If they were still living in the storyline of their superhero genre comic book, the pirates should have organized some mighty comeback. Unleash some unexpected asset, perhaps with a mandatory Badass Establishment Moment scene.
Like, say, a particularly big pirate crushing the head of someone who wanted the rest to retreat, and telling the rest that they are now doing as he/she says. Something like that. Something to reestablish the threat that the pirates were for the final confrontation.
None of that happened.
Virtue and Decay delayed their return significantly by utilizing hit & run tactics. They exhausted themselves but took down twelve more pirates in the process. Most of them when Decay decayed the floor while forming intimidatingly large spikes out of un-decayed metal underneath, just for Virtue to cover it with a fake surface that vanished at just the right time.
Eventually, the main pirate assault party returned to the Ball Python, only to be forced to assault their own fortifications.
This process lasted until they discovered that while Virtue and Decay were buying time, Revenant and the rest assaulted the labour camp, scattered the pirates guarding it (at least those that didn’t die fighting), and returned the guns and other equipment that the pirates stole from them to the prisoners.
Discovering that not only were they forced to assault fortified positions held by people with odd powers but they also had about 60 (if you exclude children, elderly, injured or those too malnourished) trained combatants performing a flanking manoeuvre on them was… another traumatic experience that the pirates went through today.
The metahumans were scary in their own impersonal way. The liberated prisoners were absolutely murderously livid and thus scary in a much more personal way.
The moment the realization of the partial encirclement spread among the pirate ranks, the remaining pirate force began to rapidly dissolve, people fleeing as fast as they could. Most of them hoped to grab whatever they could from the frigates (while shooting others so that they could get as much as they could, probably) before fleeing the fuck away.
In short, an easy victory.
If you exclude the fact that most of the metahumans were dead tired, Virtue simply asked for confirmation that it was over before lying on the floor and falling asleep almost immediately.
Usage of individualities, especially prolonged ones, was exhausting, after all. With only some permanently active exceptions like Revenant’s Mastery. Hours of running around, fighting, associated worriness and using their individualities almost constantly.?Yes, they were going to feel all that in the morning.
In the meantime, Revenant had to make a meeting. Because earlier they didn’t need to exchange a lot of words, now the situation is a bit different. And there were, naturally, questions to be asked.
The meeting occurred near the entrance to the Ball Python. On one side, Revenant is flanked by Humility and Thorn (the least scary looking out of them all, to be honest), with Singularity in the background, her back leaning against the wall.
On another, three people were pretty much the representatives of the liberated prisoners, and two more prisoners with rifles in the background, eyeing them with a mixture of curiosity and caution.
The three representatives were as follows:
1. a) A man in his later thirties, in a visibly tattered business suit, with short brown hair and a nasty gash on his face. He looked like he didn’t eat even nearly enough during the past few weeks. Was wearing glasses, but probably for looks as Revenant refuses to believe that eyesight problems are still a thing.
2. b) A taller and visibly bulkier man in baggy trousers and a tank top, who clearly was on the receiving side of some recurrent beatings. Gave him some real soldier vibes, especially the way he walked screamed of military training.
3. c) A woman in her early thirties, with what looked like a… priestly robe with a clerical collar. Seriously? Did they bring a priest with them?
Wow.
Naturally, Revenant doesn’t have the time to speak before his choice of companions for this meeting explodes into his face. Even if he expected that to happen, he’s still slightly irritated that it happened.
“Is that a…” The soldier-guy in the middle speaks before Revenant as much as opens his mouth. “... transhuman?”
Straight to the point. Yes. Most certainly a soldier.
“You could have…” The first guy decides to comment. “... at least be subtle about it, you know?” He then looks back at Revenant. “Make no mistake, we’re grateful for your assistance. However, we cannot help but be… nervous about the identity of one of your companions. I’m sure that our concern is understandable, am I right?”
Politician. No doubt, a politician. Probably no one big (then again, it’s not like it matters with their entire country dead), but… at the very least he knew how to speak.
A politician, a soldier and a priest. You could make an ‘X, Y and Z walk into a bar’ joke. But you probably shouldn’t, at least not with the atmosphere this tense when the accusation of transhumanism was thrown away.
Of course, answering honestly would only make things worse. However…
“Care to answer that?” He says, glancing at Humility.
“Sure.” The AI replies. “My name’s Akania Drathari. I’m from the Ardent League, a Virtual Line ethnopolity in the Western European Oversector. After my own body was badly damaged, I was forced to use one that I stole from a group of exhumans. I apologize for it and I do understand that my present hardware might cause a nervous reaction, I just don’t have an alternative for it.”
Apparently, the loyalist transhumans hated being associated with their traitorous brethren, leading to their continuous attempts to rebrand the latter as ‘exhumans’, a term that was actually pretty nicely chosen. It implied the difference between loyalist transhumans (that seek to upgrade themselves into ‘better humans’) and the former Transhuman Alliance members that tried to abandon humanity.
The rest of the Human Space consistently refused to see the difference. Well, most of it, anyway.
“And what exactly brought you to New Springfield?” The soldier clearly didn’t get the ‘be subtle’ memo from the politician and decided to continue pressing on. Revenant decides to wait with an announcement that New Springfield no longer exists and they all should git gud about it.
“I’m a part of the Explorers’ Guild.” Humility lies smoothly. “A part of my Repayment. My ship was… well, not even in New Springfield. The situation we’re facing is much different and severe than you might presume.”
“We figured that out when the world around us changed into some hellish maze in a heartbeat.” The soldier replied dryly. “And then got imprisoned by the pirates that had no idea what New Springfield was as the last thing they remembered was that they were on the other end of the Human Space.”
Yeah, that does work as a bit of a 'situation got complicated’ announcement.
“Can we go back to introductions, please?” The politician decides to cut in. Revenant somewhat likes that guy. He finds no opposition among his peers, so he fixes his glasses and starts speaking. “My name’s Ted Wilcher, I’m an assistant of Lane Simon, the governor of the New Highrock state. This is…”
“Ferris Palmer.” The soldier doesn’t let himself be introduced by someone. The looks he is giving the group in front are… those of wariness and very slight hostility. Mostly wariness. “Lieutenant Colonel Ferris Palmer, 13th Mechanized Infantry Division of the Armed Forces of the New Springfield Republic.”
Yep, soldier alright.
“And that’s…” The politician tries to speak, but…
“Lois Knight.” The priest(ess?) replies. She seems to be the ‘quiet & observant’ kind. “I’m here because most of our group is from my parish, and the same can’t be said about the two people right next to me.”
Uh-oh. Looks like some jurisdiction friction. How lovely. That was surprisingly thick sourness in her words.
“Well, you already know Akania Drathari of the Explorers Guild.” Revenant replies. “As for me, well. I and my colleagues are a group… of highly qualified professionals, ready to solve all types of problems at a reasonable price. We work for everyone who pays, at least officially. Unofficially, well, let’s just say that the Alliance for the Preservation of Democracy has a very reasonable retirement scheme.”
To translate into English: ‘We’re the APD’s black ops unit who tends to pretend that they are mercenaries for easier access to groups that don’t exactly like the APD’. Judging from the looks in front of them, the message is correctly received.
The Republic of New Springfield was a part of the Alliance for the Preservation of Democracy.
“My callsign is Revenant.” He then adds. “And the lady beside me is Thorn. Regretfully, I cannot provide you with anything more than that, I’m sure that you can understand the reasons for it.”
“We can, yes.” The soldier nods. The politician gives him a moderately worried and confused look. It seems like the soldier was more aware of this sort of strange scheme being a thing. Was he actually just a random lieutenant colonel? Revenant doesn’t know how much locals actually know on average about the state of Mankind out there to be able to hazard a guess.
“That aside…” The politician says, looking at Revenant again. “... are you perhaps the rescue party? We have no idea what happened to us all, we assume that we were kidnapped off-world, but…”
Oh, yeah, that makes sense. As a form of rationalization of what just happened to them. Yeah. It’s probably best to not mention the whole Visitor clusterfuck, since explaining all of that will just make them feel like complete loonies.
“Not exactly.” Revenant replies, scratching the side of his head lightly. Just to make himself look genuinely confused about it. “I and my unit aren’t sure what happened ourselves, we’ve been kidnapped too. We are waiting for the rest of it to join us, but I don’t think that they will provide any answers.” They need to somehow explain how their numbers keep growing, after all. It also works as a way of intimidating the people in front of them with a realization that there is more of that coming. “I believe that Akania could provide us with all the answers we need, however… There is a bit of a problem with that.”
“That being?” The soldier asks, his eyes squinting a little. Looks like he still doesn’t trust the ‘transhuman’.
“Have you ever heard the supposed urban legends about the Explorers’ Guild personnel being outfitted with cerebral implants or, in the case of Virtuals like my new friend here, hardware blockades, that made them incapable of sharing classified Guild intel with outsiders?” Revenant then asks. He gets some raised brows out of it. “Well, it’s not that Akania doesn’t want to share their knowledge about the current situation, it’s more like they can’t. They do, however, appear insistent that no matter what, we have to get as far away from the place we’re currently in, as in this entire megastructure, within six months at worst. With the failure to do so meaning almost invariably lethal consequences for us all.”
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Apparently, according to Humility, that policy is actually a thing. The cerebral implants in question automatically alter one’s memory, acting as a bit of an external memory bank for classified intel, preventing it from being saved in ‘actual’ long-term memory.
If the Guild member tries to speak or write it down in any way whatsoever without following proper security protocols, this external memory of theirs will go into lockdown, making them temporarily forget all the confidential intel they have saved on it… all while notifying their superiors of the attempted security breach.
Scary. But also an incredible asset when information safekeeping is involved. Revenant is impressed.
“Well, that’s… great.” The politician looks as if he shrunk a little. A sudden outbreak of stress does that to people. “Uhm, lieutenant colonel, do you have anything…”
“It makes sense, as far as backstories go.” Palmer doesn’t let him finish. “But it was the same thing with the pirates. Although given the fact that they gave us our guns back, I’d say it’s a point in their favour.”
To be wholly honest, Revenant considered the ‘freed? more like under new management’ option. It had some benefits, but in the end, the downsides outweighed those by far. What truly made the decision was the fact that they needed them armed to break the Ball Python’s siege.
Otherwise, they’d have to disengage and return to guerilla warfare. Giving the remaining pirates way too much time to think and reorganize their defences.
Of course, it was going to make things complicated if they were going to be uncooperative about it.
“Excuse me for asking about it…” Revenant decides to satisfy his curiosity and asks the officer. “... but how exactly did you get done in so smoothly? You seem too experienced to fall for this sort of deception.”
Bonus points for buttering up to him a little. The others are clearly relying on him to a degree. This makes sense because he is a military officer and the whole situation around them basically screams ‘martial law’.
“There was no deception,” Palmer replies, his voice suddenly coated in venom. “The fuckers that done us in weren’t cosplaying pirates, those were actual republican soldiers, and from the goddamn Presidential Guard, those fucking traitors.”
Oh? Wait for a second.
“Drathari, do you have the recordings of the Commodore’s personal security detail? You know, those elite mooks of hers?” He asks. Humility looks back at him, before nodding and displaying a holographic screen over her hand.
“Yeah, it’s those fucks.” Palmer snarls. “No idea what made them suck up to that bitch Veenstra, but they were really into it. Did you get them? Since we sure as hell didn’t.” Seems like he dreams of getting to see their severed heads on a spike in front of his quarters.
“I don’t remember them showing up to their failed assault at Ball Python.” Revenant replies. This is the moment where his supervillain instincts start waving a sign around. The one with big, fat ‘sus’ word written on it. “Anyways, if they are still around, we’ll deal with them. In the meantime, we have bigger problems on the horizon.”
“That being?” The politician clearly doesn’t like the term ‘bigger problems’.
“The reason why some of us will arrive late is that we had a serious engagement with a large unit of transhumans. This time not loyalists like Drathari.” Revenant replies. Oh, yes, that’s an instant fear moment for the people in front of him. “We believe that at least a single transhuman warship, cruiser-up, landed about two days of travel from here. They are currently engaged in combat with at least two other hostile groups, but we cannot be sure for how long it will last.”
“T-transhumans?” The politician almost lost his glasses while trying to fix them. “Err, Lieutenant Colonel? How do we deal with that?”
Hey, he is leaving issues like that to soldiers. That’s actually a point in his favour. He is trying to use his slightly higher CHA stat where appropriate instead of headbutting with the military over who has the bigger dick. Revenant can respect that.
“I assume…” The soldier says to Revenant, his eyes suddenly very narrow. “... that you have a plan that you are currently trying to sell to us, am I wrong?”
Smart, but down-to-business. Revenant always liked working with people like him. Although, well, typically they didn’t carry military ranks.
“Well, a rough outline for now.” Revenant replies. “We need to clean up the pirate leftovers from the frigate, rest for a while, resupply, and wait for the rest of my unit to show up here… while collapsing at least some tunnels so that the potential transhuman attackers would have to attack the nearest frigate first would give us a solid defensive position. Enough to at least delay them long enough for an evac, maybe even repel them. But we can’t do that on our own.”
Pretty much an open text ‘we need your help to achieve that’. Thankfully, it’s read correctly by them.
They need at the very least two or three new heavy-hitters and preferably both Demiurge to let Clockmaker really spread her wings and Overhaul for healing if they want to have a shot at engaging the transhumans in open warfare.
Because let’s be real. The next time Tezar shows up (for some reason Revenant doesn’t think that they’d be lucky enough for the Truthseekers to shoot Tezar dead for them), it won’t be with just two sidekicks.
Ferris glances at the politician, before nodding. The politician then quickly glances at the priest, who also nods.
“Well, it seems that my companions are in agreement then.” He says, looking slightly reassured. “We will need a moment to patch ourselves up. This occupation was rather… hard on us. Improved food rations alone would be rather helpful.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem.” Revenant reassures him. “We just got rid of about two hundred mouths to feed out of the same food supply, not to mention our group having someone who should be able to significantly improve the food production. The Ball Python’s aeroponics bay alone was supposed to produce enough food for most of its crew.”
It wasn’t supposed to keep the ship self-sufficient. But producing, say, 50% of the food necessary for the crew on board meant that the canned and/or otherwise preserved food rations were going to last twice as long.
He sees no issue with sharing his valuable food if it means obtaining the loyalty of about one hundred people.
“And… the captives?” The priest asks.
Are they expecting him to be interested in holding them as hostages? Well, they were hostages, he just saw no reason to make it known since they were clearly cooperative towards him. If they tried to attack him…
… yes, that’s when things would get nasty.
In the meantime, none of them read as liars to him. This isn’t a way of trying to get them out of his grasp so that they can backstab him.
“Naturally, they’ll be released after this meeting, regardless of its outcome.” Revenant replies. “We locked their quarters under a security lockdown due to not having the time to explain the situation to them in the middle of the battle. I’ve addressed them through the intercom before heading here, so they know already that they’ll be released. We’d done it already, but it so happens that my best IT guy is standing right next to me and is a bit too busy to do it right now.”
That seems to have reassured them.
The rest of the talk is fairly uneventful. They agree that once a few hours pass and everyone gets to rest after the fight a little, they’ll clean Boomslang and Black Mamba of potential surviving pirates that could reorganize themselves if given enough time.
Together.
Ball Python becomes the unofficial base of operation for them all. Revenant allows the locals to move in, although makes it clear that he considers himself and his group to be in charge. A part of the ship will be off-limits.
In exchange, he is willing to let the natives pretty much act independently. The trio in front of him is going to act as intermediaries. If he needs, say, ten people to help produce the guns, he contacts the triumvirate and they find him ten people.
They probably want to be there, in the same base as he is, to make sure that they’re in a position to fight back. With, you know, a lot of guns. They’ll probably chill down a bit after a while.
“Am I correct to assume…” The soldier asks at some point. “... that those weird abilities I’ve seen some of you use are classified?”
“Yes.” Revenant replies without batting an eye. “Our group has gotten a particularly bountiful harvest of altertechs, that’s all that I can say. No, we can’t share it, no we can’t lend it. It’s… part of them, now.” It’s not like his individuality is visible, either way.
Altertechs are apparently a branch of exotechs that for some reason (he’ll ask Humility once it becomes relevant) are much better aligned with human biology. From this point of view, their abilities could actually be more or less explained that way.
Until someone would get to dissect them and realize that there are no magical space god implants inside them to actually explain it.
“Makes sense.” The soldier nods faintly, confirming Revenant’s suspicions. Not the ‘it explains that’, but the ‘this Galaxy is fucking insane enough for this to make sense’.
They won the game (or, well, the first match of it). They’ve gotten themselves some mooks and elite mooks. Time to rest a little and clean up the pirates tomorrow… while setting up a new resurrection chamber in the restricted deck of the Ball Python. And start resurrecting someone new.
Of course, there are complications.
“I want you…” He says to Humility once the meeting is over, the captives are released, and the two of them are alone. “... to keep this ship’s security system safe from any potential surprises from our new guests. And keep them all under strict electronic surveillance, especially members of our beloved Triumvirate of Overworked Civil Servants.”
“Why so?” The AI replies. It’s probably smart enough to realize that there is more to this than just Revenant’s standard paranoia.
It’s about high time that the AI starts actually managing to read him. He is good, but not good enough to fool an AI from the far future for a long time. Eventually, it just has to start figuring out some things from his face alone.
“Because I think that New Springfield has a more interesting local… backstory than anyone previously assumed.” Revenant replies, the two of them walking down one of the Ball Python’s corridors.
“Elaborate?” Humility asks. An insistent little bugger, eh?
“Presidential Guard sounds like the local equivalent of the Secret Service.” Revenant replies. “Don’t you think that a group of them immediately throwing their lots with a bunch of pirates to harass the people they were supposed to protect is, well, sus?”
Humility digests his words for a long while. They are almost at their destination - the unofficial Supervillain Level of the ship (they’ll have to make a less conspicuous name to use around the locals or change the name into a supposed inside joke) when it speaks again.
“I think that it could be easily explained.” Humility replies. “They probably know the most about what happened, if only due to being near the planetary command centre when Visitor announced its presence. They should have realized that the country was done in, and might have traded their skills and knowledge for help in, eventually, getting off the planet with the first group they encountered.”
Yes, seeing the country dying forever might have changed their outlook on the validity of their oaths to said country. However…
“Visitor was clearly interested in the concept of evil.” He replies. “I don’t even fathom a guess on how exactly it perceived it, or why selfishness, malice and past body counts draw its attention. But… it seems to have been rather surgical about it. Stealing bad people, while leaving good people.”
“So?” Humility asks.
“It did all of that…” Revenant replies. “... just to paradrop its entire collection on a planet that was supposedly full to the brim with nothing but good people. Thoroughly obliterating them in the process, possibly killing hundreds of millions of them in the process.” He glances at Humility. “Don’t you think that it doesn’t seem to add up?”
“Oh.” Humility replies. Scarce. But he gets the feedback on his idea that he needed out of it.
Strict (but also secret) electronic surveillance was a major reason why Revenant agreed to let those people move into Ball Python. But, well, it’ll still be rather dangerous.
Hopefully, they’ll find those Presidential Guard members tomorrow. So that he can get some answers from them.
***
They don’t find any of them. According to one of the captives (a random pirate that was later executed), they disappeared without a trace soon after Commodore’s death. None of the pirates saw them since.
Their quarters aboard Ball Python are so ascetic that they are basically empty. No personal belongings. They fail to find any usable DNA traces, and the whole place was clearly scrubbed clean. The cameras inside the rooms turned out to be switched off.
They also stuck to each other and Commodore Veenstra while a part of the Red Vipers, with next to no non-professional interactions with other crew members, even her second in command. None of the many surveillance systems placed across the ship gives them anything substantial to go by.
Things just keep getting better and better, aren’t they?