Chapter Text
~00:17 AM (CET), Aug 1st, 2555
I awoke. The faint blare of my alarm eased me out of sleep as gently as it could on a warship, but it was still tough to leave even my shitty little berth. Groggily, I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and fought against the sleep and desire to rid myself of another night’s stubble to throw on my uniform and tied back my greasy hair. Careful to hide my MP3 player behind the panel at my head, I checked the time on the wall-mounted digital clock. 00:20. Just enough time to grab something from the mess hall. I stretched, then set off. The mess was pretty close to the bunks, so it wasn’t a long walk. The smell of synthcubes and syncoffee drifting from its doorway was unpleasant, albeit familiar, and I walked up to the counter. “Morning, Tone,” I called into the ship’s shoebox kitchen. “Izzat what time it is?” the ship’s chef called back. Tony Mujika and I had met through some mutual friends back on Nebra, the colony on Kepler 22b, but we hadn’t met in person until we both joined up. Since being assigned to the Suri, we had only gotten closer, and he was one of the only people I truly confided in on board the ship. “Allegedly,” I replied. He disappeared behind the counter for a second, and reappeared with a bowl of rehydrated oatmeal with a handful of craisins and a mug of syncoffee. “Thanks,” I said placidly. Sensing my apprehension, he shrugged. “Been a while since we’ve had a resupply.” I sighed, but took the bowl from him nonetheless. Plain though it was, it was still better than another plate of synthcubes. “Thanks again. Hopefully I’ll see ya around.” I said to him, taking my bowl and finding a seat. I spotted another friend, Ambrosius, sitting alone, and decided to join him. Ambrosius was one of the mutual friends through whom I met Tony, and a stalwart one at that. He was among the first people I was out to, and when Tony and I told him we were joining up, Ambrosius was quick to join the TCN with us, saying that he wanted to “keep protecting us.” “Amby,” I nodded to him as I took a seat. “Good morning, my beautiful wildflower,” he replied with a sickly-sweet voice. I smiled and stifled a giggle. His smile suddenly abated. “You didn’t shave,” he observed. “It was shaving or eating,” I answered, sighing. “I can shave when I’m done for the day.” Ambrosius huffed. “I know how bad it makes you feel. You should-” he was interrupted, the ship’s loudspeakers crackling online. “All division officers to the bridge. Repeat, all division officers to the bridge.” “Shit,” we muttered in near unison. I wolfed down a couple more bites of oatmeal and downed the rest of my syncoffee, before I got up to make for the bridge. I turned to leave, but Ambrosius stopped me, placing his hand on my shoulder. “Hey. I know it's nearly impossible here, but remember to take care of yourself,” he reminded me, his soft blue eyes locked with mine. “Can’t have you in anything except top form in case we run into the weeds.” His half-joke was enough to bring a small smile to my face, at least. “Thanks, Amby.” I hugged him, which he returned with a force that nearly knocked the wind out of me, and then I was off running for the bridge.
I hoped and pleaded and rationalized that this was just a surprise drill, or some sort of regular check-in. We had done those before, to make sure we were ready for any scenario. Besides, we had managed to evade the Affini for a year, there’s no way this could be related. I rushed towards the bridge. The Śuri was one of the newer ships in the fleet, or it had been before the Terran Accord signed the domestication treaty. She was a fast battleship, with a crew complement of about two hundred, and she was armed to the teeth, or as heavily armed as a fast battleship could be; her armament including a dozen missile batteries, seven point-defence cannons, and a massive 600mm railgun on the “deck.” The Śuri could punch holes in entire moons with the railgun alone, so surely even if this wasn’t a drill, we’d still whack any weeds that came our way, right? I pushed the thought from my head as I rushed to the bridge.
When I finally arrived, I was out of breath despite the low gravity of the Śuri. Breathing deeply, I took in the bridge. The alarms sounded here too, though significantly fainter so that the crew could hear commands and communicate, and the flashing lights were dimmer. I briefly caught the eye of my friend Nadya, a weapons operator, but before we could do anything but catch each other’s eye, our Captain, Girard Fiario, walked up to us from the radar operator’s chair he had been leaning over, and every officer stood at attention. “Good morning sir,” we half shouted as we saluted. Captain Fiario nodded. Eight or so other division commanders stood around the Captain in a semicircle, most of whom I recognized. I was particularly displeased to see security officer Sheridan there, a faint grimace on his round face. He was effectively the opposite to Ambrosius’ kind and accepting personality. Before my anger could truly manifest, Captain Fiario spoke up. “Our radar caught an incoming Affini ship at 0006 hours, 12 thousand kilometers out. We have moved the Śuri behind this system’s asteroid belt, but it is too late for us to hide. The ship has continued to advance towards our position. We have 45 minutes before their ship is in contact range.” I felt the pit of my stomach drop. We had held out for so long, for three fucking years! This couldnt be happening. ‘No,’ I thought. ‘Don’t think that. You’ve spent a half decade training for this.’ As I assured myself, the captain had been issuing his orders to the division officers, though I only caught the end of the commands. “Matthias, ensure all of our weapons systems are ready and our ammunition is clean and ready to feed. Zhou, set the ship to condition 1 and make sure every division has their boarding procedures in check. Ribak, get to the engines and get us running as hot as you can. Understood?” “Sir, yes sir!” We all barked. I glanced over at Nadya, but they were already plugged into the ship’s weapon system, winding up the armaments and running diagnostics. I sighed, turned from the bridge and started running to engineering. As I did, the ship’s alarm rang, and the lighting gained a purple tint. Running through the ship’s corridors, I heard the comms officer’s voice over the tinny speakers: “All hands to battle stations. Repeat, all hands to battle stations.”
Careful to use the railings to slow my descent towards the engineering deck, my boots clanged loudly against the floor. Beelining for the small breakroom, my mind was racing, thinking hard about what we had to do to bring the ship up to full power. As I entered the room, thank fuck, my crew was waiting anxiously. Sub-Lieutenant Hughes sat hunched over the small steel table, nursing a cup of syn-coffee, ensign Heighsinger sat across from him, bouncing his knee and staring off into space, and ensign Wyngate stood leaning on a nearby wall, rubbing their temples, while the six others still milled about, muttering quietly to one another. Heighsinger was the first to notice me, and offered a weak salute, after which the others followed. “What’s the word?” Lt. Hughes asked between sips from his mug. “Our rada-” I started, before the tinny projection of the Captain’s voice rang from the intercom speaker on the wall. “This is Captain Fiario. Our radars have detected an Affini ship closing at 10000 kilometers, and we have gained visual confirmation. This is not a drill. We have survived over two years since the Terran Accord fell to these weeds, and stars willing, we will not join them in that surrender today. We have practiced for this event diligently. Let us show these garden pests what the Śuri is made of.” My crew looked at each other uneasily, and then at me. “You heard the cap. Let’s kick the Śuri into gear,” I said as encouragingly as I could. With surprising energy, they shouted “Yes, Ma’am” in unison, and stood at the ready.
Being one of the newest ships in the Terran Navy, and now the Free Navy, the Śuri’s engineering and maintenance decks were nothing to shake a stick at. She was powered by four Kamal-class inertial confinement fusion reactors producing over 1760 megawatts per hour, supplying power to the Śuri and giving her impulse engines enough oomph to propel her faster than any other ship of her size. Exiting the breakroom, we entered the control center. Out of combat or high speed and acceleration manoeuvres, the Suri’s drive controls could be handled by two people and was mostly managed by the ship’s computers. In combat, however, as close to a full complement as possible was needed, as the reactors required constant surveillance, careful fuelling, intensified cooling, and direct routing to the ship’s critical systems. Life support was not considered one of those systems if the ship was breached or damaged, so my crew donned vacsuits and kept their helmets at the ready. As everyone was getting in their stations, I grabbed my suit from the meager supply locker, and I noticed the small handful of pistols and PDW’s hanging from a rack at the back of it. I shuddered, not wanting to even think about using them, as I returned to the centre console. Hughes shouted across the room “reactors 1 and 2 are warm and running. Waiting for confirmation for 3 and 4.” “Confirmed,” I shouted back. “Bring them online as fast as you can safely.” I almost tripped over my words, as sweat started beading on my palms. The room hummed and shuddered slightly, as the yellowish glow from the observation window intensified as all of the reactors and their attendant systems came online. “Nicely done, Hughes. Heighsinger, Send as much power as you can to engines, shields, and weapons. Ensign Man, I want you keeping laser focused on the cooling systems, we can’t afford an overheat shutdown at a time like this.” I took a deep breath, the recycled air smelling like dust, oil, sweat and steel. The hair on my arms prickled in the vacsuit, from the adrenaline and heat from the reactors. “Nicely done, everyone.” We held our breath in silence. All the indicators were in the green, cooling systems operating smoothly, reactors outputting as much power as they could, enough to light up a city. With nothing left to do but monitor our stations, we waited, for what felt like hours, time pushing onward slowly and viscously.
Suddenly, the ship shuddered, and we were pushed back into our seats quickly as the Śuri rapidly accelerated free of the asteroid belt. We were shaken around slightly as the Śuri adjusted to face the oncoming Affini ship, but we had strapped into the seats at our stations by this point, and Captain Fiario’s insistence on training meant we weren’t jarred. I cursed my decision to leave my MP3 hidden in my berth. Some music would go a long way to soothe my nerves. I could feel my hands shaking. The ship’s comms crackled as the Captain made another announcement. “Affini ship has entered weapons range. All hands, brace.” Through the ship’s hull, I could hear the Śuri’s long-range weapons being used first. The familiar fwp-fwp sounds of torpedoes being launched from their tubes coming first. The metallic pulse of the deck gun caused me to flinch, but my seat’s buckles held me firm in it. I could see one of the digital gauges dip as the deck gun charged to fire again, and the lights dimmed overhead, both recovering to normal as the spent energy was replaced by the reactors. Suddenly, an alarm blared from my console. “Fuck! Cooling pipe for number 3 is jammed!” Ensign Wyngate shouted. Quickly, I unbuckled myself from my seat. “Tèa, wait, one of us should go,” Hughes shouted at me. “Not a chance,” I called back, going to the supply locker to grab a maintenance kit. “I need you at my station to make sure the drive doesn’t overheat and blow up. Man, get ready to divert extra cooling to reactor 3. Radio me if anything else goes wrong.” I fastened my helmet, secured the toolkit to my suit, and made for the decontamination chamber on the other side of the room.
The Śuri’s engine control room was connected to the reactor bay by a few narrow corridors and catwalks, but it was carefully designed to make sure that each one could easily be accessed. That didn’t make four fusion reactors on a warship any more safe, but it meant that I was able to make it to reactor 3 pretty quickly. Even with the reactor bay depressurized, so as to prevent catastrophic accidental damage, I could feel a faint heat emitted by nuclear fusion through the catwalk. I activated my comms. “Hughes, I’m at the tube. You’ve disabled the feed, right?” “Yes, Ma’am.” He called back. “You’re good to go. Should be to the left of the fourth joint.” I pulled a wrench free from the toolkit, and heaved on it to loosen the bolts keeping the adapter holding the vacuum-sealed segments together. As it finally gave, I fell backwards, the ship’s microgravity sending me farther than I had expected. I groaned as my back hit the railing of the catwalk. Pulling myself back to my feet, I set up a small vacuum beneath the segment’s adapter, and then pulled it back. A glob of the liquid-ceramic coolant fell slowly in the ship’s microgravity, quickly sucked up as it fell onto the vacuum. Switching on my helmet’s flashlights, I saw a chunk of solidified coolant in the left side, heavily restricting the flow. “Found the problem. Should be good to go in a sec,” I called over my comms. I felt the ship shudder, presumably as the deck gun fired again. Starsdamnit, I had to be faster. I grabbed a plasma torch from the kit and set it as hot as I could, focusing the plasma at the occlusion. I watched as it melted, painfully slowly, the surface globbing and sloughing until it was finally liquefied. The vacuum caught it, as well as the slow dribble of restricted coolant behind it, but two shining orbs of the stuff managed to elude the nozzle, falling onto my shin and forearm. “Agh, fuck!” I shouted, as the roiling-hot liquid burned me through my suit. I vacuumed up that last drop and, gritting my teeth and clenching every muscle to get through the pain. With the last of the coolant contained, I worked on securing the tubes and adapter once again, making sure to listen for the familiar hiss of a properly-formed seal. “Coolant tubes are clear, bring drive 3 back up to full power.” I shakily directed. “On it,” Hughes replied. Thank the stars. I gathered up all of the tools, and ran back to the engine room as fast as I could, the burns chafing painfully against my clothes.
When I got back to the room, I waited anxiously in the decontamination chamber to be cleared, before jogging back to my seat, the burn giving me a slight limp. “You ok, Galatèa? Your leg-” Heighsinger started, but I stopped him: “My leg’s fine. I can get it treated when we’re out of this mess,” I grumbled as I strapped myself in again. Suddenly, the ship’s comms crackled on again. “This is Captain Fiario! We have been boarded, repeat, we have been boarded! The weeds are using chemical weapons! All hands, arm yourselves, lock your doors, put your masks on, and do not give these damnable weeds an inch of ground!” I could hear the distant crackle of weapons firing in the background. I looked at my crew. They, like me, had pale looks of terror on their faces. I swallowed hard. “You heard him,” I said, trying to keep a fearful waver out of my voice. “Arm up.” We unbuckled our seats, and I headed over to the locker. I distributed the pistols to everyone, and selected Wygate, Heighsinger, and myself to use the PDW’s. We stood around in silence for a sec, checking our mags, making sure our safeties were on, racking the bolts to make sure we were locked and loaded, and then we waited once again. The comms buzzed online once again, causing us to flinch. I heard the dead click of someone instinctually squeezing their trigger. Thank the stars their safety was on. “Fiario to engineering! The plants have breached the bridge. Set the ship to condition zero, repeat, condition zero!” A cacophony of gunfire made it almost impossible to make out what he was saying, but we still managed to hear. The cap wanted us to scuttle the ship and set her reactors to blow.
“Oh, fuck.” Someone behind me muttered weakly. I couldn’t blame them. The comms weren’t turned off, and we could vaguely hear the ongoing battle on the bridge. I pressed the comms button on the wall. “Sir, yes sir.” As I did, a small previously sealed drawer on the center console hissed open. A pair of arming keys sat within. I swallowed, barely able to breathe. “Everyone, helmets on, and make sure their filters are working. Wyngate, grab the blowtorch and seal the door. Heighsinger, Hughes, I need you to help me set the reactors to blow. Everyone else, go to the decontam room. Bring the toolkit with you and dismantle the frame on the vent. That’ll be our route to the escape pods.” I commanded my crew with as much confidence as I could muster, my throat growing sore from the speaking and lack of water. “Yes, ma’am!” They shouted, and we got to work. Heighsinger and I grabbed the keys, and the three of us set off, priming the ship’s safety systems to be disabled, preparing to shut down cooling, and setting the fueling system to manual control so we could send all of our fuel pellets into the reactors at once. With everyone set to our tasks, we almost didn’t hear that the gunfire over the comms had stopped, replaced by a faint hissing sound. Before any of us could figure it out, a voice came over the speakers, but it wasn’t the captain’s. “Hello? Is this still on? Ahem, this is Peres Acan, They/them, Fifth bloom.” “Oh, stars,” ensign Man muttered. “I am the head of this boarding party, and, as cute as some of you have been in trying to ‘protect’ your crewmates, we’re worried that you’re going to hurt each other by accident. What’s the term?” Peres asked someone further from the mic. “Friendly fire. Please, put down your weapons. We don’t want anyone to get hurt.” “Fuck, kinda rich coming from a boarding party.” Wyngate cursed. A few of my crew forced laughs at his remark. I felt sick to my stomach, but also conflicted. A member of the species that we had been told were space demons, hellbent on keeping Terrans as livestock, had just asked us to be careful because they didn’t want us hurt? Maybe it was just mind games. Just some sick ploy to get us to lower our defenses so they could devour us or steal us away into the inky black of the void.
A loud clang broke my trance. Someone or something was on the other side of the door that ensign Wyngate had just welded shut. Wisps of a pinkish gas leaked through the gaps in Wyngate’s rushed work, but not enough to be a serious problem. Yet. Whatever was on the other side of the door knocked, but it was strong enough that it sounded almost like a Terran slamming into the door: “Helloooooo? Terrans? We know you’re in there. We don’t want to hurt you, promise.” We glanced around at each other. Those who were standing closest to the door backed away as slowly and quietly as they could. I turned to my crew, and pointed to the decontamination room. “I can hear you moving in there, sweet petals.” The voice called as we all shuffled into the room. “I know you’re all probably scared, and by the looks of many of your shipmates you’re probably malnourished and suffering. We can give you everything you need, and a loving, comforting owner or warden, but that would be easier if you helped us open the door.” I shuddered. Stars, I didn’t want to be owned but, and no offense to Mujika, the cooking onboard was inhibited by our meager rations. ‘Whatever,’ I thought, ‘I can eat better when we’re all free.’ With everyone in the decontam room, I told them the plan as quietly as I could. “If you enter this vent, it’ll take you to the air processing station on the other side of engineering. From there, dismantle the starboard wall and you’ll find yourself in the engineering corridors. You can follow the signs to the escape pods. Go carefully and go as quietly as you can. Stars protect you.” Wyngate spoke up, in a hushed tone. “Protect us ? What about you? Gonna let yourself get captured by a plant?” “I still have to set off the reactors. With any luck, I’ll ca-” my thoughts were cut off by another ringing knock. Before the Affini could speak again, I finished what I was saying, but my words were shaky. “I’ll catch up. Get off the Śuri while you can.” I stood and walked back to the console.
“You know,” the Affini spoke up. I could see a small vine writhe through the door, passing through a vulnerability in the weld. “It’s rude not to respond, petals.” Trying to mask the sounds of my crew making for the escape pods, I replied. “Sorry,” I said, half instinctually as I grabbed the arming keys and slotted them into the console. “But the door’s sealed shut, and I’m under strict orders from my Captain.” My voice was quavering as I tried to put on a facade of confidence. “Besides, you haven’t introduced yourself. I don’t know who I’m talking to.” The Affini replied, “Heh. Orders from the same captain who went against his own when your government signed the Human Domestication Treaty?” I pursed my lips. They were kind of right. I pushed the notion from my head. “I can tell by your silence that you know I’m right, little one.” “Maybe. Or maybe I think my government was forced to sign that, and I rebelled because I want to protect my friends.” I attempted to act boldly, but my heart was racing. “By blowing up the ship? Petal, how could you know that all of your friends were off the ship by the time your reactors exploded?” I almost gagged at the thought of Ambrosius or Tony or Nadya getting vaporized, especially at my hands. “And what if… what if I’m protecting them from being plant food?” “Oh, sweet little Terran, we don’t eat our florets. What in the everbloom have you been told about us?” Despite my lame attempt at a jab, the Affini sounded genuinely concerned and sad at my remark. I removed my PDW as quietly as I could, unclipping the strap and attaching it to one of the keys. I stood at the console, ready to set the ship to explode in a grand fireball, one last rebellious act. I took a deep breath, steeling myself. But I couldn’t turn them. I heaved my chest in dry sobs, trying to muster the courage to complete my final order. I listened intently, and I could hear distant shouts and gunfire coming from the exposed section of the decontamination chamber. Fighting back tears, I slumped against the console, releasing my grip on the keys.
“I… We’ve been told that you’re demons who eat Terrans or keep them as livestock. Like something out of an old folk tale from Terra.” I did my best to answer the Affini honestly, not seeing any point in lying anymore. As I sat, tears ran down my face. I couldn’t do the one thing that might save my friends, the people I love, from that fate. “Oh, you poor thing. We love our pets. How could we not? You’re so cute, feisty, and creative. We just want you to be happy.” I held back a sob. I wanted so, so badly for that to be true. So badly to be held and warm and sated and loved. I looked over at the door. The weld had broken along the bottom, and more of the pink gas seeped in. “In a struggle to be happy and free…” I muttered to myself. “Did you say something, petal?” The Affini asked. “Just a piece of a song,” I said forlornly. I sniffled, and mustered the courage to pose a question of my own. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I caught your name. I’m Galatèa.” “Aucari Sapo, She/they, 7th bloom. What are your pronouns, cutie?” “She/they. Could you please ease off the pet names, though?” I asked. “You aren’t exactly in a bargaining position, Galatèa, but very well. Would you like to let me in? I’d like to hear the rest of the song you were singing.” Aucari asked in turn. I sat and listened for a few seconds. I couldn’t hear the distant sounds of my crew struggling. In fact, I think even the ship’s alarms had been turned off. All I could hear was the much fainter alarm of the control console, primed for my destruction, and the faint hiss of that pink gas seeping into the room It hung heavy in the air, and much thicker than it had before. And I felt more alone than I ever had. I was shut into this room, with no one nearby but a plant alien who I was convinced had wanted to eat me or torture me until all of a few minutes ago.
I took a deep breath, my helmet’s filters thankfully staving off the gas, and I stood. The burn on my leg hurt even more now that the adrenaline was gone from my system. I pulled the keys out of the console, shutting up the alarms, and pocketed one. “Aucari?” I called out. “Yes, Galatèa?” “Promise me something, please. Promise me that my friends and my crew are gonna be ok. That when I wake up tomorrow they’ll be safe.” “Of course they will be, peta-Galatèa. I promise it.” I heaved a shuddering sigh of relief, the last of my tears falling across my cheeks. I shambled over to the door, where the plasma torch still lay where Wyngate had dropped it. “I’ll cut through the weld.” I said, the adrenaline crash making my limbs heavy. “No need,” Aucari replied. “Stand away from the door, ok?” she asked politely. I took a few steps back. “Clear.” I called to Aucari. A second later, I saw the heavy door that had been welded shut fly off its hinges with alarming speed, clashing into the wall opposite it. The pink gas flowed in freely, quickly filling the room with a translucent haze. My breath caught in my throat as I saw Aucari through it.
She was incredibly tall, with thick, olive-green vines accentuated by patches of large, waxy lanceolate leaves, and dotted flowers of myriad colors. Sections of greyish-brown scaled bark covered her torso, forearms, and shins, giving her Terran-esque body. A tumbling mass of cylinders of triangular leaves gave her the impression of hair, framing her face. Her eyes stood out starkly, resembling hammered metal polished to a sheen, with colors fluctuating from black to a sandy gold as she entered the room. “Thank you, Galatèa. Now, would you like to take off that stuffy helmet and come with me?” She asked, an earnest look in her eyes. I nodded in response. “Wait,” I stopped her as she reached for my helmet. “There’s an item in my berth I’d like with me.” “We can arrange to grab it. What does it look like, cutie?” “It’s a polymer rectangle with a square screen. In berth C28, behind the panel where the pillow is,” I told her. She smiled happily. “C28. Got it. Now, it’s time to take off your helmet.” I reached to remove it, but Aucari shook her head. “ Allow me,” she reached down and swept me off my feet, cradling me gently in her vines. I would’ve flinched or resisted, but somehow being held by Aucari was incredibly calming. With another of her vines, she released the seal of my helmet and pulled it off, careful to hold my hair out of the way so it didn’t get pulled or caught in it. I took a deep, shuddering breath, drawing in quite a bit of the pink gas that had filled the room. It smelled mildly sweet and floral, like a honeyed bouquet with peonies and butterfly bush. “There we go, deep breaths. Rest well, Galatèa.” Aucari’s words felt genuinely well-meaning, and they made me feel calmer than I had in a year. I could feel my eyelids getting heavy, and before I could even consider what was happening, I was out.