086: Bullets and Boards – One
Hanging before the same blue green nebula as it had been for some time, the Pelekys was still dead in the metaphorical water, draped in the corpses of the Leviathan they'd already slain.
And now two more were on approach.
Standing on the bridge, the crew watched these horrors from the deep advance - two monstrosities that vaguely resembles squids, clear as glass but glowing from some internal source, deep blue fading to a vibrant red. Even at this range, it was easy to tell that these things were bigger than any Leviathan the crew had faced before.
Standing stiffly next to the pilot's seat, Queen Kaizoku ordered, "Pull the ship as far away as you can. We'll hold it off."
General Grim turned sharply to her, mandibles flaring to argue the point, but after breathing out a harsh breath, she replied, "So be it."
"The rest of you, with me." Kaizoku said, not bothering to make sure than they followed her from the room as she strode through the door. The Knight of the Tomb fell in after her, with Madame Augury scuttling behind them a moment later.
Chancellor Bathory and the Queen's Red Left Hand shared a lingering look before left the bridge together.
Five Storlayacas were dematted outside the Pelekys not long after, the ship itself pulling away as quickly as it could.
It wouldn't be quick enough if the two Leviathan got their tentacles on it, and so the Storlayacas flew ahead to cut them off.
From the bridge of the Pelekys, Grim watched the fight from the main view screen, the armoured plates of her gauntlets screeching against one another with how tightly she was gripping the yoke. From this distance, the Storlayacas - machines that towered over the more plentiful Odazaen, to say nothing of how they dwarfed the mechs created by the modern races - looked like children's action figures against the sheer scale of the Leviathan they were facing, their masses of fiery tendrils trapping them almost as quickly as they were able to cut themselves free.
Five against two as it was, it was clear that the Leviathan were in no way disadvantaged for being outnumbered.
Sat on the bridge, mandibles clacking against one another in agitation, Grim was suddenly plunged into darkness as every remaining system in the Pelekys went offline.
It wasn't long before red lighting began to fill the space - not emergency lighting, but the glow coming from the lurid red axe avatar that blinked onto every single screen in the bridge.
In a voice more tightly controlled and clearer than the usual glitching tone that came out of it, the Program commanded, "Storlayacas. Now."
Grim was up and out of the pilot's seat a moment later, booking it for the cargo hold.
Malra was dematted outside moments later, Grim launching herself at the Leviathan that had Zaanlaa trapped.
"What is the meaning of this?" Kaizoku shouted, an uncharacteristic edge of panic to her voice.
In answer over the comms, the Program announced, "Initiate coalescence."
As one, the six Storlayacas units fired their thrusters, pulling away from the two massive Leviathan. Cascades of colour trailing off them like the tails of comets, they began to contort in on themselves, twisting into shapes very different from their normal, bipedal configuration.
For Lianshae and Castore, their armour plating opened up along their sides, their arms tucking into their torsos, along with their heads, while their legs snapped together, their feet fusing into one.
Malra and Yarula also had their arms and heads tuck away into their torsos, though when their legs combined, their feet split apart, rearranging themselves into hands.
Zaanlaa, meanwhile, folded in on itself, all its limbs and head pulling into its body until all that was left was a boxy shape, to which Lianshae and Castore crashed into - no, not crashed. Docked. Ports had opened across their mechs to link the three together.
So too did Enaruli shift into a more rectangular shape, Malra and Yarula snapping into place along the sides of it.
Finally Zaanlaa and Enaruli docked, two halves of a completed whole, a head emerging from this now unified torso, shaking briefly like a person coming to their senses, the lights in its eyes flickering as if it were blinking.
A psychic scream tore out of the Leviathan, and the unified Storlayacas' head snapped up. A moment ago, they had looked confused, dazed, but now? With these two monsters screaming down on them?
Storlayacas drew their sabre and met the attack.
Where before, individually, the six had struggled against the pair of Leviathan, as one they were unmatched. Storlayacas moved with a speed that should have been impossible for a mech their size, their sabre striking unerringly as it burned out some vital part of the first monster it struck, before tossing its body into its companion and killing that one just as easily.
Against the backdrop of the green blue nebula, Storlayacas stood triumphant, the Leviathan drifting dead behind it as the Pelekys swung into dematting range.
"Good," came the voice of the Program, "Now our real work can begin."
In Glare's monitor festooned control room, the red and blue baithaizan clapped all four of their hands together in delight as Pryseia and V'tala entered.
"Captain of the Pelekys!" They bellowed as they stood from their extravagant seat, "I just saw your latest video drop! Two Etas is impressive work, but tell me true, did those odd Odazaen of yours really join together, or was that a bit of a fabrication?"
"The combination actually happened, as our mechs are not Odazaen, but something else entirely." Pryseia smirked as the pair of them came to a stop before Glare's throne, "They're Storlayacas, whatever that actually means to the Hyttan who created them."
Glare made a thoughtful rumble in the back of their throat, one pair of hands drumming their fingers together while the others laced together over their chest. "A fact, you say? A word of advice, but you'd do well to play up that what your mechs can do is fictional. Kith crews with Odazaen in their ranks are often targeted by mech hunters, and rarities such as yours would make a handsome prize."
"I appreciate the warning. We shall be sure to be on our guard out there," Pryseia said with a nod, before motioning to V'tala standing motionless beside her, "As you saw from our broadcasts, we've a new member added to our crew. We've come to get the paperwork for that sorted. She'll also need some forged IDs, as she's been in stasis long enough to have had any priors expire."
Shooting V'tala an appraising look, Glare nodded, saying, "The lack of pigment's not just for show then, eh? No worries, we can have you sorted out in short order. Plenty in our ranks join us for a fresh start, so we're more than capable of getting you illegitimately legitimate IDs in short order!"
Nodding in thanks, V'tala followed after one of the aids that Glare called over to get her identification documents registered, while Pryseia followed Glare into their office to get V'tala added to the Pelekys' crew officially.
Getting everything completed took less than a half hour, after which the pair of them hopped on one of the many public transports that followed a regular schedule around the expansive interior of the Quanvengier.
Turning over her new ID card in her hand, V'tala said, "The bureaucracy of acquiring something like this during my time would have taken weeks at the earliest."
"It takes just as long in this day and age, make no mistake," Pryseia scoffed from where she was standing next to V'tala, hanging onto one of the loops that ran along the ceiling of the transport, "That is something that has been a constant across time and space, it seems. Governments having an utter lack of alacrity when it comes to their citizens."
Pocketing her ID, V'tala said, "Then I'm happy to live on the fringes. Now, what must I know about vacations. What does one do?"
Blowing out a sigh as she gathered her thoughts on how to answer such an open ended question, Pryseia said, "By its very nature, a vacation is whatever one wants it to be. The general idea is to do something one normally wouldn't in their day to day, which, in general, is to relax and not do any work. Knowing the others as I do, while I don't imagine us getting into any battles with Leviathan or stealing Hyttan mechs from unsuspecting sources, I've no doubt that there will be planning done in regards to what our Kith personas' future will be. And given that Rhea has her heart set on the sea, I imagine swimming will be an activity we will be partaking of."
"You sound trepidatious about that." V'tala pointed out.
"The world I grew up on was a cold one. Even equatorially, temperatures rarely crested above freezing. Swimming was relegated to indoor facilities, as to do so out in the wild would result in hypothermia at best, so the thought of frolicking at the beach conjures a very different experience for me as it does for Rhea. 'Heat' seems to be the operative word for what the seaside was in her own youth." Pryseia told her.
Humming thoughtfully, V'tala asked, "What did vacations on your world entail, then?"
"Usually ice skating," at V'tala's raised eyebrow, Pryseia explained, "Taking place on a large swath of ice, people wear special shoes with blades mounted on them. Due to the temperature variation betwixt blade and ice, a thin layer of water melts between the two, and it is on this thin film that people glide across the surface of the ice."
"And this is… fun?"
That surprised a laugh out of Pryseia. "It is indeed, though I've obviously undersold it! The speeds one can achieve are thrilling, as is the inherent danger of strapping blades to one's feet in order to dash across the surface of what was, in most cases, a layer of ice atop a body of water. The threat of drowning should one fall through thin ice is something that was mitigated in specially designed rinks where the layer of ice is perhaps only a hand span deep, with no liquid water below it."
V'tala gave her a searching look before finally saying, "You truly are alien."
"As are we all to one another," Pryseia said with a grin, "And I guarantee there are far stranger recreational activities out there."
"Another thing to discover, then." V'tala said, nodding to herself.
The public transport finally reached their stop, and they exited the vehicle to find the others waiting for them.
"Got yourself all documented up?" Rhea asked as she stood from the bench she'd been sitting on.
V'tala nodded. "And formally registered as crew of the Pelekys."
"Then we simply must celebrate that!" Viatrix said, her drone bobbing excitedly up to V'tala, "And there just so happens to be a theatre set to perform a rendition of an ancient human play, A Midsummer Night's Dream!"
"Viatrix has a fondness for live performance." Nevara told V'tala in a stage whisper.
"I'm sure you'll be shocked to learn I've never seen a play," was V'tala's dry reply, "When does it start?"
"A little over an hour from now, so we've got time enough to get to the theatre and grab some snacks and drinks before we head to our seats." Malakh said.
"YES!" Viatrix bobbed in excitement, "Let's get going! I don't want to have to fight anybody for the good seats!"
Thankfully no violence was needed when it came to finding their seats, and they were out at another restaurant for dinner a few hours later.
"Oh that was simply marvellous!" Viatrix trilled as she floated around the perimeter of their table, "I can see why humans have been performing it for centuries!"
"Not only does it predate when my people made it to the stars," Rhea told her, "It comes from a time when we were still using fire for all our power and lighting needs."
Viatrix sighed dreamily at that. "That's the power of a great story though, isn't it? To transcend time. Civilizations come and go, but a story can last forever. Though the original playwright is long dead, their story lives on to touch audiences in the modern age. I think that's what I like the most about the Kith of the Void - zoastasis or digital, it's really our audience who makes us immortal."
"And just how large is our audience?" V'tala asked.
"Over five hundred million, last I checked," Elytra said, "Some Kith crews have audiences in the billions, so we aren't doing half bad, new as we are and everything."
"None of the Usgaisjan colonies I was sent to attack had populations even remotely close to one million, let along five hundred." V'tala said, stunned.
"The population of the galaxy can be counted in the trillions," Nevara pointed out, "So in the grand scheme of things, our own audience is relatively modest."
"And thankfully most of it is passive observers. Our message boards are nowhere near as busy as some of the more popular crews!" Elytra let out a stressed laugh, "Some of them have entire navies of AI moderators in order to keep their message boards from getting nasty!"
"Yeah, we only need the one who was assigned to ours on the Kith hosting platform when we signed up. Enammbhra, I talk to them sometimes. They're nice!" Viatrix said.
"I'm glad to know there's someone in there whose getting paid to keep an eye on things," Malakh chuckled, "Been on some moderator-less message boards in my time, and they can get really bad really quick!"
"Well we can think about that even less for the immediate future," Rhea shot a grin over at Pryseia and V'tala, "Because while you were off doing official business, I found us a vacation destination!"
"Oh?" Pryseia said, perking up at that.
"It's on the edge of the galaxy in Fiskaz space, a resort world called Osatiawjo that was highly recommended by the people at the planetary directory over in the intelligence district. It's got all kinds of climates - summery, wintry, and everything in between! There's sure to be something there to make all of us happy." Rhea told her.
"Ice skating, perchance?" Pryseia couldn't help but ask.
"Oh they've got all the winter activities," Rhea confirmed, "Skating, skiing, sledding, you name it! There's hotels all over the place with shuttles that can bring you to any location on the world in no time at all, or they have tons of places where you can just dock your own ship and fly your own self around."
"With the amount of cash we got from our latest endeavours, we could do a hybrid thing where we stay at hotels and fly ourselves to and fro." Malakh pointed out.
Pryseia nodded at that, grinning at the thought. "Are we required to make reservations, or are we able to just find a berth at any hotel that has a vacancy?"
"Option two," Rhea confirmed, "Like I said, they serve mostly Kith, and with the way Kith crews operate on their own time, Osatiawjo's been built around being flexible."
"Then if there are no outstanding matters to take care of here, I propose we head to this world at our earliest convenience." Pryseia proposed, glancing around at everyone.
She was greeted with nods and murmurs of agreement.
Clapping her hands together, Pryseia said, "Fantastic! I eagerly await the journey!"
Even with subspace cutting down the length of the journey a considerable amount, the journey from the centre of the galaxy to its edge would take a few days, so the sooner they left, the sooner they could start their vacation.
Thanks to the upgrades that the Pelekys had received, they no longer needed to worry about fuel, but they still needed raw materials for both their food and item fabricators, and so they stocked up on these supplies before they left.
They'd also perused some of the market districts aboard the Quanvengier, picking up interesting bits and bobs brought in by other Kith crews, and so it was, flanked by Elytra and Nevara, V'tala found herself buying furniture for the first time in her life.
"This isn't going to affect what we need to pay for the vacation?" She couldn't stop herself from asking as she eyed up the plush armchair and desk set she'd found herself drawn to ever since they'd entered the shop. The upholstery of the chair was a green so deep it was almost black, decadently plush, with wood accents of a rich brown that was almost iridescent with how lustrous its lacquer was, the wood of the table matching the chair, with an inset slab of some dark green stone veined in a coppery colour remarkably close to same shade of brown as the wood.
"You could buy a thousand sets of these and it wouldn't even put a dent in what we have available to us," Elytra told her, "Get them."
Despite everything of her dregil training screaming against the idea, that she didn't need more than the simple bed in her room, that anything else was needless and pointless, V'tala relented and purchased the chair and table set, as well an assortment of oddities that caught her eye, a shelf to put them on, a wooden dresser to store her ever expanding wardrobe, a cushy rug with a complicated pattern done up in an assortment of cool tones, and an abstract painting by a Lacertus artist that was either a rendition of a sunset, or a world being destroyed. The colours of it appealed to her, regardless of what the subject actually was.
Her new items were packed up and sent off to the Pelekys within minutes (along with the items that Elytra and Nevara had purchased), after which Rhea carried them into her room for her ("Trust me, it's quicker this way." Rhea had told her as she'd lifted the heavy dresser as if it weighed nothing, "Safer too. I'm way more nimble than any of the moving equipment we have, and I won't scratch up the finish on these things!")
So it was that by the time the Pelekys departed the Kith fleet, en route for a patch of space far enough from the chaos of the core they could slip into subspace safely, V'tala had finished arranging her new furnishing to her liking, playing with the light settings within the room to recreate the warm glow that had been present on the Quanvengier, and had adjusted the temperature to be comfortably warm, all of these luxuries that she had been deprived of in her former life.
But she had a new life now, no dryhten to command her, only people that had encouraged her to consider her own wants and needs first and foremost.
Friends that had encouraged her.
Her chest felt tight at that thought, but it was a welcome feeling. She had people who cared about her, readily, easily, and she found that she cared for them just the same. She may have been born to be a dregil, but this easy affection felt like what she had been made for. She wanted to do right by them, as both a friend and as a partner in their Kith endeavour, so sat at her new table, in her new chair, she powered on her data pad and began looking into the message boards that the others had mentioned, hoping that some insight into their audience would help her to refine who the Knight of the Tomb could shape up to be.