up and about and while we forced them off once, they've gone deeper into the ship and we don't know what they're doing. Mrs. P has us preparing to pull back to our shuttle and rendezvous with Blood."
Rebecca shot a glance behind her shoulder towards Mrs. P, who sat atop several crates, eyes closed to slits, and ears pressed back against her head. Dirn felt a strange ache in their head growing until they blinked, shook their thoughts clear, and looked back at Alpha.
"Mrs. P... She's got a bad feeling about this. A real and really bad one. That ship out there is tearing up space mighty fine and she doesn't think Blood can win this. She thinks we should bail."
Alpha's nodded and her face blanked black for half a second before it returned. This time, her eyes were razor sharp.
"Someone or something is interfering with my internal systems..." Her eyes blurred for the duration of her pause. "It's got to be psycho-cognitive..."
Rebecca said a word that Dirn didn't know and one that I can't write. However, the tone in which she said it conveyed sufficient information to all listening parties.
"Yeah... I don't have time to fight it right now."
"Can you do anything about the smugglers at least?"
Alpha's eyes once again blurred as she sat up.
"No. Damn it. They've been locking me out of almost every internal system. They must have been planning to save the weapons systems for last so I wouldn't notice. They're physical overrides too, I can't bypass them."
Alpha shook her head.
"I should have noticed that... I don't know how I didn't... Whatever that illusion system they used to confuse my perception of all the onboard systems is a hell of a package."
"You're rid of it now right?" Rebecca asked in a soft tone of concern. She had experience with what such manipulations of an AI's senses could do to their psyche. If a biological being only ever saw shadows on a cave wall, an AI only saw shadows of shadows, and the worst part was they were inherently disillusioned by that fact. The only saving grace was the level of control AIs' have over their faculties... And most didn't respond well to that being messed with, especially without their knowledge, and especially in a manner that they couldn't detect.
"Yeah, it must have been an interface within the ship's internal systems."
Mrs. P shot up. Her hair rose across her body. Alpha temporarily blanched and then returned with a paler face.
In a too-loud voice for her small cat stature, Mrs. P yelled, "Okay, time's up! We've got to go!"
She threw a look towards where Alpha sat.
"Ah, good, I'd hate to leave you behind love," she said to her, "did you tell Blood that we're coming?"
Alpha blinked and then nodded.
"He knows now."
"Good! Grab something and let's get going!"
Rebecca took the black orb out of a pocket and passed it to Alpha. It fit her hand perfectly.
"Thanks for doing business with us!" Rebecca said in a cheery tone.
"Wait! The hostile is still-"
"I know honey, I can feel it shredding space like tissue paper. It's a real headache I'll tell you that." Mrs P forcibly purred as she attempted to brush down her bristling fur.
"No, I mean it's interdicting our ships."
Mrs. P gave a soft "hrmm". She proceeded to leap atop Rebecca's head as she strode by, carrying a large crate between her arms with ease.
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"Don't worry about that, Blood's got a way around such inconveniences."
Alpha stood still, and Dirn turned to look at her. Was that it? For what was supposedly a raging space battle out there, and a pirate hijacking in here, this was a surpassingly anticlimactic end to the excitement. Their eyes met Alpha's, and they both turned to watch Rebecca, with Mrs. P atop her head, saunter off towards wherever their boarding vessel had drilled a hole through The Lazy Descent's external plating, taking the last few pirates with them, all carrying identical black secure containers in their wildly varying appendages.
As the last pirate left, and the sounds of approaching smugglers grew louder, Dewey scrambled into the hangar and skidded to a stop against the smooth floor.
"What are you doing? Let's go!"
Dirn turned again to look at Alpha. Assisting the pirates had been one thing, but the Captain had ordered them to do that. Going with the pirates was a whole other thing entirely. It was like pointing the invading army toward the road so they didn't try to march through your cornfield, and, well, enlisting with the invading army while you were at it! It was insanity!
Dewey shambled over to the nearest black box, flipped it up over their center mass, and turned back to Alpha and Dirn, who still stood in still silence. He gave a strong sight that rattled the floor beneath his many feet.
"Look, the Captain set you two up. He's got a whole list of stuff to tie to you when we get back to port. You two were to take all the blame and burden for this thing, and that was before the plan went up in flames. So you can stay here and let him pin this whole mess on you, or you can grab a crate with me and get on out of here!"
Dirn and Alpha made eye contact again. Dirn couldn't say that they were surprised at Dewey's revelation. They'd figured something was up. Alpha's gaze wasn't quite as focused as Dirn would have preferred at the moment, but it was clear she wasn't surprised either. Alpha was rather busy crunching numbers, and they sat in an awkward silence for breath, neither moving. Dirn had no idea how to proceed.
However, Alpha decided for both of them. She reached down to grab a small crate and shoved it into Dirn's arms as she walked over to Dewey. She handed off the orb to one of his many grasping limbs and lifted a much larger crate from the floor in perfect form, her robotic body revealing a sliver of its true strength.
Giving themselves a mental shrug, Dirn dropped the crate Alpha had given him and grabbed two larger ones under both of their arms, both marked with the double-black-omega designation. Alpha raised an inquisitive eyebrow as he hurried to catch up, to which Dirn gave a physical shrug.
"These aren't just for show you know," Dirn said, likely in reference to the well-defined and taught muscles which were conveniently making themselves known as Dirn shouldered the crates. Alpha gave a light laugh, and Dirn hoped it wasn't out of pity.
"Clearly, but those are both filled with paper aren't they?"
"Paper's plenty heavy" Dirn mumbled to themselves defensively, slowing as they matched Alpha's pace.
However, as the familiar sound of a plasma welder being misused rang out behind them, all three put a little more pomp into their pace.
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"How are we holding up?" Mrs. P asked as she toyed with Rebecca's luscious locks.
"Good, good, we've almost got everyone. Richie's making their way out of the vents still, and Madeline wants to kidnap someone from their crew," one of the pirates replied.
Mrs. P sighed and squeezed her eyes shut. Richie was always in the vents, regardless of whether they'd been assigned to them or not... Something about being mostly gelatinous probably drew one to circulation systems.
And Madeline... Well... Those she kidnapped probably wouldn't say they disliked their time as a captive, but given the time-sensitive nature of their current engagement, Mrs. P figured that they didn't have time to try to find a proper hostage. There was always a lot of paperwork to do with that, and she had a feeling that the smugglers wouldn't agree to a sit-down to discuss it.
"Tell them both to hurry and tell Madeline explicitly we're not taking hostages"
Actually...
"Plus, we already have three of their crew, if we need a hostage I'm sure Lawyer can backdate the necessary documents", Mrs. P stated, lazily passing over the three voluntary "hostages" from the corner of her eye. Dirn stiffened at the remark, but neither Dewey nor Alpha gave any visible reaction.
Of course, Mrs. P hardly needed to look at someone to get a sense of their reactions. As a pirate conveyed her orders through a communicator, she took a quick mental peak at the newcomers. She could feel the Alpha was just a tad "miffed" at her remark, and from Dewey... She still couldn't get anything from Dewey. He must have had a firm mental grasp on his psyche (or maybe a hundred or so, he did have a lot of hands). That, or he had strong resistance to her form of mental probing. Either would be impressive, and she admitted that there was a possibility that it was both. Turning the metal probe from Dewey, Mrs. P took a cursory glance at Dirn to confirm what she had already seen. Dirn had visibly panicked slightly at the remark, but the mental probe revealed that they had wrenched their emotions under control with practiced efficiency.
Blinking at Dirn, Mrs. P softened her voice.
"Don't worry hun, it would only be for tax purposes. We can get rebates for the cost of providing for a hostage."
That wasn't the full truth, but it was the kindest one.
Dirn looked up from their large hands and met Mrs. P's eyes. It appears that they hadn't found the comment particularly amusing. Well, some people just don't have a sense of humor, and Dirn looked like one of them.
"Does it matter what type of hostage it is? Do willing hostages not fully count? Should I resist a little more?" they said in a monotone voice. Even glancing at the top of their mind, Mrs. P couldn't tell if that was a serious question or an attempt at a joke.
"I wouldn't recommend it," Rebecca said as she walked by Dirn with another crate in tow. She set it down and poked them in the shoulder. "You've got some nice muscle there, but
"So you best watch it," she ended with a wink. She then gave a small wave to Alpha as she ducked back through the melted plating that the pirates had drilled through as she returned to The Lazy Descent. She gave another one to Richie as they flowed past. Without further ceremony, Rebecca reached down to pick up one of the last remaining crates and froze at the sound of thundering feet and lower-powered tranquilizer fire.
"Oh! That almost hit me! Watch where you point those things!"
That would be Madeline.
Sighing (a habit she had picked up from Mrs. P), Rebecca lifted the crate with her two cybernetic arms, tossed it behind her onto their boarding ship, and kicked another one in. Grabbing the last and largest remaining container between her three hands, she gave another sigh. At least Madeline's timing was impeccable as always.
"Hurry dear, we're just waiting for you!" Mrs. P shouted behind Rebecca, her voice traveling further down the metal corridor than it should have been able to.
Rebecca turned back and hauled the crate onto the shuttle. She set it down and turned again. Holding onto a railing mounted across the side of the boarding vessel, she leaned out into the hallway. Yep, there she was. Clad in not nearly as much as she should be, Madeline ran in a manner that suggested she had taken instruction from Mrs. P on how to master graceful prancing. Which, in fact, she had.
Rebecca watched as several tranquilizer rounds, fired from the smugglers closing behind Madeline, hissed forward and made contact with her bare skin. It would have been harder to hit the parts of her that weren't bare. However, as Rebecca expected, they slid right off, much to the disappointment of the smugglers.
The nano-second-skin that Madeline wore was nearly impenetrable... It is fully capable of absorbing significant kinetic energies and shunting off the force to the nearest solid medium.
Unexpectedly, for the smugglers at least, the impact of the now-useless tranquilizer rounds had increased the (already significant) bounce in Madeline's step. The only evidence that they had even hit her was the slowly growing red marks that Rebecca knew would be lining Madeline's back and other rear-facing parts...
Of course, such low power rounds shouldn't have even been able to leave any mark on Madeline, but Rebecca had learned in an... insightful... conversation that Madeline had tuned the suit to let just a little bit through. "To make things more exciting," Madeline had said, though with more colorful vocabulary.
It was an incredibly capable device. Even fully capable of being completely opaque and not translucent or skin colored, but Madeline wouldn't hear any of that.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your perspective, it was always skin-tight. That was a feature of the suit that couldn't be adjusted. Thankfully Madeline had the good sense to not wear only the suit, but the clothes she did wear often ended up with a few more holes than they had started with.
Rebecca unholstered one of her personal guns, a cute electromagnetic pulse weapon that could fry electronics or knock out any biological beings that relied upon similar processes for cognizance, and send a few blasts past Madeline, further contributing to the smuggler's disappointment and growing ire.
As Madeline jumped into the shuttle, Rebecca leaned back into the vessel and slammed a hand down on the data pad embedded in the wall. It had long since been configured to recognize such an action as a general "open or close the doors", and it did so with appropriate and proportional force to Rebecca's "button press".
Before the doors had even shut fully, the shuttle peeled off. Thankfully internal shielding kept the atmosphere (and occupants) of the shuttle from spewing into the infinite void of space.
What, you didn't think that a boarding shuttle could make a perfect seal without such a fallback did you?
...
What's a "copout"?
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The fighting slows. The bloodied red ship shifts its focus. The figure can feel it. The black ship grows closer to the red vessel, which lays out additional defensive countermeasures. It also reduces its offensive attacks. The overall effectiveness of such attacks does not significantly diminish, they were already futile.
However, following the principle of proportional response, the figure reduces its own offense. Its defense does not change, as it needs no reinforcement.
Across the inky black, it watches the smuggling ship begin to drift. Its turrets cease their futile efforts against the black vessel's control over space. The figure pauses, as deep within the now silent vessel, a faint emanation can now be sensed.
A susurration along the same tune as the prey it has hunted, the prey which is a predator, and which has hidden itself. So this is what was chased. The figure wonders to itself, as much as a mind like its own can wonder. What was aboard that vessel? What was worth the other's attention? What was worth their action?
The figure peers closer. The faint ripples across the constant flux of space stilling under the weight of its perception. Is there... Two?
Yes... There is... A shuttle disembarks, rapidly accelerating towards the red vessel, which launches chaff across the black-now-white space between them in a pathetic attempt to cover the shuttle's approach.
The onyx obelisk nestled within the black vessel does not need light to feel the drag of accelerating mass against reality. Furthermore, now that the distance between the shuttle and its departure grows, the familiar signals can be perceived with more clarity.
The one still buried between the hum of high-energy capacitor banks, combat shielding, and the chaos of too many minds, is small, quiet, and focused. It serves a singular purpose.
The other... hides? With growing confoundment, the figure directs itself closer. It ripples through the chaff, only revealed by the most faint shimmer in billowing folds of near perfect-white.
Two precision strikes along the rear of the shuttle will incapacitate its ability to move. Another will neuter its reactor, bringing the necessary silence for a proper observation. The figure draws nearer, threatening a sudden resolution to our story, well before it even began.
...
Well, we can't have that, can we?
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A winded crew member, smelling of sweat and chemicals, ran up to the Captain who stood watching the spinning stars.
"Sir, they've left."
The Captain nodded. With Alpha sabotaging systems on her way out, and the crew's efforts to lock her out of those same systems, there was little they could do to stop the pirates once they were out in space.
In addition, with the crew's reduced performative state due to the aftereffects of the strange drugs and the pirate's own significant experience with close-quarters conflict, there was even less they could have done to stop the pirates from leaving in the first place.
The Captain knew his crew, and he had picked many of them for various skill sets, but only a few had been for combat. They'd stand no chance against a seasoned pirate boarding party.
While the plan had been to let pirates ransack the cargo hold and take off without any intervention, that was of course before the wrong bloody pirates showed up!!!
The Captain sighed, and the smuggler next to him tightened their grip on their own hands. This didn't go unnoticed by the Captain. So there was more information... Not "good" information either.
"Sir, there's-"
The Captain raised an eyebrow. He didn't need to be told that there was more information, he just needed to be told the information, and his crew knew that.
"Er, the mission-critical item sir, we can't find it, sir."
What? That had been sealed shut, its internal lock system fried! It had magnetic clamps to keep it bolted to the floor! You'd have had to-"
"Its outer shell was blasted open with a plasma-welder sir."
Damn it. He knew he should have placed that in a double-omega-secure container, but they just hadn't had one large enough for it at the time.
The Captain gave a deep sigh (as was typical of most captains in such situations), and shook his head. He nodded a dismissal to the crew member, who hurried off without hesitation.
Now alone, the captain thumbed the pebble from his pocket, gave it a quick squeeze, and paused. "Only in the most dire of circumstances" had been her words. Was this dire? The Captain sat in thought for a moment. Her ship had already arrived, hadn't they? Presumably, that's what Alpha had been firing upon, but the Captain couldn't tell from the limited sensor data available to him after Alpha had restricted his access. He'd get around that eventually, but for now, there was still too much uncertainty surrounding the matter.
In addition, if she was here, there was no way for the red pirate vessel to escape from her. The Captain hadn't been able to, and he was probably much better at running than your typical pirates. Giving himself a mental shrug the Captain reached to put the pebble back when something else decided his mind for him.
He stopped, squeezed the pebble twice more, and blinked as his conscious mind caught up with the rest of him. The slow buzz that animated from the pebble confirmed that it was now recording and transmitting his words.
Let it be known that the Captain never found himself at a loss for words.
"The intruders have been successfully fended off, but... there have been... further complications..."
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Aboard the slumbering smuggling vessel, a signal is emitted. It travels along a frequency that the dark figure and vessel both know as well as their own silent voices.
Their sister.
There had been a hint of her voice. A brief spattering of her thoughts across the flux of space, but it had been directed. They could only hear the whisper, and they knew not from which it originated.
But now, with their full attention split between only three vessels in close proximity, the reply is a clear shout. It sprang forth as a guiding bolt, one that they now chase.
The vessel forgoes the shroud as it directs additional energies to its engines. Space howls. The noise is heard reverberating across the hull of each ship. Every living creature feels its press against their existence.
Space rips apart in their dash towards their prey, and they feel a flash of twisting everything from the irregularity aboard the shuttle. That must be investigated. In a rushed decision, the figure directs two crippling nets of distorted space toward the two opposing vessels. It has not yet surpassed the range at which it can interdict the other vessels, but it does not yet know how far it must pursue the fleeting voice.
Though with their jump-drives now crippled, the two ships will be forced to remain for the figure and vessel's inevitable return. It will not so easily forget the irregularity, even when faced with more pressing concerns.
No longer needing to apply carefully distorted space to two distance jump-cores, the vessel directs the full force of its engines to the billowing fabric of existence. Riding a ripple of time itself, its local inertia dampened by magic and physics alike, the vessel accelerates at a rate that would otherwise be unadvisable to biological lifeforms.
Where it passes, conceptuality shakes.