028: Sea of a Million Stars – Two
Joining the Kith of the Void did not go the way Elytra had expected. To be fair, she hadn't known what to even expect to expect, but the open-arms treatment they got wasn't what she would have guessed at.
After Glare got their information into the Kith system ("The security on our network is unmatched. Believe me, we've had outsiders trying and failing to hack our systems for centuries!"), set them up with the accounts needed to keep track of their soon-to-be-incoming revenue ("Necupole by design. We take advantage of all the same loopholes that they do, so if they wanted to cut off how we get funding, they'd have to dash their own profits against the rocks to do it, and they'd sooner throw themselves into their sun than do that!"), and put in a requisition for the recording and broadcasting equipment that freebooters used in the pursuit of their livelihood ("It's an entire production studio's worth of equipment, tutorials and programs included!"), the crew of the Pelekys was given free reign of the Kith's largest vessel - the Quanvengier.
To say the ship was enormous was underselling it. It may as well have been a station, the size of it allowing for multiple docks, living space for tens of thousands, multiple districts for markets, research and development laboratories, to say nothing of the administrative offices needed to keep the entire operation running. With the amount of moving parts it took to keep everything running smoothly, none of them were surprised to learn that there were multiple AI working behind the scenes help keep everything in line.
"Once I was permitted access to the network, they were very keen to show me the ropes," Viatrix had told them when they came back to the Pelekys to start getting their own affairs in order, her colours swirling in delight, "They've also been sharing gossip with me. It's been highly entertaining! I see now why so many seek out this style of media."
Thanks to the remains of the Leviathan they'd brought in, they'd been given a sizeable credit to put towards the upkeep of their ship. In going over things with one of the dry dock representatives, Malakh learned that the Leviathan bounty gave them more than enough to cover the piecemeal retrofits they'd been doing themselves, with plenty left over for more superfluous upgrades.
"Shoot me any requests if you think of them, I'm going to stick around to oversee this." Malakh had said as she shooed them off to explore the Quanvengier, her voice professional but her excitement as blinding as a cloudless summer noon.
With a communicator and a credit chit in hand, Elytra had joined Pryseia, Nevara, and Rhea as they explored the Quanvengier's markets. And like Malakh had said of the Kith as a whole, their markets were a lot.
The enticing smells of freshly cooked foods were the first thing they were stuck with when they neared the closest market space, strange herbs and spices drawing them further onward. Noise was next, music from dozens of different storefronts, performers singing or playing instruments in the walkways between buildings or purpose built stages, all undercut with the rumble of hundreds of different conversations going on at once.
Elytra had thought she'd be subjected to more of an empathic tidal wave with so many people in one space, but the background noise of so many different emotions was oddly muffled. She then she noticed other koleopterans in the crowd, and was then able to spot the psychic dampening devices her people used in crowded spaces attached to walls and pillars throughout the area. After the shock of experiencing a Leviathan on an empathic level, she was very grateful for that.
"We'll definitely get some of those for the ship, then." Rhea had said after she'd noticed the devices Elytra had been staring at, "And some for Lianshae too. I can't imagine raw dogging the Leviathan like that was a fun time for you."
Unlike the eldritch appearance of the Quanvengier's exterior hull, the interior was more like Glare's offices - extravagant. Lush fabric tapestries were strung up across bare walls, statues and sculptures placed everywhere with no rhyme or reason beyond adding visual flare, every storefront had its own eye catching paint job to make it stand out from the rest, giving the whole space the look of a wild fever dream.
The people, too, were just as colourful, and not just because of the outlandish outfits they wore. More aliens than Elytra had ever seen, even back at the arena on Iromay, the natural colours of their skin, scales, hair, and plates as varied as an artist's palette.
Standing between herself and Pryseia, Rhea had grabbed their arms as another human walked past, their bare arms covered in delicate drawings.
"I can get my tattoos back," she'd breathed in awe, "I can wear jewellery again!"
"The Thalatte were strict about appearances," Nevara had explained, "Personalization was not something they prioritized."
After assuring her that they'd take things easy ("You two are still recovering from malnutrition, I don't want you overdoing it here!"), the three of them had sent Rhea on her way to the nearest tattoo parlour. Their first stop after that was a food stall serving specializing in some type of noodle dish that smelled way too good to pass up.
Once fed, their next stop had been a little more practical - blueprints and other datasets for the assorted fabricators aboard the Pelekys.
"I'd rather we have the means to see to our own needs rather than rely on outside help." Nevara had reasoned.
After that, Pryseia had dragged them over to a district dedicated to clothing and other personal effects.
"Now that we are among the ranks of the Kith of the Void, we shall have to start dressing the part."
Elytra had then pulled them back to the food district in order to expand the recipes available on the ships database.
"I'm really enjoying all those strange flavours Rhea's been sharing. We should expand the scope out to the rest of the food we eat."
They met back up with Rhea several hours later, the human's ears and fingers bedecked with gold and jewels, some of the skin peeking out of her clothing covered in dermal patches while her fresh tattoos healed.
"I hope you ladies didn't have too much fun without me," she said, giving a little twirl that set the necklaces at her throat tinkling, "What say we grab some takeout and see how Malakh's doing with the retrofits? You better have all eaten, because I am starving!"
The transport from the market to the dry dock had them back at the Pelekys in minutes, and they entered the ship to find that a truly astonishing amount of work had been completed by the Quanvengier's engineers.
"They put the Thalatte to shame when it comes to efficiency," Malakh had told them as they dug into the hearty deorviran meal Rhea had insisted on getting for them all to try, the mess hall around them no longer the half-disassembled gunmetal eyesore, but a warm and inviting space with comfortable chairs and a table made from actual wood, "At the pace they're going, they'll have all the modification we wanted done by tomorrow!"
"I knew the Kith would be ideal for our needs, but I hadn't imagined that they'd exceed our expectations so thoroughly," Pryseia admitted, "We'd do well to live up to the example that has been set for us."
"Oh, that reminds me of something I was talking about with my tattoo artist," Rhea said, pulling a data pad from her jacket, "Ze gave me some resources for crafting an on-camera persona that you can get into -and stay in - without a lot of acting experience. I'll forward copies."
"It really involves acting?" Elytra asked.
"In some capacity," Pryseia confirmed, "Like Malakh said before, the Kith are as much entertainers as they are fighters. Overblown personalities are a staple of the profession, larger than life figures who engage in daring escapades. Colourful as the people we saw today were, I can say with absolute certainty that we were seeing their at-ease true selves. Had cameras been trained upon them, I can guarantee we would have been subjected to a more bombastic experience."
Given how lively the market had been, if that had been low key, Elytra couldn't fathom what that crowd would have been like when putting on an actual performance.
"With your unfamiliarity on the subject, I'd suggest looking up highlight reels on the network," Nevara added, "Seeing the Kith in action will convey more than we could with words."
After dinner, Elytra had taken Nevara's advice and had done a deep dive on just what, exactly, freebooters got up to on the galactic stage.
Over the top personalities were the mainstay, flamboyant attire and melodramatic demeanour the norm rather than the exception. Interactions between those on the crew of a ship seemed to make up the bulk of the prerecorded footage, with the assorted members extolling their own deeds or those of whatever faction had hired them on. Some crews had story lines that they'd clearly scripted, while others took a more documentarian approach to what they shared. Occasionally there would be collaborations between the crews of different ships, sometimes as allies, sometimes as rivals, but from what she could glean from the best-of compilations, it was always with flare.
The footage that was streamed live was just as varied. Dramatic encounters with Leviathan somehow more alien than the one they'd brought to the Quanvengier, heart-pounding fights against highly trained armies, stealth missions behind enemy lines, ship battles, mech battles, hand-to-hand battles, freebooters seemed to do it all.
The Elytra who had sleepwalked through the majority of her life, bouncing from job to job just for the sake of a paycheck, would have balked at the idea. Putting yourself up on display like that? Knowing that there were hundreds, thousands, millions, billions of eyes on you? Absolutely hellish!
But the Elytra who had survived the arena on Iromay? The one who had heard - felt - the roar of the crowd that ebbed and flowed with her every action? The one who stole an ancient mech that wanted her above all others in the galaxy? Who had joined a crew of strangers she felt an unexplainable kinship to?
That Elytra was thrilled at the prospect, and she ended up succumbing to sleep with a data pad full of roughly sketched out ideas for what her persona as a pirate could be.
The next day arrived with a summons from Glare. As the handler in charge of getting them up and running as a proper Kith crew, they'd enrolled the lot of them up in courses designed to give them a more rounded education on what they'd be doing in the course of their career.
Basic first aid that would work across the different races of the galaxy, a course on how to handle emergency situations aboard a ship, unarmed self defense, these were things Elytra was grateful to learn. Things she expected to learn.
The improv class, beginner cinematography, and footage editing courses were not the type of thing she expected a pirate would need to know, but as with everything she had learned about them, it was abundantly clear that the Kith of the Void were not just space pirates.
By the time she met back up with the others (as they'd all been separated in order to take the classes best needed to round out their skill sets), her body was exhausted while her mind was abuzz with everything she'd learned. Elytra couldn't remember the last time she'd been this excited about anything.
The next day saw the completion of the retrofits to the Pelekys, and more classes for the crew. Flashy fighting trick, lessons on how to use the broadcast and streaming equipment they'd been given, a rundown of some of the broader laws throughout the different sectors in the galaxy and where to avoid or seek employment in (depending on what they wanted the focus of their pirating career to be). It was overwhelming in a way that made Elytra want more.
After dinner, Glare had called them down to their command centre again, this time to make formal introductions to the rest of their roster.
It seemed that any crew near enough had come to the Quanvengier to meet them in person, while those too far afield made an appearance over video call.
("Lag-free!" Glare had chortled, "Our broadcasts go out live from one end of the galaxy to the other, instantaneous and lossless! Proprietary technology that our best and brightest keep a tight leash on. Any tampering to the systems we've installed in your ships and BOOM! We won't allow our secrets to fall into the hands of others!")
Elytra recognized some of the crews from the research she'd been doing into the Kith of the Void, the people behind the personas far more approachable than the bombastic performances she'd seen on screen. After Glare's decidedly informal formal introduction to the rest of their talent, and the dispensing with hors d'oeuvres and drinks, the crew of the Pelekys had been politely swarmed by members of the other crews.
With the dangers inherent with their profession, networking was an important aspect to survival. Members of the Kith of the Void were expected to look after one another, and knowing the actual people behind the performances the rest of the galaxy was privy to was extra incentive to keep one another safe. The rest of Glare's stable of talent seemed keen on welcoming the crew of the Pelekys into their fold.
For the most part.
Elytra noticed one crew that had been hanging back the entire time this impromptu shindig had been going on. They stood out like a sore thumb, if only for the fact that, unlike the rest of the crews they'd seen, this one was drab to the point of invisibility in comparison.
"Them? Their ship's the Briddbragnan, and their captain is Lauter Hulan," the deupazing gunner Sondrig Sidieg, from a ship called the Salsica told Elytra, "Decent enough pirates, but they haven't the foggiest as to how to work an audience. With how uninterested they seem in the whole performance aspect of working with the Kith, no one's really sure why they don't just join up with a regular pirate band. They keep up with their fees, but they only ever put out a broadcast once a cycle, if then. And forget about seeing any streaming out of them! Downright antisocial at these events on top of all that!"
And as the event carried on, the moods of Lauter and their crew did not seem to improve.
But as for how standoffish the crew of the Briddbragnan was, Pryseia and Rhea were the complete opposite. The pair of them moved through the gathering with an ease that Elytra couldn't help but envy as much as she was impressed by it. Herself and Malakh managed to find conversations here and there to join in on, Nevara polite but as quiet as always, but from where they'd ended up on opposite sides of the room, Rhea and Pryseia each had a throng of people hanging off their every word. Pryseia was a cobalt and gold flicker as she gestured with her hands and tail to emphasize whatever story had her onlookers so enraptured, while Rhea's height and easy laugh made her impossible to miss in the centre of the group that had sprang up around her.
Elytra eventually made her way over to where Malakh and Nevara were posted up, the three of them watching the other two work.
"I'm truly grateful they possess social graces such as these," Nevara had said quietly over the rim of her drink, "I haven't the fortitude for this type of engagement."
"You're telling me, I'm probably going to crash once we get back to the ship." Malakh admitted.
Elytra gave a tired little laugh as she said, "I believe I'm going to share the same fate."
Eventually the party began to thin out, crews returning to their ships, and Pryseia and Rhea joined up with the rest of them, the latter looping an arm around Malakh's shoulder the moment she was close enough.
"Sorry I ditched you, babe." Rhea said fondly as she pulled the other woman to her side.
Malakh shot her a fond grin as she looped her own arm around the other woman's waist. "Don't be. Networking is important, and you've got more patience for it than I do."
"And a fruitful endeavour it was," Pryseia said, looking as energized as Elytra felt exhausted by the event, "I've the names and hailing frequencies of dozens, preliminary plans for organizing collaborations in the future. This was a most successful first step in proving our value to the rest of the Kith."
"You think that, do you?" A foreign voice interrupted them.
Elytra was shocked to find Lauter and a few of the Briddbragnan's crew behind them. She didn't know what species the captain was from, but they had a sharp, angular face, piercing gold eyes above a short beak, the feathers that covered their body a dusty reddish brown with black speckles here and there. Like the rest of their crew, they wore plain clothes in muted shades, almost as if they were trying to blend into the crowd rather than stand out from it.
Pryseia stepped forward to stand face to face with the other captain, her posture relaxed, but her eyes laser focused on Lauter. It was the same look Elytra had seen on her when she'd been egging the human on back on Iromay.
"I do think that," She replied, all icy pleasantry, "Cooperation is a hallmark of the Kith of the Void, is it not?"
Lauter stared her down, no doubt trying to will Pryseia into submission, but the deupazing's gaze never wavered. If anything, she welcomed it, with all the fervor of a predator staring down her prey.
Elytra was not surprised when, a few tense moments later, Lauter broke the stare down with a rattle of annoyance, motioning with their head for their crew mates to follow as they left.
Rhea's derisive laugh a moment later summed up their feelings about that little display.