036: Take What You Can – Five
The utilitarian cockpit of a shuttle, lights dimmed as it travelled through space. Light coming off the consoles had gilded the trio of figures who occupied the space in artificial gold.
One, tall and imposing. Apiarian. If a woman was made a knife. Armour built to destroy more than defend. She was motionless as she glared at the person kneeling before her and her companion.
In the pilot seat next to her sat a human woman, the swirling wine in the goblet she had in hand as red as the blood that flowed through her veins. In contrast to her companion, she was all soft curves, her ruby lips canted in amusement.
"According to the people General Grim… liberated you from," the human spoke, gesturing to her companion with her goblet, "You are a prophet. Tell me, then, what have you seen?"
Shrouded in robes and armour, too obscured to tell what species this individual belonged to, a strange voice echoed out from beneath the lowered hood.
"Many things… some that concern you, Chancellor Bathory…"
An elegant eyebrow arched. The Chancellor motioned for the seer to continue.
The kneeling figure reared back slightly, head raised. The empty expanse of a clear faceplate, the interior swirling with violet vapour. Two glowing eyes opened, sightless as they saw into the beyond.
…the Chancellor kneeling in a killing field, blood soaked hands raised in horror before her face as bodies surrounded her on all sides…
…the General stood before figures in shadow, stripped of all honor as she was exiled from all she knew…
…a red clad deorviran pulling herself from a pile of bodies, a soundless scream tearing from her throat…
…lines of code compiling on a console screen, forming the shape of an axe as blood splatters against the display…
…a deupazing of cobalt and gold standing in the cockpit of an ancient machine, beckoning forward with her mechanical hand…
…an ancient machine. Powerful. Immense. The alien architecture of its construction apparent even as it was cast in silhouette, eclipsing stars with its might…
The seer slumped forward, their shoulders rising and falling with their laboured breathing. Eventually they spoke.
"Revenge. I see the path forward for revenge."
The Chancellor and General shared a look at that, the features on the apiarian immobile while the human's melted into a predatory smirk.
"I would be happy to hear more, Madame…?"
"Augury." Was the clipped, distant reply. From within her hood, her eyes flared once, a blinding white, burning the afterimage of a terrifying skull before it all faded to black.
As the video on screen came to an end, the lights in the rec room brightened, and the crew of the Pelekys congratulated each other for their latest creation.
"I can say with confidence that we've got all the gear we'll need to pull off our heist," Malakh said as she looked around at the rest of them, "And with all the surveillance Vi's been doing, we're set as far as intel goes. We've gotta get these videos out onto our socials before we break and enter, so that leaves the question: when are we going to pull this thing off?"
Pryseia scooted to the edge of her seat in order to reach the low table before them. A touch of her hand had a display fading to life across the surface of the table, a map of the system on display. Another tap, and the map zoomed in on Ritroser and the supply station they intended to use to get into the Bakiz Institute.
"A supply ship bound for our museum departs the station once every eight of their days. The next one is due to leave in four. If all are in agreement, I believe that this next departure is the one we should make use of."
"That's time enough to drop these intros one a day, and also film something to act as a prologue to the heist itself." Rhea pointed out. This was met with nods all around.
In keeping with the piratical practices of the Kith of the Void, the suite of editing software they provided their crews was plundered from the very best entertainment studios the galaxy over. Industry secrets were nothing against the might of wanting something without having to pay for it.
With these pilfered tools of the trade, each Kith crew was, in essence, an independent studio in and of themselves. And it was something the crew of the Pelekys had quickly taken a shine to.
They'd released the first of their promo videos - they'd decided on dropping the one about Queen Kaizoku first - and it was doing well enough for the launch video from a brand new crew. Their socials had been receiving regular traffic ever since, the images and information they'd released about the Queen getting shared, while the hit counts on the teasers about upcoming crew members steadily increased.
This surge of interest, as slight as it was this early in their Kith careers, had the crew of the Pelekys eager to create more.
As such, half of them had posted up in the rec room in order to work on assets to save time on future productions, while the other half were filming things in their studio space.
Nevara was lounging on one of the couches, her Longan in place (now sporting a severe shell more befitting of General Grim), in order to listen to the music she was composing on her data pad. With the way she was nodding along to whatever she was working on, her efforts must have been bearing fruit.
Elytra had her own data pad in hand, doing a little more research into the trends that were popular with audiences, trying to see what they could used for their own work, and what wouldn't work for them. Standing out was often better than blending in, after all.
Seated on the couch next to her, Rhea was brainstorming narrative ideas they could implement in future videos, as well as coming up with potential story lines they could enact at a later date. Creative muscles that she'd long been forced to atrophy were being put through their paces, and with the way her fingers flew across her screen, that pace was not one that was going to slow down any time soon.
Working in shared silence as they were, they were all startled when the door to the room slid open, Malakh jogging inside, dressed in her Left Hand attire. She sped over to a small table that was set up in the room (it was for some sort of deupazing game that Elytra hadn't gotten around to asking about yet), hoisted it up to take the weight on one shoulder, saying, "We need this for a scene." before leaving again, slowing down just long enough to drop a kiss on Rhea's forehead as the human leaned back against the couch to watch her go.
Rhea returned to her data pad as the door to the rec room slid shut, eyes bright and a small smile gracing her lips. Elytra could feel Rhea's love for the other woman like a ray of sun breaking its way through a tangle of branches.
Feeling eyes on her, Rhea looks away from her data pad. "What?" She asked Elytra, her tone more amused than annoyed.
Elytra smiled as she shook her head. "Your affection for each other feels like sunlight. It's just… with everything you've all told me about being shackled to the Thalatte, how did you even have the opportunity to nurture that?"
Rhea let out a humourless laugh at that. "Carefully and quietly. Command didn't take kindly to fraternization among their slave forces. Hmm… hoping this translates, but in your own people's history, did any of your armed forces have cavalry?"
"If you mean beasts that troops would ride into battle, then yes, that translated well enough."
"Perfect, so then you'll get it when I say they treated us more like cavalry creatures rather than people, despite the fact that we can talk and think and reason like any thalatte. And like animals, they only referred to us by whatever they decided, denying us our actual names. They made sure we were groomed according to regulations - cut off anything that wasn't what the thalatte were used to, hide what couldn't be removed without affecting the efficacy of their soldiers. They even went so far as to have those of us with more extreme fertility cycles on hormone suppressants, though they had all of their slaves sterilized. Like I said, they treated us like animals," Rhea said in response to Elytra's horrified look, "And they didn't want to have to worry about any unplanned pregnancies in their ranks. Not that any of us could even get up to any activities that could result in children, the way they kept such a close watch on us all."
Elytra let out a breath at that, staring off into the distance with a frown. After a moment she said, "The horrors never seem to cease with these so called 'Enlightened' races."
"That's for damn sure!" Rhea laughed, "They made things very difficult for us, in every regard, not just a relationship one. But, despite their efforts, we found a way."
"How?" Elytra asked.
Rhea gave her a wry grin. "Easy. Malakh had to get her leg blown off."
The Meleten world of Krag, known to the Thalatte as SR-R-1997, was one of the furthest colonies from the Meleten homeworld of Khemeioa. As such, it was a prime target for the Thalatte, ever hungry for conquest.
A foothold was established on the world, then another, and another. Bases, starports, barracks and garrisons. Troops were brought in, borders were expanded, and the Thalatte were certain that they'd have the planet under their control within the span of a standard galactic cycle.
The Meleten were determined to prove them wrong.
Unable to stand up to the Thalatte Stratocracy's superior numbers and firepower, the Meleten of Krag had to fight dirty. Sabotage, hit and run attacks, attrition at every step of the way. They couldn't take out the Thalatte in one powerful, cleaving blow, but they could bring about a death by a thousand cuts.
Metaphorical cuts, at least. In practice, they used explosives.
With every new territory across Krag the Thalatte conquered, a new outpost was swiftly erected to house the personnel and resources they would need to hold it. In the early stages, before proper defences were in place, these outposts were an easy target, one the Meleten were quick to take advantage of.
And so the latest, furthest outpost was struck, bomb-laden drones buzzing in from all sides, too great in number to take down with what meager defences the outpost had up and operational, and so casualties were high. The soldiers who could fight chased after the saboteurs into the wilderness surrounding the area, while those who yet still clung to life were brought back to one of the more heavily defended bases to get medical attention enough to make them ready for redeployment, and so it was that Doctor Marinos found herself as the field medic attending to Engineer First Class Khari.
It was not a pretty sight.
Haste, rather than comfort, had been the keyword the rescuing troops had been operating under when they'd pulled survivors from the wreckage of the ruined outpost. A tourniquet to stop the bleeding and a sedative to stop the screaming were the extent of the medical aid they'd supplied to the wounded deorviran when they pulled her from the wreckage and slung her into the transport with the rest of the survivors, the latter of which had worn off by the time she'd been carted into the medbay where Marinos was stationed.
The Doctor didn't flinch when a clawed hand grabbed her arm as she'd administered a painkiller, her patient delirious with agony. Over the screams of the other patients being tended to, her quiet murmur of, "It's alright, you're alright, I've got you." went unnoticed by the scant thalatte officers on the scene.
But not unnoticed by Khari herself.
As the brutal lance of pain was shrouded by the drugs now rolling through her system, her grip slackened on the woman assessing her, the feel of her warm hands gently peeling back her burnt uniform in order to get to her damaged flesh pulling her back from the brink.
Sensing the return of her higher faculties, Doctor Marinos shot her a look. "You'll live, but the damage is bad. I'm going to need to operate. I'm gonna put you under for that."
Under Thalatte directives, local anesthesia was the only type of anesthesia to be given to non-thalatte injured. After all, the Lesser races they took as slaves were too primitive to even have the capacity to experience mental trauma. Wasting such a resource on a beast was a punishable offence, and the both of them knew that.
"I-" Despite that, Khari did not want to be awake and aware in her current state, "It's fine. I can push through. I don't want to get you in trouble."
Holding her hand, Marinos gave her a wink as she whispered, "Trouble's my middle name." as she used her position hovering over the deorviran to hide the syringe she injected into her side.
"Guess the pain was so much that you just passed out." Was the last think Khari heard before the world slipped away from her.
Tossing the syringe in with the rest of the used sharps was easy enough to do in the chaos of the medbay as Marinos gathered her supplies. Nearly a decade into her captivity in the Thalatte military, and the casual cruelty with which they expected their slaves to treat each other with boiled her blood. Her captors may have been cold blooded, but Marinos was not about to stoop to their level.
It was only a few hours later when Khari came to, but it felt like days for Marinos. With so many injured, she'd been bounced from patient to patient, surgery after surgery, and it was only willpower alone that kept her on her feet as she checked in on her patient.
"Welcome back. I have good news and bad news, what do you want first?" Marinos asked.
Blinking the remnants of her forced unconsciousness from her eyes, Khari gave her a piercing look. Ears flicking from side to side, cataloguing every sound in the room, the Engineer eventually said, "Thank you. I'm in your debt."
"Where I come from, doctors are sworn to do no harm. You don't owe me for me following my own oath."
"Well where I come from, we honour those who go above and beyond for us, so your oath will just have to deal."
Marinos had to bite back a laugh from that, and Khari didn't bother hiding the smile that spread across her face in response.
"I'm conscious, so the bad news isn't as bad as it could be," she said after a moment, "So what's the worst of it?"
The humour left the Doctor's expression, replaced by grim sympathy as she said, "The damage to your right leg was too severe, so it had to be amputated. You've been added to the queue for a prosthetic, but coupled with the extensive burns you received, you're going to be laid up for a couple of weeks. I'm sorry."
"I thought you said there was bad news," Khari joked, though it fell more than a little flat with her dazed look and hitched breathing, "I'm getting a forced vacation? That's a positive as far as I'm concerned!"
Marinos gave her a sad smile, placing a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. Before she could even think to stop herself, Khari reached up to hold it. Under Thalatte rule, frivolous contact like that wasn't permitted, but she was touch starved enough to be willing to risk whatever demerit this breach of decorum would bring.
Marinos' smile brightened then, and she leaned forward to ask, "Did you want the actual good news?"
Her own mood lightening at the sight, Khari replied, "Obviously."
"There were quite a few Thalatte officers injured in that attack, and they aren't going to let lesser beings like us tend to them. So for until those officers are back on their feet, the thalatte doctors are going to be off tending to them in much nicer facilities, so we're going to be under less scrutiny than we normally would be. Which means…" Marinos drew that last word out in a little singsong, "We actually get to treat each other like people. Also, I can get you the good drugs."
That got a genuine laugh out of Khari, and as Marinos watched her indulge in something the Thalatte would have reprimanded her for, she had the sweeping, sudden urge to find a way to bring a little more levity into this woman's life.