TheAmishPirate

Breathless Dead

The distant roar of the engines, filtered through a hundred rooms and five decks, filled the room with a low, droning hum. So quiet, so omnipresent, you could forget that your every waking moment was bathed in the power and fury of a star. Except, in these moments when all else was quiet, and there was room to really appreciate the constant peril of your position.

It was Vasilia who spoke first. Lips straining not to curl any higher. “Well, Dolce? Don’t leave the Hermetician waiting.~”

A jolt ran through him from ear to toe, before finding a nice spot in his belly to settle. Did she..? Was she..? Oh, oh dear. Oh no. He looked to her, then to Iskarot, then back to her, then back to Iskarot, and then to the floor as room seemed to pitch and turn in the corners of his vision. A heat that had been building in his face ran out of room to grow, so it traveled southward until it met its new neighbor; that little spark of Zeus’ in his stomach. And all at once they were everywhere, fraying his nerves and burning his blood and his poor heart tried so, so hard to keep up, it drowned out even the sound of the engine. He...he needed to sit, and - and somehow, he already was sitting, which wasn’t quite right at all. He ought to be standing, but maybe it was okay to sit? Just this once? Maybe if he sat properly, that’d be good enough. Sit up, back straight, deep breaths, hands folded, oh no, was it right thumb over left? That didn’t feel right. Left over right? No, no, that wasn’t right either. And now he was out of thumbs! Oh, which was it, which was it-

*ahem!*

Vasilia politely concealed her sudden coughing fit behind a hand. “Aherm, ah, excuse me. You were saying?”

Dolce shot to attention, hands flitting behind his back where they could fidget in peace. “Y-yes, erm, well, the, the question at hand, you know,” every single word was the worst word he’d ever said in his entire life, ever. “See, I, there’s the matter of, well...”

He took a deep, bracing breath.

“...what, precisely, qualifies as a harem?”

And Vasilia’s cough vanished.

Breathless Dead

Dolce studied the drawing of their potential crew. His attentions wavered between intense scrutiny and downright forgetfulness, tracing the shape of a leg as he silently mouthed sums and figures, only to return to that spot moments later. Every inch was scrutinized thrice over, at a minimum, before he asked, “Are we sure this is what we want?”

Vasilia quirked an eyebrow. “Are we?”

“Ah. There could be a slightly more civilized planet along the way that we could visit, and still stop Birmingham from destroying their world. We should not feel as though we are forced to choose them.”

Her smirking gaze bore down on him. Unchanged.

Dolce cleared his throat quietly. “The...less familiar with the rest of the galaxy they are, there’s just so much room for things to get messy. Surely, we would want to get a crew as easily as we can, yes? We wouldn’t want to borrow any more trouble.”

Vasilia slowly closed her eyes. Pondered this wisdom. Let her mind take in the realm of the possible, the impossible, and all that lay in-between. And said, “Are you worried they’ll try to marry you off again?”

“It was one time!”

“Oh, if you say so.”

“Pardon?”

“Anyway, I’m positive it will be just fine. I’ll duel any suitors for your honor, of course.”

Dolce replied with a most expressive series of squeaking bleats, slightly muffled as he buried his face in his hands.

“I believe what my Chef Mate is trying to say,” Vasilia translated helpfully. “Is that they will do nicely.”

Breathless Dead

“Redana? Recruiting? Ugh, no thank you.” Vasilia pulled a sour face. “We’ve enough trouble already with the hoplites, can you imagine five hundred of them? We’d have a mutiny or an example on our hands, and neither helps us go any faster.” She sank deeper into her chair, posture crumbling under the weight of a thousand unjust slights. “I can’t fight my own crew every step of the way. Unity, expertise, rhythm, we can work all of that out, but I simply can’t do a thing if they’ve already decided to be difficult.”

“If it were up to me,” Dolce tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Everybody who’s here would want to be here. In space, on a long trip, on this trip, with these people...” He looked out into the dreaming distance, and smiled at what he saw. “They ought to want to be here.”

Fellowship: The Heart

Carinadir stood where he fell; on his feet, holding his staff, just out of reach of wire and rubble. The roof shook. Speakers screeched. And he looked down his nose at his own handiwork. “What is there to tell, that I don’t already know?”

He waved a hand to his help. “Fool, the lever, if you will?”

Breathless Dead

”Gods, we need a crew.” Vasilia sighed, poking listlessly at the last roll on her plate. “A full, loyal crew, not just...whoever we happen to pick up on the next planet. It’s a miracle we’ve gotten this far with, what, fourteen? And a half? And nobody’s dropped dead at their post or tried to knife someone for being inexcusably chipper.”

Dolce returned to his seat. Coincidentally, the contents of their spread for this working lunch had shifted again, and a new selection of food and drinks lay closest to Iskarot. He’d not gone for anything yet, and there were only so many dishes prepared, but Dolce was nothing if not persistent. And patient. “Are there planets with that many people looking for work?” He wrinkled his nose thoughtfully, one eye on the Hermetician. Always. “I can’t remember the last time we had to outfit an entire ship from scratch.”

“Never in my tenure, at least. And even if we found such a place, it’s back to the same problem; how would we pay them? We certainly didn’t have any treasure to bring. So unless a previous owner misplaced theirs somewhere on this ship...recently half-submerged...belonging to Lord Hades...”

A speculative silence fell over the three.

“...we should ask Alexa when she gets back.”

“Good idea, dear.”

Breathless Dead

Vasilia was alone on the bridge.

Redana had been sent to the infirmary. Epestia had been allowed to accompany her. Liu Ban had been given to the Hermetician for stabilization, and a more permanent residence. Alexa had been sent to her quarters. The hoplites had been dismissed to find their next complaint. And Dolce needed a moment.

Not one of them would come to join her. Dolce would return, yes. Eventually. He swore an oath before the gods that he would. No matter what happened. No matter who was there to greet him.

Vasilia was alone on the bridge. And alone she would remain.

***********************************************************

It wasn’t a far distance. Not more than a foot from hand to doorhandle by his eyes. If speed was of the essence, he could clear it in under a quarter of a second without effort. With effort, a tenth. With manners, a half. He had not yet beaten the full second in either his attempts or his retreats, nevermind the time wasted between them. He could calculate the full shameful statistic if he wanted to: “Time wasted hovering uselessly outside the bridge.”

He reached for the door. He slowed to a stop. But his hand could not stay still.

He drew the hand back.

Two hundred, fifty four seconds, and eighty-nine hundreths.

Dolce tore his eyes from the unyielding door and slunk silently to the kitchens. Pots would need cleaning. Meats set to thawing. Ration packs replenished. Always more to do there, and mealtimes looming in the distance.

He ought to know better than to waste precious time.

Breathless Dead

Captain Vasilia sprang to the fore, the report of her rifle ringing over the melee like a clap of thunder. “Spears up! To me, to me!”

They couldn’t move to defend Alexa. That would forfeit the battle before it’d begun. To beat a Kaori PredatorPhalanx, you had to first fight them on your own terms. Don’t run. Don’t approach. Don’t play their game. If all you could carve out was a tiny patch of land, then you held that miserable ground for all you were worth, and you made them come to you. The tides of shadow saw her mustering a defense. As one, they descended on her.

And she paid them no mind. She had a shadow of her own.

To her back, to her flank, sabre and spear rattled a blinding staccato. The winds surrounding her changed pitch and pace, improvising complex patterns on the spot without a whisper of a word, and it mattered not one whit. Fifteen shadows would raise their spears, and he could guess the real strike every time.

“Gah!”

She winced as a spear grazed her side, before the haft was chopped clean in two, and the wind carried a whispering, “Apologies!”

Well! He was still full from lunch! You can’t expect him to be full steam right away. Nine out of ten times was more than enough besides.

For to beat a Kaori Predator Phalanx, you had to second attack the movement, not the shadows. This was the whole reason she suggested the innards of this machine to have their lunch. Like clockwork, she fired shot after shot into the surrounding gearwork. Bolts and valves were picked off with expert precision, sending gouts of flame through the air, and gears to tumble and roll through the battlefield. The machine mind groaned all around them, threatening to send an avalanche of its own against the Kaori.

The Predator Phalanx required deeply practiced, coordinated movement. Each owl needed to know and trust every other owl, such that they could only dip their wings and a dozen comrades would know their next five moves. Not perfectly, but close enough to count. Throw too many variables into the field, limit the routes severely enough, and, well, they were only mortal. Someone, somewhere, would make a mistake. Two lines would cross, and seconds would be wasted getting back in position. One owl would feint, and find no follow-up where she expected it. Inefficiencies beget inefficiencies. Mistakes beget mistakes. The openings grow wider. Daylight lifts the shadows, and a hundred owls become a scant twenty. Chaos - their greatest weapon - was also their greatest weakness.

A good plan, but it meant nothing if they could not hold their ground for long enough.

“If you have any goodbyes for your brainchild, Liu Ban, say them quickly!” She smoothly loaded another shot and took aim at a particularly corroded steam valve. And frowned when no voice answered back.

“...Liu Ban?”

Fellowship: The Heart

And the mockery just became too much effort to maintain. A bad thing just happened in Wormwood Station. That is literally what’s supposed to be happening, all the time, forever. Why is this concept so hard for everybody?!

Whatever. The Fool would be a Fool. Let him dance in his frivolities and jape in his wordplay. He would do what no one in this blasted world seemed capable of doing; the smart thing.

At least the Fool understood the logic of this place. And, logically speaking, while only one of them needed to be alive to pull the lever, the odds of him staying among those living increased when with a group. So, the smart thing, of course, would be to stay close by. Not because he cared! Because he didn’t. Carinadir didn’t care one whit. He never cared one whit. How else did he build this horrible place? How else could he hope to endure the ceaseless torments of the unthinking rabble? And now, the ceaseless disappointments of his son, to boot.

“Show away, Fool.” Carinadir sighed heavily at the impending doom of drills and death. “You’d do it regardless, best to get it over with.” Once, twice, thrice, he struck the ground around him with his staff. Three bricks, just like any other, and wouldn’t it be just the station’s luck if those three were particularly load-bearing, in just wide enough of an area for one Carinadir to fall through?

That’s the trick with becoming self-aware. Once you get past being a pile of steel and bricks, and start getting into plans to chop your father into tiny pieces, then things can start going wrong for you too.

[Rolling to Get Away: 5 + 4 + 2 = 11, Carinadir gets there quietly, drawing no attention, and also without taking harm along the way.]

Breathless Dead

“Given our current logistical situation.” Vasilia did not, could not let up, even as Zeus sounded the retreat. “I’d said the invitations have about as much chance as arriving as you have of waiting on something for a change. But I’m prepared to be surprised.”

************************************************

No! No, no, no, it couldn’t be over yet!

He stood, helpless as the luncheon drew to a close all around him. Personal effects found their way back to their owners. Bags returned to shoulders, a little lighter and easier to pack now. Goodbyes filled the air alongside parting shots. Feet turned, roads stretched onward, and the parting was nigh.

The extent of his profit: A few lost scraps, and some interesting trivia about Hermes. Fine material for a voyage to Gaia.

“It was an honor to serve you, Lord Hades.” The goodbyes fell from his mouth. How he wished to hold them back, just a few moments longer, but, but his Captain, Zeus, the cleanup, he couldn't, “I hope it will not be long before we may serve you again?” he offered, holding his breath.

Breathless Dead

The whole of Vasilia’s thoughts came to a terrible, crashing halt. Which was no reason to stay silent and let Zeus think for a moment she’d won.

“I, wha, well, well I never.” Her canteen groaned in her iron grip. “Of all the impertinent, unimaginable, altogether rude - as if you were there! As if you bothered to ask how they really felt. As if you ever.” Fine. Fine! Zeus didn’t want a civilized talk, she should have just said so from the start. “If all I am to you is another chance to pat yourself on the back, then why don’t you start with your joyously servile brother. I believe he wandered off first chance he got, smart fellow.”

**********************************************

Ahhh, of course. He’d been wondering why Hades had bothered with them when he had Hermes at his disposal.

...wait, what?

“So.” Down, voice, down! We do not get over-excited in the presence of Lord Hades. And squealing was simply out of the question. “Hermes has been giving up of her movement? That must be valuable, given her line of work-”

To his credit, he tried his very best not to grimace when the dinner conversation grew loud enough to spill over into their game.