105: The Seeker Swarms – One
The call from the Salsica was not something anyone aboard the Pelekys had been expecting.
Coming off their vacation, they had immediately gotten down to filming more content for the Knight of the Tomb, where she'd confront them all, one by one, in order to show off her dynamics with everyone, and to give their audience a better understanding of just who V'tala's character was. They'd gotten as far as filming the confrontation between Augury and the Knight, and the meeting where everyone laid their cards on the table, when Viatrix alerted them to an incoming communication.
"Bring it up, please." Pryseia said as she walked onto the bridge with the others, all of them half out of their Kith costumes, as they'd been done filming for the day.
On the main view screen, the bridge of the Salsica came into view, a bright and chaotic space that was at odds with the serious expressions of the two people on screen.
"Oh!" Elytra said, perking up suddenly, "Sondrig!"
The rose-pink deupazing on the other side of the call blinked before she said, "Elytra? Well, that's egg on my face, I completely forgot you were on the Pelekys!"
"You've met?" Her human companion asked.
"Yeah, at one of Glare's shindigs," Sondrig explained before turning back to the screen, "That was for your introduction to the Kith, I believe?"
"It was," Elytra confirmed with a smile, "To what do we own the pleasure?"
Both of the people on the view screen grew serious at that, and the human said, "I wish it was for pleasure, but this is a business call, I'm afraid. Captain Kimura Shinju of the Salsica. Captain Saiwa of the Sudoxe passed along your information, as we could really use your help."
"Captain Killzar Pryseia of the Pelekys at your service," Pryseia said, "What can we assist with?"
Captain Shinju let out a broken laugh at that, scrubbing a hand across her face. She looked like she was trying to hold herself together, and that had everyone on the Pelekys on edge.
"Well, the bulk of my crew got nabbed by Thalatte slavers, so any help getting them back would be appreciated!"
Swearing filled the bridge of the Pelekys, most loudly from Rhea before she asked, "How long ago and where?"
"A couple systems over from you on the edge of Meleten space, around six Galactic Standard hours ago," Shinju said, reaching down to do something off-screen, and a moment later the schematics for a Thalatte ship popped up on the Pelekys' view screen, "We were in the middle of a smuggling run, and everyone but me and Sondrig were moving crates out of the shielded cave on the asteroid they were stashed in, so we could get them dematted aboard our ship, you see. That's when the TNF Horreum dropped out of subspace and snatched up everyone they could find. The only reason they didn't get us is because they didn't bother to stop and do a full sweep, they just did a full on grab and go."
"That's highly unusual," Nevara said as her mandibles twitched in a clear sign of her agitation, "Thalatte raiding ships will clear an area of people before they move on."
"I know, so I don't know what to make of this," Shinju said, "I just know I need to get them back, I need help doing it, and you lot are the closest Kith I can find."
Pryseia didn't hesitate when she told her, "Tell us where you need us and we can head there posthaste."
Sondrig gripped Shinju's shoulder as her captain said, "There's a station relatively close by. We need to load up on supplies before we head out, so we could link up there before move on."
"Our AI, Noema, has extrapolated where they think the Horreum is going to be, and that's a couple hours out by subspace." Sondrig said, eyes bright as she choked back tears of relief.
A vibrantly green avatar that looked like a rotating, polyhedral sphere popped on the view screen as the AI said, "I can forward you the location now, if you'd like to get your own plans in the works before we meet?"
Popping her own avatar on screen, Viatrix said, "We'd be happy to have them."
Giving a wry shake of her head, Shinju said, "We were in the middle of filming stuff, and it looks like you were too, so we may as well make a proper collaboration out of this clusterfuck."
"Your people do have a saying, about killing two birds with one stone, yes?" Pryseia asked, which did manage to crack a smile out of Shinju.
"We do indeed. I appreciate this, Pelekys. We'll see you at the station in a bit."
And with that, the call ended.
Turning to the others, Malakh asked, "This is as weird to you as it is to me, right? A Thalatte slaver ship picking up a handful of random people and not doing a thorough sweep of the area, since when?"
"Nothing like this behaviour during your time with them?" V'tala questioned.
"No," Rhea confirmed, "Granted, I know we weren't involved in any raiding parties - they don't want to risk their conscripts finding a way to escape or be freed by those who don't want to be there as much as they don't - but we were forced to work for them for more than a Galactic Standard century, and I know I've never heard about a deviation from protocol quite like this."
"And the Thalatte do love their protocol." Nevara added.
"Well, whatever the reason for it, we're going to put a stop to it," Pryseia said, jaw set as she glanced across the gathered crew, "If we can prevent even a few from having to endure what we went through, then we shall. The details will be worked out in full, but our main goal is twofold - rescue the captured crew of the Salsica and any others imprisoned within the Horreum's hold, and then destroy the Horreum itself. I will not show mercy to slavers."
No one had any arguments against that particular sentiments.
"Clusterfuck" ended up being the operative word for their brief time on that nameless station. The only things that ended up panning out were the supplies they'd purchased actually got delivered, and the footage they shot turned out more thrilling than expected.
Leaning against the back of one of the couches in the rec room, V'tala turned to Nevara and said, "Thanks for being so quick to kill that Thalatte, and I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough to keep them pinned."
"I'd hardly fault your for that, given you're still in active recovery," Nevara told her from where she was sitting on one of the couches next to Rhea, "I'm just relieved none of us were hurt during that little outing."
"I can't believe I actually caught one of them talking on camera," Elytra said from where she was slumped over a pair of data pads on one of the other couches, going over the footage before she got down to editing, "That Thalatte agent was talking about us, like they were expecting us. Keeping tabs on us."
"I've wondered if something like this would happen ever since we escaped," Malakh admitted from where she was pacing across the room from the couches, "If the Thalatte would come after us for how we made our escape and all."
Frowning, V'tala asked, "What did you do?"
"Murder, for a start," Nevara said with an aptly grim laugh, "We were part of the test run crew when the Pelekys was to be sent on its first mission, and we killed all the thalatte officers aboard before dumping their bodies in a shuttle and tossing it into subspace. We freed the rest of the non-thalatte crew and sent them on their way with whatever they wanted from the ship, and then took the Pelekys herself, and Zaanlaa, and escaped into the void."
"The Thalatte officers were all from prestigious families - old military families - so I guess they didn't take kindly to us killing their progeny." Rhea muttered, her eyes tracking Malakh as she made another lap.
Pryseia scoffed at that from where she was tensed and gripping the armrests of one of the armchairs, "Perhaps if they had not wanted their children to face the threat of death, they should have not insisted on wars with all their neighbours."
V'tala let out a thoughtful hum at that, saying, "We'll deal with whatever hunters come for us, so how will we deal with the slavers we're after?"
"As I said before, they die," Pryseia told her, "The minutia for that…"
Rising from the armchair, Pryseia went over to the low table and asked, "Viatrix, could you please bring up the schematics of the Horreum?"
The requested blueprints and Viatrix's avatar appeared on the screen of the table as Viatrix said, "Looks like your thoughts are churning."
"They are indeed," Pryseia agreed, "This class of ship is the one most commonly used for slaving runs."
Leaving off on her pacing to stand beside Pryseia, Malakh pointed down at the schematic for the others as she said, "It's more or less just a cargo hauler, only the cargo is living people. They're technically two part ships, the boxy space in the middle of it is meant to be detached so that the Thalatte can drop off a hold of people for someone else to process and then just grab an empty container and head out on their next run as soon as possible. A quick harvesting strategy to deal with how fast they burn through conscripts."
"And they call themselves Enlightened." V'tala spat.
"Load of horseshit." Rhea agreed.
Pointing out different parts of the ship, Malakh continued, "Everything about these haulers was built to deter others from coming after them. The engines are mounted in such a way that any damage to them will blow back into the cargo hold, killing whoever's inside. The weapons are designed so that if they rupture, they'll rupture into the hold. The shields are weakest around the hold itself, so that's where they'll fail first once they start taking sustained hits, and when they overheat? You guessed it! Vented straight into the hold! If we use the Pelekys and Salsica to attack this thing head on, we're only going to kill the people these Thalatte have taken prisoner."
"But if we could divest the Horreum of its hold, we would be free to destroy it at our leisure." Nevara pointed out.
Nodding, Pryseia said, "That was what I was thinking. The cargo hold has only a single entry point, and that connects it to the main ship's ramp for when they need to load prisoners aboard. Otherwise, it is kept sealed while in flight, and kept in place by a series of clamps. In the throes of battle, the hold will be on lockdown. Another wretched tactic of the Thalatte is that, should the situation be dire enough, the hold is rigged with explosives, and so they can drop it in order to get any attacking ships to leave them be while they fly in to retrieve the detached cargo hold and all the people within, and then detonate that in order to remove the threat of being followed. If we are swift enough, we should be able to detach the hold into the waiting demat range of the Salsica, for isolating it within the subspace pocket of their own hold will prevent any broadcast signals from triggering an untimely demise."
Her avatar spinning in excitement, Viatrix said, "I can definitely do something about that. From the information in these schematics, it looks like detaching the clamps remotely won't be a problem, but the explosives rigged up to the hold are actively blocked from remote triggering. And remote disarming. As far as I can tell, if it isn't the Thalatte that pop those clamps, those explosives are going to get triggered."
Malakh knelt down by the table, swiping through some information on the schematics before she said, "It looks like there's an access panel for them near the door. If I go in, I can make sure those explosives won't blow when we take the hold."
"I don't want you going in there alone." Rhea said, leaning forward to catch her eye.
Setting aside her data pads, Elytra suggested, "We might be able to swing this for our narrative, have the Knight accompany the Hand to see how she behaves when the Queen isn't ordering her around? Since we were going for the Knight just thinking the Hand was nothing more than a tool and all."
"I'd be fine accompanying her." V'tala agreed right away, "So long as it's more gunplay than it is hand to hand, I should have no problem keeping up."
Rhea shot her a wry grin, saying, "The Thalatte prefer to keep their enemies at a distance, especially anyone they consider Lesser. It's rare to get that up close and personal with them in the heat of combat."
"And your firearm will have no issue piercing their hides," Pryseia added with a derisive hum, "Back to the matter of our plan, there is the issue of the Horreum's mobility. If we aren't careful, it will have every chance to slip into subspace. We need the means to hold it in place."
Crossing her arms as she leaned back, Rhea said, "I say we do something unexpected and brute force it - use the Storlayacas units to hold it down."
Viatrix's avatar gave a thoughtful spin on the screen before she said, "Comparing the output of the Horreum and the Storlayacas' thrusters, six versus one would be enough to keep it from going anywhere. And due to safety regulations built into subspace engines, any tear they do end up opening is going to be several ship-lengths away from them, so they won't be able to pop one open on top of us and slip through."
"But if we leave," Malakh pointed out, gesturing to herself and V'tala, "That would bring us down to four sets of thrusters to hold it in place. What does the math look like for that?"
"Thaaaaat… looks like it wouldn't be quite as effective." Viatrix admitted.
"Well shit. Is there a way you could remotely keep Castore and Enaruli in place?" Rhea asked her.
Viatrix's avatar flickered sadly as she said, "No, technically I'm just a different person, and they won't listen to anyone but their pilots."
"Then maybe we need to ask them." Malakh muttered, and then without a backwards glance, she stood and sped out of the room.
"Oh she better not be trying to commune with them again!" Rhea hissed as she hastily stood to chase after her, the others quick to follow along.
By the time the others all dematted into the cargo hold, Malakh was halfway up the walkway leading to the cockpits of their mechs.
"WAIT!" Rhea called out, leaping from the demat zone to the foot of the walkway's stairs in a single bound, her human strength leaving the others in the dust.
Malakh turned at the call, looking confused, but then a grimace fell across her features as she said, "Shit, sorry, I should have said I'm not doing it the dangerous way this time. I'm just going to speak to it from the outside. The last thing we need is the pair of us out of commission when we're in the middle of trying to stage a rescue!"
Walking up the stairs until they were eye level, Rhea reached out to hold Malakh's face in her hands, bringing their foreheads together as she laughed, "I think I overreacted here."
"Understandably so." Malakh replied, holding Rhea's wrists while they waited for the others to catch up.
"All's well?" Pryseia asked as she came up behind them.
"Yeah, I just panicked over nothing." Rhea admitted.
Peeking around her at the others, Malakh said, "Well, now that everyone's here, maybe we can do a little experiment? A safe one, let me be clear, no direct communions this time!"
The murmurs of agreement were trepidatious, but the others followed Malakh up onto the walkway.
"So, hey," Malakh began awkwardly, addressing the gargantuan machines before them, "You all can hear me, right? Hear us?"
The Storlayacas units didn't so much as twitch, but all of them felt a wave of attention crash over them as whatever intelligent force within those ancient machines settled their focus squarely on them.
"Holy shit." Elytra gasped, grabbing the railing as she sagged, looking like she was about to pass out under the weight of that presence. Nevara was quick to loop an arm around her waist.
Clearly catching their misstep with the more psychically sensitive koleopteran, the focus of the Storlayacas pulled back slightly, still present - still listening - but nowhere near as oppressive.
"Wow, okay, so the answer to that is yes," Rhea breathed, looking up at Yarula, "You're really aware."
Like the burble of a distant brook, they felt a sense of pleased amusement come from the brown and gold mech.
Breathing out a sigh, Malakh turned to Castore and said, "So we've got a bit of a conundrum at the moment. We need to rescue a bunch of people from a slave ship, and we were going to hold it in place with all of you. But V'tala and I need to get into that ship to stop the prisoners from being killed, and the thrusters of only four of you aren't going to be enough to stop the ship from fleeing. So is there a way that you can, I don't know, move on your own?"
Like a roll of far off thunder, the Storlayacas gave off the impression that this wasn't possible. An image came to them all, then, of Nevara at the helm of the Pelekys, the ship soaring through space. But the image changes, Nevara fading away, and the Pelekys stood motionless without her.
"You need a pilot to guide you." Nevara stated, and a sense of confirmation flowed over them all.
Stepping forward as she looked to Enaruli, V'tala asked, "You need us to move, but would you need us to hold?"
Like a blast of cool air, the presence of the Storlayacas retreated slightly, conferring with one another with the weight of clouds heavy with lightning. Their focus returned slowly, neither positive or negative. The Storlayacas units felt unsure.
"Perhaps a test, then?" Pryseia offered, stepping up to Zaanlaa, "To see if your thrusters will hold when my hand isn't on your yoke?"
The feeling of dawn light cresting over the horizon, that's what Zaanlaa's cautious optimism felt like as its cockpit swung wide, and Pryseia quickly made her way inside.
The walkway automatically pulled back enough for Pryseia to walk Zaanlaa further down the cargo hold, and once they were far enough away from everyone, the mech leaped into the air, its thrusters kicking on to hold it hovering in space. A few seconds passed, and then Zaanlaa's cockpit reopened, and Pryseia fully stepped out onto it, free of the control apparatus.
The Storlayacas' excitement felt like a massive wave being dashed to mist against the shore at this revelation, drops of their joy raining down on the organics in the cargo hold as Pryseia returned to the cockpit and brought Zaanlaa back to its berth.
"Good. Good." Malakh laughed, looking up at Castore, "This is going to save a lot of lives."
Pride as bright as a pyre burned within each of the ancient machines at that proclamation, and though no words were spoken, the crew of the Pelekys could feel the shape of the Storlayacas units thoughts.
Saving lives is what we were built to do.