029: Sea of a Million Stars – Three
"Bothered. Miffed. Upset. Annoyed. Agitated. Irked. Peeved. Vexed. Offended. Resentful. Pissed. Dismayed. Bitter. Exasperated. Heated. Irate."
The litany of synonyms Viatrix was spouting was not what Elytra expected to hear when she entered the Pelekys' mess hall for breakfast. Malakh was on kitchen duty that morning, her shoulders shaking with silent laughter as she worked.
"What's put you in such a state?" Elytra asked as she went to help the deorviran, Viatrix's avatar flickering with her foul mood.
"The other AI are unwilling to share the secrets off the Kith's instantaneous communication," Viatrix grumbled, "They claim not to know it themselves, that they respect the need for secrecy in regards to how that technology works, that they haven't gone digging into it, but I have doubts!"
"Are you going to dig into it yourself?" Elytra couldn't help but ask as Malakh directed her into the chopping of some type of vegetable she didn't recognize.
Viatrix groaned like an exasperated teenager. "No. The only thing I can get a reading on from the communication equipment is the megaton yield on the explosive cocooning the device. It's not the type of thing that will be set off by any little jolt or jiggle that passes through the ship, but if we take catastrophic enough damage - the type that would have had us all killed as is - that thing will take out anything that's left. And most likely anything within the blast radius for good measure too. It's definitely rigged to blow from physical and electronic tampering, so my surface scan is about all I'm willing to risk."
"They're serious about keeping that knowledge under wraps. The instant transference of data over galaxy spanning distances? Could you imagine if the Bernetigan Collective got their hands on that!?" Malakh's horror at this hypothetical radiated off of her like heat off molten metal.
"I don't know enough about them to even guess." Elytra admitted.
Shuddering at the thought of them, Malakh explained. "Unlike the rest of the species in the galaxy who have varied cultures across their homeworlds, colonies, and other spacefaring factions, the Bernetigan are one single, unified culture. Unnaturally so. No one outside their space know the when or the how of the start of it, but some sect on their world decided that they were the pinnacle of what it meant to be Bernetigan. They went about installing their society as the dominant one on their world the old fashioned way - via conquest. By the time they reached the stars, there was only one monolithic culture on their world. And when they encountered other races, they tried to unify them under their banner too, but subjugating a single world is simple when in comparison to trying to control the entire galaxy. Just look at how well that's working out for the Thalatte. But unlike the Thalatte, who are using warfare to try and take over everyone, the Bernetigan want their dominion to be a little more complete. They don't want to rule over the galaxy, they want everyone in it to be Bernetigan, from their DNA up. And they found a way to do it."
Her knife slamming into the cutting board harder than she intended, Elytra turned to Malakh, her horror now mirroring the other woman's as she exclaimed, "Propaganda!"
"No, it's true, unfortunately," Viatrix piped up, "There's been extensive research done into trying to learn how they do it, because it's a complete and total rewrite. The advances to medicine that you could achieve with such techniques? Rewriting DNA, you could eradicate any and all illnesses! But anyone who gets close enough to Bernetigan space ends up becoming Bernetigan themselves. No one's sure how they do it, because any who learn are fully converted, and while it's not quite a hive mind situation, natural born and artificially created Bernetigan are unfailingly loyal to the ruling dynasty. They'd sooner kill themselves than disobey those in power. It's quite literally been coded into their DNA."
"There's all kinds of theories as to how the conversion is done," Malakh continued, "But no concrete information. But if it's something that could be transmitted via data signal…"
"Then with the Kith's broadcasting technology, they could potentially convert the entire galaxy before anyone could even put up a token resistance." Elytra finished.
"So you'll be happy to know that the communication devices are also rigged to blow if all life aboard is converted to Bernetigan. The Kith AI told me themselves," Viatrix passed on, "Small mercy that if you're converted into one of them, it won't be for long."
"A morbidly comforting thought," Elytra said with a shudder, "But I'd just as soon avoid Bernetigan space altogether."
"I raise my hand in favour of that!" Malakh agreed.
After breakfast, more lessons from the Kith followed.
Self improvement was a means of ensuring one's survival, and so there were always classes being run, and those eager to take them as much as to teach them. Though none of the rest of the Pelekys were taking this particular class (this one about the strengths and weaknesses of the different mechs one was likely to encounter out in the greater galaxy), there were a couple familiar faces from some of the other courses Elytra had taken.
And while there were more than a handful of strangers present, only one of them seemed hellbent on interrupting, belittling, or mocking everything that Elytra did.
She ignored this childish behaviour, baffled that what she assumed was a grown adult would be acting this way, but eventually the human leading the lesson snapped and booted the offending student from the class. The rest were happy to get onto the business of actually learning about the subject at hand.
When she told the others about this when they met up at one of the restaurants in the market for lunch, they all began displaying the adjectives Viatrix had been listing that morning.
"I had one of those in my class too," Rhea was the first to respond, "Was yours an apiarian as well?"
"No, they were the same race as the one who first met us when we docked the other day? G’wisin Baak?" Elytra told her.
"Usgaisjan, then." Nevara said, "I had a human in mine."
"I too had an encounter with an alien with a grudge," Pryseia said darkly, "Pray tell, the outfits your harassers wore. Were they plain and simple affairs?"
"The one bothering me certainly wasn't wearing anything I'd write home about." Malakh hissed, the rest of them nodding in agreement, their bizarre encounter with Lauter the night before fresh in their minds.
"I know rivalries are part of the Kith shtick, but isn't that something that gets negotiated out between crews?" Rhea asked rhetorically.
Pryseia snorted a disbelieving laugh through her nose. "I did some prying into the exploits of the Briddbragnan after the soiree, and there honestly isn't much to report about. They take regular enough work, mostly in the acquisition of a transport's cargo. They tend to target swift vessels with limited support - speed being where they lay all their hopes in defence. The Briddbragnan, however, far exceeds what commercial transports are capable of in terms of velocity, and so they are more than able to chase down any who attempt to flee them. It is a rarity indeed when they engage in combat with a force more equal to their own, and all but unheard of for them to engage with Leviathan at all. They seem content to skate by on the barest of minimums."
"Yeah, and one of the people I talked to last night said that they don't really broadcast what they do, recording or streaming." Elytra added, "No one's really sure why they stay with the Kith instead of just going full pirate."
"Well, the Kith are the largest pirate guild in the galaxy, so maybe it's easier to hide in the shuffle with so many members?" Rhea theorized.
"A potentiality, but ultimately the Briddbragnan and its crew aren't worth the effort of solving their mystery," Pryseia scoffed, "Especially when we have greater goals before us."
In Elytra's afternoon class - this one about the different races of the galaxy, a subject she felt she needed desperately - there was another blandly dressed alien set on deriding everything Elytra did.
She tried ignoring them as she had their compatriot from the morning, but eventually Elytra's temper hit a critical threshold, and so she snapped, "Grow up!" at the alien before turning back to the lesson.
When the others in the class snickered at that, the alien moodily stopped their harassment campaign, which allowed Elytra to pay attention enough to learn that this particular alien had been a Meleten, their body similar in shape to her own, though they almost had the look of being made of rock instead of flesh.
Without their interruption, her education progressed much smoother.
Dinner at a different restaurant resulted in more revelations of Briddbragnan harassment for the rest of them, which was honestly more sad than it was threatening.
"Yeah, all I had to do was tell mine to shut up, and they didn't bother me for the rest of the day!" Malakh said as she gestured with her knife, "I don't know what they were hoping to accomplish, with how easily they fold when confronted."
"Absolute grade school bullshit," Rhea agreed, "I thought I left this behaviour behind once I was older than ten! It's honestly embarrassing."
"Sadly, some people never achieve growth." Nevara said, nodding her head off to the side. When they turned to see what she was gesturing at, they found Lauter and some of their crew headed for their table.
They looked to be about as happy to be coming over as the crew of the Pelekys was to see them.
"The fuck do you want?" Rhea snapped the moment they got close, done with whatever it was they were trying to start.
"We want you gone," Lauter rattled off, "There isn't a seat for you at our table."
Elytra couldn't help herself as she gestured out at the wide open expanse of the market around them, at the districts of full neighbourhoods stretching out further than the eye could see, decks and decks beyond even that. "Because it's so cramped in here, yes?"
That got a bark of laugher out of Nevara.
Pryseia stood then, all the smooth, sinuous grace of a viper about to strike. A handful of Lauter's crew took a step back as she advanced to stand face to face with the captain, but to their credit, Lauter stood firm.
"If you've some grievance against me and mine, I ask you share it with us." Her calm command was juxtapose by the wild look in her eyes as she stared at them, head tilted slightly down so that her horns jutted prominently forward.
Without breaking eye contact, Lauter's head twitched slightly to the side, the longer feathers along the back of their head flaring out in a clear threat display.
"Newcomers like you are dead weight. You'll just get in our way."
"BOOOOOOOOOO!" Rhea bellowed before Lauter had a chance to finish their sentence, "You're boring. Why don't you take a long walk off a short pier and actually do something meaningful with your life?"
Some of the Briddbragnan's crew twitched like they were preparing to start something, Lauter included, but then they got a better look at the members of the Pelekys before them.
Pryseia was still stood motionless before them, and all it would take would be one lunge and she could drive her horns into Lauter's skull. Nevara, unnoticed by the rest of them, had risen to stand right behind Pryseia, as coiled to strike as the deupazing was. Malakh still sat, but the claws she'd extended from her fingers were drumming against the table with the unmistakable tinkling of razor sharp points meeting metal. Rhea hadn't bothered standing either, but the sleeves of her shirt strained against the muscles of her arms as she tensed them in readiness. And seated next to her, a threatening hissing rumble was burbling from Elytra's throat.
Lauter looked like they were about to say something, but movement off to the side pulled their attention elsewhere. When Elytra followed their gaze, she saw that there were a pair of deorvirans standing off to the side, both dressed in matching uniforms, badges on their chests. They had to be quartermasters, the Kith's internal police force. They'd come up during one of the conversations she'd gotten into at Glare's introduction party, about how important they were to keeping the peace on so large a vessel.
The key piece of information she'd learned was that where one quartermaster stood in the light, a dozen more lay in wait in the shadows.
Not wanting to bring down their wrath, Lauter screeched out a sound that could have been a laugh, waving their crew back as they stepped away.
"You'd best not cross our path out in the void," they warned, "Outside the flotilla, you'll not have others to come running to your aid."
"Fuck off," Rhea waved them away dismissively, "Get a job."
Lauter's crest flared higher at that, but with another glance towards the quartermasters they turned with their crew and walked off.
Nevara and Pryseia didn't sit back down until the crew of the Briddbragnan was lost in the crowd.
"What was the point of any of that?" Malakh grumbled as she returned to her meal.
"There's no accounting for stupid, unfortunately." Rhea scoffed, "But the galaxy is large, so hopefully we never have to see those assholes again!"
Elytra glanced over to where the quartermasters had been, but with the potential altercation dissipated, they'd vanished back to wherever it was they came from. As grateful as she was that their presence had prevented a potential bloodbath, she had a feeling that, despite the Briddbragnan greater numbers, the match would not have gone in Lauter's favour.
And with how the others among the Kith spoke of the crew of the Briddbragnan, Elytra was certain that the quartermasters wouldn't have stepped in to come to the aid of Lauter and their crew with any kind of immediacy.
Morning saw with it the last of the equipment requisitioned for them delivered and installed, and so at breakfast, the crew of the Pelekys decided that this would be their last day on the Quanvengier.
Boarding the transport shuttles one last time, they were whisked across the vast decks of the Kith's main vessel, the interior in a perpetual twilight glow thanks to all the lights glinting off the copious gold gilding that decorated most surfaces. And due to the fact there were so many races with so many different circadian rhythms making their permanent homes on the station, "night" was a relative concept aboard the ships of the flotilla, the lights never going out as someone was always up and working.
Their lessons for the day went by much easier than previously, as no one from the Briddbragnan's crew decided to continue their harassment campaign.
The members of the Pelekys couldn't even pretend to be sad about that.
After a lunch and a shopping trip to indulge in the things they wouldn't be able to replicate with the assorted fabricators they had back aboard their ship, the crew blasted through their lessons for the afternoon, and spent the evening ensuring that they had all the supplies they'd need for the journey ahead.
For one last time they were summoned to Glare's control room, the baithaizan's perpetually pleasant face splitting into an even wider grin when they arrived, and they quickly ushered them into their private office.
"I hear you had a bit of a tiff with Lauter. Excellent form in not letting them bury you under the sand!"
"Are they like that with everyone, or are we getting special treatment?" Malakh asked the question on all their minds.
Glare's throat swelled as they let loose a disgruntled growl. "They practice equality with their antics, though they're always quick to target newcomers. Don't like it when someone new takes a crack at this line of work, despite there never being a shortage of work to go around! Their behaviour flies in the face of what the Kith stand for! The only reason we haven't cracked down on this behaviour is because the Briddbragnan so rarely interacts with the rest of us. Why, they haven't been back here in nearly a decade! If it wasn't for the union fees that come in on the regular, we don't hear a peep from them."
"Good to know they're so different from the rest of you, then." Nevara said.
"From the rest of us," Glare corrected with a laugh, "You're Kith of the Void as much as everyone here now! And on that note, I wanted to direct you to the Avvisi."
They popped a screen out of their desk and spun it around so the rest of them could see. There appeared to be a relatively simple database program on screen.
"You'll be free to take on any type of work that you care to seek out, but the Avvisi is our… job board, I suppose you could call it. Your companion Viatrix has already been given clearance to access the system, through which you'll be able to search for clients who are currently looking to fulfill contracts with us. There's plenty of crews out there who only work with select individuals, but there's always people hungry to work with the Kith! It's all on a see it snatch it basis, so if something pops up that aligns with your personal agenda, take the mission before another crew does! Now, I'm sure you're all eager to be on your way, so is there anything pressing you need dealt with before you depart?"
"No, you've been nothing short of exceeding all that we could have hoped for," Pryseia spoke for the rest of them, "After all that we've learned here, we're eager to put our new skills and equipment to the test."
If Glare's laugh hadn't made their delight clear, the glee Elytra could feel bubbling off of them like sea foam left no room for doubt.
Less than an hour later, the Pelekys was pulling out from the Quanvengier's dry dock, in possession of the signal needed to more readily find the Kith flotilla in the chaos in the core.
"I simply must sing my praises for the technicians who carried out the retrofit," Viatrix has beamed, "I feel positively incandescent with the upgrades I can feel running through the ships systems!"
"Hopefully they'll make searching for the other Storlayacas easier." Malakh said.
Viatrix's avatar flashed at that. "Speaking of which, once we get back into space that isn't as perilous as the core or subspace, I would like to connect to Lianshae. I'm curious to see if it possesses code different to Zaanlaa, and if so, my hope is that it could extend the scope of my search."
"Of course," Elytra replied, "As soon as we're in stable space, it's all yours."