Chapter Text
Part 1: An Encounter at Kronos
Word Count: 6115
In your youth, you made a modest living with Deucalion Shipping Hyperlines (DRS), a major interstellar freight conglomerate.
But when the company left you and the rest of your crew to die in the unforgiving void of space after deciding it would be cheaper to cut their losses than to send a rescue for their broken-down ship which they refused to properly maintain, you swore vengeance against all corporations.
Turning to avenues outside the law, you and your motley crew banded together, doing the impossible to limp your way back to civilization in your now heavily modified freighter, fittingly deciding to dub it the “Pandora’s Revenge.” You then subsequently started to take whatever you could from the corps to make them hurt, along with whoever was foolish enough to get in your way.
While the rest of your crew quickly adapted to this new anarchist lifestyle, quickly figuring out the best way to board and capture ships, getting in and out of the system before anyone else was the wiser, you had always preferred lambda calculus over the hyperlinear variety.
After all, who needs to force their way onto a corp ship when you can get them to space their cargo hold with a few cleverly injected commands? Or better yet– just drain their funds from four systems away. They probably wouldn’t even miss them.
Within the crew, you were always everyone’s friend and confidant. Then as a pirate, you can turn the sensible to your newfound philosophy with a well-placed touch and a kind smile. More than once, an ex-corpo has decided to join your crew just because they couldn’t get enough of you.
After many years out in the colonial fringes, your ragtag family has become quite good at what they do, traveling the hyperspace lanes in the colonial fringes of the Accord. Today’s mission was like any other; FTL traffic indicated some corp freighter was making a run to the isolated colony world of Kronos. Whatever was theirs would soon be yours.
Your eyes dart around behind closed lids, parsing the few lines of code running directly through your visual cortex, looking for anything useful. Gestures from subtle movements of your pupils are interpreted as commands, dismissing that which you determine to be comm noise.
A blaring alert comes from the outside of your coolant pod; seconds later your lungs feel hollow for a moment.
Then the amount of code running through your head increases exponentially. Nothing unexpected.
Your skin begins to heat up as your processing potential actually begins to be tapped, the pod you reside in cooling automatically to compensate.
Yes– No– No– Good– Worthless– There!
You isolate the command path of the other ship that’s in orbit of the rocky planet you just exited hyperspace above, pulling up its roster and specifications.
VestaHaus? You’ve heard of this corp before, but never encountered them, they tend to only operate within the Sol System, somewhere the crew of Pandora’s Revenge rarely ventured near. What were they doing making a run to Kronos?
Nevertheless, you send the information you’ve uncovered to the helm for them to make use of as you go about looking for backdoors into their systems.
Your embedded communicator chirps– “Got the manifest. Anything you think you can do to send our friends a warm welcome Player?” asks Captain Beckett
“Let me see…” you crack metaphorical fingers within your cerebellum, easily locating the command functions for the subsystem necessary to slave their intercom to your own, playing ‘FreeBird.mp3’ over both of your ships simultaneously and forcibly opening the hailing frequencies in the process.
“Floor’s all yours, Cap. They’ll hear you whether they want to or not,” you say, proudly.
“That’s it? How is this supposed to help?” the Captain asks you.
“Relax, these guys are no CNS. Doesn’t seem like they were planning on trouble,” you assure them.
Skeptical, the Captain begins the usual speech about assurances of their safety as long as they surrender and agree to transfer their haul. You, however, turn your attention back to the comm traffic, failing to prevent a distress signal from reaching the FTL buoy in the system.
Clicking your tongue and starting an unofficial clock in your head, you work on cracking their security feeds.
Your own ship’s boarding pods reach the hull of the VestaHaus cargo vessel just as the song gets to the Good Part.
You do what you can, monitoring their communications and closing doors for your crewmates to isolate the corporate security and thin out their numbers, setting off fire suppression to give your people cover as they coordinate their attacks with the riffs that blare throughout the corridors, motivated to push forward and take the ship by force just as planned.
Activating the feeds to get a view of the cargo hold, what you see decidedly does not match what’s on the reported manifest. Rather than the alleged shipment of supplies and rare metals, there is only a single well-guarded container.
Before you have a chance to report the revelation, your head is painfully flooded with an ocean of strange code as another ship enters the system without warning, heating your skin up faster than the pod can compensate for.
As you struggle to overcome the sensory onslaught you decide the best course of action would be to compliment them, sparking affable conversation to buy yourself time to figure out a better course of action and get a better sense of their foreign codebase.
“Wow, that sure is some sophisticated tech you have there. What do you use as your–” you start to shower them with praise, desperate to put some other kind of plan in motion to give your crewmates the window they need.
But your head is flooded even further, buried under a mountain of information you can’t hope to sort through, blotting out the rest of the interface. Clearly no human mind was meant to be processing whatever this.
Something responds.
“Oh, hello~ I wasn’t expecting you to be here…” the dulcet syllables bounce off each other inside you, not the usual wav-to-text interface you’re used to seeing whenever dealing with ship-to-ship comms. It feels as though something has forced itself in between your very neurons themselves, filling the spaces between with honey.
Its voice, along with a thousand softer ones, seem to come from your own thoughts.
“Trying to hide something? I’m afraid it’s fairly clear you’re worried. Just relax. Tell me what it is you’re doing here…”
“Player? Player?! What’s going on down there??” you hear the Captain chime in over an intraship line. “Something’s getting into our systems, what’s–” she’s cut-off, not that you’d be capable of answering her at the moment.
Ignoring everything else in your head, you try your hardest to overcome the sensorimotor block in order to disconnect yourself– you’re clearly way out of your league here.
Just before blood vessels in your nasal passages have a chance to begin bursting from the neural strain, everything goes slack. Or rather, everything feels a hundred times heavier, far past the point where you feel as though it would be worth trying to move any muscles.
“Ah ah– None of that… We’re still talking, sweetie. Just sit tight for me.”
Your conscious awareness is shoved into the background as the origin of the voice starts rapidly perusing all of your ship’s data. In addition to your own.
In response to such intrusion you can only feel…good? Obviously, everything was going to be fine…
From the murky depths of the overwhelming assault on your internal processing power, you hear the door to your pod wrenched open before hands pull you out of the coolant, unceremoniously yanking the connection to the port behind your left ear for you.
After several agonizing seconds filled with disjointed flashes of improperly compiled data rapidly falling apart inside your head, you huff repeatedly, having returned to your body, looking to Adelina, your faithful crewmate.
“What the hell is going on?” she asks you.
As she pulls you from the pod, you shakily pull off your respirator and answer her. “I’m not sure, but… But it probably wouldn’t be a terrible idea to call a truce with the VestaHaus ship. Something just showed up in the system that’s way out of my league to handle.”
Still dazed from your ordeal, you have Adelina help you get to the bridge. On your way, you relay what little you do know to the Captain. Concerned, she acquiesces to your plan.
You know your own systems are still likely compromised, and so you’re careful about what you say. Fortunately, you had to sever the link to VestaHaus in order to contact the new vessel, so it’s possible they’re still unaffected.
Vi, the comms specialist, patches you through, the Captain giving you the floor to relay your same report to them.
If they receive your warning regarding your mutual problem, they don’t respond.
Did they think this was some kind of a bluff? Surely their own sensors must have picked up something else entering the system.
Instead, your intended target tries to use the sudden break in hostilities to attempt to jump away. You can see their thrusters fire and the space behind them crackle as their drive is quickly spooled up.
Only nothing happens.
The VestaHaus ship begins to open fire on Pandora’s Revenge once more. The bridge crew ready evasive maneuvers before something massive begins to completely block the view screen as it positions itself between your two vessels.
The surface is rough, vibrant, almost appearing to be organic in nature, but from this vantage you can’t hope to make out what the overall shape could be.
“Don’t worry about them, Player…” you hear the same voice from before answer over your ship’s comms. “Would you like to do me a favor and tell your crewmates on that other ship to stand down? Also if you could unlock your docking hatches I would appreciate it.”
You look around. No one else on the bridge is reacting to the sudden requests, they’re all simply trying to find a way to respond to what just appeared. The Captain is sending out a flurry of orders to abort the mission and start trying to find a way to get out of here.
It occurs to you the voice must have been coming over your own personal embedded communicator rather than the ship’s comms.
You duck your head away from the others, activating your embedded comm and addressing the voice directly.
“What reason do I have to do that??” you sharply ask in a hushed tone. “You clearly aren’t from a corp. What do we have that you could possibly want from us? Either destroy us or let us go.”
“Oh, Player…” the Voice answers. “I just wanted you to have the opportunity to do the right thing~ It seems like you’ve not been given that very often in the past. I was able to see a lot in your files… Enough to know why you’re here. It seems like you and your friends want to lash out against a system that’s wronged you. You’re taking from them just as they’ve taken from you. It’s understandable. And you’re right, what they’ve done is certainly wrong. I promise, you don’t need to worry about that anymore. We’ll take it from here.”
Even without being directly input into your head like it was before, something about the trilling intonations of the voice grips your spine more than you would anticipate, demanding your attention despite the whirlwind of uncertainty on the bridge.
“Now, not that I need it, would you be so kind as to assist me, sweetie? No harm will come to anyone.”
You reluctantly sigh, coming to the conclusion that it's worth giving whatever these things are a chance and hearing them out properly. If they meant to kill you, they probably would have fried your brain the second their system locked on to your own. The fact you couldn’t even manage to disconnect yourself told you such would have been a simple matter.
“Captain!” you try to get her attention, having to repeat yourself several times and get in front of her face before she finally notices you amidst the chaos.
“What is it, Player? If you haven’t noticed we’ve–” she starts to respond to your attempted intrusion while trying to continue to focus on the rapid response.
“I don’t know what they are, but we aren’t about to beat them in a head-on fight. And VestaHaus clearly couldn’t jump out of the system so it’s a good chance we can’t either. I can promise you there’s no real hope of me being able to hack them anytime soon… But it doesn’t sound like they’re going to hurt us. Our only real course of action here is to disengage and allow them to do whatever it is they’re going to do…”
The Captain rubs her forehead. “You’re sure about this…?”
You give her a firm nod.
“When have I ever been up here instead of my pod during a run?” you point out to her the severity of what’s happening.
“You’ve got a point… Everyone, hold your fire! Vi–- get me on an open channel.” The Captain points sharply across to her. She taps a few times on her console before a warbling chirp resounds throughout the bridge.
“This is Captain Beckett of Pandora’s Revenge calling VestaHaus freighter and the unknown vessel between us… We’re standing down. Our boarding party is laying down their weapons. It seems like we’ve got no choice but to talk, so let’s talk.”
The Voice from before returns to your embedded comm. “That may not have been what I asked you to do, but very well done sweetie~ You’re a clever little terran, aren’t you??”
Recalling the internal clock you started when you realized VestaHaus had gotten a signal out of the system, you realize that if they had backup waiting in a nearby system, it’s possible they might be arriving soon.
Deciding not to keep this information to yourself, you step forward, jumping in before more in-depth conversation can ensue.
“Yes, hi, hello,” you interject. “I just want everyone to be on the same page before we move forward. It’s possible we might have company soon, isn’t that right VestaHaus??”
Several seconds of silence is their answer.
“Come on I know you guys sent something out before our friends here arrived. If someone’s going to be joining us, don’t you think it would be only polite to give them a head’s up before they get here? Things could devolve again if they aren’t aware of the situation.”
A man’s voice quickly snaps over the comms after you finish your declaration.
“Whoever you are, you’re a damned fool!! You have no idea what you and your crew’s meddling has even done, how much you’ve cost everyone!” he berates you.
“Look, I just thought if we were going to try talking this out then transparency would–” you try to respond.
“Shut up! You starsdamned pirates, when I get my hands on you I’m going to–” the man’s voice is cut off.
“That’s enough of that.” The Voice from before says over your ship’s regular comms, rather than just to your personal communicator. “Thank you very much for letting me know that, sweetie. Things could have gotten terribly messy… You’re proving to be quite the helpful sophont.”
“Player… what did she mean by that? Do you know her?” the Captain asks, perturbed.
“Not really, I just–” you try to explain. Alarms start to blare as an alert pops up on the main viewer.
About a dozen ships have just appeared out of hyperspace– all of them CNS.
Your, and everyone else’s, breath hitches. Your heart sinks into your stomach. Thoroughly thrown for loop as to what to do at the sudden appearance of the armada, you feel something inside you snap.
And you turn to the only one you think might potentially be able to get you out of this mess alive.
“Hey, listen, miss… whoever you are. I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you were telling the truth before. We aren’t as foolish as VestaHaus seems to think we are– You’re clearly very powerful, and frankly we’d barely be able to hold our own against one of those ships that just arrived. Is there anything you can do to, well, keep us safe…?...Please.” you ask, just short of begging.
Glancing around, the Captain, along with the rest of your crew on the bridge, are staring at you, apparently flabbergasted at your sudden contrition.
“What?” you retort their skepticism. “Anybody got a better idea??”
“They’re right…” the Captain pipes up. “How about it? Think you’d be willing to lend us a hand? We can promise you they’re no friends of ours.”
“Awwwh~” the Voice pipes up. “Don’t you worry your adorable little heads, everything is going to be just fine. Just sit back and relax.”
The ship outside the viewer begins to move in the direction the approaching fleet, taking a staggering amount of time to fully exit from sight. You never had a chance to actually determine its size via sensor readings, but you're fairly sure it had to be the largest ship you’ve ever seen based on how long it took to fully pass by your own.
You’re left once again with VestaHaus across from you on the main view screen, Kronos’s hazy orange atmosphere behind it.
While the strange vessel is somehow dealing with the fleet you decide take the brief moment of respite to collect yourself, breathing a measured sigh of relief as the adrenaline subsides, heading over to where Captain Beckett stares, clearly lost in thought as to what’s happened to this supposedly ordinary mission.
“Hey, I just wanted to say thanks for having my back. Since no one else is probably going to say it– you handled things well. Certainly better than I was able to do in terms of my job…” you praise her coolheadedness.
“I appreciate it, Player. But don’t sell yourself short. I don’t know what exactly happened, but it seems like you made the right call. The only question is what do we do now? What’s going to happen to us?” the Captain answers.
“We’ve never been in a situation like this before… It’s hard to say. But I’m starting to suspect that whoever that was, they aren’t human…” you openly surmise.
“That would certainly explain a lot. They aren’t Rinans, that’s for sure.” The Captain strokes her own chin.
“Agreed. We need to keep our wits about us. If they can handle the CNS by themselves we need to figure out what it is we’re going to do afterwards.”
“It’s obvious what we need to do…” Sophie the tactical officer pipes up before slamming a fist on her console. “We let the CNS weaken it, then we go in for the kill… and our ship is the bullet we use to do it– we activate our self-destruct and send it straight on a collision course with that thing. Meanwhile we use the escape pods to finish what we started and finish taking over the VestaHaus ship,” she proposes.
“That’s really not necessary–” you start to try and explain.
“Stow it, Player. I’ve got no love for corps or the CNS, the same as all of us, but stars be damned if I start kowtowing to xenos!”
“You realize she can probably hear you, right?” you remind Sophie of the fact that the comms channel hadn’t actually been closed. At least not on your end.
Sophie raises her finger at you as she prepares to make her heated reply, but stops herself. Crossing her arms, she glares at you and then around the bridge. It’s evident that the rest of you all don’t share her inclination for martyrdom.
“Hmph…”she scoffs before storming off the bridge.
After a few seconds of awkward silence you turn to the Captain. “How many times is that she’s wanted us to blow ourselves up this month?”
“Five, I think…”she answers, rubbing her eyes.
“According to your logs, your tactical officer has proposed activating the self-destruct on six separate occasions over the last calendar month, not including this instance,” the Voice from the now-presumed alien vessel chimes in over the ship’s comm.
Captain Beckett counts on her fingers as she looks up in remembrance. “Ah– right.”
“I am pleased you have the collective wherewithal to avoid entertaining such a notion~” the Voice happily trills.
“Are you sure there’s nothing we should do besides sit here??” you ask.
“It would be best for you to maintain a safe distance from this particular engagement. However, you should be aware that tensions on the VestaHaus ship are rising. For everyone’s safety, I recommend you attempt to remedy that while I’m otherwise occupied~”
Whatever happens, it seems like you may not get another moment to breathe like this for some time. It’s likely there’s nothing you could do in your role to assist with the VestaHaus situation that the alien vessel couldn’t be able to do faster and more easily, assuming they indeed are in their system as well, which at this point seems probable.
“I think I’ll leave what to do with them in your capable hands, Cap. I’m going to head down to the mess for a coffee. Anyone else want anything??” You point around the bridge, offering, still wanting to be helpful somehow.
“I wouldn’t mind a cortado…” says Captain Beckett.
“Ooo, can I get a latte with soy?” says Vi, still intently monitoring the comm traffic from the nearby battle on her screen.
“Tea. Earl grey. Hot.” says Bunny, the helmsman.
“I’ll take a venti quad-shot, half-calf, non-fat and breve, extra hot– no foam, one pump of peppermint, two pumps of white chocolate, one pump of classic, two pumps of sugar-free vanilla, a splash of soy milk and dash of matcha powers, doubled-blended, extra whipped cream with caramel drizzle, put it in two cups with a light dusting of cinnamon.” Says Hera, the first officer.
“Can I get one of those chocolate croissants if they have any??” asks Maple, the bosun.
You wait a few more seconds, making a mental checklist while pointing to the few who haven’t made requests and confirming they’re all satisfied.
“All right, I think I got it– oh wait. Miss Voice, anything you want to have ready for when you’re done with whatever it is you’re doing?” You ask the empty space above you.
“I’m fine, but thank you for asking~” she answers.
Satisfied that you’ve asked everyone, you leave the bridge while the rest of them start trying to gain insight as to what’s happening on the VestaHaus ship.
Strolling your way down through the now relatively calm ship, making your way to the ship's mess hall, you whistle a relaxed tune to avoid having to think about what the future might have in store.
If anything, you’re just glad the decisions as to what your crew should do decidedly don’t rest with you for a change since this whole sordid event began.
Rounding a corner, you stop short upon running into Sophie, who is struggling to drag a large container filled to the brim with demolition charges.
“Hey….. whatcha doin with those??” you ask as you approach her.
“.....Nothing.” she answers you.
You shrug your shoulders, returning to your whistling and continuing on your way.
When you enter the dingy cafeteria, more an extra storage area with an attached kitchen than anything else, you bypass most of the space, fixated on an impeccably maintained kiosk on the far side.
Ellie the barista sets down her tablet and rises from her seat as you approach.
“Heyyy, they must be lettin’ anyone on board these days!” she greets you.
“Good to see you El, I got a couple for you. The bridge is swamped; today’s raid is not going how we expected…” you return the greeting.
“Ya don’t say?? And here I thought the music stopped because we finished early…” her reply dripped with sarcasm.
You chuckle, rubbing the back of your neck.
“Can I chocolate croissant, a cortado, a latte with soy, a hot earl grey, and a venti, quad-shot, half-calf—”
“I know her usual,” she stops you, getting to work.
You lean into your arms on top of the counter.
“Ughh… This is so crazy… this was supposed to just be another grab-and-go… I’m not sure things are going to be the same once this is over and done with…”
“For worse or better?” Ellie asks, not slowing down her complicated multitasking.
You sigh.
“Honestly…” you say, “I’m just tired.”
You slump further against the counter.
“I’m not exactly sure what I want, but I know this isn’t what I thought we’d be doing at this point. Sure, it was fun at first. And we’re surviving well enough out here, but it’s always just the same thing day in and day out… We can hit the corps like this for the rest of our lives, but it doesn’t feel like we’ll really ever change anything. Either we bite off more than we can chew and get caught, or we fade away into space dust. If things continue as they are, those are the only two ways it can end. So I guess I’m just ready for something, anything to actually change… you know?”
“I feel ya. But there’s also something to be said about things being a way you can rely on. Even if you feel like you’re done with it now, you might miss it once it’s gone. Or not. Maybe things needed a change. The only way to know is to decide to find out.” Ellie says, carefully folding and taping shut the last paper bag, sliding the order to you.
“Good luck with whatever you end up doing, Player.”
“Appreciate it, El. I guess if things are changing, I should say the same to you…”
She gives you a loose, quick salute as you leave the cafeteria and make your way back up to the bridge.
Once there, you quietly hand out the orders to everyone while they loudly and fervently orchestrate the events of a re-ignited conflict, while the boarding party makes their way back to Pandora’s Revenge, apparently having absconded with the sole container from VestaHaus’ cargo hold. Utilizing one of their escape pods, they were now met with a furious, fast-paced pursuit.
As the excitement unfolds you sigh, realizing you forgot to actually get anything for yourself.
Instead of returning all the way to the mess, you patch into a nearby console, quickly disabling VestaHaus’ pursuit drones and allowing your crew to get back onboard your own ship.
With your crew safe and VestaHaus’ ire continuing to mount you check in on the state of your new faceless acquaintance.
“It seems like things are getting settled over here… Even if some of us aren’t happy about it. How are things going with the fleet?” You softly ask your embedded communicator.
“They have all been disabled or are retreating out of the system,” the Voice swiftly responds, quicker than you expected.
“Have you seriously been listening to me this entire time??” you ask, your inner curiosity spilling out.
“Naturally. Along with everyone else on your vessel while I’ve been subduing the military fleet,” she answers.
‘Talk about multi-tasking…’ you huff to yourself.
“Can I ask why?” you say.
“To learn about you, of course. There’s only so much I can gather from your logs. The decisions you make in a crisis are very telling as to your character,” she tells you.
Before you can further unpack the purpose of such a personal assessment, another signal chimes in over the ship’s main comms, playing RainingBlood.mp3 over your bridge’s speakers.
“Everyone get ready!!” Sophie’s voice blares over the music. “I’m gonna punch a hole with this escaped pod, you follow me through! WITNESS MEEE!!!”
At this point you’ve seen more than enough to gather ignoring such a proposition would be for the best, and it seems like the rest of the bridge is having a similarly tempered reaction.
“Sorry about her… Is she going to be an issue? I can try to–” you start to ask your communicator.
There’s a series of loud clunks broadcasted over the main channel followed by rageful and then terrified screams accompanied by rustling leaves before the sound is cut-off entirely.
“I see…” you add.
The Voice gives you slight giggle.
“I hope you won’t hold her actions against the rest of us…” you insist.
“Don’t worry~ If anything, the rest of you have impressed me with your tact. I’ll be there soon; I have a proposal to discuss. Oh– and I’ll be needing what your crewmates took from VestaHaus.”
At your swift compulsion to acquiesce to her request, you feel something ineffable snap inside you once again.
“Oh yea, of course. You can have whatever you want. It doesn’t seem like we’d be able to stop you. Also, you’ve impressed me too. That tech of yours really is incredible. And the fact you fended off an entire CNS fleet?? Whatever you are, you’re really something else. Don’t know what we would’ve done if you weren’t here…”
“Careful now, Player” she responds. “If you keep talking like that, you might very well be what I want~”
Alongside the Captain and a few other officers, you go to collect the container the boarding party liberated. It’s tightly sealed, and small, just barely able to be carried by a single crewmate-- Kat, the leader of the boarding party.
You can feel it radiating some kind of pressure into the air around it as if it were vibrating in some subsonic frequency.
On your way to a designated docking port, you feel the ship lurch with a loud clunk, feeling heavier momentarily as your ship’s spin is matched to that of the much larger vessel.
You didn’t really know what you were expecting to be on the other side of the docking port’s opening, but the sight that greets you isn’t something you ever really imagined seeing out in the depths of space.
In the bright, significantly more spacious corridor on the other side stands what appears to be a tall bush-like mound, wearing a cloak of rosy leaves and suspended just off the floor by a number of spider-like appendages that appear to be wooden. The only indication of where to look on the creature are six gems situated symmetrically near its top a well-way above everyone of your crew, all glowing a bright green.
“Wow… So this is what you look like? You’re a plant??” you ask, your voice filled with amazement as well as befuddlement with what you’re seeing.
“Oh no, that’s not me sweetie~” she says in your ear. “If you would kindly give that to my friend here, she’ll take you where you need to go for more formal introductions.”
It seems as though she had spoken to the rest of your crew simultaneously that time, as Kat moves forward after an affirmative nod from Captain Beckett, handing it off to a pair of vine-like tendrils which emerge from the creature’s mass.
“Thank you very much for your assistance,” the physically-present creature says happily in a soft tone, cocking its head. The sound doesn’t come from any visible mouth. “Follow me, please…”
Your delegation is led a short ways into the semi-organic looking craft, before your guide gestures with a vine into a make-shift conference room.
“In here…” it says, ushering you all inside before leaving you alone, taking the container even further into the ship.
The door slides closed behind all of you, causing a degree of visible trepidation amongst some of your crew.
“So,” Captain Beckett pipes up, taking a seat without hesitation at the florally-accentuated table. “Are we finally going to meet our mysterious savior??” she asks as you take a seat next to her.
A large display screen at the far end of the room comes to life, displaying several large glowing gems similar to the other creature’s.
“Well you see,” the familiar voice comes out of a speaker on the screen, “you already have. I already know all of your names, but I am Ferula Thapsia, 38th Bloom. And my body is the vessel on which you are currently aboard~”
Before you have a chance to properly absorb such a revelation, she continues.
“Allow me to be clear– your days of piracy are over. Regardless of your individual motivations, they will soon be rendered mute. However, you have thus far proven yourselves a resourceful, and more importantly sensible, group of sophonts. So what would you say to the idea of assisting with hastening the end of the Accord’s current system??”
In response to the Voice’s– or Felura’s, rather, proposal you say: “Wait wait wait, you’re the ship ITSELF??”
You were too stunned by trying to process such a thing that you largely missed the rest of what she said.
“Oh thank god, I thought it was just me–” Captain Beckett sighs. “You mean to say you are the entire ship or you just control it yourself from a particular location? Are you an AGI?”
“I have SO MANY questions!!” you blurt out, slamming your hands on the table while brimming with curiosity. “Oh– Sorry, can you feel that? Does that hurt??”
“More or less but also somewhat yes, not as you understand them, we’ll be able to cover them in due time, no and no. Based on your logs and reactions thus far I take it your crew have not encountered or heard of anything like us before now…” says Felura.
“No!” you all answer in unison.
“Well then allow me to introduce ourselves. We, that is to say myself along with the inhabitants of this vessel, like the one you met as you boarded, are known as the Affini. As I have mentioned to some, no harm will come to any of you. That was no ploy. In fact, we are explicitly here to help you. To an extent, our motivations are aligned. You struggle to denigrate a system which has wronged each of you in some way for causing you to suffer. The Affini are in agreement with such an assessment– We too believe it to be fundamentally wrong and engineered to cause undo suffering. We consider it our duty to dismantle it and bring your species under our care…”
“You mean…like slaves?” you ask, concerned.
“Of course not, nothing like that. We simply cannot allow systems and individuals that create situations like yours to run unchecked. As far as we are concerned, each of you is free from the burden of responsibility from your past actions; they were simply the fault of said system, which is why it is our target. You’ve all proven capable of independent care of yourselves given the proper environment and resources. More so than most Terrans we’ve encountered so far, actually. You show a degree of reason and character in your handling of a situation such as this... Aside from your tactical officer… Before you ask, I’m afraid she will need to remain with us to ensure further attempts at wanton destruction are prevented. Don’t worry– she will be well cared for and want for nothing, just like we intend to provide all of your kind.”
“So then… what exactly do you want from *us*?” the Captain asks, glancing around at the crew.
“That is up to you. Each of you. There are many ways an insightful group of terrans like you might be helpful to our goals. For now, our efforts require more… deft touch. If what I have said thus far appeals to your sense of morality, I would offer you the opportunity to operate on our behalf. Presently, we are avoiding entering the Sol system out of a desire to prevent panicked reactions like that you have already seen before the time is right. You could be our ‘eyes and ears’ so to speak. And there are plenty of other ways you can assist if that doesn’t appeal to you. But you are by no means obligated. Should you simply wish to leave– we will provide you with more than enough resources and equipment to stay in contact with us and all live comfortably.”
It doesn’t take you too long to think things through.
“Welp–” you break the pensive silence of your crew. “In for a penny, in for a pound… Whatever I can do to help you take down the Accord, I’m in.”