Out of Time

by SewerGreat

Summary:

Ada, a Tramp Freighter from the Accord found herself trapped in the isolating drudgery of a spacer's life. Hauling cargo from one end of civil space to another was as dull as it was dangerous.

A five year long clerical error that began in 2551 promised the unfortunate woman a new and bizarre future. One where she is forced to reconcile mankind's new place in the universe. A galaxy where she finds herself at the mercy of forces beyond her understanding.

Face to face with the Affini compact what will this Terran do next? Yield? Fight? Run? How long can she survive before she is made to accept this new reality, or worse, is domesticated by it.

Follow Ada on a journey of isolation, loss, fear, love, and above all a struggle for autonomy.

Chapter 1: Labor and Other Luxuries

Notes:

This is my first attempt at a work like this. Thank you so much for deciding to read it. These first few chapters are a bit slow, but I promise they'll pick up pretty soon.

Lazarus-13 - a hastily assembled station, forged from the cheapest possible material, and constructed by the cheapest labor that investors could dredge up. It wasn’t a death trap by any means, but in the short decade since its completion it had rapidly deteriorated into a sun bleached, carbon scored, creaking heap that was simply waiting to become salvage. Until then it was going to remain the hub of activity in this particular system on the fringes of Accord space. A nexus point for nearly every tramp freighter in the sector where materials were inspected, processed, stored and shipped from. In more settled space such stations were waypoints of activity, commerce, and rec zones for cargo haulers. Here however, the souls aboard were lucky they could find jobs that let them break even without dragging them from one end of the Accord to another.

Running its lazy circular course was the Hab-Ring. Those inside were unlucky enough to end up here and were now waiting for their next job, working out the contract of their next job, or leaving. Either way, sticking around Lazarus-13 was never the objective. One such individual, a freight-runner who had the name Ada Drabowski at the time, was nursing a bottle of… Something. A bottle of something in a somewhere bar. The name of either didn’t matter. She pushed the lip with her index-finger, tilting it, then rocking it back and forth. Her eyes were trained on the liquid inside, watching it slowly slosh in the minor gravity.

A nicer bar, in a nicer station, in a nicer system, in a nicer sector. Stars, imagine even somewhere topside. She let those eyes of hers fold shut as she tried to picture it. These hypothetical places had better things to do than waiting to get out, or hoping no one walked off your things. Somewhere you can talk to people. Maybe even make a friend that isn’t on your crew. Crews… She pushed the memory of her own down.

Glancing under the table, she just had to make sure her duffel bag was still under her boots. Still there. Good.

Everything she still owned, an entire human soul contained in a single bag. Ada’s soul. Rolling her jaw to one side, she reeled her leg back and gave it a kick, then a halfhearted stomp. Still there. Whatever.

There was a buzz, and she saw the light of her PDA reflecting off the window before she remembered that it was still sitting on the table. It looked like everything had been settled up for Ada to get started. That buyer from Sol forwarded payment to Kizmat Mining, Kizmat paid its commission fee to Wellerman, Wellerman greenlit Ada’s flight, and Lazarus-13 control had released Happy-Trails from the maglocks. By now a gaggle of underpaid deckhands were hitching several metric tons of… Zinc?... to her ship. A few were probably helping themselves to some misplaced crates that won’t appear on her ship’s manifest. Not her ship - Wellerman’s ship. Not a home. Just a ship. All that was left to do was for Ada to sign, tethering her back to Happy-Trails. Her finger hovered over her PDA, just over the line. Tethering her soul.
She rolled her foot back and forth, the duffel bag was still there. Damn it.

—

Just twelve steps away from the docking bay now…

She couldn’t help but let out a groan as a contractor explained the document in front of her, confirmed everything she already read from the written agreement. “... And the payment…” his monotone voice droned, “... you’re responsible for a timely delivery…” on and on, “... any unexcused late deliveries will be deducted from your total pay…” Ada wasn’t thinking about that. It was a break-even job anyway. This haul wasn’t for a quick buck, it was an excuse to get out, get to Sol, finally be somewhere else. This was just a place full of faces she couldn’t trust. The faces here were constantly changing, moving, disappearing. Ada wanted to be a face that disappeared. It was her turn. She blinked as the monotone voice cut through her daze, “Ma’am?” he asked, “Do you understand.”

“What?” Stars, verbal confirmation. It was nauseating pageantry. What else could Ada say other than yes? “Yes.” she finally replied. “Sure, I confirm.” Anything to get out of artificial gravity. The contractor nodded and tapped a few times on his PDA.

“Got it - so you got plans in Sol?” he asked as Ada was halfway into picking her bag back up.

“Excuse me?”

“The payout is -” he shrugged, “- well, awful to say the least, ma’am.”

“That is mine to worry about.”

“Think you’re gonna find jobs spacing there?”

“Do you need something?” Ada asked as she shouldered her bag.

“I was just a bit curious is all. It’s a long haul, and you’d be lucky to-”

“Why do you not find something else to be curious about?” Ada interrupted with a sharp-eyed glare.

“I was just-”

“- leaving me alone.” The silence lingered a beat, and Ada took it as her means of exit. Shouldering passed the man she shot a look back interrupting him before he could speak now. “Put it on my psych eval, Fred!” It didn’t feel good, but she had to remind herself to never trust anyone on Lazarus. Especially not a corporate stooge like Fred, even if he meant well. She just had to remind herself that it was his face telling her crew one by one that they were off the job. One by one over the last few years, each one found out they weren’t even fit to freight anymore. Each one was hoping to be the last one left, each one had hoped to not become automated out. They were all stuck now, back on Lethie. Most of them have probably been picked up by Kizmat by now, breaking rocks on that frozen hell. Ada was trying to convince herself that a lonely void was any better. It had to be better - no, it was better. Somewhere on the other end of this void, she was there. Maybe she was still waiting.

The door in front of Ada gave a vicious hiss before sliding open. The view it revealed always made her head spin. The transition from the rotating axis of the central hub into the docking walkway was always strange. She couldn’t help but wonder why they still called them walkways. The microgravity in them made it more like floating. Falling? She closed her eyes and stepped through the threshold. There it was, that freefall feeling as she floated into the spinning hallway. Her hand instinctively reached out and took hold of a brace. Breathing in, breathing out. She opened her eyes. Now she was spinning with the dock, it felt more normal. Folding her body up, she pressed her boots into the brace, and kicked off. Going up and down at the same time depending on how you were looking at it.

Just beyond the precipice she could see Happy-Trails getting closer through the windowed walls. Beyond that, black - black speckled with stars countless and constellations that human eyes were never supposed to see. That nagging fear in the back of Ada’s head only made it more evident that the human mind was never supposed to make it this far. She felt like she could fall, with one wrong twist or motion and she would plummet out into that endless void. Falling forever. The vertigo twisted up into her head now. Twisting, they were spinning. The astral currents were starting to swirl together, and the muted color beyond the horizon was clouding over. She belonged topside. She belonged to Tera. There cruelty could be contained within a closed system. She snapped her eyes shut as she gripped another brace. Her legs swung out behind her and she drifted there, parallel against the hallway, the inertia flowing out of her legs and away.

She didn’t belong out here, not anymore.

Space scared Ada. It felt silly to be afraid of space, she made her living out here after all. Her situation, at least she imagined, was not unlike sailors who were afraid of the ocean back on old Tera. Frankly, there probably still were; the sailors on Helios-33 were probably afraid of the ocean there too. It was never the ocean, or space that was the scary part for that matter. The scary part, the terror for Ada was not found in the vastness alone, but that the vastness invited a certain uncertainty. They had already encountered xenos in their initial stumblings into the cosmos, so what else was out there?

Humans were the biggest thing in the sandbox right now, but what if there was something else bigger and badder out there. What if humanity was just waiting to become the Rinans to some other xeno’s story. She finally exhaled and gasped a breath back. She had forgotten to breathe again. These moments always made breathing secondary. Next Ada just had to follow the flowchart she gave her. First a few breaths came back, calmer breaths. Second there was the process of reminding herself of her name, letting the feeling of having a body wash over. Last, with trepidation a pair of eyes finally pried back open. A hand was in the focus, Ada’s hand. Still here. Still real. If there was something out there, maybe it was bigger but maybe it wasn’t badder. If there was something out there maybe it was more kind than the Accord. Pre-job jitters that Ada was already letting go or pushing to the back of her mind. She was just dreading the loneliness, that was all. It was easier to dream up aliens and wars rather than confront the idea of drifting on another freight-run by herself. That’s what Ada told herself.

Kicking back off she kept her vision more focused on the straight forward, right now the everything else involved felt too big. Breaking down the problem into the ones that were contained to the walkway made it easier to tackle. Like the problem of almost missing the brace that let her turn left and towards her ship. She didn’t let herself think about how there is no left in space. Breathe. She turned ‘left’ and pushed herself up to the entry-way of Happy-Trails. Crossing that threshold and now there were the problems of getting her ready for departure. The first of these was settled with a slam of her fist on a button that latched the door shut. No one else was coming.

She could not think about that. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t fix it.

—

Crammed into a narrow cockpit, Ada was busying herself with checking the manifest one final time. At least the last time she would today. She caught herself fixing her hair into a bun again, it would have been easier to just shave it. Piotr was right. She couldn’t help but smile when he started calling himself Chromedome after cutting his hair off, she couldn’t help but smile now. She hoped he was growing it back out, Lethie was too cold to be bald on. Shaking her head out of the memory, the concern, Ada refocused onto the Manifest.

Four month delivery for a bonus, six months for no penalty. The bonus would let Ada break even but both were going to get her to Sol.

She secured the PDA, and then buckled in. A few taps later and the groan of Happy-Trails breaking off from Lazarus echoed through the hull. An animal that wanted to sleep was waking up. Then the first reluctant kick, initial departure. She twisted the wheel, and pitched the yaw-handler. It was all mostly automated, but these older systems still needed a little manual input. Maja was a better pilot than the automatics though, let alone Ada. Still, she got enough out of watching Maja that it wasn’t too hard. It wasn’t long before the station was cleared and then the next kick came - acceleration. A third kick as the burners started reaching their full power. The stars were starting to vibrate. The rabbit’s foot hanging above the pilot's seat was pitching back. A fourth kick and then a quiet. It wasn’t peace, it was motion. The tension started to wane and Ada unbuckled herself. Weightless. The inertia petered out and what was left was harmony between her and the ship. Maja had always called it that.

It was going to be five days of drifting, then a proper top-up at a wayside station, then another two day drift, then a jump. After that little song and dance number it was going to be at least fifteen more weeks of the same. Wonderful. Nowak would say something about how - ‘freighters love to get kicked’ - but his English was worse than the rest of the crew’s.

Pushing her way into the dormitory the first time on a job was always the worst part for Ada. There were 2 bunks in the narrow corridor, embedded into the wall. The one on the top-left was hers. The other three were currently nobody's. The other bunks at one point or another belonged to Piotr, Maja, and Nowak - some of their personal effects were still there. Ada could never bring herself to do much else with them.

Ada floated there in the doorway, like a ghost that was trying to haunt a history that had long since passed. Kicking off, she passed the little foothold they had installed in the floor, her hand grazing a set of notches scratched into the wall. They respectively marked:

Piotr - 197

Cap’ - 178

Maja - 170

Ada - 148

Pitor, of course was accused of cheating since he waited until after a job to take his measurement, he was however too far too proud of his ‘accomplishment’ for anyone to actually tell him no on the matter. Nowak suggested that the entire crew did the same thing, but that meant Piotr would have had to see his name next to 192 as well, so that was shot down.

Grabbing the handhold of the women’s bunks, Ada could not escape the scent of Maja’s bed - burnt nicotine. She had asked Ada to overclock her vent so she could smoke next to it. The act was nowhere near company standard but hardly anything that happened in the Happy-Trails’ rooms really were. Besides, no one was going to argue with Maja when she pointed out, “I can’t just roll down windows, you know?” Reaching up she went through the rote process of securing her bag to the wall of her bunk. Tugging at straps and tightening them so any sudden shifts wouldn’t leave the thing flying across the room into Nowak’s space. Settling up into the unmade bed, Ada began to feel the rush of familiarity push its way up her spine. A spinning sort of motion slammed into her head as she closed her eyes and used one of her legs to press herself into the mattress.

A rubber ball slammed harmlessly into the frame and Ada blinked awake. “You’re supposed to catch it, Adrabowski!” Piotr teased.
“Leave her, won’t you?” Cap’ chided, closing his book. Leaning over he glared down at Piotr. “She’s tired, she does actual work around here. What do you do?”
“Annoys us, mostly.” Maja noted.
“No no, I help you lot fall in love with my charm.”
“Do you think its company standard if I only shave half my head? I don’t want to look like Piotr, but I’m sick of my hair too now.” Maja asked.
Piotr winged the ball at her now as she broke into laughter. Nowak chuckled, groaned,turned his attention back into the book. “Professionals - you’re supposed to be professionals. What am I going to do?”

“You’d look only half the fool as Piotr, I figure.” Ada said. Blinking, she realized she said it to no one. She pressed her palms into her forehead. ‘Don’t talk to ghosts, Ada’ she thought before pushing herself up and out of the room. This is why she always slept somewhere else on day one. Besides, there was more to do. There was a reason Engineers were the only ones Wellerman hadn’t automated out yet.

Crammed now into a storage cell, Ada was keeping herself busy. Back when Wellerman still did courier jobs this is where lighter cargo was supposed to be secured, now it was the only room that wasn’t infested with spirits. Ada was adrift in there surrounded by a few pencils and countless marbles. She was carefully tracing a finger from one to another then scribbling some notes down onto her pad. Integrating computers that could run jump-computations meant refitting the whole ship. It really often meant having to buy a whole new ship that could integrate such hardware. Wellerman wasn’t about to do that. It was far cheaper to just keep the old ships and pay skeleton crews to plot the jumps by hand. Even if a few ships went missing here or there it was easier to just run it through insurance claims. Maybe when enough of the original line was finally lost they would reoutfit the whole lot, but that probably meant even less hands on deck.

Ada chewed on the end of her pencil before scratching a few lines of her equation out. The bigger the jumps she could pull off the quicker she would be done with the run. Bigger jumps meant bigger equations, and big equations would take days. In better days it was hard to sink into her rhythm with everyone else being who they were. Besides, Cap’ was a professional dilly-dallyer. He even had favorite waysides he would have Ada plot courses around. Wellerman paid for the fuel anyway. Just argue there was an ion-field, gravitational anomalies, season asteroid belts, and so forth. Whatever filled a report would work just fine. Now the equations filled the time, and Ada was more than happy to bury herself into them, even if she was already letting out a frustrated groan. She just scratched out another line.

She woke up in that room with a snort. It wasn’t safe by any measure, but it was hard to beat zero-g sleep. This was her day one tradition anyway. Just a few more until the wayside. She ran a hand over her face. She needed a shower.

The restroom was tight, uncomfortable. It did not have to be anything else. She was in the midst of adjusting the settings with the turn of a dial with one hand, her other was gripping a brace. Finally she pressed the ignition and gripped the other brace. She closed her eyes and waited for the next part. The finest luxury on any Wellerman vessel, a wet shower in the black. A torrent of water jets all went off at once. Hot water sprayed Ada and she instinctively flinched as the sharp impact spiked across her entire body at once. It didn’t really matter how she twisted over the next few seconds because she was getting hit from every angle. It lasted only mere seconds and ended just as quickly as it began. Then a series of air vents kicked up in unison. Ada hung there in the now humid environment with a groan. True Wellerman luxury. At least all the soap was out of her hair this time.

Her day was mostly spent checking the course for Happy-Trails, making sure everything was aligned and that all hazards were being minimized. When a ship got to moving this fast there wasn’t really much time for course correction. Ada didn’t put nearly as much trust into P.I.M 1.07 as she ever would have put in Maja. Hours upon hours of running programs and comparing them against her own notes until the two lined up well enough for own comfort. The idle between readouts was spent plinking away on a little cartridge-catcher. It was at one point a calculator until Cap’ met a guy who knew a guy who was sleeping with a quartermaster and the crew was able to requisition some game cartridges.

Tetris became the background focus of the day. Running self-made puzzles, chasing an empty board, and pausing to run numbers. By the time it was finished Ada couldn’t wait to fully engross herself into the game. Suspended in weightlessness she faded from this world and got lost in the simplicity of stacking gapless structures. When it finally came to a close she smirked at the score until the screen flickered to the ‘Top 10’ from its years of service. She saw the initials of her former crew staring back at her splattered across the digital board. She still had the top from last year, but Maja was close. Three blank spaces blinked at the bottom of the screen, prompting Ada to put her initials in to make her new score. It would put itself as the new number 10 and push Cap’s only number on the board out. She turned the thing off, and secured it back into its cabinet.

Day three. She woke up in the shower this time. She treated herself to a second, and must’ve passed out while she waited for the vents to dry her off. Shivering, she emerged from the shower. All the wet warm air siphoned off and away - the moisture strained out and recycled. All that remained was the ambient cold of the ship’s interior. Warming a ship a few degrees wouldn’t cost much, but factor in a whole fleet and suddenly a few extra dollars becomes a few million over the course of a fiscal quarter. So, the ships ran cold. The jumpsuits were insulated at least - baggy and blue. The grey cuffs were made of some synth fabric that helped keep the heat in, and if all the vents were zipped up the thing actually stayed pretty warm. For crew-members who ran cold, like Ada, there were those fashionable brown flight jackets that were an optional part of the uniform. She had just got her boots strapped on - clunky and brown and molded too - when she had the dread sink in. Today was going to have to be the day that she unloaded the boxes in the rec room.

Ada had managed to survive off what she stashed in her bag, but now there was little option but to actually go and take stock of what the Deckhands had left in the rec room. Resigned to a trip down memory lane Ada prodded the button that opened the bulkhead into a space once filled with the most laughter and conversation on Happy-Trails. Quiet now. She could see across the room a series of crates belted to the wall and ready to be unloaded. On the opposite side was the kitchenette and lounge. A conversation pit where one could buckle into a couch and pretend they were sitting. Just beyond that, a cork board plastered with photos and sticky notes. Ada couldn’t help herself. She kicked off, and floated to the collection.

The first that caught her eye was a photograph of herself. She was stuck into a foothold so it looked like she was standing. She was holding a large set of weights above her head, two hundred pounds. It was and has remained a mystery as to how Piotr managed to pass it through requisitions, but it was a beloved prop during that run.

The snap of a light, bleary eyed Ada couldn’t help but cackle as she held the massive thing above her head like some kind of superhuman body-builder. “Look at her!” Piotr called “Strong girl, Adrabowski!”
“Don’t pop a blood vessel.” Maja added with a chuckle.
“You’ll paint the devil on the wall, don’t talk like that!” Piotr snapped, “Now hold the camera, its my turn to show the world just how strong Piotr is.” There was a photo of Piotr balancing the weights on his pinkie with smug confidence.

Her eyes traced down to another photo. Cap’s birthday. All of them had managed to get cans of frosting from Jordan-Station. It was the best substitute since cake was out of the question. Ada’s eyes lingered on the smiling faces all holding their respective cans out to the camera. The angle was off, but it was the best they could do, setting a timer in zero-g and hoping for the best.

Tracing left she saw a photo of Piotr shaving his head. Another of Maja holding a broken PDA, feigning shame like a scolded animal. Another of Cap… She was smiling. She caught herself smiling. A short breath escaped as the weight of history crashed through her instead of on top of her this time.

She couldn’t linger though - but she at least felt she could maybe sleep in the dormitory tonight. Unloading boxes in weightlessness was more a test of patience than one of strength. Nothing really exerted you physically in these conditions, but managing the constant motion was the real challenge. Ada didn’t mind, it kept her busy at the very least. Unloading bagged liquids, and dehydrated food-packs to music helped the day go by. Reading a book kept the thoughts at bay during the breaks. Pacing was the key to her survival. She had to stretch every task over the course of a day or risk getting lost in her mind again. Brief trips were fine, expeditions were forbidden.

Day four was uneventful. Just finalizing the jump calculations for the most part. The two day drift following the top-up was going to be an exercise in keeping herself away from idle. She’d find a way to manage.

Day five was docking with the wayside and discovering that not only was there quite the queue, but that there was a scheduled fuel delivery required to meet the demand.

“Two months?” she asked, dumbfounded over the comms.

“Two months.” a crackly voice responded. His rough tone scratched the static.

“That’s… How?”

“Look lady, I don’t make the rules, I don’t schedule the deliveries. All I can tell you is that it’s gonna be a two month wait. You can either press on or hang tight.”

“Fine…” Ada resigned, “Just uh -” she flipped through a manual, “Yeah, go ahead and attach the docking fee to the manifest, include it in the fuel cost.”

“Done… And Done. Anything else?”

“Yeah, can you send the invoice too? I need to attach it to the late delivery exemption.”

“Understood, and I’m sending that notice to?”

“Wellerman.”

“Got it.” a beat, “Oh, speaking of - your ship title for my own logs.”

“Uh yes, right.” she cleared her throat and suppressed her accent as best she could, “Happy-Trails, Wellerman Freighter 33-134, Pathfinder Class.”

“Acknowledged. You’re green for docking.”

“Oh uhm - wait a second.” Ada called out, hoping to catch the voice on the other end.

A pause, and finally, “Yeah?”

“Why the wait? I know, no fault on you, but is there something that is happening?”

“I dunno’ - static out by Helix has the navy twitchy. Something’s got ‘em spooked. S’all I can say really.”

“Huh…”

“Huh is right.”

With that settled, and the notice of delay drafted there was the matter of Wellerman’s company policy. Two months of idle time was a costly ordeal, so as per protocol Ada was already down deep in the core of the ship preparing her body for an extended session of cryogenic isolation. The whole being a frozen body part wasn’t particularly difficult, it was a short breath and a long pause that felt like nothing. The hard part was the plethora of drugs that came before.

She was carefully setting up the automatic injectors to conduct the awakening process while sucking on a small bag labeled GY-39. A sickly metallic liquid that made it possible to stay frozen with the risk of cell-death. It tasted like rust, and the weird burn it left in its wake was none the more pleasant. Still, better than waking up in agony before a total cellular breakdown. She grimaced with each sip, it felt like it was coating her tongue. Cursing the thing, Ada wished they could hopefully find a way to water the stuff down in the 40 iteration.

Before she committed to the deep-freeze there was a sort of tradition Ada had to carry out. She hoisted a small device from her bag up into the air, hanging it from a hook so it remained partially stationary. Then, carefully rotating it to where a black arrow pointed at the door, Ada floated down and slotted her feet into a pair of slots that let her remain flush against the floor. Withdrawing a PDA she carefully traced the timestamp of a recording, her audio trimmed and the timestamp exactly where it needed to be. With the press of a button a hologram projection of a woman rained down. She had short hair with a boxish frame. And she was perfect. She was doing… Something with her hands, but that part wasn’t recorded. Ada squared her shoulders and spoke -

“Uhm - ahem - Hey, Tesa.”

“Ada.”

“Yeah, still is me. How are you?”

“I got that job in Sol, the one from Mars. It's a way out”

“That’s incredible, congratulations Tesa!”

“You could come with me, you know.”

Ada flinched, “I… Have one more job.”

“I can’t believe you, Ada. That ship is going to kill you.”

“Heh, maybe. Yes. No, you’re right. That’s why its one more. I’m uh… I’m coming to Sol now.”

“You don’t have to do this Ada, please.”

“Hey hey, it's at worst a free ride to you, and at best I get paid to do it.”

“Nothing left to say that’ll stop you then?” a beat of silence, the image flickered.

“No, nothing’s going to stop me this time. I love you Tesa.”

“I love you Ada.”

The recording flickered, and left Ada standing just as alone as when it was on. Ada stashed everything that made that little moment for her back into her bag before securing it under a grate in the floor. Then she loaded her soon to be body into the cryo-pod. Knocking back a Metastaller tablet she felt her head start to spin. The mind began to fade. She clamped her teeth down on a breathing tube as she felt two needles prick her arm. Her eyes felt heavy, and her blood started to feel thick. Count to ten.

One…

Two…

Three…

The world started to spin.

Four…

Five…

Her brain felt like it was turning in on itself. Pictures of stars, faces, photos washed through her mind as eyes rolled and her lids began to flutter.

What came after five? Was it seven? No, there was something between that. There was… A person in the pod, right? She sucked a breath back. There was just gas in here. Nothing left. She breathed out. The final flush of false warmth washed over her. An explosion of sensation before a long numbness that would follow. The last of the drugs must’ve been injected by now. They were called… Final cryo-prep.

No, that was the stage. Please focus.

Five. No. After five. Before seven…

Her mind twirled away from her again. She could almost see it this time. The back of her own head - watching it climb up into the pod. A fractal of the door closing behind itself.

Six…

That came after five.

Stillness. A readout from the pod was stamped onto the late arrival notice. Intended to mark the exact time of entry into cryogenic storage. This one read -

Ada Drabowski - Cryogenic Entry | 14:51 | January 19th - 2551…

Notes:

I promise we'll get to the plant smut eventually - you just have to get through the Ada self inflicted pain-train section of my story first.

Thanks again for picking the story up, and I hope you've enjoyed so far!

Chapter 2: Acuisitions

Notes:

I wanted to be patient and make something of an upload schedule, but I'm enjoying writing this story too much. I'm sure there'll be something of a consistent schedule once I slow up a bit. Until then, I'll just upload chapters as I finish them.

CW for capitalism and its effects I guess.

Aboard a grand vessel that bore the name, Lindall - a garden of intertwined roots and flowering buds glowed dimly. Bioluminescent orbs were nestled into the entanglement. The room was awash with a ghostly pale purple light. Shadows hung heavy from the overgrown ceiling - ivy hung in glowing strands. Near the center of the room, between windows that opened to a grand view of the cosmos sat a computer woven from the same vines that made up the garden. A screen was alight in the living machine’s center. An Afinni hovered in poised stillness, upright and alert - tapping away at the machine with rapid and precise movements of fine vines that extended from the deep violet foliage of her back. Her four arms were otherwise occupied -

Their upper right hand was dedicated to a delicate task - carefully twirling a pink-white orchid about the tips of her fingers. Each rotation resounded through closed petals poised to burst. She beamed a smile down at the action, anticipating.
Below, her other right hand was holding a scanner that was recharging from its image capture and digitization of an ancient vase she now cradled in her upper left hand. Meanwhile, her lower left hand was busy spooling vines back into the machine.

“The vase - I believe it's Sumerian. Although I’m still working on the distinction.” she began, glancing at the Affini tending to a few of the flowers on the opposite side of the room. Gaining their attention, she continued. “It’s fascinating, isn’t it. An artifact like this must’ve been rather important, culturally speaking, to the Terrans…”

“And yet…” the other Affini remarked, straightening upwards. A tinge of venom in their tone.

“It ends up out here, stuffed into the luggage of a fleeing and dethroned oligarch. It's almost baffling what they allowed money to excuse for people like Hartford."

“What about the vase?”

“Oh, it depicts warfare. I’ve determined it's a chariot, not farming equipment that’s carved into the side. These were warriors using animals to drag them towards some type of destructive task. Poor things have been at war with themselves since the start.”

“And they took care to depict it - not just a victory - but celebrating the very act.”

“Chilling and fascinating, isn’t it?” the historian remarked with another glance. Her vines retreated seamlessly into her back as she concluded her typings. With one more twirl the flower burst open as all the data from the computer was fed into its very cells. She leaned, and with care, tucked the stem into the vines, then pinched along its base. Binding it, storing it. Saving it. “Thank you for joining me, Darce.” she added warmly.

Darce, now gliding across the room on elegant vines that made up their legs - housed under a skirt of pink foliage - gave a gratuitous bow. “Please, Dipensa.” They said as they took up space next to their companion, “I should thank you - watching your system at work is always a fine reward for the effort.”

“Fine - I’ll relent. You’re a paragon of kindness.”

“Oh, I hardly knew there was a contest surrounding our friendship.” They paused, their leaves vibrating in a faceless smile, they were letting the tension build as they withdrew a flower of their own. From within the folds of their own vines, a pale blue flower was presented up to Dipensa, “I believe this would ‘up my score’ as it were? Unfortunate for you, I know.”

“You monster!” she chirped as she spun about to take in the full view of Darce’s gift. “You can’t leave me in suspense, what secrets do you have for me?”

Darce slid by and gently nestled the flower into Dipensa’s computer, a vine caressing one of the petals. “That’s the fascinating part actually - I don’t rightly know.”

“Nothing at all? You really expect me to believe that you, of all my colleagues, have no clue? You’re an awful liar, Darce.”

“How cruel! If you want to stoop to insults, I guess I’ll have to spoil the surprise.” Darce cried. They paused and snuck a look at Dipensa. The pause pressed on as they awaited a feigned apology that would never come. Instead their grinning companion only offered a gesture for Darce to continue. With a groan they deflated, “You’re no fun.” Their vine snaked over the petals once more. The living machine had already detected the presence of a new stem, then accepted it. The screen flickered back to life.

Dipensa’s four eyed gaze slowly, but deliberately traced back onto the glow. Defeated by her curiosity, she could not help the smile that was already carved upon her face from growing. “What have you found?” she asked as spools of information unfurled across the monitor.

“The records that belonged to that dethroned refugee. Amongst his troves that you acquired I found he had some records on his person.” Darce explained. “He was involved in the business of shipping and logistics under a company known as Wellerman. I imagine if this man was in immediate possession of such artifacts, I could only imagine what his records might have held.”

“So when you say you haven’t any idea?”

Darce nodded, “I said that I don’t rightly know what is specifically within these records. However, I do imagine most of it is manifests and mundane entries. I figure if there is anything extraordinary in here - you would be the one to pluck it.” Another shuffle of leaves buckled through Darce as their softened gaze finally fell back onto Dipensa.

Dipensa was completely enraptured by now. “Oh Darce, you really keep me too busy.” she murmured as her eyes were already darting over the stream of new data, catching each word as it bloomed across her screen.
Information like this - private records of the once wealthy and powerful - treasured keeps of data, personal records, correspondence, rumors even. Humans like this were as much hoarders of secrets as they were with wealth.
She scanned lines with a practiced determination. Drawn almost immediately into quiet excavation - absorbed into work she craved. Unwavering curiosity overtook her. Through these words she could piece together the shape of a creature whose tendrils once extended between stars. What glorious parcels might he have buried?
In a galaxy so thick with Xenos, it was the Terans that had captured Dipensa’s eye. She had certainly earned something of a reputation as a student of the human species - but titles meant nothing while her mind still swam in a sea of unanswered questions.
Time, the last tyrant. These studies simply took time. Time that the Affini archivist was eager to dedicate to private libraries such as these.

The other Affini took their leave as Dipensa continued her plunge into the countless records. Most of it, if not all, was going to be just as Darce had predicted; fit only for archives and logistical references. Regardless, she was going to be the final judge of Wellerman.

With a preliminary scan out of the way, Dipensa let her mind catch up with her curiosity. Rationale over desire. As much as she wanted to dive headfirst into seeing what other strange baubles Hartford might have squirreled away in these records, there was a new task at hand. One that unfortunately took precedent.

After all, the Lindall was patrolling this sector for rebel activity first and foremost. Dipensa’s collections were a pleasant side effect.

Having found Hartford aboard a rebel ship, it would leave it as no stretch of the imagination that his records might help outline a trail to some potential coconspirators. As such the brunt of Dipensa’s focus turned towards manifests - departures, arrivals, lost ships. All the while, a vine snaked its way out from her back and plucked a brilliant purple peony with glowing white specks. Adding it to the cord of her computer another window floated onto the screen. Ships encountered by the patrol thus far.

With a practiced motion, Dipensa plucked a stamen from the peony. Drawing the flowery thread back in a single gleaming silver line, she traced it over and onto Darce’s gift. Its blue petals peeled back to accept the intrusion.

She then drew the fibrous thread taught. Her clawed finger gently hooked it back until she could feel it begin to waver. Release. The stamen cord snapped back into place.

A wave of vibrational static washed the screen as the windows merged and the overlapping names were swept away until only the unaccounted ships remained. Releasing the drawn cord, she guided the stamen back to its host. Soothing words joined the effort as she cupped a hand over the peony, leaving it closed in her wake.

The ships that now remained met the grim expectation that Dipensa held when she began this process. Tracing down the list she quickly found that many of them had been lost long before the arrival of the Compact. A solemn stillness crept over Dipensa’s face as each new entry was dashed with no last known location. Lost in a jump or simply disappeared into the vastness of space. If they remained at all the hope of locating such ships was a slim one.

Her mood was further taxed as she continued to climb towards more recent entries.

Each new entry brought the hope, the want that there was something to find. Unfortunately it was becoming quite evident that Wellerman as a whole had cared very little for its freight crews. The frequency of such disasters only seemed to climb as their fleet went longer and longer without proper service. Dipensa could feel her core tighten as she considered the fates of those lost out there, or worse spread across a botched jump.

‘Thank goodness we got here when we did.’ she thought to herself as another wave of ill fated crews spread over her monitor.

Glancing at the pot she had set down now an hour ago met Dipensa with a new sinking feeling. The soldiers depicted on it evolved into something more than just painted figures. They had lived at one point in Terran history. They had fought in an ancient Terran war.

Violence, theft, oppression. Symptoms of broken systems that mankind had been forced to endure without hope of a cure. If this mountain of lost souls were some of the final victims of a past soon to be left behind, then at least this would serve as a stark reminder as to why it needed to happen. Why they needed to be saved from themselves.

Steeling herself, Dipensa let the next wave of entries flow over.

As the first anomalous blip traced across the screen, she almost missed it. Catching it, Dipensa scanned backwards with trepidation. A mistake? It at least warranted another ‘one-over’. This secondary glance only confirmed that it was no trick of the eye. A ship with a last known location, and even more so it was filed as still active. Dipensa blinked.

Freighter 33-134 | Shorthanded - Happy Trails | Status Logged: Torpor.
Initial Logging: January 19th 2551 - Freighter 33-134 awaiting manual reactivation from Wayside: Doorstop - present attendant to activate and relay signal.

Dipensa leaned back for a moment, it was the first hopeful log amongst a den of despair. Dipensa made a mark of it, but continued her scan. Hopeful as it was, the report was five years old now. Holding out hope on it was a reach, but it was at least one worth revisiting when she finished her first go-around of the manifest. That was until she saw the same signal appear a month later down the list. Then again another month later. Again, again, again, again. For five years this ship sent out a signal to Hartford’s system - once a month, every month.

Every other ship under Wellerman had ceased sending signals early into the Terran Domestication War - made sense. However this ship continued to send its automatic signal without fail. The last signal was only a few weeks old.

It hit Dipensa all at once.

Happy Trails was still out there. With awakened haste she delved into the Freighter 33-134’s files. One crew member.

A lone ship, a lone soul aboard. A monthly dictation of existence. Still there. Still stuck. The tightness was rising back in Dipensa’s core. Anticipation, fear, curiosity. It was mixing together now.

The crew folder opened before the archivist, leaving her as witness to the victim of this oversight. A photo of a young Terran woman - a frail looking sophont with a slight build. Skin paled by years of dwelling in the depths of starless space.
Dipensa lingered there on the photo, longer than she had intended. There was a biometric readout - height, weight, retinal scans, stale classifications that failed to draw her away.
A long face with an expression twisted into biting stubbornness. An unconscious frown and a clenched jaw. Brown locks of hair hastily tied up and matted in places. She didn’t want the photo. She wanted to be anywhere else.
Eyes. Eyes accentuated by a straight, boney nose. Big eyes looking through the camera and off to wherever that anywhere else might have been. Brown - dark enough to bleed into her pupils. Big, dark, lost eyes.
A face from a world before the Affini. An artifact from the Accord, but not the dusty and still ones Dipensa had been finding. This one was alive.
Alive…

Measuring her find against a Terran star chat revealed that this wayside was not far from the fleet’s present location - relatively speaking. This detour was at most minor, she could easily plead her case to make it happen. Dipensa had already mentally prepared her request as she transferred her findings to a PDA.

Soliciting a minor redirection was a straightforward enough task, albeit one with a few hurdles that gnawed at the back of her mind. Namely it was going to be the trouble of convincing others that Ada, wasn’t a feral, or worse, a rebel. Unmarked and unaccounted for ships were free game amongst the Affini fleets, and some amongst the Lindall’s crew had been eager in their hunt as of late. A frozen Teran, a potentially injured Terran - practically ripe fruit to the more bellicose sorts. She stepped into the hall, nodding as she passed a few of her colleagues. Dipensa didn’t blame them. The Humans were… Hard to ignore. Their bravado easily folded when pushed; their brains were practically hard wired for companionship.

Receptors that practically welcomed xenodrug influence.

Dipensa could feel a wrinkle forming in her expression. Scowling again. The crew wasn’t at any fault, they just didn’t have the same perspective she held. They lacked the eyes of an archivist. This woman - Ada - was a living breathing time capsule. A human who had potentially been left unaware of the Affini’s attempts at first contact, and if so, completely unaware of the War of Domestication. She could write volumes from just her reaction to initial contact alone. A chance for a second first contact. A deeper understanding of the Terrans.

She paused there in the hallway, quietly assuring herself that it was academic. A trove of information like this served no purpose being shipped off for domestication because she happened to be in the path of a rebel trail. There. It would be an academic waste to simply hand her off to someone with no appreciation for the perspective she possibly held.

—

The initial step had been brought to motion with relative ease, but it was hardly the most difficult part. Now tucked into an auxiliary council chamber, Dipensa had readily earned the audience of the Affini that could make her plan come together. The chief navigator, the board of logistics, the head of communications and rebel affairs, and Darce representing the xeno medical science division, all gathered here to discuss the next steps.

The tone of the room made it clear to Dipensa the hard part was not managing the response. Quite the opposite. Dipensa’s empathetic request had been fruitful. The chief navigator had already agreed to spare Dipensa a shuttle and a fly-by for this endeavor. The room had also come to an agreement that given the unusual circumstance a lighter touch was due. Treating the freighter like a rebel capture was most likely going to traumatize her further. However, it was the very nature of this situation that introduced a new problem - keeping busy bodies out.

Affini empathy actively worked against Dipensa’s wants. She had just barely managed to convince the board of logistics that the presence of one member of the xeno-science medical staff was more than enough. Thank goodness Darce agreed with her sentiment.

Their medical expertise was not only welcomed, but wholly supported. It was impossible for anyone in the room to know the current condition of the frozen Terran. Airing on the side of caution was not only the safest option, but the smartest one. “We’re still navigating the effectiveness of Terran medicines.” Darce explained, “However, if there is any indication to be found in what we’ve already learned I would work on the assumption that prolonged cryogenic storage has rendered significant damage to the Terran’s wellbeing."

“Wagering a guess?” another Affini asked.

“Cellular destruction, malnutrition, bioaccumulation of dangerous toxins. The list could be…” Darce paused, flicking their PDA, “Exhaustive.”

“A shuttle with a medical suite then.” one of the logistics members noted.

Kerlavo shifted the way he always did before speaking and Dipensa’s hand instinctively tensed. She hardly appreciated what the fleet officer had to say regarding this situation. “I’m still not entirely comfortable with only sending an archivist and a doctor to handle what is potentially a feral human.” he finally admitted.

“She’s not feral.” Dipensa sharply corrected. Checking her tone, she continued “At least, we have no means of deducing that. It’s just conjecture.”

“As much conjecture as assuming that she isn’t?” Kerlavo asked. Dipensa only glared in response. He was technically right. “Its important for us to remember, she is a Terran. She is as likely to react aggressively as she is to behave amicably. Our recent war has proven that we have no way to truly know.”

“So would you rather treat this as a rebel capture?” Darce asked pointedly.

“Not what I’m implying. I want what’s best for the situation - she is going to be in a fragile state, emotionally overwhelmed too.” Kevralo paused and shot a sympathetic look at Dipensa. “I don’t want this to turn into a tragedy, and it would make me feel a lot more comfortable if we had a retrieval specialist present - just to monitor and act accordingly should it get out of hand.” Without waiting, he shifted his attention to the Logistics team. Dipensa’s core went taught as preemptive frustration wormed its way through her vines.

“If I may.” she cut in, sharper than she hoped. Kevralo shot another look at Dipensa who had no choice but to continue now. “She is frozen, whatever state she is in can be easily handled by Darce and I. Sending anyone else with us is just gratuitous, unnecessary even.” She gave pause, Kevralo’s face was still straight, his two upper eyes still drawn into a tight squint. 'Fine, be that way' she thought. “But… If you wanted to shift personnel around, I’m sure the logistics team here would be happy to source some forms to make it happen.”

Just as she hoped, the logitian staff’s eyes practically lit up as they shot glances at one another. Dipensa even caught one smirking.

“There are templates we’ve recently drafted.” one noted.

“We’ve been meaning to put them into motion if you’d be willing to workshop them with us Officer.” another chimed in.

Kevralo sighed with a sinking frown. “No no!” he half-blurted out, “Dipensa makes a fine point. We’re… Stretched thin enough anyway. No need to make our jobs harder than they have to be.” he added with a short cough. Thank goodness he loathed the bureaucrats more than he enjoyed exerting himself.

The rest of the meeting pressed onwards without much conjecture. The majority of what was left was just the pushing of papers, forms, contracts, and acknowledgements. The logitians were going to get their pound of flesh one way or another. Darce did manage to preserve Dipensa’s patience in reminding her that the ship still needed to be prepped. A wait was inevitable. Although Dipensa would have preferred a quieter one, she could endure.

The rest of their idle was spent constructing the timeline and making sure they could get it to line up with the trajectory of the rest of the fleet.

At present, Darce and Dipensa found they had a week to retrieve Ada - more than enough time. It gave them a three day burn to pilot their way to the last known signal of the wayside. That left them a one to two day window to conduct any course corrections if the signal was off kilter from years of disservice. So long as they left themselves two days to make their flight back for rendezvous, Darce and Dipensa had a straight forward retrieval ahead. This schedule also left Darce plenty of time to conduct any medical examinations she would likely deem necessary. For Dipensa, it left her ample time to get to know this Terran and decide what to do next with her.

Seated next to the shuttle, Dipensa was already busily jotting down preliminary notes to be filled in with her findings. Lining up questions and details to pay attention to; her inquisitive side dragged her into the realm of hypotheticals already. What if Ada reacted not just peacefully, but enthusiastically. She set her PDA down and let herself imagine the possible future of introducing Ada into the compact - getting to show a human the wonders of a new age all the while picking her brain about the past she left behind. A fresh first-hand account with possibly one of the most unique perspectives she could encounter at this stage of the integration process.

There of course was the swing of the pendulum… Ada could very well be a feral. Then the only ethical course of action would be domestication. Dipensa was not keen to interview a pet, she wanted a Terran that wasn’t a… That didn’t act like a Terran. She picked her PDA back up and opened the photo again, examining the scowling face once again.

This situation would likely prove to be more complicated, in truth, than Dipensa had hoped to admit. Darce was right though, ignoring the possibility was irresponsible. With a sigh she tapped her screen and opened Ada’s medical profile hoping to find something that may provide some insight, maybe even quell some concerns. A psyche evaluation ideally. The Accord loved those.

The first item to reveal itself amongst the basic biometrics was another photograph. A picture of an arm, her arm. The tips of her fingers were blackened; the discoloration traveled up the length of her arm to her elbow in a lessening gradient. It started solid but grew more splotchy from her hand and upwards. It didn’t look particularly damaged, but rather as if someone had spilled ink under her skin.

Just underneath the figure was a readout -

June 03 2549 - 0703 :
Employee A. Drabowski’s EVA equipment suffered catastrophic vacuum failure | Left arm |
Total time of exposure : 13 Seconds
Vertoxyl administered - June 03 2549 - 0705 | 1.2 g
Anti-necrosis bandages applied

Not what she had hoped for, but perhaps it would do some good to be aware of such a condition. Dipensa scrolled past the rest of the report, she knew what she needed and digging further was causing more distress than it had provided anything helpful.

The rest of the medical file was automated reports of the state the poor thing had been left in for the last five years. Every so often there was the alert that more cryo-medications had been automatically administered, that she was still in a torpor status. A snapshot of true human neglect.

Soon she thought, soon you’re going to be out of there, and such a better galaxy waiting for you. There wasn’t a limit on the tragedy the Terran Accord seemed capable of creating, but dwelling on that was soon interrupted. A new report had appeared on the file.

Dipensa read in horror as she saw the torpor status had been lifted remotely. A hiss instinctively pushed through her teeth as she bolted up and over to Darce. Judging by their own urgency, Darce had just seen the same alert.

“Who? How?” Dipensa blurted out. Darce gestured for her to quiet down - her posture lowered to match her voice, “How?” she repeated in a whisper.

“Not important. We can focus on that on the way there.”

“Right. Right, we’ll just move a little faster now.”

“Exactly.”

Somewhere out there a Terran was thawing out of an overextended coma. Whether she wanted to or not, she was going to have to step out into a new world, and unfortunately she was going to begin her journey alone. Dipensa couldn’t shake the sinking feeling in her core as the idea crossed her mind.

Fine.

She took a measured step around and towards the shuttle. Fine. This’ll just have to work. She always made it work, every hiccup, every hitch. She was going to make it work. This didn’t - this wouldn’t change anything.

There was a Terran thawing out somewhere, and Dipensa was going to find them.

Notes:

Writing Affini is a bit of a challenge I've found - I realize I may write about too many sad and dysfunctional societies. Still, I had a lot of fun putting this chapter together.

Anywho, meet Dipensa! She's an academic with absolutely no biases. Especially not ones for poor, lost Terrans.

I hope ya'll like my take on Affini computing systems. Otherwise, I should hopefully have the next chapter soon.

Chapter 3: Please Wake Up Now

Notes:

Your favorite space trucker is back from her extended cryo vacation and I'm sure she's doing fine!

CW for some traumatic memories, and glimpses of Terran fascism

An involuntary twitch against the static hum of a derelict machine waking up. Eyes darted underlid, searching for sensory purchase. A mind encased in a shell that unconsciously felt too tight slowly inched away from oblivion. Signals from the brain hinted that a mind was active but far from awake. A sharp breath rose and fell in the chest, exhalation. The first voluntary breath in years.

Shaky, a brain was struggling to recall its purpose. The immensity of consciousness was rearing like a beast in the fog. Silhouettes dancing at the back of a fragmented imagination. Incomprehensible shapes, and primordial buzz that itched the base of her skull. Reconstitution now animated regardless of desire, want, or need. A single continuous motion was restored. Sluggish and unwavering.

The rec room was cold, but the entirety of Happy Trails always ran cold. It was cheaper for Wellerman to minimize the heating systems. Maja had belted herself down next to Piotr, one hand occupied with a caf-bag, another rubbing the poor com-specialists back. He gave the rattling groan of a man inches from death. Resigning to his fate, Piotr then buried his head into his arms. “It's hopeless…” he moaned.

“It’s grav-lock.” Maja plainly corrected.

“Just space me already… If I even survive the drag to the airlock…”

“Please Ada!” Maja called, “Tell me you found the dram.” She frowned at Piotr, sympathy etched into her expression “If he moans anymore I’m going to consider his request.”

“Ah, none of that!” Nowak commanded from the doorway, “I get final say on who gets tossed on this ship.”

Maja chuckled, “You can endure Piotr’s bellyaching?”

“So long as we have dram, sure.”

“If Ada can’t find it?”

“Then maybe we will finally bump Piotr.”

“Oh Ada, hurry yourself!” Piotr cried out, renewed, “Don’t let these barbarians kill your good friend Piotr.”

“You told us to.” Maja said.

“I have changed my mind, is a spacer not entitled to a flip of their heart?”

“Trajkotac, trajkotac!” Ada barked back at Piotr, “Cannot focus with your whining, Piotr! You sound possessed!”

“Not a more heartless crew to be stuck with - oh mama save me!” Piotr groaned before a rattling chuckle rose from the hurt thing. A moment later a similar sad tune pushed up as he reburried his head. Ada rolled her eyes with a grin as she dug through the medicine cabinet. Maja pushed her with false urgency - Ada obliged by rummaging more noisily.

Piotr’s renewed grumblings were cut short by a tossed box of Dramamine bouncing off his noggin. Vigor flared back into his bones as he snatched the thing, readily shedding the shell of a man inches away from the brink. His deathly act however returned as he leaned onto the table, beaming a coyote’s smile up at Maja.

“Oh Maja…” he began, “I am too weak, you have to feed me my pills like a baby bird.” A sharp jab into his ribs was the reply. “Ojej!” he cried, “Heartless! The lot of you!” Ada shushed him as she floated into the booth. Stealing a sip from Maja’s caf-bag, she passed it to Piotr.

“You’ll need to drink those down.”

“Oh, I think the pre-pack coffee is bad for those pills.” Maja interjected.

“Leave it!” Piotr practically hissed, “Are you the ship’s corpsman now?”

“Stop your squawking and drink already!” Ada pleaded, redoubling her effort of stuffing the caf-bag into Piotr’s arms. He snatched the thing from her and shot daggers through his gaze at the small woman. His expression twitched in response to her toothy smile. She was up to something.

With false trepidation he tipped the bag up and sucked the bitter concoction of synthetic coffee. “Good birdy. Do dna.” Ada chided as she rubbed Pitor’s back. A gag and a spray of droplets flew from a now cackling Piotr. Maja broke in step with the laughing coms specialist. A wheezing chuckle broke from Ada’s lips as she braced herself against the table.

“Children, not a crew, a daycare.” Nowak grumbled with a low laugh.

Ada’s eyes traced over the spheres of spit and coffee now adrift in the empty space of the rec room. It took ages to pick them out of the air. They twinkled there in the void; dim yellow light cut through them as they spun aimlessly. Entombed in endless motion. Suspended as the world faded away behind them. Blurring. Darkening. The distant echo of laughter turned to a static hum, and groans of the inner axis of the Milkyway. Dipping beneath the tinnitus of everyday existence. A moment bleeding away.

Paint in water. Stars in the sky.

The stars that night were bright, streaked with constellations foreign to mankind’s eyes. An arm of the heavens spread over their heads and across the sky. Shielded from witnessing all below.

Wind kicked the snow up and it bit Ada’s cheek. Under layers of coats, half-rotted and handed down from a generation past at this point. The cold was sifting through every layer, every fiber. Reminding her, reminding Ada that she was just an animal that wanted to be left alone. She wanted to be warm. She wanted this to be over.

Fire in the sky at sunset, the boom of ships entering atmo. Soldiers had dragged the entire community out at gunpoint by nightfall. Marched through the snow of Lethie and herded onto a perimeter wall. An officer railed about communists, and anarchists. Defectors. Each cascading speech brought a flinch to the crowd who passively awaited a firing line to erupt. Some were praying, a few were crying. Most were staring through the situation. A mother was sobbing next to Ada. Her son was about her age; eighteen or so at the time. He had put on a brave face, looking over the shoulder of the sobbing woman that clutched at his jacket.

She wanted to urge them to be brave, but she didn’t want to speak. The attention it would invite - too dangerous.

The soldiers grabbed him, they grabbed others like him. He was torn from his mother’s arms and marched into a collection of other young men and women. Fighting age, and able bodied. Conscripts for a new fight.

She was getting pulled along, exhaustion was dragging her into Lethie’s core. “- can’t even stand on their own.” one of the soldiers barked.

“She is uh…” a foreman frantically explained, “Deficient? A spill some years back - some of them were born… wrong?” The man propped Ada up by her shoulders, “She gets tired fast. Sore if she stands too long. A good engineer though, yeah?”

The sound of dragging feet through snow, not enough energy to crane her neck or form a response. Cold air filled her lungs. Pressing air. Inescapable air.

An animal moved inside of the pod, a brain was begging it to be anything else. Eyes flickered again, and light danced through parting membranes. Splotchy, dappled light that pierced near-dead retinas.

A glass ball hung from the ceiling of the dance floor. It was a crowded and dingy place. The edges of it were blurred and warped away. The crowd melded into itself in inhuman animation. Faces familiar yet indiscernible. A part of Ada’s inner mind was working overtime to convince her that all of this was real. The evidence of dreaming was kept at bay, which left her in a half-liminal state. Enough to realize that this was all memory, but that she was powerless to do much about the flow of events stretched before her.

She could see a form taking shape in the crowd. Stocky build, strong shoulders. Red hair. Her hair. It didn’t have her smile, it lacked a face altogether. It wasn’t quite there yet.

‘Stars, no!’ her mind flashed. The body didn’t listen. Ada inched forward and the room melted towards her. She faded into the arms of the woman. The faceless shape. Her brain hadn’t brought it back just yet. The sensation was present though. She could feel her hands brush over her shoulders.

Why was she here again? Why did she see her at every station? Why had her life turned into prayers to see her again? How could she be so perfect and so far away? How was a name like Tesa, so short and so wonderful?

The room was forming into a real shape now. The noise of the club was pouring in now. Heavy music that had drowned all other noise out. The din of a corporeal crowd rose over the tide of heavy beats every so often. She could even spy Piotr flashing a grin and a thumbs up from her peripheral. Just like she remembered. The brain had caught up.

Ada couldn’t bear to look up. The figure she had clung to, was moving with, had skin now. Cool and splotchy. Rough hands from a lifetime of rooting through soil.

‘Please…’ Ada begged.

“We can’t keep meeting like this, ya’ know?”

“How…” Ada asked, her brain betraying her. The tone in her memory was nervous. She didn’t want to mess this up. “Do you have a preference then?”

“Maybe we could start with names. I’m Tesa - or that’s what they call me.”

Her voice, just as beautiful as she remembered. Warm, gravely. Enveloping and ground.

“You want to know mine?”

“That’s how these conversations typically go.” she paused with a chuckle, “But if yer’ philosiphizin’ then I’ll say yer’ name is worth knowin’ right now.”

‘This is a dream’ Ada’s brain urged, ‘Please, please - not again…” it begged.

“Why do you want to know it, I can ask that, right?”

“Because I’m never going to see you again.” Tesa replied. Flat. Knowing. Ada held her tighter than before, but she had already let go. Her body was there. Tesa’s hands were there but they weren’t trying anymore.

“Look at me Ada.”

‘One last time.’ her mind howled.

‘You need to stop.’ a wiser part of her brain replied.

She didn’t listen. Her eyes traced upwards and the face was blinding. Light. Cold burning and bright. There was nothing around as her body collapsed. The world came undone as imagination, memory, and the waking world collided. For a split moment all three became one and a new thing was brought to the world if only briefly.

Ada lurched and sprung with a cough, a sputter, a gag. Frosted crystals were clung to her eyelashes. Cold sweat coated the woman from head to toe. Before muscles were responding to the mind’s demands, her hand had taken the task of liberating her throat from the presence of a tube. With another sputter she was free. Heavy breaths. She was drawing them up with effort with hands pressed against the glass while her head sagged. Vision was still blurry, dark, along the edges. All reality was reduced to a pinpoint at the center of her eyes.

With a groan Ada reached forward and pulled back on the release lever. A sickening hiss filled the cryo-chamber as fog billowed from the seals; chemico-ladden air took over the sterile smell that had presided for the last half-decade. Sharp, acrid. A gruesome scent that greeted Ada as the mangled remains of her brain were coming back online. Organic channels coming online as each neural connection slowly untangled from the Metastallers.

The reptile brain that belonged on Terran soil eroded first as the spacer remembered that she had no business still being suspended in a position that gravity would have otherwise corrected. She was staring at the floor, awaiting a fall that would never come when her senses came about. No gravity here.

She gave a kick and let herself drift to the grips on the floor. Stars, was she grateful for them. Bracing herself just in time for the rushing fluid in her brain to hit the front of her skull in a wave that bowed her head forward. Nausea spun up from her stomach in a whirlwind.

She wanted to die. She wanted to stand up. There was no standing here. No gravity here. No one to help here. There were no goodbyes on Happy Trails.

She wanted to die.

‘Stop that, Ada.’ she thought, ‘You sound like Piotr.’ She gulped another mouthful of air down. Piotr always meant it as a joke though. She had curled herself into a ball as the whirlpool in her brain turned the reconstituting thing to a slurry. There was little else to be done but wait the worst of it out. The peak of cryo-sickness always hits in the first five minutes of a thaw-cycle. As long as nothing came up she was in the green. Ada committed to resting her head between her knees - suspended sideways in the cryo-bay.

-

Ada was seated at the comms station with its manual floating next to the switchboard. She sucked another sip of Mestanine, lemon-rasbury flavored, through a straw. The entire concoction was foul with the taste of medicine and synthetic flavors, but each draw was pushing the residual cryo-sickness further away. Still, lemon-rasbury was leagues better than the peach, or stars forbid - cherry flavor. Shuddering at the thought, Ada gave thanks to the fact that neither of those were left in med-storage.

Right. Focus. With her attention centered back onto the comms station, Ada began the tangled process of moving cords and plugs across the board. It was borderline negligence that Wellerman liquidated their communication specialists but left the archaic hail-pannels in place. The greedy bastards. They could have paid people like Piotr their salary with the lost time running the manual likely ended up costing.

Void abound! Where did they keep the station frequencies?

A frustrated groan came out of Ada before she remembered where Piotr kept the list of station hailings. She threw open the socket cabinet and traced her finger down the Waysides. He could have at least put them in alphabetical order. Uttering a curse under her breath, Ada started from the top for the third time.

Doorstop - 572 - A - 3B. A three step connector.

Ada carefully withdrew the proper plug-set and started the line; Ship-Comms Radio, RF signal, channel relay actuator, and finally the identifier. 572 - A - 3B. Leaning back she gave it another look, double checking, triple checking. She stopped herself from a fourth. Worst case scenario she would just have to run the wires again.

She reached under the desk, and tapped about until she found the master button, pressing it in, she felt the warm glow of its interior light flicker to life. Holding it, Ada worked her free hand across the board, methodically flicking the necessary switches. Each one awoke wiring lights and beeping transmitters out of their slumber until the cockpit was filled with the noise once again.

A turn of the dial was all that was left, and if she did it right there should be…

Static!

The signal was received!

“Thank you!” Ada chimed at the switchboard before picking up the microphone. She turned it on and sent out the hailing chime to Doorstop’s keeper. There should have been three keepers, or at least two running the station on stimulant-cycles; the time shouldn’t matter. At least, Ada believed that until the static kept coming through after every cycle. One minute, two minutes - after the third Ada pulled the trigger to send another hailing. After letting the radio silence reach a grand total of five minutes, Ada decided to break the decorum.

“Doorstop wayside, do you read?” she let go of the PTT. Static. Try again. “Doorstop, this is Ada Drawbowski of the Happy Trails freighter, contacting for refuel confirmation.”

More static - it was laughing at her.

“Doorstop wayside, this is the engineer of the Happy Trails freighter requesting confirmation! Do you read me?” she demanded, agitation rising through her tone. “Hey Keeper!” she shouted into the mic, “Pick up won’t you? Pretend to follow protocol, yeah?” When the next wave of static came back to meet Ada, it was everything she could do to keep from kicking the desk. “I’ll check it myself then.” she said and shoved the microphone back into its slot with a thunk.

Giving a huff, Ada kicked herself to the other side of the cockpit, and shoulder checked herself to the engineer computer tower. The support beam of a thing could take it. Ada was quick to bring up the ship’s internal HUD, and even quicker to find that not a drop of fuel had been run into Happy Trails during her time docked. The tank read out as empty as when she had arrived.

She blinked, blindsided by her discovery. Immediately Ada started a troubleshoot, and when it failed to find any error or missed signals from the tank, she ran another. Same result. The tank was completely and truly empty.

A sinking feeling began to creep into Ada’s gut as the realization that something had gone wrong began to settle in her mind. Each explanation Ada tried to reason out fell apart when held up to her internal scrutiny. If she had been thawed out, which she actively was, then someone would have to manually give that command. Her breach in torpor would’ve meant someone would be present in the Wayside to have answered her hailing. If someone was present to have answered her hailing then there should be fuel in the ship.

She shot a glance at the HUD hoping to see the number had changed, or that the little tank indicator had changed from the blinking red empty to the green full icon. No such luck though. The sinking feeling had now turned into full blown static that ran up her spine and into her fingertips. Something was wrong. This was the kind of thing that spacers talked about happening during emergencies. Critical failures, pirates, wars!

Ada pushed herself back to the comms station, and desperately took hold of the microphone. “Hey!” she stumbled the words out. She swallowed, and tried again, “Doorstop keeper? Anyone? You read me, yeah?” She took another deep breath as she tried to convince herself that maybe it was just an automation failure. It just so happened to occur during a shift change. Someone was going to answer her call any minute now.

One minute. That’s fine.

Two minutes. Ada was drumming her fingers on the desk.

Three minutes. She was imagining the pirates or rebels cutting a hole through the bay door.

Now hurried, Ada pulled the lever to raise the cockpit sun-guards. As they peeled upwards, the view of the dock immediately brought the rising tension in Ada’s body to a full blown numb panic. It was completely, and utterly empty. Her breathing hitched. Not a single ship was left in port. No one left from before her arrival, and no one new had arrived while she was in cryo.

Nothing about this felt right.

The lights were off inside of Doorstop. Ada was completely marooned here.

Notes:

Like I said, she's doing fine. Nothing quite like realizing you're completely alone in the middle of space of all places.

I'm sure that somone is coming to save her pretty soon!

Chapter 4: Greater Lesser Cerebral Instincts

Notes:

Hello!

This one took a little longer than I had wanted. Turns out writing the first line of dialogue between your characters is a big thing and I got a bit stuck up on it.

Things are gonna start ramping up from here, so please enjoy the ride.

CW for Drugs mentioned, and hints of violence past.

Ada could feel her leg bouncing nervously against the floor. She pushed the air out of her lungs through funneled lips in a low, phooo noise. A hand rested over her knee, and the rocking stopped. She could’ve strangled Piotr for a cig right about now, even the synthetic garbage tasted like heaven on a memory’s tongue. Anything sounded better than whatever she could scrounge from storage - dehydrated prepack, stale bag drinks, discount stimulants. The two Hypo-Hypers she stuck into her leg were doing next to nothing to get the nerves firing. Her knee started bouncing up and down again. Two discharged dermic containers, cheap blue plastic.

Something buzzed behind her eye.

With a shift in her gaze, Ada refocused on the blinking green light of a clunky battery, now plugged into an even clunkyer charging system. She couldn’t help but wonder how heavy the charge-applicator was once it was grav’d. Had the thing ever even been planet-side before? Ada couldn’t recall, although it was unlikely that it had been built in a Zero-G factory. Three of the five lights were on and green now, the fourth was still blinking. Almost eighty percent felt good enough for Ada. She unbuckled herself from the seat and clipped the battery to her belt. That marked part one of the two part ritual. This was the easier part.

She floated in front of the locker, hovering there with a hand braced against the ceiling. A tight room, just a hair bigger than a storage closet. Stickers were strewn over the locker, one added each time it had been taken out. Warnings, admissions, jokes, whatever went through the crew’s head when they had to retrieve it. It was Ada’s turn now. She pressed a biohazard sticker onto the door and smoothed it over with her thumb. There was a crinch in the middle there, but it didn’t really matter at the moment. A little fold that would never quite smooth out.

Opening the locker revealed its only resident. A lonely implement of destruction, whose sole purpose was to make total destroy of anything in its way. It looked more like an unimpressive tube with a fat stock than the sleek military issues carried by the Navy. A bulky cylinder near the firing lever sat the charging coil. Withdrawing the clumsy killer, Ada couldn’t help but measure the thing. It was weightless in her hand, but yet…

She had seen what it could inflict

She gave a sigh and spun the thing over in her hand before she drew a cord from the battery and slotted it into the stock. A quiet whirr rose up from the rifle in stride with a subtle vibration now pulsing throughout. Ready to unmake whatever it was pointed at - only if the need arose.

She gave the lever a test squeeze, only a moment’s pressure. Then, release.

The coil gave a groan and a fizzling red flare of plasma evaporated out of the barrel. Ada put a cautious hand over the cylinder, and then up to the barrel. Warm the whole way through. She could even feel it through her glove when she wrapped her hand tightly to it.

Half a second to test - One for a warning shot - Three to maim.

Five to kill - if the need arose.

Suspended in the airlock, Ada ran through the plan a few more times in her head. Focus. Whatever was going on in the greater galaxy didn’t matter so long as she was stuck here. There was no point dwelling on the bigger picture stuff. Pushing those thoughts back was forcing her to confront the task at hand. Most importantly, fuel - gassing the Happy Trails back up. Then she could get out of this backwater, relay Wellerman, and finish the delivery. Somewhere along the way there was figuring out the - what happened here - part of things. That came after.

First there was getting inside, easy. If the station was well and truly abandoned then there wasn’t going to be trouble. If it was pirates, that was a different story. There weren’t any other ships in port, so it felt far fetched to believe there was going to be a shoot out. This place was too much of a backwater among backwaters to actually become a pirate haven anyway. Still, it helped to be prepared she thought as she measured the rifle in her hand. Giving the lever another test squeeze, the red glow of burnt plasma flickered against the black of her helmet’s visor.

Shootouts don’t happen in real life, just in data slate rent’a’stories.

Ada wasn’t a soldier either. The quickening heart rate was making that all too evident.

The next part was easy too if she pushed the idea of a killing back, it was just a matter of making her way through the station to the control center. Bolted doors could be overridden, and a crowbar would finish the job.

Then, stars permitting, she would just route any fuel she could to her ship - not her ship, Wellerman’s ship.

The galaxy at large and whatever news it had for Ada was going to wait until the next waystation. Until then…

Climbing through the hatch into Doorstop proper, Ada was immediately made aware of the weight of her gear. Even in the simulated spin-gravity she felt like her belt was about to pull her through the floor. She gave a huff as she settled onto the seat of her jumpsuit. The matter in her skull was still in the midst of reeling as the fluids in her body were suddenly called to relative order. A ragged breath pushed through the vocaliser of her helmet in a distorted groan. The damn weight must’ve started to kick in halfway up the ladder.

Damn the sun for feeding the station power, and damn the solar panels for independent operation. Frankly, damn the whole station for only being automated to the point of inconvenience.

Condensation was pooling against the visor. When the readout came back that there was in fact recycled air moving through the station's vents Ada didn’t spend a moment to question it. The helmet hit the floor in a clatter - the gloves and jacket followed. Ada was forcing stale air into her lungs, gulping it down while she rested her back against the wall. Red in the face; she was already worn out. It didn’t feel right or rather it felt too extreme for how little she had actually accomplished. Gravity always took its toll on Ada’s frame, sure, but this felt more intense than usual. She was stretching her jaw to try and stop hearing the inside of her own head.

None of this was making sense up until she really took a moment to look at her arms. The things were twigs with skin stretched over them. Her eyes went wide as she drew them up to her face, and then away to take in the full picture again. “How the hell…” she muttered before letting them fall back to her sides. Glancing down only painted a more clear picture; her jumpsuit sagged over her legs more than usual. She unzipped the upper portion and let it roll off which led her to realize that even her undershirt was loose at this point.

Gently, she traced a finger over her ribs and flinched when she felt bones poke back against them. Prominent. Every one of them. She caught her breathing, but it didn’t slow or stop the concern rapidly taking a shape in her head. The floor felt too desperate of a spot to remain, and so Ada pushed herself back up to standing. The static that clouded her vision as she went upward was the final straw. A mixture of alarm and cold resolution washed over all at once. “You’re malnourished…” she grumbled.

Cryo had a nasty habit of pulling this kind of thing, the auto-nutrino’s were what one would expect the lowest bidder to formulate. To be this far gone in just two months was strange to say the least. She considered an error in the nutrition systems, but that would be something to resolve before the next freeze, not now.

She affixed the jumpsuit about her waist since hoisting her rifle and the tools under gravity’s pull had already overheated her once. Finding her stride, exhaustion seemed to taper off a but as Ada’s body adjusted to its new environment. The slow creep that she had committed to had provided a certain level of ease as well. Each corner, every turn, and bulkhead was met with trepidation. The rifle was leveled in expectation of meeting some wayward pirate, desperate scav, or worse.

What worse could have been, Ada didn’t fully understand. It was an amorphous shape hiding in the back of her mind. All the wretched things that imagination filled in without language or reference. Everything that couldn’t be there essentially was now waiting for her.

Even with a lightened load, and not having to climb this time; Ada’s body was working overtime. Whether she wanted it or not, every signal that made it to her brain was whining about overuse.
By the time she actually reached the control center, Ada was a bundle of nerves huddled into a hunched and tired frame. The carbon scoring around the blown out door was not helping.

Wait.

Her mind caught up in a flurry. Instinct took over for a split second as she leveled the rifle down the hall onto the scene. The bulkhead was blown open, and it looked like a fire fight had taken place here. Forget ‘looked like’ a firefight did happen here. There were spent cartridges on the floor. No bodies, and no signs of injury on this side. Whoever the attackers were, they had overwhelmed the poor soul on the other side. Maybe the entire skeleton crew; three men versus a platoon at best.

Ada took a careful step through the threshold, eyes rapidly darted into every dim corner that awaited her. Other than some dried blood, there was no remains of the operator left. Ada stood over the scene, her gaze frozen over it. A fluttering weightlessness spun up her spine as she tried to reason the scene out. No body left behind hopefully meant they only shot the man to injure… That still left a slew of new questions with no answers.

It didn’t make her feel better either.

Ada knelt down and plucked one of the cartridges from the floor, and turned it over in her hand. Navy, standard issue. More questions, and even less answers now. “Why did they-?” she asked as she squinted at the insignia etched into the side. She considered if squinting was going to change anything. Surrendering the notion, she opted to drop it back to the floor.

What the lonesome crew of Doorstop did to earn the wrath of the Terran Navy was lost on her. It also left the mystery as to why they decided to descend on this place, but leave her suspended in the Happy Trails. She considered to just chalk it up to usual navy bastardry while she settled onto the central computer.

The thing sprung to life with a quiet spinning of fans. The screen flickered and blinked before the jingle and accompanying logo for the Terran Waystation Enterprises filled her eyes and ears. Rolling the former, Ada started a diagnostic program. Thankfully the codes between ships and stations in this sector were pretty interchangeable. She just had to change a few words around.

Chiefly, Ada was concerned with the fuel situation. Granted, the Navy blowing through in such a way had not filled her with much confidence. Still, she tried to do as Piotr would and remained as optimistic as she could.

She drummed her fingers on the desk. Having moved from seated to standing, Ada was now practically leaning over the label with her face a few inches from the screen. Blinking letters, and words moving faster than her eyes could catch meant everything was running. It was taking forever, but still running at least. Giving up on making it go any quicker through will alone, Ada glanced out of the tower’s window and over the star-port.

The Happy Trails was still there, as if it would have ever moved on its own. It barely moved under Ada’s command to be frank. Maja had said it stopped listening once Cap got booted. She just needed it to listen a little longer, even if it was only half listening it would be enough. “Just a little longer my big bulky friend. I promise you’ll get to rest soon.” Ada assured it.

A sharp beep, and another little jingle alerted Ada that the diagnosis was complete. Scrolling through the log, Ada was briefly shown the dire situation aboard Doorstop. The crew quarters were depressurized. The rest of the station was operating on minimal power as well. The solar panels had not been serviced in… “Five years?” Ada found herself asking out loud. One year without service was normal, two for out of the way places like this. Anything more than three years without any service, even a report meant a place was well and truly abandoned. That was a timeline that Ada could not even begin to wrap her head around. Attempting to do so was already filling her head with a certain sinking dread she was far from ready to confront.

Another mystery for the pile. So be it.

Scrolling further did little to bring some sunshine to the parade. There was enough fuel to get a burn going, even achieve escape velocity; it would make getting to a safe jump distance take twice as long though. A frustrated groan came up out of her as she gripped the sides of the monitor. She wanted to shake the thing. Every piece of tech had gone out of its way to get under her skin today. Ada would have to get near mathematical perfection for the jump if she didn’t want to end up slamming into the side of -

There was a glint just at the corner of her eye. Just at the edge of the view of the window. Her subconscious would have simply sorted it into the flicker of a star if it wasn’t moving, moving closer. Her eyes shot up as proximity revealed it was a ship, its approach was fast too.

Ada practically jumped across the room to the comms, and hurriedly flicked it on with a prayer. Stars above, enough power in the reserves. Her hand gripped a lever that would fling an emergency hailing signal - but then a moment’s hesitation followed. Her rationale caught up and tackled her desperation to the ground. Her eyes traced back to the view-port; the new arrivals were clearly station bound and it was in her best interest to know exactly who they were.

The ship was more visible, it really was moving fast. It wasn’t a make she had ever seen before. It was sleek, sleek and ornate. Nothing about it looked terribly practical, and yet, there it was cutting the void like a high-performance cruiser. The kind of performance one’d expect from a top of the line Navy vessel. The odd thing was that nothing about this thing looked ‘Navy’. It didn’t even look like some high-tech prototype.

As a matter of fact, there was a lot more it didn’t look like and that was because, as Ada now realized, she had nothing to compare it to. It was completely alien… Alien.

There were no heat blooms coming from engines, no marker or registry etched over any part of it.

The ship was even closer now, and it dwarfed Happy Trails, hell it held a candle to Doorstop. Ada blinked, a breath hitched in her throat. A primordial part of her brain was ringing every alarm that nothing about the ship was of human make.

It came to a slow stop near Happy Trails. The mechanisms that moved this thing were completely lost on Ada, foreign in every conceivable way. It simply loomed there, hanging above her - Wellerman’s ship. Something in Ada seized in numb terror. It wasn’t stopped. Nothing in space ever truly stopped, it was just in perfect sync with Doorstop’s velocity. Through no visible force, the entire thing had come here, and then slowed and pitched to look like a stopped, undocked ship in the middle of space.

The crackling of the comms station coming alive left little in the way for contemplation. Ada’s attention snapped over as the familiar sound of an incoming signal sent a wave of static through the speakers.

Ada froze, then ducked under the window. She pressed her back into the wall and took her first breath in almost twenty seconds.

“Hello, are you there?” a voice came over the radio. Human, just almost though. It sounded generated. It was big too. Big was the only word that Ada could put together at least, something about it had a weight behind it - even over comm-chatter. “Can you hear me? Systems show I’m being received.” A woman’s voice. That was… Comforting at least.

Ada inched over to the desk, slowly, as if the voice behind the message was going to reach through the speakers and seize her arm. Then, in a whirl, Ada snatched a Walkie-Talkie from the table. She fumbled with the dial, slipping it once but then tuned to the frequency of the mystery speaker and interrupted their second attempt at getting her attention with a, “Y-yeah - this is A- This is the Happy Trails, reading you.” She released the PTT switch, white-knuckled.

“You’re Ada? Ada Drabowski” the voice asked. How did she- they- it? How did it possibly know who she was?

Her entire frame had gone still as she looked at the walkie-talkie as if it had just accused her of a crime. “I-” she coughed out, “Who are you?”

“That is…” the voice paused, static filled the silence, “... A hard question to answer fully, but perhaps ‘a friend’ would suffice?”

“I do not have a lot of friends, stranger.” Ada replied pointedly. “I certainly do not know you.”

“I see.” The voice hesitated again, almost hurt this time. Ada could almost feel something bristling on the other side of the conversation. “Perhaps Ada, then I am someone that is trying to help you? Your situation is more dire than you possibly understand.”

“You don’t -”

“What year do you think it is, Ada?” the voice asked, sharply. The shift in its tone almost made her flinch. Her voice felt locked in her throat as if the speaker was somehow casting its shadow over her; at least until it followed up with a softer, “Please.”

Ada swallowed, “2551, sometime in the standard of March I’d imagine?” part of her felt wrong. Her tone betrayed as much. There was an unsure rigidity to it, a lie. “Maybe later? Perhaps April, possibly May. It’s hard to tell.”

“You’re a bit off.”

“Do not toy with me, stranger.”

“It is, by Terran measurement, the year 2556. September if you still keep track of that.” it corrected. Ada sank down, before kicking herself under the table. Shrinking into her own frame she failed to find the strength to activate her own mic, but a few confused babbles managed to slip her tongue regardless. The walkie-talkie clattered to the floor as Ada sank her head back between her knees, hands tightly gripped her temples.

Five years. Five years frozen. She twisted her boney fingers over one another, feeling them. Letting the idea sink in. There hadn’t been an error in the nutrition system, there had been nothing left to pump into her veins. Another month, she’d have been dead. Being out and alive didn’t make the rationalization feel any better somehow. Five years.

The walkie-talkie buzzed something that only registered as a mumbled audio blur.

Ada could feel it now, there was water welled up under her eyes. Tears. She suddenly couldn’t remember the last time she had cried. She could not remember if it had been long. She couldn’t place how long ago long ago was anymore. This was not a new development, just one she had not had a chance to confront since she had thawed out.

2551, what did that year even mean, what did those numbers even mean - in the grand scheme of things it was just a jumbling of numbers. How many years were they counting up from? She pounded the side of her head with a balled fist, the sharp taste in her mouth pinged something in her skull. The mangled remains of a hippocampus reminded her that it was helpful to know, ‘blood contains hemoglobin, which is made of iron.’

“Anything helpful?” she pressed through gritted teeth, spit, and tears.

‘Station architecture is beige in color - mostly because that’s what the manufacturing process produces it that way. Partially burned, undyed, synthetoplastics.’

“Ada, are you there?” the voice on the radio finally caught her ears.

In a flurry she picked the radio back up, and cried, “What are you? Do not say my friend, or a helper! What are you? What is wrong with my brain?”

“I’m sorry.” it replied, its tone was mournful. A quiet hushed nature that was almost begging Ada to stay calm. “That was too much, I shouldn’t have pressed you.”

“What - Are - You?”

“I think it best I answer that question face to face, Ada.”

“I-”

“You are on your ship, correct?”

“Wait, I-”

“Please try to stay calm.”

The thing on the other end wasn’t listening to her anymore. It sounded more concerned with how she was than what she was saying. Although, Ada could admit to herself that she had little left to say.

She pushed herself up and over to the window to see what this strange new arrival was doing. To her terror she spied a vine snaking out from the side, and towards Happy Trails. It crossed the distance methodically. Once it reached the hull it weaved over the body, and then coiled about it - once, twice, thrice. Wrapped up, the Happy Trails was snagged in its embrace. Ada watched on in a mixture of shock and awe. Eyes were wide, hands hung limply at her sides. Then, Happy Trails lurched, and the coiled vine went taught. It was dragging her ship closer. A hoarse croak came up and out of Ada as terror’s icy fingers pinched her vocal cords.

Once Happy Trails was drawn up closer, another vine came out and pressed itself up against the portside. This one was much thicker, almost as wide as a bulkhead. That is when Ada realized that was its target. It was connected to the Happy Trails’ airlock. Whoever, whatever was on the other side of the communication had decided it was now boarding her ship. It had decided that was going to happen now, there was no other option left. Her fear was only confirmed as the walkie talkie clicked back to life.

“I know this is all frightening, Ada. Please don’t make me look for you.”

Ada flinched again, then pitched the walkie-talkie across the room. Even the void of space had not put enough distance between her and whatever just said that. No, she needed its voice far away too. This thing was looking for her. She did not know the why, but frankly the why felt hardly important right now.

She sucked back a breath, the thing thought she was still on her ship at least. That was time. Time was everything now. Every second was about to count. She needed to get away, and that meant getting off this station. Happy Trails was officially out of the question - it was compromised. She glanced at the computer, no time to run an emergency diagnostic. She would just have to access the lifeboat situation once she got there. If the escape pods were in a bad state, she could hodge-podge a fix up, she just needed her tools.

Her tools! She had the basics on her belt, but the satchel. She ditched it back at the entryway. Every second counted now. She stepped a hot foot out of the control room, but circled back for the walkie-talkie.

When her time was up, this was going to help her know when.

Notes:

Wowee, I'm sure Ada is about to make nothing but good decisions from this point forward!

Chapter 5: Only Up From Here

Notes:

Hey! Apologies, this one took way longer than I wanted it to.

This one sort of got away from me, and I ended up having to split it into three chapters. Buckle up, they should hopefully come out pretty quickly. They just need some rewrites and touching up.

The next one should be pretty short, but the one after is a DOOZEY! I hope you're as excited as I am because we are rapidly approaching some fun stuff here folks.

Either way, enjoy this frantic and desperate chapter.

Her heart was pounding, she could hear every breath she gasped echoing off the back of her skull. Feet thudded against faded linoleum. The battery battered her thigh with each stride. She was barely running, jumping more so. Each step was a leap as she carried forward. Surging adrenalin was the primary force moving her now. The rifle bounced up and down in its sling, and Ada gave no thought to the bruise the stock was leaving on her hip.

There was little thought spared to the path she was taking, thankfully the trail of unbolted doors she left behind made it an easy journey back. The original path took maybe two or three hours to carve. Now, it was being crossed in two or three minutes. No amount of time felt like enough though. She was dreading the sound of the walkie-talkie coming back to life. Hissing static of an alien that realized she had lied. She pictured the human facade fading, and the terrible thing underneath dropping its caring pretense once it realized she didn’t trust it.

She bolted round a corner, and in a streak blazed down the corridor. A long straight line of a hallway that made the perfect path to let momentum carry her. She was an animal in this moment, a heartbeat that matched the fall of her boots. Thoughtless breathing, a machine that converted air into a dead sprint. She just needed to make it to the scuttle, the scuttle before that thing caught on. Then she would get her jacket, and her satchel. Her bag!

A moment’s realization struck a second too late, as her gear snuck along the bottom corner of her vision. She turned on her heels, caught the edge of her boot, and spun out over herself.

Leg went over head as her back slammed into the ground. A cry came up as she bounded up and over one more time, but the second fall concluded with a head introducing itself to floor. A loud, albeit brief introduction.

A staggering thunk filled the room as Ada rolled out like a ragdoll. She sputtered and flinched. Curled onto herself and let out a cry. She was alive, and she was hurting.

With a guttural grunt, she clawed her way back over to the hatch. One elbow digging into the ground to drag her body along; her other hand pressed against the throbbing pain.

The thought of feeling like an idiot was pressed somewhere behind the blinding panic that had fully set in by this point. Each inch closer only made the fear of something jumping out from the hatch feel all the more tangible. Her lips were peeled back in primordial preparation to lash out at whatever came. All thoughts were being filtered down into a narrowing pipe that funneled them to a single point, survive. The wet against her hand was a concern for later. Pushed back and sorted away for a creature that could afford to be concerned about such things.

The closing distance became staggering. Pupils dilated. Breathing quickened.

When her hand sank into the fabric of her satchel, Ada fully collapsed. The tension released through her back first as her body went flat against the floor. The gasping exhaustion had finally caught up. Her weakened frame was belly-downed onto cold synthetoplastics. Her legs gave a weak kick, clattering boots moved the body just a few inches closer to the hatch. With a heave she rolled onto her back now - eyes fluttered open to the blinding fluorescents buzzing in the ceiling. Twinkling beams danced against her eyelashes as she hovered between alert focus and numbing recuperation. She hugged the bag to her stomach while her chest heaved up and down.

Ada pinched her eyes shut and funneled the last of the tension out through her lips in a final exhalation.

With a deliberate motion, Ada hung the walkie above her face, and gave the check-switch a flick. The blinking green light signalled that the channel was still open. The wave of static that came through furthered the notion that the voice on the other end was still in the dark. That was round one. She couldn’t help but let a toothy smile etch its way, coyote-like, across her face. The smile broke into a wheezing cackle as the girl rolled onto her elbows, propping her body up with an animal arch formed across her spine. A cough came next in line and a spit of blood after.

Ada gave a halfhearted grunt as she wormed her tongue into the source - she had bit her cheek during the fall.

She collapsed back into the wall, her legs sprawled out over the floor while her lungs continued to make up for lost time. The line between her and the scuttle was straight now. She glanced down at her hands as the thoughts she had pushed back for later became thoughts of the present variety. There was blood there too, all smudged up into the creases of her palm. Cautiously, she snaked it back up to her temple before recoiling with a hiss. Eyes pinched closed, and toes curled. It stung. Blood dried into hair left a dancing sensation across her hand. Normally panic would have washed over at the idea of a bleeding head-wound, but Ada had nothing left in the tank to panic with. Her body had just completed the thankless task of pumping every last drop of adrenalin into her veins.

It felt like a near tranquil hangover. An everpresent calm draped over her shoulders and wouldn’t shake away.

Her gaze returned to the impact site, where her head had landed. Hell, where her whole body landed. There was a streak of blood there too, along a cut of broken tile. What luck. She groaned and closed her eyes.She had managed to catch her skull on the one sharp edge in the whole corridor. What luck.

Better a cut than a concussion though. She funneled air back out in a quiet phooo and ran her arm across her forehead. Sweat, but the droplets were cold now. Her mad sprint made Ada forget just how cold these halls were. Her clammy skin was wasting no time in reminding her. An image of a fish her mother had caught, and dragged through the ice played in her head. It landed there, and opened its mouth fruitlessly against the snow. “That’s you.” a calm tone in the back of her head noted, “Except you’re pitying yourself, because you can… You should wrap your head up.”

Ada could only agree for the most part; the first rational thought that had bubbled up from the drug-cocktail of a soup that now made up her brain. Fishing the bandages out of her bag was a rote action, however the same could not be said for her memories. She could remember the image of someone who might have been her mother, but the details around the woman were fuzzy. She was halfway through wrapping gauze round her noggin when it finally struck that she couldn’t remember the woman’s name. Same problem as before, no juice left to gas a panic fire with. Just acknowledgement of another hole located somewhere in her grey matter. Ada just compartmented it into the now growing pile of gaps in her memory.

Then, a buzz. A crackle. She felt it against her leg. The radio.

“You’re not on your ship.” the cooled voice from earlier chided, it knew she was still listening.

“You did not give me a chance to say where I was before you scooped up my freighter.”

“Are you going to tell me where you are then?”

Ada was limp now, heavy limbs, and a blank stare at nothing.

“No.”

“You’re on the station?”

“Are you asking, or telling?”

“You’re on the station.”

“Regular investi-rat, huh?”

“I’m sorry- what?”

“Fuck off.”

Ada stiffened up, and moved back to the hatch. She was going to need more time, and she didn’t have any intention of going back the way she came.

Sparks were flying and dancing against a welding mask that housed an overworked visage underneath. With a poised hand, Ada dragged the screaming white light of a plasma torch across the floor-door. Sealing the thing closed indefinitely. She was just making her second pass along the last corner. The job was sloppy, but looks really didn’t matter at this point. Piotr would probably have words about it regardless. She blinked. Pitor. She could remember Piotr.

Shaking the thought away for later, Ada stepped back to take in her handiwork. It looked so much worse far away, but it would hold. If that thing wanted it, it was going to have to bust through a few inches of steel and plastic first, that or space walk through an auxiliary port. If memory served, the only functional port was of course damaged beyond repair; at least it was in such a state according to the report.

A small wash of comfort went over her brain as Ada realized that her brain still worked, only some of the pieces were all… Scuzzed up? She pretended that whatever damage present was only of a minor variety. The rest of her knew better.

Ada pushed herself up, and the resulting dizzy spell forced her into setting her hands against her knees for desperate support. After the requisite pass where spinning gave into pain, she resumed her motion. It was just a matter of following the red line to the station’s upper level, and to the evacuation center - the only one that was still functioning. If the report had been accurate, which she had no reason to doubt at this point, all other sites were damaged via extra-bodily collisions, pressure failures, or general disrepair.

She was, however, desperately trying to ignore the sinking feeling in her gut; the report sent back that the upper-level evacuation center was still operable, just that information. There hadn’t been any mention of the lifeboats. Still, even if an evacuation had kicked off, the chances of that particular lifeboat being used was- ‘Standard construction and Terran safety parameters dictate that there have to be two at every evacuation point’ the clinical voice cut in. ‘Even if one was used, there should be one left’

At least her internal encyclopedia of station facts was still intact.

She was halfway up the ladder between the mid levels and upper levels when she felt the station lurch. Subtle - the kind of rocking that comes from a gentle nudge before one wakes up. Then, to the trained brain, the slightest shift in gravity. The spin of the habitation module compensated for a new addition. Just a brief second, a heartbeat as something connected. A reminder that gravity was synthetic here. That bump, a ship had just docked with the station.

That thing’s ship was here.

She felt hairs stand, and a cool chill trickled down her back. Somehow several inches of steel didn’t feel like enough all of the sudden. The thought occurred to her as she sat on a scuttle, that maybe this thing could punch through the hatch - some kind of forceful monster that would rip her in half for the hubris of it all. The thing in her head had six arms, and a head made of teeth now. Technicolored and dazzling to confuse its prey before it shreds them to pieces. Her heart had picked up now, rapidly spending what little adrenaline it had recouped. Another bump as the port’s locking mechanisms settled. It was fully docked now. If the thing was as fast as she imagined she had a minute or so before it was here, turning her insides into an art installment in the hallway.

Impossible. If it’s head was made of teeth, then how was it talking? She let a breath flood out, the panic went with it.

Although maybe it was a clever thing, with advanced tools - tools that would slice right through the hatch faster than she could have possibly welded it shut. Then it would probably also have a fleet of automatic drones that would zap her muscles. She wouldn’t even be able to scream when they put her on a dissection table. Their big beady eyes would glare over her and pull her apart appraisingly. Their long fingers would grip their instruments with the utmost precision, turning her final moments into an agonizing study on the human condition.

No - anything that sophisticated would have run scans beforehand and already would have known she was hiding on the station.

None of this mattered, Ada tried to remind herself, because once she hopped a lifeboat this was going to be behind her. She’d figure out the rest once she was planetside. That was only getting closer now that she had managed to start walking again - albeit a little quicker now.

Thoughts of being planetside definitely washed away the existential dread of fantastical xenos, because it was now replaced with the all too real threat of natural gravity. Something primordial was stirring in the haze of her memories. Weight, a kind of crushing feeling that a part of her remembered, very non-specifically. Up here, it was a matter of crawling into the right hatch, or sitting in the port for a bit once her body got sore. Weightlessness was just a short walk away outside of atmo. No hiding from it once she was down there. Even now, slinking through the halls of the station’s microgravity environment was taxing in a way. It hadn’t helped that the unadorned beige walls all melted together in Ada’s mind, making the trek feel all the more endless.

The uniformity came to an unceremonious close as she came upon the corridor that led to the evacuation station. Panels were stripped along the walls and ceilings here - wires were gutted and left to dangle. The one remaining fluorescent left the hallway in a sort of ephemeral twilight. Ghostly.

Ada hung at the corner, back-peddling to lean out once she felt safe enough to. There was no way to determine the recency of the work, nothing here to make dust to accumulate when things went untouched.

In a normal situation, there would have been nothing to worry about. These were, however, rather extraordinary circumstances. The idea that the alien had somehow managed to beat her here wasn’t impossible, but definitely improbable. It hadn’t said anything in some time, maybe twenty minutes since it had docked. Sucking her lips back, Ada finally reasoned that this wasn’t an ambush. It wouldn’t have stripped the hall first to let her know it was there.

The actual evac point was not in much better condition. It wasn’t just the walls and ceiling that had been rooted through; but the outlets, the monitors, the control panels. Everything. Even the lights were gone. The hopeless scene exclusively lived in a pale-blue cone of torchlight.

Ada traced the illuminating beam about the room until it revealed two adjacent doors, both different degrees of ajar. Closing the distance only worsened the sinking feeling the doors were generating. They weren’t supposed to sit like that. She gripped one and slid it back and forth - friction acting as the only resistance. The hydraulics, the pistons were completely inoperable. Leaning into it now, she slid it open before heaving her body back around to slam it closed. The metal bounced off the seal with no effect and slowly rolled back to its semi-open state. Tauntingly.

“No…” Ada groaned.

She turned sideways and snuck inside, a franticness finding its place in her motions. “No no no.” she repeated, “Please…” She sat herself in the pilot’s seat. She moved her hands over the control panel, flicking switches, turning dials. She had already worked her way through two or three emergency start ups and reset sequences when she forced a frustrated yelp through her teeth. She tried them again. A different order this time. The order didn’t actually matter. Trying different arrangements to only end up in the same dark pod.

By the fifth attempt, there were tears tracing the grime against a snarl. The audible flicks and clicks of the switchboard punctuating a rising aggressiveness to her desperation.

By the seventh attempt, Ada slammed her fist on the reset button before practically howling in frustration. “Who hates me!?” she cried. “The whole damn galaxy is levied against me now?”

She took the torch and twisted her body to peer underneath the control panel only to find it had been gutted like everything else here. It had to have been the Navy when they ransacked the place. They stripped this station for parts, took its crew, and then vanished. Probably years ago.

“And they forgot me?” she shouted, standing now, “They left me?” There was a reality where she hurled the torch back out into the hall, then heard it shatter against the wall. Instead this reality offered something more pathetic. What emerged from the escape pod was a thing, an animal that twisted into itself and crumpled to the floor. Fingers dug into the fabric of a grease-stained tank-top. Pulling the fibers taut, a gargled groan came through its teeth. When it tried to stand, it instead fell to the floor with a kick and a yelp. A lurching move, live wires underneath human skin now frayed.

The thing kicked itself off from the doorway, sliding a few centimeters further away from the dark and desolate lifeboat. Their hands wrapped around their head as the animal rolled onto its back. Its face buried into their elbows. Sobbing, screaming, even biting at its own skin. One of its hands curled into a fist and clobbered its own temple once, twice, thrice. Then it settled for pounding the floor while they wrapped their other arm over their eyes. A face smeared over with tears, snot, and spit. A mouth clenched with lips peeled back in a sneer of resignation. It snapped open there to take in a gust of air that came back as a broken sob as it palmed its face and arched its back.

She wanted to rip the station in half.

Ada sat up. A flat expression having taken over her face, eyes swept over the dark room.

Nothing here but us ghosts.

Out in the hall, Ada was carefully putting her kit back together. There was no sense in coming back here, or setting up a work station now. This plan was a complete dud - the pods were completely defunct. Getting off this station and away from the exos was going to take a new plan. Ada pinched her nose. Another plan. She was rapidly getting tired of new plans. All this scheming was bad for morale, to say the least. Shouldering her rifle, she reminded herself that bellyaching wasn’t going to get her any closer to getting away from here.

Ten steps down the walkway changed everything. As she rounded the bend, the pressure of the room shifted. A subtle pulling itched the back of her neck, as if a single thread was being drawn out from her spine. A tug that made stepping forward feel more deliberate. Then a smell rose and engulfed her. Implacable and wet. Ada’s brows furrowed as her mind worked itself into overdrive - clawing for familiarity - then it landed. A terrarium. It smelled of dirt and it smelled of plants. The smell that came up after she ran a hydro-cycle. Like the plants had been aroused from dreaming, floral morning breath.

Now the subtle tug had turned to a shift in the gravity. Time folded in on itself. Her brain was being pulled through a funnel that landed at a single point at the back of the hall, and the rest of her soul was about to go with it.

‘Run, animal.’ a sharp tone in her head commanded. Ada obeyed as she broke into a rabbit’s sprint down the passageway.

There was no looking back, there was only getting away. Something else was in these halls now and primordial synapses had fired their desire to be nowhere near it. She could almost feel something giving chase now. Every shape she had imagined merged into one terrible blob of hatred, curiosity, compassion, hunger, fear, death, life, restoration, maiming. It became capable of everything for a split second that flashed through Ada’s brain like a pinpoint of white light. Fired in a perfectly straight line and running an optimally cylindrical hole through her brain.

No matter how fast she was now, the thing in her head was faster. It was closing in, hell it was already on top of her. She was dead, and her brain just hadn’t caught up with everything that just happened to her body. She was actually ripped in half with her legs fifteen meters in the other direction.

She dared to glance back, but instead caught her eye on a low grey grate against the wall. A maintenance hatch. Mostly for doing an undignified, half bent over job of fixing circuits. Right now, a place for salvation.

Ada spun about, and slid on her knees into the wall with a thud. She didn’t bother looking back down the hall. Every second she was still breathing was a second that the thing hadn’t caught up yet. Undoing the clasps felt like it took an entire minute as all the feeling drained out of her hands. With the click that followed, Ada threw it open and climbed inside. She kissed it up to the stars that she was as small as she was. She tucked herself into a ball, and pushed herself back as she stuck her fingers through the grates to pull the panel back flush with the wall.

There she lay, with a heartbeat loud enough to alert everything to her exact location. A hand clasped over her mouth to stifle her breathing. The hatch was filled with the red glow of whatever handful of system warnings this panel had displayed for the last five years. The dim glow of the hall barely penetrated the thin space between the grates.

The pressure came back, then the smell. It filled everything around Ada, almost crushing her into a puddle in her tight little hiding place. Then she could hear it stepping. Soft, subtle. Awful. The smell grew stronger, but the pressure leveled off. The steps got louder. Closer. Closer.

Closer…

Ada’s eyes were glued open. Her mind was blank. The horrors of her imagination completely vanished now, and she braved reality with no chemical filter. Frozen in place, Ada didn’t even dare to twitch.

Then IT stepped into view.

Wrong.

The thing was massive. Filling not just the entire frame the hatch made, but the hall itself. A body made up of twisting vines that flexed themselves like muscles - all worked tirelessly to push the thing’s massive frame forward. It looked effortless in its motion; Ada always expected something that big had to put forth a lot of energy to even so much as lift a leg up, let alone step. Yet, every move it made seemed almost graceful. A body that was tuned to command itself, and every fiber listened.

Each step was in rhythm with Ada’s heartbeat - until she couldn’t tell who had synced with who.

Dark brown bark interlaced with violet leaves, petals, stems. The foliage was a shifting gradient of dark purple that covered its torso, and forearms. All four of them. Ada blinked. It had four arms. Two were stretching back, with wooden fingers locked around one another. The other two arms were hugged just under its chest. The shape was… Feminine… Human, despite the scale.

There was a hum just beneath hearing.

Its head turned, and its face was made partially visible from Ada’s vantage point. She couldn’t look away. Terror or awe, she was incapable of deciding.

It had a face too. One made of wooden plates. A mimicry at best. She could just make crisscrossed lines trace over the dark plates. Seams in a mask. Its mouth, its teeth showed its true nature. Sharp, and lipless. Almost hidden by the artistic recreation of a human face. A predator.

Then its head turned, fully now, its gaze falling in Ada’s direction.

Its eyes…

They were elaborate - like stained glass made of metal. Colors washed over them. Blues and reds, golds and purples. The colors waned and waved over the four of them in rhythmic patterns. Ada couldn’t blink again as she felt her gaze begin to pull into the alien’s.

She was looking straight through Ada as the scent of flowers and earth drowned her. The motions of her body didn’t cede once, they were continuous and perfect. The pulsing was in time with a growing urge to come out of her hiding place. Stand before them. Kneel before them.

Accept them.

Ada couldn’t feel her hand, but she saw it inching towards the grate. Just a few inches and she would be out there… With her…

She blinked and snatched her hand back into her chest, then recoiled deeper into the cubby.

Then it looked away. Something in Ada left with it. It came out as a breath that left something empty inside of her. A space where something had previously filled it. She couldn’t, for the life of herself, place it.

Her- It’s unbroken stride took it out of her field of vision. Ada only noticed she had been following it with her eyes once it was gone. A subtle soreness at the edge of her eyeballs from twisting them too far forced her to pinch the lids shut. The flowery smell was going with it too, and the thick humidity it pushed into the air was fading. Taking in a clear breath now, Ada felt her head clear up a bit. Her body sunk into place, the muscles between her tendons relaxed and collapsed.

Stars, it had missed her. Suddenly the little cubby of a hatch felt more secure than a panic room. Ada was certain there were other spots like this throughout the station, sure why not. This particular hatch was not hypothetically safe however, it was actually safe. A proven barrier between her and whatever that thing was. The image of it danced in her head and she could feel something fluttering in the back of her mind. She shook her head, forcing the image and the feeling a ways away out of her skull. Better that way.

Levying her options, Ada reasoned it best to make a nest here for the… Night? Time was impossible up here, more so without a clock. The body didn’t care regardless. Exhaustion was creeping over Ada’s frame. Her limbs felt heavier than ever at this point. Gravity, panic, and exertion had all come together to take a significant toll on Ada’s ability to remain conscious. Thankfully, if there was any place to sleep it looked to be right about here.

Getting her pack off was a task only rivaled by getting the gun off her back as well. It was an elaborate display of acrobatics and gymnastics to contort herself about the space without kicking the hatch open. An uncounted number of agonizing minutes later, Ada was left coiled up at the back of her nest behind a pile of gear. The little barricade did something to make her feel safer, almost like it was another barrier between her and the hunt going on out there.

It was almost comfortable, but she figured that perhaps anything would feel comfortable right about now. Trying to find a bright side of this, Ada reasoned that at the very least she hadn’t been on her ship when the exo arrived in the first place. That would have been a far more dire situation. She nodded. Most definitely. This had to be the best possible outcome since she had woken up half-dead and partially thawed. If this wasn’t the best possible situation then it would all be very very frustrating. Thank the stars it wasn’t that. She nodded again. Absolutely so.

She padded her jacket into the corner, and rested her head into it. A makeshift pillow certainly spruced the place up a little more too. Ada would have preferred to keep it as a blanket, but a crick in her neck was about the last thing she wanted or needed. She gave it another pat when she felt a bulge in the pocket. That was where she was keeping the walkie-talkie-

The Walkie-Talkie!

She yanked the thing out, and turned the dial. With a click, the light went dead and the subtle static went dead. Breathing out a quiet sigh, Ada felt something creeping against her neck. That thing probably heard it, but if it did why didn’t it… Grab her? It was also occurring to Ada that she didn’t know what the thing was going to do if it ever found her.

She couldn’t shake an unnatural calm washing through her mind.

Maybe it was exhaustion, maybe it was something else. She figured she had panicked all the panic she had in her body today. If it had heard the radio, it would have done something. The desire to sleep washed that fear away. At least if it tried to hail her in her sleep, there was no chance it was hearing it now. She couldn’t help but smile at her little victory over this existential threat. As long as she could maintain little victories like this, she was almost certain that she would come out of this alive. Piotr had always said that one should take a win wherever they found it. Maybe Maja said that? Was it Cap?

She lost her smile as the reality of the state of her brain came crashing back in. It didn’t pay to dwell on it. Instead, she found a middle ground with her concern and decided to circle back to it when she was out of this pinch. Then, she would take every scan, go through every test, and spare no expense in getting her brain up into working order. If Wellerman still needed engineers, then they’d pay for it. She’d seen them fix up worse before. It probably would mean an extension of her contract, possibly indefinitely, but that seemed small in the face of whatever was going on under the hood.

Another problem. Another plan. Another, another - her mind was shifting away now. It was sinking somewhere dark. Physically dark. Ada was in no shape to philosophize right now. No, a place where the world didn’t exist. Sleep. A comfort and an escape. Tomorrow, or whatever it was, would bring its own problems. Ada would fix them. She was going to keep fixing her problems until they were done - that or they would kill her.

‘Until you’re dead or done.’ the cool tone chimed in.

Then, oblivion.

Notes:

Was it drugs, exhaustion, bio-rhythms? Who's to say. For now our poor Ada is finally catching up on some much needed rest. She IS five years overdue for a nap after all. Hope you all enjoyed, thanks again for reading.

Chapter 6: Prognosis

Notes:

Remember when I said this chapter was probably going to be shorter? Woopsie

Here I am attempting to write from the Affini perspective again. Hope you guys enjoy living in Dipensa's head for another chapter!

CW: Some mind-fuckery, and a little medical blood drawing.

The narrow halls that made up Happy Trails were flooded with the uncaring glow of flickering fluorescents, where dust particles from its previous occupants hung. Twinkling. Every crevice was suffocated by the memories and drowned by a reminder of everyone who had floated through these passageways. A crew used to live here. Used to. Even then, it was a skeleton crew that populated this freighter. Each one had a job to do before the waves of automation thinned them away. Once four, then three, soon two, and finally just one. The last one left, make no mistake, only wore the costume of a human. The Engineer cannot be trusted.

Suspended and stationary; Dipensa had poised herself in a bulkhead with vines wrapped about the girders, and others pressed into the ceiling or floor. Descending into the rec room, her eyes remained locked upon the mural plastered over the wall behind the conversation pit. It was a simple thing, made up of flat colors - a depiction of the people that had crewed this vessel. The shading was clumsily made out of straight lines. It almost looked like a propaganda poster. The message would have been a declaration of admiration, even love for these individuals in place of a nation. They still had their jobs in the painting, each one was depicted in their service to keeping Happy Trails afloat. Planets and stars made up the elaborate background of a navy blue backdrop.

Dipensa’s gaze moved over it, taking in the details carefully. There was a bald man with a long face, spying the space between distant stars with a telescope. His lips were taut, and focussed.

In the midst of the crowd was a tanned woman with neat black hair, at home in the seat of a pilot. Her eyes were closed in meditation while her mind became one with the ship’s.

To her right was the frail looking engineer, suspended in weightlessness and wreathed in broken metal. Her focus was upon some small device she was working on.

Behind the three, and larger than life was a pale older man with thick white hair and narrow eyes - he was overlooking the crew, proudly, with hands on his hips. Not a captain, the idea of one made manifest. A spacer forged over a lifetime.

The Affini's eyes remained fixed, breathing in the image. These weren’t people anymore, they had become myths contained to this ship alone. Within the mural they had been stripped of their flaws, and celebrated for everything they were or could become. Dipensa’s attention remained on the engineer. Glancing at the still on her datapad, Dipensa couldn’t help but compare the two. The vibrancy displayed in the mural was nowhere to be seen, the defiance to her fragility seemed fully surrendered to now. The worry crept back in, a little heavier than before. If only she had been here on the ship, and not hidden somewhere on a half-derelict station.

It was only fair though - Ada’s reaction. This was all startlingly new to her. At least, Dipensa was trying to remind herself of this fact. The poor thing had only been awake for the last thirty-six odd hours. Every terran Dipensa had encountered had been given five years to process the shock. Ada had barely been spared a day. Despite that, she hadn’t been hostile. Colorful in her word choice, but not hostile. She didn’t answer their hailing with an activation of an automated defense system. She also wasn’t hidden in some corner with a rifle to blast Darce or Dipensa at first sight. She was just hiding. Hiding was natural. Dipensa could work with hiding. That, she could be coaxed out of.

She gave another look at the mural. The wreathed woman was still, unmoving. She was just an idea here. The real thing, the woman behind the myth, was somewhere on Doorstop.

That unfortunately did mean bringing Cadlio into dock.

The modular interface of Cadlio thankfully allowed it to talk to the station. The shuttle itself was a bit of a prototype - blueprinted in the last couple years to interface with Terran tech. Their stuff, terran structures were rigidly unflinching in their designs. Bulky, practical, and crowded. They demanded that everyone and everything else fit within it, exist within it, without much concession. And yet… It relented. The right push, the right pull, and it integrated seamlessly with Affini hardware. It just needed the right touch. Terran things always did.

By the time everything was situated, Dipensa found that Darce had already moved onto the station. Rejoining them came at the end of a long walk, or float rather, down the station’s docking chambers. They all funneled to the singular entry-point. A rough design, but this wasn’t a station made for regular visitation after all.

She caught Darce at the base of an overused ladder, its red paint had been chipped away revealing tarnished aluminum underneath. Their eyes were cast upwards. “I have to admit, I hadn’t considered the stark difference that would exist between civilian and military vessels.” Dipensa said as she stabilized next to her companion. It was only at this distance that she caught the flickering of Darce’s eyes, and the quiet frustrated hum coming out of them. “I take it you’re not in a place to talk about everything I found in Happy Trails?”

Another pause. Dipensa folded one set of arms, while the others rested on her hips. The upper set of her eyes narrowed. “There was a mural, you know.” she offered, letting the words carry a lighter tone than she felt. No response. Just pink vines of Darce’s torso tightening around themselves into a coil.

“Oh have a care, Darce!”

“She welded the hatch shut.” Darce said. Dipensa looked up now, joining her companion in confirming that - yes, it was definitely welded shut.

“Well…” Dipensa huffed. “That qualifies as active resistance, doesn’t it?”

“I’d say so.”

“Well we can log it down. Not how I wanted this to shake out, but its insight nonetheless.” She tilted her head, Ada did it fast. A few streaks where she overshot the corners. Frantic. “Kind of cute, in a way.”

“In a way.” Darce met Dipensa’s gaze. “Did you talk to her again?”

“She had some choice words for me,” Dipensa admitted with another glance upwards.

Darce hummed, “Cute, in a way.”

“In a way.”

The hatch hadn’t budged an inch during their discussion, so it was safe to assume that was a constant in the universe for now. Neither of them quite wanted to commit to the chore of slicing through it just yet. Thankfully it wasn’t something culturally significant so there would not be any call to be delicate about it.

“Hey, Darce, you spent some time on linguistics a couple years ago, right?”

“I did,” Darce fluttered, “even wrote a thesis on initial translation limitations.”

“Do you know what an ‘Investi-Rat’ is, by any chance?”

“A what?”

“Nevermind.”

Eventually the two came around to the agreement that they would both work on cutting the hatch open - even if this left the work space a crowded tangle of vines. A dazzling twined display of bright blue flame that hissed out of the ends of their respective plasma cutters. A slow tracing motion. From the other side it appeared as two motes of blinding light - circling in opposite directions. Cooling orange streaks were created in their wake until they met where the other started. Then, in a flash all that was left was smoke and the sound of groaning hot metal. The smoke caught against the light, outlining its swirling patterns. The cut was pushed up and slid aside by the two behemoth figures.

When they stepped about, the first of their focus was the dried dash of blood across a tile. An attempt at a bandage discarded nearby. Dipensa had taken to nervously hovering over Darce’s shoulder while they examined the scene. It was Ada’s, Dipensa knew, yet a part was hoping that Darce would say anything else.

They didn’t.

“It doesn’t look severe.” Darce said, while they stuffed the bandages into a bag. “There’d be a lot more blood otherwise.”

“Are you sure?”

Darce glanced up, “Dipensa.”

“Sorry, yeah.”

“She’s fine, probably. Even if she isn’t, it’s nothing we can’t fix.”

“I’d rather not have to-” Dipensa shifted, reassessing her words, “I had hoped this would be a conversation.”

“It still might be.”

“I’m being a mess.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I’m just used to working with things that don’t hurt themselves. Art, dataslates, literature… Artifacts of the sophonts – not the actual sophonts.”

“Exactly. This is new to you. That’s why I’m here. It’s why I’m telling you - we’re still in the green.”

Dipensa felt a knotted coil unravel somewhere in her chest. Darce’s calm was her calm now. “I am glad you’re here.”

“Always.” Darce hummed.

“Which makes it hard to ask-” she hesitated, “I think you should stay on the shuttle.” The second part came out all at once.

“Dipensa…” they groaned

“I think you’d agree that in your expert opinion, she’s likely frantic by now. Seeing just one of us is going to be a shock - imagine two.”

“Well then in my expert opinion, the xeno-biologist amongst the two of us should probably carry out any acquisitions.” Darce folded their arms. Their third eye narrowed sharply.

Dipensa deflated, “You’d be right about that. Yeah.”

Darce sighed before closing the distance between themself and the hole that they had left in the floor. “But… This is your find, and clearly you have an interest in how this plays out.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to-”

“And I don’t want to get between you and someone who might be your first floret.”

Dipensa’s throat tightened - the weight of the word caught and she didn’t even have to say it.

“I- Darce! That’s not what I’m trying to get at-” she sputtered

“Absolutely, stalking through her profile on the way here was a matter of clinical study.” Dipensa’s plates buckled nervously. “I’m going to undock though. If she slips by I don’t want her sneaking her way onto the shuttle. That’ll make all of this very messy.”

“I’ve got you on comms.” she breathed.

“Just contact me when you’re ready.”

“Darce.”

“Yeah?” They were halfway through the hatch now.

“Thanks, I’m still glad you’re here.”

“Even when I’m just waiting on the Cadlio?”

Dispensa chuckled, “Darce- Yes. Of course.”

“Likewise. Be smart - she’s a living thing, not some dusty artifact.”

Darce’s departure left Dipensa with the realization that she had just elected herself the sole explorer of an extensive off-beige maze. Her eyes flicked up one hallway, then another, motion half started then halted. ‘A vantage point.’ The title made it feel less like stalling. Ada was still hidden amongst one of these halls. More so, Darce was right - she wasn’t an artifact. She was a living breathing thing that was actively trying to avoid her. She wasn’t buried somewhere, she was dodging her gaze. She wasn’t waiting to be discovered half forgotten in a dig site.

Any choice felt like the wrong one.

She closed her eyes, and pressed two of her palms into her forehead while the other two rested on her hips. She was pacing again. Moving sure, but it was the pointless kind. Her hands fell to her side all at once as her head kicked up in a petulant groan.

She got that out of her system.

When her eyes opened again, they focused this time on a series of placards that hung on the wall nearby. A wall mounted crossroad - suddenly the maze made a little more sense. Anyone coming onto the station could and should be able to get anywhere from here. It made sense to have it here at the entryway. Now it was just a matter of retracing Ada’s steps - if she could do that faster than she could take new ones then she was going to find her. There were no two ways about it.

Cafeteria - food probably wasn’t Ada’s first priority right now.
Dormitory - even if she was tired, it was too obvious. She was more clever than that.
Auxiliary Maintenance Storage - probably not, but not impossible. She might be scavenging it.
Control Tower - the station’s larger functions were probably not a concern. Unless…

The Control Tower!

When Ada answered her hailing she had assumed it was from Happy Trails. Evidently, wrong given the circumstances. However then the reply would have had to come from somewhere. Dipensa’s finger tapped the glossy card. Where else but here?

Ada was definitively somewhere else by now - she didn’t start off by welding her only reasonable exit shut. Trapping oneself is not something someone just did on a whim. A small pang of guilt hit Dipensa at the realization - she allowed herself one last over the shoulder glance at the hatch before rounding a corner. That was panic. Panic she hadn’t intended to create. The intention didn’t matter at this point.

It wasn’t long before Dipensa was on something of Ada’s trail. A series of dissected doors breadcrumbed a path towards the control tower. Each one’s emergency bolts had been disabled and the bulkhead wrenched open. A gentle push as she ducked through one gave no resistance. The thing simply yielded into its cavity. All the tension had been forced out of it. A carved path that was easy to follow. Dipensa only hoped that she had made it so obvious through the entire station.

At the control tower, Dipensa found herself in the scene of the forgotten shootout - just as Ada and time before her had left it. She knelt down to pick up one of the spent plasma cartridges, rolling the inert implement of destruction in her hand.

“Darce it looks like - well something bad happened here.” Dipensa spoke to a communicator as she bowed under a bulkhead into the control center.

“Bad how?”

“Like a fight between some terrans - a shooting?” she replied, glancing back at the scene. Scorch marks coming from the defenders angle were far more sparse.

“Recently?”

“No, it doesn’t look it. It looks like multiple attackers went after whoever was in here.” She grimmanced, how frightening it must have been for the poor soul.

“In where?”

“The tower.”

“Maybe pirates, probably the Accord’s navy - records put a fleet not far from here.”

She blinked. “You think they’d do this to someone?”

“Oh certainly - especially since they’ve gone feral. They were probably ‘acquiring’ resources or however they justified it.”

“Grim…” Dipensa noted as she knelt down over an ancient blood stain.

Her body was rigid as she refocussed - there was a living thing amongst all this that needed her attention. Letting her attention fall from the grizzly scene didn’t feel right, but what else was she to do? Terrans had a way of creating this feeling it seemed. Would Ada make her feel this way? Dipensa suddenly didn’t know. Her core pulsed, kicked, and tightened.

There was a blinking computer screen on the other side of the room. Thank goodness. Dipensa vacated the hole forming in her head and put her entire being onto that little device. It was probably very normal sized actually, maybe even bulky by terran standards, but Dipensa was hunched over the thing. A diagnostic was plastered over the screen. The timestamp made it evident that it was Ada’s work, too recent to be from anything else. None important save for the highlighted section from its search function. Another clue, and a big one. Ada really wasn’t being careful. Dipensa couldn’t fight a certain smug relief that washed over.

That was until the words, 'lifeboat', and 'emergency escape' fully registered. They reflected off Dipensa’s widening eyes. Namely, her attention had been locked onto the one that read, 'emergency station operational', amongst the other non-functioning varieties. Her plates rattled, and her vines coiled underneath.

Dipensa hurriedly traced the series of halls that would lead her to Ada’s planned departure into her mind. Before another moment was lost, the affini pushed herself up and bolted back into the maze.

Her body hammered against the floor, all concerns for quiet pacing were long forgotten. The sound of a forest in a windstorm gusted through the halls to the tempo of wooden legs clacking against manufactured tile. Her mind was racing in time with her sprint. If - when she caught up to Ada she would convince her, not force her. Convince her that firing herself into space was the wrong option. Once there was a face attached to the voice, the girl would understand that she was here to help her, not hurt her. Obviously she was a far easier sell than potentially depressurizing in a half-decayed pod.

Her vines lunged her body up through a hatchway to a ladder’s obsolescence.

She barreled straight, the next left only led to a supply closet.

The void wasn’t a better choice, Dipensa knew Ada knew that. She knew she would make the right choice. Running there was just to be sure the girl knew every possible choice she actually had before she would make it. It wasn’t doubt. It certainly wasn’t fear. That’s why her pace was picking up, because she was so certain of it.

She rounded a bend only to have her forward momentum brought to an anti-climatic halt. All the emotions, none of which were despair, were filtered together and rendered down into a sudden burst of raw confusion. The evacuation station was a disaster, a far cry from the operational designation the report had given it. The area was breathable, sure - that must be what passed for operational on Doorstop. The entire thing just from the entrance was completely stripped down, and a murky blackness presided over everything beyond the threshold of the doorway. Every possibility was within that dark room.

All potentiality was suddenly extinguished by a thumping nearby, something moving. Just off the adjoining hallway the sound of boots clunking against the floor was echoing up and around. Dipensa craned her neck to catch just a fading glimpse of something darting around the corner at the end of the hall. A flash and it was gone. The sound of her boots was getting further away.

Dypensa remained a motionless silhouette filled with potential energy. She could feel the buzz of her core like it had a mind to vibrate through her chest. It took a moment, but she did manage to push out a step, and then even managed another one. Before long she had resumed continuous motion. Walking, not running. She wasn’t going to chase the poor thing down. She wasn’t going anywhere anymore. The lifeboats were out of commission, she was out of plans.

She didn’t need to make the girl feel cornered too.

Then the footfalls suddenly stopped, vanishing from the audio-plane as if plucked by something unseen. Dipensa had been walking in time with them, and their sudden ceasing brought her to a similar halt. Deliberately now, she brought herself past the turn to see a bizarrely empty hall now stretched before her. A long straight-away that would not have permitted the girl such a swift departure. Eyes scanned for anything - any sign of her presence. Terans couldn’t do that - cloak?

Sense came crashing back into Dipensa’s head when she spied along the base of the wall a black grate. Low to the ground, but big enough for something to crawl inside. A glancing detail had it not been for one of its securing bolts discarded on the floor nearby.

She was cornered. Something inside Dipensa tightened up. Any confrontation would come off as an attack - Ada’d become inconsolable. The affini was unconsciously keeping her stride. She would let the girl hide for now, she wouldn’t go far. She could just wait her panic out.

She just needed to confirm it, to assure herself that Ada was here -

A turned glance - a shadow moved.

Ada scurried a little deeper.

The flurry that wound into Dipensa’s head left a feeling that her head had started to float independent of her body. A dreamlike haze took hold as reality collided with the countless scenarios that had played through her head. A remarkable find was half unearthed right before her. An arms reach was the space between her and all the questions she still had about answered.

Inches.

Every tendril in her body buckled, and unwound just enough to relax the whole frame.

Her intentions betrayed her restraint.

Eons of evolution eked out past the conscious mind - her eyes became a menagerie. They had transformed into a delicate pattern carefully constructed over millions of years. Their purpose was to enrapture, to distract, to command. To focus another creature's entire world into a single focal point, and draw them out. To beckon them closer…

Dipensa was unconscious to it, her restraint locking its full effect away.

It was still enough to start turning Ada’s thoughts into a fuzzy static - she realized that as she saw the shadow lurch around.

Just a few more seconds and she’d be out here… She wouldn’t have a choice!

Dipensa blinked, then snapped her gaze away. She pressed a palm into her forehead as her pace quickened. It traced down, and one of her fingers prodded at the surface of her eye. The warmth emanating from it brushed her finger in return. Her brush rustled as leaves flipped over themselves - embarrassed. She sank down the wall at that point, two of her hands were cradling her temples, and the other two were covering her face.

“Just a bit too excited.” she thought to herself. Just something to be aware of next time - hopefully soon. She would just wait there, seated on a dingy floor, in a gutted station, in a backwater system, in a forgotten sector. She would wait for her thoughts to collect, and she would wait to try again with Ada.

By the time her head felt clear enough to function, Dipensa realized that at least an hour had passed. She perked her head up, and shot a glance up and down the way. Still as abandoned as before. “Guh…” she coughed as she rubbed her temples. She had a bad habit of losing herself into those meditative states - Darce had taught her how to do it some time ago and now she kept doing it unconsciously.

Stepping back to the grate felt somehow both monumental and effortless at the same time. Kneeling down felt the same. It was probably better that it felt effortless for Dipensa, she didn’t want to get excited again. She needed Ada to be cognizant - she wouldn’t learn anything from her if her brain was turned to static. The affini closed her eyes, and let the feeling fade. This was going to be routine, like any other find. She had decided.

“Hey.” Dipensa sputtered out. Far from routine to talk to her finds, but she reasoned that it could be a little different. A small deviation felt harmless.

Her core wasn’t buzzing like earlier, so she figured that she was safe in that assumption.

“I don’t mean to startle you - I hope you know that.” She wrapped a knuckle against her knee. Her lips tightened as the gap between her statement and an imagined reply widened. “Are you-”
She leaned down to peer inside, “Oh.”

She was still there, nestled into a corner and tucked around herself. Sleeping. Peacefully. She could feel her lips curving into a smile, just a twitch at the corners. “Hey. There you are.” she mused as she tilted the grate up. Secured it in place with a tendril.

Bathed in a glow of red - washed out and blended into the shaded recess of her hiding place. The thing - the untrustworthy Engineer. Dipensa stared with admiration. She still saw the human it was wearing. She was buried in her clothing, raggedly worn away by a half-decade of neglect. Dark hair wreathed a taught and freckled face.

She smiled. Ada stirred. Dipensa held her breath.

The affini braced her body against the wall as a set of her hands carefully swept under Ada’s frame. She was light, and lifting her up required much precision, but little effort. She carried her away from the pale-red hole she was buried in, then undressed the rifle slung about her shoulder. Depositing the implement of destruction to the side, Dipensa cradled the small thing in her arms. Deprived of violence, Ada was laid bare before four flickering eyes.

She turned the girl in her arms like lost glass that was riddled with cracks.

She could feel the hum in her core build as the warmth from Ada’s body seeped into her hands. The world around her was still in comparison now. Ada stirred again, her lips parted then pursed. Dipensa studied the movements, losing herself in their subtlety.

Then her eyelids fluttered, and her lashes began to part. A squint that dragged Ada from a dreamless void ushered her into an alien glow - an inescapable display of light and patterns. Her eyes spasmed, her mouth twitched. Then, all at once Ada went slack.

Her eyes were wide open now. Her pupils dilated. All thoughts were dragged away in an instant by an unseen force. An act of mercy had spared her from the momentary terror of the unfamiliar, and delivered her back into thoughtless oblivion. Now however, it was all achieved sleeplessly.

Dipensa realized she should look away, but she couldn’t. She watched as the dark centers that were Ada’s pupils grow and grow. The reflection of her fractal display dancing against them. She wanted to keep the girl there - to wrap her up and carry her to safety. She wanted to watch those eyes of hers come back to awareness just to see it fade again under her gaze. Over and over again.

Her smile flickered.

Carefully now, she tilted Ada’s head back, and pressed a palm over her eyes. “Not like this.” she mumbled, shame fraying her voice. “I’m sorry, Ada. I really hope you don’t remember this.” She began to dip Ada’s body back towards her hiding place when one of her arms limply fell to the side.

Dipensa’s attention fell onto it. She wasn’t going to allow this interaction to become meaningless. A tendril snaked from her back and over her shoulder. It coiled its way up Ada’s arm where the petals of a pale white flower opened to reveal a needle within. The flower went flush against Ada’s arm and her lips went taut unconsciously. Her fingers twitched as a deep red color began to flood the nectaries. Slow, pulsing even in time with Ada’s heartbeat. Her body gave another jolt, her arm flicked up, but one of Dipensa’s quietly seized it in place.

When the needle retracted from her skin, Dipensa placed a strip of pale-purple plant matter over the wound before even the first drop of blood could trickle out. She pressed it flat into her arm, and ran her thumbs to smooth it over. A small hum came up out of Dipensa’s frame as she carried out the task.

She was looking at the flower again aboard the Cadlio. The red running through its floral veins were fading into the computer its stem had been fused into. A greater metabolic panel was slowly coming into view across the monitor as more of Ada’s blood was fed into it. The slow process of it all had enraptured Dipensa far more than an incomplete readout ever would though. Darce stood in the doorframe, her arms folded and her eyes squinted.

“You just left her there?” They repeated. Dipensa snapped out of her haze and looked over her shoulder. Darce leaned their head forward, urging their companion to elaborate.

“I didn’t - you make it sound like I abandoned her. I… I’m giving her space. It’s different.” She tried to put her focus back onto the flower, “Besides, how many more times are you going to ask me that?”

“I want more than a short reply. I want an explanation.”

Dipensa turned around now as Darce closed the gap. “I told you, I wanted it to be a conversation.” she relented. Darce’s arms remained tightly locked across her chest. They weren’t satisfied. “I got a little carried away, and she wasn’t in a position to talk.”

“Meaning?”

“She’s a bit sensitive to outside influence…” Dipensa explained, “So, I’m letting her sleep it off. I figured I know where she is, I know she’s going to be out of it for a few hours, and if that’s the case then I should just run a quick test.”

“Something non-invasive?” Darce prodded as they stepped up to look at the monitor, joining Dipensa’s side.

“The least I could do given that I couldn’t drag her here, yes.” Darce shot a glance. “I couldn’t risk them waking up here - who knows how bad it’d freak her out!”

“Right, and waking up after your influences will go smoothly I imagine?”

“She won’t remember it.”

“You’re certain?”

“She wont!” Dipensa’s voice cracked off the walls and Darce recoiled. Dispensa crumpled into herself with one set of arms holding her head up, the other covering her face. “I’m sorry…”

“You’re afraid she’s going to remember.” Dipensa nodded. “You think she won’t want to talk to you.” She nodded again, stuck being only able to give silent confirmations.

“I’m… Sorry - I shouted at you.” A pathetic voice crackled as Dipensa stole a glance upwards. Darce’s vines went tight, then relaxed. They reached a hand out and patted her back.

“I was being testy. We’ll just not make a habit of doing that to each other. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” she replied with a small smile twitching over her face. “Let’s see what the read-out’s got for us.”

“Probably won’t be done for another couple hours, but we can still get some ideas from it.”

The panel from Ada’s blood was in fact still growing. Each drop from the sample that coursed into the computer gave a torrent of new information for it to work with. The list of everything that was inside her was growing, rapidly. It was vast - too vast. The two affini looked on with equal measures of concern.

“Darce? Humans aren’t supposed to have that much in their blood, are they?”

“No.”

“This is bad?”

“We’re still figuring out what exactly are the long term effects of prolonged cryo,” Dipensa could hear the shake in Darce’s tone, “We haven’t had a lot of extreme cases to work with though…”

“Darce?”

“This… This is what extended cryo-stasis does, evidently…”

Notes:

Look guys, they finally met! Nothing bad happened, and nothing bad is happening!

Chapter 7: Fool On The Hill

Notes:

Get ready, this is where it kicks off folks!

CW -
A criminally long run-on sentence
Space is terrifying
An Affini ignores consent
Minor injury

A coughing fit is what woke Ada up this time. An intention to move seized her mind, but the body didn’t listen. Buzzing signals that nerves wouldn’t register. Finally, in a lurching motion, Ada sat up, the hacking fit that followed sent her doubling back over. Each cough sent something rattling inside her chest and scraping up into her throat. Warm droplets splattered her hand as her body fought to push it out. Through a blurry haze she saw blood speckled against her skin. Her expression didn’t move as her eyes narrowed onto the sight. She dusted her palm into her pants and pushed herself out of the hatch.

She managed a gulp of air. Ragged. It stung to breathe. She twisted round and reached back into her bag. Freeing a canteen, Ada greedily took swigs before her body forced her to breathe. She took it and poured it over her head because she thought - she believed that it was going to stop the internal, and unceasing pounding in her skull. Tepid water washed over her and clung to the splits of her hair, and dripped off the end of her chin. Dropping the canteen, it clattered against the tile unceremoniously. She hugged her knees, and buckled her head against her arms. A shudder washed through her as the swelling pressure behind her eyes built like her head was expanding.

The pressure fell through her and ruptured her body as every nerve woke up at once. Each one fired a signal up her spine that something absolutely vital inside of the machine of her body had come to a grinding halt. The feeling was twirling now. It was doing a somersault through her head, and in her lungs, and in her stomach. Her insides had turned to acrobatics. Every organ in her body was alive and she was aware of it. They were in there, and her body had become too small for them. The water came back up.

She was hunched over the floor, shaking. Buckling. Her fingers scratched at the coarse grout of the tiles, searching for purchase against the cold floor.

She sat up and rested against the opening of the hatch. Half of her body leaned back further and she pressed her head into the floor, closing her eyes as the nausea finally washed away. All that was left was the chill of stale, recycled air. Another shiver slithered up the length of her spine as the sweat now clinging to her was cooling against the artificial breeze. She clutched at her jacket and began to tug it over her frame - first the left arm, then the right. She pulled it up and over fully now. There, at the periphery of her sensation was a phantom feeling. A lack of a signal where the material of the jacket hitched and then brushed over. She rolled her right shoulder, working it into the interior. The phantom feeling remained.

Now freeing her Arm, Ada pivoted it about and craned her neck to look down the length of her arm. Running a hand over it, her fingers found something fleshy that bulged against her skin. Her eyes followed and found a purple strip of foliage pressed into her flesh. Light in its color, it tickled her skin since she had become aware of it. It was warm and pliant to the touch. Little bulbs between its fibers glowed faintly. The flickering’s tempo progressed as she watched, as bewilderment took hold it doubled with her heartbeat. Then it flashed as she recoiled with a gasp and a flinch.

Her fingers dug into it, peeling at its edges.

A whimper came out of Ada, her boots kicked at the floor. One leg went straight while another hitched at an angle against the grout. She couldn’t look at it. She let her fingers do the searching, sparing not a single moment to consider its presence. Once purchase was found she pinched it and ripped upwards. It lifted away from her skin with almost too much ease - but then caught at the midway point - another frantic yank and something pulled free out from her arm. The floral strip had been peeled off leaving little more than a pinkened spot and a pinhole behind.

There was a loss of tension, a tension she hadn’t noticed until it was gone.

She brought the strip up to her eyes, pinching and drawing it between her fingers. The glowing bulbs had gone dim, and the warmth had already begun to fade. It was cold and dead now. Her lips were parted with clenched teeth, eyes that refused to blink. She traced the center and saw twinkling in the light – a strip of white roots dangling from it. A red film traced its length from its previous place being buried in Ada’s arm. She hadn’t noticed her breathing speeding up. When she squeezed the bloated bandage something inside of it sloshed slightly.

A loud yelp came out of Ada as a drop of her blood ran down the length of the roots. She flung the bandage hard and it slapped against the wall - then slid down leaving only a smear in its place. She promised herself that it was dead as she recoiled away from it.

A mixture of her blood and some pale translucent ichor was pooling about its body. The two traced lines around each other like oil over water. Beads of the pale liquid sifting and collecting along the dark red.

Tears ran down Ada’s cheeks as her hand tightened around her arm like the bandage had a mind of its own to spring up and latch back onto her arm. She fought back a gag, but her mind conjured the image of the roots worming back through her muscles against her will. The grimace on her face tightened a final time, and she ran the tension through her hands, waving them down at her sides as a low “Eewww” drawled out of her.

By the time she had collected her belongings, Ada had at least managed to steady her breathing. She managed to tighten the strap of the rifle’s sling far more steadily than the other preparatory tasks. ‘That thing did that to you’ a frantic voice in her head reminded her. She ran a knuckle under her eye, pushing the salty streak to the side. ‘You’re going to be brave about this’ the cooler voice added.

She checked her watch - three hours of sleep was going to have to be enough.

If it had found her already then it was really only a factor of time before it came back. That monster and her eyes flashed through Ada’s head. The image in her head was closer somehow - like the grate had been removed. So close as though she had only been inches away. The picture in her head became fuzzy, and a light breezy feeling swept up through Ada. It brought her to a stumble as she braced an arm against the wall, and a palm against her face. She wouldn’t suffer to picture its eyes again. Instead she left that place, skulking low with her ears attuned.

Doorstop was compromised and there was no means of escape left to consider. If there was a means of egress, Ada no longer had the time or isolation to find it. That only left the lifeboat on Happy Trails, and that still left Happy Trails captured by the aliens. She groaned at the scene through a porthole somewhere between the mess-hall and a dormitory. The foreign vessel had just undocked from Doorstop and as it pulled away she could spy Happy Trails still engulfed in its mass.

Sneaking on next time it docked was out of the question. Either the alien would find her again, or she was going to have to slip onto its ship alongside somehow. She couldn’t wait this out. She was groaning again. This one was low and droning. Exhalation that vocalized her frustration. She had that much at least. It was hard to find dignity while her head sank against the reinforced glass.

She put her hands on her hips, “You’re an engineer, Adrabowski!” she chimed - her voice taking on the high gravely tone of Piotr’s. “That means you fix problems, so hop to and engineer us a solution already!” Her posture sank and she threw out a half-hearted thumbs up. “I’ll get right on it. Blueprint program’s already… Spinning up.” she muttered.

She traced her eyes up onto the strange mass of the alien ship, practically motionless out in the void. Happy Trails was coming by again on another rotation of the ship’s ring - on the apoapsis of the spin it felt close enough that she could just walk to it. Her eyes narrowed. She could just walk to it in reality. The idea still forced a shiver through her body. She just needed to cobble together another idea by the time she made it to an airlock, some movement would shake another idea loose. Definitely. Absolutely.

Ada was on the third pass of checking the seals in her suit for leaks when it had dawned on her - she was stalling at this point. The requisite two-hour breathing exercise had already come and gone.

She had tripped the emergency bolt on the entry-door on the way in because her subconscious knew she would have backed out otherwise. A glance revealed the red lights surrounding the bulkhead were still flashing. An audible tick flooded the room every time they turned on. They were on a five second interval - 2 seconds, tick-on, hold for one second, tick-off, repeat after another two seconds. A self inflicted metronome that measured a dread that Ada couldn’t ignore.

The suit was a burnt orange – an ugly, and clunky ensemble. The boots were big and heavy. They were at one point white, but had degraded to some sad grey, some awful beige. The gloves made her fingers feel too big, any delicate task was rendered impossible by them. Other stations had sleeker suits, more modern ones - why she couldn’t be marooned on a station with better suits was beyond Ada - why she couldn’t be on a station that didn’t fall apart after five years was beyond Ada - it was beyond her that she had to be trapped in a derelict airlock with a ticking emergency-bolt! She had slammed her foot down before she realized she was looping her frustrations again.

Nowhere but forward left, Ada.

She stood before the exit bulkhead while an internal siren blared throughout the airlock. Warnings for what was to come next. White fluorescents had given way to orange spin-lights. A mechanical hiss lurked underneath the cacophony of the depressurizing room. Her breathing was bouncing off the sides of her helmet. Internal vents did wonders to keep the polycarbonate from fogging over, but did little for the mounting terror.

All at once sound flooded out of the room along with the last of the air molecules - one in the same they were rushed into the void to float without aim or end. The door was wrenching open, its grinding servos muted by the absence of atmosphere. All that remained were the rigid vibrations reverberating underfoot. The stars reflected off of Ada’s visor, concealing the wide eyed stare underneath. The reflection betrayed an awe-inspiring wasteland where no living thing belonged. To call it a black expanse was a disservice to the menagerie of horror that was now laid bare for Ada’s witness.

The tides of the Milky Way streaked across the plane of Ada’s vision in dark outlines that drew out from a ceaseless background and colored lights twinkled between those gaps whose shining light had traveled over eons and they were here now and they were laughing at her, she was frozen there looking trapped and staring, bits of metal were caught in the orbit of Doorstop there, they were sunbleached, they were made ragged by - they were shredded by radiation, there was nothing else out there because everything else was so far away and space was too big to care if she could see it and the light of the station only revealed the immediate, baking everything in an unmoving shadowless glow and an animal made of bones and meat did not belong out there because the vacuum itself would have ripped her to pieces if it got the chance, it would bake her in sunlight and rend her against the cold, it would kill her if it were able – but it was the suit that stopped it – and it would kill her if it could.

The ship was there too, and it was moving because Doorstop was rotating. She had to leave soon, she had to leave now. The station would keep rotating, but the ship would never move. The fingers on her left hand twitched involuntarily.

Undoing the tether line felt far more immense than the simple action it was. It was there for an engineer who needed to cling to the sides of the station. Ada was an engineer that needed to cross the expanse from one celestial body to another.

She closed her eyes and took a step -

From the airlock a lone body tumbled, twirling into the yonder of space. Freed from the tether, she was locked into a perpetual motion with one leg stuck out, arms flailing. It scrambled for purchase against the unchatching tide of the cosmos. Limbic-like animal instinct had taken over the host body, leaving her desperately fighting the lack of gravity with bodily reactions that had no place here. The sunlight glinted off the reflective surface of her visor in a dazzling flash, a spectacle for no one.

A solitary thought shot through Ada’s head as the conscious mind lunged to reassert itself against the primordial structures of her brain. It told her, ‘Your MMU, force begets force here!’ She snapped a hand around the lever by her hips and slammed her thumb over the ignition. A stabilizing stream of air fired out from the pack, then another as she shifted the lever about under her grip. The vibrating waves of panic in her head had been stretched out and steadied into a single point of focus. Its oscillations now centered on one mote of distress. A universe of abject terror that loomed through the viewport of a helmet that Ada starred at with gritting teeth.

The spinning had stopped, but the world still felt like it was closing in around her. She sent out another steady stream of air, noiselessly hissing from the bulky tube slung to her back. Now it propelled her forward. Like gravity, forward didn’t exist out here, but fuck it, from Ada’s perspective it was forward enough for her to not dwell upon it. Forward meant towards the ship. Forward was any direction that got her on the lifeboat. Forward was anywhere but the vacuum of space. Every second exposed to it was another second that lent itself towards a catastrophic failure.

She crossed the point between Doorstop and the alien vessel - the open ocean of her situation. She had already hyperventilated twice.

She made it to the shadow of the strange ship - but had retreated so far into her head she couldn’t bear to examine it.

She floated at the airlock of Happy Trails. Her vision had narrowed to a single hazy point. A gloved hand moved at the center of the dot, desperately clawing for the latch.

By the time Ada had stripped herself free of the suit she had crumpled in a twisted ball that floated in a now pressurized room. All the nerves in her skin buzzed while her hands opened and closed. Her eyes were locked straight ahead. From a distance she looked catatonic, but her mind was still alight with the flashing images of all the disasters that could have occurred in the last thirty minutes. She was dragged back into reality as her back gently bumped against the ceiling of the airlock. Her eyes caught on spherical droplets, floating by her face, “Am I crying?” she asked with a croak of a laugh.

“No tears on the Happy Trails.” she mouthed to the voice of her crew.

She couldn’t stay here. The ghosts were surrounding her.

Ada traced her way up the hall, her left hand served as the guide. It gripped the holds along the halls, giving direction to her movements in the microgravity. Her other hand steadied the rifle by its firing lever, leveled and ready to annihilate at a moment’s notice. Her fingers tensed their grip around each bend. Desperately, she just wanted to make a break for the lifeboats, but this wasn’t a standard ejection anymore. There wasn’t going to be a rescue ship or rendezvous. It was going to be planetfall - that meant a hard landing on Providence. That meant she needed the emergency travel pack.

If Ada remembered, they still kept it in the cockpit - since Piotr had started using the lifeboat as a drunk tank. Funny then, nerve racking now.

The Happy Trails had been docked against that ship for the last nine or ten hours - how many of the aliens had snuck aboard and how familiar that had become with Happy Trails was an unsettling mystery now. The task of navigating the hull wasn’t a familiar one anymore, like that halls belonged to the threat now. Those things were lurking in every corridor, in every crevice, in the vents, in the bones. Their roots were coiled around the ship’s veins now, and no one had been here to rip them out. It was too late for Happy Trails.

Providence was visible through the window of the cockpit. Hanging in the view, it was a small dense rock that clung to its thick atmosphere. Nowak called it a humid ball full of misery and bugs and frogs. Fortunately, it was a colonized ball of misery - one that housed a spaceport five years ago. So long as the colony was still operational, or at the very least the port, then it was her best means out of this system and back on her path to Tera, and Her... The dream woman. Her brain struggled to create the image again, and there was less time to dwell on it than she wanted to spare it. Still -- the image in her head left a pit next to her heart.

“It’s a gamble.” Ada admitted through a grumble. She was digging through cabinets, and peering inside lockers for the emergency kit. The plan relied on a lot of moving parts that were out of Ada’s control. One variable out of place and she was going to be more stranded than before. “It’s a gamble.” she repeated. She hadn’t even considered the state of Tera, or the accord at this point. Five years wasn’t the longest stretch of time, but in the brief interim a new species of xeno had entered the stage. A pretty formidable looking one Ada reasoned with a shiver as the shadow of the colossal vessel above cast its shadow into the cockpit. Was it war? If that were the case, she would be blown to pieces long before she even got close to Sol.

One step at a time.

Finally, one of the lockers relinquished the pack. An externally framed backpack with a few synth-canvas packs cinched to its titanium barred body. Manuvery it was clunky, even without gravity weighing it down, she loathed how hauling it around planetside was going to feel. A muddy-brown hat of a similar material was next to it, one of Maja’s. She snagged that too; it’d pay to have something to keep the sun off her head - Maja was still taking care of her somehow.

There was also the cartridge-catcher; naturally she’d need it for the calculations if whatever abandoned ship she ended up finding on the potentially abandoned colony didn’t have one. She also couldn’t stand the thought of one of the xenos overwriting Nowak’s tetris score.

Before she floated on, there was one last item to take care of. The memory had smacked her as she moved to the door for what she realized was likely the last time any human would ever be in this room. The last will and testament of Happy Trails hung silently.

As its reality settled deeper, a pit formed in Ada’s stomach. Her eyes locked onto the rabbit’s foot that hung over the pilot’s seat - suspended in a ceased animation as if it had frozen mid bounce. She was staring at it with a duffel bag over her shoulder six years ago? No, the cryo cycle shifted that – eleven years ago. “The last crew left it here, I’m pretty sure.” Nowak explained. “They did not leave much, mind you, but they made a point to leave this… I figure that we will have to do the same.” He reached a hand up, stilling it, “It’ll be good luck for the next crew… Unless.” he gave a stern look back at Ada, “I don’t like to think such things, but if the ship’s lost, I think it should leave then. Would hate for a relic like this to just be lost here. It seems unfair, no? Fate is cruel, but what are we to do? All will happen as it may.”

Ada withdrew the rabbit’s foot from its little hook, the soft leather string it was attached to curled into her hand. She pulled it over her head, and tugged it down to her shoulders.

She gave the final heave and hoisted herself into the lifeboat. Cramped and dim. The only light came from internal artificials. A calm had settled, the type of calm that came after bad dreams. The terror of the prior reality slipped away while the stability of the true universe promised safety. Traveling the length of the hull fell to a blur where Ada envisioned every possible terrible – even violent, end to her journey. Somehow, none had come to pass - not even the slightest bump in her path other than the hitches brought on through her own paranoia.

A daring plan begets a clean exit, she reasoned.

She was halfway through when something snagged about her leg. A tight grip around her ankle. Her motion hitched – slowed – her forward drift lurched to a deliberate stop. Terror wiped her mind blank, then the tension peaked and yanked her backwards.

A shrill yelp was pushed out of Ada’s lungs from the force. Instinct seized control and a hand snapped up and desperately clutched a rung on the ceiling. Her body was drawn taut across the shuttle – the force behind it relented, maintaining its hold but not tugging.

It was the ship! It wasn’t going to let its last crew member go! Ada pulled, but nothing gave. No – it was something else, she could feel it coiling around her ankle.

Her eyes shot back and she saw a pink tendril wrapped around her leg, inching up her calf. At the base of the ensnaring grip was another one of those monsters! This one was made of pink vines wrapping around one another. Three pink glowing eyes glared up at Ada. Several more vines extended from its back and braced its body in the hall. A whimper escaped her throat as she desperately tried to pull herself forward, but another tug denied her even the slightest advance. “Please!” Ada cried.

“I’m not trying to hurt you!” a vibrating voice declared. Feminine, flanging. Ada saw it’s face though – it didn’t have a mouth – no mouth at all! It was just mimicry – a killer xeno wearing a human disguise. Another tendril brushed Ada, this time against her body. She bucked just in time and her satchel ripped free instead of her.

“Stop!” Ada screamed.

“Dipensa’s humored this game for too long, Ada!” the voice chided, like it was scolding her. A vine managed to wrap around her stomach now, and another around her arm. They pried Ada free, all the flailing in the world did little against them. Their force was immense, irresistible, but somehow immeasurably gentle. They restricted, but never squeezed.

Despite her struggling, the tendrils maintained their hold - tighter - closer. She kept waiting for them to crush her, but that part never came. Instead, they gently reeled Ada back towards the door. Towards the alien. Ada’s face twisted from strain back to horror in an instant as she redoubled her efforts to wriggle free.

“You had a chance-” the creature lectured “-to just talk to my colleague. Instead you’ve chosen to resist her at every turn, insult her, and now this foolish gambit!?” Their eyes narrowed. “Fortunately for your safety, I have no such notion."

Another vine extended out from her shoulder, ending in a flower. The coiling tendrils that bound Ada pushed her into the floor. The flower was poised over her face, and angled at her neck.

Slowly, the petals peeled back to reveal a needle that glistened with red sap.

“Let me go!” Ada cried as she thrashed harder than ever.

“Hold still. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Then stop this!” Ada was screaming now.

A vine gingerly coiled around Ada’s head, then constricted it in place – twisting just enough to tip her chin up. “This is just going to help you relax, I promise.”

Ada’s eyes darted, more frantic than ever. A red button sat primed by the door – the emergency launch – salvation!

“I said,” she shouted as she reeled her leg back, “knock it the fuck off!” Her boot battered the button and the alien only had a moment to widen her eyes in surprise. The actuator slammed the hydraulics home with several tons of force. In an instant, the tension vanished, a spray of red sap spattered Ada as she gasped a free breath. The severed vines still twitched against her body, ghost signals still trying to command them.

Ada kicked herself out from under the dying tendrils.She drew in a ragged breath – no time – ignition was about to fire off. The pilot’s seat! She just had to buckle herself down before the thrusters kicked. She drew the straps over her chest, and clipped them together just as inertia shoved her back into the cushioning. She flicked a switch and a heads up display flashed over the metal, a rudimentary simulation of the shuttle’s surroundings.

The pod was a torpedo that surged forward, anything in the way of its cargo’s swift departure was just debris to be cleared. Ada could feel debris from Doorstop pelt the exterior of the shuttle. Then, nothing. The station, the aliens – her ship. It was all left behind. The droplets of sap had streaked across her face from the inertia. An outline of providence swelled across the windowless HUD of the shutas Ada set the protocols for atmospheric entry. Calculations surged over the screen as the lifeboat reorientated itself for the inevitable landing.

The sun was hanging low on the horizon as morning crept up over the terrain. A crackle resounded through the sky and a flaming ball of light pierced the atmosphere. The inside of the pod was groaning and shaking as it struggled against the blinding friction outside. Flames licked the length of the hull. Ada’s head was knelt against the strain, and each kick and jolt of the lifeboat made her flinch.

There were only a select handful of ways to get from space to the ground, and unfortunately Ada was now subjected to one of the more rudimentary means.

It had shed just about everything to get here, somewhere its thrusters were up in orbit pinging for a retrieval that was never going to arrive.

A bang resounded through the hull as one of the heat pads screamed off the side and burned away – more followed exposing the emergency underlayer. The whole pod shook like a hurt living thing. Ada was praying even if she didn’t believe in anyone on high. Regardless, she was hoping the grim old god of space would hear, or at least the god of flame and flight maybe.

If it was going to happen, at least it wouldn’t hurt. Tears trickled from the corners of Ada’s eyes and swept up her temples. She didn’t want it to end in a flash. She didn’t want to just get swallowed up by the fire before she even had a chance to think.

By the time Ada felt the thud of the pod meeting earth she had managed to call to every god Maja taught her about. The pod fell silent as if the entire planet hadn’t tried to kill it on the way in, not even an indignant groan from the stressed aluminum. Ada dared to unbow her head, her eyes carefully traced her surroundings like some kind of trick had been laid out for them. Like the fire would suddenly remember it made it inside the shuttle and flood in all at once. Scatter her atoms across the mesosphere. Then she laughed.

It was a hysterical wheezing kind of laughter that filled the gap of silence. The weight of absurdity that surrounded her situation washed over her like an incoming tide. How many things had to have gone wrong for her to end up in a half burned out escape pod, at the mercy of some unknown xeno threat, after being frozen for half a decade? Her head tilted back as the laugh gave way to a dry cackle. Despite every probability, she had somehow made it out alive.

She tried to stand before she unbuckled the straps, and was smacked back into the seat with another chuckle. “Stupid girl, Adrabowski.” She couldn’t stop grinning. Everything was awful.

She opened the shuttle door and was greeted by cool air that hung thick with humidity. She emerged upon a barren hill - composed of dirt, rocks, and dead wood. A lonesome fool stood silhouetted upon the hill, her figure stripped of identity against the rising sun. A pale orange orb that trembled against a green horizon of great forests. Trees whose scaly trunks reached up towards the sky with dizzying stature. Fern leaves that plumed in their canopies, which coughed powdery green clouds of spores.

Just past it all, there were towers, spires, hazy in the distance but distinctly artificial.

Notes:

Welcome to the feral arc! Been real excited to get here!

(Been warning everyone that Ada only makes good decisions :) )

Chapter 8: There's No Money Left

Notes:

Ada embarks on the start of a grand journey, and even makes some new friends! I had a lot of fun writing this -- I hope y'all enjoy the change in scenery. I for one am glad to not have to describe beige space station halls for a little while.

CW:
- Bugs
- Exhaustion
- Drugs
- More Bugs
- Manipulation
- Guns
- Butches with guns

There were definitely bugs on Providence. Ada could hear a droning buzz that rose up from the wooded green made of competing performers who waged their chittering songs against one another in a contest of who could be the loudest. In short, the noise was unavoidable. Sweat clung to Ada’s skin, refusing to join an already saturated atmosphere. It stained the fresh bandages against her temple. She had a pair of auto-noculars trained up towards the sky with her lips peeled back as she squinted into the boxy device. She was waiting to see a twinkle, a speck, a flash. Anything. She searched for any sign that her pursuers were still out there. Nothing. The sky remained an unchanged blue-orange haze. They couldn’t be very far behind, and it was not unreasonable to assume that they had space-to-land capabilities that exceeded the lifeboat’s. Best not to linger.

She turned a dial on top of the ‘noculars, pulling the focus away as she tilted her head back level. The towers, blurry in the distance, centered in Ada’s view. “Okay…” she hummed to herself as she pressed her thumb into a button. The auto-noculars whirred and buzzed while a line traced the horizon. Computations flickered over Ada’s field of vision as she held as steady as possible. Finally, the clicking stopped and a distance of 83.6 kilometers flashed across the screen. Give or take a few since she did it without a gyroscope.

Her expression sank and then went slack.

Five days of dehydros in the emergency pack, and a gas-burner set to cook it with; a tent and a bedroll too. The compass and the auto-noculars. Even a water filter. All of that and more to keep her alive, sure – but every pound strapped to her back for 83.6 damn kilometers. The rifle too, she couldn’t forget the rifle. That freak with the needle snatching her personal effects was the only relief on weight – hardly a welcome one.

She caught herself grumbling again. “Look at the positives, Adrabowski,” she groaned as she hefted the pack onto her shoulders. There were enough straps to spread the weight around, and the padding was something akin to comfortable. “You’re still alive, and don’t even smell bad yet.” She just had to clear seventeen kilometers today, keep a north-west heading in a primordial jungle, and avoid any deadly fauna or flora along the way. “Easy peasy. It’s just foreign territory you’ve done no prep-work for,” she chimed. Her boots clunked and kicked against the rocky soil.

Amongst the underbrush the world rapidly transitioned into perpetual twilight. Massive trunks spread across terrain at great distance from one another. Their canopies reached high into the sky, and as such shrouded the land below. Sunlight arrived in dappled flickers, and only so when the wind deemed to part the leaves. Sparse ferns clung to life amidst the forest floor, they grew between deadwood and root networks. A desolate floral environment whose only residents so far were insects. Ada was grateful that she only heard them so far. That luxury didn’t last long, however.

Arthropods dominated the surface of Providence. Ada had just stopped to breathe when the log under her seat shifted. Something scraped the soil – dragging through it roughly. Her attention snapped down to spot a long, segmented bug. It had to be at least as long as her arm. Its body was low, platted with black chitin and bright yellow legs that extended out. It dragged along, using a hundred or so of those prickly legs in unison. Ada recoiled back, springing to her feet with a yelp. The creature seemed just about as interested in her as it darted across the ground and under another half-rotted log. Ada remained stunned, her chest heaved up and down, and her eyes darted around their surroundings. Suddenly any bug could have been hiding anywhere.

It wasn’t long before Ada had found herself an entourage of fluttering nat-like insects that buzzed around her head. Thankfully, her welding goggles had kept them out of her eyes thus far. She just had to be careful to mind her breathing, lest she accidentally swallow another one. She assured herself that it wasn’t buzzing in her guts – that part was just in her imagination. None of them had seemed to have evolved the idea of chewing on mammals yet, so Ada was also grateful for that aspect. It however, didn’t stop them from haphazardly thunking against her skin.

Squatted by a stream, Ada grunted as she tried to keep the dispensing end of a filter flush with her canteen. She had already had to start over after those gnats snuck in twice now. She hoped the third time would actually be the charm. She gave the bag another squeeze as the yellowish-green water she had scooped up was pushed through. It was some iodine-based one-step gizmo that did the work of a filter and a purification tablet. Probably one of the fancier pieces of equipment Happy Trails had. Still, squeezing it wrong would knock the seal off kilter, and then bugs, curious about the canteen’s dark interior, would fly straight in.

Suddenly her uninvited companions disappeared. Their buzzing and thunking vanished from thin air. Ada straightened her posture, lifted her goggles, and swiveled around for the source of the sudden evacuation. She had twisted almost completely around when she spotted it. A bulbous looking, slimy critter was busy dragging itself along the stream-bed.. It was flat and round, about the size of Ada’s torso, with three big yellow eyes. It was somewhere between muddy brown and sickly green. Its limbs were partially evolved flipper-feet. It used them to shuffle awkwardly through the mud. Its cheeks sucked in, then bulged out as a low croak spilled out.

It stopped mid slide, and lazily glanced up at Ada – the eyes blinked out of sync with one another. Another croak, and it resumed its path. In the near distance, another swarm of bugs dove out of its way. “Oh they hate you!” Ada chimed as she darted to keep pace with the amphibian.

The remaining hours of Ada’s hike were made virtually bugless by her new traveling companion. Sure he slowed the pace down a fair amount, but that was a fine enough toll for pest removal.

“That’s the crux of my situation,” Ada explained as she strode along, “I have failed to understand my situation beyond the immediate, and maybe that has been my problem.” She looked down at the mud caked critter while it bellied out another resonant croak. “A fair point, yes. Perhaps in times such as these, the immediate is all we can focus on.” The amphibian allowed a beat of silence to pass, which urged Ada to continue, “Take our situations-” Ada adjusted her pack with a grunt, “-Pretty similar, no? Neither of us can think beyond our basic needs right now.” She took a few long steps forward and stopped so that her new friend could catch up. “Therefore, I will propose a partnership. You keep bugs away, and I keep you company.” She watched as it crawled past her before resuming her pace in tandem. “Then it is agreed. So long as you continue West.”

“You will need a name. Slime will work for now.”

Slime had buried himself somewhere nearby for the night, leaving Ada to her chores before the swarms realized he was gone. She had set up her tent, a glorified lean-to with a net to keep the bugs out. The twilight of the forest had begun to rapidly darken. With no clock to keep the time, Ada had thought to set a timer on her compass about an hour into her trek. Eight or so hours she had been hiking, give or take a few with how much her feet were aching.

The underside of her pot was bathed in the glow from her burner’s steady rush of butane fueled flame. She bent down to check on the boil of her water when a spark snapped out and caught against a leaf. In the breadth of a second, the entire thing had been engulfed in licking fire. “Ojej!” Ada shouted as she stamped it out, “Dupek! Nie zadzieraj ze mną!” She dove for the burner and snuffed the flame out with a sure flick of the dial. “Co za gówno…” she groaned. “High oxygen…” she added, defeated.

The meal had to soak a little longer since she hadn’t been permitted proper boil. Still, better a luke-warm meal than a full scale disaster. Open fires were now out of the question. Too dangerous. She took another spoonful of what was supposed to be chicken and dumplings from the bag while bugs thumped against the net. It was mostly a bready chicken-type goop. She mulled the flavor over as she chewed on the last mouthful. It wasn’t terrible. The flavor had something to be desired, texture could have been better too. Regardless, it was distinctly edible. The whole situation could be described similarly. It was the best she was going to get, given the five year interim.

Dinner settled about the same. A prevailing nausea resided over Ada. Something in her guts churned against a stopped cog.

The bed roll was the worst part about all of this.

The world of sleep was an elusive locale. Years now it had been that Ada fell asleep wreathed in weightlessness, or at the worst pushed down by weak spin-gravity. This was real crushing force. The kind only the dense core of a celestial body could materialize. A presence that pulled her into the ground with a mind to drag her to its center. No matter how she lay, Ada could feel the pressure of her body sinking into the ground. It pushed against her bones, it squeezed the air out of her lungs, it pinched her skin. Between sleeplessness, visions of the woman from before this nightmare flickered behind her eyelids - it chased oblivion away. The glowing figure lingered across the dance floor. A disco ball shimmered incandescent light against her holy face. She was beyond perfect. Ada shouldn’t have talked to it. It wasn’t real anymore.

She ignored that notion.

She chose this.

“Hey… You? I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name…” Ada mumbled.

Something skittered amongst the brush. A rolling breeze flapped the synthetic fabrics of the tent.

“It’s still me – I think.” She swallowed. “How are you?”

The figure behind her eyes didn’t acknowledge her. A radiant and perfect shape – why would it ever talk to her?

“I wish I could remember you better, but you feel important to me.”

It didn’t have eyes, just a halo of light. Beautiful light. Soft light. Warm light.

“I just have – had one more job. It’s uh – It’s taken longer than I hoped.” Ada could feel her throat tighten. “I think I have to get to you… I’m pretty sure you’re in Sol.”

Shimmering now.

“It was supposed to be a free ride, you know? Cost me the last five years, apparently.” She rolled onto her side and traded back pain for rib pain. She chuckled, “And – my luck, you’d probably say, I made some enemies. Except they’re aliens. They’re trying to be nice to me. It’s all some kind of freakish trick.”

It felt like some terrible confrontation happened next.

“That doesn’t matter though… I’m going to make it – back to you, I mean.”

She wanted the woman to say anything. There was only a hole there. All memory of its voice had been washed away in a deluge of neuro-dampeners. ‘Don’t say it’ the calm voice urged.

“I…”

‘Please, for yourself.’

“I love you.”

It didn’t feel any better.

When Ada woke up, it was to a chorus of chittering that began when the first beams of sunlight speared the canopy. The forest was alive again. Soreness wracked her body. Her feet were about to fall off, and every bend felt like it would snap her in half.

Breakfast consisted of a nutrition bar; a sawdust flavored block with a texture not unlike rubber. Chewing the wretched mass alone probably burned half of the calories packed into it. Once she finally worked it down, it settled into her stomach as a mound of concrete.

Unable to shake the drag of the morning, Ada withdrew a stim from her pack - a bright blue, plastic autoinjector. The side was flush with instructions, warnings, stipulations, and disclaimers. The majority of the space was taken up by fat white letters that read Better-Bio Co.

As she rolled up her pant leg, Ada tried to give little mind to the bones now flush against her skin. Her fingers prodded against the flesh of her thigh and searched for the most give. Once she found it Ada sucked a breath back, and jammed the needle in. The breath pushed through funneled lips as the cocktail of pain-killers and uppers found passage through muscle fibers, then into her bloodstream. By the time she withdrew the injector, the sting had already vanished. The haze that had clung to the edges of her vision faded, then sharpened. The next breath was easier, cleaner.

With her gear packed, Ada found herself bent over with her hands sunk into the mud. Her fingers twisted deeper in as her arms sunk into the muck now up to the elbows. “Where the hell are you?” she grunted. Then, slick skin brushed her fingertips. Like a predator, Ada lunged and grasped around the mass as it tried to retreat downwards. Her grasp sunk into Slime’s soft body, who gave a protesting croak while he was dragged out of the sucking earth. He came up with a loud slosh, and then was deposited unceremoniously onto the ground with a wet plop. The bugs cleared away from his presence.

“Time to boogie, friend.” Ada said while she shook the mess from her arms, “There is a long day ahead of us.” Slime remained splayed out over the ground. The sack-membranes along his neck inflated and deflated indignantly.

Ada waited for the blob to spur into motion, but as she realized that was where he was going to lay she groaned out towards the sky.

Ada stomped out of Slime’s sphere of insect influence, and retrieving a branch, she swung it through a gnat swarm. From the mass of buzzing, a slew of broken winged and cracked exoskeleton corpses rained down. Each one as big as her thumb. Their yellow blood coated the stick.

She returned to her unmotivated companion, a gnat dangling on the end of a string about the stick that killed it. She wiggled the morsel over Slime’s field of vision. All three of his pupils centered and dilated before his mouth opened. Instinct overtook his body as he nudged forward. Then, at the last moment, it was yanked away. Slime didn’t give up as he inched towards the illusion of a free meal.

“That’s better,” Ada breathed. “Onto greener pastures, you and I.”

Slime's unevolved brain was ripe for manipulation like this. He trailed at Ada’s pace today, his mouth opening and closing against attempts to snatch its elusive prize. She dragged Slime a fair distance before she let him actually snap his jaws around it. It wasn’t long before she had a new gnat on the end of a thread to coax her companion back into crawling after her. As far as Ada was concerned, it was a good partnership.

The duo kept to the streambed; a recent dry spell had left it mostly traversable. It was an easier walk than trying to navigate the ferns and under-tumble of the surrounding forest. Plus, the moist soil was good for Slime’s skin.

Silent hours of hiking droned on. Growing exhaustion and soreness drew Ada’s perspective into a singular forward motion. Thoughts stretched out into a thin line that her boots traced a path over. Every break Ada took never felt long enough, and each time they came to a close it was harder to get started again. The straps from the backpack had dug into her shoulders – their weight pressed into her collarbones. The buckle around her waist had pinched the skin which left a bruise along her hips. Discomfort was the word of the hour, and by the late afternoon it was the stim that was keeping Ada upright.

The two came to a breach in the treeline when the sun hung low against the horizon. From it, color exploded outwards. A thin golden line stretched over the sky, its gradient faded upwards into a pale purple that bled into what was left of the blue. Long shadows encroached upon the land below; the eternal twilight of those forests had escaped their wooden prisons. Slowly it blanketed the sunscorched soil. Night winds had already begun to kick up dry, loose earth. It was swirling against the orange haze of the late afternoon. The trees had turned into dark spires whose plumage caught the glow of the sunset, dappling their green with vibrant shades of the passing star. A display not made for sapient eyes. A spectacle that would have played out regardless of an audience. It didn’t need one. It simply had one this time.

The sun rose and set over a trillion worlds, and then another second passed.

The gully emptied into the clearing; a lowland where multiple streams converged. The waterways cut the land into flooded sections whose remaining solid ground had been reduced to muddy inlets. Thickets of ferns and clubmosses grew along the waterlogged byways. Beneath the surface, life churned within the water as fins cut through the tension - something slithered through the primordial pools before splashing upwards to snap an unfortunate bug out of the air. Swarms flitted through themselves in churning masses of white, sunlit specks.

A trepidatious step forward proved fruitless as Ada watched her boot sink into the mud. She was weighing her options when Slime scooted and slid over her boot. Her eyes snapped down just as he bounded over a ditch and his body penetrated the murky black of a pond, then disappeared without a trace. All that remained were a few bubbles that now popped along the surface. Ada blinked. Her companion had reached his destination. “Fine,” she muttered. “Fine,” she repeated as she stamped forward. Her boot sloshed into the earth, and settled, she dragged it through the turgid slop rather than pick it back up. Tracks formed behind as she trudged along her path. Bugs already began to buzz circles around her head now that Slime had departed. “I can manage this.” Ada said, her voice trying to affirm against a reality she was already irritated by.

Ada pushed forward with the mess now bound up around her shins. Minutes of slogging only dragged her deeper into the swamp. Grumbling and cursing. She pushed past a tangle of brush where she found only more sunken land extending out into the distance.

Revealed by the bend was an old mech unit, half submerged in a shallow paddy - One leg blasted with a hole clean through its knee. Its arms hung limp at its side, the servos in them long since fried - the scorching around the shoulders proved it. The thing would never move again.

Ada flinched when she saw it, and would have buckled back had her feet not cemented her in place. The rest of its beige body was pockmarked by the kinetic impacts of a forgotten battle. Mosses bunched into its joints and nestled between unused radiators. Wooden supports were propped against its left side, keeping the whole frame upright like someone had wanted to keep it from falling over - as if it could ever be fixed.

It died a long time ago.

Ada squinted at the mech. A red insignia on its chest was half-scratched away. It peeked out from bushy moss. Then, a silhouette stepped out from behind one of the legs – rifle raised.

For a moment it felt like a dream.

Panic fired through Ada’s muscles, and she hoped speed alone could save her. Muck seized her legs – with a yank she pulled one free and broke into a long-stepped run. The rifle traced her path.

“Hold still,” a woman’s voice called out, slicing the din of insect chittering. “I don’t want to have to shoot you!”

Ada couldn’t keep steady. She wrestled with the straps of her pack – no gear was better than being dead. Her feet came out from under her. She went down with a shout – her body slammed into the ground with a splat.

“Stars above, girl!” the rifler shouted.

The pack had pinned Ada down to the ground with its uncaring weight.

She dug her elbows downwards and tried to push herself back up, but all she managed was a grunt before her frame gave back out under her.

Ada’s face was half submerged in the mud, hot breath blew bubbles into the wet slop that had ensnared her. ‘They’re going to bury you here,’ a hostile voice warned her, dripping with an urge to act. ‘They’re going to blow your head off, and bury you in a swamp.’

She could hear them trudging closer. Wet steps sinking into the ground, louder and louder. Eyes that blazed with hate, Ada saw their legs out of the corner of her vision. Her fist tightened. Her body became a loaded spring as she flung her arm out in a final desperate push.

The figure ducked left and in a flash they were over Ada. A black, heavy boot dug into her chest, squishing Ada down into the ground. The barrel hung only inches away from her skull.

An angular faced woman glared down at Ada. Her features were rigid and sharp, her expression was tight. Shrapnel scars blanketed the left side of her body and face. One eye had been turned to a milky white, the other a piercing blue that looked straight through Ada. “I’m going to ask you some questions. Got it girl?”

Ada responded with a stare of her own, her face twisted into a defiant sneer. The woman nudged the barrel against her cheek. “Speak up. I know you have a voice in there.”

“Fine.” Ada snapped through gritted teeth.

“Good. You’d do well not to lie to me, girl.” The woman’s fingers twisted, readjusting their grip over the rifle. “What is your name?”

"You plan to get friendly?”

“Do you want me to kill you?”

“Drabowski.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Running.”

“Keeping it short for my benefit? I could see that! Running from what?”

“Aliens – monsters? Does that matter so much to you?”

“I’ll decide.” The woman sucked in, “Are you a rebel, girl?”

“What?”

The gun pressed back into her cheek. Cold metal. “Yes or no. Are you a rebel? Don’t lie to me,” her voice stabbed.

“Are you talking about the communists?! Then no!”

The woman’s expression softened, not into tenderness, but into confusion. “You’re not with the navy?”

“What?”

The barrel trembled. “Just–” the woman looked up and groaned, “Fait chier!” She leveled her gaze back down at Ada, “who do you work for?”

“Wellerman shipping!”

“Why didn’t you open with that?”

Ada coughed, “You aimed a gun at me!”

The woman tilted her head, then lifted her boot off Ada’s chest. “Fair point.” Ada collapsed and choked back a breath. “I’m going to pick you up off the ground, girl. Don’t make me regret it.”

Ada wheezed, “Sure – fine – pierdol się…” The woman knelt down and took up a fistful of Ada’s shirt. Ada’s eyes snapped down, but before she could register what was going on, the woman hefted back and lifted Ada up onto her feet. Ada’s arms flung out wide, and spun as she fought to steady herself. Her knees wobbled with the last threads of adrenaline her body could muster.

The woman slung the rifle over her shoulder, then offered a hand out, “Claire.”

Ada maintained a glare, even standing she still had to fire it upwards. Her head didn’t even rise over Claire’s shoulders. Pushing air out through her nose, Ada begrudgingly shook their hand. “Drabowski, but you already got that out of me” she replied flatly.

“You’re from Lethie, aren’t you?”

“Lucky guess. How can you tell?”

“Introductions with your surname, your accent, and that language you’ve been cursing at me in.” Claire put her hands on her hips, a smile barely poked out from the sides pointed lips. “It’s cute.”

“You make a habit of flirting with the people you threaten?”

“Just the girls. The pretty ones, at least.”

Ada hid her blush by ducking over to brush the mud off her pants. Stars, she had a type. “Noted.”

“Alright – alright. I think some little amends are in order.” Claire offered, “You can wash up in Beau, and then we can figure out where you’re bedding down tonight. Get some proper introductions."

“Beau?”

Claire thumbed over her shoulder, “Beau – that beautiful heap of defunct soldier-metal. Gutted mostly now – even slapped a shower in ‘em – makes it… Livable.”

“I’m sorry - you live in the lancer?”

“Couldn’t leave each other behind, what else is there to say?” Claire took a deep breath, then centered her eyes back on Ada. “You coming or not? At least let me toss you some supplies for the road.”

“No… Yeah, a shower actually sounds like heaven right now.”

“Good!” Claire declared as she strode back towards Beau, “Been meaning to give someone a tour, need fresh eyes to rate the decor.”

“You get chummy fast,” Ada said as she hot-footed to keep pace.

“What can I say? I’m a friendly woman.”

The two strode back through the paddy, a wide shallow place where the water only rose up to the welts of their boots. Closer to the Mech, Ada spied rows of plants with woody fiber stalks and pointed leaves. They were organized into a garden with scraps of metal buried surrounding them to act as a fence against the small fish that slithered along the loam.

The scaffolding that held Beau up also acted as stairs - a series of ramps that led up to the entry-port where a ladder would have sufficed in some docking bay.

Hunched over, it was immense. A defeated death machine now burdened with overgrowth and dragonfly eggs. At one point he was a proud class-C Lancer; five meters of military grade destruction – now he was little more than shelter. The threat of warfare had long been delivered, and now it had left Beau behind.

Ada stepped onto the rampart behind Claire, “You mind me asking?”

“Ask what?”

“You know what.”

“Its a long story.”

“Give the quick version?”

Claire sighed as she stomped a nail back into a plank. “Okay,” she started, “There used to be a depot not far from here. Munitions, rations, supplies like that. Navy wanted it gone. We didn’t. You can see how it played out for us.”

“Us? Wait–you fought Navy troops?

Claire nodded, “Helio-3 People’s Coalition, armored division number sixteen. Yup.”

“That means you are–were-”

“A filthy syndicalist.” Claire clipped, a soft hint of satisfaction under her tone. She was still proud of it.

“Were there other lancers?”

“There were.”

“Where are they?”

“Gone way before this dance played out.”

“Sore subject?” Ada asked. Claire’s shoulders rolled, then relaxed.

“A bit, Drabowski.” She pried open the door. Lights strung along the ‘walls’ of the shelter flickered to life. An incandescent buzz ticked, and then whirred from them. She glanced back, now wearing a smile. “Boots off at the door. Your pack too – we’re not animals.”

Ada drew a sigh out as she unclipped the backpack from her body. The slack and near weightlessness that washed over as she set it down felt like god. “Like to keep it tidy?”

“I prefer when the mud stays out there.” Claire corrected while she unlaced her own shoes. “I’d ask you to strip, given the state of your clothes, but I’m not that rotten.”

“I’d thank you for the restraint, but you’ve threatened my life already.”

“Let it go!”

“Five minutes ago!” Ada shot back.

“You really are civilian,” Claire said, shaking her head.

The interior was true to the word gutted. All the internal motors and mechanisms that powered Beau before were long gone. Its core had been replaced instead with a means to live. Old panels had been turned into dividers that spaced ‘rooms’ out of the small space. To the right of the door there was a kitchenette that was mostly storage with a modest cook space. Just past that was a lounge that was bathed in soft lights, a well used couch, and even a radio that sat on a beat-up end table. The cockpit on the other side of the living space had been converted into a bed. Pillows, and blankets were pushed up against the old viewport. A hole had been blown through it, and now a net and a drape kept the bugs out where 3 inches of plastiglass used to. A curtain took up the majority of the left portion of the shelter, which Claire explained acted as a closet and a shower. The floor was covered in a series of mismatched rugs of different colors and patterns.

“It's furnished?” Ada chirped

“Did you think I was living on a cot?”

“Its not that, the jungle just made me forget there’s a whole… Civilization here.” Ada gestured circles with her hands.

“Oh right, you’re new here. Yeah, I picked up most of this from Dalleo.” Claire caught Ada’s confused expression. “That city off in the distance, you can see it if you ever get above the tree line.”

“Is it– how would you say –functioning?”

Claire turned to face Ada now, their faces paired in parallel confusion, “What do you think happened here, Drabowski?”

“I don’t even know how to ask,” Ada started as she palmed her forehead, “You uh… Have a job, there’s jobs and such here? Society?”

“Yes, society. No, jobs.”

Ada’s face went tight as she stared at the floor, “Alright. How did you get money for the furniture?”

Claire chuckled, “There’s no money anymore.”

“Did the communists win?”

“Wha–” Claire choked now. “No. Fuck no.” She set down her rifle by the door. “We lost just as bad as the Navy, we at least–” she glanced back at Ada and saw just how lost the girl was. Her eyes were glassing up. Claire’s shoulders squared, and her voice went low. “Oh, you’re really confused right now.”

Ada nodded with a small sniffle.

“Okay, wha-”

“I don’t know what’s happening,” Ada admitted through a croaking whine. Her voice was inches away from breaking apart into a sob. “I just lost that last five years, and now there’s aliens trying to kill me, and you tried to kill me, and I’m stuck on this planet! This feels like a nightmare”

She slid down the wall as her face twisted up. The threshold she had been holding up over the last couple of days was crumbling. “My body hurts, its hurt so bad since I woke up!” She was sobbing now; it came out as crackled, broken wailing.

“I think– I feel like everyone and everything wants me dead! I didn’t do anything, I haven’t done anything wrong. I listened to everyone!” Her body collapsed, folding into itself, bouncing from waves of sobs.

“It's unfair… It’s so unfair…”

Claire had frozen up, her face peeled back in surprise through Ada’s entire spiral. She knelt down, and Ada recoiled away. She was repeating about how Claire had tried to kill her. A pang of guilt shot Claire as she peeked at the rifle.

“You’re right.” Claire sighed, “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You shouldn’t have.” Ada whined.

“Hey, I’m sorry kid.”

“It’s not your fault.” Ada forced through another bout of sobs.

“Which is it-” Claire pinched her nose. “Look, here’s what you’re going to do. Can you hear me?”

Ada nodded.

“Good, when you’re ready, you’re going to go and clean yourself up. I’m going to slide some clean clothes under the curtain. You get dressed once you're able. Then we’ll get some food in you, and then straighten all this out.”

Ada’s body shuddered through another bout of crying. Claire reached over and tilted Ada’s chin up,

“You get me?”

“I do– Yes.”

“Okay.” Claire offered a smile, “Step one then?”

Notes:

Tune in next time where Ada gets the biggest download of her life.

Next chapter SHOULD be shorter, but I fear I keep saying that. I hope the chapters don't feel needlessly dense!

Chapter 9: Live Here With Me

Notes:

I'm going to stop saying these chapters are going to get shorter. They are not - I have too much to say.

Speaking of having too much to say, I hope y'all are hungry for dialogue! Its been 9 chapters, and Ada finally gets to be the chatterbox she always secretly was.

CW:
French
Some mind-fuckery
Butch without a gun
Talking
Cigarettes
Ada makes a new friend :)

A lifetime of water rationing on Lethie – and the constant conservation that space travel necessitated – all taught Ada that the idea of a shower was more of an uncomfortable necessity than a luxury. Stepping into a hygiene cubicle for the three second burst that followed served as a chore for– well, however long she had been alive. She guessed. The five year gap, along with however much time Ada had spent frozen before that lingered only as hazy mysteries that fogged up her psyche.

Nowak was chronologically eleven years older than his bio-records suggested.

Ada groaned. At least she could remember Cap’s age. Her brain had to shake something relevant loose eventually. Maybe her mom’s name, or Tesa’s face was next.

The torrent of hot water that pelted her skin finally ran clear at least. The streaks of grease and grime that trickled down her body in black lines were gone. Ada had lost herself in watching them form hypnotic patterns that swirled the drain before stopping altogether. At some point, she had curled up against the wall of Claire’s shower, once she realized she didn’t have to stand for it to work.

“Claire?” Ada called out.

“Ouais?” The reply came back from the kitchen.

“How long have I been in here?”

“About ten minutes.” Claire shouted, her tone was soft, avoiding accusation.

Ada wrinkled her nose, "Precisely ten?”

The exclamation, “Les ingénieurs sont insupportables!” filled the shelter not a moment later. “Twelve minutes and thirty three seconds,” Claire added, “does that suffice?”

Ada squeezed her arms tighter around her knees, “Sorry! I don’t mean to be taking too long!”

“Dieu au-dessus, fille… Lave-toi!” Claire groaned.

“What!?”

“Wash – Your – Body – Girl! I won’t have you stinking up my Beau.”

Ada stood up and put herself on eye level with the two shelves that hung on the walls of the shower. The left shelf held waxy blocks of soap in various states of dissolution; one had reduced into a puddle of mint-green that was now cemented against the woody surface. The other shelf was cluttered with clear bottles half-filled with shimmery liquids. Taped and laminated labels read shampoo and conditioner intermittently. All of this was a far-cry from the sud-powder she had become familiar with on Happy Trails. Ada picked up one of the bottles and watched the ooze creep from one end to the other.

“Claire?” Ada asked again.

“Ne me force pas à entrer, Drabowski! Je te lave moi-même,” Claire snapped.

“Please – speak universally!"

“Nevermind what I said. What do you need?”

“How do I–”

“Dieu! You spacers are so hopeless, hein? Shampoo – lather it in your hair, wash it out. Conditioner – same same. Soap the rest up. Hop to! You’re going to run out of hot water. I don’t need you sad and cold.”

Ada nodded as she remeasured the trove of hygiene products that lined the walls.

The hair washes were nothing short of luxury. She had expected practical slime, not the rich cream she had ended up scrubbing into her scalp. It felt like wet-silk as it ran between her fingers, and filled the shower with a sweet warm smell. Her hair was softer than ever, as if the coarseness had simply been stripped away. Every knot even unwound against her fingers alone. Ada caught herself giggling as she combed the length of her hair over and over again after the last of the conditioner had washed out. She barely heard Claire muttering “mignonne…” in the other room. Quieter, as if she had not meant for it to carry.

Ada could only imagine the effect Claire’s fancy soaps were going to have on her skin. With a growing grin she stood up onto her tip-toes, and traced her fingers over the different blocks. Eventually she settled on the most cube-shaped one left. A beige bar that was about the size of her fist. Running her hands over it brought the soap to a hearlthy lather, and with none of the grit from the insta-suds. Drawing it over her body, the room filled with a wonderful smell.

It was unfamiliar, earthy even, and yet it danced at the edges of Ada’s memories.

Flowers – it smelled like that thing – like it – like her…

The aroma became inescapable as Ada became coated in it. All around her floral air crowded every breath. Ada braced an arm against the wall and forced another inhale. Her world was thick with her scent now. Just beneath the hiss of the shower, she could hear her leaves bristling. Ada closed her eyes, held her breath. It swirled in her brain, a cloud encircling her mind – her thoughts. Heavy. It snuffed out everything else because there was no need to think about anything else but breathing more in.

She pushed air out through her lips to stop it.

Her head was light, spinning faster. Knees buckling under the strain of hot water.

Drowning. Surrounded. If she could be so lucky.

Her eyes… They were so clear in Ada’s memory now. Four patterns of radiance, and they were beholding Ada. She was aglow in her gaze, reduced to a speck by it. Ada was built to crumble before them. She needed to listen to them – and they said that she needed to breathe.

The eyes grew, and grew, and grew until she was a dead pixel against their shifting patterns.

She should listen to them – she had to listen to them.

‘You’re going to–’

The ragged breath that Ada managed came in clear, but sharp, like she had surfaced too soon. The air was liberated of her– its influence. Most of the soap had washed off at this point. She pried her eyes open only to realize she had hunched over and palmed both sides of the shower for support.

“No flowers… Got it.” Ada grumbled. She reached a hand out, and turned the water off.

What was left of Ada was laid out on the bathroom floor. Her body wracked from the exhaustion of hot water and gravity. Her mind was still in recovery from whatever that plant had done to her. Each breath was deliberate from the worry – one bad intake would send her down another spiral, standing in the audience of a pulsating gaze again. Even just picturing them left a buzzing at the ends of her fingertips.

Intrusive.

Invasive was a better word to describe them, Ada thought. Thorns coiled through the grooves of her brain. Prongs that injected every ounce of poison into her with the sole intent of frying her neurons. Part of it was still there, lingering. A song that played on repeat, except with a melody and lyrics she couldn’t recall. A sound just underneath perception. A noiseless not-hum that vibrated from the epicenter of the danger. Nauseating threats disguised as she-didn’t-know-what.

Ada exhaled and pushed it further back.

The clothes Claire had left were a pair of cotton shorts, and an old t-shirt with some cerebro-wave band on it. Faded, clashing neons against black – a skull exploding outward. Both of them were too big for her, but that didn’t make them any less of a kind gesture.

The idea of putting on clothes right now felt like having to climb a mountain. Something sharp was pressed against Ada’s heart. Another motor failed to catch and stalled out. In a body as failed as Ada’s, the list of difficult tasks was rapidly growing.

She tugged the shorts up to her waist with a tightening of the drawstring. The shirt she tied into a knot. A practiced motion to keep loose articles cinched in microgravity. Except – this was an environment with plenty of gravity to spare. Now it was just aesthetics.

Stepping around the curtain revealed that Claire was just an arm's length away in the kitchen. She was stood over a deep pot that billowed out steam and savory aromas.

Half-tied, dark hair speckled with white hung down just above her shoulders. Even relaxed, she was upright with a soldier’s posture.

Sturdy arms held the pot and stirred a ladle through it in smooth, unbroken motions.

Claire’s good eye focused onto Ada, and a sharp smile carved across her face. “Ah! Voilà la fille sous la crasse,” she said.

“You love your language, huh?”

“What is there to say? It is a good language.” She tilted the ladle at Ada – beads of orange broth dripping back into the pot – and continued, “I’m sure yours is too if you would use it for more than cursing at me, "morveuse.”

“Fine – Świetna z ciebie gospodyni. Szkoda, że wariatka.”

Claire barked a laugh before switching tongues, “Uważaj co mówisz, Drabowski!”

“That’s not fair!”

“I’ve been in the ‘verse a lot longer than you, girl – I’ll decide what’s fair in my house. Watch yourself,” Claire declared through grinning teeth. Ada rolled her eyes and stepped onto her tip-toes and into the kitchen. Before she could peer over the pot, Claire shooed her back down. “Nosey spacer! No sense of personal space, you people.”

“I want to see if you’re trying to poison me,” Ada protested.

“Then ask like a girl who has some manners! I’m not some crew member that you can just shoulder your way into.”

Ada groaned, “I – you’re – ugh.”

“Try again, Drabowski.”

“Can I come in and see–”

“Can you what, Drabowski?” Claire interrupted.

Ada’s eyes narrowed. “Can I please come in and see what you’re cooking?”

“Good girl,” Claire teased before scooping Ada with her free arm. The small woman gave a surprised chirp as she was pulled against Claire’s body. Her face was awash with red not a moment later. With a squeeze, Claire bent Ada towards the pot, giving her a full view of the bubbling broth. “It's a fish stew,” Claire continued without missing a beat, “Once I learned that the fish in the swamp, and those little tubers I have growing outside wouldn’t kill me it was – how you say – all bets were off.”

Claire let the ladle rest against the side of the pot and retrieved a spoon. A tasting spoon. “A little spice imported from Garn and Pasmodome, and voila!” She chuckled, “Frankly, you’re just in time. I need a second opinion.” Claire dipped and took up a morsel of the stew. She brought it up past Ada’s nose, blew on it, then lowered it down to her mouth. “Go on,” she urged, “Open up.”

Ada blinked in surprise. Her face was burning hot enough to melt through Claire’s arm. “I’ve never had fish before,” she stammered out.

“Then try some, Drabowski. Worst case scenario, you don’t like it. I doubt it though, I’m a very wonderful cook.” Claire punctuated her retort by nudging the spoon against Ada’s lips.

Ada relented and let Claire push into her mouth. Creamy, peppery, just enough salt. A small kick of heat in the background. Damnit, she was a good cook. “Tu vois – pas si mal pour toi, non?”

Ada sputtered, desperately trying to process the whirlwind of emotions that pooled in her skull. “It’s perfect,” she chirped, then coughed, “it’s actually really good.”

Claire tossed the spoon onto the counter, and flicked the burner off. “Good, I’m sick of stirring. Let’s eat.” Finally she released Ada, but not without another command. “You see that shelf up there? Be kind, grab us some bowls if you please.”

Ada stood back up onto her tip-toes before she even realized she was listening to Claire. She was too flustered to really do much else even after she noticed. She retrieved the two least cracked of the bowls and spun them back towards Claire who wasted no time in filling them.

“I best see the bottom of this bowl before the night’s out, I won’t have you starving in my house.”

The two moved in the little sitting nook. Claire had nested Ada into the couch, and even went as far as to wrap her in a blanket. Claire herself settled for pulling up a chair after she set a carafe of water down between them. Ada watched as realization struck Claire, who held up a single finger before stepping back round to the kitchen. A minute later she came back with two glasses of grassy green liquid.

A fancy bottle at one point.. The label had long been worn out to oblivion, and replaced with tape and fancy script.

Ada squinted at the new addition to their meal. “Chartreuse,” Claire explained. “Its not your people’s Krupnik, but it should suffice,” she added. A loud pop thumped out of the bottle as Claire liberated the cork from its neck.

“We’re getting drunk?”

“We’re going to talk about some big stuff. This will just help you wash it down if it starts to become too much.”

“Something bitter to keep our heads in orbit?”

“Exactly, you get it.” Claire nodded at Ada’s bowl, “Eat some first though. No need to have the world unveiled on an empty stomach.”

Ada was far hungrier than she realized. Before any more words were exchanged her first spoonful gave way into two bowls of the stew – Claire had even fixed her a third, just in case. The few words Ada did manage to exchange were mostly gratitude.

Claire took a sip of water and leaned forward. “You about ready to talk?”

“I think so, where do we start?”

“We start from the beginning of this; what is going on with you? You’re way too, ‘fish out of water,’ for any of this to be normal.”

Ada nodded, “Straight to it.” She placed her bowl onto the table, took a breath, and started, “I was a freighter for Wellerman shipping, but you got that part already.” Claire pointed a finger-gun, and Ada rolled her eyes. “The why and the what of what I was doing for them really doesn’t matter anymore.”

“You’re skipping the details? Allez!” Claire cried. “Were you shipping precious minerals, livestock, or something secret?”

Ada laughed, “Just Zinc - we’ll be here all night if I go into the minutia.”

“Fine.”

“Alright–” Ada continued, “I was en route to Sol–” Claire perked up, and her mouth opened to ask another question, but Ada reiterated before she could interrupt.“– I was en route to Sol back in fifty-one. However, because of a logistical failure up at Doorstop, I was forced to enter torpour.”

“In less corporate terms?”

“Zołnierzy…” Ada muttered, “I was Frozen in cryo.”

“Wait, were you–”

“The whole time – yes. I only just recently woke up and learned about the gap.”

Claire whistled while Ada took a sip of the Chartreuse. “Who thawed you out?” Ada shrugged. “Merde.” She shook her head then snapped up as realization hit, “Wait? Where’s your ship?”

“That is a piece of this story that I think you can help me understand actually,” Ada said. Claire leaned back and folded her arms. Ada let out a sigh, and took another sip of the liqueur. “I – not long after I woke up I was contacted by what I thought might have been the navy, or-or maybe a rescue team.” Ada chuckled, “Which is stupid, now that I think about it, right? Who would come all the way out for one freighter. I mean maybe for the Zinc but for me–”

“Drabowski,” Claire said, “You’re going off course here. Take it slow, focus on the important parts.”

Ada nodded, “Right. Sorry.” She closed her eyes, ran through the details again in her head, then continued. “I went onto Doorstop to try and run a fuel line to my ship – when… I was contacted. They sounded human, except the second I saw their ship–” Ada trailed off, her eyes looking through the table as the scene repeated behind her eyes. “It just crept up out of nowhere…” she muttered. The cool night air prickled Ada’s skin, pulling the blanket tighter didn’t seem to block it out. “They tried to hunt me.” Her tone went flat, nothing more than a declaration. A clinical separation to keep the shock away.

Claire wrapped her knuckles into her arm and bit her lip. “Drabowski – were they… Those things looking for you – were the aliens hunting you – were they –” She snapped her fingers a few times to try and find a better word. “Bordel. Were they plants, Drabowski?”

Ada looked up, snatched free from her memory, “Yeah, or at least they looked like them. They were huge – both of them too. Just… All vine and bark. Xenos.”

“Well that makes this easier, you’ve already met mankind’s new benefactor.” Claire scoffed. She glanced up to see shock and confusion had taken over Ada’s face. “That was too cordial, I apologize.”

“New benefactor?” she stammered.

“In a sense - they – Merde.” Claire drummed on her knees. “Do you want me to just rip the bandaid off?”

Ada took a deep breath before knocking back the last of her chartreuse, the alcohol caught in her throat. “Tak,” she rasped

“You just met the Affini. Aliens from stars know where, equipped with stars know what – they rolled in five years ago and…” Claire motioned around her head, “won.”

“How bad?”

“Oh fucking terrible, we didn’t stand a chance. Not even the navy put up half a fight before it was over.”

Ada nodded, “How…” Ada swallowed the sentence, then tried again, “How many did we lose?”

“That’s the crazy part – as far as what the Affini did – next to none.”

“And the accord? Did they depose it or…?”

Claire gave a dry laugh, she couldn’t hide from the absurdity of their situation. “Congrats Drabowski, you have survived to the end of capitalism.”

Gone. Just like that. Generations of resistance, countless lifetimes of struggle, and mountains of bodies – all undone and overcome in one stroke.

“Completely?”

Completely. She knew the answer to that. She asked because she had to at least. She owed that much to the endeavor.

“Yeah, after they took over the Affini imposed their utopia upon us.” Claire’s expression slipped back to neutral, and she took the moment to finish her own glass. “Plant communism, where labor is optional and your satisfaction is guaranteed,” Claire scoffed, “required even.”

“And if you’re not happy?” Ada asked hesitantly.

“They won’t kill you, don’t worry. They’ll just do everything they can – or want really – to make you happy.”

Ada nodded, “I take it this is the other shoe dropping?”

“Le loto, Drabowski. If an Affini decides you’re not happy, or they think you’re dangerous, or hell if they just like you a little too much – they take you.” Claire cursed in her language again. “They domesticate you.” The words came out, but barely – venom forced through her teeth. “Drugs, mental conditioning, hypnosis, whatever it takes to turn you into their pet. Once they’re done, you’re lucky if there’s even any of you left besides the parts that smile and thank them for undoing you so.”

The eyes flickered through Ada’s skull, static at her fingertips. “Matka bosa…” she breathed.

“You’re lucky you got away, girl. Had those things coiled you, I won’t dare to consider what might have happened.”

Ada looked at Claire with more urgency than ever, “No, you don’t understand – they knew my name, they were looking for me specifically! And–” Claire leaned forward again. “Well my exit was not the most clean.”

“How bad?”

“I crushed one’s vines in a door.” Ada sheepishly admitted.

Claire slowly stood up rubbing her face. Her hands found their way down, and rested on her hips while she paced the table. All of the dread that Ada should have been feeling fell onto Claire’s shoulders. Leaning into a window didn’t help. She could the grave concern drawing lines over her reflection. Just past her half-transparent visage a million stars twinkled way up high. A million stars where the girl on the couch could have landed instead. She could have landed in a place where Claire didn’t have to care.

Claire sighed, deeply. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

She spun around, “Well shit, Drabowski – yeah – okay.”

“Do you need to rip another bandaid off?”

“Can you handle?”

“As much as I’ve been!”

“Right. You’re fucked!”

“Thanks!”

“You are! That’s the plain short of it.”

“Can I just keep running? The galaxy’s huge – I can just–”

“No, you can’t. Believe me, girl.” Claire said as she sunk onto the couch. “They steamrolled the whole accord, they can find a single stray wherever she decides to hide.”

Ada let out a low whimper. She tried to stand in a half thought out frantic motion. Claire seized her as she went up, which only forced the girl to thrash into a tantrum.
“Drabowski! Calm down!” Claire urged.

“Let me go!” Ada shouted, “I need to get out of here!”

“I’m sorry, I’m being short!”

“You are!”

“I’m freaking you out–”

“You did!”

“I already said sorry!”

“Mam to gdzieś!”

“Drabowski!” Claire barked, and then caught herself. “I’m going to let you go, but please don’t do anything rash.”

Once Claire released Ada she immediately threw herself against the arm of the couch, and curled into an indignant ball. Knees stuck into her chest as if she could hide from the entire universe.

Tighter. Hoping that she would collapse into a singularity and take the whole system with her.

Stars and planets didn’t have to think. Reality was offered by a series of rhythmic pats against Ada’s back. She craned her neck to see Claire doing her best. The tall woman offered a sympathetic smile. Forced, but she was trying. Ada groaned. “I’m ready to hear you.” She finally admitted.

“Are you sure?” Claire asked.

“Tak.”

She wasn’t ready. She was never going to be.

Claire folded one leg over the other, and put her hands out. “As far as I see, there’s two outcomes to your situation.” She held up a finger, “Scenario one – you attacked an Affini. It’s not the end of the world–”

“I cut her vines off! Those are like – limbs, no?”

Claire shook her head. “A bug bite at most. Regardless, they can use it to label you a feral. Possibly even dangerous if they feel like it. If that’s the case, it’s really only a matter of time before a search party tracks you down and – well…”

“Drugs, mental conditioning, hypnosis.”

“Yeah, from any Affini that takes a fancy to you. And who knows what their temperament’ll be.”

“Right, very uplifting,” Ada huffed.

“Don’t sass me, girl.”

Ada retorted with a sneer.

“Espèce de gamin!” Claire snapped, then pinched her nose. “You’re so lucky that you’re tragically adorable.” After another breath, and she tried again, “Option two, and this is the one I believe is more likely – they haven’t reported you yet.” A flicker of hope danced behind Ada’s eyes. “Don’t get doe-eyed yet, you’re not out of the woods,” Claire warned. “They haven’t reported you because one, or both of your pursuers are particularly interested in wrangling you themselves.”

“That sounds worse.”

“It does on paper. But, devil you know and all that.” Claire motioned absently. “We at least know that by the fact you made it this far, they’re not particularly brutal.”

“What does that mean?”

“If they really wanted to snare you, they would have. They went easy, and now they’ve messed up. Which means if they report you, you are likely out of their hands.”

“And, they specifically want me.” Ada grimly noted.

“So they’re likely trying to move whatever equipment they need to find you discreetly. Affini adore their bureaucracy, so that’s likely gumming the whole process up. That gives us time to figure out a plan.”

They needed every second.

“Any suggestions?”

“You can use the time to try and make distance if you want, but I wouldn’t suggest that. The Affini are inevitable – no matter how far you think you’re going to get, they know they can get further. The harder you fight them, the worse this ends for you.”

“Fucking cheery.”

“Look – this is my suggestion. Turn yourself in.”

“Just give up?” Ada shouted, springing up.

“Not giving up, tactical withdrawal."

“That’s just the phrase the communards used when they were losing.”

Claire’s lips went tight. “Turning yourself in gives you the chance to set terms.”

“Terms of ownership.”

Claire sucked through her teeth. A lifetime moved behind her gaze. “Take it from me, girl.” She said plainly, “I’ve spent my best years in struggle against forces far less than this. If there’s a future where mankind comes out on top, or at least even, we’re not close enough to be playing martyrs.”

Ada deflated, and sat back down. Neither of them said anything else. Neither of them looked at one another. Ada, at least part of her, knew that Claire was right. Claire silently wished she was completely wrong. Better worlds lived in their imaginations, and neither were going to say it. Beau creaked from the night winds. A quiet whistle came from an ill-patched fissure. Claire stood up, Ada’s eyes traced her as she moved through the room. Side stepping, Claire left the nook and sat on her bed.

Ada spun round in her seat and watched as Claire dug under her pillow. A moment later, the ex-revolutionary retrieved a dented paperboard box. A discolored beige item, with an art-deco blue line through the middle, cigarettes.

Claire popped the top open and slid one into her mouth with her thumb. She tossed the pack back onto her pillow and retrieved a lighter and an ashtray from the “windowsill” of the cockpit. Her eyes met Ada’s as she set the latter of the two down. “Want one?”

Ada sluggishly hopped over the back of the couch, “What kind you got?”

“The free kind.”

“Humor me, yeah?”

Claire gave a dry chuckle, “Don’t laugh at me – Blue Regalias.”

Ada waved a hand, “No judgement – too fancy for me personally, plus don’t they pack the blues full of menthol?”

“It cools me off! This–” Claire explained with a motion around Beau, “–used to run hot, so forgive a girl for enjoying a few minty puffs.”

“He still run hot?”

“Watch it, Drabowski,” Claire warned as she drew the flame of the lighter up to her lips. “Old habits die hard.” The first drag was long. Her shoulders eased, eyes shut, and smoke flowed out of her nose.

“Wait, is Regalia still around?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Are any of them?”

“Smoking kills, Drabowski – the Affini wouldn’t let that stand. You can get smokes, sure, but they’re imitation at best. Most of them are packed with their little mood-drugs instead.”

“So no more smokes after these run out?”

“Yup. These make a fine vintage.”

“Disco,” Ada said.

Claire scooted to the edge of her bed and rested her elbows on her knees. Half-lidded eyes wandered over her guest. “So if no Regalias, what do little spacer dames smoke?”

“I can’t speak for every crew, but I know for a fact that Happy Trails could have probably claimed a new ship with the points we racked up with Salvo.”

Claire choked, “Salvo?”

“What’s wrong with Salvos?”

“Nothing, nothing at all Drabowski. Any smoke will kill you after all.” She shook her head, “It’s just Salvos really make you feel like it.”

“Hey now!” Ada cried, “No fancy additives, packed to the gills with nico’, and no filters. Shit kicks like ignition.”

“Bad food, bad cigs, probably cheap booze too. You spacers are designed to make people feel sorry for you, I swear.”

Claire took another drag. The room was thick with its odor at this point. “Okay, one last question.”

“Shoot.”

“Why were you going to Sol, and please don’t say it was for a boy.”

“It wasn’t,” Ada said. Claire’s gaze settled on Ada with expectation. “It was for a girl, I think.” Ada added.

“La vie n’a pas de pitié,” Claire groaned, smoke curling past her lips. “Do you plan on still finding her?”

“Sort of?”

“Don’t torture me, girl.”

“I think we broke up.” Ada admitted, “I think one of us said ‘I love you’ and the other didn’t say it back. I need to figure that out. Most of my memory is holes at this point. Turns out long-cryo will do that if you want to help me start a class action.”

“You’re hunting a girl who either broke your heart, or you broke hers – plus another girl, and maybe her friend, are hunting you because they probably have some kind of fucked up fascination with you…”

“Your point?”

Claire pointed her cigarette at Ada, “You have complicated relationships with women, Drabowski.”

“I have a type, I guess.”

Claire grinned like she knew better, “You do? And do you have room for a third?”

Ada shifted her weight. The flush that flooded her face and ears betrayed all faux confidence she put on. “That depends.” She tilted her chin at the cigarette between Claire’s fingers. “You sharing that?”

“That all it takes?” Claire teased.

“I’m about ready to kill for one of those.”

Claire nodded and sat up. “Okay, Drabowski,”she said, her tone slipping low and measured. She patted her lap, “If you really want one, come have a seat.”

Ada blinked as reality spun up in her skull. “I…”

“If you don’t want it that bad, I can just give you one and we can call it a night.”

“It’s not that!” Ada realized she was running the fabric of her shirt between her thumb and her index finger. “I just don’t know what to think.”

Claire’s stare shot through Ada. “I’m not asking you to think,” she said, “I’m asking you to come here and let me do the thinking for both of us.”

Ada stepped like a live-wire to the occasion. Every ounce of anticipation and hesitation bled through. Claire watched with a bemused smile as the small woman settled in and straddled her lap. She guided Ada down with a hand on the small of her back. “Look at that,” she teased, “you’re still alive.” Ada felt like she was already about to crumble.

The smell of menthol and ash wrapped around Ada’s nostrils.

“Before we go any further, you have to tell me your name.”

“Huh?” Ada blinked as if she had just woken up.

“Not that anything is wrong with Drabowski, I just imagine you have a much prettier name than the one that came from your father.” Claire took Ada by the back of her neck, “I’d rather whisper something softer into your ears is all.”

A shiver shot up her spine. “Ada,” she sputtered out.

“Much prettier…” Claire mused as she stuck the cigarette between her teeth. “Let’s get you out of that shirt, yeah?”

“Claire! You didn’t give me a bra,” Ada cried as her face managed to reach a new shade of red. Her tormentor only gave a shrug with a feigned ‘woops’ tacked on. Ada’s eyes narrowed.

“None of them would have fit you anyway.”

“You planned this?”

“Yeah, I actually read it in a book.”

“Did it include a part about aiming a gun at girls?”

“Funny enough, yes, it did.” Claire reached out and brought her hand down on Ada’s seat with enough force to make the girl bounce with a yelp. “Allez girl – arms up.”

“Are you going to hit me again?”

“Are you the kind of girl that’s into that?” Claire teased. Ada’s face strained into a pout before she resigned and raised her arms above her head. Claire let out a cackle as she sat up, “You’re showing your hand way too easily, Ada.”

“I’m not–” Ada tried to protest before another smack on her ass forced another yelp from her lips instead.

“No lip.” Claire took Ada’s shirt by the base, and pulled up. Slow in her motions – she savored the reveal, and she let Ada savor the cool air creep its way up her exposed skin. “You’re doing such a good job for me,” she noted before giving a final tug. As the shirt moved over Ada’s head, Claire twisted her hand into a fist and yanked back. She cinched it into a blindfold around Ada’s eyes, and left her arms dangling above her head.

Ada gave a gasp before falling into steady, heavy breaths. Her chest moved up and down rhythmically. Claire drank the sight in as she dragged a nail down Ada’s ribs. The girl shuddered and whimpered under her touch – what part of her face that remained exposed was on fire. Everything inside Ada’s head was spinning. The overwhelming chill was interrupted by the warmth of Claire’s face pressing up against her own. “You’re doing really good, Ada.” she reiterated. “Do you think you earned that drag yet?”

Ada could only manage a nod.

“Use your words, girl. I know you have a voice in there,” Claire ordered with another sharp smack against Ada’s seat.

Yes!”

“Yes – what?” Claire gave another slap.

“Yes, please…” Ada breathed.

“Such manners! How could I say no to such a good girl?” The only thing holding Ada up was the fact that Claire had a vice grip on the shirt. If it were up to her, Ada would have long already crumpled into a babbling ball on the floor. “Open up…” Claire said. There was a considerable delay between any order Ada’s brain sent and her body’s reaction. Still, eventually the poor girl managed to get her mouth open, albeit a bit slack.

It didn’t seem like Claire was in any rush, but it wasn’t like Ada could particularly see how her captor felt.

“Ready?” Claire asked. Before Ada could form any response, she felt Claire’s lips wrap around her own. A moment later, her mouth was full of smoke. Hot embers cut the back of her throat as the world collapsed. Every last drop of her psyche washed out into that kiss, no mercy was spared, Claire took Ada by her waist and drew her tightly in.

She kissed Ada with every intent to smother her.

By the time Claire pulled back, Ada was hanging limp. The better part of her mind was somewhere in orbit, dancing amongst stars.

“You look drunk,” Claire chimed. “You ready for another?”

Notes:

Did you know?
This story is following The Fool's Journey!

Now it's your turn, reader to guess where we are! :)

(Yes I'm a hack)

P.S - Wowwee I love women

Chapter 10: Making Good Choices, it's in vogue this century.

Notes:

Pretty good turn-around on this one - a little perspective switch got the mind flowing. Hope you all enjoy living in Claire's head for a sec!

It was a lot of fun to write someone who thinks a lot more 'punctual' than Ada.

CW:
Bodily Failure/Sickness
Mention of Death
Lesbian Yearning
Drugs/Xenodrugs

Also - it finally happened. A shorter chapter!!!

Claire’s consciousness pulled free from the inky mire of sleep to the alien birdsong of a dozen lathes croaking up to the heavens. Beau’s interior was faintly painted over by the pale orange of a morning sun. It never dared to fully enter for it would have to contend with the ghosts that haunted its occupant. Somewhere amongst the bramble, not far, light trickled over the graves of forty-odd men and women that died here in the endeavor of liberation. A handful of years or a hundred would have been the same separation to Claire. Still half submerged in the world behind dreams, she clutched Ada as the girl tried to rise from the tangle they had made of the bed.

Awareness flickered as Claire’s arms wrapped around the small woman’s torso. She took Ada’s blackened hand into her own – cooler to the touch than the rest of her body. Fingers interlaced, then tightened. The ghosts could wait their turn today. A smile full of forgotten warmth etched over Claire’s face as she drew Ada close. Vanilla from her long brown hair. In a blink, the world faded away once more.

When she woke back up, Claire found the bed devoid of its guest. For a split second she almost believed the entire night prior had just been some kind of desperate dream. The idea of a cute damsel in distress falling from the stars into one’s lap felt painfully far-fetched now that she’d given it a fraction more thought. That was up until she saw that the door across the room had been left ajar.

That was worse. It would be so much worse if Ada had just up and left – now she hoped the girl had just been a dream.

Sluggishly, Claire pushed herself out of bed and trudged her way across Beau’s guts. Somewhere along the way she managed to find a pair of pants and put them on despite her half-blind, groggy stagger. She worked the last button through then spied Ada’s jacket still splayed out over her pack. This confirmed two things. One, the girl was undoubtedly real – and that she had in fact worked the poor thing over last night. And two, she was still here. Somewhere. She picked the jacket up and stepped outside.

Cool, the morning breeze dusted the hair off Claire’s face. Streaks of red and orange lanced the paddy below.

Stepping round the first bend of the rampart, Claire spotted the girl hunched over a railing, shaking. She was just as undressed as Claire had left her – nothing more than the shorts hugging her waist. Claire’s mouth quirked to the side as she walked down and put the jacket over Ada’s shoulders. “Sunrise is the other way,” Claire clipped as she made sure it was tucked over her body, half using the excuse to saddle up to her side. There was definitely a bruise at the base of her neck. She couldn’t fight back just a little satisfaction as she hugged an arm around Ada's waist. “What dragged you out here, girl? Morning’s too cold for someone built like you.”

“My legs,” Ada dryly replied in her usual high rasp.

Claire glanced down, measuring Ada. She was still keeled over and fighting against collapse. “Very cute. Now what’s going on?”

“I…” Ada gave a half hearted gesture with her head down, “–fed the fish some of my dinner…” Claire looked down at the dissipating mess below. “I didn’t mean to,” Ada continued, “Nothing seems to be working right since I thawed out.”

“You mentioned some holes in your memories…” Claire noted, Ada nodded.

“I’m starting to think my body is all broke up.”

Don’t lie to her.

Claire’s lips went tight. She didn’t want to admit that part yet. “That’s…” She cleared her throat and tried again, “You spent the last half-decade under ice, girl. Your body’s just struggling to find itself again. Probably just some more pronounced type of cryo-sickness, that’s all.”

It felt like the kind of thing she had told a hundred friends before. A hundred faces that all blurred together. Did any of them believe her? Did Ada believe her?

“We’ll get some meat on those ribs of yours,” Claire continued, shaky, lying for her own benefit. “You see, it’ll set you straight, girl.”

“We both know we do not have the time for that.”

Ada was right, unfortunately. Damn plants. “Let’s at least get you inside and into some proper clothes. We can figure the rest out from there.” She was patting Ada's back.

It would be wrong to turn someone like her loose upon the cosmos.

Amphibian croaks and insect chittering filled the silence as the two traced a path back up the rampart and into Beau. The door shut and morning pressed on without ceremony. Three short days passed and Claire unfortunately found herself rapidly getting used to Ada’s presence.

The first day left the poor girl bound to a bed by a cocktail of migraines and nausea that wracked her body. She kept little else down besides water and nutrient-bars. Claire sat on the edge of the bed, dabbing a cool rag against Ada’s forehead as tremors convulsed through her body. In between coughing fits Ada said little as if none of this was unusual. Instead she wore a shame upon her face as though this was the first time anyone had been there to witness it.

She didn’t want to be a hurt animal anymore. She had come undone a hundred hundred times, and the threads were getting harder to tighten.

Sleep for Ada was chased through restless dreams, and whatever amount she managed to get a hold of was brief and fleeting. Claire let Ada have the bed the first night, despite her protests. It wasn’t like the girl was in any position to make Claire actually sleep anywhere besides the couch. However, when morning came she woke up to Ada’s featherweight body laid across her chest. Her eyes were on Claire the moment she had stirred. “What are you doing over here?” Claire groaned.

“Laying on you, no?”

“You have to stop answering my questions like that. You know what I meant.” Ada tilted her head. Claire sighed, then softened her tone, “Maybe not… Why are you over here laying on me?”

“I was awake with little else to do.”

“How long have you been up?”

“About an hour, maybe two – gave myself a walk, watched that sun come up, then came back here some thirty minutes ago.”

“You took a walk? Where’d all this energy come from?” Claire asked.

“It just found me a couple hours ago, I think.”

“Uh-huh…” She sat up against Ada, “Why didn’t you go back to bed?”

“It was too lonely over there.”

She couldn’t help but smile at Ada. There was an earnestness in her tone that left a lingering warmth in Claire’s chest. The big doe eyes looking up into hers expectantly didn’t help very much either. “Fille idiote,” she mused with a chuckle as she settled a hand on Ada’s thigh. When the girl flinched Claire moved it back to her waist. “Tender?” she asked.

“A bit stiff from the walk.”

“Just the left?”

“I walk heavier on that one.”

It didn’t make much sense, but frankly nothing about the fragility of Ada’s body was on par with itself. “Well, as nice as this is-” Claire started with a stretch, “I have chores I’ve had on hold since you wandered in.”

The second day, the two played house. Life outside of the city provided the kind of quiet that Claire wanted. Although here, the independence it promised was earned through a constant levy on one’s leisure. Most of her free time had been spent on shoring up her homestead against the tides of erosion. It was, of course, a losing battle. As much as she could deny it, Claire could see that the natural world had crept in despite her efforts. That didn’t change anything, she would keep to the task as long as she was able.

The first item on her list was clearing the drainage ditches that kept the paddy from flooding. The recent rainy season had made this a more constant chore than she appreciated – not to mention a particularly overgrown Lathe who had taken to lodging himself into one of the streams and croaking incessantly. Claire figured he must’ve enjoyed the way the water felt moving over his gills. She didn’t enjoy dislodging him this time any more than any previous time. She watched him slide away, his croak fading into a dopplered scream. She sighed and shook the slime off her hands.

There was making sure the fence around the garden still held - she lost a crop to the fish once already. She didn’t want to have to go and look everyone in the eyes again – take a ration from the Affini. She couldn’t stomach the idea of another wellness check.

Next on the list was patching the levee that Ada had cut up with her boots. She never let Ada know the damage she caused – Claire reasoned it was better that way.

By the time she got back around to weeding the garden the sun was hanging low against the horizon. Claire straightened her back and wiped the sweat from her brow. She would get a weekend eventually. Her gaze settled on Beau and she realized she had forgotten that there was someone waiting for her inside. That thought made the trudge back up the rampart somehow just a little easier.

There was another heartbeat in the room. She was looking forward to hearing it.

Claire was one foot in the door when she heard Ada call, “Boots off at the door, we’re not animals!”

Claire chuckled and stepped back to the threshold and squatted to unlace her shoes. She glanced up to see little neat piles of dust throughout the shelter, and Ada just across the way sweeping another pile together. “Aren’t you productive?” Claire teased.

“I saw you working outside, so I figured I could do some inside work for you.”

“You didn’t have to,” Claire said as she stepped inside. Immediately a rich and smoky smell hit her. She snapped her attention to the kitchen and saw a pot steaming on the burner. “Did you cook supper?”

“I wanted to.” Ada chirped as she breezed by. Claire watched, dumbfounded as the girl dumped a dustpan over the rampart. She shot a look back at Claire and gave her a shooing motion, “Go wash up, dinner is almost ready!” she ordered as if it were routine.

When Claire got out of the shower she was ushered back to the sitting nook, and before she could fully process the care she had received there was a warm bowl placed in her lap. She looked down at the creamy concoction - a hearty looking soup, almost a porridge.

“I used some of those tubers you grow, I figured they’d make for an okay potato soup,” Ada explained as she sat down across from Claire. “They’re a little sweeter than potatoes I realized halfway through, but I figure that wouldn’t matter much.” Claire hadn’t even shook the weight of the day off, and now dinner was ready. She could only watch as the girl took her first spoonful, then looked up at Claire expectantly. “Is it wrong?” she asked cautiously.

Ada’s hair was back in that practical bun - albeit a bit neater than the first time she had seen it. She could hardly picture the disheveled girl she had pinned in the mud just a few days ago. This nervous thing in her living room.

Claire smiled despite herself. “Ada.” She patted the cushion, “Let me count your freckles while we eat.”

The two fell asleep holding one another that night, and awoke in each other's arms.

She gave Ada a bandana at the start of the day. It was a beige strip of fabric, with a thin red mandala woven into it. “Use this if you want to keep the hair out of your face,” Claire explained, “It would make me happy to know you can work with your hair down.” She planted a kiss on Ada’s forehead and then she left.

The hike to the traps in the river felt effortless that day.

Dinner was left-over ‘potato-soup,’ and pan seared fish. This time Ada had tidied up just about everything. Nothing was moved, just collected together.

When Ada asked, “What do you do for fun?” Claire was all too eager to put on a cassette. It played over the internal sound system of Beau. A lifetime ago, they were used for diagnostics and barking orders. Tonight it played a slow waltz that let Claire teach Ada how to dance.

She took her in hand, and put them through a twirl. She hugged the giggling girl back to her body and stepped in time to the melody. Ada’s hair was tucked behind the bandana, and her smile was radiant. They danced under the soft lights as the last trickle of sun fell beneath the skyline. Her hands fit perfectly into Claire’s, her head was at just the right height to lay against her chest.

For the first time in a very long time, the idea of taking a wife reappeared in Claire’s head.

She went to bed that night and never felt more awful.

Ada has to leave. She’s running out of time. She needs to be free.

Telling Ada she had to leave the next morning felt like killing an entire world. It was everything Claire had left to not offer to up and go with her. The girl agreed without any reluctance, which stung even more somehow. “There’s a man I know who can help you get off this planet, owes me a favor - you can find him in a neighborhood called Grafton, just outside the city,” Claire explained. “He’s made a home for himself under the Lucky-Star petrol station. He goes by Taz – you tell him Lance sent you.”

“Codenames?” Ada asked, looking up from her pack.

“His preference. I know, it's stupid.”

“Should I have one?”

“Ghoul.” Claire replied in short.

“Ghoul?”

“Its on his list, and I think you could wear it.”

Ada nodded. “Ghoul,” she repeated.

“It’ll help to go by a different name until you’re far away from this place - everything and anything to make it harder to track you down. No matter how small.”

Claire wanted the sun to explode.

“Just follow that compass west by south west - you should hit a road in about a day. Route five. Keep on that and you’ll be at Grafton before you know it. If you’re lucky, you might even be able to grab a hitch.”

She felt hollowed out. Ada looked indifferent.

“Just stick your thumb out. Yeah – like that.”

She watched the girl hike off into the jungle. She was dressed in that jacket of hers, and the khaki expedition shorts Claire had given her. Someone had to stay here to remember, unfortunately. It was cool again that morning, a good day to walk. A perfect day to do the routine.

The morning droned away into a dull buzz - the afternoon, an awful hum that not even the day's labor drowned out. Every task felt like it was mocking Claire for staying behind. The lathe in the ditch was laughing at her. The fish along the fence were goading her. The sun was reminding her that she was still alive.

The bodies beneath the earth were calling to her.

She was knelt over a makeshift headstone in a crowded and poorly planned graveyard. The name, Marvin Quinn, was scratched into the lumpy stone in front of her. Somewhere down there he was rotting into the soil between Andrea Kennedy and Bakari Kamau. Pulling the weeds out of the ground around him felt like the only kindness left. It would have been easier if sweat hadn’t kept trickling into her eyes. Except it was too cool out for sweat. Claire ran a knuckle under her eye, and sniffled. If it could just stop, all of this would be easier. If the stinging would go away. She yanked another weed up, and its root came with it. A long root that clung to the soil then snagged. She gave another tug but it held fast. Her eyes were still stinging and it wouldn’t stop.

It wouldn’t stop!

She slammed her fist down into the dirt and screamed.

She screamed until everyone below was finally quiet.

She was on the rampart trying to enjoy the last of Ada’s soup, and counting stars. Her back was bathed in light that poured out from Beau’s entryway. Music too. Yesterday’s waltz filled the night with its mournful tune. She scraped her spoon along the base of her bowl, the metal clinked against the ceramic.

The wind had picked up, and she couldn’t see the stars in the distance. Another seasonal was rolling in. Rumbling thunder was there, just under her perception. Electricity buzzed. It was going to be a bad one.

Maybe she found somewhere to hunker down already.

Maybe she would come back instead.

She hoped against hope to see Ada appear against the tree line – that at some point the girl had missed her just as much and turned around. She could say it was the storm, that she was afraid to be out in it. It would be all the same if she just stepped out into the open. In her head, Claire sprinted down the rampart and through the paddy. She scooped Ada up and the two danced under the moonlight. Tomorrow they would figure out the rest. She just needed her to come back.

Then – a glint against the moonlight. Hope surged as Claire pushed up from the railing. The metal from Ada’s pack caught the pale glow. A million apologies washed over Claire’s mind. A thousand admissions came up from her guts. A hundred steps between her and the tree line. A single kiss to start would suffice.

For a fraction of a second, mercy was abound on Providence. For every wrong Claire had ever committed could be undone with a stroke of luck. If she had ever been given the chance to unmake a mistake, how different her life would be.

Then – the sounds of night beneath the music fell silent and the air became still. The bugs stopped chittering as something else, something awful arrived. The smile vanished from Claire’s face as the tension reached her. The pressure had shifted.

In the tree line – eyes.

Two sets. One of four, purple. The other, a set of three, pink. High off the ground.

Claire dropped the bowl - it splashed against the paddy just as the set of three went low and sprung from the gloom. Its shadow traced the distance inhumanely fast.

“Merde!” Claire shouted as she spun around. In two strides she leapt back into Beau just as she heard the intruders first footfalls against the wood of the rampart below.

She had just ducked down to grab the rifle out from under the shelf when a force burst through the door, and in one fluid motion it scooped Claire up into the air before slamming her down onto the floor across the room. The vines that wrapped around her body suffered the blow, but that didn’t stop the wind from getting knocked out of her lungs.

The track skipped, caught, then reset.

The blurry face of the Affini that had toppled her was barely visible through her squint. Three eyes glared down at her – the pink shifted in shades in a rippling pattern. Claire dug an elbow into the floor and tried to wrench herself back up, but the Affini doubled its efforts and pinned her flat. “Bon, j’voulais pas rester debout de toute façon,” she groaned.

“Clarissa Devaux,” the Affini’s voice announced, a vibration that came from their core.

“Just Claire is fine.”

“You’ve had quite a few wellness checks make their way out here, if record serves.”

“People can’t help but worry about me, hein? That’s not my fault. I take it this isn’t one of those.”

“You never got along with the Accord, did you?”

Claire gave a wry chuckle, “I have my relationship with authority, yes.”

She felt the vines tighten around her body.

“Where is Ada? My friend and I are very concerned for her well being.”

Claire cleared her throat, looked up with her eyes, then let her gaze fall back onto the Affini, “The name – how you say – doesn’t ring a bell.” She felt a vine coil around her throat and tighten. A cough came up as she squirmed under its hold, “It sounds like it's from Lethie.”

“Try to remember, petal,” the Affini gently urged

“I hate that word,” Claire clipped through a sneer. “So condescending.”

The Affini took Claire by the back of her head and leaned close. “I’d rather respect your autonomy if you give me the chance.” They forced Claire’s eyes to meet theirs. The waltz played on.

Claire looked on, defiance burning in her stare.

The affin’s eyes were still now - the pattern had stopped its shifting. “Alright,” they said. Vines uncoiled from their back. One with a flower – white with red streaks in its petals – leveled itself at Claire’s neck. “I want you to remember that I tried asking,” the Affini taunted.

Before Claire could get another word out the flower went flush against her neck, the prick made her gasp and then it fell to a cascading numbness. “What did you–” it moved from her neck in a wave. She was on a beach, and warm water had just come in with the tide.

She clutched at the vines around her chest, fruitlessly. “Are you sure about this, Darce?” Another voice called from the doorway, but Claire couldn’t place its speaker through her oppressor’s face.

“Don’t worry…” Darce tilted their head, “She’s going to be fine; possibly even feel better after we’re done here.”

“But…”

“Would you rather the ferals find Ada first?”

The background radiation that masked the real Claire began to fire the final clicks of a decaying broadcast.

Darce leaned in closer, the pulsing in their large central eye was whirring fast now. There was a static behind Claire’s thoughts. A twinkling in her spine. “How does this music make you feel?”

Every thought swirled at the base of her skull, then surged forward in a turgid push. All the falsehoods she conjured were caught by the chemical filter that her mind had been reduced into.

The music swelled into its crescendo. She twirled Ada…

She wanted to kiss every freckle on her face.

“I want to dance with Ada…” Claire admitted – then she seized in terror. “No…” she whimpered, “Don’t do this…” Her brain, what was left of it, stretched into a dim line between her own eyes and the vast monstrosity that beheld her. She gave a final push and the tension melted away all at once. “Don’t make me do this!” Claire’s voice was hoarse as she begged.

Part of you wants her found. Even if it makes you a traitor.

The Affini shushed her, quietly as vines moved to keep their captive’s head level, “Just look into my eyes, petal… You’re not about to do anything you don’t want to. The drugs are just going to help you tell me what you actually want to say.” Their voice bounced off all the hollow space that lies used to occupy. Echoing its command. Its truth.

Claire was cradled in their hold, not restrained. She was safe here. Safe to let it all out. The flickering of its eyes, an unmistakable crackle that promised something better…

Fading…

“Please…” Tears streaked down her cheek.

Buzzing…

The hum of their core and the shifting of vines. A symphony in time with the cassette.

“You’re going to tell me… Exactly where Ada has gone.”

She’ll at least be safe…

The waltz finished… The player caught… And repeated again.

Notes:

Everything is going well gang!

I hope y'all are enjoying the feral arc as much as I am, because I'm having a blast over here.

Chapter 11: Somebody Take Me Seriously

Notes:

This one took a little longer than I wanted - the first draft felt too mean, the second draft felt aimless. This draft still feels mean, but I think I found the right balance.

I hope you all enjoy!

Big CW today:
Rage
Internalized violence
dehumanization
Spiraling
Transphobia
Attempted murder

(I promise it works out for Ada by the end of this chapter!)

Another jagged, white streak split the starless black – the sky exploded in a crackling boom. For a brief moment the whole of Ada’s world was illuminated by flashing light. Above there were swirling clouds where rain poured down in tides. Below the torrent, a lowly thing that trudged along, guided solely by the animal desire for someplace warm and dry. A plastic poncho served as the only superficial barrier between the body and the elements. With waterlogged boots, she sloshed up a half-flooded stretch of road. Her flashlight did little to cut through the storm – just bounced back at Ada off the walls of rain.

The storms on Lethie were never like this. Another flash and bang erupted across the sky. They would howl, but never clapped with lights so blinding and sounds so deafening.

‘The howl lets you know it's coming,’ her mother once said. She could picture her voice now. ‘If you’re not careful, it will catch you and then the cold will bite you.’

She could only imagine what the streaks of light in the sky were trying to warn her about.

The tent was gone, and she was lucky to have clambered out before it washed away. She hadn’t even had the chance to check how much of her gear she managed to save in time. The idea of being able to sleep in a bed – Claire’s bed – brought a sharp taste to Ada’s mouth.

The knot in her stomach was chalked up to hunger.

As she pushed forward, the beam of her flashlight caught something different entirely. Something solid and stationary returned its glare amidst the gloom. She stepped closer and could now see a sign, half-swallowed by moss and vines. Big, and made of a glossy blue metal, it stuck out against the starkness of its surroundings. Sharp yellow letters were etched into it, most eroded and overtaken by Providence – but the word Wellerman remained visible amongst the tangle.

‘This must be a terrestrial depot,’ a clinical voice in her head chimed, ‘Same function as Lazarus, but planetside.’

When Ada requisitioned this voice for info on what a Lazarus was, a blank template of an idea was sent back. Always helpful, that one.

‘It's a place to get out of the rain,’ the cool voice reminded her. ‘It doesn’t need to be anymore than that.’ The monolith of businesslike concrete was thoughtlessly illuminated by another flash of lightning.

A short gravel path led to a door caked in rust and left ajar. In the murky blackness, Ada revealed a cramped lobby with the shine of her flashlight. A corporate fossil waiting its turn to be eaten by the world. How seamlessly a corporate giant like Wellerman had been toppled so accidentally – it made all the years under their thumb feel kind of stupid.

‘Only bad things happen in places like this,’ a wistful voice behind her imagination warned. ‘Its cosmic tendrils have been dissolved, but their phantom still reaches you. Move on from this place.’

Her kaleidoscope of a brain could lie all it liked – the thunder was real, and it wasn’t listening.

Ada stepped inside. Stars, it was dreadful. She hated Wellerman on principle at this point, but there was an oppressive air that still lingered. Even in its half collapsed state, there radiated a stale corporate energy. An unadorned desk, an uncomfortable futon, and a smattering of desiccated motivational posters. She got hired in a place like this, and that fact felt like a stain on her history.

First she stripped the poncho off for all the good that it had accomplished. She deposited the wet mount of plastic by the door, then set to work on untangling the pack from her shoulders. Once she wrestled free, Ada set it down onto the floor. She was bent over with her hands wrenched into the metal bars of its external frame, failing to find the energy to stand back up. A shiver rattled her spine.

It was just going to be a bad night - a cold night with damp clothes in the most depressing locale that Providence had to offer. She had slept in worse places, and in worse conditions. She couldn’t remember them now, but she was certain of it given her track record so far.

Maybe the rain would be gone by tomorrow morning. The walking would be easy without the rain. She could make it to Taz, and figure out what was next. Next was probably stowing on a shuttle bound for somewhere, and sleeping in the rafters until the heat death of the universe.

Her grip tightened.

A lifetime of going places she didn’t want to go, and having to talk to people she didn’t want to talk to. For a brief moment she captured someone she wanted to be around, and even a place she could stand to die in. Now, it was right back where she started – another hole she didn’t want to be stuck in, and with the last person in the galaxy that she wanted to be stuck with!

Ada swung up and threw the pack across the lobby with a scream – it flew and slammed into the monitor behind the desk with a bang, then a clatter. The room fell into taunting stillness. She tore into that quiet with another scream. In frantic animal motions, Ada snatched a nearby broom and swung it into a trashcan as she stepped up to it. She swung again, and again, and again.

Two stims she had gone through – two to look presentable for her – and it wasn’t enough!

She swung again. The dent was getting deeper. Ada was sucking labored breaths through her teeth.

Claire saw it, didn’t she? What Ada always was. A stray. A poor animal that needed to be saved. She didn’t want it. Why would she?

 

She slammed the broom again, and heard it snap. The broken piece sailed off in an arc before clattering to the floor somewhere on the other side of the lobby.

Ada collapsed onto the floor with a sob. She would have run out of stims – she was going to run out. This was going to kill her. Withdrawal and her failing body in tandem, that was inevitable. She was doomed and she knew it.

She couldn’t get up. Her chest bounced up and down with her rapid breaths. “A stray,” she muttered. “Just an animal…”

Another flash of lightning, this time muted by the grime-crusted window of the lobby. Shivering, Ada clawed her way across the floor, fingers against cracked tile. She found an unoccupied corner to wallow in. Another wave of sobs shook her body while she wiped the snot off her face with a damp sleeve of her jacket. She knew how she looked. Thank the Stars no one was here to see it right now. A brief chuckle came up out of her spiral before she whirlpooled right back into hysterics. Clutching at her hair, and writhing into a ball.

She wanted to go back. She wanted to be able to wrench her timeline open and correct it through sheer will alone. Ada was unfortunately a body made out of meat forever shackled to the forward motion of events, and nothing she could do would ever change that.

A rumble of thunder shook the foundation and rattled the tiles. The world had come undone on the other side of the veil of her eyelids. Her heart had never thumped faster – none of that energy was going towards anything.

‘Beyond that threshold,’ the wistful voice mused. ‘You are in a world anew, altered. All has been unmade - yet you remain as a rare vestige. A brilliant mote between dead channels.’

Ada’s voice came out shaky, “I’m so scared,” she explained to – well, herself.

‘We are beyond fear now – we stand at the precipice of a grand cosmic journey. We will live and die a hundred hundred times before this is all over.’

Ada grimaced, “Can we please just start with what is already in front of us?”

‘You are in the remains of your previous prison – and you desperately don’t want to end up in another.’

“Okay,” Ada breathed. “What’s outside?”

‘It’s raining. A ferocious storm, the likes of which you’ve never seen, ravages the land. The flashes leave nowhere for the soul to hide.’

“Past that?”

‘Dalleo - it’s raining there as well. The people are trying to avoid it just like you.’

“Outside of that?”

‘The stars – far more than we could ever hope to count tonight. A grand expanse whose dappled light deceives you to the immeasurability of its true scale.’

“What am I?”

‘You are a speck of dust floating in the eye of an imperceptible giant. You can open yours with no fear that you’ll see it.’

She wanted someone to talk to, but the voice faded quietly into the din of rain tapping against the exposed metal of the depot.

Droplets splashed Ada’s cheek while the wind blew in another dusting of rain. The same world as before was waiting for her – the rain would keep misting her shelter the longer she waited. With a snap, her eyelids folded back to the same desolate office as before. Scarcely illuminated by her flashlight on the floor. She lumbered over to the door, and pushed it closed. It was heavy, with rusted servos that forced Ada to have to pitch herself horizontally to push it shut. The locking mechanism didn’t catch, it had been disintegrated by the elements. It was the idea of a door at best. It was keeping the rain out, however.

When Ada woke up, the sun was barely peering through. A green haze had taken over the room from light that filtered through the vines that had encased the window’s exterior. The air was cool, still wet from the night before. Water dripped in the doorway, and the door itself had sagged back open through the night. She didn’t remember falling asleep, curled up on the galaxy’s most uncomfortable couch. The ache in her back could have been excused by a spring that poked her through the night, but she knew it was from the same source that wracked the rest of her body.

Whatever happened in cryo was killing her. It was evident, even through the fog her thoughts had become. The stim she had stuck into her leg only dulled the wrongness. It was a fresh coat of paint over a derelict. It was only a matter of time before the hull gave, and she depressurized completely. That was just conjecture.

She spit blood onto the dirt with her back up against the wall. She wasn’t a doctor, but she at least knew that she needed one.

The sky was a vibrant blue whose clouds were torn open and bleeding out over the horizon. The sun flooded them with shades of orange and pink. The aftermath of an explosion that killed last night’s storm. The corpse was beautiful.

The morning was coming in flashes. Ada was – outside now? She realized that as she drew a cigarette up to her lips. She couldn’t remember stepping outside, or lighting the cig. Just that there was smoke already in her lungs.

Guilt twirled in the back of her mind – stolen. She hoped Claire didn’t miss them too much – or that Claire didn’t hate her by now. The blood had soaked into the soil next to the discarded stim.

She blinked at the hypodermic. Hadn’t she done that inside? It was there on the ground, taunting the holes in her memory. Closing her eyes, Ada tried to piece it all together. If she could at least do that, then she wasn’t too far gone. The waking up, the hunt, the escape, the hike, Claire – Claire… Every second in Beau came back crystal clear. The whistle from its punctured metal felt like a song right now. The world felt like it stopped in her arms. In her bed, the Affini, the Accord – they didn’t exist. When Ada opened her eyes, she couldn’t remember sitting down.

The sting from those memories. Proof that her brain still worked, for now.

Ada groaned. Motion wasn’t going to find her, or materialize from the ether – if she wanted to move, she was going to have to make that happen on her own two feet. The strain of standing back up sharply reminded Ada of how much she missed micro-gravity. Up there she’d only have to kick off a wall and that’d be that. Moored to a celestial body meant travel was a painful negotiation in controlled falling. The ache in her joints had already filed its complaint up the frayed lines of her nervous system. How fortunate she was that a few threads were still intact.

Inside was the same corpse of the Wellerman center – that and the remains of Ada’s temper tantrum. A dented trash can, a shattered broom, and her backpack next to a flattened monitor. It all felt a little impotent on the second go around. A tinge of embarrassment welled in Ada as she dusted fiberglass off her pack.

Hiking down the road didn’t feel good – it didn’t have to feel like anything else. The crunch of loose asphalt underfoot was more distance between her and the Affini. Every step was a victory – it had to be.

The sun had climbed up into the sky, turning the cool humidity of the morning into a muggy sauna. Bugs twirled around Ada, their wings catching the light as they went by. It silhouetted the veins against their basal in vibrant ambers. The light that made it through was reduced into dots that dazzled around Ada in sequence with the swarming motions of her entourage. A captivating display if she hadn’t come to hate their presence at this point.

Wherever she ended up next, she hoped it didn’t have bugs.

A hum rose into the air, deep and mechanical. Ada snapped her head back towards the bend she had just come around. Something with an engine was coming down the line. Whatever it was, it was obscured by the trees and shrubs that flanked the road on both sides. She fully pivoted around and squinted through the sun and leaves. Per Claire’s advice, she threw a thumb up into the air. The last week had more than filled Ada’s walking quota. She was willing to confront the mystery of the vehicle's operator if it meant she’d avoid another day’s trek.

A squat flatbed truck swung the curve and blew past Ada, leaving only a gust of wind in its path. The hat blew off her head with the swish of the nearby branches. Ada spun around and threw her arms out. The truck had come to a stop, the red of its taillights shining brightly. Ada’s face twisted in confusion as the driver threw the truck in reverse and backed up towards her.

The driver and Ada met one another with different flavors of bewilderment.

The man behind the wheel looked familiar - a visage she could almost remember under the fuzz of a few days without a shave. A burn scar from laz-fire dominated the right side of his face. His thick brows were set low over pale grey eyes that studied Ada’s features carefully. His mouth hung slightly agape as he tilted his head.

“Drabowski?” the man asked. His voice was strained into a crackly croak. Ada could see chords struggle against the poorly healed scarring that snaked his neck.

The young conscript back from Alistol – over a decade older now.

“The little Drabowski all grown up, huh?” The conscript rubbed his chin before leaning over to open the door. “It is a long road to the city – you should hop in.” Ada stooped to pick her hat up. “You still hate standing, yeah?” the man added, “Foreman Valentin used to give you more breaks than the rest of us.” There was a venom just underneath his breath.

Ada rested the cap back on her head with a nod. “I – remember pieces.”

“O tak?”

“Tak,” Ada replied, “It’s all so fuzzy since I woke up. I think too much cryo broke something…” She knocked on her skull, “Something important.

“All the more reason to get in – maybe your old friend Boz can shake some memories loose.”

Ada hesitated. “I don’t think we were friends.”

‘You weren’t,’ the cool voice confirmed.

“It’s as close as either of us have left, Drabowski.” The man looked over his shoulder, “Last chance, I imagine you got Affini stepping in your footprints.”

“You know about them?”

“Get in. We’ll talk.”

'Don’t,' the cool voice urged.

Ada put a knee up onto the cushioning as she unslung her pack, and set it between the seats. By the time she shut the door, Boz had already put the truck back in drive. With another weary glance at the rear-view mirror, he motivated the mechanical beast along.

‘You remember deciding to sleep in wet clothes in a half-rusted ruin last night? Scratch that from the list – this is easily your worst decision yet.’

He was still dressed in the blue synthetowool longcoat of a Helio-Conscript. The patch on his arm gave him away as a member of the mobile infantry. A ground trooper whose job it had been to fight and die amidst a tide of human casualty. The two brass stripes on his breastpocket marked that it was his job to point men and women in the right direction to die in.

Boz caught Ada’s gaze, and couldn’t keep a proud grin from appearing. “First lieutenant of the Lethie thirty-first,” he declared. “Spent most of that career fighting communards in this sector.

“You’ve been busy.”

“I was never Navy, sure, but they respected me enough to have me lead a charge or two. Even got to hold the flag a few times.” He nodded. Ada watched the trees move by faster than her eyes could follow. Motion without effort was a nice change of pace. All the labor had now been offloaded to a straining engine-block. “I’ll do it again,” Boz added quietly, “Once we rally against the bastards.”

Ada’s jaw tightened. He wasn’t convincing anyone, because he was already convinced of it. “The Affini?”

“The occupiers,” Boz corrected. “Omega-Terrestial-01.”

‘The designations change absolutely nothing,’ the wistful voice interjected. ‘He’s up against gods, and he doesn't know it.’

‘No. He does know it – he’s just rejected that notion outright. He’s dangerous,’ the cool voice warned.

Ada realized she had clutched the seatbelt. Unclawing it, she cleared her throat. “Right – so how do you know about my situation?”

Boz glanced at her, then returned his gaze to the road, “I have some questions first.”

“But I–”

“It’s Ada now?” he interrupted. “I couldn’t get your full file when I saw your name in the crew manifest. When I saw Drabowski, Lethie, Anitol… Well – there aren’t exactly a lot of Drabowskis out here.”

Ada sighed. She had drawn air in to ask a question, but instead hissed it out of her nose. “Yes. They call me Ada now.”

 

“What was wrong with your father’s name?”

Ada glared.

Boz coughed, “Right… I just mean he was a good man – deserved a son who would keep his name.” He glanced at Ada again, “At any rate, he never lived long enough to have a second kid. What, with the feather-lung… Ada is your grandmother’s name?”

“Tak.”

“Adriana?”

Ada nodded.

“That’s a good name too. It’ll do.” He straightened his posture, “Your question then?”

“You know an awful amount of my whole –” Ada gestured around, “This.”

“Yeah. We were on a scavenge run near Doorstop when we spied you in the manifest. Doc checked your vitals and…” Boz grimaced, “They weren’t pretty. We figured we could patch you up, get you in fighting shape. Stars know we need another engineer on board.”

“Recruited just like that? How illustrious.”

Boz’s hands tightened, “I’ll excuse you for the lack of gravity of our situation – we’re under siege Ada. Every free Terran left is under obligation to join the march.”

“A march towards what?”

“Don’t be cute – back towards the mission.” He gave Ada a stern look, “Our destiny amongst the stars. The invaders think they’ve robbed us of our future, but they’ve only strengthened our resolve. They’ve put mankind's best to the test.” His gaze stretched out past the horizon. “Once this is over the collaborators are going to pay, Drabowski.” He glared through her, “You ought to pick your side carefully.”

Ada didn’t take her eyes off Boz now. ‘Play this carefully,’ the cool voice urged.

“If you thawed me out, where were you when I woke up.”

He deflated ever so slightly, “That’s… Complicated.”

“We got the time, eh?”

“Fair – we had intended for you to wake up surrounded by people. Your own kind. Like I said, Doc said you needed some immediate medical attention. Once we had got our plan together we saw that Affini scouting shuttle pop up on our radar – probably the front-runner for a larger vessel. Hell, it could have been for a fleet.” Boz sighed, “We had to cut and run, we don’t have the man-power here for a full on confrontation. Not yet.”

“Wait – what was wrong with me? What did your doctor find out?”

Boz grimaced, “Doc put it better - once we rendezvous he can explain.”

“Please.”

“Fine. There’s no easy way to put it. You were dead, Ada.”

The world felt like it collided with itself. A dreamy lightness washed through Ada’s head. Something she hoped she was about to wake up from.

“Dead?”

“Not full-on, mind you. The brain was still firing, I think. Biologically, you had been dead for maybe two, three minutes. In cryo?” He whistled, “a year, maybe.”

Ada couldn’t see anything in front of her. Everything replayed from a corpse’s perspective. “How did I…”

“We ran a system shock – he said it was only right to give you a chance. I thought the tube was going to just spit a body out. Guess you proved me wrong, Drabowski? Eh?” He shot another look over, “A lot of trouble for your body if you ask me. But hey, some of the boys from back home insisted on it. I made the call, and now look where we are.”

Ada barely heard him. The quiet entropy that had been carving away at her grey-matter had a name now. Death. She was dead. She was a body that was playing pretend with itself. ‘The soul left a year ago – you’re just playing catch up,’ the wistful voice chimed. She looked at her hands – they were still curled over her thighs. They weren’t her hands anymore.

Whoever Ada was had long departed.

“How long do you think I have?” The thing shaped like Ada asked.

“I don’t know – but I’d say any second that you haven’t keeled over is a miracle.” He gave a cold look at Ada, “You were always a very lucky one.”

The word luck tasted rancid on the end of her tongue.

He steadied his hands on the wheel. Too steady. Something beneath his thoughts had taken back over. An endless string of protocols and regulations played out behind his eyes.

“Those affini.”

Ada’s body snapped out of its daze, and looked at Boz with glossy eyes, “Huh?”

“The plants – they’re following you. Why?”

“I think they want to help me – in their way.”

Boz shook his head, “They want to enslave you, Drabowski.” He turned and pressed a finger into Ada’s temple, “They want to hollow that noggin of yours out, scoop out all your brains, and put vines and leaves in there.” He twisted his finger, “You’d be better off dead in your state.”

Ada flinched, “Have you–” she choked on the words. Tried again, “Have you made it back around to Alistol? How are the folks back home?”

‘Bad move,’ the cool voice noted.

Boz’s jaw tightened. He looked back at the road, curdling grief and rage with his expression, “It’s gone Ada. Guess you forgot that too.”

The hum of the engine filled the empty space as the sun flickered onto the windshield through the canopy above. A bump in the road sent a creak through the body of the cab. Then another. Ada’s pulse thumped behind her eyes.

“I didn’t–”

“Turned into a crater in forty-eight. Only people left from Alistol were the conscripts.” He sucked a breath through his teeth, “The conscripts, and you of course.”

“Boz, I’m so sorry-”

“Communard sympathies – mobile infantry had to scout the rubble for survivors. Clean up. I expected to find you, crumpled under rubble or something.”
He shook his head with a brittle laugh, “no, just more friends. More family. Not the lucky little girl that didn’t want to be a boy anymore. Not the lucky little spacer who couldn’t bear to stay on cold-terrible Lethie.”
His voice rose back into a hoarse rasp, “Little Ada who got everything she wanted, and somehow still managed to turn herself into a walking corpse!”

Ada couldn’t catch up to her heart – it pounded against her ribs with what little strength it could still muster. “I think you should drop me off.”

Boz whipped his head around, something unthinking behind those eyes. Ada flinched – then Boz relaxed. A long breath pushed out from his nose, and he straightened his back again. “We’re already so close to the city. Probably just a few more minutes.”

“I can walk the rest.” Ada fumbled at the door, her eyes stuck on Boz.

“It’s no trouble, Drabowski,” he replied. The auto-locks clicked with the flick of a switch.

“I want to get out.”

“Oh? You want out?”

“Boz, I’m not trying to piss you off here, please – let’s just go our separate ways. We both just want to survive,” Ada pleaded.

“Want want want… Always ‘wants’ with you, Drabowski.” Boz took his foot off the gas, and the truck began to roll to a reluctant stop. Asphalt crunched under its tires, and the engine breathed a desperate sigh. It gave in to a contented, idle hum after a moment. “Step out of the cab, Drabowski.”

A quiet cut of land. All trees, shrubs and dirt. A breeze rattled the trees. Not a single witness for miles. ‘An awful place to die,’ the wistful voice pointed out.

“Sure Boz.” Ada nodded and leaned over to grab her pack – then froze. He had leveled a laz-pistol at her skull.

The metallic click of the activator. The quiet buzzing of a primed battery.

“Out I said.”

“What the fuck–”

“I’m going to be the first person, Drabowski, to give you exactly what you need.” His voice came calm, resolved.

Ada pressed her back into the door, and fumbled the handle. She practically tumbled out of the cab, and backed away with her hands up. The air tasted sharp. Like iron. She could only watch as the conscript stepped out, and keeping the pistol trained on Ada he walked around, then shoved her to the ground in one fluid motion.

“Terminus-31,” he declared.

“What!?”

“When a member of your unit is injured behind enemy lines, an honorable execution is to be carried out – to prevent primary intel from falling into opposing hands,” He explained. “Opposing vines in this case,” he added.

“Don’t–”

“Last words – spit them.”

'A standard issue Daleum-Defense thunder-pistol.' the clinical voice weighed in. 'Concussive, and hot enough to burn through weaker alloys. You are like twelve seconds away from complete annihilation.'

“I didn’t ask for any of this…” Her voice came out in a mumble.

“Speak up girl, speak with some purpose for once in your life.”

Ada sat up, furious, “I said, I didn’t ask for any of this, asshole!”

“Oh yeah, is that it?” He wagged the gun at Ada, but she didn’t flinch this time.

“No,” she declared. “I didn’t ask Valentin to step in to save me from the draft! I didn’t ask to be a spacer – but I couldn’t hack it either way!” Their eyes met again, now with different flavors of fury.
“I couldn’t hack it on Lethie,” she reiterated – her tone sharp, cold. “An awful planet and a worse place to die. Kill me for leaving?” She tilted her head, then scoffed, “That’s rich.”
She pushed herself up onto her knees, “I didn’t ask you to thaw me out – but you did. You dragged me into this mess – and all I want – all I’ve wanted the entire time is for one person to take me fucking seriously!”
Ada grabbed Boz’s hand and twisted the barrel towards her neck, “You brought me here, and now you want me dead? Fine! So be it.” She didn’t blink, she didn’t tremble. The animal brain that fought to stay alive was silent now. “Make it hurt then. Kill me like you mean it.”

It would have only taken a squeeze. A twitch of the finger on a hair trigger and he’d watch Ada’s throat explode then sear close. He’d see her blood boil against the soil. He’d watch her die before she even fully knew it happened.

His finger trembled. He squinted up at the sun.

Then – he relented. He raised the pistol back up, and flicked the activator off. “You should go.” The battery went silent. It was just a hunk of metal, incapable of killing anymore. “I shouldn’t be here.” He glanced at Ada. “Szczęśliwej podróży…” he said.

He turned, and with a practiced poise, he strode back towards the truck. Without another word, Boz climbed inside, put it back into drive, and drove away. Ada watched stunned, finally able to choke back the first real breath since she started shouting. She watched the taillights give a final wink before they disappeared around the next bend. All the rage – and her belongings. Gone.

Her stuff!

Ada jumped up, “Hej!” she shouted, her voice came out raw, “Masz moje rzeczy! Masz moje rzeczy, dupku!”

Notes:

Thanks for sticking through with me so far - I hope you all join me in the next chapter as we enter the final stretch of Ada's feral arc.

I hope you're all enjoying my take on The Fool's Journey.

p.s - I think at some point I'm going to go back and touch up my first chapters. I think I've grown a lot since I started and they could use some polishing. Either way - stay tuned! Some parts of the story I've been very excited for are coming up fast!

Chapter 12: Universal Truths or Something

Notes:

Ada's journey continues to unravel her psyche as she reaches the conclusion that this adventure has a rapidly shortening list of endings.

Will she make it out alive and unflortted? Who knows, but she's unfortunately dedicated to hitting every rock down this hill she chose to die on.

CW -
Mention of WMDs
Auto-Vacuum Death
Another gun gets leveled at Ada
Anarchist Ideology (With my middling understanding of theory)
Drugs

Dalleo sat in the midst of a stretch of flatland. A coastland where rocky soil deemed little more than ferns and shrubs to grow. It was banked by cliffs - black and jagged. Dark waters crashed against them in great blooms of white foam and mist. The grandest of the waves at the highest tides crashed midway up the lower cliffs, carving highland pools over uncounted lifetimes. Bioluminescent crustaceans and primordial trilobites skulked these precarious byways. Their legs would dig into the rocky croppings, and cling so desperately when the crashing waters came and went. They scavenged the debris that low currents dredged and deposited. A hundred feet below, jawed fish with terrible armored bodies waited for wayward denizens to wash out with the tide. Unfortunate sacrifices to the delicate cycle of eating and being eaten.

In a few hundred million years, the cliffs would be sanded down into hills. Grasses will have evolved to overtake the border between soil and sandy beaches. The creatures that called this place home would have long since died out, or become something else entirely. Feathery birds would sail overhead on leathery wings – with sharp beaks they’ll breach the surface of a gentler ocean and pluck silver fish from the shallow coastal waters. One day the sun would expand and burn it all into a cracked wasteland. For now – there was a city on it.

In the brief sliver of time allotted to mankind, there were now people who called this cut of Providence their home.

The city was founded by the expeditionary forces of a Robert Hartford Dalleo sometime during the later phase of mankind’s expansion into fringe sectors. In its earliest shape, the city of Dalleo amounted to little else than a colonial backwater. Most of its supercontinent was deemed uninhabitable, and its higher oxygen concentration deemed most ventures too maintenance heavy. Its early exports were mostly primordial wood, prized by corporate execs for luxury furniture.

Once the massive lithium deposits that Providence hosted were discovered everything changed. A mining boom in ‘17 converted Dalleo into the crowded city it had become. Swaths of the scrubbish inland had been converted into technicolored fields of iridescent misery, where miners braved horrific alkaline conditions. They waded the caustic dust and braved gusts of wind that stripped their lungs raw. An industry fueled by human blood whose labor fed into the nervous systems of every body of industry, space travel, and convenient home appliances.

Dalleo had been converted into the beating heart of this violation of human life and dignity. Industry boomed, and the commerce that came from the sacrifice was enjoyed in full by the city’s elites.

In ‘52, the inequity of this town would have boiled over. When the communards took the city-center there was rejoicing in the streets. Men and women marched the streets under waving flags, and instruments of victory flooding every ear. They would have never heard the ICBM that would reduce their home to a radioactive slag pit.

All undone in ‘51 when the Affini arrived. Now, it was just a place people lived.

Every day at sunset, a lone trumpeter played a mournful tune of surrender to put the outer ruins to sleep.

The east Edge of Dalleo that Ghoul came upon was at one point a miserable workers quarter. Grafton. Squat hab-blocks, corner stores, and stale offices – all now rightly abandoned. Its residents had long since moved inwards with the dissolution of wealth altogether to finally share the bounty of the city’s excess. Most of it was slowly being stripped down and repurposed to expand the city-center. The Affini didn’t believe in waste.

Ghoul sifted a graveyard of mankind’s recent history. The hollowed out buildings were draped in plastic-tarp death masks that obfuscated their dismantling. They billowed in the wind, their flapping joining the death rattle of exposed H-beams. She stepped around a bundle of scaffolding left behind by a work crew. Affini, flanked by volunteer construction teams, worked through the daylight hours to dissect these bodies of capitalism. Now, in the late hours of the afternoon they had returned home to places far less miserable than Grafton.

The echoes of a trumpet’s final peal haunted the street.

Where the road rounded off into a wide bend, the remains of a petrol station stood resolute. Accompanying it was a tall circular sign. The sign had a five-pointed blue star against a white background – when electricity rattled Grafton’s power grid, its glow tortured a slew of residents across the street while they tried to sleep. Now without power and without neighbors, it was just a plastic monolith to a bygone era. Ghoul tilted her gaze up onto the defunct sign. It hadn’t been used in years. Something in its dormant soul wanted to buzz, loudly. Proudly.

Ghoul needed to stop listening to the wistful voice.

She peered through the smudged plexi-glass at the empty shelves inside the station. There was a dead auto-vacuum unit with a slightly cleaner-than-the-rest trail that marked its final act of service before its battery gave out. A lifetime of sifting diligently underfoot now honored through an unceremonious retirement. The walls were plastered with anti-affini sentiments left by a dwindling population of ‘feralists’ who either still opposed the occupation or had been absorbed by it. The deconstruction efforts had forced the lowlives and punks who haunted places like this to find new stomping grounds.

There was a migration – they had fled to another far flung corner of the Accord’s old charts. Ghoul could only hope that she hadn’t missed the entire flock yet. There was still an illusion of liberty out there to follow.

She rounded the north edge of the station and stared down the narrow stairway that led to a beige metal door. Golden afternoon light silhouetted her figure at the top of the steps. She breathed a labored sigh and clambered down. Somewhere down here would be a means to an end. She tried to ignore the sharp taste at the end of her tongue when she spared a space for Claire in her brain.

Her steps came awkward and half measured. Even with her gear gone, every joint in her body ached all the same. Once she made it to the door, she braced against it and rapped a fist against it. “Taz?” she called out while she rested her forehead against the cool, scratchy metal. She impatiently knocked again, “Taz? Lance sent me your way – they said you could help me out, and that you lived here.”

Silence. Frustration bubbled up to fill the empty space.

Ghoul groaned and pounded the door once more, “Do not dare pull this ‘I am not here’ type of mysterio-shit, I am running out of-” She was however cut off by the sound of a bolt sliding behind the door. It swung open not even half-a-beat later, but before she could react she found another gun leveled at her head.

The man behind the pistol was tall, and almost spindly. He had long arms, long legs, even a long face. His coarse hair was in wild curls, growing in a multitude of directions. He had heavy brows that were focused, but not furrowed.

The battery was alive with the rattle of an activator. He could if he wanted.

“God damnit,” Ghoul complained as she instinctively raised her hands.

The man’s voice came out low, but sharp. “Hands – raise ‘em,” he said.

He stepped aside in the doorway and waggled the pistol at a chair off-center in the room. “Butt – plant it,” he added.

Ghoul stepped inside with a sigh, “I–” she started.

“Lips – zip ‘em,” Taz warned.

The chair looked diabolically uncomfortable. Metal back, metal face, metal legs. Sad rubber feet that left black streaks on the floor when you dragged it. A standard folding chair designed very carefully to be good for storage – not for sitting. The human body had never even entered the design meeting for the monstrosity.

Ghoul sank into the seat with a huff. She didn’t want to admit how good sitting actually felt right now, despite the awful craftsmanship. Glancing around the decrepit shelter revealed that Taz evidently called this place home. A cot in the corner, shelves stuffed with plastic jars, and a cobbled together lab next to a kitchen. Very safe, very livable – a practical habitat with a depresso-chique aesthetic, complete with the distinct mildew smell that only aged cinderblock walls could provide. Her only criticism would be that there wasn’t a solitary, soggy poster on a random wall – that would have been the je ne sais quoi. Its presence could have truly pushed this space over the edge into one of the saddest she had set foot in thus far. The faint hum of an oxygen filter was a nice touch, however.

Taz himself had already dropped his attention from Ghoul completely, and had taken to busying himself at the lab bench. Ghoul tried to crane her neck around, but she couldn’t piece together what he was doing. The benchtop was an incomprehensible mess of chemicals, and glassware. There were beakers who were host to an overwhelming variety of compounds – toxic and colorful inorganics, sad and brown organics. At least a majority of them were capped.

Stuck to the wall nearby was a whiteboard overburdened with the flow of Taz’s consciousness. Formulas, notes, and arguments with himself that all fought one another for every inch of available space.

The pistol had been deposited thoughtlessly on an end table – just within his reach.

She watched as Taz emptied a test tube into a beaker - a clear substance into a milky blue liquid. After a single swirl the entire concoction fell to a pitch black, another swirl rendered it clear again. He then carefully separated half of his new compound into another beaker. Without paying any head to Ghoul’s presence he crossed to the kitchen and opened the fridge. Amidst the meager rations that sparsely populated it, there was a wooden rack inside that housed a series of vials. Dark red in the cold. Blood.

The pressure behind her eyes made it hard to focus on anything else in particular. Switching focus between what was across the room and right in front of her felt like smashing her head through a wall.

Taz hipchecked the fridge closed before striding back to his lab station. He gave Ghoul a solitary glance this time. She watched him, almost disgusted by his confident candor. “I could have went for the pistol,” she warned.

“You didn’t,” he replied while he shook the vial.

“I might still.”

“You won’t.”

“But–”

“I wouldn’t do that,” he said sharply with another quick glance. Not a threat, just a statement to him. One that left Ghoul sulking in her seat. She tried not to consider how small this all made her feel. As if somehow anticipating Ghoul’s next words, Taz added, “Didn’t I tell you to keep quiet?”

“Fuck you, man,” she groaned. “What are you doing anyway?”

Taz uncapped the vial and tipped it over one of the beakers. Not a moment after his blood washed into the mixture a reaction fired – the liquid went black once more, but this time an orange haze coughed up from inside. Satisfied, Taz flicked a switch and a fume-hood siphoned it away. “Just getting a test ready,” he explained.

“That was to be your control group then?”

“Look at that – someone paid attention in highschool,” Taz teased absent mindedly.

Ghoul glared, “What are you testing for?”

The man looked over his shoulder at her with a hint of surprise, maybe even a speck of admiration. “You’re a curious sort – no one’s ever asked before,” he said.

“You still have not said anything. Speaking in riddles makes people look dumb you know?”

Taz nodded, “Blood test. Making sure you’re still all human.” He lifted an empty syringe up to the light, squinting. “You don’t got a scar on your neck, but I’m not gonna’ get caught up for being careless.” Then, he strode over to Ghoul, but before he could issue any command, she retreated back into her seat.

“Hold yourself – what does any of that mean?”

“You been living under a rock?”

She shifted, “Something…Like that.”

Taz’s gaze bore into her, bordering between frustration and confusion. “We’ll keep it short…” He took a short breath, then started, “If there’s one thing the Affini hate, it's ‘autonomy.’ Whenever they can find an excuse, they’ll strip whoever they can of it – and they do it in their own fancy little way by putting vines in ya’ – right here,” he explained by sticking the cap of the syringe against the side of his neck. “The vines grow up inside you, wrap your spine, grow through your brain. In less than a month you’re all gone. All that’s left is whatever your new ‘owner’ has deemed appropriate.” He cursed under his breath, “I can tell you, there ain’t a lot they like to leave behind.”

“Stars…” Total bodily annihilation. Ghoul could feel cold sweat prickle the base of her neck. An awful kind of death that you had to keep living through. She rubbed the imaginary incision point where roots would hook into her nervous system. Her breath hitched. Would she know it was happening? Would she be put into the back seat of her own head? The holes in her grey matter, replaced with purple foliage – no thoughts left – just the smell of flowers emerging from blissful static…

She shook her head.

“Its the worst thing you can do to another thinking creature.” He shook his head, “Take away its ability to process their own thinking.”

“So if my blood fizzles –”

“You’re clean. I got a feeling you are, truth be told, but…” He held a hand out, and gestured for Ghoul to do the same, “They love their tricks – can’t afford to get sentimental, even when I wanna’ trust you.”

‘You get to live,’ the cool voice coined, ‘that’s what he isn’t saying.’

A frantic voice pitched in, ‘this is worse than Boz.’

‘No it’s not –’ the wistful voice mused. ‘He has killed before, but he doesn’t want to do it anymore.’

Instinctively, as if already wounded, Ghoul folded her arms over themselves, “This… The test doesn’t give you false negatives?”

Taz chuckled, “C’mon, what do I look like?” He asked like she already knew the answer. “Now – hand,” he commanded. “The quicker we settle this, the quicker we can get to why Lance sent you out here.”

‘See – that one is right. He doesn’t want to hurt you,’ the cool voice reasoned.

Wait, they can agree with each other?

The clinical voice chimed in, ‘You know it, baby.’

‘We’re all of one mind at the end of the day,’ the wistful voice sang along.

She hated this.

Ghoul had half-relented, but before fully lowering her arm she added the condition, “I get to test my own blood.”

“I can live with that.”

Her face went taut as she presented her arm. She moved like she was fighting against her better judgement. Before she could back out, Taz took her by the wrist and pulled the slack out fully. He readied the needle, but couldn’t help but notice the alarm rapidly taking over Ghoul’s face. He groaned, “don’t tell me you’re ‘fraid of needles.”

“I don’t do pain,” she protested.

“You a fainter?”

“Not normally, but I feel like death these days.”

“Shux, just these days? You’re telling me you didn’t always look that way?”

“You’re such a good doctor, has anyone ever told you that?”

“Just try to relax – will you?”

Ghoul huffed and looked away.

“Are you pouting?”

“Can you just shut the fuck up and stick me already!”

“I hear it helps to look.”

“Oh come on man-” she began as she snapped her head back around only to find that the needle was already lodged into the pit of her elbow. Taz drew the plunger back and she watched pale red start to flood into the syringe – her thoughts trickled into fuzz and then her skull voided her vision. Thoughts went in the next instant, unwound like a spool of thread into one thin line of panic as the world rushed up to meet Ghoul. Falling through ice. A cold world, a frozen hell waited below consciousness. It felt like spinning before an unbeatable stillness. Serenity at the end of a thoughtless wavelength.

All that remained was the primordial strands of her brain stem. Flickering vibrations resounded in hollow space with each hormonal pluck - a lizard-like foundation that only wanted to be warm, fed, and sleeping. Base instinct before the facade of a thinking mind tricked itself into existence.

As if detecting the dissonance, Ghoul’s brain slammed the illusion of the self back into place with enough force that she awoke with a sputter, then a cough. She was laid out on her back, looking up at a ceiling that was just as depressing as the wall. The cot underneath her was a hair more comfortable than the floor she imagined.

Lying was better than sitting too.

Taz looked back, he’d never admit that he sighed with relief. “Good news,” he chimed with a tone that masked his fading concern.

“I’m human?”

“As human as it gets, even got the plastic to prove it – your blood’s all gunked up though.”

Ghoul rolled onto her side with a, “Buhh…” Her eyes were still turning back on, but she could make out the blurry shape of Taz sitting over by his lab. The pressure was back too. There was a dull ache behind it as well. “Oh joyous me,” she mewled, “Another eval of my health.”

“Oh, so you’ve run into doctors out there in the sticks?” His tone was calm, but there was a dagger-point to it. He was being fairly critical.

“No…” Ghoul admitted. “Are you a doctor then?”

“Something like that.”

She rolled onto her back with a groan, “Oh God, I knew you were a chemist! I bet you worked atmospherics, didn’t you?”

“Pharmacuticals and bio-synthesis,” he corrected. “The fuck were you then?”

“Astro-Engineer for Wellerman.”

“So a delivery girl that could spin a wrench?”

“Up yours.”

“Where’s your ship, spacer?”

“Odpieprz się – you made your point,” Ghoul conceded as she sat up. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Hard to say without context – but your blood took too long to react, the off-gas was white, and there’s precipitates at the bottom of my beaker now.”

“Oh so I’m special,” she mused.

Taz rolled his eyes and kicked off from the lab-bench, the wheels of his chair scratched loudly against the rough floor, and he stood up into the kitchen in a fluid motion. He leaned over a pot that wafted with purple fumes. “Why don’t you give me the details then?”

“Try cryo-malfunction – five years.”

Taz failed to hide his alarm this time, “Stars – that ain’t even bio-accumulation, that’s full-on infusion. You basically got coolant in your veins.”

“Excellent diagnosis, everything hurts like there is.”

“I figured – how have you been managing it so far?”

“Stims – Wellerman issued pain killers in them.”

“How many?” He asked with hesitation holding his tone at the back of his throat.

“I think seven or eight at this point.”

“That’s not the worst I guess–”

“In the last week,” Ghoul concluded.

Taz sucked his teeth, “Nevermind that’s real bad.”

Ghoul nodded, “Yeah, I figured once I got to Sol I could find a saw-bones to put me back together.”

“You still believe that?”

“Going to have to, aren’t I?” She sat up, “I think – something in me is telling me my body’s been on loan longer than this.”

Taz tilted his head, “How you make figure of that?”

“I don’t fully know, but once you realize you’re body’s giving out on you, there’s supposed to be alarm bells, ya’ know?”

“Got none?”

“Just a lot of aches – Lance said you could help me. Do you got something for that?”

“As a matter of fact, I might just,” Taz explained with a confident tip of his chin. “Affini’re a pain in my ass, but I won’t disservice them to say they didn’t bring some potent xeno-chems to the table.” He thumbed over at the purple gas that continued to rise from the pot in careless droughts of mist. Another stream climbed upwards into oblivion as it dissipated into the atmosphere of the cellar. “You learn how to work in their world, and the game changes.”

“So what are you brewing?”

“Pain killer, a potent one.” He dipped an eye dropper down into the brew, and carefully withdrew a measure.

“Can I ask you why you are helping me? Do not just lay out some vague ‘because Lance asked me to’ nonsense.”

Taz sighed as he stepped over to the cot and sank down next to Ghoul. “Fine – but you’re getting the short answer. I got work to do, cool?”

“I’ll live with that – we don’t have to be friends, but I’d like to have a reason to trust you.”

“I can respect it. I believe that every sapient being has the right of self actualization - the right to happiness and the right to suffer. Affini rob us, and any species they encounter, of that axiom. Right now the only path forward is liberation wherever we can find it – if that means keeping someone like you moving, then that’s how it's got to be for now.”

“You sound like an anarchist.”

“Put a label on it if you want. We’re both just humans trying to stay free at the end of the day. Regardless of the reason, I’m obligated to help anything with half a mind to stay that way – no matter how convincing the mask of an oppressor might be. Besides, if Lance sent you down my river, then you had to be in some dire straits.”

“You’re a real triumph of mankind, type.”

“Scoff if you want – we got pretty far all things considered.” He sighed, “The fascists and their apologists would like you to think all the task forces, capital, or whatever-the-fuck is what got is here.” He jabbed a finger at Ghoul’s chest, “It was working together, always has been. Some sick bastards managed to corrupt the idea for a good long while, ran profit schemes off our good nature, and then dragged us under an alien boot for the trouble. We got a chance here to try and make it right. Set our record straight.”

‘Realign our souls to the vibration between the stars…’ The wistful voice chimed into the melancholy of his speech, ‘All existence is fading from one state to another – we were born to work together, die, and leave room for the next version to show up.’

Taz sought a return to form that had not existed in years, thousands of them. There was an eternal truth behind his eyes – not of peace. Balance at any cost. There was love there, somewhere. Mercy for something, and ideal for another.

‘Or – or,’ the cool voice interrupted, ‘This man is a failed revolutionary boiling alien plants in a basement of a gas station. We’re not nihilists here, but I think it's my job to keep you on the right side of living. Just my two cents.’

Ghoul’s eyes danced over the dropper. “That’s the painkiller, yeah?”

“Most of it – it's just the unrefined version. Still needs a distillation, but it works.” A flicker danced behind Taz’s eyes.

“What do you need to distill out?”

“A potent hallucinogenic factor. It’ll still work out the aches, it’ll also just take you on a trip while it works its magic s’all.”

“Oh good to know that it's only a minor effect, I was really worried about taking unrefined Affini chems until you mentioned it’ll definitely play with my hardware.”

“It’s safe, kid,” Taz assured. “I won’t ever give my people something I haven’t tried myself. There’s no plant here that’s going to try and rewire your parts while you’re venturing into the underworld. You’ll be in charge of your own journey. You got my word.”

Ghoul squinted up at Taz, and the sincerity etched across his face. “You have an odd way of convincing people of shit they shouldn’t believe.”

“I used to be a corpsman – comes with the territory.” He lifted the dropper in his left hand, and folded his right over his bicep. “Way I see it – you’re already on a journey, might as well get out of your skull for a sec and see what you make of it.”

“Well…”

“Or you can lay here and groan for the next couple hours while I finish up.”

Ghoul ran a hand over her face, “Fine – fine… Hit me with it.”

“That’s the spirit – open up and stick your tongue out. You don’t strike me as an eyedrop girl.”

“I’m not an anything girl, the most I’ve ever taken is syntheto-nic.”

“Chatter chatter.”

‘I’m actually pumping the breaks on this idea!’ The cool Voice came in alarmed this time, ‘You should NOT do this.’

Ghoul rolled her eyes, and finally complied. Her mouth wrenched open, and her tongue rolled out. The first drop to hit it left a bitter taste that bled into the rest of her mouth, slow at first, then the second drop sent it into overdrive. The flavor encapsulated her cheeks, the roof of her mouth, her throat. The third brought with it a stilling vibration that cascaded down into her ribs and then slingshotted back up with a cooling numbness. She didn’t even feel the fourth drop.

“That should do it…” the Ghostly voice of Taz noted. “You can close up now…” it added.

She couldn’t tell if her mouth shut. She tried to will her hand to reach up to check it, but that was at a delay. She could feel the electrical pulse shoot from her neurons and down the length of her spine to the ends of her fingers. The twitch felt involuntary, as if she had forgotten the command she had sent in the first place. Like a delivery driver arriving with a package she didn’t remember ordering. When her fingers traced the line of her jaw the sensation felt alien – she had never considered what her fingers felt like against her skin, had she?

She blinked in slow motion, and she watched the world close around her eyes. Fading, fading. Dark. Then light, blinding as the day she was born slammed into her retina.

Taz had stood up and was moving back to his lab. But there was an image of him still on the bed. Ghoul realized she could see through the separation of seconds. Remarkable. The illusion of time had been shattered just like that. The tracing of motion that led him from her bedside over to his labor. There was a blurry stretch in between she hadn’t managed to witness between her blink. It was fading into a colorful smudge, and so was the space around her vision. The background static of the big bang had arrived from the primordial past to remind her of its presence.

“I should be freaking out…” Something that sounded like Ghoul just spoke. At this junction in time, she had said that. She could remember saying that because she had just done it. Remarkable.

If only anyone else were around to witness this revelation.

Taz tipped his head back, and held the dropper over his eye.

The colors had under-swept the entire room now – but that was okay, the room didn’t exist except in a fading ember of a pop from the grand campfire of the universe. It was a dancing light against the night sky, twisting and twirling without direction whose heat bled out into the cold vastness of its surroundings, lost to its immensity. The room cascaded into a tunnel that ventured the length of Ghoul’s residence within it.

She closed her eyes and let her head sink back into the cot. A whirlpool formed over her head from the movement. She could feel it peeling away her outline – she didn’t know she had one, but she knew she had just lost it. She didn’t really feel a notion to miss it though. Instead, Ghoul took peace in the feeling of fading away from herself. She would bleed out into the universe if that’s what was supposed to happen.

There was no supposed to happen. It was all a greater illusion of the self. The desire to measure the chaotic spiral of cosmology.

She wiggled her fingers. Those were still intact. That’s a shame. She opened her eyes. The ceiling was still there. She was still real. That’s a shame.

Notes:

Meet your new friend, Ghoul! I'm sure Ada taking on this new name has come from a good and healthy place.

We're getting close to a major turning point in The Fool's Journey for those who have been paying attention to what major arcana we're on.

Gonna low-key try to speedrun the next couple chapters together because I'm stoked to get to the end of Ada's feral arc. We got so much Affini loving to catch up on.

Chapter 13: A Life Better Forgotten

Notes:

Wowee I wish this chapter happened quicker. This and the next chapter were supposed to be the same one but I couldn't fit them together thematically. A few too many revisions later and we got here! I want to open by saying this was one of my favorite chapters to write so far, so I hope you enjoy.

In summary: We learn (partially) why the narration (I) keeps saying Ada is a bad person.

CW:
Drugs
Ego-Death?
De-realization
Skewed memories and unreliable narrators.
Harsh words
More Polish
Gun violence
Mentions/Partial imagery (nothing gory) of a mass killing

The illusion of time continued to fracture under the pressure of Ghoul’s attention. Now observed, and worse yet questioned, the universe had failed to constitute under its own weight.

She had run her hands over her face but couldn’t make out the shape. She couldn’t remember the flow of events her body was moored to. Unconsciously maintaining the temporal prison of existence was an exhausting endeavor. She closed her eyes as another wave of numbness engulfed her form. An incoming tide that submerged her – buried her in the blissful nothingness. Stripped of feeling until the only remaining factor was a brain that still partially functioned – firing its neurons towards dead-ends across burnt out synapses. Miles of tangled cords that stretched the gambit of her body.

The drug had seeped into her blood, and now each thump of her heart served as the mechanism that pushed it deeper and deeper into the recesses of Ghoul’s vessel. The drug trickled through the holes in her brain – a landscape reduced to a wasteland by the prior accumulation of cryo-chemicals. Their greater effects were now subdued behind a layer of boiled flower residue. She had thankfully left the ruins behind; her body was there, but her mind journeyed elsewhere. The physical bars couldn’t hold her anymore.

The tide went out, and the dull ache that lived in her body revealed itself again, and dragged her back into reality, if only briefly. Like rocks bared to the sun. The drying water revealed the jagged agony between her joints and under her skin. It was more subdued this time. Bearable even. Exhaling didn’t feel like filtering silt through her lungs.

Then – another wash. Numbness took her body again and she lost the sense of where the universe ended and her body began. Minutes passed through her and sensation never returned. The tension poured out of her body until all that was left was the blissfulness of a chemically induced haze. An empty vase in the shape of a human. The final shards that remained of a waking world began to flake away until all she could perceive was a cooled rush - air in the lungs.

Exhaling.

Baptized under the flow of alien drugs.

The world finally fell to a pressing black, and a pitch hum. Her mind couldn’t stand against the struggle of consciousness anymore, and retreated into itself as Ghoul drifted away.

In her mind the true reflection of the soul took shape – a small and kicked looking thing with bad posture. A scraggly and emaciated animal that was shaped like an Ada who had no mouth – whose face was primarily taken up by pale white eyes. Skin like the night sky, freckles replaced with stars. It didn’t need to speak or act, it would only ever witness. It was already crumbling under observation, retreating into itself with wrapping arms and coiling hands. A frightened animal that yearned to be put in a cage.

She was adrift in the uncaring tide of the cosmos, the only place it felt at home and it hated it here. It didn’t have the strength to live, but it was too afraid to die. It hoped if anyone ever found its body they would throw it off in space.

It watched the flickering of primordial starlight. Their journey had reached a destination against undeserving retinas. The ancient power of stars whose fusion churned out life-giving radiation to countless worlds now served in this instance to the confirmation of terror for a being too small to comprehend its place in it. Ghoul childishly denied its presence in the universe; a mortal sin of dissociation in a life that begged it with ample opportunity to become rather than be.

It closed its eyes and begged for walls. Prayed for layers between it and the unfiltered gaze of living.

When its eyes peeled back open it found itself in the lounge of Happy Trails, although now attuned to an imaginary gravity. Sat down in a chair, Ghoul was facing the booth, and the shapes of the former crew were looking back at it.
Piotr was a bit longer, with smoother skin that was unblemished from years of labor. There was a halo around his head. He still looked at Ghoul like a friend and it made it feel sick.
Maja was blurred with disdain, her form barely able to register in front of Ghoul with how much she didn’t want to be there. Something around the air tasted red the longer Ghoul looked at her.
Nowak. He was practically scratched out of the background. He was a hole left behind in the temporal fabric of this corner of Ghoul’s brain.

“Are you happy Adrabowski?” Piotr asked first, shifting his posture to get a better look at Ghoul. His face etched with concern as he took in the full sight.

Ghoul tried to answer, but it could only feel the skin where a mouth should have been pull taut. It was denied the complicated lie it was about to spin. Instead, Ghoul could only shake their head. Defeated, with sinking shoulders.

Piotr’s lips went tight, “That’s no good; you know there’s no frowning on Happy Trails. Cap’s orders.”

Ghoul looked at Nowak who only rolled his shoulders.

“I’m not mad at you, you know,” Piotr offered. “You did what you had to,” he added with a nod to a sheet of paper on the table. Ghoul didn’t want to look at it, frantically it shook its head. If it didn’t look, Piotr would be allowed to stay this time.

It glanced down, and the memory of its purpose smashed through every wall in Ghoul’s skull they had built up to levy against moments like these. Reinforced by a half-decade of metastaller accumulation. An anonymous company survey - a standard off-manilla questionnaire that meant nothing most of the time. That was the case, save for the novel final question. It had only been added that year, and it asked in more polite terms who the crew deemed as non-essential. The precursor to Wellerman’s downsizing phase. A prisoner’s dilemma that Ghoul failed with flying colors.

The name Piotr was scratched into the questionnaire box, and it made Ghoul want to scream. It lurched forward and desperately tried to claw the name out of the paper as tears began to well up in its eyes, and stream down.

“You were scared,” Maja hissed.

“Of course she was!” Piotr interjected with a shooting glare over at Maja, “We all were, but Adrabowski most of all, she would have never survived back on Lethie.”

“That makes it fair?”

“Look,” Nowak started, “Drabowski weighed her options, she made a choice. She wanted to be certain if Wellerman ever followed up on the survey, it wasn’t going to be her.” He breathed a heavy sigh that frayed the edges of his static, “She made a choice.”

“Fucking coward,” Maja spat, “We were a crew! Your friends…”

“Don’t listen to her,” Piotr gently urged, “She’s just upset right now. It’ll blow over, you know how Maja is.” Ghoul reached out across the table, begging him to stay in a gesture. When he gently took its hands, it crumpled over into silent sobs. “Nie płacz, Adrabowski. Teraz musisz być odważny.” Ghoul strained to raise its head and meet Piotor’s eyes. “Wierzę w ciebie.”

“Muszę już iść,” Piotr concluded. Ghoul frantically shook its head again, but to no avail. Reality wasn’t going to be denied. It could only watch as Piotr stood and marched out of the room without ceremony. Its head sunk back into the table, and fingers dug into its scalp as if it could pull the memory out somehow if it could just slip its fingers under an invisible lid.

“You're a parasite, Drabowski,” Maja said. Ghoul nodded, grinding its forehead into the table. “A fucking parasite. I should have seen it sooner. Walk around like a hurt little thing, and beg people to take care of you, and then you cut them off.” Maja stood up and leaned over the table into Ghoul. “The worst part? You don’t even do it to get ahead, you’re just surviving. You’re not even human, Ada. You’re an animal.”

“People sometimes can only stay alive, Maja,” Nowak postulated. “We were too, remember?”

“But we all wanted more!” Maja shouted, “Not her though, it was always just for a bed and a meal! She’d do it to anybody…” She almost spit. “Do what you want, Drabowski. I won’t be a part of it,” Maja concluded. Ghoul only flinched as it listened to her march out of the room.

It was waiting for Nowak to say anything, but he never said much after Maja was fired. The ship was only a bit more quiet after he was gone. It kept its head practically mag-locked against the table, the weight of an entire lifetime had pinned it there again. A million imagined scenarios where Ghoul had stuck by its crew cycled through its head. A world it would never know washed away behind its eyes.

When it finally stood up it wasn’t in the lounge anymore. The walls of that memory had collapsed around them before dissolving into something else entirely. They were standing in the auxiliary storage now. The gravity here wasn’t imagined, Happy Trails was docked with Messi Station. The first job she worked alone.

A stale room with crates belted down to the floor, waiting for the loss of gravity to test the restraints. Deep space where the planets didn’t hold dominion anymore. A place where Ghoul’s bones ached less. The room itself was used during cargo overloads.

Ghoul was staring down a ragged stowaway - a man who’d been on the run across the sector after a botched robbery. He’d acted desperately before, and he’d act desperately again. That’s why Ghoul had trained the rifle on him. He was kneeling with his hands raised to the ceiling. His eyes were locked onto the floor while he tried to catch his breath. His pupils were darting like a caged animal, just like Ghoul’s. Both of them had been stuck weighing the possible scenarios, and were having to swallow that there was only one outcome to their relative situations.

The man was paper thin. There was a bandage around his torso, and one on his head. His blonde hair was scruffy. He couldn’t have been much older than Ghoul if at all.

A mixture of hatred and disgust bubbled in the back of Ghoul’s throat, it didn’t want to live this memory again but unfortunately this soul wasn’t an agent of change. Unconsciously its limbs tugged into motion like a puppet on strings. The walkie-talkie on the crate nearby buzzed with comms-static. The authorities had already been notified, now it was just the tense waiting game that Ghoul had decided not to play.

“What’s yer’ name?” the man asked, “I’m Lee.” He stooped his head. “I ain’t a bad man, jus’ uh survivor like yer’self. It ain’t too late to do the right thing. Don’ turn me over ta’ the navy. They won’t do nothin’ kind to me. You know that. Jus’ lemme’ scoot. I promise I won’ be a problem.’”

It leveled the rifle up and the man’s eyes went wide. This was the first person it ever felt stronger than. It was the first thing Ghoul had ever been able to look down on. It hated him so much for that. How anything could have ever been lower was a mystery, but regardless it meant that he deserved every ounce of contempt. It was Ghoul’s turn to be cruel. Its turn to be awful to something powerless.

It squeezed the handle of the rifle before its brain could fully process the thought. The activator began to hum, and the battery went hot against its leg. The man staggered back with a yell and pushed himself against the wall. He raised a hand desperately. He would have done the same in Ghoul’s situation.

“Don’t!” he cried.

Ghoul let the lever go. A bolt of hot light flew across the room and slammed into the man’s leg.

Not a fraction of a second passed before his knee exploded into a display of smoke and boiled blood. His body jerked and a cry came up from his throat. A primal unrehearsed scream that only real pain could create. He clutched his leg and howled while the smell of hot plasma, blood, and charred flesh filled the room.

The man crumpled to the floor as his cries fell off into spit filled mumblings. Moaning there like something had cut his strings.

Ghoul told the authorities that he had lunged, and they didn’t care to investigate the matter. Besides, he might have ended up doing it anyway.

He never walked right again after this. He never forgave Ghoul either.

Ghoul sank down the wall across from the writhing mass of a man. The rifle clattered to the floor in a deceptively innocent, plastic clunk. Something slid down the wall along with them. It hit the floor with a soft thud and a relaxed groan. Taz was sitting to its left now. It could hear him give a hearty sigh. Ghoul couldn’t remember when they came into the room. He offered a soft, but drawn out ‘Hey’ as he joined them.

“That’s some nasty fucking work,” he noted with a nod. “You don’t feel any better, do you?”

Ghoul shook its head.

Taz raised his brows a moment then rubbed his chin. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.” He glanced at Ghoul, “Do you wish you still didn’t remember this part?”

It shrugged.

“That’s a harder question to answer, that’s fair.” Taz stood up and traced a path over to the man’s body. He bent over it before kneeling down to its level. He took the groaning man by a shoulder and turned him over. His bouncing sobs became more audible as his back went to the floor. Taz wiped some of the blood off on his jeans. “I think you gotta’ own this. Ya’ know?” He shot another look back at Ghoul, neutral. “I mean, it’s all about taking responsibility. Accountability is a part of being free. It's the whole damn principle actually.”

Ghoul’s head sank into its hands.

“I think this runaway shtick is getting old, even for you.”

Ghoul nodded, but didn’t look up.

“Yeah, that was harsh I guess.” Taz rolled his head back and forth. “Look,” he started, “What I’m saying is what you already know. You ain’t some tragic victim of circumstance.” He waved a hand into a circle, “You keep going back you’re going to keep finding that you drew the picture each time, someway somehow.”

The activator of the rifle gave its final whine, and the battery let out a cooling hiss.

Ghoul looked up, expecting a scowl. It was just as neutral as before. He wasn’t judging, just offering an idea. A thought. Its head sank back down.

“Maybe you should just try to draw better pictures.”

The room sunk into silence as the death rattle performance Lee had been putting on faded into the dull internal hum of the Happy Trails. The buzz of florescents filled in the space between every word Ghoul wanted to say to justify itself. Although the electrical din measured up to the same level of content that it had to offer. Instead, Ghoul only raised a solitary thumb before standing up and stepping out of the auxiliary closet.

The door slid open and it stepped out into a frozen tundra. The distant sky was vortexed by a seasonal mega-blizzard that had ravaged this cut of land the night before. It arrived without care or disdain for the bombed out remains of Allistol some nights before. The storm was miles away, cresting the horizon where it treated the world below with the same ambivalence it had treated these ruins. It had concealed to the earth the greater horrors of the Accord Navy’s swift dispatch of the communard sympathizers and their families. There were ditches where the snow cratered into bomb-holes. There were mounds to the western side of the village against the remains of an old retaining wall where lined bodies forced the snow up in mounds. Ada’s mother was somewhere under there. Their proposed crime had denied them the dignity of even a mass grave. To the east was the rolling flats where wind swept the sheets of white into rippling banks. The tireless gales made no concession for the display of human cruelty whose sole witnesses now consisted of its perpetrators.

Ghoul was never supposed to outlive these people. It looked to the left and then to the right, adjusting its flight jacket. It pondered laying out in the snow there, and letting the banks overtake its body.

Then footfalls, sprinting, and a second later Ada had sprung from the side and tackled Ghoul to the ground with a savage cry. Snow packed into Ghoul’s jacket-collar, seizing their body up in a rigid freeze.

Ada grabbed Ghoul by the shoulders and shook it into the snow as she continued to scream. “Why!?” she yelled, “Why do we keep having to do this!?”

Ghoul blinked which made Ada let a strained yell filter through her teeth before sinking her head into its chest with a wail.

“I hate you so much!”

Ghoul raised a hand up and patted the back of Ada’s head, she probably needed it. It could feel her tears and spit against her shirt. “I was scared,” Ghoul said, realizing it had a mouth suddenly. “I’m scared.”

“We can’t keep getting away with that…” Ada’s voice filtered through Ghoul’s clothes as a muffled groan. “It’s a bad excuse.”

“It doesn’t make it less true.”

Ada wiped her nose with her sleeve, “I know… But we’ve been at it for the last thirty-odd years; seven or eight of those have been spent on ice, but that still left us more than enough time to change our circumstances instead of just pissing everyone we’ve ever known off.”

“I don’t think Claire was mad at us.”

It could feel Ada’s body go tense as she laid flat against its chest now. “She didn’t want me around anymore.”

“You know its more complicated than that.” Ada only replied by blowing air out of her nose. The moisture condensed against the splotchy stains her crying had left behind.

“I don’t want to keep doing this,” she admitted.

“We’re dying.”

“Yeah.”

“We’re not scared.”

“We were supposed to be dead already. This was just extra time, remember?”

Ghoul glanced at the carnage once more.

“We were supposed to be sick,” Ada added. “Sicker, I guess, like the other village kids our age.” she corrected.

“We’re not dead yet - so what do we do next?”

“About the Affini?”

Ghoul nodded its head back and forth, “Sure, we can start there, yeah?”

Ada rolled off of Ghoul and sprawled out onto her back against the snow. The two looked up at the grey-blue sky, where the sun fought through spiralling polar vortex clouds. “We keep going… We get Taz’s pain killer and we find a way off this planet.”

“What about, what’s-her-name?”

“Dipensa? I don’t know. I think I feel bad for her as much as she freaked me out.”

“That’s very mature.”

“Fuck off.”

Ghoul sat up, “No that’s very big of you, we should be proud of that. It is growth! That’s what a therapist would tell us.”

Ada smiled up at it, “You’re laying it on thick.”

“I think we’re getting on better than usual.”

“I…” Ada sighed, “This won’t last will it.”

“It could this time,” Ghoul urged before rejoining Ada on its back. “We could talk more.”

“You know we cannot do that.”

Ghoul sighed, “Now what?”

“I still hate you.”

“I know… We can try to like one another – or at least work together for a change. As long as we’re alive it's not like either of us are going anywhere, right?”

Ada shifted against the snow, “We could try that.”

“I think I might like that.”

“I’m just sick of being made up of regret you know?” Ada sniffled back a wave of tears.

“I don’t think we can get rid of that - not with the time we have left. But maybe we can at least fill ourselves with enough choices that feel good that we go out feeling okay about ourselves.”

“That doesn’t sound bad.”

Unconsciously, their hands began to search for purchase in the frigid slush that had creased between their bodies. Then, when their fingers grazed one another, they clasped onto the fleeting warmth still contained in their boney fingers. First clumsily, then firmly their hands wrapped around one another as their eyes remained traced upwards into the slow and swirling grey patterns above. The sun wrenched open the jaws of the clouds once more before they clamped down again only for it to fight for another opening somewhere else amongst the smattering. They squeezed each other’s hands as tight as they could with tears tracing lines against their cheeks.

“I want to love you.” Ada said to herself.

Notes:

Thanks for tuning in! These next two chapters are ones I have been the most excited to write this entire story!

Fun Fact: it the original drafts, Ada was supposed to be captured back in like, chapter 5. Except then in those early stages of writing, Dipensa was a lot more cruel and a touch generic as far as I was concerned. I hope you have all been enjoying the re-imagined direction so far. I really appreciate how y'all have been hanging tight for the smut to finally happen in this alien-smut story. Thank you for continuing to read my story! I promise we're gonna get plenty of chapters to make up for the lost time.

Chapter 14: What if We're Friends?

Notes:

Wow, you made it to the turning point! A lot happens here and this is by far my longest chapter so I hope you enjoy.

As usual some CW:

- (Somewhat violent) medical treatment.
- Shameless title dropping
- Crime
- Bodily failure
- Liminal consciousness
- Mentions of death

Somewhere between spiritual revelation and a mind-addling haze, Ghoul was dragged back into the world through the needlepoint of a syringe slammed through her sternum by an appropriately alarmed Taz; who during her chemical journey had become aware of two Affini that had passed his sensor network. No doubt, they were bound for his ramshackle laboratory. In the crucial half-a-second between injection of a reversal-serum and Ghoul’s first coherent thoughts she had already sat up with a gasp to fill every corner of the space. Now she was sucking air through her teeth. Her pupils widened then contracted as she leaned over her own center of mass while a silent scream wheezed up through her throat.

Her tensed up body decoupled from its perch on the cot, but thankfully Taz was quick enough to assist her on the way down to keep from splitting her head against the floor. Rolling onto her back, her eyes were crossed onto the syringe still dug into her chest while Taz supported herby the base of her skull. In jerky motions she reached up and dislodged it, the sting locked her entire spine into an arch and drew another gasp out. Taz nodded and let her dip down flat against the ground as he returned to stuffing a duffel bag with his jarred flowers and sealed vials. Ghoul tugged her neckline down and prodded the injection-site with a hiss.

“Wha’the’fuck is wrong with you!” Ghoul managed to cough out her words by rolling onto her side.

“You sober now?”

“I am almost dead, I think!”

“That’s a yes,” Taz said as he stuffed a notebook into the bag, “We gotta’ boogie, your fanclub is hot on the scene. Ten minutes, tops.” When Ghoul groaned, Taz shot a look back at her, “You can stay here and get your brain scrambled straight from the source this time ifn’ you want.” She shook her head. “Right, nine minutes,” Taz concluded.

“Disco…” Ghoul gave another groan before throwing a hand into the air, “Help me up then, will you?”

When Taz lifted her up she quickly found how unsteady on her feet she was. The shockwave of numbness that rushed down the length of her nervous system risked doubling her back over. Thankfully the uncomfortable chair served as a halfway decent lifeline to cling to amidst the rolling tides of drug induced aftershocks. The world in front of Ghoul’s eyes essentially still had to filter through murky water. The steps back up the stairs felt more like clawing her way out from the underworld or maybe just a dream. There was a tether hooked around her spine that was growing more tense with each lurch upwards.

As the two rounded another corner into an alleyway, Ghoul couldn’t really tell if the pounding in her chest was from the danger the two were now in, or the fact that there had been adrenalin in the reversal-serum. She forced a look over her shoulder. The last fragments of sunlight cut the artificial pass behind them with heavy, ominous shadows. She spun her head back and rushed to catch up with Taz who was moving far more surefooted. “People used to live here?” She asked.

“Maybe we should keep it down?”

“Let us not be fools – a little chatter will not make two demi-god aliens any more aware of us than they might already be.”

Taz glanced back briefly, “So you’re an optimist.”

“Can you…” She groaned. “Just indulge me, man,” Ghoul urged, “I think your shot has frayed all my wires.”

His expression softened, “Fine - yeah people used to live here. Workers mostly.” Taz put a hand up with his back to a wall, halting Ghoul. He leaned out. The street was deserted, home only to long shadows. The ghostly whistle of wind whipping through skeletal architecture accompanied the silence. With a wave of his hand the two darted over the asphalt into another alley like rats scurrying just outside a raptor’s gaze.

“What kind of people?”

“Grunts. Laborers, middle managers, and low level corpos. The not quite so destitutes that couldn’t hack out a studio or something in the Dalleo, just down the road. Grafton’s not, or wasn’t a bad place to live on paper. The cheap oxygen filters and half-finished everything is what made it a miserable place.”

“I take it you’re a local?”

Taz choked on a laugh, “Nah, fuck no. Places like this were too rich even for my blood. Home was a cramped lunar hab back in Sol, but I ain’t been that way since I was a teen.”

“You got around a lot?”

“Too many hats, what can I say?”

“Why settle on Providence of all backwaters?”

“Backwaters like this have low Affini presence - ‘least they did ‘til recently I guess,” he sighed, with eyes traced up towards the sky. “Might be time to scoot again.”

“Where to next? I feel like this is a shrinking list.”

He glared back, “You got a habit of stating the obvious.” Taz rolled his jaw, “Yeah, I dunno’ - weeds seem ta’ hate it when you just wanna’ be left alone.” The two strode up to a wall at the end of an alley, “Hold up a sec,” Taz said as he set the duffle bag. He held his kneel and ushered Ghoul over. “I’ma boost you up here, then hand you the bag. ‘Kay?”

“Yeah man, just watch those hands.”

“The hell’s that supposed to mean.”

“We did open this partnership with you drugging me in a basement, yes?” Ghoul shot a smirk at Taz as she put her boot in his hand.

“Funny girl.” Taz hefted her up with a grunt, “You gonna’ faint on me up there? I know you astronauts got trouble with vertigo.”

“I’m steady, man.” Ghoul replied as she scrambled up the last of the chipped brick of the dividing wall.

“You? Looked in a mirror lately?”

“Just pass the damn bag up, or is verticality too foreign for topsiders?!” She put her belly flat against the top and stretched a hand out.

“Yap yap yap!” Taz shot back as he held the duffle up. “Don’t split your melon on the way down.”

“Awhh, you’re so thoughtful.”

“I jus’ don’t want your blood all over my stuff.”

“Maybe I’ll go ahead and spill instead!” Ghoul scooted around, then propped herself up into a sitting position as she lowered her legs down and leveled her body out. “Get my guts all over your delicates!” She grumbled, “It sounds better in my language.”

“Then that was a really bad translation, kid.”

“Up yours,” Ghoul squawked as she committed to dropping down. She clutched the bag to her chest and gravity covered the rest of the journey. Her feet slammed into the concrete below with a thud. Her balance went, and her feet flew out from under her body. With another thump Ghoul’s seat hit the ground next. A sharp hiss involuntarily shot up from her throat, tensing her entire body. Through squinted eyes she could barely make out the artificially eclipsed alley she had landed in. It was especially narrow, with most of it taken up by something long and wide whose identity was swallowed up by a tarp.

“Ghoul!?” Taz’s shout came a bit quicker than she expected. A loud shuffling rose up over the wall, and a moment Taz was already peeking over. “You good?”

“Yeah, I ended up spilling.”

He let out a quiet sigh, “Guess you’re used to losing fights with gravity?”

“Fuck you man, my ass hurts! Have some sympathy!”

Taz landed next to her with a small huff before offering a hand up, “Walk it off, its good for you.”

Ghoul took it and with his help, lurched back up to her feet, “Builds character, ah?”

“Nah, you got enough of that for both of us, I just think you could use the exercise,” Taz explained as he strode over to the tarped object.

“Hey can you put on one of the hats you mentioned, one that makes you less of an asshole?”

“Yowch,” Taz feigned a whinge while he took bricks off the corners. He grabbed the tarp and swung his body, revealing its contents like a magician.

An auto-carriage with grey metal that sat pale under the partial illumination of rising moonlight. The under chassis visible from underneath the powder-white corrosion revealed its rusted condition. It looked fit to still stand given that its four rubber tires hadn’t sunk into the earth yet, but it hardly looked able to do much else.

‘A Langston Sedan, likely a 1381A model. Mass produced back in thirty-three, a civilian model automobile with a cream faux-leather finish. It came in maroon black, industrial grey, and blizzard white.’ The calculated voice came through like it absently noticed the door in Ghoul’s brain was cracked back open.

‘Oh thank goodness you’re back,’ she thought.

‘Two tons of alluminal cool,’ the wistful voice announced.

‘How do we – I know so much…’ Ghoul wondered.

The Cool voice chimed in to illuminate her concern, ‘We delivered a cache of these back in 48.’

‘Oh that makes sense.’

Taz had busied himself with shoving the tarp into a nearby dumpster.

‘Just let them have their fun,’ the cool voice suggested.

She squinted at the hunk of metal, haunting this alley. A shrine to the mid-century futurism that had come to pollute the design choices for civilian products during the mid half-millennia.

‘... Despite the compact design, the new hybrid V-6/8 engines offered drivers a striking balance between fuel efficiency, and snappy but responsive luxury cruising. All could be achieved at the flick of a switch. Two-thirty-five H.P, a guaranteed ride of your life on a modern household budget.’

‘Anything else I should know?’

‘It's a heap, but I really want to ride in this,’ the calculated voice concluded.

‘It begs for resurrection, nothing wants to die forever,’ the wistful voice added.

Ghoul shook her head, with enough inertia to send the spiraling thoughts to the back of her skull, “Does it run?” she asked.

Taz shrugged, “It’s def’ behind on a maintenance check, but I’m confident enough to try.”

“If it does not?”

“We make figure from there. Now, toss that bag in,” Taz said as he popped the trunk.

“I take it this is all major contraband?” Ghoul asked, plopping it in with enough carelessness to force Taz to lurch then glare briefly down at her. “You strike me as a rule breaker.”

He palmed the trunk and pushed it shut, “Five years worth of skulking the Compact’s peripheral and tricking zomboids. Yeah man, it’s illegal.”

Ghoul’s eyes lingered on the trunk as Taz stepped round to the driver side. She tilted her head and drew her lips taut. She should have been worried, but given everything else that had already happened, this was just dropped onto the pile. The pile had now reached critical mass, the kind of mounting catastrophe that the brain couldn’t reasonably process anymore. There was situational acknowledgement in spades, but no real measure to draw tangible shapes from. At this point it was little more than background static sat at the base of her gut. Potential energy waiting for ignition; once a tangible threat presented itself, Ghoul was fairly certain she’d have a reasonable reaction. This was just, and she was speculating, reason number ten as to why she was absolutely screwed. Who cares about reason number ten?

Ghoul picked her head up, “So what’s in Dalleo?”

“A tram-station that can get us to a space-port,” Taz said, folding his arms on the roof of the car. “Why?”

“I just want a picture in my head of who we're going to be dealing with once we get in there.”

“Drones,” Taz replied sharply. “It’ll do us good to operate on an assumption that everyone there is a compact loyalist, even the ferals are just playing at it.”

“They’ll rat us out for a pat on the head.”

“Now you’re getting it.”

“I’m a quick pick-up,” Ghoul said with a smug grin before scooting into the passenger seat.

“Don’t swell your head over this, we’re dealing with a serious threat here. You get that right? You gotta’ take them seriously.” He looked over at Ghoul with his brows pushed low against his eyes. He snapped his attention back forward, and tipped the sun visor down. With a grunt he slapped it back into the ceiling. “The bastards did us in faster than we could figure out what they were after, and in less than a decade they’ve turned most of what used to be the Accord into a model train set where they got a monopoly on happiness. Even the ten or so that’ve been kicking it in Dalleo have turned the place into an overnight utopia where you trade in your independence, your privacy for anything you ever wanted. Scarcity free elysium.” Taz paused and patted his jacket before continuing, “What I’m saying is our history and our future belongs to them now, so get your head in the game and realize there’s a lot of people who are more than thankful for what the Affini’ve done for ‘em, and could give a damn for two mad motherfuckers who wanna’ undermine it.”

Ghoul finally remembered to blink, “Shi-sure – yeah man. I read you.”

Taz nodded, and patted his pockets now, “Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t losing sleep over the Accord, but the Affini–where the hell are my keys!?” Taz interrupted himself as he checked the visor, his coat, and his pants again.

“They in the bag?” Ghoul asked, tilting her head to the back of the car.

Taz shook his head, “No, no – left them up on the table so I wouldn’t…” He palmed his forehead.

“You forgot them?”

Ghoul watched him sink his forehead into the steering wheel before grinding his head against it with a nod. “Ain’t that something,” he muttered before throwing his back against his seat. He shot a look over at Ghoul, defeat and surprise. “Ain’t it something?” he repeated.

“You care about this clunker?”

“Nah, jus’ a means to get to Dalleo quicker. Being on foot just felt too slow and too exposed.”

She looked past the alley, silently weighing the options. Walking was a bad move. The car would be loud, but it would be brief. The Affini were probably fast, they had about everything else going for them, but they couldn’t be faster than a car, could they? No, Ghoul definitely preferred the idea of being on wheels right now, the added benefit of a cab was nice too. She was sick of walking. If nothing else it would also serve as an extra layer between her and whatever needles those freaks hoped to stick her with. Their eyes were out there, somewhere in the dark.

If the car was anything like the cargo-rovers, the same principles of forcing a start probably applied here. She just needed to…

“Gotcha – noted even. Just sit steady a sec,” Ghoul said as she tilted her back against the window and angled her foot towards the steering wheel.

Taz traced his gaze over on her, confused at first then alarmed, “No wait, don’t do that vague stuff, I hate vague stuff!”

Before he raised any more protest Ghoul kicked her leg out, slamming her boot into the cover column. With a plastic crunch it went slack-jawed, one of its ligaments had been battered off by the first impact. Taz had leaned back with his hands up, he was shouting something but Ghoul couldn’t hear him over the second and third kick. She braced her shoulders against the door and gave it good forth with enough hate packed into it to break the column over itself. The cracked and crushed knocked free, exposing the wire guts. The tangled nervous system of this mechanical beast.

Ghoul’s eyes had already honed in on the artificial bouquet, picking out colors and guesstimating their purpose; which nerves she would need to pinch to make this creature jump to life.

“Ghoul!” Taz shouted, “You could have just said– I can–could’ve taken the plastic off for you!”

She pushed herself forward, “Talk later, yeah?” she said while practically climbing over Taz’s lap. He threw his hands up again and looked down at the possessed woman now burying herself into the wires.

“Space! Personal space, Ghoul! Do they not teach you that up there?”

“Distance is a luxury,” she noted, “Do you have a knife by any chance?” She was already threading wires through her fingers, keeping the ones she needed and discarding everything else.

Taz blinked, “I-you-yeah,” he stammered. He started digging into his coat, but refused to take his eyes off his companion. “Why a knife?” he asked, too stunned to even register the concept of a hotwire.

“Because all I got is my teeth, and you shouldn’t put wires in your mouth.” Ghoul shot a look as though he should’ve known better.

“No yeah, that’s sound logic. Sure,” Taz relented and passed a pocket knife down to her. He watched her without hesitation start to strip the red one of the bundle. “Didn’t know you could be confident,” he noted.

“We’re in my world now,” she replied, flashing a toothy grin back.

“You make a habit of doing stuff like this?”

“Some of the more slum-dog stations had lost the keys for the cargo-carts, so you had to get fiddly with the wires.”

“And–”

“Langston made their models too, so I figure wires gotta be the same. Red runs the battery, yellow fires an ignition, and that blue one in the back should be our starter.”

She pinched the wires between her fingers and nudged them closer. A machine had to work like a body, it just needed electricity in its guts and an input to point it in the right direction. If it didn’t work for a car, then she was doomed, right? She sucked in a breath, and pushed the wires together. The jolt that ran from the tips of her fingers to the core of her brain as the first sparks spat into the air was the unintentional offer of just a little bit of her life into this husk.

“Dasz radę…” she whispered.

Something inside the engine kicked to life, a rattle of a hum shook the bones in an attempt to dust off the rusted ache between its joints. The lights inside flickered and the headlights lazily revealed their glow to the alleyway ahead.

“Pump the gas!” she cried, “He’s waking up, give him a nudge!”

Taz gave the gas-pedal a kick as Ghoul put on another light show from his lap. He flinched and asked, “You okay down there?”

“Is it running?”

He gave the pedal another pump, the engine-block replied with a resigned death rattle. The two met one another’s stare with sunken shoulders and pursed lips. Ghoul sat up with a groan as she shook out her blackened fingertips.

“Ain’t that our luck,” she said.

Taz nodded and sunk back into his seat. The two looked out into the alley half-expecting to see their pursuers leering down at them. Insultingly, it was the same empty walk-way as before. The purple of the encroaching night sky had pushed more of the orange past the horizon. Sitting at the end of the alley, almost rusted into the brickwork was a bicycle. The two squinted at it as reality was already settling in. Part of the duo hoped in unison that it wouldn’t work so they could justify walking in defeat instead.

“Ain’t that our luck,” Taz replied.

The two rolled down the last hill towards Dalleo - the glow of the city’s lights now in view just over the crest of a final slope. The battered tires of the bike scraped at the asphalt under the weight of its two new riders. Taz’s knuckles were wrapped over the handlebars as he fought to keep the bent frame steady against its own desire to buckle over. Ghoul clutched his shoulders while she stood on the spokes. She waggled her shoulders, recentering the duffle-bag’s weight across her back. Both their jackets were flapping against the cool night-breeze. Stars reflected off their goggles; Taz had a pair of old chemical anti-hazards, Ghoul had managed to hold onto her welding shades. The last of the sunlight had been stretched into a thin wire across the sky. Its lunar replacement took to the stage.

“It’s not so bad,” Ghoul shouted above the din.

“You haven’t had to peddle!”

“I’m starting to think we’re immortal.”

“You’re thinking invincible?”

“Yeah?”

Taz shot a look back, but a skid from the tires forced him to return his full attention to the road. “Immortal means we won’t get old. Or at least we won’t die from getting old.”

“Oh – I think I missed the translation.” The two rode in silence for a moment before Ghoul broke it again, “I don’t think I’m going to die of old age, though,” she announced with a chuckle.

“Gah-jeez, kid!”

“You’re not either! We live too rough to die old.”

“Can this wait!?”

She shifted her weight and renewed her grip. “I’m nervous,” she said. “I’m too chatty when I’m nervous.”

“So you’re aware of the problem?”

“I think I’m still high,” Ghoul said leaning into Taz’s shoulder so she didn’t have to shout. “I think all this excitement put a little of your basement brew back into my blood.”

“Ghoul!” Taz shouted, “One thought, man. Please.”

The bike hit a bump in the road and the entire thing shook like it was hurt.

“It's Ada, not Ghoul.”

Taz’s face sunk, as if a tension string had been snipped. His eyes darted left and right and he sucked his lips back. Then he finally let a breath unhitch from his throat. “You shouldn’t share that kinda info.”

“The code-name thing makes us feel like we are co-workers. I think you should know mine.”

“We’re partners, kid,” he corrected.

“Says who? I’m trying to get better at making friends; what if we’re friends?”

His eyes stayed locked on the road. The chipped lines painted over the pavement reflected the moonlight back up at him. “I…” He sucked his teeth and straightened his back. “You’re not allowed to laugh,” he warned, tilting his head back.

“At your name?”

“Yeah.”

“Astronaut’s honor.”

“Deuteronomy. My folks were part of some digital age cult growing up, one of the Abrahamic ones, so they gave me a name to fit all the theatrics”

“I can still call you Taz if you want that.”

“Nah, it feels silly now.”

“I can call you Deut.”

“Deut works.”

“Nice to meet you, Deut.”

The bike creaked into the final leg of its journey bearing its riders without triumph or ceremony. The outskirts had faded away behind them, where brick and rotting foundations were replaced by tall spires whose windows were still lit. The chain of their chariot gave another rattle, and Ada booted it back into place. The din of urban life bled into their ears as they rolled deeper into the sprawl of Dalleo. Ada shot her eyes between the rising towers that walled them in and she realized that the sky’s stars were blotted out by the pollution of artificial light. Just the green moon of Providence’s sky hung solitarily amidst an expansive and empty black. The shadow of a passing suspended tram went by, then they passed a bus picking up new passengers. There were no cars here anymore. No need for the private ownership of such a machine.

The sidewalks were filled with pedestrians migrating from one place they wanted to be to another. None of them bore the weight of a day’s labor. No, everyone was washed, they looked fed too. None of them looked the kind of soul-tired she remembered from station hopping. She glanced down at her threadworn duds, the mud caked on her legs - Deut didn’t look much better.

Ferals…

“Hey, Deut?”

“Yo.”

“Do we smell bad, you think?”

“If you gotta’ ask…” He cocked his head back, “If anyone asks, we’re just naturalists coming back from some fielding expo.”

Ada peeled her lips back as her posture sunk. She didn’t want to admit she only followed half of what he just said.

“We’re the type to enjoy being out in nature, we were studying plants.”

“Okay, yeah - like agri-techs?”

“Not exactly; just chill a sec,” Deut said as he clutched the break into a reluctant stop. “There’s a public-term just up here. Need to grab some detes. Keep the bike from tipping, I don’t think it’ll survive a fall at this point.”

“Over where?” Ada squinted over his shoulder. He pointed up a set of stairs that led up to a raised walkway that was just a hair away from being overcrowded. Some kind of night-market was taking place on it - it was probably more of a night-exchange or something given the whole no money anymore part. Mutual trade? She probably should have asked Claire how goods move around now. She had lost herself in trying to piece the system together and she didn’t notice Deut stepping off from the bike. It started to tip over and she had to lunge to catch it with a yelp as one of the handlebars swung into her lung. Deut shot a glance back and Ada offered a smile in reply.

She had just straightened back up when she felt something vibrate against her chest inside her jacket - a muffled voice. She looked down as her face twisted into confusion. She patted the flight jacket, then opened it up once she remembered it had interior pockets. She reached in and immediately her searching fingers found themselves wrapped around a walkie-talkie. She blinked. Every circuit in her brain fired until it sparked a blurry image of Doorstop – its off-beige halls flashed through her mind. She drew her lips taut as its speaker continued to spit static at her. It must’ve been woken up when she stumbled over the bike. The voice was probably just a rogue signal. Ghost broadcasts between frequencies.

‘Nowak said that’s where dead spacers live,’ the wistful voice warned.

A shiver moved through Ada as she pinched the receiver switch – whatever the dead had to say was not her concern. Unfortunately, the living had plenty to say as the familiar voice of Dipensa forced its way through the speaker again.

“Ada?” it asked, “Are you there?”

Her eyes went wide; the voice alone commanded a presence that drew her alien silhouette across the curtain of Ada’s mind. A grand shadow cast over all reasonable thoughts. She spun her head around expecting to see her looming just at the end of the street. No. All Ada saw was people upon people and not a single Affini above their heads.

“If you’re there,” Dipensa continued regardless of reply. “I know you think you can still run, you’re so brave, but you need to listen. The Lindall, the ship Darce and I came from, it’s here now.” Ada looked up as if she would be able to see it moored to Providence’s gravity. “The rest of the Affini we were traveling with are part of a colonial effort to bring the edge of Terran space up to speed. There’s a lot of them, Ada. You’re not going to get past them, not once Darce comes clean about what’s happening.” Ada could feel her heart start trying to punch its way through her ribs. She wanted to yell something back through the radio, a declaration before she splattered it against the sidewalk, but Dipensa’s voice came through again, commanding that she listen against her own judgement. “I’m not trying to scare you – I still want to talk to you Ada. If you go to the port, if you try to keep running, it’ll never happen. Please, if you’re hearing this just tell me a place. I’ll meet you there. No tricks. I just want to talk.”

Ada let her arm fall to her side.

“We can still figure this out. I promise,” the walkie-talkie chirped.

She squeezed the walkie-talkie, if it would only just crumble into dust in her hands then her mind would be made up. Her grip relented, she turned the receiver off, then stuffed it back into her jacket. She had almost convinced herself that she was smarter than the aliens that steamrolled the empire it took her entire species generations of grueling toil to shape. She was in a dead sprint in a race where her opposition started at the finish line.

‘Don’t blame yourself,’ the cool voice soothed. ‘You did everything you could, the cards were just stacked against you.’

It was a good run. She sighed.

Ada shook her head. No. There was another angle. There had to be a way out of this. There was a way every other time. She gritted her teeth. If she could just get her hands on another stim then it would just be one more sleepless night of hammering through every possible scenario until she landed on the one that saw her off this planet. She glanced up and saw Deut coming back down the stairs.

She dropped the tension in her shoulders.

Her and Deut off this planet… Another soul for her to drag down.

It won’t just be her getting caught if she messes this up.

“Took me a sec, but I got the schedule - our best bet is hopping the tram tomorrow morning. There’s a shuttle bound for Waylay.”

“Waylay?”

“A station - used to be a casino on the edge of the system. Stars know what the ‘Fini turned it into, but it’ll give us a good jumping off point.”

“You save it to a data-slate or something?”

Deut tapped his temple, “Nah, only device the weeds can’t monitor. Not yet at least.”

Ada chuckled, “You think they’ll learn to read minds?”

“On their own, prolly’ not. If they find a species that’s psionic, we’re fucked.” Deut stepped forward and took the handlebars from Ada and nodded for her to hop on. “C’mon, we’ll grab a temp-hab for the night. God knows we could use the sleep.”

She couldn’t confront that yet. Any step forward now was just condemning him to the same fate. It was either cut him loose, or drag him into hell.

“Actually,” Ada interjected, “Know a place where we can grab a bite?” It felt like a lie, her entire chest felt like it was about to float away. “I think I got some of your pain-killer left in my system and I realize I haven’t put any real food down in a while.”

“Yeah, I know one. Got a dude who runs a decent diner by the water and doesn’t ask questions. We can even grab a room just down the block afterwards. Hop on.”

The bike whined indignantly as it was forced to resume its motion, unfortunately its users had a habit of wearing everything down until it was scrap.

Ada pushed the goggles up onto her forehead as she took in the expanse of the city streets. She had thought some of the stations she had been through were expansive, but this was just density looped over density. Each building was tall enough to be its own world as far as was concerned. The streets were filled with people, and no two looked quite alike if she took a fleeting moment to ever focus on one. There were enough that maybe they wouldn’t care about how outlandish her and Deut looked together. There was an odd sense of comfort in that.

“Know how many people live here?” she asked.

“Not off the top of my head.”

“More than Lethie probably?”

“That the backwater you called home?”

“Up yours.”

“No disrespect, but keep perspective. These people are rim-worlders by core standards. You’re primitive by comparison. They’ll still take advantage of you, its just the why and how that’s changed.”

“Is optimism just poisonous to you?”

“Nah, but if we’re sticking together it’ll help if we’re on the same page. You feel me?”

Ada tilted her head, “Sticking together? You’re keeping me around.”

“Dunno’ you got this ‘hard to get rid of’ spin in your orbit. I think we could do some good work together.”

Ada felt a pit form in her stomach. It didn’t go away, still well and present even as she settled into the plasto-fabric of a booth in the diner. Jax’s Shack - a tube shaped building with a back wall made of windows that overlooked the cliffs and the turgid waters below. Even in the black of night, she could see pale green lines where the waves broke against the cliff and caught the moonlight. The duo was bathed in the warm yellow light of an overhead light whose flickering buzz only made Ada realize her headache was making another round.

She rubbed her temple and tried to focus on the oldies hissing out from the jukebox. It was a novelty item at best, but there was something comforting about the red-blue glow coming from its neon accents. It would have been better if it didn’t skip the last thirty seconds of every song. The first time, she thought it was just an abrupt ending; by the fourth she realized it had to be busted.

Ada prodded the edge of her pocket, feeling the outline of the walkie-talkie while she waited for Deut to come back. She hadn’t expected that part of coming here was asking Jax to open it back up. She couldn’t help but feel a little bad for catching the guy while he was closing up shop. She shot another guilty look at the kitchen and tried to pick anything out of the muffled conversation that pushed against the chrome door. Unfortunately it seemed like the two were practiced at keeping a conversation just private enough no matter the conditions.

She let her eyes trace over to the soda they had left her, watching the carbon bubbles break free front the sides and float to the top. She took a half-measured sip by leaning forward and wrapping her lips around the straw.

She heard Deut finally step back from the kitchen and looked over to see him coming out back first. He held two plates in his hand, and hot stepped around the counter and back to their corner booth. He dropped a plate in front of Ada before sitting down. A classic burger and fries to match the soda-pop. The bright yellow cheese melting over the sides made it look like it was cut from a magazine.

“This place got a ‘serve yourself’ gimmick?" she asked.

Deut only shook his head since he already took a bite out of his. After a false start, his mouth was finally clear to speak. “Man, I was hungrier than I thought – it works like this when you’re good with the owner.”

“Meaning?”

“I explained our situation, and he agreed to let us have a bite so long as we close up after we’re done.”

“Just like that?”

“Well, it cost me some of the brew I managed to cobble together before the weeds caught up.” He took another bite and spoke through a half filled mouth, “Still, there’s enough to last us past Waylay. We can make some more after we get a sec to settle.”

Ada pinched a fry and pointed it at Deut, “You’re too versatile to just be a chemist.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean there’s more to you that you haven’t let on. What were you?”

“Before or after the warlord phase?”

Ada bore a hole through him with her eyes as she got around to taking the first real bite out of her meal.

“Fine fine,” Deut relented. “You already know the cult part, not much worth visiting there. Weird ethos, but surprisingly good education.” He waved a hand in the air, “God’s children need to be capable, or something like that.” He shook his head, “Whatever, I ended up bailing right before med-school. Realized I was getting set up for life and that whole notion didn’t sit right with me.”

Ada swallowed before she was ready, but she wanted to get a word in before he moved on. “You were in pre-med?”

“Sort of, in its own way. It was a college but in that old world ‘private’ way if that makes any sense?”

Ada shook her head.

“Figured - look that’s the boring shit I don’t care to visit, so you cool if I move on?”

“Yeah man, I got the context.”

“Cool.” He drummed his fingers on the table as he pieced his life together. “So after a normal conversation with my folks about autonomy, I decided to split and managed to make my way to a port. After parting with every ounce of dignity I had left, I managed to hop a freight and ended up on this way-too-fancy vacation world. The kind of place where people spend too much money to say they went there.”

“No shit? Lucky break I guess.”

He shrugged, “Sorta, not like I could afford the good life there. Thankfully one of the managers there thought my story was ‘cool enough’ to keep me around. Ended up being a surf instructor for a good while.”

“Oooh, the beachy type of destination.”

“Yeah, most of the surface there was beach, most of the land-masses were just atolls really.”

“Wait-wait!” Ada interjected by half leaning over the table, “Great-Blue?”

Deut’s eyes flickered as he failed to fight back a grin, “You know it?”

“Dude, I delivered sand there! This extravagant black stuff from Lallo-3!”

“No way, wait-” he couldn’t help but laugh, “Back in forty-seven?”

“Yeah!”

Deut slapped the table, “I put that order in!”

Ada pointed an accusatory finger at him as she struggled not to buckle over from laughing, “Fuck you, you know that! That was my worst job! Sand in the hull for weeks!”

“Roy mentioned trying to hit up the delivery girl, that was you?”

“Roy?”

“Tall guy, blonde hair and a perpetual stash like he shaved a couple days ago.”

“Ugh!” Ada cried, “Yeah, I remember him. Dude was a professional strikeout.”

“Yeah, homeboy tried his luck with every girl on staff. Not in the creep way, thank God, but in that hopeless kinda way. At least I thought so.”

Ada gave a nod and sank back into her seat. “That close we were, how about that?”

“How about that.”

“So what about after the surf instructor part of your life?”

“The warlord phase.”

“Navy.”

“Corpsman. Yup. Turns out pre-med was enough to get me through the placement test.”

“I mean, we all knew Navy had low standards by the late forties."

“Hey man, lay off. I was damn fine at my job.”

“Yeah?”

“Got you back on your feet, right?”

“I’ll concede that.” Ada took another bite of her burger - it didn’t feel like it was settling right, but it also felt good to have something in her stomach. She wished eating wasn’t this complicated, but she also wished that everything about her body was less complicated right now. Something sharp shot through her skull again. “So why’d you split from that?”

Deut folded his elbows on the table, “Right, you don’t know,” he said. “When the Accord surrendered and the Affini brought us into the compact a lot of the Navy’s leadership didn’t take the news so well. They figured they could keep up the fight and the real devout started making for deep space. Once I realized our Admiral was about to do the same, I figured I wasn’t gonna sign on for that either.”

The world behind him looked a bit fuzzier for a moment.

“How’d you get out?”

He started to speak, but something caught in his throat. He shot a look out the window and sunk his mouth into his knuckles. “Took a lifeboat before we jetted. Leave it at that.”

“I didn’t mean to drag anything up…”

“Nah nah, you’re good.” Deut sucked a breath through his teeth. “I’m gonna’ make sure the stove is off.” He stood up, “Jax don’t pay for shit anymore, but he’d still kill me if I left his gas running.”

Ada watched in silence as Deut stepped back into the kitchen. Once the door finally stopped swaying that pit came back into her stomach. She poked at what was left on her plate and it felt like the pit shifted. Suddenly the world looked like she was squinting at it as something knocked loose in her body again. Something wet came out of her nose and poked at her lips. She put a finger up only to find her nose was bleeding. Her first instinct was to stand up, which was the wrong move. Life rushed from her head and the world went black as her feet came out from under her.

She could barely remember much through the following haze except for Deut hauling her up from the floor. She half-way made out the street and the smell of salty sea air as she limped along with an arm over his shoulder. There was a room and she was pretty sure she was on a bed while Deut urged her to hold still. Something sharp went into her skin and the world just felt… Less…

Keeping her eyes open felt like more of a struggle than before but now without the sharp pain at the center of her brain. Deut said something but the words only came through in a muffle, like she was underwater. Maybe she was still in the cryo-chamber. It’d be too easy if this was all just some side-effect from a bad batch of meta-stallers. She had heard stories about that kind of thing, right? Maybe she imagined that.

The first coherent memory she had managed was laying next to a toilet having failed to keep another meal down. Deut had apparently managed to grab a room, how he managed that while hauling Ada’s corpse was beyond her understanding, especially so at this moment. A shiver ran down her spine. Why the hell did everything feel colder every time she threw up?

She wrenched her eyes open and saw Deut sitting in the doorway. He was sideways which meant Ada was sideways. That explains the cold. Air conditioned tiles made for an awful bed.

“My cooking that bad?” he asked.

Ada coughed out a chuckle. Laughing felt like it should hurt but the hurt was behind a wall. “Nah, it was actually really good. Not as good at Lance’s–Claire’s… Still, good stuff. No, my body’s a wreck.”

“It ain’t that bad.”

“For a corpsman you suck at lying.”

“Ada…”

She managed to meet his eyes, “We don’t got to kid ourselves, yeah? We get out of this, we got maybe a week, two tops, before I bite it.”

Deut’s face was grave, but he didn’t say much else. They both knew how this ended, and for the first time Ada was ready to face it.

“Plus… I can’t drag you any deeper into this. They’re gonna’ spring me at the port, maybe even the tram station, Deut.” She hugged her stomach, “I think I’m at the end of the line, man. You shouldn’t get brought down with me.”

“You’re certain?”

“Could be a trick, Dipensa, that Affiini tracking me warned me. She sounded scared. I think she was being honest. It’s not something I’m willing to gamble on.” Ada tried to sit up, but quickly gave up on the idea. “How long until that ship for Waylay leaves?”

“Two hours.”

“You got some time to sit with me?”

Deut recoiled, “I ain’t– I won’t leave you to this. There’s gotta’ be a way.”

Ada shook her head and finally managed to push herself off the floor. Sitting felt a little more dignified. “It would make me very happy if you followed through on our plan.”

“There’s a balcony, we won’t catch the sun coming up but it’s still a hell of a view.”

“I like that, oceans are pretty cool.”

“They are.”

“Do you think we could have been friends?” Ada asked.

Notes:

Ada finally makes a choice, this was very big for her. I promise it's going to work out eventually, things just often get worse before they get better.

Thank you for reading, as always! Can't wait to give you guys the next chapter. :)