165: Jamming Down The Pedal – Four
Getting to Zovo Heila's compound wasn't easy, but it also wasn't impossible. Nestled safely away in an asteroid field, the place was almost impervious to attack. What the field itself couldn't take care of, Zovo's private security force was more than capable of fending off. It was one of these ships that met them on the edge of said asteroid field, to either escort them deeper inside, or to take care of a threat before it got the chance to go any further.
"Please forward you invitation," the meleten captain of that particular vessel demanded the moment xir hail connected, "And stand by for confirmation."
The crews of both the Gorgon and the Pelekys were present, dressed in their marble armour and presenting a unified front. Arrayed in a semicircle in their seats, each member of the Gorgon was backed by a member of the Pelekys, standing still as sentinels as Phoebe tapped a few buttons on the armrest of her chair before falling still herself.
The meleten captain glanced down, xir eyes momentarily looking up to sweep across all those assembled on the bridge before xe said, "Good. Follow along closely with our ship, it's a bit of a rough flight in."
With that, the view screen switched back to the panorama of their surroundings, and everyone on the bridge breathed a sigh of relief.
"I can tell this is going to be a fun crowd," Viatrix drawled, lifting her drone off the floor where she'd ducked it down out of view before the hail connected, "I'll leave the Pelekys here so I don't have to worry splitting my attention between hanging out with you all and dodging asteroids."
"Good plan," Selene said as her and her crew mate's chairs slid back to their stations, "Who knows what kinds of shenanigans we're going to be getting up to shortly that might need you undivided."
She then hit a few switches on her console and took hold of the yoke, falling in behind the ship that would guide them to their destination.
To say it was a harrowing experience would be an understatement. They had only made it a few ship lengths into the asteroid field before conditions grew dense. It wasn't just the larger asteroids they had to worry about, but smaller and smaller ones, all the way down to microscopic. Going at any kind of speed through that haze would have had their shields shredded by the smaller asteroids in no time, leaving them susceptible to the larger ones to finish them off. Thankfully, their guide ship had some kind of repulsor field which kept the worst of it at bay, and with the slower speed their two ships were travelling, it saved them from being sand blasted to oblivion.
"Look, it's not just a repulsor field," Malakh breathed, motioning at one of the larger asteroids on the view screen, "That one moved out of our way. I'm willing to bet, along with being rigged with bombs, some of these asteroids are kitted out with thrusters. The kinetic energy of one of these rocks hitting a ship alone would cause a catastrophic amount of damage."
"Zovo's smart to use the natural defences of this area to ger advantage." Ravona said, her eyes glued to the view screen.
When everything was totalled, the flight through to Zovo's compound took less than a half hour, but it may as well have taken days, for how exhausted it left everyone to be on edge for that long.
"If this was just what it was like to get to the track, I don't envy you for having to race it!" Yarvela said as she gripped Nevara's arm, "Fair winds guide you!"
Nevara clacked her mandibles together once, giving her a reassuring smile as she told her, "And safe harbours hold you while I put on a show."
"Too right!" Sara laughed as they rose from their seat, "Now let us see what our host has in store."
'Compound' wasn't exactly the right term for the structure the meleten captain had led them to. 'Fortress' was far more apt. Built within a hollowed out asteroid, bristling with armaments and shielding arrays, the surface had been shaped into facets so that it hung there like some pale grey, dusty gem. There were deep bands cut into the surface of the asteroid, some glittering with windows, while others flickered with the energy fields keeping the atmosphere inside its numerous docking bays. Zovo may have come out all this way to live on ger own, famously against the societal pressures to find spouses and settle down to a life of making children, but it was clear that this place couldn't be run by ger and ger alone. Smaller ships were patrolling around the space that was being kept clear around the asteroid, different makes and models, but all of them painted with the terra cotta and gold livery of Zovo's personal fleet.
"Look, repulsor buoys," Ravona pointed out, her eyes as intent as Malakh's on the screen, "I imagine, if some malignant ships get a little too close for comfort, those buoys could be used to direct asteroids at them rather than just away from this place."
"Then we'd do well to be on our best behaviour," Pryseia said, "I'd rather us not be the ones to test the defensive capabilities of these buoys."
Their guide led them to one of the bands on the asteroid, the one built as a dock, and inside they found a wide array of ships at rest, and not just those in Zovo's fleet. With the expected exception of the Bernetigan, it looked like there were ships from every known race in the galaxy. It seemed that Zovo didn't adhere to the societal view that only those in ger rung on the hierarchy were worthy of participation. At least when it came to doling out invitations to ger races, that is.
A chime on the comms, and Leto brought it up an instant later, Viatrix once again ducking down before the view screen was filled with another of Zovo's officers, this time a thalatte who said, "Follow the coordinated to your berth for the event. One of our representatives will be there shortly to inspect and register your craft."
With a nod, they cut the call, and Selene brought them in to their designated parking spot. As promised, a fuglaz in Zovo's livery, the warm colouration of the fabric a sharp contrast to their pure white plumage, began making their way over to the Gorgon.
While the others trooped to the cargo hold, Phoebe and Pryseia met with the official to escort them inside. Thankfully, the inspection didn't take long at all. Once brought to the cargo hold and the Hyttan flyer they were entering in the race, the fuglaz official went over it with a specialized scanner they carried ("We want to make sure it's as fair a competition as possible, so we check to see if anything's been installed that would be a hindrance to your fellow racers," they'd explained, and while the expression on their face remained as immovable as all fuglaz were, their eyes twinkled merrily, "Though given that you're entering with a Hyttan vessel, installing upgrades would be something of a difficulty for you."), and once they registered Nevara and Sara as the pair that would be actually competing in the race, they wished them all good luck and bid them adieu.
"Glad that whole process was less painful than actually getting here," Leto said as she leaned into Selene's shoulder, "So what's the plan now?"
Pulling out her data pad, Phoebe said, "That official gave us an itinerary. Looks like today is the last day for contestants to get registered, so if they don't show up, they aren't going to be competing. The race is tomorrow around noon, and it finishes once the last survivor crosses the finish line."
The blue flame of her avatar flickering between Yarvela and Ravona, Adyt said, "From past races I've gone over, average race time is about three hours, though they've been gotten through as quickly as an hour and change, while others have lasted well over ten. The course route changes every time, but for the most part Zovo seems to prefer a path that wends its way in a loop throughout the asteroid field, leaving plenty of opportunities for mayhem to be unleashed amongst the racers."
"And we're going to be learning about those once it hits midnight local time," Phoebe continued, "Once all the participants have been registered, there's going to be a bit of a mixer - under heavy guard, as there's been incidents in the past, and we aren't going to be able to bring any weapons in with us - but until then we've been asked to remain in our ships for today. They'll have someone swing by to escort us to, apparently, the banquet hall later, and to make sure we aren't toting around anything that could be a security risk."
Pryseia made a distressed grumbling sound in her throat before she asked, "Does that itinerary happen to say what it classifies as a security risk?"
Rhea was at her side a moment later, running a hand down her back as she said, "Worse comes to worse, we take your arm off and leave it in the ship. At the very least, that process is a lot less intensive than swapping it out for your other one."
"And like I said in the lead up video we released for this caper," V'tala said as she stepped into Pryseia's space from her other side, "I will not allow anything to happen to you. I don't need weapons to keep you safe, unarmed as you might end up being."
That got a laugh out of Pryseia, and she whacked V'tala in the leg with her tail as she said, "Points for your flirtatiousness, but I'm deducting some for that pun."
V'tala just shrugged at that, looping an arm through Pryseia's and shooting her a small smile.
Sara made a trilling noise at that display. "Well, for the moment we needn't worry about any of us being disarmed or not, but something I do want taken care of is my hunger! The journey in has left me quite famished."
"You're telling me," Selene huffed, bumping into their shoulder, "I'm starving!"
Nudging her sister in the side, Yarvela headed towards the Gorgon's mess hall, calling over her shoulder, "We'll make you something filling, then. Last thing we need is for you to be cranky before the soiree tonight."
"Cranky?!" Selene called after her, all mock indignation, "You got a funny way of saying 'thanks for flying us through that asteroid field' you know?!"
Yarvela just blew her a kiss over her shoulder.
The dinner that the twins whipped up was an Apiarius pasta dish, but despite that, every single organic member of both crews swore it tasted like something from their own worlds ("This is just carbonara!" Rhea had said, after which her sisters, in unison, had all shouted, "Right!?").
"I truly am grateful for such coincidences," Sara had said, sighing in bliss after the first bite, "Things like this are the closest I'm ever going to get of a taste of home."
"You haven't ever gone back?" Malakh asked, giving them a sympathetic look as she could already guess the answer.
Sara returned it with a wry look of their own, saying, "I was listed as KIA, and if I showed up alive and well after the fact, I would be found in dereliction of my duties, a deserter, and the longer I'm away, the harsher my punishment would be. At this point, more than a century on, an execution is the only thing I would have to look forward to, and that's before the extent of my crimes against the state as a Kith of the Void would be taken into account."
"They would deny you your homeworld?" Nevara asked, aghast.
Making a grumbling sound deep in their chest, Sara explained, "Thalatte military command would, and that's a fact. On a world, any of our colonies or Lutiya itself, the governments would not have an issue with my presence there, but to get there, one must first pass through the spaceborne arm of our society, and that, I am afraid, is the draconian face that the galaxy is subjected to, militaristic to a fault. They are the ones who would see me dead before I have the chance to return to the place of my birth. Believe it or not, planetside culture is very different than what it is in the fleet."
"I'm afraid we were shown only the very worst of what your people have to offer," Pryseia said, quiet and apologetic, "I've no idea what Thalatte culture is actually like, beyond the horrors we experienced while in slavery."
"For starters, slavery isn't something that is permitted on any of our worlds," Sara hissed, "And while the people back home know that it exists within our fleet, they haven't the foggiest as to how bad it actually is out there. Military service has been an expected part of our culture for eons, but there are so few of us who actually find fulfillment within it. Outside of serving the minimum required length tour of duty, so few thalatte actually stick it out long enough to make a career of it. And in that first tour, Thalatte command is careful to not have any of the greenhorns posted anywhere where slaves are treated as poorly as they are in the rest of the service. Those who are committed to the service, committed to the goal of conquest, see no issue with our taking of slaves nor with our treatment of them, while those who come back home don't know the full extent of the atrocities Thalatte command unleashes upon those not thalatte born. Despite this, however, there are whole swaths of people who protest this practice back home. It is because of them that we have no slaves on any of our worlds. The propaganda machine works hard to hide the extent of the atrocities our people commit on the galactic stage from the general public, but as the years go on, more and more of this truth is leaked to the public. Unfortunately, there is very much an 'out of sight out of mind' issue with it all, as, unable to see the true scope of what Thalatte command does, the general population is content to turn a blind eye. Well, most of it, at least. But the protests blossom larger every year. Or, they were when I was growing up. I can only hope that they have continued to grow in strength in my absence."
Leaning over to pat Sara gently on the arm, Rhea said, "I hope so too. It's good to know, but also sucks to know that what the galaxy sees of the Thalatte is a minority."
Letting out a harsh laugh as the reached over to squeeze Rhea's hand, Sara replied, "I agree with that sentiment. The dream of conquest is something Thalatte command is dead set on fulfilling, even though it is not a dream that the people on any of our worlds holds dear. There are so few actual thalatte within our navy, and so they turned to slavery in order to bolster our forces enough to actually be the threat that we are on the face of the galaxy. Selfishly, when I hid after being mistakenly listed as slain in the line of duty, I had hoped to catch a ship back home and try to worm my way unseen back into society. But living in the rafters of that station gave me an unobstructed view of just what, exactly, my people were doing to the rest of the citizens of the galaxy, and I could not sit idly by to let these atrocities continue without doing something about it, in whatever small way I could. Thus I eventually found myself drawn into the ranks of the Kith, and here I will stay, until my people are changed for the better, or I actually am killed in action - I do not wish to die, but to die in the service of the Kith would be more meaningful than the death I could have expected in my own people's navy."
"Then here's to you," V'tala said, raising her glass, "May you live long enough to see the change you'd die for."
"And may your people change sooner than later." Elytra added, lifting her own glass, the others lifting their own alongside her.
Letting out a low, sombre trill before downing their drink, Sara told them all, "Ancestors willing, my people will see reason sooner than later. Holding out hope for a kinder future can only carry a person so far. Results would be much preferable."
"You fucking said it," Leto said with a sardonic little laugh, "There's only so much we can do from the outside to curb the worst of your people. They need to get off their scaly asses and start changing it from within!"
Finally the day drew to an end, and the window for registration drew to a close. Anyone who was going to be competing was here in Zovo's fortress, and the time for introductions was at hand.
Another officer clad in brown and gold met them at the personnel ramp of the Gorgon, this one a human woman with a bag slung across her body.
"As the itinerary stipulated, please leave anything that could be classified as a weapon aboard your ship. You will be scanned before you can proceed further." She said.
Stepping forward, Pryseia told her, "My prosthesis does have weapon features, will this-"
"We have blockers for that," the woman said, holding up a hand to cut her off, "You'll retain movement functionality, but you won't be able to go around blasting anybody. What classification is it?"
Pryseia rattled off the make and model, and the woman pulled some type of cuff-like device from her bag, snapping it around Pryseia's bicep, where the mechanical portion of her arm connected to the remnants of her flesh. Pryseia shuddered and grimaced as the device took effect, her arm momentarily twitching like an electric surge had been run through it. She shook it out briefly, lifting a hand, and the plates of armour that made up the exterior of it flicked outwards slightly, much like they would when shifting from hand to gun, but the gun did not form.
"Tampering with this device will be unpleasant for anyone around, I can assure you," the woman warned, "It will be removed once this event is concluded and you're ready for departure, and not a second before. Does anyone else have anything to declare?"
"We've both got medkits." Yarvela said, motioning between herself and Rhea.
"They're allowed in, but they're only to be opened when there's a medical emergency," the woman said, pulling out a pair of simple looking clips from her bag, "Keep these on the latches to your kits the entire time you're on these premises. Remove them, and a team of guards will be dispatched to your location, either to render aid or have you escorted from the property. We won't be having anyone using scalpels on the competition willy nilly."
"A perfectly reasonable stipulation." Rhea agreed as she and Yarvela held out their medkits to be clipped.
After that, the woman went over the twelve of them with her scanner (Adyt and Viatrix staying aboard the ship for this evening mixer, listening in via the open comm chip Phoebe had linked to the Gorgon), and then escorted them out of the docking bay, falling in with the assorted other crews being led forward as well.
They were a motley mix, far more people than Nevara had expected to see, but for once her customary aversion to crowds wasn't pressing in on the edges of her mind. She would soon enough be competing against some of these people, and the excitement of that had her introversion momentarily held at bay.