035: Take What You Can – Four
Being thrown face first into a mat set up in the cargo hold was not where Elytra had expected to find herself the next morning, but when Nevara had asked her to accompany her, she was too curious to stop and ask questions.
"You lasted longer than I expected." The apiarian in question said as Elytra rolled over, taking the hand offered to her.
"What was that about!?" Elytra demanded, watching as Nevara stepped back a few paces, falling into a ready stance.
"We may need to fight our way out of whatever awaits us, either in this mission or the ones that follow. The rest of us have had formal combat training. You haven't. For the safety of yourself, as well as the rest of us, this is something to be remedied." Nevara told her.
Elytra frowned. "I don't disagree, but did you have to attack me out of nowhere?"
"I wanted to see what you would resort to on instinct," Nevara explained, "Pryseia told me you'd undergone skill implanting while in custody on Iromay. While a quick training method, it is woefully incomplete. I can say with certainty that the skills transferred were not meant for a body type like yours."
"How could you tell?"
"The way you throw punch doesn't take into consideration your carapace, you catch your arm on your chest when you swing. Your kicks are better suited for non-digitigrade legs, you'd be stronger striking than sweeping. You stumble, as you don't have a tail to counterbalance you. I'd guess that you were implanted with baithaizan fighting skills, not ones that would take advantage of your physicality."
"I'm unsurprised. The people running that place didn't seem to care about taking into account the needs of those they'd captured." Elytra sighed.
Nevara laughed noiselessly. "It's rare that captors do. The body remembers as much as the mind, so teaching it how to fight will override the improper instincts you've been forced with."
"Alright," Elytra said, mimicking the stance Nevara had take up, "Show me what to do."
Later, in the medbay, Rhea hummed thoughtfully as Elytra stepped out of the diagnostic alcove. Unlike the first time she'd been subjected to the sensors of that thing, this time felt far less invasive. No doubt due to the retrofitting back on Quanvengier.
"You're going to be a bit sore, but keep up the exercise routine Nevara's set you up with, and that'll fade as your body grows accustomed to what you're practicing. If you experience any pain aside from that, let me know immediately."
"She did well, considering." Nevara said with an approving nod, and Elytra couldn't stop the swell of pride that welled up in her when she felt Nevara's own.
"High praise, coming from her." Rhea said fondly. Her eyebrows rose suddenly, and she said, "While I have you here, Elytra, I'd like to get you fitted for a Longan Unit - one you can remove at will with no bombs in it, promise. It'll be an invaluable tool for the heist, and probably beyond that too."
Elytra nodded, "I can only imagine. I'd be happy to. If anything, I should be doing more training in Lianshae as well."
"Well, mech training is going to have to wait for when we're not in the middle of enemy territory," Rhea said, holding Elytra's arm briefly, "Just focus on physical exercise at the moment. Honestly, I should take my own advice. I quit with the physical regiment the Thalatte kept us on as soon as I got my Longan off, but I'm kind of missing it."
"Likewise," Nevara told her, "Hence why I fabricated some rudimentary sparring equipment last night. I'd be happy to face you in the ring. If you go easy on me, of course."
"Of course," Rhea grinned, "Wouldn't want to risk harming our best pilot, now would I?"
"Is there that much a disparity between your skills?" Elytra asked, causing Rhea to laugh suddenly.
"Not even a little bit!" She said after a moment, "If anything, Nevara's the more skilled of us. Humans originated on a world with a higher gravity than the homeworlds of a lot of the other races out there, so we're comparatively stronger in comparison. Your average human can put more power into a punch than some of the best trained fighters from other races across the galaxy. It's something I have to be mindful of at all times, especially as a doctor. I could crack your carapace with very little effort."
Elytra couldn't help but boggle at that. "Your mindfulness certainly worked. I never would have guessed that about you!"
"Good," Rhea replied, a slight smirk gracing her features as she raised her fists, "The only people who should fear these things are our enemies!"
It didn't take long for Malakh, once she'd gotten whatever data she needed from Rhea, to fabricate a Longan Unit for Elytra to use. The koleopteran turned the device over in her hands, taking in the slim, plain shape of it.
"If we're going to be streaming our missions live later on, I figured they may as well match the designs of our costumes," Malakh said, motioning to her own Longan, which now resembled a snarling maw full of teeth, much more befitting of the Queen's Red Left Hand, "You'll be able to wear yours under your helmet without it getting in the way."
"And it will just… hold itself to my face?" Elytra asked.
Nodding, Malakh said, "Yeah. It uses a type of molecular bonding to create a solid but temporary hold. You won't be able to shake it loose, but touch these two spots on it and pull, and it'll come off right away."
Elytra brought the device up to her face, and in a similar fashion to a magnet, as soon as it was close enough, it snapped into place. She tried peeling it off from one of its edge, but it budged about as much as one of her own plates would if she tried the same with them. But gripping it in the manner Malakh had indicated had it coming off as easily as anything.
"It's got neural controls in it," Malakh continued, "Sort of in line with what you've used in Lianshae. Basically, you think at it to use it."
Elytra replaced the device, willing it to activate, and it immediately did. A HUD filled her vision, highlighting different objects in the fabrication room, information being brought up about every little thing as soon as she directed her thoughts to what lay before her.
"The speed of it is a little jarring." She admitted, trying to reel her focus in and not ping inquiries about everything in the space.
Malakh chuckled. "With practice you do get used to it, so we'll make sure you're more confident with its use before we actually head into the Bakiz Institute. I'm going to have to modify the rest of ours, but yours already has the psychic masking tech installed in it. You ready to take it through a tutorial now?"
"Please," Elytra replied, "The more time I have to learn this, the better."
By the time dinner rolled around, Elytra felt like she was in a daze. There was a low, thrumming ache in her body from her morning training session with Nevara, and even though she fully had her Longan off of her person, she swore that the HUD display was still etched into her eyeballs from her time spent with Malakh showing her how to effectively use the thing.
"Your efforts at improvement are commendable, but do be careful to not push past your limits." Pryseia said next to her, lightly tapping her back with her tail, and Elytra blinked hard to try and drive some of the fog from her brain.
"I think I went a little over those limits today." She admitted with a little laugh.
"Then I'm prescribing you sleep after you're done with dinner," Rhea sternly pointed her fork in her direction, the severity of the motion spoiled by the smile she was poorly suppressing, "Same for the rest of you. We wanna be on our A game when it comes time to pull off the heist."
During the previous evening, they'd hammered out a solid plan for how to achieve their goals once inside the Bakiz Institute, but actually getting into the museum itself was something that they'd not yet found a solution for.
From her usual console in the mess hall, Viatrix said, "I think I've gotten all the usable information we're going to need from our surveillance at this point. If it's alright with the rest of you, I would prefer it if we could get the ship somewhere less likely to be bumped into by tourists."
"Once the night traffic thins out, I'd be happy to oblige." Nevara told her.
"And who knows, maybe a change of scenery will give us a different perspective on how to break into that place?" Malakh suggested.
Malakh's prediction ended up coming to pass.
After waiting for the dead of night to fly the Pelekys out of Ritroser's atmosphere, Nevara had once again hidden the ship in the shadow of one of the moons. This particular one had been the ideal hiding spot, as it was devoid of the traffic of its sister. The reason for this was because of a dedicated industrial shipping lane leading past the moon, directly to the station they'd noticed when they'd first arrived in the system.
"The station itself is fully automated," Pryseia had told them over breakfast the next morning, an eager glint in her eye, "It receives goods from assorted Zymeth resource centres, which are then sorted and shipped off to various establishments on the world below in self-piloting shuttles. One such client is the Bakiz Institute itself."
Rhea lit up at that, saying, "That's our backdoor into the museum!"
"Indeed!" Pryseia's excitement was contagious, "Now all that remains is to divine a way to get onto a shuttle bound for our destination."
Nevara's mandibles clacked together in amusement. "What of a repeat of your admittance to the Baithaiz ship that brought you to Iromay?"
"That might actually be viable for us," Malakh replied, her fingers flying over her data pad, "Looks like the transports don't fly anywhere near as fast as the ship Pryseia jumped to was. They've got to be careful with all the tourist ships flying around, after all. Looking at the specs on these things, they've got the typical dematerialization defenses you would expect out of a cargo vessel, so we won't be able to get in the easy way, but we should be able to hack open an access port and jump on through."
Pryseia grinned at that. "Exemplar. Vi, would you kindly be able to give us a schedule for the upcoming shuttles that would suit our needs?"
"That shouldn't take too long," Viatrix confirmed.
Rhea chuckled darkly at that information. "Damn, we're really going to do this, aren't we? I'm fucking thrilled!"
"Likewise," Pryseia replied, "Malakh, do you believe we will need any other specialized gear in order to complete our objectives?"
"I've got a couple things in the works with the fabricators, and they should be finished up by tomorrow." The deorviran told her.
"Good. I'd like for all of us to be familiar with the use of whatever tools we will need for this endeavour. For it to have a hasty conclusion, we should take all the time we can to become swift in the execution of our designs."
After an early night, Elytra awoke to an invitation for another sparring session in the cargo hold, once she was eager to take up.
And she wasn't the only one, because the rest of the crew was already there, dressed down to workout attire and raring to go.
Malakh led them through a series of stretches, then Rhea brought out resistance bands with which to work on their strength. Elytra then got to see Rhea's human strength in action, as she was able to easily use the higher resistance bands that the rest of them couldn't even budge.
"I'd prefer to use weights, but these'll do in a pinch." She'd said, "I don't want to waste all the raw matter for the fabricators on making a bunch of dumbbells when we've still got things to make for our heist and everything!"
"With the payout we'll get if this job goes right, we can get the most through set of training equipment the market has to offer!" Malakh shot back.
"Not if. When." Pryseia had corrected with a grin.
After the tutorial from the previous day, Elytra had a much easier time with Longan Unit as Viatrix ran them through the use of several breaking and entering programs she had acquired over the course of their preparation time.
"It's honestly amazing the types of things you can find on the interstellar network," she's told them, "There are a lot of resources out there for how to get into places you aren't supposed to. Very little of this information was developed by the Kith! It looks like it's more than pirates who seek the treasures out there among the worlds."
She'd designed tutorials for them all, even going so far as to rig up several consoles they could test things on. Every success was met with cheer, while every failure was treated to the sinister laugh of the Program promising them nothing but doom.
"You're really enjoying playing that character, aren't you?" Elytra laughed after the Program promised her a swift end after her latest attempt failed.
"It's positively cartoonish," Viatrix replied, "I see now why actors from across the galaxy relish playing the part of the villain."
"Oh, speaking of villains," Rhea had said, turning to Pryseia, "I think I have an idea for something to do with Queen Kaizoku."
"I would be thrilled to hear." Pryseia replied.
A dim corridor, the stone walls giving the place an air of harsh indifference. The sounds of fighting could be heard coming from the distance.
Weapons fire, harsh screams, something terrible had befallen this place.
A figure rounded the corner, cast in silhouette but visibly wounded. They rushed forward, a slight limp, right hand clutching their left arm.
Or rather, what remained of their left arm. Blood dripped from the stump with every uneven step they took, splattering against the cold ground.
Ragged breathing as the figure rushed through the halls, the sounds of battle ebbing and flowing as they passed by open doors.
"Betrayed by the fools I once called family; traitors who now sought to bring my life to an end." A cool, haughty voice spoke over the scene.
Corridors and corridors more, the sounds of the fighting finally receding.
"The throne, mine by right of conquest, denied to me. My court slaughtered. My holdings divided. They sought to kill me, to break my spirit."
The figure ran into an elevator, the door closing on the harsh hallway-
"But all they have done is harden my resolve."
-only to open into a brighter light, allowing the figure to be seen at last.
Deupazing, navy skin covered in gold freckles, though her form was splattered with her own violet blood from the multiple wounds across the left side of her body, most prominently the slash through her left eye, and the stump of her left arm.
Her expression was hard, furious, as she stepped into the light, her eyes trailing up at what lay before her,
A mech, clearly of Hyttan make, but very obviously not an Odazaen. Nearly twice the size of one, even in the large open space of the cargo hold, its presence seemed to fill the entire room. The deposed deupazing seemed especially small as she climbed the walkway up to its cockpit.
She sat in the pilot's seat as if it were her throne, her wounds the last thing on her mind as the harnesses emerged to anchor her in place.
"I am Queen Kaizoku," the last part of her visible as the cockpit hatch closed was her one remaining eye, an incandescent gold burning with hate, "And I will have my revenge."
Malakh whooped loudly as the clip came to an end, her grin wild as she said, "Audiences are going to eat this up!"
Pryseia laughed as she said, "Viatrix was correct in her assessment of the enjoyment such a villainous role can bring to a performer."
"I fear I'm acquiring an addiction to making these," Elytra admitted, "Every aspect of it, really. The sets, planning the shots! This is never something I would have stumbled upon in my old life."
"That's wild, cuz you're a natural!" Rhea told her, slinging an arm around her shoulder.
Nevara had a small, guilty smile gracing her features. "Part of me wants to spend more time making such clips, despite the fact we have our heist in the works."
"Well, we still have some planning to do, some gear to train with, so I'm sure there's time enough to film a little bit more," Viatrix reasoned.
"Indeed. We still have the rest of our cast to introduce," Pryseia agreed with a far less guilty smile, "The galaxy needs to know the names of the ones who will shortly be pilfering from under the superior technology of the Zymeth Geniocracy. Their shame at being outwitted by a host of the Lesser will be a payment almost as rewarding as the finances we will acquire from our little adventure!"