053: A Demanded End – One
The ships of the Thalatte navy were built to be intimidating. Fortress-like structures bristling with an assortment of cannons, to have one drop out of subspace before you, ordering your surrender by overriding your every communications frequency and blasting out their demands, was designed to pressure even the most stalwart captains into surrendering before they even had a chance to think about fleeing or fighting back.
Captain Lauter Hulan of the Briddbragnan wasn't anywhere even close to what anyone would consider "stalwart", and so had capitulated before the surrender order even had a chance to loop.
Sat in the mess hall with the bulk of their crew while the Thalatte strike force that had come aboard scoured the ship for anyone not currently accounted for, it was all they could do to not try and make a break for it.
(They'd had an emergency escape pod installed in their quarters, a one-person capsule with FTL capabilities and scramblers enough to prevent even the Thalatte from tracking its escape vector. They needed just enough time to get in and launch the thing and they'd be able to escape this mess. They'd need to buy a new ship and hire a new crew, but they were willing to cut their losses if it spared their life.)
Unfortunately for Lauter, as the last of their crew was rounded up and herded into the mess hall, the captain of the Thalatte ship ordered all the doors locked shut, and for their troops to ready and aim their weapons at the assembled Kith.
"Alright, you scum," the Thalatte captain barked, hands clasped behind their back as they prowled in front of the gathered crowd, glaring as they eyed up every prisoner that they passed, "Who amongst you holds the dubious title of 'captain' now, hm?"
Lauter didn't move, hoping to not draw any attention, but several of their crew mates glanced over at them. This did not go unnoticed by the Thalatte captain.
"You then, is it?" They growled as they marched to stand before Lauter, "Come now, speak up."
Hiding behind arrogance to hide their panic, Lauter confirmed, "I'm the captain."
The Thalatte glared down at them for a few tense seconds before stepping away, snapping their fingers and pointing at Lauter before marching over to the nearest door. Two of their strike force came over and hauled Lauter upright, grabbing an arm each as they bullied them out of the room to follow their commanding officer.
Lauter's crew didn't so much as twitch as their captain was dragged away.
The Thalatte officer led them through the corridors of the Briddbragnan, all the way to Lauter's private suite. As they were roughly thrown into a chair in front of their desk, Lauter could have crowed in triumph. All they had to do was slip past the guards and get their bedroom door between themself and the Thalatte, and they'd be able to use their escape pod to get out of this situation.
Leaning against Lauter's desk, the officer nodded at the two guards, who immediately stationed themselves in front of the doors of the room. Lauter didn't allow the frustration they felt at that development cross their features, determined as they were to get out of this situation alive.
"Well, you Kith lot are certainly difficult to get a hold of," the officer snapped, crossing their arms in order to glare down at Lauter, "And therein lies the source of my problems. It was a lucky break catching you unawares, but you are very much not the brigand I was hoping to get my hands on."
Lauter knew bait when they saw it, so they left whatever the Thalatte was fishing for well enough alone by keeping their mouth shut. The two of them stared each other down in silence for a time, before the officer made a rumbling hiss in the back of their throat, kicking off the desk to pace smartly before Lauter.
"Undisciplined carrion feeders, hardly worth the effort it takes to blow you out of the stars. We're content to let you put on your silly little performances, but sometimes you get involved in things better left to your betters," the officer was winding themselves up into a fury when they paused in their pacing to glare at Lauter, demanding, "Namely allowing the feckless deserters who stole the Pelekys to join your ranks!"
At the name of that hated ship, Lauter was unable to prevent the feathers along their crest from flaring up in anger, something that made the Thalatte officer lean back thoughtfully.
"You are aware of them, I take it?"
If Lauter's species had the ability to smile, they would have. Instead, they just said, "I am well aware."
"So did you glean anything new from linking up with Yarula?" Rhea asked from her spot on the floor of the rec room, legs tucked under the low table as she swiped through documents across its screen. Her hair was back to normal, wavy and dark brown, but her eye and skin colour had yet to return to their proper shades ("Hair's easy to fix," Rhea had told them, "Blast it off and then get the follicles to pump more out. Can't exactly do that with my meat parts, so I'll have to wait for the pigmentation to return to normal on their own. That'll take like a month or so. Unless I get some sun, so maybe we take a quick beach vacation or something while we wait for the next Storlayacas to be found?")
From her console, Viatrix's floral avatar spun in excitement as she said, "I think I have, though it's a little difficult to put into words. It was like… some of the missing parts of an equation getting filled in? But the problem is also a lake, and I can feel the streams branching off of it, reaching for the sea. And that sea is a dream that I've forgotten on waking? It's honestly more sensation than anything… a subconscious feeling? I don't think I'm doing a good job of describing it. Or maybe… hm… like something unconscious? Like an instinct has been- well, I don't want to say implanted. More like I'm now cognizant of the instincts that were already there? The knowledge that was already there. Kind of all of that. Wow, I apologize for that word salad of an explanation!"
Elytra chuckled at that, elbows on her knees and head in her hands as she sat perched on the couch across from Rhea. "It's alright. I can sympathize, if anything. Trying to explain what feeling others feelings feels like?"
"Let me guess, not your favourite feeling?" Malakh grinned at her from where she was pacing, data pad in hand.
Elytra just flipped her off, grinning back, and that surprised a laugh out of Malakh.
"Well, I might not be able to get it into words, but it's definitely going to help me find your Storlayacas, Nevara!" Viatrix chirped excitedly, "Going back to the equation metaphor, every unit I've linked up with had filled in the missing pieces, and now it feels like there's just a couple numbers left. And using a completely different metaphor, it's helping me narrow down the frequency these things operate on, so I should be more able to pick them up over the background noise of the universe."
"That is stupendous to hear," Pryseia said from her spot, wedged into the corner of the couch next to Elytra, "As always, we are grateful for all that you do."
Sitting back against the couch Rhea was sitting in front of, Nevara nodded, saying, "Truly. We would not have made it this far without you."
"You certainly know how to butter a girl up." Viatrix said, clearly delighted by the praise.
"Only when it's well earned." Nevara told her, which sent Viatrix's avatar spinning again.
"Speaking of well earned, our live broadcast brought us a lot of attention," Elytra said as she leaned forward to bring up their viewer stats on the table's screen, "And a lot more paying subscribers. Next time we stop off for supplies, we'll be hard pressed to spend it all in one place!"
Rhea leaned over, reading the numbers upside down before letting out a low whistle of approval. "We could probably afford to upgrade every single thing on this ship and still have some change left over!"
Pryseia grinned at her, tail flicking with amusement as she said, "If we simply must spend an exorbitant amount, perhaps we could do so on an event? A wedding, perchance?"
Ever since Rhea's impromptu proposal (which she went out of her way to make sure that everyone knew she wasn't joking around in the slightest about the offer), they'd been randomly pitching ideas for what they could do to celebrate. As Malakh and Rhea caught each other's eye here in the rec room, Elytra could feel the love they had for one another beaming off them like rays of sunlight, and it had her tearing up, caught in the periphery of it as she was.
"Oh just something absolutely massive," Rhea said with mock seriousness, though her grin was spoiling the effect, "On the fanciest resort world we can find, inviting every single celebrity imaginable, with only the rarest and most endangered food items on the menu!"
"And our outfits would have to be the most expensive on the market," Malakh added on, "Style? Nothing compared to how much it cost to make!"
"So Necupole fashion, then?" Was Nevara's immediate suggestion.
"No thank you!" Rhea half yelled, "That shit sucked! I could barely do more than stand around like some fucking statue in that getup, and if you think I'm going to pass up a chance to dance at my wedding, then think again!"
"Honestly, the thought of some massive, expensive wedding gives me nightmares," Malakh grimaced as she plopped down on the ground at the head of the low table closest to Rhea, "I'd be happy if we just got it officiated by whoever the closest legal authority is."
Viatrix hummed briefly. "If that's the case, then as the captain of this vessel, Pryseia has the authority to do that."
"Then immediately yes," Pryseia said as she bolted up out of her slouch, "As your captain, I bless this union!"
"Yaaaay!" Rhea clapped, shooting a cheeky glance at Malakh, "Now we're wives!"
Malakh let out a watery laugh, tearing up as she shot Rhea a dazzling grin, "That easy, huh?"
"Babe, everything else in our lives has been a complex struggle," Rhea grinned back, her own eyes filling with tears, "We're due something simple and nice."
Malakh let out something halfway between a laugh and a sob at that, covering her eyes with her hands as she threw herself backwards to lay on the ground, her tail coming up to loop around Rhea's wrist. "I don't know how to deal with simple and nice."
"If you would feel better with wretched complexity, we could still plan an extravagant wedding for you?" Nevara suggested, all joking and soft.
That got a proper laugh out of Malakh, enough that she sat up, grinning as she scrubbed at her eyes. "I really do appreciate you. All of you," she said, glancing around at the crew both organic and digital, "I'm so fucking glad we escaped captivity."
"I raise my hand in favour of that." Elytra smiled back.
"And all joking aside, official or not, I have no idea what I even want out of a wedding," Malakh admitted, "With the way my childhood had panned out, I thought I'd be killed before I had the chance to even find someone I'd want to marry."
"Well thanks to zoastasis, we technically have forever to figure out what we want," Rhea said with a shrug, "So we don't need to come up with anything right away."
Malakh shot her a fond smile, using her tail to tug Rhea's arm over so she could hold her hand instead. "Let's just focus on getting our last Storlayacas, and we can worry about a wedding later. Because I want that for us."
"Alright, Storlayacas first," Rhea smiled, squeezing her hand briefly, "And on that note, we should do some planning on what kinds of things we want to have happening for Queen Kaizoku and her court once we have them all."
Pryseia scooted to the edge of the couch, mimicking Elytra's position as she said, "I have been giving some thought on the matter. Our vengeance angle, the long turn fulfillment of that for each of our characters, I must be truthful and admit that I am hard pressed to divine a satisfactory means of achieving these goals."
"Yeah, I know how you feel," Rhea sighed as she swiped across the table in order to bring up some of their lore docs, "As far as background go, Bathory's the one that's the most fleshed out, what with her having her entire family killed, before she killed the people who did it and then took on her current identity. So vengeance, she's technically got that already, so why is she hitching her wagon to Kaizoku?"
"And then Queen Kaizoku has the most background info, though it was more implied than outright stated." Elytra added, "Her escaping from whatever gave her those permanent injuries in Zaanlaa and all, easy enough to reason that it was Deupazing political unrest that she was fleeing from."
"And then we got a little bit for the General and the Hand," Rhea continued, "With Grim being exiled, and the Hand clearly coming from a life of violence. Then there's the question of who created the Program, and the complete enigma that is Madame Augury."
"I do feel the mystery of everything about her adds to the appeal of her character," Nevara said, "I've been perusing some of the forums that have sprung up about our crew, and speculating on the mysteries of Augury seem to be popular."
"And they're definitely picking up on the tension between your characters." Elytra said as she motioned between Rhea and Malakh.
Pryseia chuckled at that. "I fear that would have happened regardless of whether or not we played into your actual relationship, twin stars in orbit of one another as you are."
"So we've got vengeance had so why is she really here," Viatrix began listing off, "Two cases of seeking vengeance against maybe the governments of their own people, and three counts of unclear motivations."
"The Hand is loyal to the Queen by choice, whatever that may be," Malakh frowned, "And the Program is loyal because she has no choice. Oh, speaking of, have we done anything to establish that whole control thing that the Queen has over her yet?"
Elytra's eyes went wide as she said, "I truly don't remember if we just said that or if we filmed something about it. I'll review what we've got out, and if not we can whip something up."
"Speculation on the reasons for the Hand's loyalty was another popular topic." Nevara pointed out.
"Yeah, I kinda wanna keep her past a mystery," Malakh said thoughtfully, "In thinking about her character, I picture her more concerned with the present than the past, to the point where I don't even want to try coming up with a reason for her loyalty to the Queen."
"And I feel like her and Bathory are cut from the same cloth, in that the Hand has already dealt with the thing that led her to her current career path." Rhea added.
Nodding thoughtfully, Malakh said, "I can agree with that."
Nevara clicked her mandibles together briefly. "Something of a staple in apiarian storytelling is the futility of revenge, and how, outside of rare instances, it does not supply satisfaction or closure. To that end, I was thinking of having it so that the people who wronged Grim had met some other, ignoble fate, and so are no longer present for her to slake her ire upon."
Pryseia leaned back against the couch and gave an intrigued hum. "Deupazing stories too are rife with bids for the throne thwarted because someone else got there first, a surprise more prepared to both take and hold said seat of power. I'd been thinking of pursuing this course with Kaizoku."
"If that's the case, then maybe we can play with the idea we had for the fiction with the Sudoxe," Viatrix suggested, "Denied their own vengeance, the Pelekys assist others in achieving theirs?"
"I definitely like that idea," Rhea said with a point over at Viatrix's console, "But what about the Program? She's technically being held captive, so revenge is something that she could seek."
"Yeah, but that would be against all of your characters, since you lot are the ones holding her, so I'm not really sure how to reconcile all that." Viatrix admitted.
Rhea could only chuckle in response. "I think going into the character creation part of our lore powered by vague ideas and rule of cool thinking is biting us in the ass pretty hard right about now."
"Well, how about we just think of it as an exercise in creative writing?" Elytra suggested, "We've got our constraints, so how do we work within them to create what we want?"
"An excellent suggestion," Pryseia beamed, tapping her with her tail, "Mayhaps the Program's imprisonment could be a ploy? She allowed herself to be constrained so in order to get closer to her targets?"
"But that would be you lot again, so aside from vengeance, what could the Program be after?"
"What if we took a little more inspiration from our actual lives," Rhea said as she lifted her and Malakh's joined hands briefly, "And have it so that the reason the Program was seeking us out was because of our connection to the Storlayacas? You were technically born out of our need for something that could scan the galaxy for them, after all."
"It would certainly make that a reason to be close to you rather than a desire to kill you." Viatrix agreed, "We could have it so that the Program was created to find the Storlayacas. Maybe some faction from Kaizoku's backstory was involved in that, which would explain how she would know enough about what the Program could do send her Hand to get it for her."
"I think we should start playing that aspect up more, while we're on the subject," Elytra mused, "The Storlayacas needing us and all, for their grudge against the Leviathans that we've started setting up."
Shrugging, Pryseia asked, "We have the time to hunt some more at the moment, waiting for a signal as we are, so perhaps we could come up with something to proceed such an endeavour that would explain the futility of Grim and Kaizoku's own vengeance schemes?"
"That works for me," Rhea said, bringing up a writing program, "So let's ballpark ideas for a script, yeah?"