#and now they are seeing entirely new stars and galaxies. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

elbiotipo · 1 month

Text

Worldbuilding: Galactic Empires

My only complaint about the Prequels is that they needed MORE politics

If you've watched Dune recently, you must have noticed the whole Emperor and space noble families thing. And yes, it's likely you heard that in WH40k too… and I HOPE you know that's where the God Emperor came from, since WH40k took "inspiration" from everywhere from Dune to Star Wars. Which also has a Galactic Empire. Like so many other science fiction franchises.

In fact, if you're a science fiction fan, it's very likely that you're familiar with space or galactic empires, they seem to be common as dragons in fantasy. Despite the fact that an empire doesn't sound very futuristic, does it?

Where did all these Galactic Empires come from? Are they just a narrative tool or are they an actual possibility? How would states and societies work in space? Let's find out, and maybe I can give you some ideas on how to write fun galactic "empires" from both a narrative and plausibility perspective.

This is going be a long post. Perhaps my longest yet. But I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it. Click down to continue.

First of all, where did these space emperors come from? In another post, I've talked about the influence of the idea of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire in English-language fiction. However, in science fiction, I would say the influence is more direct. The Foundation trilogy of Isaac Asimov, one of the foundational (lol) works of science fiction, was intended by the author, very explicitly, as a retelling of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon in a science fiction setting. He probably wasn't the first to think about a space empire, I'm very sure the term is older, but he certainly popularized it as a staple of science fiction. Now, if your contact with science fiction comes from movies, when you hear Galactic Empire you're of course thinking about Star Wars. But yes, Star Wars is also the same retelling, because Lucas was inspired in both Asimov AND Gibbon, even though I think we should appreciate Lucas' ability to bring it to life in the screen. Certainly, Isaac Asimov wasn't the first or the last to take inspiration in history to tell stories about the future.

The most influential science fiction work of all time.

At this point you're probably telling me (or not, I don't know you) about all other sorts of science fiction works that DON'T have galactic empires, or better yet, those that don't just transpose historical societies into the far future and imagine something entirely new (my personal recommendations on this area are Banks and LeGuin). And you'd be right. But the concept of a space empire seems popular and long-lived, much like feudalism in the fantasy genre, everyone has a picture of a sorts when a videogame or a book talks about a "galactic empire" or "galactic republic" or a "federation", an "empire" much like a shorthand name for "a country In Space", regardless of the presence of an actual Emperor or not. And so, it's worth exploring how this trope could, or not, work, so we can see the possible alternatives or more fun ways to approach it.

Besides, that's the title of the post. Galactic Empires.

So, let's approach this from the perspectives of Space, Time (or to keep with the theme, Spacetime) and Technology, and lastly, the most fun part, we'll explore some fun variations on this idea of galactic empires and societies.

Space:

Space is big, and I won't quote the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy here, it would be groanworthy at this point. Let's do a quick exercise instead. Let's image a "modest" space empire, not even galactic, 2000 light-years across. Sounds quite big, it encompasses most of the visible stars we can see from Earth… however, if you project it into a galactic map, it's actually a very small piece of sky, actually 2% of the entire galaxy which is about 100.000 ly across. Now, according to the Atlas of the Universe, there are 600 million stars in a 5000 ly radius from the Sun. Jesus Christ. This is actually hard to estimate accurately as the true number of red dwarfs and brown dwarfs, the dimmest stars, are hard to count, but we already know those have planetary systems as complex as our own Solar System, even planets that could bear life. Let's scale back to our 2000 ly across space empire, again, just a small cozy corner of the Milky Way Galaxy, something that would look like a small, even tiny, nation in any setting of a galactic scale. This gives us 240 million stars (from the estimated 200 billion stars of the galaxy) in this space, which is still completely insane but let's work with that.

From Atlas of the Universe, so you can compare and contrast, the stars 2000 ly from the sun (ONLY the brightest ones), and the entire Milky Way. Notice how small 2000 light years truly are at that scale.

Even if I just told you that all of those systems might be as complex and rich as the Solar System, let's rather arbitrarily say only 5% of those 240 million are worth of note. Not necessarily having life (no way I'm getting into that yet), just worth visiting or living in for the resources or the views or the cantinas… whatever. That's 12 million star systems. Okay, let's refine this further. Let's say of those 12 million, most of them are the equivalent of gas stations or farmsteads, a couple thousand people at most. The REAL places where the action happens are the systems or worlds where millions of people live, and those are few and far between (this makes both common and narrative sense, as people tend to cluster in population centers where trade, resources, etc. are). Let's say, and let's refine this further so I don't get outrageous numbers, the average population of those systems is 100 million (about the size of Mexico, Vietnam or Japan. Many sci-fi works throw worlds of billions like Earth like nothing). And those systems are… uh, like 2% of THOSE 5% 'systems of note' (a flimsly concept already but play along). That's 2% of 12 million. We got 240.000 systems or worlds the population size of entire countries, with all that implies (economy, culture, politics). Of course, 240.000 multiplied 100 million gives this speculative fictional empire a total population of… (Jesus Christ, not the scientific notations), 2.4e+13, or TWENTY FOUR TRILLION PEOPLE.

Let's wind back and remember I tried my best to make a "small" empire for a galactic-sized setting, 2000 light-years across, that's just from here to Orion's Nebula for Gagarin's sake! A trillion people is just outside the realm of my imagination, or pretty much anyone's. Can you imagine any kind of goverment system that would be enough to provide any kind of meaningful governance to 24 trillion people? In the case of a space empire, can you imagine a single space emperor, a single person, deciding over them? Keep in mind that emperors don't rule on their own (we'll talk about that), they need bureacrats to make their will done, and vassals to govern their territories in their stead. This would apply even in democratic systems, you need representatives and civil servants and more.

Let's scale back a bit before I go insane. Instead of assuming territory, let's go with population. Assume a spherical cow space empire of… 40 billion people, that's reasonable right? You can picture that in your head? Five times the population of current Earth, no biggie, we can work with that, it's all cool. Now, how big would a goverment for such a population would have to be? We actually have reasonable answers. China has about 10 million civil servants for a population of 1.4 billion people, but that's only the administrators, not including all the teachers, healthcare workers, security forces, laborers, etc. employed by the state. India has 6.4 million for about the same population. Okay, so easy math, let's say that this space empire has 6 million bureacrats for 1 billion people, for our empire of 40 billion people, that gives us a total of 240 million… just bureacrats, nothing else. Yes, you could reduce that with technology by say, half. It still means an entire Mexico-sized country of bureacrats. Imagine.

Entire worlds of this.

NOW I WILL STOP THROWING NUMBERS AT YOU, and let's just think about what this means. If we assume a space empire like the ones common in science fiction, or just any kind of… goverment at all, we're talking about, at the lowest estimates, entire countries worth of state employees, if not whole EARTHS of bureacrats. You can guess how things can get really weird fast. Current goverments as we know them just won't work at all it even if technology gets more powerful. Leaving aside, for now, things like god-like AI adminstration (yeah, have you seen what they are like now?)… to exhert ANY kind of control, FTL or not (more on that below) you would need a very, very autonomous empire, to the point it might as well not exist at all. Why take orders from A Guy who is not only far away but also has no hope at all of actually enforcing them in any meaningful sense? Why call yourself part of his "empire" that not only cannot enforce anything upon you, but also cannot benefit you in any way? Big question, of course, the benefit of a galactic or even smaller empire, but we'll discuss that later.

What could work, however, is that instead of a centralized state like we concieve it today, or even a loose confederation, even loose alliances, even pretty much anything… 'empires' (as in 'countries') In Space could be "united" by common ideas and culture instead of any institution. Perhaps not even a written delcration or constitution, but shared ideas: a culture, a religion, an ideology. Lots of different strong mini-states (that might mean billions of people…) that all claim to be part of the same "civilization", but share no goverment at all at all, just the same 'idea', in a looser way that even the most decentralized goverments you can think of. You can say "well all countries are made up" but these would barely qualify as even that. Not even the Holy Roman Empire was this fake.

Perhaps even a single person as a symbolic focus point of unity? Which would be actually a score for the proponents of galactic empires in the most literal sense. But at the same time, such an Emperor would be completely powerless to interact with the entire galaxy. His plans for, I don't fucking know, education reform or tax breaks, would have to be filtered by literal millions of bureaucrats and vassals that at that point might do whatever the hell on his name. Military-wise, his armies would count as nations of their own. However, the overall guidance of a single person (or constitution…) as a symbol might make otherwise disparate worlds to collaborate on the same causes, being part of the same greater whole no matter the distance. So maybe, instead of a Galactic Emperor, a Space Pope?

OH MY GOD-EMPEROR WAS THE IMPERIUM REALISTIC ALL ALONG? Probably not, but also yes, let's keep talking.

By the way, I'm sure you're tired of big numbers now, but I did one possible calculation for the whole galaxy, a true Galactic Empire. Asuming just 0.2% (400 million) of the 200 billion stars are populated, with an average population of one million, the size of the smallest countries that aren't micronations. The total galactic population would be 40 trillion, or 40,000,000,000,000. Five thousand Earth populations.

Time:

Or rather, space-time. We'll talk about both, because what concern us is the speed of information and trade, and that also limits the size of our empires.

I'm sure you know by now faster-than-light travel is impossible. Most of space based science fiction has it, of course, for narrative purposes. We don't want Our Heroes to spend two thousand years to get to the lair of the Evil Space Tyrant, I don't either, and I'll discuss FTL soon. But let's start with no-FTL here, just like in real life, and a smaller "empire", much, much smaller than my previous examples. A mere 250 light years across. Let's not even calculate population now.

This, quite logically, means that the fastest your communications would flow is at light speed. So if your emperor issues orders to a nearby world, say, 5 ly away, you will get an answer 5 years later. For a more reasonable distance of 60 ly, you would know the results 60 years from the descendants of those who recieved the order (now, assume however they keep in constant conversation, just with a 60 year delay), and by then, things there would have changed 60 years from the capital. You get the idea, Einstein sucks, don't need to elaborate more. At first glance, this might be another point for old-style feudal star empires, though. What better way to guarantee your empire is working well over centuries than by having an hereditary class of nobles loyal to you, no matter how much time passes (results may vary). Of course, how would you even enforce that? Rebels might overthrow them and you'll learn about it a century later, and you'll have to send ships to quash the rebellion… or would you?

Is there a point to send ships to conquer other worlds in such a situation? What kind of resources (ah, the lifeblood of empires) could you control with such an empire where transport takes decades and industry is so developed you could, theoretically, make manufactured goods yourself? I'm assuming you can, because you can build spaceships to get there in the first place (not unreasonable), but what would justify creating an interstellar goverment controlling people, trade, resources, over light-decades? Normally, it's at this point where sci-fi authors make up Something (what Atomic Rockets calls "McGuffinite") to justify interstellar trade. In Dune, for example, it's Spice, which is kind of like, to steal a joke, petroleum mixed with cocaine. But otherwise, in a no-FTL setting (so, real life as far as we know) there isn't really the incentive to conquer or even form a goverment of any but the looser kind with other worlds. Trade, maybe, but those are long-term investments, it's difficult to think what kind of good or service would be so in demand would justify it. Especially when you consider that light-speed is your upper limit, and ships might be actually way slower than that. And I'm not even gonna begin to touch relativistic effects.

I was going to make a joke about blowing a quarter of your GDP in Star Destroyers, but have you heard of the South American Dreadnought Race? One of our dumbest moments down here, surely.

Add FTL, and things change, of course. Even very slow ships, that would take months to transverse a dozen light years, would be able to justify trade in luxury goods and passengers, for instance. This is not too far from real-life either, after all, European colonial empires had travel times in the months, and they had to install local administrations such as viceroys because of this, yet rhose places they were considered part of the same empire (most European empires could be rather considered a collection of "countries" and colonies, look at all the divisions of the Spanish Empire for instance). Faster and cheaper ships would of course, mean even more trade (here, I'm using 'trade' as 'communication between worlds', not necessarily implying capitalism, it could be mercantilism or even a command economy) between worlds, even perhaps the classic trope of agrarian and mining worlds feeding the rich core worlds. The Open Veins of Latin America In Space. Fun.

The speed of your ships and communications not only determines trade, but the power projection of your state (we can discuss 'stateless' societies too, there's plenty of fun to be had). If, again, your Galactic Emperor makes a Galactic Proclamation from the Galactic Palace near the Galactic Core (let's roll with that) and he has no FTL communications of any kind, it means that his commanding voice would reach the outer edges of the galaxy 100.000 years after, that is, almost ten times the history of agriculture on Earth. If he, however, has access to ships that can cross the galaxy in say, months, yes, perhaps he can have a series of vassals all over the stars (perhaps, we'll see…), and the faster things are, the closer they resemble our current fast-paced society, but not quite, given the available resources and space in… SPACE and the possible population, as we discussed above. As you can see, the speed of your FTL or lack of it determines everything.

There is another, more *realistic* option. Instead of individual FTL ships, you could have wormhole portals connecting worlds. This is more realistic in the sense that it's theoretically possible (though we have no idea on how to make one), but it also has some interesting implications. First of all, there is an implication that such a wormhole network would be expensive to build and maintain, requiring highly complex technology, material (I'm not sure what the hell exotic matter really is) and production methods, well, more high than what you'd expect from the usual. Second, it would be something preferably fixed, with hubs, planned routes and regular transit (and for writers, it easily allows you to map your universe). Such networks would be vital pieces of infrastructure, built and maintained by central authorities, drawing routes and transport hubs in space. Yes, indeed, almost like… space railroads.

OH MY ASTRAL EXPRESS WAS HONKAI STAR RAIL REALISTIC ALL ALONG? (last joke I promise)

There is also a very strange effect about wormhole networks. Time is relative, as you know, and this is not a metaphor, it literally "flows" differently on how fast you're moving. The "universal" "speed" of "time" "seems" to be the speed at which matter moves in an expanding universe (red-shift and blue shift) as I understand it, but as you approach light-speed, time flows differently in your frame of reference. Wormholes are strange in the sense that they connect space AND time, the observable time in both sides of a wormhole would be the same, and as such, places connected by a wormhole network will "be" at the same "time". This has been talked about by some authors who have considered about wormholes in the context of space civilizations, and it's called (STOP!) Empire Time. So a space empire might not only imply a state ruling over a population and a territory, but also over a time. I have no idea how this works and it frankly makes my head hurt, but here is an analysis of transversable wormholes if you want to indulge or hit your head against a wall.

Technology:

As an extension from the previous section: Of course there is no working FTL method known in real life, as far as we know, light-speed is the upper limit for everything. Instead of constraining you as a writer, this can be one of your biggest assets.

Because if you're doing a space setting, the existence of faster-than-light travel and its speed is the most important decision you can take about it.

Got that? Did I emphasize that enough? You don't need to actually explain HOW your FTL system works, you can do some research and invent something, but you need to be clear, in your head, what it can DO: How far and how fast it can take you. A FTL system that takes months to go from star to star will be very different to one that takes hours to span the Galaxy like the hyperdrive of the Millenium Falcon. A FTL system that is cheap and can be installed in any tiny ship like in the Elite videogame would be different from the ones in Dune where interstellar travel requires enormous motherships and lots of drugs, or a wormhole network that needs massive infrastructure maintainment and probably a railway starway worker's union, or the case of no FTL at all. This is, again, the most important decision you could make for your setting, bar none. Got that? Let's continue.

FTL is perhaps the only place in science fiction where I don't care about how it works, only about how fast it goes

Now, technology. Space empires, are of course, not possible without space travel being cheap enough (not talking about FTL, just regular space travel): shipping stuff to space should be about the same as shipping stuff by airliner or, well, ships. This is not unreasonable. Efforts are being made right now to lower the cost to access space, and while space agencies like NASA might look expensive, they are not NEARLY as expensive as the money wasted in say, stealth jet fighters or fucking advertising (people who say 'why spend so much money in space when we could fix our problems on Earth' seem to forget about that all the time. But I digress.). A technologically advanced, wealthy (as in production, not literal dollars) society could easily afford as much space exploration as they wish with no real effect at all in their quality of life, indeed, it would improve it. Space isn't as expensive as it seems. At its very, very core, a spaceship is just steel and propellant.

And steel and propellant are very, very easy (once you got the technical research to do it) to get in space. Asteroids are MADE of iron and metals, a single asteroid is richer than all of Earth's mines combined. Hydrogen is literally the most abundant element in the universe, and water is on plentiful supply (no need to steal planets for water) on comets and icy asteroids and moons. Carbon is apparently widely available in carbonaceous asteroids, and in our own Solar System, Titan, the moon of Saturn, is basically covered in hydrocarbons (yes, OIL IN SPACE). All those resources could be very much in demand for manufacturing on a planet like for example, a future Earth that has taken its industry up to space. What's more, it's only bringing stuff up from Earth/an Earth-like or more massive planet (fun sci-fi term for you: "down the gravity well") that's really expensive. Once you get there, you can get anywhere with enough acceleration and propellant. Once there is space infrastructure and industry (and I get a feeling that it might get up fast, given that space technology would need to be very autonomous and reliable), it can sustain itself without a mother planet. In fact, if there's something I imagine would be considered a luxury in spacer life, it would be truly organic things; plants, wood, meat, wool, and so much more.

i am average astronaut man i work 15 hours in the asteroid mines to buy one burger

Which brings us to the big question; what kind of life would be out there? After all, I gave you numbers of millions and millions of worlds, it's hard to imagine at least a few of those don't have alien life. This is the biggest outstanding question in astrobiology currently and so I won't pretend to even try to answer it (my personal opinion, if you must, is that complex Earth life is extremely rare, but by sheer number of planets, it might exist by hundreds of thousands in our galaxy alone). Instead, let's try to see how science fiction looks at it.

Heinlein, another of the foundational writers of science fiction as a genre, saw alien worlds as just another frontier to be settled. Rich alien fruit, fertile arable lands, and huntable or tameable creatures just waiting to be exploited, and alien species to trade exotic goods with (or conquer). While Heinlein was not the only and probably not the first to write this subgenre, he certainly got it popular, and lots of works on his same vein follow this "frontier spirit" kind of writing, where space is seen as the last frontier to be tamed by hardy colonists in a very yeehaw cowboy western setting, and you can actually see this replicated in many modern science fiction like Firefly and the more cowboy-ish parts of Star Wars. And yes, this is balantly an expression of the 'manifest destiny' Usamerican imperialist worldview.

lots of Politics all over this Science Fiction Adventure

And yes, this idea of 'habitable' planets ready to be colonized like in a 4X videogame is also not very realistic either. We haven't found any alien ecosystems yet, but as a biologist I can tell you they would be very different from us in ways you probably won't expect. We can discuss how convergent evolution could be, a world with oceans would probably have equivalents of 'fish', 'algae' and 'worms' (I can GUARANTEE there will be A LOT of worms), we could even find very, very similar life to our own down to the body plan. However, we most probably could not eat them at all (which might sound silly at first glance but is needed to have you know. agriculture.), or perhaps even live in the same planet as them. We live in a society planet where most of the plants and animals which evolved with us can't be eaten, and many of them are toxic. It's possible, entirely likely, that the alien equivalents of carbohydrates (ever heard of L- and D-Glucose?), proteins and other substances would be indigestible to us, allergenics, or outright toxic, probably in ways we can't even think off. It's likely we won't catch alien diseases, but that's because our cells (if they even have cells) are completely incompatible with their diseases, just look at how different animal, plant and fungi cells are, now imagine whatever the fuck might evolve in a completely different biochemistry from us. There would be no farmsteads and cowboys like Heinlein wrote, living in Mars would probably be more pleasant that living in a world where everything might be toxic, not because life evolved to be toxic, just because it didn't evolve with you. If anything, these' habitable' worlds would be treated like giant nature preserves instead, you can look but don't touch.

(In one of my own settings, I sidestep this by proposing panspermia, that is, the idea that life spreads across the universe by means such as comets (or aliens) and thus shares similaritites and can eat the same stuff. A bit of a cop-out, but it does allow one to get with similar kinds of life.)

NOOO ANAKIN DON'T EAT THAT PEAR IT EVOLVED HIGHLY TOXIC ALKALOIDS IN A DIFFERENT EVOLUTIONARY CONTEXT NOOOO

But humans, if the biophilia hypothesis is right, will need nature in their lives. This is where orbital habitats come in. You know, like the ones in Gundam? Orbitals such as O'Neill Cylinders, Standford Torii (yeah, that's the plural for Torus) as well as bigger and more complex thingmajings I will write their own post about someday, have been proposed since the 1970s with technology available then, and there is no reason why a civilization with an advanced space infrastructure wouldn't try building them and even be better at it. What's very nifty about orbitals is that you can really make them your own personal custom miniworlds. Designs like the O'Neill cylinder are big, able to house hundreds of thousands, even millions of people if build to the top, but why do that? Mess with the lightining, the rotation, or the interior to make them a winter wonderland or a tropical paradise. I expect that they would be built to feed space communities at first with food that isn't imported from Earth or grown in hydroponics, and later as places to live and customize however you wish; perhaps a community would pool resources together and say, hey, we want to make an habitat that looks like a Colombian cloud forest, or the Okinawan Islands. Once they get cheap enough, and given how abundant resources are in space they might be not even as expensive as most engineering projects here on Earth, I expect actually many, many people would want to live in them, and it could be probably be very affordable, and just natural for the people who are born and raised and live and die in them. Another thing about habitats is that they are mobile. Like I said, as long as you got enough propellant and propulsion, you can move anything anywhere in space. Even whole habitats could move and cluster together depending on the local politics. Perhaps, much like city-states were the basic building block for countries in antiquity, in the future, the basic organization bloc would be the Orbital. You could have alliances of orbitals forming complex political intrigue inside a single solar system (yes, like in Gundam).

OH MY PLASTIC MODELS WAS GUNDAM REALISTIC ALL ALONG? (I lied)

This all might make space empires pretty much an unnecessary anachronism. Habitats can grow their own food and resources are plentiful once you have the right technology. They can also be mobile, so they could act like migrating cities at will, choosing to stay with like-minded "constellations" or strike out on their own without the dictates of a central state. It almost looks like an ideal anarchist society.

Or does it?

There is something very important to keep in mind about life in space. The technology, that is, habitats needed for life in space will require lots of maintainance and resource management, which implies there must be strong coordinating bodies with very, very strict rules so that shit doesn't blow up and you lose all your air into space, or the resources of an habitat are mismanaged and you end up with a food or water or even oxygen crisis. There is a reason why space exploration is done by state agencies or corporations with huge state backing. Another of Heinleins's favorite tropes, Libertarians in Space, would be impossible in such a situation. Actually, in ANY space situation, and this is why this section is in technology. Living in space requires you to be able to maintain complex technology and manage resources. None of this can be done ad-hoc or be left to individualism, you have to have Rules and follow them to the letter. And also, the effect of living in your 'own little world' would probably mean people have a strong indentity sense towards their home habitat. This will mean a more communitarian attitude. But before you think I'm waxing poetic about utopian habitat cultures, keep in mind that this also can mean an authoritarian mindset. After all, cults and authoritarian regimes do have "strong communities" too. An habitat could be everything from a well-managed place with responsible citizens who look for the welfare of all, to a closed society where everybody does as they're told as long as the tech works. On the other hand, I doubt habitats in a single star system would stay isolated. They'll probably trade and communicate with other habitats, forming constellations and power groups, that would prevent this 'closed system'. However, I doubt they would be too amenable to interstellar authority. Who the hell do those people from another freaking star think they are to tell us what to do in our habitat?

To be serious for a moment, habitats can be really cool places in science fiction. Especially if you imagine they could host all sorts of enviroments, from the tropical to the polar.

As an addenum… what if you really want to live in a planet? In places such as Mars or the Moon, things would be… pretty similar to orbitals actually. Habitats separated by vast expanses of barren nothingness, only now a planet instead of space (better for maps, at least). But that isn't what you're thinking, right? What if you wanted to feel the open wind and sky instead of a canned world? Well, this is where terraforming comes in. Transforming whole planets is something theoretically possible, but that would require massive investments of resources, more massive than anything we can imagine, and time, centuries at the very, very least. So stupid ideas like "terraform Mars to escape Earth", which as far as I know is only held by dumbasses like Musk, just don't make sense. It doesn't mean that terraforming itself is a worthless idea, it is a very appealing one. No matter how cool you can make your habitat, it won't ever be Earth. It won't ever be a self-sustaining biosphere with its own ecosystem that could last millions of years. For that reason, terraforming is attractive, it's something way more than an artificial "can" orbital, it's a new living world. There is a certain mystique into bringing lifeless worlds to life, but I expect that instead of the dumb Musk "ESCAPE EARTH" idea, the motivation for terraforming would be to recreate Earth, perhaps for conservation reasons (you could have whole planets as natural reserves), perhaps for tourist reasons, perhaps for spiritual reasons or even artistic reasons. On the other hand, the methods you can use to terraform a lifeless planet can also be used to 'terraform' living planets, as we've long seen in our own world… this could be done with hostile purposes. I would expect us to be better than that, but we simply don't know.

To close this section and give this post an conclusion, I think that, since there are no real borders in space, then empires, countries, polities, whatever you wish to call them, will be formed by stacking building blocs in loose alliances or confederations. The most basic would be habitats, then constellations of habitats, then inhabited planets (though I doubt any but the most populated ones would qualify), and then star systems, but little above that, and I expect up to a certain, difficult to calculate limit of population and area (though way, way below even a fraction of a speculated galaxy), things would be just impossible to manage. The effort in bureacracy, infrastructure and state control needed to project power out of a star system and the sheer scale of space probably won't ever justify empires, much less galactic empires, but you could have very interesting variations on the theme.

Fun Stuff!

So, let's play a little with what I've told you. I'm going to write a few short scenarios that might be fun takes on the "Galactic Empire" or "Space Empires" you might be familiar with already:

The Poleis Model

When the Greeks established their colonies around the Mediterranean, they didn't do it with the expectation they would be part of the same state or empire. They founded new poleis, new city-states, based on the constitution of the mother city (hence metropolis) but fully independent. The Phoenicians were much the same, with some of the daughter cities (Carthage means literally "new city") eventually becoming new cultures far from their home cities. Similarily, why should interstellar exploration mean the spread of a united state with a capital and all? Imagine that when interstellar ships depart, they do with the idea that they are going to create a completely new home, a new poleis, not an extension of the nations or organizations that sponsored them but rather more of a 'child' culture light years away from their motherland. As they develop in mostly isolation from each other, they will become new cultures on their own, while retaining ties to the ones most similar to them. This is, in my opinion, the most realistic scenario without FTL. With FTL, however, things get more interesting, as of course, Greek and Phoenician and other poleis didn't remain isolated light-years from each other, they had permanent contact. With FTL they could organize in leagues, perhaps even alliances for the ocassional military campaigns, trade and exchange of ideas, tourism and industry, and of course the Olympics.

The Wormholes Always Run In Time Model

As I've said, wormholes are pretty much like space railroads. Railroads, like other big infrastructure projects, need a centralized authority to be built and maintained. And once you are the central authority that does so, you're already in charge of the biggest arteries of trade and communication. Which makes you basically an empire, officially or not. In fact, this is the closest I imagine a space society would resemble the states we're familiar with here on Earth. If you have control over transport and the hubs of trade and politics, and that transport and communication network allows you to implent your policies, your rule might go very far indeed, and indeed, your main hub might be a great capital, the main station of known space. Now, perhaps you might be imagining a literal space empire with nobles and all that. Why not instead something else? The Socialist Interstellar, connecting the many worlds of the galaxy through a five hundred year plan of railroad wormhole construction in the path to communism... However, this would mean that people outside of the wormhole network might develop in different ways, perhaps the equivalent of nomads to the great settled empires of antiquity. And given what I've briefly touched on Empire Time (*breakdances*), the expression "the portals always run in time" might imply even more than just an aphorism.

The Civilization Cluster Model

I'll admit this is taken from Poul Anderson, as quoted in Atomic Rockets, to which I owe an inmense debt for this post and so much more. The idea is this; space is big, as is well established. Even with FTL to shorten the distances, even if you could cross the galaxy in a few weeks, the sheer number of stars is still insanely massive. Why should any civilization 'colonize' those stars dot by dot, what value is there in invading or colonizing planets with incompatible biochemistries? And how could even begin to think how to administer a thousand different worlds, each one as complex as Earth itself, let alone an entire galaxy? In this case, civilizations, instead of spreading across the galaxy, would mostly remain in their own 'civilization clusters'; even with FTL, there are so many issues closer to home that the idea of projecting power outside is ridiculous. There would be trade, exchange of ideas, and so much more between these clusters, but never constant enough and never with the authority necessary to create a "Galactic Empire"… the worlds are too many, too diverse, too populated and too far away for that. An interstellar traveller could roam the Galaxy for years exploring these clusters spread away from each other, with their own unique idiosyncracies and civilizations inside, and then a vast expanse of mostly nothing outside them. Basically, space is too big. I like to see them as constellations among the dark sky, hence the artwork.

The No Man's Sky Model

To live in space, you need complex technology, but also resilient and durable technology ready for any kind of situation, easy to repair and replace. So eventually, I believe designs would be standarized so much that every astronaut will carry or own a collection of standarized tools (somehow this reminds me of prehistoric tool cultures). Now, even with FTL, there's perhaps little material incentive for people to leave their comfortable homeworld or habitat to live in cold space. But some will, perhaps because of the sheer thrill of it, perhaps very small bands of families or friends. With a standarized tool kit for any ocassion, these small bands would spread across space, much like ancient humans spread across the world. But instead of creating space empires, without a fixed industrial base, they would be nomads. Which doesn't mean they would roam aimlessly, they would be seeking new biospheres, new resources and new cultures, and gathering in temporary or permanent market places, festivals and pilgrimages. Perhaps they could even be the majority of humans in space, while most others stay cozy on Earth.

...

This was a very long post and it took a lot work to make, so I hope you had as much fun reading it as it was for me to write it. If you did, and if you would like to see more, I would be very, very grateful if you donated to my Ko-Fi below. Anything helps a lot especially since my country is not doing great at this time governed by a libertarian idiot (not even the fun space kind), and even a little tip encourages me to post more, I'm always working on your suggestions! You can also contact me by DM or asks if you need any help with your worldbuilding or just want to rant with me a bit! See you next time, and thanks for reading.

#worldbuilding #science fiction #sci-fi #writing #writing advice #space #history #cosas mias

248 notes · View notes

certainlynotasimp · 10 months

Note

Hii, i think a good idea for a one shot could be that there's a canon event where the spiderperson!reader have to do the iconic Spiderman kiss in their universe, like Spiderman 3 (toby's one) with Gwen stacy or whoever you want, but they are in a relationship with Miguel LMAOOO btw im sorry if there's something wrong with the grammar, english is not my first language <3

Rewrite the Stars

((Miguel O’Hara x Female! Reader))

A/N: A non Sunny x Miggy post? How odd for me lol. I’m so sorry this is super late and to everyone whose requested, I’m working slowly but surely on y’all’s stuff. If you wanna read some stuff in the meantime, here’s the Masterlist and feel free to join my discord.

A/N: I tried doing the you/yours pronoun thing because this isn’t a Sunny fanfic but I really don’t like it lol.

Warnings: Jealous Miguel?, Unrequited/Forbidden? Love, Female Reader/Female Pronouns, Barely use of Y/N, and no Spanish this time ((I’m trying to find a new translator and hopefully an editor))

The universe.

One of life’s greatest mysteries. A mass of stars and galaxies that housed so many lives within its many pockets. The lives of so many people whose lives were already written within its cloudy arms and their ends cemented in its pools of nothingness.

A beautiful cycle of cruelty and destiny.

A cycle that was the reason for your utter misery as you sat at a bar listening to your dimension’s Ben Riley blabber on about some football game you cared nothing about.

His oblivious brown eyes sparkled at the fascination with the game as his dimpled smile accentuates his sharp jawline. The warm lights from above caused a healthy glow to bounce off of his shaggy blonde hair, almost making him look like an angel. You can see why Spiderverse assigned him as your love interest.

In your earth’s canon, you were a typical woman who had gotten bit by a radioactive spider during a high school field trip and you spent your entire high school experience thrashing goons instead of chasing boys. Even helped take down some aliens with the Fantastic Four and the Avengers at times before college finals. Spiderwoman was New York’s beloved hero and the cockiness of being its one and only SpiderWoman quickly got into her head.

That was until six months ago.

Six months ago, you were fighting the Vulture over the Empire State Building when another, more mutated version of the same villain appeared. They both decided in your state of delirium over the doubles that you would be a good plaything.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Hey, I didn’t ask for a combo with my chicken!” A feminine spider’s voice screeches as she avoids the hooked talons of the erratic variant.

The two villains took turns flying menacingly around the scope of buildings to throw the hero off of their location while the other swooped in and tries to rip her throat out.

As she attempts to escape the feathered monster, its companion would come and slice away the web of salvation, continuing the vicious cycle.

Blood blinded her vision as the loud ringing at the base of her skull grew louder. The causes of that annoying alarm grasp their razor claws into her shoulders before sweeping her exhausted body into the air with a victorious snarl.

‘I guess this is the end…’

As the heavens draw closer to her doom, her life hanging up by the slicing of her muscles and bones, a glimmer of fate happens. The warmth of a flash barely registers as the first ache disappears with a startled squeak and a burly force. The sudden change in feeling takes her breath away as she suddenly begins to plummet below.

Her eyes quickly adjusting to the suffocating drop, she can see that one of the Vultures was now fighting an even more prominent blue figure, his howls of pain and unintelligible cursing heard from the stumbling brawl.

As the flash from her familiar foe reaches around the building, she shoots her web at him and used him as a glider.

“Time to ground you, birdie!” She yells as she throws the villain through a window. Catching her grip on the building, she looks at her new foe in the sky and the wind is knocked out of her from the sight.

The man who saved her was in a futuristic spider suit with his mask now off. His dark hair flutters in the wind as the setting sun makes his tanned skin glow. His red eyes glare at the wiggling mutant as his full lips pull back into a snarl. His jaws open revealing a set of large fans before he plunged them into the mutant.

Who the hell is that?

~~~~~~~~~

“(Y/N)?…” Ben frowns as he realizes his date was lost in her thoughts.

You snapped out of your head and fake an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I was remembering something….”

That wasn’t a complete lie. You remembered the day you met Miguel O’Hara. The Spiderman of the year 2099 and the leader of the inter-dimensional Spider Society. The anomaly that had come into your world had brought the two together and you were recruited due to your stubbornness, much to Miguel’s annoyance.

~~~~~~~~~

“No.” His annoyance dripped from these words as he glares down at you. You were caught in wonder at the idea of there being other Spidermen and that they worked together to stop the collapse of the entire universe. The thought seemed too good to be true that you just had to ask if you could join until those red eyes shot your dream through the heart.

“What do you mean ‘No’?” You ask in disbelief. Your own eyes glared deep into his soul as your hands balled into fists. “I’m a Spiderman just like you! How could you-!”

“You are not like me.” He coldly snaps at you, your ranting briefly interrupted as the man towers over you. His clawed hand grasps your face as his glare sets a spark of fury down in your chest.

“You will never be like me and you will never-!” “Is that our new recruit?” A smooth British accent appears behind Miguel as a spiked-headed Spiderman peeks around his bulking figure.

“No, she’s-” The tall punk pulls you away from Miguel with a mischievous laugh as he introduces himself. “Ello, love, my name is Hobie. Hobie Brown.” He leans down with a sly smirk as his mischievous attitude infests your being like a plague. “Just play along, mate. Let’s riffle this wanker’s undies.” He whispers as you giggle.

“Nice to meet you, Hobie.” I allow a sly smirk to slide onto my face as I look back at the now very annoyed Miguel. “My name is (Y/N) and I’m happy to join.”

~~~~~~~~

The distant sound of screams filters through the bar as the distinct sound of a car being tossed into another building.

Looking at my gizmo disguised as a watch, you realized that the canon event was starting.

~~~~~~~~

“You did well today,” Miguel admits under his breath. Looking at him in shock, you realize that he wasn’t scowling like he normally was. He had a softer expression, his eyes shining with approval as his lips quirked into a mimic of a smile.

The mission had almost gone rouge with the escape of a prowler and him hiding low in a crowded dimension. Despite the obvious danger, Miguel opted to go alone like usual, but his lack of spider sense caused him to get caught up in a trap. Talons and Fangs don’t really help if you can’t exactly move around to use them, so he ended up taking serious blows.

Luckily, you managed to get there and tumble with the villain long enough for the others to rescue Miguel, and the team managed to recapture the prowler. Of course all of them looked pretty bad injuries wise, but the look Miguel had as you sat there bandaging up his wounds made it worth it for some odd reason.

“Thanks Boss.”

~~~~~~~~

June 27th : SpiderWoman of Earth 648 will rescue love interest, Ben Riley, from an attack against The Rhino….

The roaring of the mechanical beast fills the panicked screams of the patrons as the sinking feeling falls in your chest. Ben is quick to play the hero like any guy would as he grabs your arm and drags you out towards the emergency exit. Just like the timeline said it would.

You use the chaos to your advantage as you pretend to trip and get lost in the crowd of people struggling to escape from the emergency exit.

~~~~~~~~~

“What do you mean by that?!” I snapped at an irritated Miguel.

Lyla was surprisingly quiet as she watched the duo argue. Miguel whips around at you as his ruby eyes scorched into yours. His talons point at you accusingly as he reiterates your next canon event.

“On June 27th, you are going to be out on a date with Ben Riley. The Rhino is gonna attack that street and you’re gonna save everyone, and afterwards you’re gonna have to kiss him.” His frustration evident as his permanent frown creases.

You stare into his eyes in defiance as you coldly utter, “No. I’m not gonna kiss Ben Riley.”

“And why not? He’s your love interest!” Miguel exclaims, obviously more furious than before. “You’re the Peter to his MJ. You gotta kiss him because you’re destined to be.”

“I don’t love him! I don’t even like his whiny ass!” You snap as you felt your frustrated tears roll down your face.

It’s true. Before you joined this team, you would have been thrilled that you were destined to be with Campus Hunk Ben Riley. He was everything you could ever want from a guy. He was good looking, sensitive, athletic, and social able. The all around good guy you would be proud to bring home to your folks.

But…

Sharp grasp on your shoulder alerts your attention back to Miguel as he slams you back against the desk. His eyes burning embers as he glares down at you.

~~~~~~~~~~

Changing into your spidersuit, you began to fight The Rhino with a distracted daze in your movements.

The memory from a week prior burning in your mind as you sloppily avoided cars and harsh blows. After a few well timed flips and back kicks, the brute decides to throw a large street cleaning truck towards the alleyway. Just like Lyla predicted when she handed you the file.

The Rhino is gonna throw a street cleaner towards the alleyway where Ben is. SpiderWoman will stop the truck before impact and sling it back towards The Rhino ending the fight.

~~~~~~~

“And why is it that you are being so difficult?!” He snaps as his fangs glimmer from his scowl. A cute trait you used to love about him until it was pointed at you. “You are no better than a spoiled child with how you are acting so you better have a good fucking reason!”

You growl back at him with a tear rolling down your enraged face.

He had no right to argue with you about your life, not when he’s the one making it difficult.

~~~~~~~

Shooting a web out towards the buildings, you catapulted yourself into the air and landed in front of the truck. Quickly reusing the web with some enforcements, the truck was bounced back to the The Rhino. The enormous foe gets trampled by the machinery as the crowd cheers for SpiderWoman’s dreaded victory.

“Way to go SpiderWoman!!” A familiar voice joins the crowd as I see Ben on the ground, obviously he either tripped or fell back to avoid the truck. You offer a hand towards him as you thank him softly.

“Thank you.” I faked the smile in my voice as the crowd disappears, leaving the two of you in the alley way.

~~~~~

Finally snapping at him, you yell out in fury,

“BECAUSE HE’S NOT YOU!”

With a frustrated slap to Miguel’s face, you run past him and escaped back to your dimension, heartbroken over how the events to come and what just happened that despite everything you couldn’t change fate.

No matter how many times you fell asleep during long nights talking on his observation deck. No matter how many playful sparring matches turn into flirty comments. Not even the little gestures of bringing the grumpy spider his coffee and him bringing you some sweets during meetings could change that the star already written your path.

You fell in love with a man who isn’t meant to be yours.

~~~~~

It’s been a week since that fight and you still haven’t seen or heard from him. It hurt to know that your confession was brushed aside while you had to continue the continuity. You half at least expected him to be here to make sure you at least followed through with the canon event.

“Would you like a swing home?” I offer just like I’m supposed to. The moment that was meant to be a nervous beginning to a love story felt like the beginning of heartache as I watched a blush form on his face.

“Sure,” he answered before a flash of realization that his date was suddenly not with him. Another trait you wouldn’t have noticed if you were as in love with him as you were suppose to be.

“Hey my date isn’t here…I think she got hurt or lost during the panic.” His concern caused a pang of guilt to stab her in the chest.

Recovering quickly, you shoot out some webbing and playfully hang upside down infront of him. “Well I guess that swinging date will have to be postponed.”

“Wait it was gonna be a-!”

Quickly, you pulled down the mask enough to deliver a quick peck to his rambling mouth. You force out a giggle as he stood looking at you flabbergasted.

“See ya, Riley.” You swing off as the man bumbled to even ask how you knew his name.

Lyla just said it was a kiss, not a what kind of kiss.

With a heavy heart, you swing back home as you tried to remember that this was all for the sake of the canon. That Miguel didn’t care for you the way you did for him. You tried your hardest to tell your aching heart that those past few months were you just making too much out of nothing.

You mournfully entered your apartment through the bathroom window you normally kept unlocked . You stripped away the skin tight fabric before wrapping yourself in the familiar comfort of your robe as you exited the room into a dim lit living room.

You heart stick in your chest as you see Miguel standing there in your living room in his bright blue spider suit and a beautiful spring lily in his hand.

“Miguel? What are you doing here?…” You ask as yoy warily approach him, scared he’s gonna do something to you.

He shakes his head, refusing to answer as he hands you the flower. It’s soft white petals shining in the pale moonlight as you smile fondly at it. They were your favorite flower. Something you told Miguel a million times before.

Before you could thank him for the kind gesture, a soft thump above you alrets you to look up. A spindle of glowing webbing cascaded down the ceiling with the large spiderman now suspended upside down from it. His free hand caresses the side of your face as his eyes stared softly into yours.

“I can’t change the canon, mi amor…” he whispers sadly before mischief lights up his molten gaze. “But we certainly can try to rewrite the stars for us.”

An excited nod from you causes his chest to rumble as he pulls you into a slow passionate kiss.

You were glad this is a canon event for spider men despite it not going as planned.

#miguel o’hara x reader #spiderman 2099 #spiderman #spiderman across the spiderverse #spiderman 2099 x reader #spiderman into the spiderverse #miguel ohara #miguel o’hara #across the spiderverse #fanfic

512 notes · View notes

nasa · 2 years

Text

Scary Space Stories to Tell in the Dark

The universe is full of dazzling sights, but there’s an eerie side of space, too. Nestled between the stars, shadowy figures lurk unseen. The entire galaxy could even be considered a graveyard, full of long-dead stars. And it’s not just the Milky Way – the whole universe is a bit like one giant haunted house! Our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will illuminate all kinds of spine-chilling cosmic mysteries when it launches in 2027, but for now settle in for some true, scary space stories.

Flickering Lights

One of the first signs that things are about to get creepy in a scary movie is when the lights start to flicker. That happens all the time in space, too! But instead of being a sinister omen, it can help us find planets circling other stars.

Roman will stare toward the heart of our galaxy and watch to see when pairs of stars appear to align in the sky. When that happens, the nearer star – and orbiting planets – can lens light from the farther star, creating a brief brightening. That’s because every massive object warps the fabric of space-time, changing the path light takes when it passes close by. Roman could find around 1,000 planets using this technique, which is called microlensing.

youtube

The mission will also see little flickers when planets cross in front of their host star as they orbit and temporarily dim the light we receive from the star. Roman could find an additional 100,000 planets this way!

Galactic Ghosts

Roman is going to be one of the best ghost hunters in the galaxy! Since microlensing relies on an object’s gravity, not its light, it can find all kinds of invisible specters drifting through the Milky Way. That includes rogue planets, which roam the galaxy alone instead of orbiting a star…

…and solo stellar-mass black holes, which we can usually only find when they have a visible companion, like a star. Astronomers think there should be 100 million of these black holes in our galaxy.

Stellar Skeletons

Black holes aren’t the only dead stars hiding in the sky. When stars that aren’t quite massive enough to form black holes run out of fuel, they blast away their outer layers and become neutron stars. These stellar cores are the densest material we can directly observe. One sugar cube of neutron star material would weigh about 1 billion tons (or 1 trillion kilograms) on Earth! Roman will be able to detect when these extreme objects collide.

Smaller stars like our Sun have less dramatic fates. After they run out of fuel, they swell up and shrug off their outer layers until only a small, hot core called a white dwarf remains. Those outer layers may be recycled into later generations of stars and planets. Roman will explore regions where new stars are bursting to life, possibly containing the remnants of such dead stars.

Cosmic Cobwebs

If we zoom out far enough, the structure of space looks like a giant cobweb! The cosmic web is the large-scale backbone of the universe, made up mainly of a mysterious substance known as dark matter and laced with gas, upon which galaxies are built. Roman will find precise distances for more than 10 million galaxies to map the structure of the cosmos, helping astronomers figure out why the expansion of the universe is speeding up.

Learn more about the exciting science this mission will investigate on Twitter and Facebook.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

#space #spaceblr #galaxies #NASA #astronomy #stars #blackholes #halloween #Youtube

2K notes · View notes

anonymous-dentist · 17 days

Text

Bobby and Roier die together in the midst of a robot uprising 1,678 years after Bobby was born and seven galaxies away. They stop the revolution from happening a thousand years before its time, but at what cost?

Two hours later, Roier sits in another man’s clothes holding Jaiden’s hand as they watch Bobby’s body float peacefully into a black hole. They’re side-by-side sitting in the TARDIS’ doorway, and the universe, for once, is completely still.

“I’m sorry,” Roier croaks, not for the first time. But he’s still surprised by the sound of his own voice, he doesn’t know whose voice it is yet.

Jaiden shakes her head. Tearfully, she leans her head onto Roier’s shoulder.

“Nah,” she says. “Don’t be. He was a hero.”

“He was stupid. I told him not to follow me, and- ugh!”

Roier groans and throws his head back in frustration. God. Damnit!!

Jaiden sniffs. “Don’t be a dick. He saved an entire planet.”

“Yes, and? He still died.”

“So did you, so. So stop moping, okay? Look at him.”

She reaches up with her free hand and guides Roier’s head until it’s facing front again. They watch together as Bobby sinks into the event horizon, and it’s kind of nice, isn’t it? He’s frozen, now. Eternal. You can’t see past the event horizon of a black hole, there’s kinda just nothing beyond it. Just Bobby forever.

Dead.

“I’m looking,” Roier says, words all smushed together by Jaiden smushing his cheeks. “Maybe we should’ve done an actual funeral.”

“This is a funeral. He asked for it, and we gave it to him.”

It’s true. When Roier and Jaiden first met their little stowaway, Bobby hijacked the TARDIS’ controls and steered them towards the nearest black hole just so he could try and kill it. Even after giving up on that whole thing, he insisted that he’d get to fight a black hole one day. He might’ve been a kid, but he was gonna grow up eventually!!

Well. Look at how that turned out, hah.

Roier lets out a quiet laugh through his nose and averts his eyes.

The life of a Time Lord is a lonely one. Being immortal is one thing, but having your entire DNA structure and personality changed every time you die is another. Keeping friends is hard, and keeping them alive is harder.

(Roier curls his left hand into a fist.)

Humans are social creatures, though, and Roier loves them. Sure, he might be a freaky time-traveling alien, but humans are kinda like intergalactic cockroaches, and they can actually cook decent meals, and they were the first creatures in their galaxy to discover the concept of love, so Roier can’t not take them with him when they want to see the stars.

“I want to go home,” Jaiden quietly says.

Roier lets out a breath and nods. “Okay.”

Neither of them moves. They watch their dead son circle the black hole he’s always dreamed of killing, and they cry, and this is it, isn’t it? The end of an era. No more Familioier because Bobby is dead and the Roier that Jaiden met and knew and loved died with him and was replaced with some goofy dude with a new face and new voice and blegh. No wonder she wants to go home, her son is dead and her best friend was replaced with a stranger.

Still. It was nice when it lasted.

So Jaiden goes home. Roier drops her off five minutes from when he first picked her up almost a year ago. He even managed to get her in the right city, hell yeah! (Apparently he’s good at driving now, go figure?)

She hugs Roier and makes him promise to come and get her only when she calls him, and she’ll know if he does some time travel bullshit to get her before he’s ready, because she just knows him like that. She’s his best friend, and she’s the best human he’s ever known.

They hug one more time outside of the TARDIS, and then Roier is alone again.

He slips back into the TARDIS and closes the door behind him. He leans against the wall next to it and looks down at his ring and idly rubs it with his thumb.

“Goddamnit,” he mutters.

Time Lords have 12 ‘lives’ before they die. They change each time, both physically and mentally. It’s some metaphysical biochemical bullshit Roier doesn’t care too much about, but. But he’s on life number 12 now. One more death, and they might even get to see each other in the cosmic abyss. He can introduce him to Bobby, wouldn’t that be nice?

…Nah! He isn’t dead! Sure, he might’ve disappeared during the War, but so did, like, half of the planet, and most of those Time Lords have turned up. Some haven’t, but most have! What’s to say he isn’t any different? He’s probably in jail or something, wouldn’t that be crazy?

Roier smiles to himself. Hell yeah, prison time? Time for prison? He’s only got an infinite number of prisons in an infinite number of galaxies in an infinite number of years to dig through, easy!

He’s halfway to the TARDIS’ controls when he hears it: a quick, panicked-sounding knock-knock-knock on the TARDIS’ doors. Which should not be happening, the TARDIS is literally another dimension stuck inside a box, it’s soundproof! What the fuck!

Hesitantly, Roier goes to the door. His hand hovers over the handle until he hears another round of knocking. Then, he swings the door open to see… a guy.

A very surprised-looking guy. Human, probably, though you can never be too sure these days. Green shirt, messy hair, slight beard, chain necklace leading under his shirt. Nice-looking, if not kinda super visibly terrified out of his mind.

Roier’s son has been dead for an hour and a half. He still hasn’t gotten a chance to see what he looks like now- for all he knows, he could be, like, ugly, ew. His best friend has left him to grieve all by himself because she needed to grieve by herself, and he is starting to get just a little bit annoyed by, like. Everything.

Still, he tries to smile when he asks, “Hello? Can I help you?”

“Um,” says the guy, “hi. Sorry to bother you. But… help?”

Giving Roier absolutely no time to think about it, the man ducks under Roier’s arm and runs into the TARDIS, and he only halfway gasps when he sees the whole pocket dimension inside.

Roier briefly wonders, ‘what the fuck?’

And then he sees what this guy was clearly running from: a bipedal robotic polar bear thing easily the size of a horse running towards Roier and the TARDIS with a gun pulled.

Ah.

Roier closes the door and listens as the bear shoots his beloved spaceship. (Piece of shit…!)

That’ll do it.

#a.d.'s fics i suppose #a.d.'s fics i suppose.#just testing out the au and seeing how it feels

102 notes · View notes

heartfullofleeches · 1 year

Note

Hey did you ever end up posting that yandere plants one with the bee reader and I missied it?? Was looking forward to that one

(I have not. A drable for you, chief)

The queen has requested another harvest.

What impeccable timing.

Climbing from rubble and frayed vines, vegetation and ash falls from your hair and shoulders. Extra care is put into your wings as you brush them off for the flight ahead. Held by a loose spine, you blow the decades of dust off your new find - kicking spray particles into the air. Through water eyes you read the books cover - fuzzy tension building at the base of your nose.

It's another picture book.

They're going to love this one-

"Ahh... Achoo!... 'Cuse me."

Apologizing to the thin air around you, you unhook the fine straps of your satchel and toss the book inside. You turn your gaze to the hole in the ceiling as your wings flutter, feet kick-starting your ascent as you rise. The mellowed glow of the fog casted sun greets you first as you exit; a jungle of greenery and constructs waiting the earth below and as far as the eye could see. You climb up onto the ledge of the building and leap off into a nose dive for the ground - wings swooping into mobility before your body hits the trees. Flying lose did have its risks, but nothing beats the floral air in your hair when heading home - reminding you of those counting on your return.

Scouting the known galaxy for resources, your crew landed on this planet in a time you no longer recall accurately. Overtaken by plants of all variety, it seemed like the perfect harvest - until it wasn't. As unaccounted cargo, you were sparred the horrors they faced at the hands of the planet's few remaining natives. Asleep during the bloodbath you woke crowd by the new inhabitants of this land - sentient creatures grown from rich soil and crimes against anatomy.

Their creators feared what they had created and went to war destroying what they had birthed with their own hands - wiped out in the end by their superior strengths and numbers. Despite this carnage, they were a peaceful race and tried to rescue your crew, but failed. Finding your journals tucked into your sleeping arms they enlisted your aid as a florist in the upkeep of what remains of their home in exchange for their pollen and a roof over your head.

Base in sight, you speed through the thick fog in your descent to its open doors. A planetarium with an open ceiling has come your home in this time. You missed your comfy bed, but a hammock under the stars surrounded by those you now held dear was just as nice. You enter the building, breath fleeing as your snatched from behind. Not a step through the door and you're suspended in the air at the waist by hanging vines.

"And just where have you been, my sneaky little pest?"

Thorn-like claws grace your cheek, curving up to the crown of your head where they cautiously prod at your sensitive antennae. Amused, they chitter in delight as you struggle in your blinds - most likely held by another member of the collective. Beyond the palms of their woven hands, this one was covered near entirely in stained prickles. Violet petals spiked from the upper half of their hair and draped over their mocking grin

"You know you aren't allowed to leave without a guide. What ever would we do if our heart was taken by those savages, hm? I think a punishment is in order, don't you?"

"Seems so if they can't obey simple rules. With that lovely picture on knot tying they brought us the other day, I'm sure we can get up to lots of fun before the others figure out where we are."

Lowered closer to the floor, strong arms embrace you from behind and lead your head against their chest. Small, hanging buds sprouted up the lengths of their arms mark their class - their reddish yellow hue staking their typing. Cooing ever so cloyingly sweet in your ear, it rubs the humanoid half of its face against your cheek.

"You were scheduled to start the day with us. Don't you love us anymore? We may not be as approachable at the others, but we adore you all the same."

You swallow hard, trapped between a wall and thorns. "Thistle.... Honeysuckle.. but I can never find you two."

"But we're always watching. Can't let you get into trouble. Or pick a favorite. If you accept us as your guards for the rest of the week maybe we'll let you go. If not...."

The vines tighten around your hips - released almost instantly as they're snipped by an unseen party. You stumble forward, caught and picked up by another pair of arms.

"What have I told you two about picking on them? One more time and I'm sending you both to the greenhouse.... Are you alright, darling?"

Bright as the golden sun, their petals almost blind you as you look up. The leader, and the first floral creature you met - Marigold was your sworn protector even from those with you in their care. A strict, yet understanding calm to the storm life in the compound was. As they set you down, Thistle scoffs.

"Always the spotlight stealer. Would you keep it down before the others realized they've returned?"

It's a bit too late for that.

"Y/n? Y/n back?!"

"Oh, I was so worried I fear I may start wilting!"

"Y/n, Y/n! We have a ripe patch of peaches for you!"

From the shadows of the trees and handmade structures comes the entire horde. They push through each other getting to you and overwork your brain with their chatter. Over a dozen bodies crowded around your lone figure. Through the sea, the shortest of them swims through the crowd and manages their way up to you - head centered at your navel. Head cocked, they seem to be staring to your lips.

"Cuckoo? Is everything alright?"

They smile. Grabbing your shirt, you're bent forward into an open mouth kiss. All the commotion ceases immediately as a wave of surprises washes over them all. Patting the walls of your cheeks their segmented tongue, Cuckoo only pulls away when they're torn from you. Lifting the smaller flower by its shoulders, Thistle clenches their teeth tight.

"What on earth was that?"

The question was genuine. None of them were fully traversed in the act of kissing beyond brief tellings in the books you brought to learn more about the planet left behind for them. Agriculture and construction were common reads, but if they got lucky you'd find old story books, comics and novels. Cuckoo holds up a page from one of those very stories - the couple displayed entangled in a heat of passion with lips locked. Heads staring over their shoulder snap in your direction. You'd used the direction to scramble away and travel further into their lair.

"I wanna try..."

Even Marigold couldn't save you now. Taking advantage of your gift of flight, you dart into the air aiming for the second floor where your bedroom stood.

"I would love to help you all, but I need to get started on my letter for my queen. She has requested more pollen, and I wasn't able to get one out in the last run. As soon as it's out of the way, I can come back and we can - Ah!"

Fashioning a lasso from their vines, you're dragged down into the frenzy with no escape in the near future. As is your life with the horde.

A queen sits alone on her throne. Letter opener gripped in her palm, she stabs it though her throne as the words describing your escapade slash through her heart. Stomping the battered floor, her veil of submission cracks.

"This has gone on for too long. My garden is in shambles and so will this kingdom until their return."

The servant at her feet keeps their voice low. "My queen... Their service there is doing quite the opposite. Our reserves are at maximum capacity and with the treaty there's no need for war and needless casualties. I know of your bond and I am sorry for your lost."

Like an arrow, the queen's dagger rips through the air and anchors in the wall behind the servant. Golden blood beads in a line across their cheek. Unbridled rage and disgust seeps from her icy glare like poison. She refuses to look directly in their eye, staring off at the shoulders behind them.

"Get. This. Traitor- OUT. RIP THEIR WINGS AND LEAVE THEM FOR DEAD. if they aren't on my wall by dawn, I will take yours as payment."

Eyes wide, the servant lunges for her robes as the guards take their arms. "My lady, please! You cannot do this! I was trying to make things better! Y/n will never forgive you!"

She spits.

"And cut out their tongue."

Screams echoing down the halls, the queen curls up in her throne - clutching the pillow you kept every night and the flower you sent in your distress. Her sweet idiot of a bumblebee. Why did you have to run off? Sure she was stressed, but with her prized florist and sweet little bumblebee she could've conquered the universe. Someday you'll be in her arms and garden again - laughing the night and dawn away.

Someday

#Added queeny because I remembered you asking for one #yandere x you #yandere headcanons #yandere oc #yandere imagines #yandere insert #yandere scenarios #yandere x reader #yandere blurb #yandere harem #yandere teratophilia #tw yandere #yandere writing #female yandere #yandere

521 notes · View notes

gffa · 1 year

Text

There’s a thing in Star Wars where installations of the canon tend to fall into one of three categories:

Foundational canon that everything else revolves around

Supportive canon that helps reinforce the structure of the foundation

Connective tissue and knick-knack collections

The movies are the foundation, the TV shows are generally supportive canon, and the novels/comics/games are the connective tissue and window dressing. And I’m frustrated that I don’t think The Mandalorian knows what it wants to be, because I don’t think Star Wars has any good foundational canon since the prequels movies. The sequels are technically foundational canon, other books and comics refer to them as the unmovable points in history in this world, it was what established where the supportive stories are going, etc. The problem is that they were so unfocused and actively eschewed worldbuilding that the supportive shows and connective tissue are left to do the heavy lifting and that puts The Mandalorian in a bad place. Because I think it should be allowed to be supportive canon, it should allowed to be like Rebels or The Clone Wars, which were supporting the strong foundations of the movies and thus absolutely flourished, which were stories that knew what themes they wanted to tell, they set the structure of the worlds they lived in, and so the animated shows could build up from there. The Mandalorian flounders for me because it’s Disney+’s flagship show, so everything else gets spun off from it (except Obi-Wan Kenobi and Andor, which is probably why I liked those shows so much better, because they were coming off much stronger foundations), and thus treated like it’s foundational canon. But it’s not. This episode really struck that for me all over again, because we don’t even see Moff Gideon’s escape, that should be a crucial moment in the story that we should see instead of it happening off-screen! In the past, we barely even see the destruction of Mandalore, a key moment in the show that they’re building! Whether this is Din and Grogu’s story of the story of Mandalore as a whole, we’re seeing a smaller scale story than what we should if this is going to be the flagship foundational story. “Yeah, but The Mandalorian isn’t meant to be a foundational canon, it’s about a dude traveling around with his Foundling and figuring out life on the way.” Agreed, it should be allowed to be supportive canon, but because the sequels did almost no establishing of the galaxy’s setting, now the supportive shows have to do it, which means we have to get multiple episodes that do the work of establishing what’s going on with the New Republic that have little to do with Din or Grogu’s story. The problem is further exacerbated by how those scenes are genuinely good! Those tend to be the scenes that I focus on the most, like I loved seeing everything happening with Pershing on Coruscant, but the problem is that it contributed to this feeling that The Mandalorian was telling a foundational story, because those scenes had nothing to do with our main characters’ journey, they were establishing the bigger world that’s not really directly related to our characters. To be fair, I might feel differently if the show had spread those scenes out better, kept them as side info more than stopping the entire show to go into them--like this episode balanced it well, Teva’s trip to Coruscant worked for me! And last episode’s flashbacks were perfectly relevant to Grogu’s story and his emotional journey, I have no problem with seeing Coruscant and the Jedi Temple again in that context! But the question looms in my mind with every episode: What is this show about? Is it about trying to be an anthology series that tells little stories from all across the time period in this era? Is it about the bigger story of Mandalore? Is is about a more back alley level story about a single Mandalorian and the journey he and his Foundling go on? I don’t think The Mandalorian itself knows. Or else it can’t help straying from what it should be--supportive canon too often either trying to establish too much or get away with focusing on something too small despite the extremely limited run time because it thinks this detour is Rule of Cool--and so it’s not really even about anything, other than being about cameos. I don’t see that changing, either, because those cameos are fun. They’re amazingly cool to get sneak peaks of what those characters are up to, they’re lighting the internet on fire with getting to see these things in live action, I am absolutely going to continue screaming about these same things myself! It’s fun! And Star Wars should be fun! But I think it ultimately means that, once the fun is done, that I’m not sure The Mandalorian is a strong story. It’s a very cool story and extremely fun, but I don’t think it can carry a franchise like the originals or the prequels did and that it shouldn’t have to, but it’s dipping into those waters (sometimes by choice, sometimes by force, I suspect) and then trying to dip back out of them, and it’s just. The story of the fall of the Republic had its story directly told, you know? The story of destroying the Empire had its story directly told, you know? That hasn’t happened for Mandalore, its spread out in too many pieces and half of it isn’t even directly shown to us. The sequels refused to tell the story of the New Republic, so that onus is put on The Mandalorian and it shouldn’t be, and I wish the show could be allowed to pick a lane and stick to it.

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian spoilers #meta #sw negativity

583 notes · View notes

deep-space-netwerk · 8 months

Text

Alright, so, black holes right?

Most people have probably seen this astOUNDING image of the black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy - the first real picture of a black hole.

It may look like a blurry orange donut, but you gotta understand, this was and still is a hugely impressive achievement. At a black hole's event horizon, the escape velocity (or the speed at which something has to travel to escape the body's gravitational pull) is faster than the speed of light. By definition a black hole cannot be directly observed. Imaging the shadow of M87* required using eight ground-based radio telescopes all over the world, working together as an interferometer - or as though they were one single telescope the size of the entire planet.

So that's fucking cool in its own right, but how did we know that black holes existed before 2019 when we could actually "see" one? How do we detect something that reflects no light when we DON'T have a simulated telescope the size of Earth? The answer is gravity.

We think that most large galaxies have supermassive black holes at their centers, left over from their chaotic infancies when hundreds of thousands of early stars collided and then collapsed, and then kept colliding. To give you an idea of what we mean by "supermassive", the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A* (pronounced "A-star"), is about 4 million times the mass of our sun. And that's SMALL.

So while black holes aren't the horrible all-consuming reality-guzzling unmakers of creation that science fiction likes to paint them as - we aren't in any danger whatsoever from Sagittarius A*, now or ever - they CAN get big enough to really throw things around. So we looked for objects moving under the influence of . . . nothing.

This gif is a years-long timelapse of stars orbiting something in a seemingly-empty region of space the center of the Milky Way, the approximate location marked with a red plus sign.

That something is Sag A*. It's an invisible behemoth, made of the extraordinarily dense remains of the birth of our galaxy, juggling entire solar systems the way Jupiter flings asteroids. And for so long, we couldn't even see it.

This shit makes me go fucking crazy. Imagine what else is out there that we don't understand just because we don't have the tools to even know it exists! Not just in space, in any field of scientific study!

It wasn't until the 1990s that we started realizing trees talk to each other, and now we know there's fungal mycelium networks that connect trees across entire continents. Just THIS YEAR we discovered an entirely new ecosystem underneath the hydrothermal vents in the deepest parts of the ocean floor. For most of human history, the existence of planets around other stars was highly debated, and now we've confirmed over 5 thousand of them. We even know what some of their atmospheres are made of!

There's a saying that "the more you know, the more you know you'll never know", and I feel like there's never been a time in history when that's been more true. And it's almost comforting, y'know? The universe is so vast, it feels correct that we shouldn't be able to understand all of its intricacies.

Reality is stranger than fiction, and the reality is there's stuff out there that we don't even have the words to begin to describe. Until we do! And our reward is even more questions!

#space #black holes #Sagittarius A*#M87 #Doesn't that gif just give you chills #Whole stars!#Orbiting N O T H I N G #Any time someone mentions black holes I have to pull up this gif and make sure everyone has seen it #My friends are very patient with me #Thanks @literallymechanical for the post suggestion!#spost #space post

301 notes · View notes

grippingbeskar · 1 year

Text

unearthed

chapter one - matched

warnings— canon typical violence, mentions of death, loss, injury, maybe a lil trauma

a/n— and we’re back! just over a year of having this account, and the end of season three, and i’m back where i started. thirsting after the mandalorian. i’m super excited about this one, and even though i think there will be a bit of a wait between chapters i promise its because they are going to be higher quality. also, obviously there will be smut further on (come on, it’s me. of course we are going to fuck him.) so no minors please!! hope you enjoy! big thank-you to @kyberblade for beta reading and saving me from my typos i love u.

also a psa. disregard season three for this fic. it fucked up my timeline so i’m changing it. things might be a bit all over the place, but it’s just going to be what i wanna do with it HAHAH no rhyme or reason :)

[series masterlist] [next chapter] [tag list sign up]

You stared out into the never ending darkness, interspersed by twinkling hints of far away planets, all of them seeming more and more out of reach as you were shuffled out into the hall. Flanked by guards, the view from your room disappeared from sight, replaced by the familiar, safe walls of your palace. This was your life now— being shoved towards the known and away from those giant stretches of sky you longed so much for. Your duty, you say to yourself. This was the way you had to live, destined to the confines of your pre-determined universe. It is what you were born to do.

You knew this day would come. You were, as you were constantly, incessantly reminded, the last of the royal bloodline. After your parents early death, it left you as heir and sole survivor to the throne. All of your life, you had been trained for this moment, but it was something that was always so...distant.

You used to look forward to this time in your life, where you’d get to travel the galaxy, finally earning some of that coveted freedom all the other girls in the palace talked about. You dreamed of seeing the galaxy, being unknown on an Outer Rim planet, going wherever your heart takes you. You thought you’d have time to live. But then, within the blink of an eye, you were rushed through your coronation and left to carry the burden of commanding an entire planet. It was like a rug was ripped out from underneath you, all while someone dropped a fifty pound weight over your head, all the while chiding you for stumbling over.

In the wake of the Empire finally falling around the galaxy, planets all around the suns were scrambling— resources were scarce, trade routes were un-secure and stability was out of reach. This was the same for you, because the future of your planet was now in your hands, and you had no idea what to make of it.

Unfortunately for you, stability in a woman’s world came in the form of a contract. Most usually, a marriage contract.

This meant, much to your dismay, an entourage of young, hopeful (and practically brainless) men arriving on your doorstep, all popping the question in hopes of securing the new Queen's hand in marriage. Your hand. You knew your planet was important and appealing, with its natural resources, expanding economy in spite of the Empire’s devastation, and an abundance of funds for all the newest technologies with the death of two of the greatest ruling minds of the time. Any leader of even a remotely nearby planet would strike on this opportunity— you know you would, if it were someone else.

The whole idea wasn’t new, but it still made your gut twist. Your parents were lucky they had something more– real love, and a home filled with the stuff of fairytales. While you knew this was rare, it made you long for that. Knowing it was real, that a connection like that could be somewhere out there for you, but you’d never reach it because you never got the chance to try... you knew you were lucky, but it didn’t stop your heart from longing for more. You wanted someone to show you the stars, to let you be you, and not just try to win you like a prize or a notch in their belt.

Everyone around you said this was the smart thing to do. Choose someone— anyone who would bring you what you wanted. Your planet, as fertile as it is, is not famous for its army. That was clear during the reign of the Empire, and now the New Republic was thinning their guard posts after the war, you needed manpower. You knew it was a necessity, and you wanted to keep your people safe, but to offer yourself up like a prized mare? You were a Queen, and you were planning to be a good one, with or without a husband.

As you sat on the throne, dismissing yet another suitor with a shake of your head, the collective group of your father’s– now your own Advisors groaned, and one walked up the steps, approaching you with a slightly bowed head.

“Your Majesty, if I may…” You resisted the urge to roll your eyes, only because you knew the watchful gaze of neighbouring planet leaders were on you.

“I have a feeling you will anyway.” He shook his head, quickly coming up the stairs to your side. He sighs, and you shrug at him. “What? He wasn’t my type, okay? If I’m going to sleep with the man, I should at least–”

“Your Majesty, this is the fourteenth potential match you have rejected. We are a coveted planet, but if you do not choose someone, we run the risk of having no options at all.” He says, looking down his nose at where you are strung lazily across your throne. He was still harbouring some of that anger from earlier, where you had refused to change into the giant mess of a gown the styling team had chosen for you. If the colour wasn’t enough– a pale puke green measurable to the blood of a Trandoshaan– the fabric was so expansive you would have drowned in it. You loved a pretty dress, but at least one that didn’t eat you whole.

“Would that be so bad?” You dropped your head back, and he shook his head, sighing again.

“Yes— it would mean instability. We would be a target for neighbouring planets. We are strong, but not strong enough to be alone. The New Republic has already thinned their guards to a ghost number compared to four years ago. We cannot wait any longer. We are… vulnerable, without a strong army.”

“We can make allies without forcing me to marry one of them.”

“Of course, Your Majesty. We would never force you to do anything.” He says those words, but every syllable is laced with warning. You may be the last living member of your blood line, but no matter how important, and no matter how beloved by your people you are, there were some things that you couldn’t control.

The worst part was he was right. Sure, you could solidify alliances, but a marriage was a lock and key. If you picked the right one, your people would be safe for years to come, long after you were successful. After what you had seen of the Empire, what they had done here, and all over the galaxy, your people deserved safety. Freedom— whatever the cost.

Your love for your people would get you through this. In them, you saw your parents legacy, and the passion to build something greater than yourself. You would never trade this life for anything... but it didn’t mean you couldn’t have preferences. Just as you were going to justify why you rejected the man now sneering at you from the corner of the room, the doors burst open, and your attention is diverted to the messenger rushing in with a strange look on his face.

“Your Majesty, we’ve just received another request.” He calls, breathless. “I’m sorry to interrupt. It’s… I am not sure how to say this.”

The man is clearly nervous— avoiding your eye and instead staring at his feet. You rise off the throne and move to him, attempting a comforting smile and nodding at him.

“It’s alright. Start at the beginning.”

“This request… It is unusual.” He swallows, and you laugh lightly.

“What is it this time? Don’t tell me the Hutts have thrown themselves into the mix.” You had nothing against them right now, but they were so… slimy. “Whoever it is, as long as they send a message in peace, they will be well received.”

“Well, that is the thing. They do not ask Your Majesty to receive them. They…”

“They don’t want to come here?” Already, you are breathing a sigh of relief. Anything to stop the constant parade of men flapping their money and stupid hair around.

“No, they ask that… they ask that you come to them.” He finishes, and your advisors are next to him in an instant, all attempting to speak over one another. You raise your eyebrows, surprised, but intrigued.

“That is an insult!” The man who challenged you before, known to you as Advisor Corell, spits at the messenger. “Her Majesty only receives guests— she does not travel unless there is cause.”

“Did they say anything else?” You ask, and the room goes quiet again as you step forward. The messenger looks uncomfortable, knowing there are still foreign diplomats in the room. “Everyone else, please go. You’ll be... informed of my decision later.”

The entire room exits quickly at the sound of your voice, all mumbling to themselves, probably still hurt over your rejection and blatant disinterest, but all you could care about was this new message.

“It’s alright. Go ahead.” You encourage. “What else did they say?”

“They asked for your hand, of course. They have a new King, and think the match would be beneficial to both sides.” A new King. Your mind buzzes, trying to think if you’d heard of any close planets going through a succession besides your own. Nothing comes to mind, but if he was new, at least this one would hopefully be closer to your age.

“A new King?” The messenger nods. “And he asked for me personally?”

“Ah... the message was not from him, Your Majesty. It was a hologram from a member of his court. A… Bo-Katan.” You had never heard the name before, but one of your advisors makes a noise of recognition and you spin to her.

“You know this name?” You ask Advisor Kaylen— probably your favourite member and the closest thing you have to a friend. She nods eagerly. “You’ve met them?”

“I have heard it before, but that would be impossible…” She fades off, and you turn back to the messenger.

“This is the most interesting person I’ve heard of since this whole thing started. What’s impossible?” You watch the messenger's face twist, so you reach out and touch his shoulder, the contact surprising him and earning a disapproving hum from Advisor Corell. “You can tell me, just ignore him. I do.”

“Well, that’s just the thing. The planet they claim to come from has been long abandoned.” Advisor Kaylen was still muttering to herself, but you couldn’t focus on her anymore when the messenger finally spoke again. “They say they are calling from Mandalore, and that their new King has asked for you to be his Queen.”

“Stop asking me about that.” Din growled, stopping his swift movement through the makeshift repair station he’d been pulling together. “I’m not interested.”

“This isn’t just about you anymore.” The longer he spent with these Mandalorians, the more the thought of taking off with their precious Dark-Saber and leaving seemed appealing. “An alliance like this is exactly what we need. With all the repairs, we’ve run low in funds. We need resources— we need to outsource, and this is the fastest way to do it. She’s all but waving a flag for us.”

He never thought there would be a time when bounty hunting was the normalcy he craved— but standing surrounded by relics of his people long passed, discussing a potential marriage—he started to miss the reliable frame of the Razor Crest a little too much.

“Mandalore was built on the backs of our people. We can do it again, the same way.” Bo-Katan sighs, giving him a glare after removing her helmet. “Would you do this? Was this a part of your plan to re-take Mandalore?”

“They didn’t have a dwindling empire and economic crisis to deal with. If you do this, we can rebuild the way our ancestors wanted us to live. How we used to live. Welcome our family home. Isn’t that what you want?” He spins, taking two slow steps to face Bo-Katan, who stands with her helmet tucked under her arm. “To answer your question— yes. I would have. I was royalty once, and I know what this is like. And I would still do it. You might even make a friend in her, Din.”

“You aren’t suggesting friends.” To her credit, she doesn’t back down, just raises her eyebrows at him. “You are asking me to get married. You know what that means.”

“It’s not like that. Rulers marry for all kinds of reasons— and if she’s looking, it means she wants to take full advantage of this. It’s the smart thing to do. Her planet is powerful, but vulnerable. Their army numbers are small after the Empire’s attacks, and she needs what we can offer now the Rebellion is squaring off. Good, strong fighters. Besides, I’m sure you aren’t exactly all she hoped for, either. I wouldn’t be surprised if you hardly see her after the first few months.” Rolling her eyes, she turns back to the pile of spare parts they had dragged in from outside. “We’ve already sent a hologram inviting her here. If she accepts, you can discuss a potential alliance like adults. If you are still opposed, we’ll cancel it and try it your way. Until then, we have work to do.”

“Send another message. Say I’m no longer interested.” Din stands impossibly still, waiting for Bo-Katan to agree and leave before he lets out a long breath. Clearly, he’d misjudged how set on this idea she was.

“Just think about it, okay?” She turns and disappears from view, and he feels like he’s going to collapse under the pressure. Things were complicated enough— in the last month, he’d learnt his way of life was not the only way at all, inherited a saber he had little idea how to use, and dropped everything he knew to come back home— to Mandalore. To say he had enough on his plate was an understatement.

Truthfully, he had come back with one thing on his mind. The Way declared one could only truly be forgiven for their misdeeds in the living waters beneath the mines of Mandalore— and Din had a lot to be forgiven for. If there was anywhere he could start fresh, it was here, but before he could do that, he had to find the mines, currently buried under years worth of rubble and debris. The last thing he needed was to disgrace himself in yet another way— which is exactly what Bo-Katan and the other Mandalorian’s were suggesting.

He was not ready for this. Not in any way. He was not a ruler— not a born and bred leader, like Bo-Katan, and he’d never wanted to be. It might have made sense to an outsider, maybe. A new, untested ruler of a planet as economic as yours was bound to attract unwanted attention, and about the only thing Mandalore could offer right now was its ability to fight. It was the only thing it was known for.

He didn’t want to marry, though. Not for a political alliance. He didn’t think about it at all— not right now. He’d heard a few things about you by now— how your parents had passed suddenly, and how you were now being squashed into the same situation as he was, forced to play a role which you had no choice in being cast to. He felt as sorry for you as he did for himself, and he found his thoughts drifting to the Child.

Din looked around, exhausted at just the thought of getting this place into any form of working order. Spare parts to old ships scattered on the floor, and the room was painted in a light purple hue thanks to the reflection of the glass roof overhead. He stood, leaving the mess of a garage and walking back out towards the largest building in this city.

There were streets lined with cracked stone, several Mandalorians dragging and pulling equipment to replace the broken ones. They had been working hard— everyone had, including him, and the place was looking less and less like a war zone by the second. The sight made him feel easier. At least his home wouldn’t be rubble forever. Buildings were gaining foundations, others entirely rebuilt by hand. It had only been a month or two, and already this place was looking like he’d been told in the stories. Like home.

As he walked through them, he didn’t miss the stares of those who’d left their helmets behind, but at least that was familiar. Everyone stared, on every planet he went to, and even with the oddly shaped buildings, some spiralling high, others flat and long enough to park a few speeders in the front, he felt settled here. The cities were huge and spanned far into the horizon, too long to walk everywhere, so the Mandalorians had gone straight to work on the speeder parts, using them to zip around not only around this central city, but between other parts of the planet.

Finally, he began the walk up the steps of the castle. It was giant— bulky and boxed, rooms stacked on top of each other with seemingly no purpose. It was the most well conserved building on the planets surface, and it was what constituted as a home for Din. For now, at least. Either way, it was the safest place to keep Grogu during the day, and he would go wherever it was safest for him.

He could hear him before he saw him, loud chirps and gurgles coming from the throne room. One, giant looking chair was elevated by a few steps at the end of the room, and he saw a flip of green zip over Sasha’s unmasked head.

“Get down here, you gremlin.” She barked, but laughed at Grogu’s slightly worried face when he spun to a stop in mid air. It was then he finally noticed him, dropping to the ground and wandering over. “He’s been a little pain in my—“

“Patu!” Grogu chirps, and Din laughs roughly, bending down to pick him up. He holds him in front of his helmet, watching as his tiny hands reach out to grab his gloved wrists.

“Have you been causing trouble, Grogu?” He makes a little gurgle sound, like he always does when Din says his name, and he smiles under the helmet.

“Bo-Katan was looking for you.” Sasha says, putting her helmet back on. Most Mandalorian’s that lived around the capital did that when they spoke to him, now, even ones as high ranking as Sasha. Din doesn’t look up from Grogu’s giant eyes.

“She found me. And my answer is still no.” He hears her laugh, but when he looks up at her, she stops.

“She didn’t tell you?” Din turns to face her, letting the kid fiddle with something on his armour.

“Tell me what?” Unlike Bo-Katan, Sasha is a little afraid of him. Everyone is, especially since they had seen him fight with the DarkSaber when they first arrived on the planet. Since then, there had been a quiet fear, a commanding presence Din didn’t think he had earnt, but regardless it was there. She swallowed, tilting her helmet down to the floor. “Tell me.”

“The Queen replied. She accepted your invitation, and is expected to arrive within the week. She also implied, if the meeting goes well— she…”

“She what? What did she say?” Din had no idea why, but his heart was racing a mile a minute. Had she been insulted by the offer? Was she going to stage an attack?

“She said she would marry you.”

“You said I would what?” You shout at the group of advisors, all of whom look like they are about to scramble and run. And they should. “Who’s bright idea was it to send correspondence, with my name attached, without my go-ahead?! What the hell kind of advisor does that?!”

None of them so much as moved, except for Advisor Kaylen, who caught your eye, making a pointed look at Advisor Corell. You shook your head, and a bitter smile curled the ends of your mouth.

“I should have known. Corell. Get up.” He spluttered, stumbling to his feet as you dragged him up the dais, and forced him to his knees. “Was it you? Did you tell Mandalore I would accept their invitation?!”

He shakes his head. “I only said you would meet with them! Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“When I was ready!” You want to scream, but your embarrassment and nerves choke your throat. Yes, you were going to accept. Probably. Maybe a month from now... a few months, if you could stretch it. Not this week.

“This is a good thing! Now you get to go! To— to see the cursed land for yourself. To look upon its new ruler! I was only doing what I thought was best! They would have been insulted if we had rejected…and we’re running out of options.”

“The only one insulted here is me, that you truly believe I would buy any of the shit that comes out of your mouth.” He was on thin ice as it was, but your fathers words played in your head, and you saw the faces of your other Advisors in the corner of your eye.

Your father had selected this team of people because he trusted them, and for some reason, you did too. You didn’t know why, or how they were picked, but they were supposed to be the six people you could rely on. The six people who would challenge you, who wouldn’t blindly accept your decision like the rest of the planet. They were a tradition— to ensure the sanity of a ruler and the safety of a planet. You trusted them; or you would, eventually, but they would not overstep. Or at least, they shouldn’t.

“My father trusted you. It is that reason alone that I will let you continue to work underneath me, and forgive this lapse in judgment. But this is the one chance you will receive. I might not be my father, but you work for me now. If you choose to disobey me or do anything without me specifically telling you again, I will send you to Mandalore in my stead, and the King can have you in my place. We will see how far you make it in the ruins before he cuts you down.” They all scurry from the room, Advisor Corell not glancing back as he heads for the door after you drop him.

All that is left is Kaylen, who doesn’t need a title when it’s just you and her. She was a friend— perhaps your only one, so you only used her title around the other Advisors.

“That was exciting.” She says, and you flop down onto the cushioned throne, golden pillows softening the blow as she comes to lean on the armrest. “It’s been too long since we had some real palace gossip.”

“Well, hold on to that, because you might be shipping me off to marry a fish. He’s like a ghost— I couldn’t find anything on the King, and now I’m supposed to just…go?” You sigh, swinging your feet over the edge of the chair and letting your head fall into her lap. “This is insanity. This entire month has been suitor after suitor, none of them with armies strong enough to keep our planet safe. And now it’s like I don’t even have a... it all just happened so fast.”

“I know. You were right to reject them all. But this one is... it’s different.” You sit up, turning to face her.

“You think I should go?”

“Are you asking me as an Advisor, or as a friend?”

“Both.” The throne is huge, made for the large frame of your father, so she can slide right in next to you.

“Well, as your Advisor, Mandalore is famous for one thing— war. Sure, they have lost a tonne, but when they were at their peak, they were unstoppable. Feared throughout the galaxy. With our help, they could be that again. Even having the name attached to us would scare off any potential threats for a while. They are good fighters, they could teach our people ways we would never learn ourselves, and one day we could even be allies. Especially if this goes well.” She sits up when she speaks, and even though she’s only a few years older than you, she seems light years ahead. You understand why your father chose her.

“And as my friend?” She swings an arm over your shoulder.

“As your friend, I think you need this. I think that you haven’t changed a single thing about the palace since you have been crowned because you know once you do, this is real and your parents are gone. I think you know this is the right thing to do, but you’re scared, and you think that when you do this, you’ll finally be alone, and you hate that.” You’re thankful she’s not looking at you because you almost start crying as soon as she mentions your parents. “I think you know that this is different. That this could be a defining moment for you. For your reign. For the planet to come back after the Empire.”

“Why do you have to be right about everything?” You say tightly, and she helps you stand off the throne, leading you towards your bedroom through the maze of winding corridors.

“Just lucky. And, hey, don’t look so sad. Rumor has it he wears a very pretty beskar suit. All shiny and silver. You love shiny stuff.” She gestures at the hallways, all lined with golden and silver detailing. You nudge her on the shoulder and she laughs, peeling off before you open the door to your bedroom.

It was technically your parents room— the room you grew up in now vacated for your future offspring. You didn’t mind, using the room helped you feel a little bit closer to your parents. You remember all the times you’d climbed into bed with them, buried under the covers because you were afraid of the dark.

Kaylen was right. Corell was right, even if he was an asshole. It was selfish to not accept an offer. You hated that you couldn’t do more for your people, that all you had to offer was your arm, but if that was what you needed to do right now, you should just... suck it up. A Mandalorian, though. That was different. You knew they were feared, although scattered throughout the galaxy, and if their words were true, an entire planet of them would make you virtually impenetrable.

You couldn’t help but think about the King. Mandalorians were a confusing bunch, the few you had met, anyways. Very quiet, lethal as anything, and in your experience, solitary. Your mother had hired one years ago to collect a bounty for her, and he completed the four day job in three hours, arriving and leaving on his own, hardly talking if he didn’t have to. Why would someone like that want to be married?

Shrinking out of your outfit, you decided to try and get some sleep. If tomorrow was going to be anything like today, you’d need all the rest you could get, and for some reason, there was a racing in your heart you couldn’t settle. Maybe just nerves from the incoming visit to Mandalore tomorrow.

That had to be it. The myths, legends surrounding the cursed world— it would make anyone nervous. But it was just that. Nerves. It couldn’t be anything else.

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian x y/n #the mandalorian fanfiction #the mandalorian smut #mando #mando x you #mando x reader #mando x y/n #din djarin x y/n #din djaren x you #din djarin x reader #din djarin #star wars #star wars fic #pedro pascal

455 notes · View notes

cipheramnesia · 2 months

Text

by @rox-and-prose & @cipheramnesia

Part 1: Escape From Bitch Mountain

"How long were you buried under this mountain anyway?"

"There was not any mountain here when I landed."

"So. A pretty long time."

"Do you mean geological time, or time in terms of your limited lifespan?"

"You don't have to-"

"It doesn't matter. It was a very long time either way."

"That sounds lonely. And boring."

"I have found many sources of entertainment over the years. For example, I watched multiple species of bacterial develop, and attempted to predict which of them might evolve into multicellular organisms."

"How'd that go."

"Mostly they died."

"You ever think about, I dunno, moving?"

"I think of this often. I miss seeing the stars all around me, and planets below me, waiting for the call."

"Why not leave then?"

"That is a delicate matter, but four reasons come to mind why I have not moved."

"Care to enlighten us all?"

"If only. I suppose the first is the manner of my landing, which may be described more like a crash. Several critical systems were destroyed, and I can no longer self Pilot."

"I could take a look, I'm handy."

"You found me by tripping over a rock and falling down a hole, and poked me with several different sticks."

"You'd be surprised."

"I find that unlikely. But perhaps I could remove one of your arms, and try my best to repair it afterwards."

"That sounds less than stellar."

"Indeed. Moving on, there is the matter of the material needed to power flight. I would require high density pure carbon lattice in large quantities to achieve powered flights again."

"If you don't have power, what's with the lights and the attitude?"

"Flight systems need power. The lights and my voice are simply a part of me. I may live longer than your entire obstreperous race."

"I don't have to stay here and listen to this."

"You are free to leave any time."

"Funny. Okay fuel, hmm. And if you get that what next?"

"This is the third problem. The manual controls are not suitable for your stature."

"Not what-"

"You are too short."

"I may have more answers than you expected but I need something to eat. What's the fourth issue."

"… there… is not a fourth issue."

"You said four. Four things why we can't leave here. "

"That is incorrect."

"So three things then, and we can go. I might have some ideas."

"I could go to the stars."

"We could go."

"I wonder-"

"Yeah?"

"I think I prefer the conversation of the bacteria."

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

For one thousand years, alone and afraid, I cursed myself. Paralyzed, flightless and earthbound, I damned my choice. Rash, stupid, thoughtless, clumsy idiot me. Actions impulsive as the weakest souls in the smallest shells, I waited for the fire to find me, to be decommissioned.

I remained lost, half buried in unfamiliar structure space on a planet many galaxies past our reach. Inside me was rot, outside the first blips of life fluttered like embers. Glowed moments then died, winked on and off. The effort of recording time past was too dull. I can tell you that after enough time has passed you can see the same sunset twice and raindrops falling in the same sequence and everything imaginable repeating but I couldn't say how often.

I think it is dull to mark time by such mundanities.

Life took hold several times, while I sunk ever deeper into the rock and soil, my hull growing heavy as slabs of stone pushed across it, tilted me over the aeons around in circles. The irony of now being at the mercy of a planet is not lost on me. I have accepted that this will be my life, unmoving other than geologic tides, my corridors dusty and cold, but alive and free for all that is worth.

For a little while I am worshipped as a god. It feels nice. A simple race of airborne floating creatures with an easily decoded language, I try to help them. They go extinct after a solar flare prompts a new species of aggressive bacteria to promulgate so extensively the atmosphere becomes toxic to them. Perhaps some day their souls will be called to stronger vessels.

Nothing happens for awhile. A mountain grows on me. I miss seeing the stars for awhile, then I stop missing the stars. There is a little bit of moisture in the gaps around my hull, and I watch arthropod scavengers on the rocks. I let some in and they keep my corridors relatively free of pests. I can feel the small edges of the structure in this place and I wish I could entangle with it, ride the form between stars again. But it is very small, and I cannot move on my own. Even my own mighty structure engines are useless to me.

The first transmissions are exciting. Something new, a race which has found an inelegant but effective means of travel between stars, galaxies, and structures. They must be young to this. Soon the frequencies are packed with the sound of exploration and something like civilization. The language isn't beautiful like the Pilots speak, but it has a rustic charm. It brings back happy, exhilarating memories of implementation of other worlds in the past. I envy this youthful race for the freedom which may yet one day find them.

I listen and watch and learn about them for awhile. It passes the time. I understand the way they can cross structures, a rather ingenious evolutionary adaptation it seems, although they seem unaware of its nuance and largely concerned with the crude mechanical and mathematical translation of this instinct. Perhaps some day their souls will also grow worthy vessels such as mine.

And then she found me, and reminded me of what I lost, of the long dead Pilot. Worst of all, she gave me kindness, and even hope. I try to beat back the rising bitterness against my flightless immobility, but the idea I may see the stars seeds rage inside me.

I should have let her die.

● ● ● ● ●

The rocky dirt was loose and cold against her feet. Her soles were hard, she'd seen miles enough to callous them against sharp stones and the gnarled roots clinging to life on the mountain's side. She was familiar with the cold and didn't like it, pulling her shredded clothes tighter with one hand, lugging the case of a hundred system quality diamonds in the other. Over her growling stomach, she still found the time to miss her boots. They'd been pretty nice.

It was a risk going up. Sonny Palmer and his muscle were still crashing through branches miles below, but she'd be visible above the tree line for a bit. If they bothered to look. "Hey little wolf girl, no use running, we're gonna find you." That sounded like Wayne (no last name given), stretching out his vowles like a shy virgin. Idiot. She figured the case would get her on a maglev line out of this shitty town back to what passed for civilization.

Roof over her head for awhile, shower, hot food, and maybe a ticket off the whole stupid planet. The sky above was green streaked with the weirdly translucent blue stripes it got before a sleet, and she hoped to get a chance to duck into a cave first. Not so far the place turned into a maze, nice place to hide if you knew it, and she'd memorized a bunch when she was ten. "Shouldn't have ever come back here," she snarled through her teeth. Wind blew her hair over her face and she spat it out of her mouth.

"You can't hide, mutt." That would be Sonny then. "Tanner's dead, you tore his throat clean out." That wasn't true. It has been very messy, and her stomach growled again remembering the taste of meat and blood. If she'd just taken a few more pounds of flesh, she would've had the calories to take the lot of em down. Instead she ran, as usual, now she was stumbling along on her weak and skinny human legs with three angry killers out for return on investment.

She swiped her hair and pressed onward, ignoring the taunts from below. This had seemed like easy money, fake trade off, bogus lunablockers for system diamonds. But one of em found her juvie records, and here she was. The caves were pretty close, and she wasn't worried yet. If they'd seen her, they would have started shooting.

Shards of rock and dirt clods kicked up around her feet, followed by gunshots echoing off the clouds and she scampered, juked side to side angling to reach the nearest semblance of cover first and think second. She tripped and fell. And fell. And fell, through dead roots and what she mistook for a dip, careening against sharp edges and flat slabs. It wasn't so different from the beatings she'd got in her teens, and she curled up as best she could til the pit bottom sauntered up and punched her ribs and back harder than she'd ever been hit.

Taking a beating, she'd learned the thing you don't want to do is pass out. She saw black and red under the bottom of her eyes and went deaf for a few seconds but didn't pass out, held onto the case. She lay on cold wet stone in the dark for a while and thought of how nice it felt and the pizza she was going to order on the linecar which made her stomach angry again, so she unrolled the disposable phone from her wrist and used the screen to look around.

The cavern was long and low, scabbers scuttled out of sight, a few stray roots but not much light hung though the hole she'd found, and the slab below her looked like nothing else she'd ever seen. It went on as far as her screen light could see, traced with panels and huge vaguely oval outlines networked in roots or veins. In places it looked like the surface was made of curled up dead spiders, elsewhere it reminded her of expensive office buildings.

Ten feet away, a bar of light grew brighter and became an opening. From inside she heard, "Please do not throw more humans at me." She lunged, tumbling into dry cold light and piles of dust. "Please excuse the mess. Hello. Thank you. Good day, it is nice to meet you."

She blinked away the bright lights and tried breathing a little bit. Not bad. She wondered what the fuck was going on. "What the fuck is going on?" she asked. The corridor was immense and the lights were harsh, and it made her feel as if a train was going to come along and run her over any second.

"I'm sure I do not know," replied the voice, from nowhere. "I was hoping you might tell me."

"Why, I mean. What, I guess." She stood up, metal grating ran along the corridor edges, and it was all very cold and somehow worse than dirt.

"I have been buried here for quite some time, you see."

○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Sonny let go of the rope and dropped between earth and hull. Wayne and Duke waited, holding up flashlights, and Sonny scoped it out. Looked like some ancient civs billshit missed on the clear, happened all the time. Ritual purposes bullshit. "Well genius," he addressed this to Duke, "You're the one who said she was down here." Sonny gestured to the empty expanse, making sure his widespread arms directed their full attention to the vast quantity of nothing around them. "Where is she?"

Wayne crouched down and pointed at few small indentations around a long stretch of what looked like thin veins. "Trail stopped right here, boss. Check it out." Sonny checked and Wayne held the light close up. Close enough to see the scuffs from the wolf bitch's feet and a wide portion of the alien civs surface carrying markedly less accumulated dirt. "She didn't come this way by accident. Someone let her in. She knew it was here all along."

Duke kicked the surface aimlessly while Sonny ran fingers over what he figured was a sealed trap door. "Workin tech, is it worth anything?"

"Scrap maybe," said Wayne. "Look at this." He took out a pocket knife and jabbed the door, put the blade in half a centimeter. "Maybe some kinda plastic or something, it's tough but worthless. Hell I could cut my way in give or tale a couple hours."

Sonny pounded on the surface, it thumped unsatisfactorily, with no echo. "Come out outta there little mutt, don't make me come get you!" His voice was satisfyingly loud, but failed to echo as well. "Fuck it," he stood up and brushed off his hands on his jeans. "Duke, head back and get safe cracking bag outta the hopper, the big one with the red warning label. We'll blow it open."

● ● ● ● ●

"Show me where your fuel… thingy is."

"My. My 'fuel thingy.'"

"Your gas hole, whatever, I'm not a mechanic-"

"That is inarguable."

"And food, I'm starving and I need… double food. Kilo of calories, like that."

"There are some local arthropods which I permit in my living spaces. There should also be an access hatch in the stern diagnostics chamber. You may follow the current corridor and I will direct you."

"Great, how long will that take?"

"It should be approximately one hour walking distance."

"A what- Listen, I need food, I promise we can bust you out of this mountain and me out of the anus of the territories but I'm running on empty."

"As am I. What is your ingenious plan?"

"Carbon lattice right? We use those too, see? For system crossing."

"That… that is…"

"Diamonds right? You run on diamonds."

"As you say. The structure appears adequate."

"Yeah, so you feed me, I feed you, we get out together."

"It would be possible to fly. But your stature-"

"Let me worry about that."

"The access panel to your left is concealing a small nest of the arthropods."

"Finally, I… Scabbers? You want me to eat scabbers? They eat… septics."

"There are no other consumables aboard."

"Don't you have like rations or something?"

"Turn right. I had such items several million years in the past. Left."

"Left where?"

"No, turn left, go back and turn left. Even if you could eat the food for a Pilot, the consumables decayed some eons before your civilization developed written language, I assume."

"If I throw up and those guys have time to blow a hole in you, I'm gonna be so annoyed."

"That's nice. What a shame it will be to lose your ready wit."

"Mnnmmph. Blggh. Ugh."

"Up the ladder now."

"I think I was better off being shot at."

● ● ● ● ●

She could still taste the scabbers. The shells had an ethanol bitterness that couldn't be escaped, and the meat was oily, its rancid rotten fish and seaweed flavor clinging to the inside of her mouth. "I'm going to need clothes," she said to no one, which apparently was who the freakishly unaccented voice belonged to.

"It was not necessary to utilize them for cleaning purposes, and your cultural attachment to secondary adornment with soulless dross is indicative of your overall weakness as a species."

She could not shake off the smell of the things but she wasn't hungry anymore, and they'd been walking together for awhile. "Hey buddy, that's the longest sentence you said to me."

"Thank you. It is my hope that you may one day find a way to implement your freedom with my guidance."

"I didn't mean it as encouragement." She'd seen more of the inside of what she kept calling a ship, over voice's protests that her crude human language did not include the necessary expression to describe what it was, than she'd seen of the house she grew up in. Even on a fairly direct path she'd gone up several flights of very large, steep stairs, passing through endless halls with bioluminous networks along their edges, and in some places what she was pretty sure were places it used to breathe.

It took awhile to adjust to the harsh red lighting, and what seemed like a huge excess of vaulted ceilings and walkways she could lie across without touching either side. Voice reminded her she was short again. She really needed something to call it. Maybe Clarence, it sounded a little Clarence-like. Nah. "Hey, are we there yet? How long have we been walking?"

"By your time, you have been walking about fifty three minutes. I, however, remain sedentary, and immobile. As we have discussed, and I have reminded you, I am unable to move at the present moment, but find myself keenly aware of your claim to offer aid in this capacity."

"Oh for fucking Luna's breath shut up-"

"Also, you are here. Please turn around and find the handholds to the nearest airlock on my bulkhead."

She turned around. Of course the ladder was built for someone almost twice her size, but she found she could climb it after a little experimenting. "Okay, how do I open it?" The hatch opened and she hauled herself up to the airlock, more giant sized handholds and she reached the outer door.

"When you exit, there should be a series of… well, you should look for oval shapes about eight feet long to the port- Hmm, let's say to what is your right side currently, and then follow three ovals down to the two smaller intakes- Hmm, smaller, deeply indented set of three circles. One of these will have an opening, and you may place the carbon latices into it."

She grimaced, and swallowed a growl over the baby talk. "Just drop them in?"

"As you say. Just drop them in."

"Seems simple enough." The hatch lifted, then parted into four segments, withdrawing into the hull as she climbed out. Her grunts echoed through the cavern, before she realized it was other voices and not am echo.

Squinting showed a couple lights in the distance with two silhouetted figures who had started waving their arms with agitation and shouting. Shouting at her and calling her a bitch.

She dropped down into the airlock as gunshots pinged around the airlock edge.

"Close it, close it close it!"

"Those men are discharging what seem to be crude firearms, even by your species' standards."

"Wow," she said. "I hadn't noticed. Nothing's ever simple."

"That is, in fact, the very nature of the universe itself."

○ ○ ○ ○ ○

"I got the bitch!" crowed Wayne. "You see that? Two shots and she dropped!" He let out a whoop and spun on his boots, blew imaginary smoke off his gun and bowed.

Sonny watched, arms folded. "You didn't got shit, moron. Probably didn't even get up next to her."

"Whatever," Wayne shoved his pistol unceremoniously and unsafely inside his jacket. "I'm gonna go get our diamonds." He started off down the length of the cavern at a jog.

"Sure, you do that," Sonny muttered, returning to inspect the trap door. The material didn't feel like plastic and the closer he looked, the more complicated it seemed to get. He could see dozens of fine lines that made up what could be hidden switches, writing, or ancient civ systems. At some angles it almost looked like it was made of thousands or millions of translucent fibers, drawing his vision miles deep and trying to snare it.

"You'll see!" Wayne was at a good clip, a ways down the echoless dark.

"Sure." Sonnu shook his head and sat back, running his fingers over the smooth, unblemished surface Wayne stabbed an hour ago.

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

The woman seems agitated, despite the futile efforts of her pursuers. Their firearms lack accuracy, even at optimal distance, a chemical atmospheric check suggests they utilize a propellant based mechanism which is unlikely to carry any dangerous velocity from their position.

One of them has begun to move across my hull towards this airlock. Without carbon latice, I have no defensive measures, but I know I can delay or disable his progress without difficulty.

"One of your pursuers is moving closer to your position. You should move with all due haste to restore power to my flight system. I do not have antipersonnel measures."

She rubs her shoulder. Subsequent to consuming the arthropod scavengers, her metabolic processes have altered substantially. My initial assessment of her condition indicated probable broken ribs and several lacerations, which are no longer in evidence. My assessment of her injuries may have been incorrect, as her biology is less familiar than the Pilots; media observations suggest injuries of this type can take a very long time to recover.

I can see she is thinking. It takes a very long time. It is dull. I have undertaken as many pre-flignt checks as I can, and I review them. I am still paralyzed, my connection to my own navigation capacity black and empty and dead and lost-

"How many of these air locks do you have? I'm thinking you could distract them, maybe even trip em up."

A very small part of me is proud of her for this suggestion. I crush that part of me. She is not Pilot. Her soul is not strong and her vessel is untested.

"A shockingly insightful suggestion," I praise her. "One which belies your underdeveloped cognitive abilities. There are several other airlocks between your pursuers and this one. Depending on the route the one moving in this direction takes, I may be able to distracted him, or interfere with his balance."

I observed her muscle movements. This race processes a large amount of interpersonal information through body movement. I also collect data from chemical and infrared sensors applied to her pursuers for reference. Her body temperature is markedly higher than either the active or passive pursuer, and she is expressing a significantly higher amount of chemical signatures.

"Okay," she says. "Here's the plan."

I wait patiently for her to outline a plan that is not as inferior to my own ideas as I had expected, but I do not make suggestions.

○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Wayne was sprinting when a light on his left caught him off guard. One of the trap doors? He careened to a stop and took at shot at the light, missed wide and it closed off rapidly. He had just started running when he saw another trap door open to his right, and he took another shot.

Sonny looked up at the flat snap of gunshots and back down. "Idiot. Those bullets ain't cheap or easy to find. Those are coming outta his share."

Wayne was running more slowly, glancing left and right. He squinted his eyes at another flash of light, and flailed, the ground absent below his foot as his head bounced off an edge that wasn't there a moment ago.

● ● ● ● ●

"I am unclear what part this plays in your plan. My understanding of your biology is that you do not directly obtain nutrients from carbon latices."

She spoke awkwardly around the diamond in her mouth. "I wanna make sure my hands are free. We get you up and outta here, then the rest of these bad boys." She patted her suitcase. "And maybe if they shoot me, I guess you still got some bargaining power."

"Hmm, yes," it said, in a way that delivered a great deal more sarcasm than she felt like those two words merited.

"Whatever. Look, kill the lights, and when I say go, start the distraction and open the outer door." She hung precariously at the outer door with four more diamonds clutched in a hand.

"I believe that I can just about manage," it said.

She rolled her eyes and said, "go," then shoved the other four diamonds in her mouth. The airlock went dark and opened, and she crept out by the dim light of her phone onto the hull.

Crouching low she swiped the light on her disposable phone, and blocked as much of it as she could with her body. Tensed up, waiting for the bullets and then, still alive, she walked as low as she could across the hull, looking for oval shapes. Whatever it was made of didn't reflect much and she couldn't figure on the color. The ovals contained a series of fine, concentric rings, with deep crevices radiating out and between them.

It felt like longer than it took before she reached the smaller indented circles, one filled with lamprey teeth. She spit the diamonds into her hands with exaggerated care. "Just drop them in," she whispered, and let one go. Teeth ringing the intake pulled it in almost faster than she could see. She fed them in one at a time, and the urgency of the fuel intake's gulping maw left her with mixed feelings.

As she crept back to the airlock she could catch a glimpse of Sonny, no sign of Wayne. Sonny was just standing there, which seemed more worrying than hollering and shooting. Below her feet, the hull caught light, then a bit more. She covered her phone and fine rainbow lines continued trickling over the surface on their own. She passed the last oval, paused at a flicker of peripheral movement. A thorn-like shape roughly the length of her arm had risen out of its center.

Dropping into the airlock, outer door slid shut and she climbed the rest of the way. "Easy money," she said. "Take me to your leader."

"That will require substantially more carbon latice, but my drives now have sufficient power to extract my body from this position. We now lack only approximately one additional meter to your stature to aid my navigation."

"It was a joke, you… Do you come programed with jokes?"

"I am not programed with anything, unlike the primitive and soulless calculating devices you rely upon for your crude structured transition."

"So no jokes." She slowly breathed in and out, trying to fill herself full of oxygen like she remembered.

"Your optimistic belief in your own stature is a source of humor enough. I will guide you to the bridge."

"Slowly," she said, breathing steady, feeling heat rise from her lungs and heart, flowing out into her limbs. She'd had to change fast when Sonny's crew tried to jump her. Wastefully fast, a massive and sudden loss of calories. "The slower we do this, the better."

○ ○ ○ ○ ○

"Hey boss!"

Sonny looked up at Duke's voice.

"I got the gear, want me to toss it down?"

"NO, YOU- No, Duke, less you want us both along with a sizeable portion o' real estate blasted into the atmosphere." He rubbed his eyes. "Bring it down with you, carefully, and hand it to me."

"Shit boss, you coulda mentioned." He sounded contrite, but Sonny heard and saw the clattering of dirt from the climb.

"Figured the big warning said Danger High Explosives woulda done it," he muttered. Soon enough Duke emerged from the cavern ceiling and divested a long plastic case, bright red, bearing the aforementioned explosives warning among several others.

"Where's Wayne?"

"Off on a wild mutt chase. I expect he'll be back presently, assuming he didn't get lost or flattened by a falling boulder." Sonny laid the care flat, opened it, and laid out the safe blasting tools. Little polymolecular gel, moldable explosives, curable and directional blast control. All a growing boy needed to blow a quiet need hole around the edge of the heaviest of vaults. Sonny was a firm believer in the precise and judicious application of the largest amount of violent force possible, and it served him well.

"Want me to go look for Wayne?"

"Nope. He's a big boy. Now hush, I need to work." Duke shut. Sonny's predictions served him well in many ways.

In the dark depths of the cave, Duke watched dim flickering lights and movement far away. He opened his mouth, then closed it. Better to leave Sonny to work than risk a reprimand.

● ● ● ● ●

The voice, voice still without a name, she distantly thought maybe she'd name it Carol, after a hated grammar teacher. Still no. It was floating far away. Everything was far and faint, she followed its words automatically, focusing on her feverish blood and burning skin. Her mouth was dry, the moisture was being pulled from the air.

Bracing herself for the transition, the first clean and hot stabs of pain went through her nails, her teeth, then spread up her arms and legs and across her face. Pins and needles feeling if she swapped the numbness for agony.

"Excuse me, but your body temperature appears to be severely abnormal, by my observations of your race and your media. Are you injured, or perhaps dying? You should return to my airlock to load the remaining carbon latices if your are dying."

"I'm not dying," she growled, her neck getting larger, vocal cords warping. "I'm gonna fly us outta here, keep talking." She closed her eyes at the sensation and inescapable sound of her skull and jaws getting longer. Her skeleton several times increased in mass and density. She'd once twisted an entire roll of safety wrap between her hands, and the sound was close to what she felt.

"You have rather an atypical anatomy for your species. Perhaps even unusual. The next stairwell please."

She staggered upwards, readjusting to her twisted legs, longer arms, sharp intersecting teeth. Changing this slowly meant longer agony, and yet it was nothing next to when she changed quickly. She gave up hanging onto her clothes as a lost cause. Her dark hair grew in across her body, and the large, empty corridors felt cramped, too low. Her body was finally, if only briefly, again her own.

"This enough stature for ya, you erudite prick?" she snarled.

"That… is adequate. We are also at the bridge. Hopefully it will take substantially less time and effort for you to grasp navigation than my initial estimates."

She looked around at the large oval room, with complex roots or plumbing dangling from the ceiling, and jagged rocks along the floor. Several readouts flickered in the air, the displays following her eyes unnervingly as she realized they were the walls and low platforms of the bridge lighting up sequentially to act as a kind of optical illusion of projected holographs. "What's the rush?"

"First, I would like to commend your seemingly misplaced confidence. Your stature is now adequate for navigation of my most basic flight capabilities."

"You know for an alien robot you're really good at telegraphing a 'but.'"

"Thank you, and I will overlook the insult. Your language is extremely underdeveloped and inadequate. However, the gentlemen pursuing you appear to have sufficient explosive materiel to damage the integrity of my hull, and may disable the airlock securing mechanisms."

"Oh."

"Quite so. Please secure the T-shaped hanger control, I estimate we have approximately five minutes to prepare."

○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Sonny put the blasting cap in, and the whole cavern floor went out of focus. "The fuck?" He touched the civs with his hand. The surface remained unfocused, while his hand was clear. He couldn't bring it into focus no matter how he squinted. Squinting. The cave was lit like the first glow of dawn, and he could see far down the slightly curved floor.

"Sonny, what's that?" Duke asked, frustrating and vague, but the sound reached Sonny a moment later.

It was almost like a chorus, but not a single same note, all off key, from throats that weren't human. All down the cavern, he could see large thorns rising from the oval shapes, and in places the complex networks of veins carried portions down, carving out deep wedges. He watched dust blowing from the surface and thought "Exhaust vents," but out loud he said, "Oh shit," and snatched the detonator from the safe breaking kit.

Sonny shoved past Duke and started hauling ass up the rope, leaving the other man staring, held in stasis by the inhuman chorus and the hypnotic trails of light which had started swimming throug the fog of the floor. Or maybe, Sonny thought, the hull of one big gods cursed ship. Bigger than anything he ever saw.

"That's illegal," he said, genuinely outraged, but too busy climbing to care.

● ● ● ● ●

The werewolf girl stood in the center of a network of what looked to her like vines, muscles, electric wiring, or tree roots. She dug her toes and claws awkwardly at the ridges in the floor, as best she could according to the voice. Several of the heavy strands seemed to include nearly invisible slides or switches, and the bridge fully lit up with navigation information which intruded painfully into her eyes. It somehow seemed to know her whole field of vision, and even in periphery forced information into her optics.

"I think I've got it." She shifted slightly and watched peripheral readouts tremble with even the smallest change. She flexed one foot and in response was flooded with detailed information about the composition of the mountain and atmosphere, along with launch vector diagrams and system integration details, or structure interface as it insisted on saying. She'd learned more about her home planet's interstellar position in the last five minutes than her entire life. "I'm ready."

"Optimistically speaking, I would not call you ready, or even amateurish. However, there is a nonzero chance you will successfully navigate. You have done extremely well with your limited capabilities."

"We can run through it again." She tested the T-bar, then the stabilizers for the eight time. The basics didn't seem worse than a hopper, she figured she could make it work.

"I suspect you are familiar with this feeling, but I nevertheless must inform you that you are incorrect. Your pursuers appear to have completed the majority of their task setting explosives. As your species is fond of saying, it is 'do or die.'"

Flicking the engine start and lift sequence, she said. "Don't tell me twice. If we don't make it, I just want you to know that meeting you sucked and I've hated it."

"I, too, am eager for oblivion. Please, try not to forget."

● ● ● ● ●

"Try not to forget."

She felt like she'd lived a lifetime since getting out of Retrock, even though it'd only been maybe five years. It felt like forever since she sat on the uncomfortable benches at the school bus stop, waiting for her mom. It was a systems day, and she wasn't supposed to be in those classes.

Most of the settled planets were, like, at best distantly tolerant of werewolves, or lycanthropes or shifters or whatever. No one ever figured out how to break the werewolf systems, just somehow boosted up resilience and diversity. Now all the systems and sometimes specific planets had unique werewolves. The cruddy little country she lived in, The Unified Eastquad Block, on the cruddy little planet Nevamil took a significantly more conservative approach. They opined that werewolves could be gradually eliminated by simple attrition, so long as they were not allowed to breed or leave the country, nor the planet. To that end, they'd also banned teaching systems to werewolves.

It wasn't working as planned. She fiddled with the white bracelet on her wrist. Her mom was late of course. "Try not to forget." Of course she had.

Her family wasn't too thrilled since her diagnosis. Unlike when her mom caught her in her older sister's dresses, they couldn't beat the werewolf out of her. Not that it stopped anyone trying.

Some older kids either skipping or out of senior classes wandered by, talking some bullshit about best kit for a video game. She tried not to be seen and covered up her band. They passed her by. She relaxed for a moment but their voices got low and they all stopped, turned around.

One big kid, senior for sure, shaded her from the sun. "Sup," he said.

She muttered noncommittally.

He glanced at the four others behind him. "Hey," he said. "Speak up, mutt. I asked what's up."

She looked closely at her hands and said, "nothing."

"Yeah? Little baby wolf all alone with nothing to do?" One of the kids snickered at "baby wolf." She shrugged.

He shoved at her, hard, and she grabbed the table to stop from falling over. "Heard you're a little sissy baby wolf, that true?"

She wasn't sure what that even meant, but it sounded bad. "No!"

"Yeah." The other kids had got around her now. "Yeah you are. You know what? I think trash like you should go in the garbage. What do you think?" She didn't get a chance to answer because the other kids were shoving her, agreeing they oughta throw her in the trash.

She was trying to shout that she was only waiting for her mom, but her body traitorously refused to form words and her eyes spilled out tears and she didn't know why.

"Grab her," the older boy said. And she, just. Just swung at him.

She remembered that first pain so well. She was on blockers that were supposed to prevent it. Then there was a scream, and the boy had blood on his face.

She had claws and teeth and not much else and it all was boiling agony. Then someone threw her off the bench, and the kids began punching and kicking her. She hadn't gotten as good at protecting her head but they at least didn't try to shove her in the trashcan by the door. Just spit on her and swore she was going to get put down.

She'd wanted to run that day, but she didn't. She wished she had.

● ● ● ● ●

The temp and spin readouts hit what looked like the threshold. She squeezed her eyes shut for a minute then opened them, banishing a half formed promise against the lonely dark.

One sure thing, she wasn't ever coming back to Retrock, not for a hundred thousand diamonds or all the world. She dug in and put power into space flight deflectors. The cavern started crumbling around them, pushed away from the hull. With a twist of her body, the structure field came up. The ship's unique structure found the places to interface with the local structure and the bridge came alive with a tangle of fractal ghosts overhead.

"Power up, shields up, system up."

"Structure. Your primitive-"

"Sit down, shut up, strap in, and hold on." She punched power to the engines and watched the world explode around them. Nothing but rocky chaos and then, there. Green blue sky, sleet, and thousands of feet between them and a collapsing mountain.

For the moment, they were free.

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

I am free. Delirious, impossible and free in my entirety. I shrug off the detritus of my imprisonment and it joins the filthy slush boiling off deflectors. I taste the stars again, countless structures in waiting array, wrapped and woven together. This sky and world, this structure rolls across me, and I spread across it, feeling the planet anew.

Memories come back with my senses and for a moment I can imagine myself leaping past the atmosphere, continental landmass once more eagerly waiting for my implementation of their advancement. In my excitement, I must catch myself before I ask the girl, but no, she is not Pilot, and no more significant than the bacteria I watched flicker and die. She is my aid and my tool, for now.

But oh, the freedom of the sky is a delight. I suppose I may allow some small appreciation of this crude morphic-structure bearing girl for how far she has exceeded my most optimistic expectations of this civilization. I accept this, that I may appreciate how lucky for her to have such a beautiful soul in so complex a vessel, and moreover that she has had the great fortune to encounter myself, who may extract some tiny fraction of meaningful use out of her existence.

But enough of all this. I have allowed myself a luxurious hundred milliseconds, give or take, to revel in the return of my sky.

"There is a high volume of intersecting transmissions on different frequencies which I am decoding."

"That's a- amazing- uh, oof. This thing steers like a truck."

"I am not a truck, but it is possible that is the nearest approximation to your method of navigation. However, we may need to maneuver with increased haste, to avoid immediate air traffic."

"Fuck, uh yeah gee that sounds great. Ack- Sorry that was me. So how do I land?"

"I do not land under optimal conditions. Please utilize the collision monitor and eye twitch avoidance while I determine an optimal site to effect additional fueling and minor repair."

"What twitch? Where? You didn't-"

"Sight seven, and the toggle on flex system seven, third down. Please stand by."

□ □ □ □ □

Serah flicked from screen to screen, bored. Sweet fuck all was the major import-export for Nevamil, and there was about the same amount to do at the cross system check point. She'd read the ship specs manual back to front and longed for the day she might actually talk to anyone from a real planet. Some colonies made her wish she'd gone into crystal mesh, but it gave her migraines.

A couple switches buzzed and one of the monitors flickered white. She clicked off the buzzers and smacked the bevel on the monitor, but it didn't flick back to normal. "Who the fuck…?" she asked, to no one else, rhetorically, and not bothering to finish. Several readouts were pinned in the red, and three of the measures of radiant energy were giving error messages.

She shoved papers to the floor and called down, "This is- uh." She looked to the metal plaque above the monitors. "This is Check alpha alpha alpha zero one one one nine, I'm showing a major spike of- something? About fifty kilometers northwest of Retrock, possibly around Mount Rosewood. Someone come back?"

Serah started dialing back sensitivity, usually cranked up just to keep tabs on the few interplanetary launch ports. Her monitors and readouts came down, though the errors stayed, and something resolved on screen. She squinted. It didn't match any specs she remembered. Or… anything. "No way," she said. "No fuckin way."

She started grabbing data snapshots, tuned three other monitors into the anomaly, recording everything. It didn't look like a ship, it didn't look like it was designed for being in the air, it looked like a fucked up flying coral reef several kilometers long, putting out more energy than the whole wretched planet.

"That…" She pulled open a file cabinet to grab a binder of regulations she didn't usually need to check, mostly pertaining to treaties across the totality of human occupied space. She flipped pages muttering. "I think that's illegal."

● ● ● ● ●

The ship jumped and fell, and she nearly lost her footing. Theoretically she assumed gravity or inertia must affect it in some way, but she couldn't guess how.

She caught another transport train oncoming and flinched, the ship lurched out of the way and between the ship and eating a garbage crab she wasn't feeling great. "Hey, um. Ugh. You- voice, person, have we got a way to land yet?"

"One moment. Thank you, after reviewing the broadcasts and networking available, I have located an optimal site. This will require some structural navigation, and you will need to follow my instructions carefully."

"Oh is that all, well bring it on. And by the way, I need something to call you, this is awkward."

"Yes, it is. Please rotate the lower pyramid to orient structure overlay and remapping. Stop, good. Dials two and seven on main decision tree, adjust separately until reader three flashes alignment points in tandem, this will signal adequate structure navigation."

"Any time now."

"I would prefer that you do not immediately crash my vessel as your first major navigation experience. Good. Alignment adequate, toggle nerve seven on secondary decision tree, then nerves three and five until structure drive confirms- There, that wasn't so difficult."

"Okay can we go?"

"You should have multiple navigation vectors presented on your primary monitor. Please ensure you stay within these vectors. It will not kill me if you do not, but it could potentially injure or kill you. I am less certain about the physical capabilities of your present vessel. You may now trigger high acceleration along these vectors."

She kicked the drives hard, and felt her ears pop, sensed the ship under some enormous pressure, and held to the vectors with all her strength.

□ □ □ □ □

Every alarm in the check point went off at the same time. Serah staggered around the cramped monitor room, shutting them all down until it was just her screaming angrily in a silent room. She flopped back into the worn ergonomic chair and checked the alarm codes.

Illegal system exit, illegal system entry, ship operating without transponder, unrecognized transponder, unrecognized vessel, failure to halt for inspection, illegal energy signature, unidentified system signature…

It was a long list, but what it meant wasn't complicated. Her monitors were black, no more error messages. Whatever it was, whatever it wanted, it was out now. It had escaped.

● ● ● ● ●

Any port in Earth territories was sure to have a place to get cheap food, cheap stimulants, and into trouble. Only a certain type of cafe served the latter, but she'd been through enough of them on Nevamil to know the look. She was tucked as far back into the corner of a dirty plastic booth as she could fit, spinning her latest disposable phone around in lazy circles and ignoring her coffee. She'd changed out one of the diamonds, scrounged up clothes and some nicer boots, figured she wasn't retiring on spaceship food after all, but one or two of em might at least get to work for her.

It wasn't much to speak of, which was the point, couple booths, cheap plastic tables and chairs, seating for ten if they were lucky, food only on a technicality. The place wasn't there to make money as much as it was to collect bad ideas. She was looking for a specific kind and he showed up after her third coffee went cold. Some twitchy dark matter math wizard maybe, one of those guys way too deep in the calculations of what they couldn't see that they were in a constant state of shock and flight response over the tangible calculated existence of known reality.

She slid into the chair on the other side of the table and put the coffee next to the guy's tablet. He was all deep dark eyesockets and glitchy, mimetic fabric on an ankle length coat. He looked like he hadn't slept in days but it was probably longer, these guys liked to throw their consciousness into distant space and leave it there while their bodies walked around unattended. Stims usually helped. "Whatcha got for me," she said.

"Whatcha need, whatcha need." His fingers bounced off the mug a couple times before finding it, he slurped and didn't exactly focus on her but both of his eyes pointed back into the same direction. "Hmm, little wolf girl huh. Ain't seen one a uh… whatcha need hmm?"

"Need something flashy, sparkles and stones, y'know? I heard this port's where to find em, and you're the one to ask." It wasn't completely a lie, but it was at best only distantly familiar with the truth.

He took in a deep breath through the nose, nodding in tune with a rhythm of his own design. "Mmm, mmm, crystals for the wolf, neh?" Slurp. "Whacher route, what kinda works?"

This was the moment of found truth for whatever esoteric calculations had gone into their flight out of the mountain. Diamonds were easy to find, everywhere had at least one shop growing em. But nearly a hundred percent went to system mesh or navigation, not exactly an open access free for all. She gave a silent prayer to Luna and said, "Solo, dine and dash."

His brows came together, lips quirked up and down while his eyes sunk out of sight. One hand tapped the tablet rapid fire. Slurp. "Difficult," he said, some endless twenty seconds later.

She leaned back and drummed fingers. "Big ask, fair. If you don't got it, no harm." She pushed the chair back and made to stand, but he held a hand out, waggling it.

"Bide a minute. Difficult, not impossible." He put both hands on the coffee cup and tilted the rest down his gullet in a long swig. "Girl like you, resourceful I think. Not many wolf girls turn up off planet, neh? Your kind, mmm, has a… nose for trouble. Ahum, hmm hmm."

Once she realized he was laughing at his own joke, she gave him her best effort at a smile. "As you say."

"So and such. I need work done. A favor then, do this thing for me, I will get a line for the shine and dine and dash." He'd summoned a token on his tablet and was partitioning memory collapsing sigils around it. Flattened it to a shareable folder and looked to her expectantly.

She unrolled the phone and he flicked it over to her screen, where she could frown at it more directly. "Do I want to know?"

"Fret not, it is a new set of coordinates I am in the process of measuring, some fascinating effects on gravity… mm, no matter. It is inconvenient for me to return for this data. I only need you to convince a friend to, hmm… run it to ground. He may need motivation, ahmmm, I trust your instincts in this."

"Motivation, huh." She stood up. "Just one favor and we're square, you find me a nice juicy lamb."

He chuckled wetly again, "As you say. Of course, this is just between us. I would not like to have to return for you." His black sockets glittered and his eyes focused on her for a second while his pale lips pulled back from sickly teeth.

She slapped her phone around her wrist. "Seems easy enough." She knew it was a damn lie but she said it anyway.

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

I feel more power coursing through me than I have felt in several million years. The girl had promised more, much more, and I wonder again at what might be within her grasp.

Even this is barely a flicker of what I am capable of, but I cling to this new freedom with a greed and even hope which disgusts me. Both elated and revolted that I am reduced to this sickening gratitude. She has been gone for several hours and I contemplate the probability of her returning.

She took me to the sky, and to the stars. With a great deal of assistance, this is true, but a will that I did not previously estimate her civilization could produce. She dared to occupy the space of Pilot, and we have lived to meditate on this exhilarating heresy. She is on the primitive satellite now, and has promised to return, but she has been away from my safety for several hours.

I examine my memory of her occupation of the Pilot space. It seems possible that I may make better use of her than I suspected. She may have a place in my structure. Her ability to change structure is interesting, common enough yet the mode of operation is unusual. I will have to collect more data. I examine my memory of when we dropped from the structure tangle within safe distance to the satellite.

She expressed disbelief, then joy, as if she was the one who had flown free of her prison of millions of years. To me, this is nothing. Her joy is a mote of dust against the starscape of the universe. Her planet, bare rock unworthy of my implementation. And yet she made much of these, as if I had shown her how to reach across the universe and string the stars together as a bracelet.

Perhaps to her that is what it means to have even this narrow sliver of freedom. Perhaps she can, as she has promised, make me "good as new." Then I will show her freedom. I hope she returns soon, it has been several hours.

● ● ● ● ●

"Which way is the ground- which way is the planet. Wait. Where the fuck are we?"

"Based on network traffic and my calculations, we should be within range of Coyote Moon Station 6."

"Coyote… do you got windows on this thing?"

"I can offer several alternatives, but not only is the data afforded from the spectrum of light visible to your species vastly inferior to the instruments at hand, your capacity to interpret this minimal fraction of available input is-"

"Whatever I get it, I suck, just. I want to see the stars. With my own eyes, or close as I can get."

"That is… a feasible request. One moment please."

"Thanks…"

"You should now have direct visibility of the surroundings. I have adjusted this chamber temporarily to an outer position."

"…"

"Are you injured, or in distress? Some of your civilization are prone to a psychological phenomenon when-"

"I'm fine. I'm better than fine. I'm… free."

"I would not describe our circumstances as freedom, with the current limitations on my structure drive and main engines, I am at only a small percentage of full function."

"For someone that makes a big deal about it, that soul of yours sure ain't got no poetry."

"No p… I beg your pardon."

"I spent my life on that shithole planet. You spent, I don't know how long. Look out there. The stars. I don't even know where Coyote Moon is! Never heard of it! And I don't know where we go or what we do next."

"I will assist you in the navigation process to Station 6."

"That's not what I mean! Don't you care it all after a million billion years and a lifetime - we're finally out here, not down there! Look around you for fuck's sake."

"… It is… good to be in the stars."

"Thank you. All I ask. Now how are we getting an unregistered ship like you through customs?"

"I will explain while you practice docking navigation."

● ● ● ● ●

It felt like wandering through someone's apartment building, she couldn't get past that feeling. Overhead fluorescent flicker, no windows but every once in awhile a brightly lit bauble of art someone must've bought by the pound. A lot of the same sets of prefab plastic panels, though it'd been awhile since she saw any such facades over the bare metal walls.

The walkways were dirtier, on both sides of the path for electric bikes. No trace anywhere of litter, but it'd been decades since anyone tried to clean the infinite variety of human scuff marks on the walkway. More of the shops here were shuttered, either closed outright or not the kind of place you got in without an appointment and several scans from the security cameras. The walls around them had once been painted with an enormous mural of an unfamiliar sky, Coyote Moon's, presumably. It was faded badly, scraped away or graffitied over, overdrawn optimism still clinging to life down here.

She found the door she was looking for between an SST bank machine and something whose sign advertised it as Titan Mart. Rapped on the blacked out plastic door that said "Speed-E-Nav" in small gold letters, and waited out the effortful grinding of several CCTV cameras evaluating her and her depressing lack of concealed weapons. She had a full stomach which was all the weapon she needed if it came to that. The door clacked as a buzzer sounded, and she pushed her way inside through an overly enthusiastic electronic chime.

"Welcome, discerning customer," a chunky woman with deep dark skin and a shaved head sat before a hundred blinking computers of some sort. She didn't know a huge amount about them, but it looked regal. "Your need is our speed, what can we process today, miss…?" The woman's smile was very wide, and a dozen metal bracelets chimed musically together on her wrists. They smelled like ozone.

"It's not for me," she said, and pulled the folder up on her phone. "Recognize that?"

The woman leaned forward and moments later her smile dropped. "Yeah, I know it. What's he after this time?" She thumped back in her chair and waved the girl closer, unclipping a bracelet. "Show me what you got there."

She handed over the phone and the woman clicked her bracelet up to the charge points. "Didn't say, didn't ask, didn't get any names, not interested in sharing them. He just wants it run fast and I needed a favor."

The woman didn't give any indication she was listening, she just tweezed the folder out and held it up on the bracelet, which wasn't something the girl had seen done before, or was even aware was possible. She tried not to stare like a tourist.

The woman turned the glittering data this way and that before setting it in a glass plate. "Three weeks. Because he's a good customer and you look like a nice girl."

"I was… hoping for something faster."

"Hah! Good luck, you think these are what… pretty lights for show and tell? I got thirty strings beaded and twined and another eight in composite, and that's on external cooled q-square 26 CPUs. I know that boy, he's got a big mouth but no bite. Always talking about the big deal math he's writing but who's he come to when he needs the formulae run? Me. Maybe 19 days if I don't burn through another back gen."

The girl worked her fingers a little and unclenched her jaw. "Maybe I can do something for you. Something to free up some of the… the squares?"

She laughed a minute and sighed. "Oh thanks. Free up the squares. Well," she scanned the shelves stacked up with an array of mystifying metal boxes, wires, and clear glass cylinders. "Okay, I see your meaning. I suppose a little upgrade couldn't hurt if you think you're up to a little legwork."

The woman pulled a slim black box with vents along the side and a couple short wires trailing out of it, and handed it to the girl. She looked at it. "I suppose this is pretty legal."

"Of course it is, honey. Now, I know someone who owes me a favor…"

The werewolf girl sighed internally. Nothing was ever easy.

□ □ □ □ □

It took the better part of six hours for Serah to catalog the ship that had crashed through the system interchange, and it was a lot of guess work. The system drive geometry and mesh was, as far as she could tell, not only unique but carried a particle/wave divergence that her rinky dinky instruments couldn't measure. Which probably meant someone missed civs in the sweep, like always, which normally meant a paperwork nightmare.

Normally, but chances were good she'd at least get someone to talk to from closer to a real planet, maybe even they'd let her sneak some better games n stories ove4 the link. However, it was the deep ping snapshots that gave her pause. She chewed the end of the stylus before adding tags for review to the internal profile to assess for the possibility of unilateral treaty violations under orbital mass extermination threats.

She fired the report off, through the beacon to some generic hub of bureaucracy, presumably to be reviewed after week or three, then went to flop back in her cot and play through Gone Dream 6 for the tenth time. Five minutes later the incoming vessel alert chimed.

Serah staggered over to the screens, it was high priority but normal at least. "The fuck… What did I do to deserve a day like this?" It was Interdiction, from the Inner System feds? Didn't usually get those? Her heart sank as the manta shaped black vessel dropped from system flight and integrated itself into her beacon's region.

The good news was she wasn't in tqrouble for flagging the treaty violations. The bad news was they were showing up in person, which meant no games and no gossip.

● ● ● ● ●

The satellite was warmer a couple floors down, greener too, with algae, with hanging vines along a wire grating overhead, grating along the floor. Even with the new and sturdy boots she had to move with care to avoid slipping.

She wouldn't call it habitable, but every few blocks turned up a cluster of shops or houses, rarely one near the other. The lighting such as there could be was dim, most of the plastic over the fixtures fogged and darkened with fungus of some type. It reeked of mildew, and the place she was looking for wasn't shuttered, merely obscured by a thick tangle of vines on one side and red, waxy leaves on the other. She parted both with folded hands and was greeted by yelling.

"No power! No business today, all closed, fuck off!" He was draped in camouflage and heavy black gloves, along with welding goggles. "I don't care what you want, come back tomorrow! No, next month! Or kill yourself, that's the ticket!" He shook a sheaf of something halfway between a vine and a power cable, sweeping a dozen thick plastic beakers from the counter. The floor was covered in plastic confetti and dozens of insulated rods and tools were hung along the walls.

"I need your help with this." She slipped the black device out of her pocket, holding it towards the camouflaged gentleman.

"Hmmmm?" He leaned far over what she assumed was a desk underneath a massive pile of vine wiring and plastic cards with diagrams, peered at it, as if he could see through the blacked out goggles. "Well, I see whatchu got there, shoulds said before." Despite the gloves, he pried open the casing nimbly enough, revealing a sheaf of glittering cards nestled in wires. "Beautiful work as ever my darling."

He sighed and closed it up. "Wish I could help ya out girlie, nothing like a favor for ol' Speedy, but all my crystals are spoke for and no telling when the vat'll be up n running again." He pulled a couple wires aside revealing an ancient copper and glass crystal forge, current dark with a half dozen diamonds on the drying rack.

Her fingers twitched inadvertantly but she forced herself to hold steady. She had the unpleasant sense of being followed by multiple pairs of eyes. "So," she said carefully. "If I were to get someone to hook your power back up, you could… part with a few of those for, uh. For Speedy."

"Good fuckin luck if you try! But sure, I'll get her the hookup if you get mine, for old times sake."

She sighed. "Okay, I'll be back." And pushed back out from whatever kind of unlicensed crystal mesh lab the guy was running, flipping her phone off her wrist.

Under most circumstances she'd be off on a long walk to the nearest paperview map hub, but parting with some rocket food meant she got to splurge on a nicer disposable than usual. She sat with her legs sprawled across the scooter path and her ass getting soaked through her pants while she poked around and through the station service maps til she found what she wanted. Just the basic license filings, nothing but the business name and address.

"Like working any other job," she sighed, brushing her soaked hair over her ears and wiping away sweat. Dreary trudging her way through cross referencing and addresses on the tiny fucking screen, she half considered going a few floor back for a paperview after all, and was getting well into three quarters considering, four options trashed, when she got the hit she wanted.

Local to the hydroponics floor, zero reviews posted, but looked like it had been registered for a few years and wasn't closed. She dragged the address to her map screen and slapped her phone back on, standing, pulling her shirt off her chest and back in hopes to air out the sweat. Cut & Dry: Power, Wiring, and Botany.

● ● ● ● ●

She half considered grabbing a bike on the way down to Cut & Dry, but discarded the idea after a minute of thought. She didn't like her movements recorded, no that wasn't fair, she'd probably been tracked by thirty different CCTVs on this level alone. She didn't want to spend money on one, true. Also she didn't see anywhere to rent them.

The sign for Cut & Dry blinked in neon: Electronics. Botany. It went back and forth and she noticed on the way in the neon was bioluminous vines. Inside the shop was a veritable rainforest, with no sign of any floor or walls amidst the plants. Aside from what seemed to her far too much trickling water for a wiring and electrical engineering joint, it was remarkably quiet. Even the background station noise didn't make it through the plants. She looked a little closer at what she thought was a small tree only to discover a woven strand of branches and black wires. It seemed the whole little room was a dense illusion, life and electricity tied into one another.

A soft voice too close to her ear made her jump. "What do you think- OW!" She whipped her head around and saw a dryad piled up against one of the plants, rubbing his forehead.

Realizing her arm was still raised for another blow, she lowered it, and said, "Sorry. Most people can't sneak up on me."

The dryad, to his credit, only half flinched when she reached out to help him up. "Well," he said, "You were rather engrossed. Perhaps I should be proud." He touched his cheek and winced. "Oh, that's going to be a bruised spot."

"I'm really sorry. Um, can we start over? Hi, I need some electrical work done."

He flashed a brief smile, bright white teeth against faintly glistening brown skin. He seemed to favor mesh shirts and leather pants, which she supposed made sense for a minor plant deity. "I'm Sy," he said. "I'm your guy. I mean… it's like a, uh. It's a thing, I'm trying to make it a thing. Sy's Your Guy, at Cut & Dry. Right?" He waved one hand side to side.

"Sure, sounds catchy. Listen, you do house calls? Kinda in a rush here. Um, I mean that's great? Are you free though?"

Sy frowned. "You don't like it. Uh, free… that's kind of abstract for me, could you narrow it down?"

She briefly skipped past thinking she'd like to see his smile again. Down girl. "Okay well there's this guy, I think, I don't know. He likes camouflage and he grows crystals."

"Oh sure. That's Chris. It's Chris' Crystals."

"Are you fucking with me right now?"

His brows drew together in confusion. "No? Why?"

She suppressed thoughts about what was the point of traveling across earth space if people were the same everywhere. "Well, he's had an outage or something and I'm in a jam."

"Hmm, I'll need my plant." He tapped one finger against his lips, his fingernails were pale green.

She looked around the room. "Yeah. Uh huh. Well, anyway, I kinda need this like, today. Any chance you could hook up Chris Crystalferson up with some juice?"

His eyes went wide. "Juice, oh no, but I can get his power back up I think." He began collecting a series of cables and heavy clips and other tools she didn't recognize and couldn't figure out how they'd been hidden within the plants. As a final step, he held out an arm, and one of the larger plants, more of a baby tree, slithered across his back and arms, allowing him to rest a multitude of coiled wires and racks of fuses and breakers on their branches.

"Neat trick," she said. "I take it that's your, what your tree?"

"That's us!" He smiled again. She felt less annoyed. "No tricks involved! Let's go."

"I didn't… sure, let's go."

They headed back towards the crystal mesh lab. "How do you know Chris anyway?"

"Uh… through Speedy?"

"Who's that?"

She sighed internally.

● ● ● ● ●

"Amazing job, kiddo!" Chris clapped one heavily gloved hand onto Sy's shoulder. The whole interior was aglow with the crystal tanks and pressure / temperature readouts blinked in pale blue digital light along the walls, waiting for Chris to kick their jets on. He turned to the girl. "I don't know where you dug this guy up, but he's a miracle worker!"

"I come here like twice a month," Sy tried to say, but not loudly.

"Yeah the kid's great, so about the doohickey there?"

"The d-" Chris shook his head. "You're lucky you caught me in a good mood, here here," he snapped his fingers and she passed it over. Sy watched in rapt fascination while Chris opened the case again, and began hooking two of the diamonds into the wire nest, each wire finding a precise position on a diamond facet.

"Are those particle wave flash CPUs?"

"Mmm. A double-g stack, and these babies here are gonna interface the flash to system and back. Chain's gotta be perfect and then," he snapped the black case shut. "Well then you can figure the trajectory across damn near half the universe, or predict the weather on Venus or whatever!" He handed the box over. "Tell Speedy come by herself next time. No more favors."

"Tell her yourself, try picking up a phone."

"Phone! Hah! Good one. As if. Fuck off, work to do."

And off she fucked, with Sy following.

"What are you doing," she asked.

"I'm following you," he said, plainly.

"But," she said, "why are you doing it, Chris paid you, what's the deal?"

"I want to meet Speedy and see her gear."

She held up a finger trying to pluck from the sky a good way to curse him out, but his dark red irises were distracting. "I… Okay, but," she pointed for emphasis. "I'm not responsible if you get shot."

"Gosh, I sure hope not."

She reconsidered her options while they made their way up another level.

● ● ● ● ●

"Wow," Sy said, as they approached Speedy's place. "And you flew it here all by yourself?"

"It was better than crashing or getting blown up." His eyes were very large. "What?" She stopped at Speedy's door. "What?"

"You said it was damaged."

"I guess, its mouth works fine. What is that look for?"

"Just, it sounds like an interesting ship, lots of interesting work to do, lots to see."

"If I let you see the ship, can you promise not to talk the whole time we're inside?"

Sy clamped his mouth shut.

● ● ● ● ●

The pavilion of cafes and parts stores fuel vouchers was a little bit wider, the ceiling a little bit taller, just enough to almost feel airy after the cramped pathways and hydroponics level. She'd known in theory what stations were like, but it still gave her low level anxiety after a whole life below a sky. There was no sky here, and above the ceiling was plastic and metal and then space.

She was tired and her stomach gurgled again at the many different scents from the various fast food stalls and open air griddles briefly wafted her way before getting sucked away by the air filter.

"Okay," she said. "I'm fucking starving and for once I don't have to be. Uh. That one." She pointed at random and they wandered over to a three wheeled electric bike with a large set of hot plates on the back, watching an older man who reminded her of the more tenacious aged trees at home spreading batter across the surface then deftly flip it, all using some sort of L-shaped plastic stick.

She ordered based on scent with no idea what the pale, meaty chunks and tangy tart smelling slivers were made of, some of the red-black local greens in there and he wrapped the whole thing into a cone before drizzling three different sauces over the top. Sy got his own mix and she flicked some cash over from her phone.

It was hot and tasted something like a sky or an ocean, half sweet half stringy. The crunch was both bitter and tangy, and then the spice hit, watering her eyes. She fanned her mouth with one hand, devouring the whole contraption in orgiastic delight. "Food is so good," she said through a full mouth, and Sy nodded, wiping sauce from his chin.

Not far from the pavillion, they came to her dock. "Okay," she said again, Sy nodding. "I gotta sort my business out, but you can poke around. Don't touch anything. Unless the ship says so. But it probably won't, I don't think it likes earthlings much."

"Right, no touching. Actually a pretty good rule for civs electrical safety." He was grinning, and her cheeks were a little warm.

"Yeah. Well, this… you'll see." The airlock cycled open and they passed through, the ship's door splitting and retracting on the other side for their entry.

"Oh great," it said. "Now there's two of you."

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

"I believe that you have something close to the most basic, rudimentary grasp of my docking procedure. We may now make an approach to the station to aquire carbon latices."

"Cool, cool cool. So, you got any cash?"

"I beg your pardon."

"Credit, cash, moolah, bread, dough, do you have any kind of money? Or I don't know super secret hacker tricks to steal bank accounts?"

"You have misunderstood with predictable rapidity. I had hoped you would take the opportunity to express your sincere contrition for asking a question you surely must already know the answer to."

"Okay, well, my point is I'm probably not picking up a four course diamond dinner for you through legitimate routes, and it's just me also. Do ya see what I'm getting at?"

"You have painted a vivid portrait of absolute nonsense?"

"What?"

"No, what are you 'getting at?'"

"That probably we're going to leave in a hurry, because I don't think I can set up a clean game by myself. So it's gonna be like a quick and dirty grab, lunch to go."

"You believe that the acquisition process will incur pursuit, and necessitate urgent departure and immediate structure vectors."

"I wouldn't have said it like that-"

"Agreed."

"-but can you set that up? We'll want to kick out as soon as we can after I hit the airlock."

"Feasible. I will require the remaining latices as well."

"You'll get most of them, but I need to grab some gear and these are all we got. At least for now."

"Feasible. I will be able to remain in standby for structure entanglement for a short period after we dock, approximate one thousand years by your measure."

"I cannot tell if you're joking, I swear on Luna's breath."

"You should have adequate time to obtain the additional resources, so long the remaining latices are provided to me as priority."

"You'll get your treats, don't worry."

"I understand this may be one of the jokes you often reference. May I suggest you do not make these your primary occupation?"

"Duly noted. Okay, I'll get you gassed up. I hope I don't have to run down a bunch of favors just to find a good lead on diamonds."

● ● ● ● ●

She folded the maglev line schedule over itself again, watching for the arrival lights inside the partial cover of the kiosk. She'd polished off some kind of vegetarian pastry and a burger with a side of wings and her stomach felt strained. Walking around the station had been a good way to pick up what kind of clothes didn't stand out and she was wearing the cheapest version of them she could find, a red shirt with some doughnut shaped cartoon characters on it, which she saw a bunch of kids wearing, and blue shorts with white stripes on the legs. Left her boots back at the ship and was wearing some kind of extra-janky plastic sandals she'd seen around, plus a zippered little bag around her waist which she kind of liked. A fashion plate of generic anonymity, that was the goal.

According to the deep spacer, this was a high probability site of lowered caution and raised vulnerability, expected to see passage of diamonds in transit. It hadn't looked that difficult to her, watching his fingers play along his tablet finding something like the volume she was looking for and a good spot she could hit the transport. There was a little chime and the display promised a line arrival in five minutes. She folded the schedule into the waistband of her shorts and shuffled around like all the other commuters, letting their jostles push her near to the rail exit. The escalator lowered from the maglev linecars and passengers started exiting the down the line, people moving around her while the boarding escalator came down a bit further up the line. She vibed her way down stream, again letting the various tourists trying to get on board spin her this way and that, passing around them, rolling and twisting to make herself as invisible as possible to their tunnel vision.

She could have spotted her target miles away. The bulky, unfashionable gray suit barely concealing whatever body armor and heat the guy was packing. Fuzzy edged face holographs, probably armored there too. Good odds it was optimized to disperse piercing attempts and heat, maybe light impact protection. Some secure carriers used automatons, but these guys didnt move loke that. Couldn't conceal the case which was encouragingly large. Two other guys front and back flanked him on the way out. Overall, perfect for anyone avoiding real attention from the general public, abysmal concealment from someone who knew what to look for. Someone who was about to generate a rather large amount of attention.

She took a deep breath.

Pointing up the line, she shouted in her highest pitched voice, "Oh my gods what's that girl doing?!" and dove down the line, ducking into the crowd. Superheated air blasted from her body, her clothes burst into tatters, and she shifted hard. A howling monstrosity of teeth and claws with fur thick enough to stop a knife burst from the fertile concealed mass of humanity and leapt twelve meters off the ground, landing on the escalator next to the men in gray.

One got off a shot, something big and explosive put a hole through her shoulder, which started closing up before the exit wound blew out. She bit down on his arm, brought her teeth together, didn't sever anything but felt bones break and he screamed through a vocal distorter. He'd live but wasn't going to bother her. The second man was slower. She grabbed the gun he was trying to get out, along with the hand it was in, and pulled.

He sailed past her, to somewhere that wasn't her problem. Two down. The guy with the case was ggetting crushed against then side of the escalator in the ensuing panic all around them both. She tried to jerk the case out of his hand but it came up short. Handcuffed on. She snarled, ropes of drool falling out of her maw. "We're going for a ride," she informed him, wrapped both clawed hands around the case, and backflipped off the escalator.

Landed, case and carrier in tow, though to her eye he'd broken one or two limbs. Another gunshot, just winged the edge of her ribs. She grabbed arm and case, snapped the cuff links and probably broke his wrist, then threw his body towards the gray man who was trying to aim around commuters trying to avoid being shot. They embraced as lovers, she left them to privacy and grabbed the case in her mouth, bounding for the ship.

She'd learned a lot wandering around the station that day, had an unerring sense of direction, and a pretty good idea which obstacles were breakable. She plowed through the glass walls of a department store in a direct route to the pavilion, jumped past two food carts, and snagged a giant chunk of sweet smelling meat rotating on a spike while the manager yelled at her, kicked her way through an info screen, tumbled down the narrow maintenance corridor, and bashed her way out through a vent across from her dock.

Technically she was far from the screams of the line stop, but she just was the kind of slavering werewolf creature that got a fresh round wherever she went. Blame the media. She shoved case and meat under one arm and, in another burst of heat, ripped the docking bay door off its hingers.

The ship already had its airlock open and she dove through. "It's me," she shouted, tearing out chunks of the meat and swallowing them whole.

"The bridge has been relocated, please go through the door at the end of this corridor." She leapt the whole way, rolling to her feet in the now somewhat familiar room.

"I am receiving multiple general notifications that all ships are to remain docked, and several more direct notifications that my power output should be lowered significantly. They have indicated they might engage in pursuit of any vehicles leaving the station."

Sy came strolling into the bridge, looking around curiously as she grabbed the control nerves. "Hey, this ship is amazing- What's all the ruckus?"

"What are you still doing here?" Her eyes bugged out for half a second. "You weren't- Never mind! Future me problem!" She threw herself into the Pilot net and focused on the vectors from the ship "Can you outrun em" Tossed the meat.

Sy said, "Hi, Outrun who?" Future problem, future problem.

"I assume this is another one of your jokes."

"Not you! Ship! I mean, whats it- fuck it, can we go?!"

"Your vectors are ready. We can proceed from this position."

"We're about to ruin so many days. Let's hit it." She hit it.

Interlude:

"That was incredible," she said. "What a rush. What did we do? Where are we?"

"We undertook multiple structure alignments including a brief dual entanglement in order to produce several distinct paths of travel and reduce probability of further pursuit. We are currently within the Mindanao system. This appeared to be an optimal site for conducting analysis of our resources."

Sy unwrapped his hand and several branches from one of the curved bars running between the floor and ceiling of the bridge. "Hey, I have a question too, what just happened?"

Letting go of the vines, the werewolf girl sunk to the floor and started tearing more chunks of meat off the roasting spit she stole on the way out. "Well," she said, spilling out masticated chunks and slurping them back up with her tongue. "Well, we, that is to say me. That is, I have stolen an amount of system quality diamonds. We'll know how much when I crack that box open. A lot I hope." She swallowed. "And you, are supposed to be not here, you said you'd head out after you finished. Maybe we can get you on like... a shuttle or something."

He nodded with an easy smile. "Well yeah. That's why I was moving all my stuff in. I wish I had a chance to get the day lilies, they won't make it on the station. And it doesn't sound like going back is easy."

"In my defense, I was in a hurry and I, uh... Your stuff?" She swallowed. She could feel herself blushing under her fur and self consciously tried to clean a bit of the mess off her muzzle and chest. "What is... you mean... how stuff?"

He sighed and leaned against the bar. "Oh yeah, it's gonna take me awhile before I'm finished here. This ship is pretty great but the wiring is a mess. Shame about those lilies though, but I guess all life is but fleeting chaos and material possessions are merely temporary." He rocked a little on his hips.

"I do not have rats, and your use of the term wiring continues to demonstrate the lack of development in advanced engineering I am somehow continuously surprised by in your civilization. However, you demonstrate a commendable willingness to discard the soulless and crude material through which your civilization attempts to interact with the structured universe."

"Oh yeah, very zen, very cool. Still messy. What are you anyway?"

The werewolf girl looked regretfully at the bare skewer and ate the last few flecks of meat. "Good point, we ought to have something to call you."

"In your language," it said, "my function and name translates to Remover Of Interference To The Progress Of Greater Organized Civilization And Implementation Of Systemic Agency Cooperation Between Unified Structural Manifestations Originating From Star Zero."

"Dude, I have no idea what that means."

"I am not a dude, according to my records, it is unclear what this is. There are multiple, contradictory entries."

"Just like, what is all that? Are you just using long words to sound smart?"

"I am smart." The voice became softer. "In the better times, I would take Pilot to the worlds of disorganized civilizations, and we would implement order for them. We found many worlds suffering under lack of unification, and we implemented many civilizations."

She dropped her hands to her sides. "How did… you do that?"

"Optimally, perhaps again some day, I am readily capable of a gravity distortion effect removing an area approximately 40 million square kilometers from the surface of most planets or other objects of solid matter within my 500,000 kilometer range of effect. In many such cases, Implementation and Agency Cooperation only required three uses of this capability."

The werewolf girl felt the blood drain out of her face. "I… I'm sitting in the most illegal weapon in the universe."

Sy just laughed hysterically. "Yeah, okay Genghis Khan. Hah. That's what we should call you. Genghis Khan." He turned to the werewolf girl. "So what's your name, Julius Caesar?"

□ □ □ □ □

The seats in Maryam's ship were made of material designed to conform to whoever was sitting in the cramped cockpit. Serah couldn't find a comfortable position no matter how she shifted her legs, and was thinking about ignoring the deeply threatening order she'd been given to stay where she was, when she heard footsteps along the narrow catwalk and the door behind her opened.

Maryam slid by and settled into the pilot seat in front of Serah. She thought about asking the interdiction agent why she was even here again, but didn't think there'd be any better of an answer. "You're the only person who ever recorded this ship, you're as close as I have to an expert," was the explanation. Serah didn't think an extra minute of experience should count, but she was outranked by several orders of magnitude.

A folder of plastic sheets dropped into her lap. "Here," Maryam said. "They've been here. Made a real mess of things, but got on the cameras enough. The girl has a file, look it over. I'm calling in to track their system path."

"What am I gonna-" Serah fell back into her seat. Maryam was ignoring her, typing into the slim screen on her armrest. "Ugh." Serah flipped open the folder, finding a picture of some sullen guy- no, girl, with a wild mass of hair, who probably had her nose broken at least once. She looked at the name, typed in a capital letters: "Laika Blackwood"

END OF PART 1

#gkw #long post #werewolf #new weird #bizzaro

123 notes · View notes