The full story of Amira Station. This story was run from November 17th 2022 to March 11th 2023 and was originally posted on the Clockworksun Stories Discord server.
This story is 55 updates long, plus an epilogue, spread over 200 standard pages with a total of over 65,000 words.
Note that some reaction counts may not be exact, as voters may have changed their reactions between the close of voting and the time this story was scraped from the server.
Note that some reaction counts may not be exact, as voters may have changed their reactions between the close of voting and the time this story was scraped from the server.
@Story Notifications
Okay folks, here we go again. You know the drill by now; vote as many times as you want for whichever prompt you want to be written into a full story. The length tags are all guesses, as I'm sure you've figured out by now that these often go longer than I think they will. The three prompts that aren't picked here might come back later, might be rewritten, or might be dropped entirely. Who knows! Anyway, I don't have much else to say here so without further ado, your options:
️ [NOVEL?] All Falling Apart
Adventure / Existential horror
Near-future - a planet like the Earth (Kronwaë)
[Part of the Kronwaë canon, but not significantly related to the main timeline.]
Everything has gotten worse lately. Resource shortages, global political turmoil, climate disasters, and now it seems like portions of the planet itself are simply sinking into the ground. It’s all falling apart, and no one knows what to do to fix it, or if we even can. Our protagonist must decide how to proceed in this seemingly-doomed world, whether that means struggling to save it, desperately trying to escape, or something else entirely. One thing’s for sure: there isn’t long left.
️ [NOVEL?] All Falling Apart
Adventure / Existential horror
Near-future - a planet like the Earth (Kronwaë)
[Part of the Kronwaë canon, but not significantly related to the main timeline.]
Everything has gotten worse lately. Resource shortages, global political turmoil, climate disasters, and now it seems like portions of the planet itself are simply sinking into the ground. It’s all falling apart, and no one knows what to do to fix it, or if we even can. Our protagonist must decide how to proceed in this seemingly-doomed world, whether that means struggling to save it, desperately trying to escape, or something else entirely. One thing’s for sure: there isn’t long left.
❄️ [NOVEL?] The Cold Road Ahead
Fantasy / Adventure
Magical Medieval / Renaissance
[Part of the Debhaust canon.]
There have long been tales of the lands to the far north; the frozen plateau of Leng is sparsely populated and mostly unexplored, so it breeds legends and mysteries at a rapid pace. One such legend tells of a series of obsidian pillars wrought by demigods of an age long passed that lie at the very limit of the world - some say atop the tallest mountain while others swear they stand in the frozen sea. All stories agree that these pillars hold frigid astral power and are linked to the swirling constellations above. So, when a new star appears in the sky and the world starts to go mad, those rare few who both believe the legends and have the resolve to travel north begin to cast their gaze towards the icy plateau and its long-buried secrets...
️ [NOVELLA?] Amira Station
Mystery / Horror
The future - industrial station - Kronwaë
[Part of the Kronwaë canon, but not significantly related to the main timeline.]
Our protagonist has lived their whole life within the seemingly-infinite confines of Amira Station, setting out each day to fix the problems provided on their computer display every morning. Recently, however, things have been going wrong. Problems crop up with increasing frequency and severity, tools and replacement parts often arrive broken or not at all, and food and other living supplies are becoming scarce as well. The station is falling apart, and it's high time to get out before the whole thing comes crashing down. If there even is an outside. There have to be other humans around, somewhere, but they've never seen one. Maybe there's someone or something in the station with answers and a way out. Or maybe they'll have to figure it out themselves.
️ [NOVELLA?] Amira Station
Mystery / Horror
The future - industrial station - Kronwaë
[Part of the Kronwaë canon, but not significantly related to the main timeline.]
Our protagonist has lived their whole life within the seemingly-infinite confines of Amira Station, setting out each day to fix the problems provided on their computer display every morning. Recently, however, things have been going wrong. Problems crop up with increasing frequency and severity, tools and replacement parts often arrive broken or not at all, and food and other living supplies are becoming scarce as well. The station is falling apart, and it's high time to get out before the whole thing comes crashing down. If there even is an outside. There have to be other humans around, somewhere, but they've never seen one. Maybe there's someone or something in the station with answers and a way out. Or maybe they'll have to figure it out themselves.
[NOVELLA?] A Deeper Pattern
Science Fiction / Investigation
The Future - Space/Kronwaë
[Part of the Kronwaë main timeline.]
Months have passed since the events of Eir Terminus. Galaxy-wide weapons corporation Lockheed-Bolte is intensely interested in the crystal hearts and its top scientist on the project is hot on the trail of the mythical and unknown Yhvra. Seemingly random planets hold secrets older than the known universe. Ellie and Mel, to their embarrassment, are occasionally running jobs for the scientist while Qaniit tracks down his own planet’s connection to ancient starships and the hearts. Clues have been appearing for a while, but with the latest breakthrough, it becomes clear that there’s a deeper pattern to all of this than was originally apparent. It’s time to uncover the truth, once and for all.
(Winner: ️ ) 3
4 6 3@Story Notifications
Amira Station it is, then. Let’s start by determining some truths about the characters. To start with, the story will be written in third person because there are multiple viewpoints. The main character, Euvi, is predefined since there are only so many archetypes for a person who has lived alone in an industrial station their whole life. However, we can make some choices about the other two potential protagonists.
Who is the protagonist employed to control the station?
- Wayde Lenanon, monitoring technician and often broadly ignored by his superiors.
- Claril Hvet, astrophysicist and deeply involved with the station’s stated purpose.
- No one. [There will still be people in charge of the station, but there will be no scenes from their perspective.]
Who is the protagonist traveling to the station, and why are they doing so?
- Ifan X’deven, a Galactic Federation official investigating reports of wrongdoing at the station.
- O’rok Jan, one of many ramp agents contracted to help transport vast amounts of cargo off the station.
- Someone else. [There is a traveler, but there will be no scenes from their perspective.]
- No one. [There is no traveler.]
(Winners: , )
- Wayde Lenanon, monitoring technician and often broadly ignored by his superiors.
- Claril Hvet, astrophysicist and deeply involved with the station’s stated purpose.
- No one. [There will still be people in charge of the station, but there will be no scenes from their perspective.]
Who is the protagonist traveling to the station, and why are they doing so?
- Ifan X’deven, a Galactic Federation official investigating reports of wrongdoing at the station.
- O’rok Jan, one of many ramp agents contracted to help transport vast amounts of cargo off the station.
- Someone else. [There is a traveler, but there will be no scenes from their perspective.]
- No one. [There is no traveler.]
(Winners: , ) 3 6 1 7 2 1 1@Story Notifications
Okay, so we’ll have Claril and Ifan be the remaining two protagonists. We just need to learn a little more about each of our three camera-followed characters before we can get started.
How long has Claril Hvet been working for Amira Station? This will also, to some degree, affect her age and likely her attitude towards events at the station.
- Not very long at all. Less than a year.
⏲️ - A fair amount of time. Several years.
⌛ - Quite a while. More than a decade.
What species is Ifan X’deven? The man himself will not be a caricature of his species, but these are some traits each is generally known for.
- Human. Mostly-hairless apes with high adaptability; tend to anthropomorphize everything. You know humans.
- Umian. Green or blue-skinned with gel-like hair strands, umians are typically creative and interested in art.
- Gauruvian. Rust-colored reptilians with good physical abilities, though often prone to irritability.
- Vaeshar. Amphibious with a dual respiratory system, often industrious and good at working in a team.
When was the last time Euvi spoke aloud?
️ - Yesterday night. She practices just in case she ever meets someone else.
- Weeks to months ago. She can speak, but definitely doesn’t do so very often.
- Never, or nearly never. She’s never had any reason to.
(Winners: ⏲️ , - tie broken by random die roll, ️ )
- Not very long at all. Less than a year.
⏲️ - A fair amount of time. Several years.
⌛ - Quite a while. More than a decade.
What species is Ifan X’deven? The man himself will not be a caricature of his species, but these are some traits each is generally known for.
- Human. Mostly-hairless apes with high adaptability; tend to anthropomorphize everything. You know humans.
- Umian. Green or blue-skinned with gel-like hair strands, umians are typically creative and interested in art.
- Gauruvian. Rust-colored reptilians with good physical abilities, though often prone to irritability.
- Vaeshar. Amphibious with a dual respiratory system, often industrious and good at working in a team.
When was the last time Euvi spoke aloud?
️ - Yesterday night. She practices just in case she ever meets someone else.
- Weeks to months ago. She can speak, but definitely doesn’t do so very often.
- Never, or nearly never. She’s never had any reason to.
(Winners: ⏲️ , - tie broken by random die roll, ️ ) 1
6
3 1 4 4 1 7 2 1@Story Notifications
Amira Station
- Patch the leak and tape it closed. Quick, but the fix won’t last as long.
- Replace the sheared bolts and reconnect the flange. Moderate time, moderate quality.
- Replace the entire connection, gasket and all. Takes longer but will definitely last.
(Winner: ) 1 2 5@Story Notifications
Scene 1
She tugged on a pair of gloves for some protection against any protruding metal, then got to work. Knocked out the remaining broken bolts, disconnected the flange entirely, and removed the inner gasket as well. One part of it had torn near the top, possibly as a result of high-pressure water during the initial break. Euvi hummed and murmured nonsensical words to go along with the tune, entering the part identifiers and quantities she’d need for the replacement into her tablet.
After double-checking the bundle, she tapped the request and stood up again. The nearest drop point was very close by, so she wandered over at a sedate pace to give the capsule time to arrive. Vaguely, she wondered if there were other people who packed the replacement parts into the capsules or if the station did that on its own. Her humming grew distracted as she considered this, then returned to normal as the thought escaped her without reaching a conclusion. Just as it always did.
Euvi arrived before the parts did, even walking slowly, so she sat down against the smooth metal wall and looked around for anything interesting to check out. Nothing really caught her eye; the drop point itself was a large metal cover in the wall like a larger version of the one in her living compartment. There were no scratched messages or other major debris around that could indicate the presence of others like her. The rest of the area was relatively boring as well: just a small, roughly square room containing nothing of interest beyond the drop point and a door that she knew would lead to a bathroom. They all looked like this. The only difference between this drop point and one she had visited two months ago was the color of the faded paint that still clung in narrow lines to the walls. Dark orange, here. She still didn’t know what the color signified.
- Work on sewing; make some more pillows or decorations.
- Relax and watch some of the station’s provided entertainment.
- Do some more research on the net. [About anything in particular?]
- [Euvi is currently not in the right frame of mind to work on unraveling the station’s secrets. Keep an eye out for opportunities to nudge her in this direction...]
(Winner: ) 4 2 2 1@Story Notifications
Scene 2
She tapped at the terminal, which was now unlocked since she had completed the day’s tasks. Unlike before, where it would only show the map and task details, it now allowed her to spend credits on various items - that’s how she got the fabric for her projects - or browse the net. Today, she clicked back to an article she had been reading yesterday about large, chunky, friendly looking animals who apparently inhabited cold places where the ground was made of ice and there was so much water you could swim in it.
She tried to imagine the sensation of moving through water on her own; no solid land beneath. It must feel like flying. Either way, as fascinating as these creatures were, today she was only looking for some good pictures to base a pattern on. She wanted to add another cute pillow to her collection and these dorky-looking animals would make an exceptionally fluffy one.
Euvi scrolled through the image results, eventually picking out a promising picture where the subject almost seemed to be smiling, and got to work sketching out her plan. Always paid off to be organized before getting to work. She only had so much fabric to screw up.
The worries of the day began to retreat as she sketched, comparing the proportions of her drawing to those of the picture and exaggerating some features for extra cuteness or to make the seams easier to handle. The station hummed around her: a billion different machines all performing their predetermined tasks. This was good. This was normal.
Everything was okay and everything would be okay.
...
“This,” Claril Hvet declared, “is not normal.”
“W-we need to tell someone! Right away!”
“Right, right!” Claril fumbled with the desk phone in the semidarkness, cursing the missing lightbulb. Blinking on the screen before both of them, the plasma’s projected path washed over a small blue dot orbiting the sun. An inhabited planet, Sibdael II, only a few hours away.
️ - Call someone to fix the stasis field first.
- Call someone to warn the planetary authorities first.
- Send Narszeth to make one of the calls simultaneously. [Claril will make the one with more votes]
(Winners: -> )
️ - Call someone to fix the stasis field first.
- Call someone to warn the planetary authorities first.
- Send Narszeth to make one of the calls simultaneously. [Claril will make the one with more votes]
(Winners: -> ) 3 5 7@Story Notifications
Scene 3
“Narszeth, go to the next office over and use their phone; get someone in maintenance on the line and direct them to the grid section manually! I’m calling the director.”
The gauruvian nodded and rushed into the corridor. Claril kept glancing between the monitor and the star - Sibdael itself - as it shed more and more charged gas through the hole in the field and the projection grew worse. Finally, her call went to voicemail.
“Piece of-” Claril interrupted herself with a sharp breath. No time to waste; if the director didn’t pick up, she’d just take matters into her own hands. Namely, contacting the planetary government herself. It technically broke the chain of command, but in an event like this, saving lives was the priority and every minute she waited meant thousands more dead. She shivered, feeling a cold sweat even in the climate-controlled confines of the station. The entire reason this installation existed was to stop events exactly like that. How could they have failed so badly? What had gone wrong, and how many would die because of it?
“Sibdael II planetary administration; how can I help you today?”
“It’s more like how I can help you,” Claril led with a shudder. “I’m a scientist on Amira Station and I have very urgent news...”
...
Ifan X’deven, investigative officer of the Galactic Federation, waited patiently as he wandered slowly through the hallway, taking his time to examine each massive counter-relief sculpture. Such carvings were relatively uncommon among most civilized worlds; most cultures seemed to prefer high- or bas-relief for this type of work. To carve artwork into the stone, wood, or plastic substrate - rather than raise it out of the background - indicated a particular relationship between the artist and the material.
“Unfortunately, no. This matter is so urgent that he suggests you leave the planet and return in several months, when he may have more time to address your concerns.”
Ifan felt his hair strands tensing in annoyance - an umian racial tell that only another umian could pick out. He kept the strands tucked beneath a hairband while on duty, to avoid them giving anything away. “Several months is completely unacceptable. What is this ‘critical matter’ that has so completely absorbed the Administrator’s attention? Should the Federation be involved?”
The clerk nervously took a step backwards. “I’m afraid I know little of the specifics, but the Administrator was quite insistent that you leave the planet - at least temporarily - before meeting again. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing else I can do for you.”
Highly suspicious. Ifan quietly doubted there even was a “critical matter,” and suspected this was just a delaying tactic. Still, he didn’t have the practical authority out here to just barge in, even if he might be able to get technical clearance from the core.
- Return to the spaceport and prepare to leave the planet, as requested.
- Stay put and try to get in to see the Administrator, protocol be damned.
- Stay put and investigate more quietly. Surely someone in the complex knows what’s going on.
(Winner: )
- Return to the spaceport and prepare to leave the planet, as requested.
- Stay put and try to get in to see the Administrator, protocol be damned.
- Stay put and investigate more quietly. Surely someone in the complex knows what’s going on.
(Winner: ) 2 2 6@Story Notifications
Scene 4
“Fine,” Ifan eventually responded, making his annoyance obvious. “Inform the Administrator that he must provide further details on this emergency to myself or another Federation official within two days.”
The clerk nodded, relieved. “Very good, sir. Will you need any further assistance?”
“No.” Ifan omitted the customary thanks from the dismissal, still trying to play the part of a frustrated but defeated agent. “I know the way back to the port.”
The clerk nodded again and scampered away, back towards the secured zone at the rear of the building. Ifan waited a few minutes, busying himself by sending an intermediate report back to HQ, then walked confidently in the same direction as the clerk. Away from the spaceport, but of course he had no intention of leaving just yet.
The interior of the Planetary Administration Center was surprisingly lavish, given that the outside wasn’t much more than a squat, bunker-like cube with a few spires. Inside, the Sibdael system had lined many spacious halls with famous works of art as well as fine decor in the traditionally colorful style of the system’s major planets. Sleek carpets in warm reds or oranges blended with the stone - or more likely some sort of laminate approximation in this modern age - floors and walls. The whole effect was like walking through a burgeoning coral reef, or perhaps a wildfire.
The finery on display contrasted with the offices of the Galactic Federation back in the coreworlds. Ifan was used to administrative centers like those on Strillia or Gamma Veox: bland, utilitarian buildings designed with exacting precision to match that of the bureaucracy that operated out of them.
Still, he couldn’t judge the efficacy of the Sibdael government by their offices alone. He was here to investigate, not immediately jump to conclusions. That meant playing it by the book, at least to start with. Well, mostly by the book. By his “slightly edited” copy of the book.
“Make something up! Those writs have exceptions for safety, right? Say there’s something dangerous going on; I don’t care. Just keep. Him. Out!”
“I... okay. Understood, ma’am.”
Ifan let his hearing return to normal as the guard hung up and approached with a sheepish look on his face.
“Well?” Ifan asked, accepting the disc back. “You are to allow me passage, correct?”
“I... uh, I’m sorry to inform you that there has been a... fuel leak in the office section, and even your writ does not allow entry into a hazardous situation. If you’ll be willing to wait a few hours, I’m sure everything will be cleaned up and you can go in.”
Ifan stared at the man. “Are you aware that lying to a Federation officer is a criminal offense?”
A flinch. “... Yes? Why do you bring this up?”
️ - Threaten the guard with criminal charges for obstructing an investigation.
- Mention a portion of the overheard conversation; request a more friendly understanding.
️ - Directly ask who the guard was speaking to. Obviously they need to be questioned.
(Winner: )
️ - Threaten the guard with criminal charges for obstructing an investigation.
- Mention a portion of the overheard conversation; request a more friendly understanding.
️ - Directly ask who the guard was speaking to. Obviously they need to be questioned.
(Winner: ) 1 7 3@Story Notifications
Scene 5
“‘Make something up,’” Ifan quoted. “‘Those writs have exceptions for safety, right?’ Need I go on?”
The guard stuttered but failed to produce any intelligible speech.
“I’ll take that as a ‘no.’ Anyway, what do you say that we both just forget what we heard on that call? I get to proceed and you get to do your actual job, which includes allowing entrance to individuals with valid clearance.”
“...”
A minute later, Ifan strode hurriedly into the office section. He would bet the guard had already reported his entrance, which meant the person on the other end of that call would likely be speeding up their timetable to try and... do something before he arrived. If they could, at least. It was entirely possible he’d have the whole hour and didn’t need to rush, but he generally preferred to hurry unnecessarily than to move slowly and miss his target. When he had to, at least.
Luckily, his quick pace wasn’t out of the norm at the moment. Clerks rushed to and fro, and even those at workstations moved at a feverish pace. There was an air of frantic anxiety over the entire place, and Ifan needed to know why. He slowed, covertly inspecting some of the monitors.
Bulletins and messages, sent to major power and telecommunications providers. Heads of local governments on the phone shouting at staffers here. Documents passed in disorderly flows, giving him ample time to scan the headers: “Disaster Management Plan, Planetary” was a common theme. A group of engineers in neutral colors argued before a large console, disagreeing about power drain and the correct parameters to operate with. He paused a little longer by this last group, eventually moving on once he heard one of them mention what they were operating: the city-wide shield dome over the capital.
Ifan himself might very well be the highest-ranking government official in the building now, though federal officers weren’t really part of the system’s chain of command. As for resources, he had himself and his personal equipment, his starship parked at the spaceport several miles away, his uplink to HQ back in the galactic core, and a building full of leaderless, panicked, near-rioting staff who were expected to manage this crisis. And with those resources, he needed to try to save himself and as much of the planet’s population as possible. While also tracking down where the planetary leadership had gotten to and... administering some form of justice.
A tall order.
Where should Ifan be for this?
️ - Stay here and...
- Return to his starship and...
And what should he do? [Options are not necessarily mutually exclusive but will be prioritized by votes.]
️ - Try to lead the building’s staff to manage the crisis as best as possible.
️ - Contact Amira Station; figure out what happened and how bad it will be.
- Track down the Administrator and the rest.
- Contact the Federation and request assistance.
(Winners: ️ , ️ = ️ > )
️ - Stay here and...
- Return to his starship and...
And what should he do? [Options are not necessarily mutually exclusive but will be prioritized by votes.]
️ - Try to lead the building’s staff to manage the crisis as best as possible.
️ - Contact Amira Station; figure out what happened and how bad it will be.
- Track down the Administrator and the rest.
- Contact the Federation and request assistance.
(Winners: ️ , ️ = ️ > ) 6 1 5 5 1 4@Story Notifications
Scene 6
“Alright, let’s do this.” Ifan took in a deep, unnecessary breath through his mouth - umians breathed through their hair strands - and let it out again. An expression he had picked up from some human friends a while back. Time to get to work.
He stepped back out into the chaos and spent a few moments looking for an intercom desk. Finding it, he gently shoved the current operator aside - they didn’t seem to be doing anything with it anyway - and tapped it a few times to get everyone’s attention. Dull thumps echoed through the building from speakers on every floor. The general noise level dropped and most of the staff turned in his direction, tense.
“My name is Ifan X’deven, officer of the Galactic Federation,” he began. “As you should all know, this planet is currently in grave danger and your Administrator seems to have gone missing. As such, I and others from the Federation will be leading you instead. We have a very short time to save as many lives as possible, and every individual in this building has a critical part to play. Anyone whose direct manager has gone missing now reports to me, on the seventh floor. Keep your composure and we will save this planet.”
He paused for a moment, gauging the reactions of those around him. “In case I wasn’t clear, that meant move. We have a planet to save, people.”
Activity returned in an immediate burst as many of the staff who had shoved their way into the Administrator’s empty office mobbed Ifan instead, all shouting over each other and trying to deliver various reports or questions. He clearly couldn’t manage everyone on his own, but luckily he had help.
Unfortunately, the remaining populated planets in the Sibdael system - III, V, and VI - were all significantly more rural than II and had limited resources to assist with a catastrophe of this scale. Other systems in the local group had been contacted, but there was only so much diplomacy that could be effected in half an hour. Talks were still ongoing, and without the majority of the planet’s executive officials, they were moving slowly.
A little over half an hour remained before the beam would strike. Hobbyist observatories had begun to notice and panic spread throughout the global population. Someone had to speak; to explain what was going to happen and what their leaders were doing to help.
️ - Ifan speaks.
- A Federation coordinator speaks.
️ - A Sibdael government employee speaks.
⬆️ - The tone is hopeful.
⬇️ - The tone is urgent.
- Citizens are urged to evacuate off-planet if possible, or shelter underground or indoors if not.
️ - Citizens are urged to shelter underground if possible, or indoors if not.
(Winners: ️ , ⬇️ , ️ )
️ - Ifan speaks.
- A Federation coordinator speaks.
️ - A Sibdael government employee speaks.
⬆️ - The tone is hopeful.
⬇️ - The tone is urgent.
- Citizens are urged to evacuate off-planet if possible, or shelter underground or indoors if not.
️ - Citizens are urged to shelter underground if possible, or indoors if not.
(Winners: ️ , ⬇️ , ️ ) 2 1 6
1
7 1 7@Story Notifications
Scene 7
That someone would not be Ifan, or any of the Federation staff assisting with the preparation efforts. It had to be someone local; someone who could claim to actually lead the planet. Preferably, this address would come from the planetary Administrator or some other similarly high-ranking official. Unfortunately, everyone more than a few ranks above ground level staff had fled, and that meant sending a nervous-looking floor manager in front of the cameras to address the planet.
Ifan kept glancing at his watch as the broadcast aired, the pale, sweating human thankfully managing to keep his composure enough to avoid stumbling over his words. He spoke of the dire peril the planet and its population was facing, and of their instructions to weather it. Seek shelter underground if possible, or indoors at ground level if not. Stay out of the sunlight as much as possible. Shut down all electronic devices for the duration of the storm and prepare for weeks-to-years of restoration efforts.
Activity in the capital started to slow as communications started to go offline in preparation for the impact. A number of staffers were still on calls with various power providers, who simply couldn’t respond fast enough to spin down their plants in time. He could hear shouting even through the headsets as operators begged for anything they could do to avert the disaster. There was nothing. The preparations simply hadn’t been made ahead of time.
Eerie, wailing sirens began to howl across the city and Ifan listened as the gaggle of engineers from earlier coordinated with operators in two dozen separate generator plants across the metro area to begin the process of raising the city’s shield. There wasn’t anything more he could do at this point; they were out of time. He walked to a window to look over the city.
For an hour, every living being on Sibdael II cowered under the fury of their sun. And many of them knew that this - a cataclysm that would cost their society millions of lives and require decades to rebuild - was only a taste of the star’s true power.
...
- Be Euvi.
- Be Claril.
(Winner: )
- Be Euvi.
- Be Claril.
(Winner: ) 7 1@Story Notifications
Scene 8
Euvi slid a finger across her forehead, brushing a lock of dark grey (light black?) hair out of her eyes. She sat up quickly this morning, one arm resting on her mass of pillows as the other arranged her hair. Something was different.
She pondered this as she got up and went through her morning routine, before eventually arriving on an answer: the air conditioning unit was working harder - and was thus louder - than usual. Curious, Euvi detoured to the floor hatch before checking her daily tasks - eight today, quite a lot - and popped it open to see if anything was different below.
A blast of hot, dry air flared up at her and Euvi actually gasped, scrambling away and blinking to re-moisten her eyes. She quickly shut the hatch, apologizing to the air conditioner as it cranked up even further. That temperature below wasn’t just hot; it was boiling. Was she going to have to go out there? That could be deadly!
More surprises awaited as she checked the day’s tasks. Each one was nearly identical - replacing a “combined field diagnostics module” - and each one carried the same warning of “excessive heat: thermal regulator required.” What really stood out to her, though, was the map. Usually her tablet contained a sphere of corridors and rooms about 25 miles in every direction, but today’s map simply stopped in a great curve less than a mile away. Was it an error, or... She hardly dared to even lend voice to the thought, but... Was that... the edge?
Still stewing over the map, Euvi opened the capsule waiting for her before getting dressed. As expected, today’s breakfast was less lavish than the day before, but what she was really looking for was the plastic-wrapped package labeled “THERMAL REGULATOR” in blocky letters. Unwrapping it revealed a sleek black box clipped to a series of fabric straps as well as a brief operator’s manual. She blinked and began to read.
It was surprisingly easy. Near the rear of the small, cramped room, a set of paneling had ripped apart and left a narrow rift through the wall... off the edge of the map. Euvi peeked through, but couldn’t make out much beyond an omnipresent red glare.
She glanced at the map, then the rift again. Looked down at herself; tried to squeeze her torso to be as skinny as possible. Lined up her body against the rift and gauged the fit.
... Could she?
... Dare she?
It would be a very tight fit; too tight to bring anything with her. Maybe even too tight to squeeze herself through. She could get hurt; she could get stuck; she could get killed. This was definitely not her assigned task.
And yet...
️ - She dares.
- She doesn’t dare.
(Winner: )
️ - She dares.
- She doesn’t dare.
(Winner: ) 1 6@Story Notifications
Scene 9
“...”
No. No, she didn’t dare.
Euvi pulled back from the ripped panels and returned to the modules, busying herself by disconnecting the existing structure before slotting the new one into place and hooking up all the wires again. All the while, as she cut wires apart and twined them back together, she kept glancing over at the glaring, red-lit hole.
The edge of the map. She had dreamt of this day for... ever, probably. Whatever formed the universe outside of the station lurked just beyond the wall, and she wasn’t even going to look? It wasn’t her place to look, and it could be dangerous. Probably was, given how hot it was here. Maybe the outside was where all the heat came from, and she’d be burnt up if she went out there? But the thermal regulator would help, but it probably wasn’t designed for temperatures like that, but...
She wavered back and forth for a while, before eventually finishing the replacement and standing up. Euvi hesitated for a few more moments, aware that she should probably move on to the next module now, before not doing that. Instead, she scooped up a few chunks of metal debris formerly from the wall, positioned herself to see as best she could through the rift, and tossed a handful of scraps in.
Most of the metal bounced off the jagged sides and fell to the floor, but some made it through. With them as references, Euvi could see... still not much. The scraps vanished from view and clattered down a slope of some unknown material, coming to rest somewhere below. Nothing else seemed to happen.
Without any real way to tell how dangerous the other side of the rift was, Euvi reluctantly left it alone, berating herself for cowardice most of the way back to the drop point to return the broken module for reprocessing.
But, if she stayed out to finish the repairs, she almost certainly wouldn’t be able to make it back in time. She had stayed out past the end of a cycle only once, just to see what would happen, clinging to the ladder of her compartment with one hand holding the hatch open just in case. Every light on the station had gone out and terrible groaning noises had echoed from the walls. She had lasted maybe fifteen seconds in the terrifying cacophony before scrambling up the ladder, locking the hatch, and hiding in the normalcy of her compartment. Nothing had happened to her that night or the following morning, so either the station didn’t care or it hadn’t noticed.
But trying to walk back, in the dark, with those noises everywhere? Was that really worth a day of food?
... She was already pretty hungry after today’s work.
️ - Stay and finish the repairs.
- Abandon the repairs and return to her compartment.
(Winner: ️ )
️ - Stay and finish the repairs.
- Abandon the repairs and return to her compartment.
(Winner: ️ ) 5 3@Story Notifications
Scene 10
Euvi hesitated, pacing between the corridor that would take her to the last module and the one that would take her back to her compartment. Then she jumped, aware she was burning valuable time with indecision, and... picked up the module. She jogged down the hallway towards the last task, numbly cold with the shock of what she had just decided.
The last module cooperated, but it still took her a while to undo and redo all the connections. Only twenty minutes remained by the time she finished hooking up the replacement and turned it on to receive the little checkmark on the tablet that indicated she had finished all her tasks today. Only ten minutes remained by the time she made it back to the drop point, out of breath from running the whole way. And fewer than five minutes remained by the time she had jammed the old module into a capsule and sent it back.
Maybe I should just stay here overnight? The drop point rooms had sturdy doors and only one entrance to keep shut. If anything dangerous roamed the halls after dark...
Euvi scrambled into the hallway, her composure breaking, and sprinted towards the compartment as fast as she could manage without running into a wall. There were other drop points, but the closer she could get to her compartment before the lights shut off, the better.
She ran hard, already exhausted from a long day of work, legs and lungs aching, sweat trickling down her forehead despite the thermal regulator’s still-perfect climate control. Shoes clanged on metal floors and grates, slipping occasionally as she tried to take corners too fast and nearly slammed into walls or railings. The tablet suddenly beeped urgently and she anxiously slowed to read the message.
“End of cycle. Return to compartment.”
- Run away from the Thing; just get away!
⏩ - Get past the Thing to continue on the original route.
⬅️ - Duck into a side passage and hide to let it pass.
- Find a drop point and hide there till morning.
(Winner: ⬅️ ) 1
1
7 1@Story Notifications
Scene 11
She remembered passing a few side corridors not far back, and the hallway was no longer utterly black with the introduction of the Thing’s light. With a panicked shudder, Euvi pried herself out of the indent and scrambled down the hall, senses straining for the faint signs that would tell her where to turn. Darker blackness, longer echoes, a slight drift of wind; there! She turned in the dark, aiming for the - WHAM!
Blazing pain throbbed through her head and thick, metallic liquid spilled from her nose. Euvi sat up - she didn’t remember falling - and felt around for her dropped tablet with one hand while pressing against her head with the other.
The Thing beeped behind her, lights sweeping the passage faster than before. The pitch of its wheels changed. Euvi glanced back, vision and balance unsteady, and screamed to find the machine barely twenty feet back and quickly rolling closer. Most of its spotlights were trained on her now, and a low, dangerous whine was building deep in the Thing’s body.
Her hands found the tablet and she leapt off the ground, glimpsing the small splatter of blood where she had run into the wall as she turned. She stumbled against the same wall again, head still ringing from the impact, then clicked on the tablet’s screen and ran for it.
Behind her, the Thing’s whine crescendoed and then dropped away entirely to such a low frequency Euvi couldn’t hear it. Little blobs of darkness swam in her vision and she nearly fell several more times as her muscles twitched in ways she didn’t intend. But she was much faster than the Thing and after turning a few corners, the blobs and twitches went away. The splitting headache, dizziness, and trickling blood from her nose remained.
Every sudden noise from the mechanisms surrounding her compartment made her jump, eyes flicking towards the hatch on the floor as if some terrible mechanical monster would be climbing through it to tear her apart. So far, nothing had happened. The system hadn’t noted any infractions or requested the thermal regulator or gravity wand back, so she had just set them on the table for now. No terrible creatures had emerged from below to slaughter her. It was just like every other night on the station, except for the memories of what she had just witnessed.
The first Thing had been a cleaning robot. She was reasonably sure of that, now that she had some time to calm down and think it through. The rotating brushes, the slow movement, the reason it would be there at all; it added up. She had even noticed the paneling behind the robot looking much shinier than that in front of it, though she hadn’t paid attention at the time.
So why had it attacked her? And how? What would it have done if she hadn’t gotten away?
... And what was the second Thing that had responded to the first?
The air conditioner began to hiss quietly, spreading a sweet scent through the room. Euvi yawned, her eyelids finally getting heavy and her residual panic starting to fade. She had stayed up too late; she was usually asleep by the time this happened. Idly, as she drifted off, she wondered if maybe this was a cleaning routine too. Spraying a fresh scent? She cleaned her own compartment, but maybe...
Euvi fell asleep.
- Be Claril.
️ - Be Ifan.
(Winner: )
- Be Claril.
️ - Be Ifan.
(Winner: ) 5 3@Story Notifications
Scene 12
“Jin!” Claril called, rushing down the unadorned corridor. Her right knee protested at the hustle, twanging with pain from an old injury. She really shouldn’t have skipped the last maintenance appointment for her cybernetic. “Jin! Hey!”
The naxisant finally noticed her and turned, his ghostly, membranous wings fluttering. “Claril?” He spoke in a high-pitched, nasally manner and was almost skeletally thin, like most of his kind. Naxisants were often subject to discrimination and name-calling, particularly from umians (their ancient enemies) and humans (who found them creepy and a passable match for the vampire myth).
Jin La’Rojin, however, had risen to prominence here on Amira Station as one of its foremost scientists studying the star and its interaction within the temporal field. After over a decade of distinguishing himself, he was promoted to the Assistant Director of Station Operations about a year ago. As one of Claril’s colleagues before his promotion, she still kept in contact.
She puffed to a stop in front of his group, noting the handful of people in dull yellow jumpsuits accompanying him. Those would be maintenance workers. She couldn’t tell if that was a good sign or not. “Jin, what the hell is happening? The Director and half of admin are still gone, we just lost another section of stabilizers, and nobody will give me a straight answer. Honestly, I expected you to be gone, too. None of the other department heads seem to be here anymore.”
Jin glanced at the maintenance workers. “Go ahead on your own,” he instructed. “I’ll catch up, but don’t wait for me. You know where to go and what to do.”
Despite the difference in species, Claril could read the pain in Jin’s eyes all too well as he responded. “Do what? We can’t possibly evacuate the entire system in a week, even if Sibdael II hadn’t just been half-obliterated by a single fraction of the star’s power, and even if large portions of our leadership hadn’t just vanished. I’m with you, Claril; we need to act. But I just don’t know how.”
[You can pick multiple options for any of these choices; options will be prioritized by votes.]
We need to tell...
- The planetary governments.
- The local sector governments.
- Amira Station staff.
️ - The Galactic Federation.
- Everyone within range of the supernova.
The Sibdael system should collectively...
- Evacuate! Get everyone to anywhere else!
️ - Prepare for impact; get the shields and other defenses ready.
️ - Figure out what’s wrong with Amira Station and fix it!
Claril should get some more clarification on...
⏲️ - Is there any way we could more permanently repair the station? Buy a few years, instead of weeks?
- Are there going to be more of these ejection events before the supernova?
- What are “the reserves”?
❓ - Or ask something else.
(Winners: ️ > , ️ +, = > ⏲️ )
- The planetary governments.
- The local sector governments.
- Amira Station staff.
️ - The Galactic Federation.
- Everyone within range of the supernova.
The Sibdael system should collectively...
- Evacuate! Get everyone to anywhere else!
️ - Prepare for impact; get the shields and other defenses ready.
️ - Figure out what’s wrong with Amira Station and fix it!
Claril should get some more clarification on...
⏲️ - Is there any way we could more permanently repair the station? Buy a few years, instead of weeks?
- Are there going to be more of these ejection events before the supernova?
- What are “the reserves”?
❓ - Or ask something else.
(Winners: ️ > , ️ +, = > ⏲️ ) 1 1 3 5 4 3 3 6 4 5 5
1@Story Notifications
Scene 13
Claril frowned, considering. “If the star truly is about to explode - even if we can do something about it - then I think this matter is a bit bigger than us. The Federation is already working on the current disaster on Sibdael II, and we’ll need help to coordinate with everyone else in the local sector.”
“You think we should involve the Federation?”
“Well, I mean, that’s what it’s for, right? Central management of problems bigger than any one system? I think what we have here definitely counts.”
Jin paused, then nodded abruptly. “Very well. There’s already an officer on Sibdael II assisting with the crisis response; you can start with him.”
“Me?”
“You know enough to get across the grave nature of this situation we’re in, and I am needed here to ensure the timeline doesn’t accelerate any further. I wouldn’t trust anyone else to manage this properly, to be honest. Not after most of my superiors disappeared.”
“I suppose... Okay. I can do that. But I’ll need your help; like you said, we can’t evacuate everyone in time, so we’ll need to buy as much of it as we can. Do you think we can fix the station? If not permanently, at least long enough to last a year instead of a week?”
Jin’s wings fluttered again as he replied. “I don’t know. It depends on exactly what the problem is, how fast we can figure that out, how many replacement components we can acquire, how quickly we can install them, and on and on. I wouldn’t get your hopes up, if only because I have never seen any readings like what we currently have and the longer they go on, the more emitters will be permanently destroyed.”
“Is that going to cause more of these eruptions?”
He hesitated a few more seconds. “No. Knowledge of the ghosts won’t help you, and in fact may distract you from the most pressing tasks. Go, talk to the Federation officer, and get us started. I will hold things together here.” He took a breath, held it, then seemed to reconsider something. “I must go catch up with the workers who went ahead.”
Jin rushed off down the hallway before Claril could stop him. She stared after the departing naxisant, one hand raised as if to call him back. Did his diction change after I started prying?
Well, he was right that she had other important duties to attend to. But something about how he acted made her file away what little she knew about these “ghosts” for later interrogation. For now, it was time to track down that Officer X’deven who had been handling matters on Sibdael II. He would know what to do. Hopefully.
Where is Ifan right now?
- Flying towards Amira Station to progress his investigation.
️ - Helping clean up on Sibdael II.
And who should take the lead in the conversation?
- Keep being Claril.
️ - Be Ifan instead.
(Winners: , ️ )
- Flying towards Amira Station to progress his investigation.
️ - Helping clean up on Sibdael II.
And who should take the lead in the conversation?
- Keep being Claril.
️ - Be Ifan instead.
(Winners: , ️ ) 7 1 3 5@Story Notifications
Scene 14
Ifan checked one of the external cameras on his starship, gazing back over the planet below as he climbed out of its gravity well. Even from here, he could see Sibdael II burning. Vast swathes of foliage - dried out from a mellow autumn - had ignited in the sunstorm and started devastating wildfires that now raged across much of the planet. People who had survived the initial impact, many now without communication or power infrastructure, had suddenly been thrust into yet another disaster as flames licked at their walls.
He cut the feed, wishing he could be down there saving lives. Nearly every operational starship on the planet - and many from the other three inhabited planets in the system - had been pressed into service to assist with evacuations and supply runs. The operation was going... not fantastically, as it was very difficult to coordinate and figure out where to go without a modern communications network. Emergency comm buoys, satellites, and other infrastructure were already on their way to the system, but it had only been a few hours. They’d need days or longer to get situated properly.
“Ready to jump,” his ship stated in a calm, neutral tone. Ifan clicked the lever forward, initiating the pre-planned route he had plotted just a few minutes ago. The ship shuddered gently and distant stars faded to near-translucency as he dipped partially into hyperspace. He didn’t need to go all the way in today since he couldn’t safely accelerate to fully superluminal speeds with all the nearby gravity wells. Thankfully, his destination wasn’t another system; it was Amira Station. Orbiting just a few hundred kilometers above the surface of the star, it was only a dozen light minutes away. He’d arrive in a little over a quarter hour.
“...” She was right. “As a matter of fact, they are gone as well; I asked after them on the way over. The entire system’s leadership has essentially vanished in a matter of hours. I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but... it’s hard to deny at this point. Regardless, we can’t get caught up in that until we’ve done what we can for the population of this system.”
“Right. So, what’s the plan?”
[Ifan will begin by notifying the Federation to assist in a system-wide evacuation, and to discreetly coordinate with other systems in the blast radius to ensure they can either evacuate or weather the storm. Beyond that...]
Ifan should...
- Find Jin and speak with him. [Specify about what in #story_discussion. This option can be combined with other options.]
️ - Investigate the apparent conspiracy amongst the system government further.
- Investigate for evidence of sentient being rights violations.
❓ - Investigate the station generally in more detail. Will not progress any specific investigation, but will gain more background.
Claril should...
⏲️ - Try to determine how much time is left with more precision.
- Try to wrangle station staff into some form of organization after the loss of leadership.
️ - Try to work out how to fix the station.
- Investigate the ghosts.
(Winners: / ❓ , ️ )
- Find Jin and speak with him. [Specify about what in #story_discussion. This option can be combined with other options.]
️ - Investigate the apparent conspiracy amongst the system government further.
- Investigate for evidence of sentient being rights violations.
❓ - Investigate the station generally in more detail. Will not progress any specific investigation, but will gain more background.
Claril should...
⏲️ - Try to determine how much time is left with more precision.
- Try to wrangle station staff into some form of organization after the loss of leadership.
️ - Try to work out how to fix the station.
- Investigate the ghosts.
(Winners: / ❓ , ️ ) 4 3 2 4 1 1 7 2@Story Notifications
Scene 15
“Look, Ifan,” Valeria Nomano huffed into her headset. “I don’t know what you want me to do about this. You know we don’t have much influence out there. Where do you want me to put the population of an entire star system? Just send them off to float in deep space?”
Ifan’s voice was delayed as he replied, bouncing through a galaxy’s worth of comm buoy satellites to make it back to Gamma Veox in the core. “Can we maintain them on the ships for a journey back to the coreworlds?”
She shook her head as if he could see her. “I can’t get you the big transports in time, remember? They’re en route, but it’ll take weeks, not a week. Best you’ll have are some of the military cruisers and carriers, and those things aren’t set up for long-term habitation of that many people. Plus, even if we could, you think Strillia or any of the Veoxes, for instance, are going to want billions of rural refugees dumped on their doorstep? Think politically; we’d have to split them up to even have a chance of getting them accepted for immigration.”
He sighed deeply and Val briefly smiled despite the situation. She was the one who had taught him that expression years ago, when they had been classmates in their Federation training. “Well, I don’t know then, Val. I need you to come up with something, though, because I’m not about to let billions of innocent people die just because of politics. You can find somewhere to put them. I know you can.”
“I’ll talk to the other sector systems and try to get some cooperation. That’s got to be easier than trying to get everyone back to the core, especially if we offer to help cover the cost.” She spoke a little more quietly, though Ifan could still hear. “That is, if the Senate will approve disaster relief funding...”
Another long pause as the buoys relayed her message. “Is this really what you’ve been up to all this time, Val? Up to your neck in politics this, funding that?”
She could picture his frown as he considered chastising her for not taking this seriously enough. Well, too bad. You wanted Val’s help, you got her help and her personality. Package deal. Unfortunately, he didn’t say anything about it. “It was worth a try, at least. Alright, I’m off to go interrogate the operations manager I told you about. See if I can figure out more about everything going on here before we run low on time.”
“The naxisant? Are you going to be okay talking to him?”
“I’m a professional. Species has no-”
“Not you; him. Just be careful; on top of the old grudge, I’m not sure I trust the person in charge of station maintenance to be telling you the whole truth as the station is falling apart around you. It’s just... a little fishy that he didn’t vanish along with everyone else, right?”
“... You’re right. I’ll be careful. Talk to you soon, Val. Ifan out.”
Val sighed and slid back from her desk, spinning the chair around absently. Her office rotated past; a picture caught her eye. Val and Ifan, arm in arm and sporting huge grins in their spotless Federation cadet uniforms, both holding their shiny new badges out for the camera. That had been just after graduation, when they had both intended to become field agents. Ifan had, but Val...
“Pfeh,” she muttered, rotating around to face the desk again. “Not his fault; not my fault. Sometimes things just happen.”
She’d keep telling herself that as many times as it took for her to believe it.
“Anyway, better get back to it. Need to find him a few friendly systems for all these people.” A deep breath, a sigh out, then she tabbed over to her list of contacts. “Okay. Only thirty billion refugees to go.”
- Val is able to locate enough willing destinations.
- Val is only able to locate a few willing destinations.
(Winner: a tie! and are combined to make 
)
- Val is able to locate enough willing destinations.
- Val is only able to locate a few willing destinations.
(Winner: a tie! and are combined to make ) 4 4@Story Notifications
Scene 16
“So, can you outline the general process used for ongoing maintenance on the station? Procedure documentation would be helpful if present.”
Ifan stood straight and on guard, facing Jin La’Rojin across a small conference room. He had been questioning the naxisant for a while already and had gotten through the background details; everything so far matched up with what Claril had told him. Now, it was time to probe a little more carefully.
For his part, Jin also had the dignity to look uncomfortable. “The operational maintenance policies can be sent to you after this meeting, as you desire. In brief, then...”
The assistant director continued, and Ifan ticked off areas of concern as they were mentioned. He didn’t actually care about the specifics of the station’s maintenance plan; he wanted to know if it had been purposefully sabotaged, perhaps by one of the missing executives. Or Jin himself. He is a potential suspect as well.
“Pardon me, but can you go into more detail on the interior repairs? From what I’ve seen of the maps, it would take days to reach and replace a component near the center.”
Jin hesitated, then continued relatively smoothly. “Pneumatics. We have several major chutes that allow for transport to and from the interior in a matter of hours rather than days.”
“So you send maintenance personnel down one of these chutes when a defect is noticed, have them repair it, and return them to the surface?”
“Almost. Much of the time, there are several issues to address at once, so they may stay in the interior for a longer term. But essentially, that is the process.”
Ah. “How long of a term?”
“Well...”
...
Claril shuffled through the piles of paper in the former Director’s cabinets, fighting the urge to glance back at the door every few seconds. She technically wasn’t allowed to be here, but with the whole station falling apart anyway and the Director himself missing, she figured no one was going to stop her.
“There have been two noteworthy incidents this year. In the first, a ghost entered an arterial pneumatic chute and traveled nearly three miles to a trunk line before being crushed by a capsule. Professional staff entered the system to remove the remains and repair major damage to the trunk line from the collision. We implemented additional monitoring in the arterial chutes to automatically shut down a section of the network and alert professional operators if intrusions are detected.
“In the second, a ghost encountered a cleaning droid after the end of a scheduled cycle, during the standard interior refresh period. The ghost became distressed and caused severe damage to the droid using their work tools before returning to their compartment. Analysis of compartment recordings indicated an unsuitable mental state, so the ghost was terminated by airborne neurotoxin. Additional ghosts were instructed to clean up the destroyed droid, with no further issues. We also implemented additional features in the new cleaner model, including an aural disruptor and an automatic request for a hunter/killer drone in the event of further similar incidents.
“In all, we find the ‘ghost’ program to be one of the highest-efficiency programs in Amira Station, and recommend continued operation until the designated end-of-life date.”
Claril set down the file. “Two million,” she muttered. “Breeding program? I thought the yellow jumpsuit people were...”
“...”
“How long did Jin know about this?”
She stood up, preparing to do something, but not really sure what that something would be.
- Go confront Jin.
️ - Tell Ifan.
- Find an operator’s station and learn more.
- Send a message or something down into the pneumatic system. [Specify what, if you wish.]
(Winner: ️ )
- Go confront Jin.
️ - Tell Ifan.
- Find an operator’s station and learn more.
- Send a message or something down into the pneumatic system. [Specify what, if you wish.]
(Winner: ️ ) 1 7 3 3@Story Notifications
Scene 17
“Are you aware that your so-called ‘ghost’ program is slavery? That it violates a whole host of different galactic laws and could have most everyone who knew about it in prison for years?”
“What would you have me do, Officer?” Jin asked calmly. “What should I have done, when I first learned of the ghosts? Should I have spoken out against their use and demanded we change the entire station’s operations? Requested we find the billions of credits required to pay them in an already-stretched budget? Tried to free them? I would have been fired, imprisoned, or worse. And if I had succeeded, there’s no telling what damage would have been done if the station’s maintenance were disrupted. Nothing is more important in this system - this sector - than keeping Amira Station operational for as long as possible. Removing the ghosts destroys the station. So tell me, what should I have done?”
Ifan forced himself to consider the words and the situation. “Contact the appropriate authorities. You wouldn’t need to tell your superiors, the matter would be investigated, and you would...”
The naxisant was smiling. “You came here due to an anonymous tip, did you not? One that mentioned allegations of sentient being rights violations? Officer, who do you think submitted that tip?”
“...”
“I won’t insult your intelligence by continuing further. Rest assured, I take these matters seriously, but at this point there’s very little we can do. The ghosts are required in order to maintain the station’s current operation, and we wouldn’t be able to extract them all within the time limit anyway. All of the current population were born within the interior and, unfortunately, will likely die there.”
“They don’t deserve this. No one does.”
“Precisely. No one does.” Jin folded his long fingers together, nodding at Ifan. “Officer, you understand as well as I do that it will be impossible to evacuate the entire system before Amira Station fails. Yes?”
[This can be changed later as the situation develops. Ifan, Claril, and Jin will tentatively agree to...]
- Leave the ghosts to work in Amira Station.
❤️ - Evacuate the ghosts, last.
- Evacuate the ghosts concurrently with everyone else.
- Evacuate the ghosts, first.
[You can pick multiple options. The general evacuation plan will...]
- Not prioritize anyone. Luck of the draw.
- Prioritize people by how easy they are to evacuate. Living close to a spaceport suddenly becomes a lot more desirable.
- Prioritize people who could benefit from off-planet care. Weak, injured, aged, etc.
⚕️ - Prioritize people who are most likely to survive the trip. Those in good health who are able-bodied.
- Prioritize younger people, children, and families to support said kids.
- Prioritize people with valuable skills or professions.
- Prioritize people who can help fund further evacuation efforts.
❓ - Prioritize based on some other quality. [Specify in #story_discussion.]
(Winners: ❤️ , = = ⚕️ = )
- Leave the ghosts to work in Amira Station.
❤️ - Evacuate the ghosts, last.
- Evacuate the ghosts concurrently with everyone else.
- Evacuate the ghosts, first.
[You can pick multiple options. The general evacuation plan will...]
- Not prioritize anyone. Luck of the draw.
- Prioritize people by how easy they are to evacuate. Living close to a spaceport suddenly becomes a lot more desirable.
- Prioritize people who could benefit from off-planet care. Weak, injured, aged, etc.
⚕️ - Prioritize people who are most likely to survive the trip. Those in good health who are able-bodied.
- Prioritize younger people, children, and families to support said kids.
- Prioritize people with valuable skills or professions.
- Prioritize people who can help fund further evacuation efforts.
❓ - Prioritize based on some other quality. [Specify in #story_discussion.]
(Winners: ❤️ , = = ⚕️ = ) 1
6 1 1 3 3 2
3 3 1 1 1@Story Notifications
Scene 18
“Aim for Sibdael II. You’ll be getting into position above the capital, which has most of the few remaining spaceports still capable of sending shuttles up to meet you. I’ve got your contact as well; ready to copy?”
Minutes later, the freighter had re-plotted its course and was again on its way.
...
“Good luck with that,” Jin said. “I appreciate the sentiment, but don’t delude yourself; trying to evacuate the ghosts after everyone else isn’t going to be possible. For starters, there’s no way you’ll actually be able to evacuate everyone else in the time we have, so the other points are moot regardless. But even beyond that, we won’t have warning when the sun actually blows. Sure, we have some approximations based on the field strength and sensor readings, but when that thing finally decides to detonate, this station will be destroyed in a matter of minutes. The rest of the system might have hours, but you may have noticed we’re rather close to it here. No, evacuating anyone from Amira Station itself will have to be done in advance, or we’ll have to abandon the staff here - ghost or otherwise - to death.”
Ifan, infuriatingly, couldn’t see a flaw in the man’s logic. “We still have to try. We can’t just plan on abandoning them.”
“And that’s why I wished you good luck. You will definitely need some.”
...
Euvi was already awake by the time the three-tone chime sounded to wake her up. She had been deeply asleep for a while, but then woke up early, unable to breathe properly and with remnants of the headache from last night throbbing in her forehead. She had tried and failed to go back to sleep after cleaning the clogged blood from her nose and taking some additional medicine, instead spending the time repairing one of her pillows to try and calm down. The cleaner droid and the buzz saw-like second Thing kept haunting her memories.
“H-hello?” She carefully advanced again then, turning half-away and squinting one eye shut as if the panel were about to explode, placed her hand on it and left it there. The panel lit up and a few seconds passed.
“No match. Please try again.”
Euvi only jumped back half as far this time, and returned much faster. “You are not speaking to me, are you? You speak to me, but not to me?”
The panel did not reply.
“Yes...” She sighed and tried again, her dream of meeting another real human being again unrealized. Some machines could just talk to you, it seemed.
“No match. Please try again.”
“I do not understand. Is this the bioscan?”
“No match. Operator alerted. Please remain here and wait for assistance.”
Euvi sat down on the metal floor, nonplussed. “I do not understand...” she muttered, before digging the tablet out again and re-reading the task in case she had somehow missed something. A few minutes passed as she read through several times, before she was almost scared out of her skin by the panel speaking again in a radically different voice.
“Eh, hello? Someone trying to get in? Are you still there?”
“Y-y-y-yes?”
“Oh, good. I didn’t know we had anyone down here today, but I guess no one knows where everyone is with all the crazy emitter repairs, right?” The panel chuckled. “Anyway, what’s your employee number? I can get you on the list real quick.”
[Euvi does not have an employee number or know what one is. What should she do?]
- Euvi panics and gives a random number.
- Euvi explains that she has no idea what is going on.
[After that’s straightened out...]
- Euvi sticks to the important stuff to get into the room and doesn’t go on tangents.
️ - Euvi keeps the mysterious panel talking for as long as possible about literally anything it will talk about.
(Winners: , ️ )
- Euvi panics and gives a random number.
- Euvi explains that she has no idea what is going on.
[After that’s straightened out...]
- Euvi sticks to the important stuff to get into the room and doesn’t go on tangents.
️ - Euvi keeps the mysterious panel talking for as long as possible about literally anything it will talk about.
(Winners: , ️ ) 1 7 3 5@Story Notifications
Scene 19
“E-Em...employee number? I don’t... what is that?”
“Huh? Your employee number. You know, the thing on your ID so I can get you into the door’s database.”
The panel’s speech was much faster and less precise than it had been before, and Euvi was having trouble keeping up. Still, the change sounded... “Are you a person? Like me, not like a machine?”
“Uh... yes? I’m confused; are you actually an employee?”
There was a pause as Euvi breathed in, so excited she almost couldn’t decide how to answer. “I live here! Do you live here too? Are you like me? Fixing things? I-” Suddenly, she cut herself off, remembering it was rude to ask too many questions at once. At least, that’s what she had read somewhere.
“You live... here? Like, inside the station?”
For the second time in less than a minute, Euvi was almost floored by excitement. “You don’t?! From the outside?! What is it like; what do you do? Can I go? Wh-” Not all at once!
The panel was silent for several seconds. Euvi vibrated with impatience.
Finally, it responded again. “I’m going to get my supervisor, okay? Can you stay right here for another few minutes?”
“Stay here!” Euvi repeated, planting her shoes firmly on the floor. “And then you can tell me about the outside?”
“Yes; just a minute.”
...
Gim Owen, floor supervisor for interior operators in Amira Station, was not currently a happy man.
He normally was - his standard disposition was downright jovial according to many of his colleagues - but today was a bit of an outlier. Today - just a few minutes ago, in fact - he had been informed that Amira Station was doomed along with the rest of the Sibdael system. The star they had all spent hundreds of years containing was about to break out and annihilate everything for light years around in only a matter of days. And not only was he supposed to deal with that news, but he was also supposed to keep it secret from his team for the rest of the day.
Gim frowned and turned the mic back on.
“Alright, Euvi, here’s what we’re going to do.”
⬅️ - “I’ll let you into the emitter.”
- “You aren’t allowed into the emitter.”
[And then...]
- “... Okay, bye.”
❔ - “Let’s talk a little. You want to hear about the outside? Sure.”
- “...” [This option is potentially deadly to Euvi.]
- “You see that big pneumatic tube behind you? I’m sending a capsule down. Get in once it arrives.” [This is probably not allowed, and Gim or Euvi or both will probably get in trouble.]
(Winners: ⬅️ , ❔ )
- “You aren’t allowed into the emitter.”
[And then...]
- “... Okay, bye.”
❔ - “Let’s talk a little. You want to hear about the outside? Sure.”
- “...” [This option is potentially deadly to Euvi.]
- “You see that big pneumatic tube behind you? I’m sending a capsule down. Get in once it arrives.” [This is probably not allowed, and Gim or Euvi or both will probably get in trouble.]
(Winners: ⬅️ , ❔ ) 6 1 4
5 1 1@Story Notifications
Scene 20
“I’ll let you into the emitter. Your task looks correct, so I hope you can figure out what’s wrong with it. Strange times... Okay, the door should recognize your hand now. Try it again.”
A delay, then Gim saw a little indicator light up as the door’s state toggled open. “It is open!” the little ghost reported.
“Great; well, good luck. I’ll be going now...” Gim reached for the toggle that would close the connection, but he was interrupted before he could get there.
“Wait! You said you would tell me the outside! What is it?!”
So excited. Are they all like this? He almost closed the connection anyway, but something held him back. Maybe it was her tone of voice, maybe it was the recent knowledge of the looming detonation, or maybe it was the building realization that Sem had probably been lying to him. “... Do you know what a sun is?” he found himself asking.
“A sun? Like a star, or like a man?”
“Like a star.” What language is she speaking that she got those confused? Or does she just not know the definition properly? Gim scratched at the fur just below his mass of facial tendrils; his native language didn’t have homonyms like that. He’d check his translator later to see what he had been speaking. Good thing he had the implanted version, or he wouldn’t have been able to communicate with her at all.
“I know about stars! Big, hot things that make light. Is that what the outside is?”
“... Sort of. You can see for yourself in the emitter housing. But the station you’re inside - Amira Station - its job is to keep a star alive.”
“Keep a star alive...”
“If the station ever fails, the star will explode and destroy the station and everyone nearby.”
“...Everyone?”
“Billions and billions of people.”
“...”
[Most of the main cast is currently busy with things that don’t require choices. So who should we be in the meantime while we wait for them to finish up?]
️ - Val Nomano, back on Gamma Veox.
- The first evacuation freighter captain, hovering over Sibdael II.
- One of the missing executives, in hyperspace.
- A citizen by the capital’s overwhelmed spaceport, on Sibdael II.
(Winner: )
️ - Val Nomano, back on Gamma Veox.
- The first evacuation freighter captain, hovering over Sibdael II.
- One of the missing executives, in hyperspace.
- A citizen by the capital’s overwhelmed spaceport, on Sibdael II.
(Winner: ) 3 4 3 1@Story Notifications
Scene 21
“What are you looking at down there?”
The freighter’s captain raised his eyes away from the windows, focusing on the woman speaking to him. The ship’s pilot, Daya.
“The launches. Look.”
He moved over to allow Daya to step down into the little divot next to him and peer towards the planet’s surface far below. Tiny flashes of light revealed hundreds of starships burning away from every operational spaceport all at the same time. From the navigation console above them, hundreds of little blips vanished one after another as ships disappeared into hyperspace.
“They must have finally announced the situation. How many do you think will return?” he asked quietly.
Daya stared at the disappearing twinkles as launches continued. “I can’t imagine many will. If they come back and land, they’re asking to be mobbed by desperate people who just want to escape.”
The captain nodded slowly. “Have you seen any of the people boarding with us? Spoken to them?”
“No. Tellin said to stay in the crew section in case anything got violent. He didn’t want to risk me.”
“And are you Tellin’s property? Are you worried that some of these scared, desperate people will attack you?”
“I... don’t know.” Daya looked troubled, doubt clouding her pale grey eyes.
The captain felt that little buildup of static electricity that always happened when she got like this, and tapped her arm to dispel it. A spark flashed and they both jumped. “You were doing it again,” he said. “Follow me; we need to settle that uncertainty of yours.”
Flustered, Daya followed. “Sorry; I can’t believe it happened again. I don’t know why - I mean, there’s nothing that should...” She trailed off as the captain smiled pleasantly. “You really think it’s...?”
“Eyes like stormclouds,” he said, waving in the vague direction of her face. “Hair like thunder. Daughter of the tempest, you are.”
[We have time for one more interlude before we return to the main cast. Who should we be?]
️ - Be Val Nomano.
- Be one of the missing executives.
- Be a citizen inside the capital’s overwhelmed spaceport.
⏩ - We don’t need another interlude; return to being Euvi.
(Winner: )
️ - Be Val Nomano.
- Be one of the missing executives.
- Be a citizen inside the capital’s overwhelmed spaceport.
⏩ - We don’t need another interlude; return to being Euvi.
(Winner: ) 2 3 4 1@Story Notifications
Scene 22
A man stood alone in a sea of pushing, shouting bodies, surrounded by more people than he had ever seen together in his life. The air was warm and heavy, the spaceport’s ventilation systems working overtime to account for the enormous over-occupancy. An announcement crackled over the PA system, but he couldn’t hear it over the general din.
The man peered ahead, trying to catch a glimpse of the gate that he was theoretically in line for. He was tall enough to see the sign: C-19 glowed blue and calm over the chaos. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see the door, the front of the line, or the staff who would be trying to maintain order as best they could.
He had been here, in the capital’s (and planet’s) largest spaceport, for nearly a full day now. Shuttles had come and gone, ferrying those at the front of the lines into orbit. Smaller craft had landed directly and lifted thousands of people away from the planet. One particularly overloaded starship had taken on too many passengers, tried to take off anyway, and clipped a building past the end of the runway while still trying to gain height. The resulting fireball had killed thousands, but the port hadn’t stopped evacuations or even temporarily closed the runway. The only thing that mattered right now was getting as many people away from the star as possible.
The man shuffled forwards, locating the guideposts between bodies that told him he was still in the correct line. It had taken him nearly sixteen hours of waiting by the check-in desks before he had managed to get assigned a gate in the “secured” zone - although no one was operating the security checkpoints anymore - and then another five of standing or sitting in the line itself. He had walked the length of the spaceport at this point and was finally within sight of salvation. Another few shuttles and he could get out.
Shortly after the ship started its jump, the child’s crying abruptly cut off. When it eventually landed and refugees began to file into a series of dull concrete buildings under a cold, snowy sky, the man searched for the child but found nothing. None of the gruff, beleaguered staff directing people to temporary housing knew either.
The man did not sleep well that night, despite his exhaustion.
[Time to check in with Euvi in the emitter housing. How did she do?]
- Euvi fixed it.
- Euvi thought she fixed it.
- Euvi could not fix it.
(Winner: )
- Euvi fixed it.
- Euvi thought she fixed it.
- Euvi could not fix it.
(Winner: ) 6 3 1@Story Notifications
Scene 23
Euvi disentangled herself from the mess of wiring and tiny electrical components, maneuvering carefully to avoid popping anything out of place. She heaved up the slablike metal hatch that provided access to the cable duct, glancing to the sides to make sure no wires would get cut in half, then slowly eased it closed and turned to watch the diagnostic panel set into the wall. It blanked for several seconds, running its automated tests, then finally settled back into a stable, happy state.
“Haaaah,” Euvi sighed, tracking down her water bottle and taking a long drink. She had been working on the spire’s internals for hours and hours, hustling back and forth to the drop points initially, but then just worming her way through wiring ducts to make use of the spare parts she had picked up. It was a good thing she wasn’t particularly large. But finally, the topmost level of the spire was happy as well. It was time to turn the whole thing back on.
She spent a few more minutes just resting first, appreciating the sheer complexity of the gigantic machine she sat within. The emitter spire seemed to use vast amounts of electrical energy on some sort of magnetic containment of... something? And then there was the big central barrel that carried this something and focused it up through the emitter’s firing array at the very top. Euvi didn’t grasp the specifics, but she got the gist of it: this was a giant cannon that fired a continuous, extremely precise, devastatingly high-energy beam at the star.
Certainly a far cry from the leaky water pipe of just a few days ago. Well, time to go make sure it worked.
“Wh - what? Did I...?” She fumbled for her tablet, then finally noticed the several alerts she had ignored in her excitement to turn the emitter back on - and had initially missed due to the vacuum deadening the tablet’s speakers: “End of cycle. Return to compartment.”
Satisfaction morphed into anxiety. She had been out two hours beyond the end of the cycle, and was at least another hour from her compartment at a normal pace. This wouldn’t be a quick “twenty minute” walk like last time when she had run into that cleaning robot; this would take many times longer. Plus, it was now way past the end of the cycle. If anything more dangerous roamed at night, it would have had plenty of time to emerge by now.
“...” Euvi pressed her hand against the panel - perhaps to get back into the emitter airlock; perhaps to talk to panel-man - but it only beeped harshly. “Unauthorized post-cycle access attempt. Remain stationary for automated response.”
She stumbled back, glancing into the cavernous hallway in the dark. “A-automated response?”
In the distance, audible above the constant groaning from the walls, a screeching saw-like whir ground into life. The second Thing she had managed to avoid last time. Euvi jumped into action, dashing away from the panel by instinct. What should she do?
- Try to make it back to her compartment.
- Find a drop point and stay put; barricade.
- Try to stealthily tail the thing and learn about it.
- Just evade it; focus on getting away without a greater purpose.
(Winner: )
- Try to make it back to her compartment.
- Find a drop point and stay put; barricade.
- Try to stealthily tail the thing and learn about it.
- Just evade it; focus on getting away without a greater purpose.
(Winner: ) 1 5 2 1@Story Notifications
Scene 24
She ran for it. Just get away before that thing can get here!
Blessedly, the hallways near the emitter spires were much larger than the more cramped confines deeper in the station, so Euvi had little trouble running at near-full speed with the tablet held before her to warn of any approaching walls. The harsh, sawblade-like noise screeched closer, then passed by at a distance, continuing towards where she had been previously. No time to stop just yet; she kept going.
After at least a quarter-hour of running, Euvi slowed down and tried to quiet her breathing, listening. Nothing that she could hear over the station’s general groaning. She flipped the tablet back around and picked the nearest drop point to route to - there was no way she was going to keep wandering around in the dark for hours trying to make it back to her compartment. Not with things that sounded like that on the prowl.
Almost forty minutes after she had stepped out of the emitter housing, Euvi located a drop point and slipped inside, closing the door and blocking it with a large empty capsule. Still paranoid that she could maybe hear the faintest hint of screeching saws through the walls, she then stepped into the smaller bathroom compartment and closed that door too, blocking this one with her body.
Finally, Euvi settled down on the floor and curled into a ball, shaking. “I am okay, right?” she asked the sink. “I will just wait here and go back in the morning when those things are not there.”
“...”
“Yes, I do not know what happens if I am not in my compartment overnight. Maybe it will not notice? Maybe I can ask panel-man Gim?”
“...”
“Ssh!” Euvi ordered the sink, pressing herself into a tighter ball. Sawblades screeched in the distance, this time definitely audible over the groaning walls.
Minutes passed. The sound faded. Euvi tried to relax on the warm, hard floor, and eventually drifted off into a fitful sleep.
...
As if to top off her list of problems, the thermal regulator made a quiet “bip bip” noise, pairing it with a light vibration to ensure she noticed. Euvi looked down, reading the warning on the thing’s tiny screen: “low power - recharge.”
She fell onto her back, letting air leak from her mouth in a strangled squeak. Utterly lost, no food, no way to get help, and the only thing keeping her from baking alive in the heat was running out of batteries.
This, to put it lightly, was not good.
[At least one option is potentially deadly to Euvi.]
- Try to find her compartment again.
️ - Try to find the emitter spire again.
- Climb into the pneumatic network.
- Climb into a capsule in the pneumatic network.
- Stay put until something changes.
(Winner: ️ )
- Try to find her compartment again.
️ - Try to find the emitter spire again.
- Climb into the pneumatic network.
- Climb into a capsule in the pneumatic network.
- Stay put until something changes.
(Winner: ️ ) 2 6 1 1 1@Story Notifications
Scene 25
“...”
Well, there was nothing for it but to try and find her way back to the emitter spire; once there, she could talk to panel-man again and ask him for help. Going back to her compartment might be a better result overall, but she had little to no hope of ever finding it, even if it were still in the same place. The emitter spire, meanwhile, was near the edge of the station and had red walls nearby with white lines, unlike anywhere else she had been. Plus, it was closer. It would be easier and faster to find.
At least, if the thermal regulator lasted until then. She reached down to poke at it, but the screen was small and didn’t display any precise battery statistics; it just had a simple three-segment display with the last segment blinking slowly. How long had it taken her to drain the first two? Two days? So she should have the rest of the day at least...
Euvi knew perfectly well how much it was asking for any machine’s indicator to deplete at a steady rate. She couldn’t rely on it. So, time to get moving.
She refilled her water at the sink, kicked the empty capsule again as it had rolled back to block the door, and determinedly set off into the maze.
...
Gim Owen, floor supervisor for interior operators in Amira Station, was even less happy than he had been yesterday. He had broken the news to his team this morning in an all-hands meeting, unable to answer many of their questions without guidance from the missing executive staff. He had spent an hour trying to calm people down and explain the critical importance of their work over the next few days, additionally buoying their morale by offering guaranteed evacuation for all Amira Station staff who stayed until the end. That last part, at least, had been arranged by the Federation officer and Jin La’Rojin, of all people. Gim supposed that La’Rojin was probably the highest-ranking person still left on the station, and didn’t let that worry him as much as it could have.
“... Zaes, you do understand you’re asking me to: A) willingly park right next to a star that’s about to explode, B) walk straight into a space station that’s been commandeered by the Galactic Federation, C) steal data from people who - to be blunt - really shouldn’t have to spend their very limited time dealing with someone like me right now, and D) do yet another mystery job without you explaining what the point of all this is.”
“That’s correct. You will, of course, be well compensated for your efforts. And I assure you, my research is of critical concern to the greater galaxy. You will have a chance to examine part of it when we meet, should you wish.”
Ellie blinked, then squinted. “You’re being surprisingly accommodating. What’s your game, Zaes?”
“Survival.”
She met his eyes and frowned. He meant it.
“... Alright, I’ll talk with Mel and we’ll get back to you in half an hour. Consider the job provisionally accepted; send us the pay info and other details.”
“Of course. I look forward to our meeting, hunter.”
Ellie grumbled and closed the connection, just sitting there for a few moments. Well, that sure turned the week around.
- Ellie and Mel take the job.
- Ellie and Mel decline the job. [They will no longer be significantly relevant to this story.]
[We may jump around the timeline a bit depending on who we are when. Options that will go too out of order are not presented.]
- Be Claril.
️ - Be Ifan.
️ - Be Val.
(Winners: , ️ )
- Ellie and Mel take the job.
- Ellie and Mel decline the job. [They will no longer be significantly relevant to this story.]
[We may jump around the timeline a bit depending on who we are when. Options that will go too out of order are not presented.]
- Be Claril.
️ - Be Ifan.
️ - Be Val.
(Winners: , ️ ) 6 1 1 1 5@Story Notifications
Scene 26
Valeria Nomano stood on the crowded train, grasping her bag with one hand and an overhead handle with the other. Occasionally, one of her legs would twitch and threaten to topple her to the ground, but her grip on the handle was strong enough to stay upright despite that. Still, when a smartly-dressed man noticed her struggle and stood to offer his seat a minute into the ride, she accepted it gratefully. Pride was one thing, but practicality was another.
Both of Val’s legs were cyberware from thigh to toe, her organic ones having been destroyed in a terrible accident during her Federation cadet days. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t be a problem - cybernetic legs could often be even better than the real thing - but in her specific case, there had also been some neurological trauma from the explosion that prevented her motor nerves from working quite correctly. Doctors and engineers alike had failed to solve the problem entirely, so here she was with legs that worked fine in theory but wobbled or spasmed when paired when her damaged brain.
This was, of course, why she couldn’t be a field agent like Ifan. He had been present at the time and often blamed himself for Val’s situation. On some particularly bad days she did too, but most of the time she was just grateful that she could walk at all.
The train cheerfully announced her stop and Val disembarked, nodding again to the man who had stood up for her. Walking could be an issue, but most days it wasn’t too bad once she got moving and had her cane for support. Today, she didn’t have far to go; the Senate Committees building was right next to the train station for the convenience of all the senators who used it.
Someone called for a break after that accusation, and the subcommittee devolved into dozens of groups as senators conferred with their aides and each other. The gauruvian who had spoken moved between groups, nodding and speaking with senators who were rapidly skimming through pages of evidence from Ifan’s investigations. Val herself had gotten the same evidence package from the man - apparently his name was Svenod Dmyoti and he was the system senator from Ojibisu, a coreworld system near Strillia. A powerful man, with outsized influence in the Senate due to his system’s importance. And he seemed dead-set against helping. Very not good.
Senator Entrone sighed and sat down next to her. “Valeria, I believe? Federation liaison for this committee?”
“That’s me.” She nodded grimly, gesturing to Dmyoti. “I see we have some problems.”
“You could say that. You could say that indeed...”
[Some of these choices, or combinations of choices, are potentially deadly to hundreds of millions of people. Pick one from each block; you can also specify more details in #story_discussion if you want. No pressure, Val.]
- Try to convince Dmyoti. The rest should fall in line.
- Try to convince more broadly. Dmyoti isn’t required.
❤️ - Focus on the disaster and innocents at risk; the crimes will be prosecuted later.
- Address the scandals and detail how to avoid risk to Federation resources.
️ - Val leads; Entrone supports.
- Entrone leads; Val supports.
(Winners: , ❤️ , )
- Try to convince Dmyoti. The rest should fall in line.
- Try to convince more broadly. Dmyoti isn’t required.
❤️ - Focus on the disaster and innocents at risk; the crimes will be prosecuted later.
- Address the scandals and detail how to avoid risk to Federation resources.
️ - Val leads; Entrone supports.
- Entrone leads; Val supports.
(Winners: , ❤️ , ) 4 2 7 1 3 4@Story Notifications
Scene 27
“Dmyoti isn’t the only issue,” Entroke continued after a brief pause. “He wasn’t lying when he mentioned the rest of his sector; a number of other coreworld senators have given me similar responses. Sibdael has always tried to maintain its independence, and that combined with the... concerns with the system government have led to a lot of hesitation when it comes to committing further resources.”
Val glanced into the crowd again, now noting a few other senators she actually did know. Anya Siyansky, for Gamma Veox itself, seemed to be arguing with one of Dmyoti’s coalition; her support, representing the planet they were all currently standing on, would be very important. Unfortunately, just a few people over was Yeven Diangora of Strillia, who was nodding along with Dmyoti himself. “The coreworlds seem to be split,” she noted. “How’s the mid-spiral?”
“Mostly with us.” Entrone seemed relieved about that. “They don’t want this sort of thing happening to their own systems. Unfortunately, we need the coreworlds as well, since they have far more voting power than the mid.”
Val nodded, still reading the room. Each system with an inhabited, spacefaring planet above a certain population was considered “Class 1” and got one senator to represent them. However, these senators received votes in full sessions based on their system’s population. This meant that, though the mid-spiral systems were significantly more numerous than inner-spiral and coreworlds, the inner core still held more votes due to its vastly higher population.
“I’m considering trying a compromise to allay their concerns: requiring all distributed funds go only to Federation resources and staff rather than anyone in Sibdael. At least your people would be able to continue the evacuations that way.”
Val was surprised by her wide grin at the senator’s praise, and quickly managed to return to a more neutral expression. Entrone nodded slyly. “I hope you Veoxians vote to keep her; your last senator wasn’t nearly as pleasant. Then again, I suppose I’ll be out of a job before the week is out, so it won’t matter to me...” Another sigh. “Well, I need to go report on the likely outcome and prepare my speech. I’ll put you on the list for Senate access if you’d like to attend. Thank you for your help, Valeria.”
And then he was off, heading for the door and the elevators back down to the trains. Val sat there for a little longer, watching the remaining senators’ conversations wind down as the room slowly emptied. Dmyoti and Diangora were both still here, speaking quietly about halfway around the room. Interesting.
- Keep an eye on them, at least while they’re still here.
- Do a little light tailing, but nothing obtrusive or illegal.
️ - Talk to one or both of them. [About what? Suggest in #story_discussion.]
️ - Just head to the Galactic Senate building for the vote.
(Winner: )
- Keep an eye on them, at least while they’re still here.
- Do a little light tailing, but nothing obtrusive or illegal.
️ - Talk to one or both of them. [About what? Suggest in #story_discussion.]
️ - Just head to the Galactic Senate building for the vote.
(Winner: ) 6 1 1 1@Story Notifications
Scene 28
... But not interesting enough to do anything. She sat and watched as they too wrapped up their conversation and headed for the doors. Diangora kept going, but Dmyoti stopped to glance down at Val. The gauruvian certainly was intimidating, with his scales the color of dull steel and muscular build that would tower over her even if she were standing.
“You and Entrone made the right choice,” he said, still speaking relatively slowly. “We must protect the innocents we can, but there is more going on in Sibdael than any of us know. You are involved with the investigation there; you must know this.”
It wasn’t a question, but Val answered anyway. “Yes, I’m working with If - the officer on scene there. The missing executives are a major concern; I agree.” She held back from trying to convince him of anything else; the revised bill had already been sent. Nothing more she could do at this point.
“I almost guarantee there is some hidden trap here that we aren’t seeing, even with the revised bill. An entire system government doesn’t just disappear for simple embezzlement or to avoid taking responsibility for a crisis. This is a premeditated plan that has been brewing for centuries.” He paused, glancing towards the ceiling. “Tell your officer to be careful and keep a very keen eye out. I have a hunch there is more at risk than just the system’s population.”
What is he...? “I’ll... let him know.”
A nod. “Good day.” Senator Dmyoti left the room.
What was that about? I’m worried too, but... Val struggled to her feet and made her way back to the elevators, frowning. It’s almost like he’s thinking there’s some grand galactic-scale conspiracy. This is just one system with bafflingly incompetent and corrupt leadership. Right?
Of course, the room was far too large to speak directly to anyone outside of a senator’s local cluster, so each sector branch had a central platform that displayed the image and voice of whoever had the floor at the time. Additionally, each pod could connect to any other pod in the room so two senators could speak no matter the distance. It was a complicated system, but with several thousand individual senators (plus several times that of aides and clerks) spread across hundreds of sector groups, traditional seating arrangements simply wouldn’t suffice. Val knew that the whole starfield-like aesthetic of the room wasn’t necessary, per se, but it sure made an impression. She loved it.
She met Entrone by his pod as he spoke with the senator from Otruul - one of the cone-shaped, long-lived aliens called quarites. He nodded politely and the quarite returned to their pod as Val arrived. “Welcome. You’re just early enough to watch the roll call.”
Val joined him in the pod - the size of a small room, it held a desk and several chairs as well as the electronics needed to interface with the chamber’s systems - and glanced at the screen. “Full house today,” she commented.
“Yes; I haven’t seen the chamber this full in quite some time.” He looked up, gazing at all the thousands of lights glowing in the chamber’s upper reaches. “I suppose today marks a very important decision. I hope my speech is up to the task.”
[What complication arises?]
✋ - One of the other senators from the sector wants to talk with Val.
❗ - There’s a surprise announcement just before the vote.
- Val gets a call from the Federation.
️ - Nothing. Everything goes pretty much as planned.
(Winner: ✋ )
- Val gets a call from the Federation.
️ - Nothing. Everything goes pretty much as planned.
(Winner: ✋ ) 
4
1 3 1@Story Notifications
Scene 29
“Zacaginie, who’s your friend? I thought you had stopped bringing aides in.”
Val and Entrone both turned. The speaker was another senator from a nearby pod: a white-haired and balding man stooped with age, but whose gaze was still sharp. According to the plate on his pod, he was Ro Kimo from Osabruglis.
“Ah, this is Valeria; she’s with the Federation.” Entrone glanced back to the roll call as it cleared and a hologram of Senator Siyansky - today’s chamber lead - materialized on the platform. “Excuse me; I will be needed shortly.”
Kimo nodded. “May I speak with you for a moment, Miss Valeria? Away from Zacaginie so we don’t distract him?”
“Sure?” Val returned to the main branch, passing by the hologram as Siyansky called the session to order, and stepped into Kimo’s pod instead. The man sat down across from her near the back and spoke more quietly so Entrone wouldn’t be able to overhear them. She noted his eyes again and how they lingered on her in a discomfiting way. Like he was searching for something.
“You are involved with the investigation then, I take it.”
“To an extent, yes.”
“Good. My system government normally doesn’t like working with the Federation - I’m sure you know all about those types from the edge of the mid-spiral - but given recent revelations, I believe we may benefit from you knowing this.” Another searching almost-glare; was that a dot of purple light in the back of his eyes?
Val tensed slightly, wary. There existed a number of optical cyberware modules that could do all sorts of things, including many as benign as simply correcting vision. Anything capable of causing actual damage would have been detected by the building’s security, but an implant didn’t have to be harmful to be dangerous. And combined with his overall demeanor...
But for now, the Senate’s discussion was complete and it was time to vote. Val returned to Entrone’s pod to watch the tally stabilize with an overwhelming 87% majority approving the bill. The session would continue with other matters from there, but Val had more important things to deal with than sitting in the chamber and watching senators debate the merits of comm buoy regulations or whatever. She bid Entrone farewell, descended in the blue-lit tube, and returned to the city to head back to her office.
Too many thoughts whirled in her head, so she didn’t notice the forgettable-looking man who got onto the same train. She didn’t notice him discreetly press something against the back of her neck, disguised as a jostle in the crowd. And she didn’t notice how, after she had passed through the less-comprehensive security in the Federation building, the thing on her neck quietly woke up.
But someone else did.
- Ifan helps investigate the mystery fleet.
- Ifan helps investigate the missing executives.
️ - Ifan helps investigate rumors of sabotage on Amira Station.
(Winner: ️ )
- Ifan helps investigate the mystery fleet.
- Ifan helps investigate the missing executives.
️ - Ifan helps investigate rumors of sabotage on Amira Station.
(Winner: ️ ) 1 1 6@Story Notifications
Scene 30
“This was some sabotage,” Ifan muttered quietly, taking in the destruction. He was standing - shield up and temperature regulator active - just beyond the damaged airlock for one of the station’s enormous emitter housings. The spire itself - tall as a building - was more or less still intact, though portions of it had melted or broken off to collapse into rubble by its base. The floor around the spire had erupted and the chamber was scored with blast marks on walls and ceiling. The airgate in the roof normally allowed the emitter to fire while blocking much of the sun’s harmful radiation from entering the chamber, but now its main ring was cracked in half and the housing lay bare to empty space outside.
Three corpses in yellow jumpsuits had been discovered in the wreckage, but they had been removed before Ifan had arrived. All had been charred almost beyond recognition by the titanic blast when the spire had detonated. He stepped carefully a little further into the room, testing the floor. Unstable; there was probably a hollow cavity below this with additional components for the emitter. All now destroyed, no doubt.
The sun blazed overhead, baking the chamber through radiation alone. Even the temperature regulator had a hard time keeping up against the bloated red giant hovering impatiently just above. It wouldn’t be safe to stay much longer, and it wasn’t like there was much to see from the scene anyway. Any evidence had been vaporized. He returned to the station’s interior along with the station staff that were escorting him.
With air restored, they could actually speak to each other again. “Give me the timeline again,” Ifan requested, kneeling to examine a scorch mark from laser fire on the wall.
“We should check these quarters; see if we can’t track down any clues. Can you get me more information on those suspects? Supervisor, description, duties; whatever you have?” As Sem nodded again, working on that, Ifan ducked away to talk to the ettri again - this time he finally managed to locate and read the name on his badge. “Looking for something... Gim?”
He almost jumped, pointing down the corridor. “Just was wondering where we were, with that gash in the wall. I was trying to see if I could spot the emitter label from here, but it’s too far away.”
“We started at 04-22 and we’re four down now, so this should be 04-18. Why?”
“Oh... Well, I was just... yesterday, there was this ghost who called up on the panel by 04-18 and...” Gim explained the gist of his interactions with the ghost who called herself Euvi, including the warning of “automated response dispatched” he had gotten this morning when trying to find her. “So if the killer drone is the ‘automated response,’ I was just a little worried about her.”
“I see. I wonder... perhaps she may have seen something. You don’t have any way to track these ghosts, do you?” He interrupted himself. “No, obviously not, or you would have found her already. Do you think she may still be around here?”
“I... maybe? I’m not sure where else, really, since the pod still says nothing. You really think we could find her?”
“Well, it’s worth a try if it doesn’t take too long. But the station is enormous and we clearly have no way to track her down. I don’t trust our luck just sending people out wandering, looking for someone who might not even have any useful information.”
Gim blinked. “What about a really loud noise?”
- Euvi is close enough to hear.
- Euvi is not close enough to hear.
- Keep being Ifan.
- Be Euvi instead.
- Why not both?
(Winners: , )
- Euvi is close enough to hear.
- Euvi is not close enough to hear.
- Keep being Ifan.
- Be Euvi instead.
- Why not both?
(Winners: , ) 6 1 2 2 4@Story Notifications
Scene 31
Euvi stumbled against the wall, peering up at the hallway beyond through bleary eyes. It looked basically the same as all the other vaguely red hallways in this area of the station, though she was rapidly losing her ability to tell. The thermal regulator beeped again, warning of “critical power - recharge.” It had been doing that for nearly an hour now, intermittently failing for seconds at a time before it recovered the field’s cohesion.
She had turned up the temperature as far as she dared to try and save power, but that just made the intervals between the seconds-long dips into a blast furnace even less bearable. Her bag was gone at this point, dropped at some vaguely-remembered location to lighten the load. Her water bottle was still here, but only because it was empty and clipped to her clothes. A headache fought with dizziness and nausea to determine which could be the most debilitating. She alternated between dripping with sweat when the regulator was mostly working and quickly steaming dry when it failed and the interior’s true temperature reasserted itself.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, as she struggled and failed to make sense of the intersection ahead, Euvi knew she was going to die. Even if she somehow found the emitter again, she wouldn’t be able to recharge the thermal regulator. There wouldn’t be any more water. The panel-man wouldn’t be able to help her.
Those thoughts, however, still weren’t enough to stop her from looking up in startled confusion as a loud, ringing siren began to echo through the station. Pausing for only a moment to discard the risks due to the much greater risk of burning to death if she didn’t, Euvi heaved herself up and set off at a trot towards the sound. She would have made it a run instead, but her limbs didn’t seem to have much strength left.
“All of them,” he interrupted. “Every ship on guard duty is one that can’t be packed full of people and sent off to save lives. The only ships that aren’t being used for evacuation are the ones used to fuel and repair the ones that are, or the few still tied up at Amira Station. You need to bring this up with whoever’s in command of the fleet here, because a decision like this is way above either of our paygrades.”
“... Yeah. I do.” Val paused for several seconds, breathing out slowly. “Hell, Ifan. What a mess, right? How’d it all go so wrong so fast?”
“... I’m sorry; I don’t have any existential wisdom at roughly three in the morning, local time.”
“Ack! I didn’t notice it was so late there! Go back to bed; I’ll handle this. Please try to get some rest, because I’m sure things will just get crazier from here.”
“I have a sinking suspicion you will turn out to be right.”
The call ended. Ifan returned to his bunk, now wide awake and filled with added anxiety. Thankfully, he was well-practiced with sleeping despite that; it only took him ten minutes to return to slumber.
Meanwhile, Val called someone else.
- The fleet commander diverts some evacuation ships for use as guards. [They will be unavailable for ferrying refugees, which will indirectly kill millions.]
- The fleet commander retains all ships for use in evacuation. [If an attack comes, there will be no ships available to defend and tens of millions may die.]
⏬ - The fleet commander lowers the evacuation capacity of many military ships, keeping them in use ferrying (fewer) refugees but freeing up resources to defend at least nearby ships if an attack comes. [This is sort of a compromise: slightly fewer refugees will be carried, and ships will be available to defend in a limited capacity.]
(Winner: ⏬ )
- The fleet commander diverts some evacuation ships for use as guards. [They will be unavailable for ferrying refugees, which will indirectly kill millions.]
- The fleet commander retains all ships for use in evacuation. [If an attack comes, there will be no ships available to defend and tens of millions may die.]
⏬ - The fleet commander lowers the evacuation capacity of many military ships, keeping them in use ferrying (fewer) refugees but freeing up resources to defend at least nearby ships if an attack comes. [This is sort of a compromise: slightly fewer refugees will be carried, and ships will be available to defend in a limited capacity.]
(Winner: ⏬ ) 1 2
5@Story Notifications
Scene 32
“Really? No; you’re - ... Fine. Alright, understood.”
Tizin watched his captain as she took the priority call from command, growing nervous as her expression darkened. Finally, she hung up and turned to face the bridge crew.
“Alright, close the doors,” she said. “No more refugees after the next batch; we’re full. And...” A brief grimace. “Tizin, get us combat-ready.”
“... What? Captain, we have civilians on board!”
“And I don’t want them to get killed because we weren’t ready for an attack! Get moving; we’re heading out as soon as those doors close!”
He didn’t need to be told a third time; Tizin scrambled to bring all the guns online from the console before rushing out of the bridge to do the manual check of their mechanisms as they warmed up. Something was very wrong here.
In theory, there was nothing stopping a warship from fighting while carrying civilians; the shields and guns were on the outside of the hull and weren’t physically blocked by anything. In practice, however, the extra people meant more power was dedicated to life support and the engines, plus the ship would respond more sluggishly with the extra weight and any internal damage could be difficult to reach or repair. And of course, there was the biggest danger: damage to the ship could mean harm to the civilians on board.
It was primarily that last point that kept the Federation from preparing evacuation craft for combat. The guns would still work if they were attacked, but the ship would be fighting at reduced capacity and with much higher risk should it take any hits. So closing the doors early and having Tizin prepare all the guns now, while technically not an indication of anything that they couldn’t be doing anyway, meant that someone higher up than his captain thought they were going to be seeing combat today.
And that, needless to say, was extremely worrying given the circumstances.
“One minute left on the spooling,” Ellip noted as he fired the thrusters at full burn, trying to catch up with the enemy. “We’re just on the edge of the gravity well. I can get us out of here in sixty seconds if you give the word.”
- Jump to warp. The odds against three enemy craft are slim if they actually focus on Tizin’s ship.
- Stay out of direct fire, but continue fighting. Try to drive them off without taking too many risks.
- Get right in the thick of it. As the only nearby craft with laser-based point defense, Tizin’s ship has the best chance against all these missiles.
(Winner: )
- Jump to warp. The odds against three enemy craft are slim if they actually focus on Tizin’s ship.
- Stay out of direct fire, but continue fighting. Try to drive them off without taking too many risks.
- Get right in the thick of it. As the only nearby craft with laser-based point defense, Tizin’s ship has the best chance against all these missiles.
(Winner: ) 2 2 5@Story Notifications
Scene 33
“Cancel the spool; get that power back.”
Ellip didn’t hesitate, immediately shutting off the jump drive and shunting all the stored energy back into the ship’s main systems. The engines flared and all eight plasma cannons charged their next shot in half the time, letting Tizin fire them all at once in a single barrage. Keeping a partially-spooled jump drive active during a fight usually wasn’t a good idea unless you were planning on fleeing; the thing took an incredible amount of power to charge and a lesser, though still heavy, toll to just keep it spooled. The captain’s order, then, meant that they were committed now. It would take another twenty minutes to spool the drive back up - the fight would be over long before then.
Tizin fell into the familiar rhythm of combat as the battle progressed. Plasma bolts impacted shields, missiles were torn apart by laser defenses, artillery shells narrowly missed connecting. The enemy craft were particularly quick for their size, and were careful to stay far enough away to dodge the big gun that would destroy any of them with a single hit.
Fortunately, with the power recovered from the jump drive, Tizin was able to keep up enough of a barrage to hold most of their attention. Ellip maneuvered them close to the nearby group of non-military transports, trying to keep the laser defenses between civilians and enemy missiles. It wasn’t perfect, but it was an improvement; of each volley of twelve, eight to ten were now reliably intercepted.
Of course, those remaining missiles went somewhere. Behind them, more evacuation craft were hit, often with a secondary flare of brilliant white light as their partially-spooled jump drive detonated from the impact and vaporized a portion of the ship. That was the secondary danger of fighting with a spooled drive; the things were incredibly explosive when charged and unstable enough to blow up from any major impact.
At least they would on the inhabited planets. Amira Station would be obliterated in minutes. Deciding when to evacuate the station was going to be a difficult decision.
Still, right now, Ifan had other concerns. There had been another attempted emitter sabotage this morning. Though the saboteur had been driven away by the guards accompanying the maintenance patrol, two workers had been shot in the confusion. And the saboteur had gotten away again, vanished into the depths of the station’s interior. So right now, he needed to figure out what this ghost knew. Any further damage to the station...
Yeah.
️ - Be Ifan for the conversation.
️ - Be Euvi for the conversation.
- Ifan is in a hurry.
- Ifan takes his time.
- Euvi offers to help Ifan catch the saboteur.
- Euvi doesn’t do that. Maybe she has some other plans...
(Winners: ️ , , )
️ - Be Ifan for the conversation.
️ - Be Euvi for the conversation.
- Ifan is in a hurry.
- Ifan takes his time.
- Euvi offers to help Ifan catch the saboteur.
- Euvi doesn’t do that. Maybe she has some other plans...
(Winners: ️ , , ) 2 5 2 4 4 2@Story Notifications
Scene 34
The nurse was blue, but that didn’t surprise Euvi nearly as much as it would have only a few days or even hours ago. After recovering from her severe heatstroke and dehydration, she had spent hours pestering the other people in this room trying to understand what was going on and how the outside worked. There were a huge variety of different kinds of people in the room. Some looked like her, but many others didn’t. Euvi supposed she - and humans generally - weren’t the only kind of person around.
But that was so cool!
When she made her intentions clear to start asking everyone in the room about themselves and the outside, one of the nurses had given her a little earpiece, explaining that not everyone spoke the same language and this device would help her understand when others spoke to her. It was true, and she marveled at the new possibilities that came with that understanding.
Some of the other people here seemed too hurt to talk, and others started ignoring her after only a few minutes. But some of them didn’t, and she listened with rapt attention as several different aliens told her about their view of the universe. Stories of cities and oceans and trees and animals and people and spacecraft to travel between them all. The outside was named Kronwae, she learned, and it was called a galaxy. The galaxy contained thousands upon thousands of inhabited star systems, many with several inhabited planets and many more thought to be still undiscovered. And outside of the galaxy, deep in intergalactic space beyond...
“What is it?!” she had demanded, almost climbing the tall, cone-like alien in impatience. “What is outside the outside?!”
“Mmmmmmmm...” it had hummed, the assortment of illuminated orbs near the tip of the cone pulsing in a rolling display. “More galaxies, perhaps with more life. We do not know. There is still much to discover.”
“And then? Outside of even those?”
[Specify in #story_discussion how the chosen option(s) may coalesce into a sensible plan. Euvi will put something together on her own, but it may not be the greatest idea.]
- The staff...?
- The targets...?
- The pneumatics...?
- The drones...?
- She can’t think of anything in time.
(Winner: )
- The staff...?
- The targets...?
- The pneumatics...?
- The drones...?
- She can’t think of anything in time.
(Winner: ) 1 1 1 5
2@Story Notifications
Scene 35
She strained her thoughts, remembering her visits to the emitter room. Trying to come up with something that could prove her usefulness to this important man. Surprisingly, something actually came to mind. “There are things like saws in the after-cycle. Fast, chasing?”
It took him a few seconds, but he got it. “The drones? Those things they called hunter/killers?”
“Maybe? I do not know the name, but they are fast, sound like sawblades, and can chase. They were near the panel, but they could be nearer? And during the cycle?”
“... Put hunter/killer drones right next to the emitters, and have them active during the day, to chase down the saboteur?”
“... Yes?”
“Hmmmmm...”
...
“They agree, then? Roughly three and a half days?”
Narszeth nodded, spilling a stack of papers onto the desk. He looked at them briefly, shuffling the pile to pick out a dull orange sheet. “Based on the current level of degradation, yes. Roughly three and a half days until the field completely fails, assuming no major upsets in either direction.”
Claril let out a relieved breath. “Good. I was fairly confident in my analysis, but no one has really done this sort of thing before. That we know of, at least.”
“Jin wants to evacuate the station in three days. Get out in the morning; everything blows up in the evening.”
“Seems reasonable as long as we keep a careful watch to make sure it won’t go critical earlier.” Claril paused, frowning. “Although that won’t give us any time to evacuate the ghosts. Though we can’t, really. Spread throughout the interior, with no way to actually bring them up here in any numbers...”
Narszeth sat down tiredly, staring out the window at the ever-present deep red star. Was it brighter than before? Larger? Were those blue-white lines of the stasis field noticeably dimmer? “Dr Hvet, do you feel like everything we’re doing here is pointless?”
The drone dropped off the ceiling with a whir of screeching metal, revving its sawblades and powering up all its systems. The yellow jumpsuit person looked back and jumped, ducking into a side passage and retrieving an object that was immediately identifiable as a laser pistol. The drone transmitted its status back to command, then shot off in pursuit.
It only had two modes, as suggested by the name: “hunt” and “kill.” Its programming was almost always set to “kill” for major disturbances like this, but that may have been overridden by the orders that led it to crouch on the ceiling instead of its normal charging bay. What set of instructions is the drone following as it chases the yellow jumpsuit person?
[Keep in mind that the hunter/killer drone has only lethal weapons, and is primarily designed to use them. “Hunt” requires it to avoid using any lethal force. “Kill” gets the sawblades involved.]
- “Hunt.”
- “Kill.”
(Winner: )
- “Hunt.”
- “Kill.”
(Winner: ) 4 3@Story Notifications
Scene 36
“Hunt mode only,” read its instructions. The drone complied, shooting off down the hallway in pursuit. Its saws still screeched and carved occasional gashes in the walls as it flew, but it would not be permitted to actually run into its quarry. Hunt mode was usually only utilized for chasing down prey, after which it would swap to Kill mode to finish the job. In this case, however, it simply hung back after approaching, slowing to allow the yellow jumpsuit person time to avoid its blades. The drone had no nonlethal weapons; it couldn’t disable the target without cutting it in half.
Events proceeded in this vein for minutes on end: drone screeching as it approached, then fell back. The target’s laser pistol flashing and occasionally scoring a glancing hit. Then, after a particularly obvious pause during which the target had actually fallen to the ground momentarily, they stopped running. The drone merely hovered angrily in midair, unable to advance any closer.
The laser pistol flashed several times, this time aimed with pinpoint precision. The drone fell in a smoking wreck, carving jagged strips of metal from the walls as its sawblades spun down.
Elsewhere, someone tsk’d at the “feed lost” error displayed on the screen. “These things don’t work if they can only hunt. Turn Kill mode back on.”
Back in the station interior, dozens more drones flooded the area, whirling and screeching and scanning for the yellow jumpsuited target. Many passed by the wreck of their fellow more than once, but none of them were able to locate the saboteur. It had only been a minute at most since the first drone had fallen, but the target seemed to have well and truly vanished.
“That’s enough,” someone else said. “Send them back to recharge. We’ll have drones on the emitters so we can try again later.”
“With Kill mode enabled from the start, this time?”
A grimace and a sigh. “Yes. We don’t have enough time left to be nice about it.”
...
“Maybe a litt - huh?”
They both stared into the darkened woods, where a bright beam of light had momentarily flashed into the sky about a half-mile away, waved once, then quickly vanished. Mel spoke again after a delay. “You think that’s our contact?”
“Who else would be out here in the middle of the night?”
“I mean, you mentioned woods murderers...” A weak smile. “So... should we...”
- Signal him back?
- Stay put?
- Go check?
[If anything other than is chosen and nothing happens after some time, what should we do then? Multiple options may be attempted or blended by order of votes.]
- Go check.
- Stay put.
- Ask Zaes.
- Leave.
(Winners: , > > )
- Signal him back?
- Stay put?
- Go check?
[If anything other than is chosen and nothing happens after some time, what should we do then? Multiple options may be attempted or blended by order of votes.]
- Go check.
- Stay put.
- Ask Zaes.
- Leave.
(Winners: , > > ) 6 2 1 2 3 5 1@Story Notifications
Scene 37
“Signal him back? You got it.” Ellie flashed the ship’s searchlights, momentarily dousing the clearing in brilliant illumination before fading back to darkness again. She blinked, rubbing her eyes. “Damn, that’s bright.”
“You didn’t have to look at it!”
“Yeah, well, it’s late.” Not a very elegant comeback, but, well, it was late.
Time passed. Ellie tapped her fingers on the console; Mel peered into the darkness outside. Occasional shapes passed overhead in flares of momentary light; evacuation ships, probably. No one showed up.
“Okay, I’m bored. You want to call Zaes and tell him we’ve got a no-show?”
“It’s only been fifteen minutes; maybe a little longer?”
“Fiiiine.” She slumped over both armrests in the captain’s chair, stretching her limbs to the floor.
In the end, it took nearly half an hour of waiting until someone finally showed up. Ellie had sat up again, intent on pestering Mel to call Zaes, when there was a series of clanking noises from the staircase leading up to the bridge door. Mel jumped back; Ellie jumped up. Both drew weapons and raised shields just in case. Ellie nodded in appreciation; Mel had really adapted well.
“Hunters?” someone called from outside. “You will let me in? It’s very dark!”
Ellie gestured Mel back to cover her, then approached the door and shoved it open. “Ah! It’s you again.”
Honar the grull - right-hand man to Dr Zaes himself - shielded his eyes from the starship’s interior lights as he responded. “Yes! It’s me again! I have some information for you!”
“So... no, then. We’ll have to avoid the Feds too. Is there anything else we need to be wary of?”
“Someone important on the station staff is a traitor. I don’t know who, but the Federation officer is also convinced of this. The people trying to destroy the station are working too well to be alone.”
“I wonder... Maybe they’re working with the other executives who fled the system? I just can’t think of any reason why you would want to blow up the sun early, aside from just pure malice.”
Ellie straightened up, suddenly more serious. “Something just occurred to me.”
[Why would someone want to blow up the sun early, aside from just pure malice? Choose from each block, and elaborate in #story_discussion if desired. You may want to reference prior scenes for more clues. This is a branch point: if Ellie successfully puts together what’s going on, she will have the opportunity to make a substantial improvement to the overall Sibdael situation. If she gets it wrong, however...]
[Suspect]
- The missing executives...?
- The mystery fleet...?
- The traitor(s) on the station...?
️ - The Senate...?
- Colonel Mustard... in the study... with the candlestick...?
[Motivation]
✊ - To take over / influence...?
- To destroy...?
- To humiliate...?
- To steal / uncover...?
️ - To hide / cover up...?
[Target]
- The Sibdael system...?
️ - The Federation...?
- The research data...?
- Lockheed-Bolte / Zaes’s project...?
- A galactic conspiracy...?
(Winners: + ️ + )
- The missing executives...?
- The mystery fleet...?
- The traitor(s) on the station...?
️ - The Senate...?
- Colonel Mustard... in the study... with the candlestick...?
[Motivation]
✊ - To take over / influence...?
- To destroy...?
- To humiliate...?
- To steal / uncover...?
️ - To hide / cover up...?
[Target]
- The Sibdael system...?
️ - The Federation...?
- The research data...?
- Lockheed-Bolte / Zaes’s project...?
- A galactic conspiracy...?
(Winners: + ️ + ) 3 2 2 1 2
1 2 1 2 4 1 1 5
2 2@Story Notifications
Scene 38
They both looked at her. Ellie continued more slowly, trying to work out the details. “There’s a lot of crazy stuff going on around here right now, with the sun exploding, the government going missing, traitors on the station trying to blow it up faster, and that ‘mystery fleet’ the Feds are worried about. But a lot of it doesn’t seem to have a clear reason - why would you want to destroy a station that’s already going to be destroyed? Or why bother bringing the death toll up from fifteen billion to fifteen point zero one billion?”
“... Yes?”
“So what if it’s all just to increase the chaos in the system so everyone forgets about this apparently really important research data? I mean, if Honar’s right, this stuff could bring people back to life. That’s... insane?”
“I don’t know...” Mel mulled it over. “If the system government wanted to cover up the data, surely they would have had access to the systems to just get rid of it normally? And are you suggesting the whole thing - the entire sun blowing up - was intentional?”
“No! Well, probably not. But the way they’re handling it, maybe? I don’t know; it was just an idea. The whole situation really feels ripe for a conspiracy.”
“Well, when we get that data, I suppose we can find out more. Let’s keep that idea in mind, at least.”
Nods on all sides. Honar prepared his map. “Ready? Let us consider a plan...”
...
She hovered around indecisively for a few minutes, occasionally retreating into the hallway as if to leave but then returning to the elevator bank as if to stay and glimpse whoever emerged from below. Euvi wasn’t sure if she was supposed to be here, really, but she also wasn’t sure that anyone else was either. But was that actually something she was intending to handle?
So a few minutes passed without a decision being reached, until the sound of heavy footsteps in the corridor - coming this way - made it for her.
- Hide.
- Run.
️ - Talk.
(Winner: )
- Hide.
- Run.
️ - Talk.
(Winner: ) 6 2 1@Story Notifications
Scene 39
Euvi froze for a moment, then darted towards the rear of the elevator bank and quietly slid one open just enough to squeeze in. Then she closed it almost all the way, leaving a tiny gap so it didn’t turn on and she could still see. Something told her it wouldn’t be wise to be spotted here.
Within only a few moments, a tall reptilian person with bronze-colored scales glinting in the elevator’s status light entered the room. He sleepily leaned against the wall, tugging at the sleeve of his blue-white uniform that Euvi already knew was worn by station research staff. It had only been a day since she had arrived here, but she had been doing almost nothing but learning and observing since then. So the question was what a researcher was doing here, now? Well, presumably he was waiting for the person in the elevator, but what after that?
She held still, trying to breathe as quietly as possible. There were still several minutes left before the elevator would arrive and something else would happen.
Thankfully, the bronze man didn’t seem particularly observant and he didn’t check for anyone hiding nearby. Eventually, the active elevator arrived and opened to release a person in a yellow jumpsuit. This one looked a little like her. A lot like her, actually, with that grey-black hair and those red eyes. Interesting.
The bronze man levered himself off the wall to greet the yellow-jumpsuited newcomer. “Glad you made it up in one piece. Any issues getting here?”
Not-Euvi brushed a lock of hair out of her face and slid the elevator doors shut. “None. All the hunters are squatting on the emitters, so none of them bothered me in the pneumo system. Really riled ‘em up, heh.”
“Good, good. Er, would you mind me asking what the new plan is? Since you’re up here now and I haven’t heard anything from-”
That was the saboteur the important man was looking for. And one of the traitors. And they were going to steal something and then escape, right now! She had to do something about that, right? No one else knew about it, so... so...
Why did the saboteur look so much like her? Older, definitely, and not an eerie doppelganger-like resemblance, but somewhat similar features. Was it just a coincidence?
She shook her head. Not important right this instant; they were getting away! What was she going to do?
️ - Follow them and gather more information. Stay undetected.
- Follow them and confront them when the time is right. Someone will show up; ideally station security or similar.
- Don’t follow them; go describe what she just saw to the important man or someone of similar status.
(Winner: a tie between ️ and ! ️ was chosen by author preference)
️ - Follow them and gather more information. Stay undetected.
- Follow them and confront them when the time is right. Someone will show up; ideally station security or similar.
- Don’t follow them; go describe what she just saw to the important man or someone of similar status.
(Winner: a tie between ️ and ! ️ was chosen by author preference) 4 1 4@Story Notifications
Scene 40
Well, at this point she didn’t really know where the important man (or anyone else, for that matter) would be, and she had to make a snap decision.
“...”
Euvi ducked out of the elevator room and headed off in pursuit, forming a vague plan of getting some help along the way. She caught up relatively quickly and slowed her pace, now glad that she had forgotten to put on shoes since her socks were much quieter on the dull metal walkways of the station. They were still talking, though more softly. She moved a little closer to try and listen in.
The bronze man was speaking. She strained to overhear. “That’s another thing. I understand the necessity behind this, but we are handing this data over to people who ordered attacks on evacuation transports.”
Not-Euvi began to respond, but the bronze man cut her off.
“No need; I’m not going to bring up the moral quandary again. But surely you have to wonder what they’re going to use this information for. Surely you have to wonder what the data even is that they care this much about it!”
“You’re wondering too much, chief. Isn’t that why you’re doing this? To stop being so curious and just do?”
“... I just don’t see what possible benign use they could get out of data from the core of a time-frozen star. Sure, some extra insight into plasma or stellar lifecycles - that’s great for scientists, but it doesn’t strike me as something they would care about right now. So is it something more dangerous? Some kind of weapon? With all the revelations about the station lately, I wouldn’t be surprised if it did have some secret weapon development program. Trying to channel a star into a beam capable of wiping out planets. And if that were the case, I’d honestly rather that secret die with the station itself.”
“And you talk too much. It’s like I said; you just need to calm down and go with it. As long as you like the big picture, don’t sweat the details.”
“You there!” he shouted, gesturing with the barrel of the gun. “Out here, now! No weapons!”
A young woman with grey-black hair and startling red eyes peeked out from around a corner, then reluctantly shuffled into full view as she saw their guns. Athletic build, wearing pajamas, no shoes...? “Mel, who is this?” she whispered, aware that a video feed from her exocortex would be streaming back to the ship as she spoke.
Unfortunately, Mel wouldn’t be able to figure it out instantly. Instead, Honar took the direct route. “Who are you and why are you sneaking around?” he demanded.
[Euvi will...]
- Tell the truth and request assistance from Honar and Ellie.
- Tell a truthful lie, omitting mention of the saboteur and traitor.
[Ellie and Honar will...]
- Call it in to actual station security.
- Take care of matters on their own. [Less-lethal. May be able to question the saboteur, but will involve significantly more risk to Ellie and Honar.]
- “Take care of” matters on their own. [Lethal. Won’t be able to question the saboteur, but Ellie and Honar will definitely have the upper hand.]
[The above choices may change depending on whether Euvi tells the truth or not.]
[And also...]
- They’ll bring Euvi along. She’s a witness now; can’t have her running off.
- They’ll kick Euvi out. Can’t have her witnessing anything else.
- [...No! They’re not going to purposefully kill Euvi unless the situation changes dramatically.]
(Winners: , , )
- Tell the truth and request assistance from Honar and Ellie.
- Tell a truthful lie, omitting mention of the saboteur and traitor.
[Ellie and Honar will...]
- Call it in to actual station security.
- Take care of matters on their own. [Less-lethal. May be able to question the saboteur, but will involve significantly more risk to Ellie and Honar.]
- “Take care of” matters on their own. [Lethal. Won’t be able to question the saboteur, but Ellie and Honar will definitely have the upper hand.]
[The above choices may change depending on whether Euvi tells the truth or not.]
[And also...]
- They’ll bring Euvi along. She’s a witness now; can’t have her running off.
- They’ll kick Euvi out. Can’t have her witnessing anything else.
- [...No! They’re not going to purposefully kill Euvi unless the situation changes dramatically.]
(Winners: , , ) 6 1 1 5 2
6 2 1@Story Notifications
Scene 41
“I am Euvi,” she responded in an almost relieved tone. “I am following the traitors for the important man; the officer! Guard man, please help; they are inside the room there!”
Honar hesitantly lowered his gun. “The traitors? Are you working for X’deven?”
“Yes and yes; the traitors! The ones who are blowing up things below - they are going to get some weapon data and then escape - help stop them!”
“She said Euvi, right?” Mel asked in Ellie’s ear. After confirmation, she continued. “Apparently she’s a, uh, former ‘ghost’ from the interior? Basically a maintenance slave from what I’m reading here. X’deven brought her up really recently. I don’t have much else on her, but if we can actually get some information on who’s trying to steal this data as well...”
“Yep, I get you.” Ellie nodded to Honar; he would remain in charge for the sake of their cover.
“Okay, we’ll deal with the traitors,” he assured her. “And you will come with to help and stay safe.”
She nodded. Ellie clicked her weapon to the “stun” setting as Honar fiddled with the access panel. His scatterlaser didn’t have a nonlethal mode, so he would be backup in case things went south, or he could try to use melee instead. If he had a good opportunity.
She tensed, readying up and nodding for him to open the door. They both had shields, sure, but she had no idea what to expect from these traitors. Shields were only good against very high-speed or high-energy attacks, such as guns and explosions; a simple heavy pipe to the head could easily take her out of the fight in an instant. If there was to be a fight at all. Maybe the traitors wouldn’t - the door was open. Time to move!
Ellie slipped into the records room and quickly scanned the whole area. Computer terminals along the wall to the right, an automatic sliding door ahead, and shelves of physical media to the left. Tape wheels, portable drives, and even good old paper binders. No one immediately visible.
“Where’s your friend?” Ellie asked conversationally as Honar got out the cuffs to restrain their captive. Mel would already be looking up the man’s name.
“I - I - friend? What... are you talking about?”
An exaggerated sigh. “I was just being polite. We know they’re in that room over there. Now, are you going to explain what you two were doing in here trying to steal core observation data or are we going to have to get that from your partner in crime?”
He seemed to freeze up when she brandished her gun. Ellie wasn’t actually going to use it, nor did she have the time for an extended interrogation until the area was secure. They had to find the other traitor first.
“Quildroth Narszeth,” Mel said. “Research scientist under Claril Hvet, apparently studying interactions between the stasis field and the star’s outer layers.”
“So... not supposed to be here, right?”
“Probably not? This is core observation, not outer layer observation. But it does seem like he’s a real researcher, at least.”
Ellie frowned. “Got any leads on Claril, then? Might explain some things.”
“I’ll look.”
Honar finished securing Narszeth to one of the stairway supports and assigned Euvi to watch him while he and Ellie cleared the rest of the room. The younger woman gingerly approached and half-hid behind the stairwell itself, hopefully out of reach from any stray shots that might come from a confrontation. Then, the two of them each picked a door - Ellie on the left, Honar on the right - and prepared to sweep the last remaining L-shaped room.
[What goes wrong?]
- Ellie.
️ - Honar.
- Ambush.
- Trap.
- Misstep.
️ - Mel is paying close attention.
- Mel noticed something else.
(Winners: ️ , , )
- Ellie.
️ - Honar.
- Ambush.
- Trap.
- Misstep.
️ - Mel is paying close attention.
- Mel noticed something else.
(Winners: ️ , , ) 2 5 2 1 5 3 4@Story Notifications
Scene 42
Ellie took a sharp breath and opened her door simultaneously with Honar. They both entered the room at the same time, then she lost sight of him. Only radio contact until they met back up in the middle. At least, that was the plan.
“Why’s it so dark?” she muttered, blinking involuntarily as she switched her vision over to infrared. “Looks like a big archive area. I see lights up there, but everything’s turned off. You think they’re ready for us?”
“Yes,” Honar replied simply. “Be alert.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice.” There was a reason she had gotten the night vision optics installed. Honar didn’t have that particular cyberware upgrade, so he’d be reliant on his flashlight and much more obvious. But, well, he was usually the much more obvious one anyway.
She crept through the darkened corridors between towering stacks of archival data in various physical formats, metal glinting strangely to her night vision as it reflected normally-invisible light from her shield. Nothing visible and nothing audible. Only a constant tension that kept her finger hovering just above the trigger.
Ellie froze as she turned another corner and glanced down, then carefully undid her last step. A tiny filament glinted as it stretched across the path, hooked to the shelves on either side. She had narrowly avoided stepping directly on it, and had only noticed because of her night vision. “Honar,” she whispered. “Watch out for tripwires. Just found one on my side.”
She peeked just a little closer, wanting to be sure, and confirmed a small coil of wire connected to a pack of explosives, about the size of a deck of cards. Ellie stepped away and took a different route, not wanting to risk disarming it. “Honar?” She still hadn’t heard anything from him.
More seconds of silence stretched into the darkness. “Mel?”
“...”
“Well. That is not good.”
[What should Mel do?]
- Go outside and cut the traitor off at her ship. Help capture her.
- Take off and prepare to fire on the traitor’s ship as she tries to leave.
- Stay put and let events develop further.
[And also...]
️ - Get X’deven’s attention. He’s right here, too, and probably awake by now.
- Don’t do that.
[Meanwhile, what did Ellie and Honar do?]
- Ran off in pursuit.
- Stayed in the records room to gather the data for Zaes.
(Winners: , ️ , )
- Go outside and cut the traitor off at her ship. Help capture her.
- Take off and prepare to fire on the traitor’s ship as she tries to leave.
- Stay put and let events develop further.
[And also...]
️ - Get X’deven’s attention. He’s right here, too, and probably awake by now.
- Don’t do that.
[Meanwhile, what did Ellie and Honar do?]
- Ran off in pursuit.
- Stayed in the records room to gather the data for Zaes.
(Winners: , ️ , ) 5 2 2 6 1 2 6@Story Notifications
Scene 43
Well...
What would Ellie do?
Not even a question. Mel hopped up, grabbed her gear, and rushed out of the ship. “Call Officer X’deven,” she instructed her earpiece as she headed down the steps and toggled on her shield.
She made it to the next support pillar by the time he finally picked up, sounding wary. “Who is this?”
“That’s not important, but you should come outside right away. Your traitor is in the hangar and about to escape. I’ll try to help, but no guarantees.”
She hung up before he could reply, feeling a little thrill at getting to do something with all that anxious energy. Mel didn’t often go on ground missions - Ellie was the one with all the skills, tools, and training - but she practiced alongside her fairly often. There wasn’t much else to do while they were stuck in hyperspace for days at a time, after all.
Laser blasts flashed overhead, sparking against reinforced paneling above and below. Several bolts passed straight through the airgate itself, fading away into space as the energy contained in each beam slowly bled off into vacuum. Mel changed course slightly, now running only a few feet away from the airgate that led directly into deadly void. The traitor was making for a ship docked just at the edge of the hangar, so this was the quickest route there. Still, a little unnerving to be so close to a suffocating death.
X’deven became visible now, sprinting along the airgate towards the traitor’s ship in a basically parallel course to Mel’s, but from the other direction. He could definitely see her at this angle, which was not ideal; she was technically still wanted for a number of various federal crimes significant enough to put her in prison for several lifetimes. Hopefully he wouldn’t know her face; Ellie’s was more famous. At least he’d arrive in time to help out.
Well, it was pretty obvious. “Nope. But we’re looking to stop the traitors, too. Just need some information from here to help figure out what they’re after - that’s why we stayed here, too. That info’s more important than catching one person.”
A short pause, then a breath out and a little grin. Good; she seemed to buy it. And Ellie was almost telling the truth, anyway. She glanced back at the screen, then blinked. “Observations on Yhvram Interactions with Crystal Hearts (Post-Stasis),” she read. “Oh, finally we’re getting somewhere.”
...
[What does Ifan do?]
- Prevent the traitor from starting the ship; capture her.
- Close the airgates and lock down the hangar. Stop the traitor’s ship from escaping.
- Help Mel not bleed to death. Wait, she looks familiar...
(Winner: a tie between and . was chosen by author discretion.)
- Prevent the traitor from starting the ship; capture her.
- Close the airgates and lock down the hangar. Stop the traitor’s ship from escaping.
- Help Mel not bleed to death. Wait, she looks familiar...
(Winner: a tie between and . was chosen by author discretion.) 4 4 2@Story Notifications
Scene 44
“Someone help her!” Ifan yelled as he leapt up the steps and turned sideways to slide into the traitor’s ship just before the automatic door could close and lock. He’d be on his own now; there was no way he or the station staff outside could force open the door before the ship could take off. Starship grade plating was stout stuff, impervious to most weapons carried by individuals.
He had seen the traitor attack his mysterious informant with a knife, and was ready to defend himself should she try that again. His uniform was reinforced against blades of all sorts and even had several plates over vital areas to protect against piercing. The Federation was well aware that personal shields had their limitations, so field agents were equipped accordingly. It was definitely a good thing he had been up and dressed already; his pajamas did not offer nearly the same level of defense.
Engines hummed outside as the ship began to prepare for takeoff. He’d only have a minute or two if the traitor was really determined to get moving as soon as possible, but he also didn’t necessarily need to rush now that he was on board. He couldn’t rely on her not knowing he was here, but he could hope for it. Maybe she’d enter the coordinates for the traitors’ base, if they had one.
But mostly, he just wanted to keep as much of an advantage as he could. Ifan was likely the last chance for anyone to catch this person, and he owed it to the Sibdael system as a whole to figure out what was going on. Plus, of course, if he failed he would die or get captured by a group ruthless enough to cause or accelerate a supernova to get what they wanted. Always a good motivator to be cautious.
He stayed quiet. It seemed like a rhetorical question.
“She ain’t. Not by a long shot. And let me tell you, when you’ve been locked up all your life and someone offers you the opportunity to destroy the prison you broke out of? Well, it’s a real tempting offer, no matter what you think about the guys making it.”
“And what do you think about these offer-making gentlemen?”
“Pfft. I’m not an idiot. You broke in here prepared to shoot me for that information. You want it, you gotta offer something good in return. Or take your chance with the fight, tough guy. You think you can win? Go ahead and try.”
Ifan paused, considering. He figured he had a good chance if it came to a fight, but there was always that risk. And if this person was willing to make a deal, it could save a lot of violence - and time, since interrogation wouldn’t be necessary.
But on the other hand, she had personally killed several people and indirectly murdered millions at least. Justice demanded he bring her in. But if he lost, or if there was some third factor he wasn’t seeing, he would get nothing at all.
[This is a branch point. At least one option is potentially deadly to Ifan. At least one option is potentially deadly to the as-yet-unnamed saboteur.]
- Make a deal. Let the saboteur go in exchange for (verifiable!) information about her bosses.
- Fight for it. Capture the saboteur if possible - kill if not - and get the information that way.
(Winner: )
- Make a deal. Let the saboteur go in exchange for (verifiable!) information about her bosses.
- Fight for it. Capture the saboteur if possible - kill if not - and get the information that way.
(Winner: ) 4 3@Story Notifications
Scene 45
“...”
“Well, officer?”
“You will not be pursued,” he finally said. “In exchange for significant information about your employers, you will not be tracked as you leave this system and will be free to go where you see fit.”
“That doesn’t sound like a pardon.”
“It isn’t. If you return to Federation space, you will still be a criminal. Stay in the outer spiral and there won’t be any issues.”
“... Fine. You get the hell off my ship, I’ll send you the data, and we never see each other again. Good?”
“Provide the information first.”
A noise of frustration. “What’s the guarantee you won’t just take the info and then shoot me anyway?”
“My word as an officer of the law. A deal means something to me.”
The traitor snorted. “Yeah, very noble. How about you get out of the bridge, at least? Good enough compromise?”
“...” He took two steps back, returning to the hallway. “Very well.”
“Finally.” The bridge door rattled shut and locked, though it wasn’t airtight on this model of ship and he could still hear through it. “Alright, get ready to write this down and then bail. I’m jumpin’ soon and I do not want you coming with me.”
“Go ahead.”
There was a short pause, then another annoyed exclamation. “Damn unpronounceable system names! Just - here.” She slid a little sheet of paper - a computer printout - under the door. “There’s your missing executives. Now fuck off and keep your side of the deal.”
“Oh, and we also still have that Euvi person tagging along because neither of us were really sure what to do with her. And we found - fought - some of the traitors, but one got away and the other died, so we don’t really know much about them still. Figured the data was more important. That’s my status; now why are you whispering?”
She glanced over at a nearby nurse, but they looked occupied tending to other patients. “Okay, don’t freak out, but I found the traitor that I think you fought off, chased her down, called over X’deven, got stabbed, and passed out. I’m in the medical ward now, basically fine, but I’m not sure what to do from here.”
“Okay... not freaking out.” Ellie’s voice was a little strained, but she did keep her cool. “Not gonna mention risk management either; I would have done the same thing. Probably. Maybe without the ‘getting stabbed’ part.”
“You prefer getting shot.”
“I mean...” She didn’t have a comeback. Ellie got shot regrettably often. “Maybe. Anyway, we gotta get you out of there before the Feds figure out who you are. Or that you’ve got backup. Can you just leave? Do you need help? What’s the plan?”
[What is the plan?]
- Mel just gets up and walks out. They meet up by the ship and leave.
- Ellie and Honar stop by to help get her out.
[And also...]
- Take Euvi along. [Requires a supermajority]
- Leave Euvi in the hangar.
- Let Euvi do what she wants.
(Winners: , )
- Mel just gets up and walks out. They meet up by the ship and leave.
- Ellie and Honar stop by to help get her out.
[And also...]
- Take Euvi along. [Requires a supermajority]
- Leave Euvi in the hangar.
- Let Euvi do what she wants.
(Winners: , ) 3 4 1 1 6@Story Notifications
Scene 46
The plan was simplicity itself, as all the best ones tend to be. Ellie stayed outside and casually chatted with Euvi while Honar headed in and used the authority of his security outfit to pull Mel out of the ward, ostensibly to move her elsewhere. The overworked nurses were too busy to mind - and to be fair, he wasn’t exactly lying either. He was in fact moving Mel elsewhere. Off the station, in fact.
Ellie grabbed her girlfriend in a hug as soon as they were more or less out of sight from the doors. “You’re okay, right? Not just saying that so I wouldn’t worry?”
“I’m fine,” Mel replied softly. “See? Nothing too bad.” She lifted the hem of her shirt a little so Ellie could inspect the bandages. “Though I might suggest we add some close quarters practice into the gunplay rotation. In case this happens again.”
“There’s a joke in there somewhere, but yeah; I’m on board. There’s just not enough time to practice with everything.”
“At least I wasn’t completely useless. I heard that X’deven made it onto the ship before it launched, and by only a few seconds. So we might still catch our traitor yet.”
“Well, the Feds will.”
“And I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to share the results with Lockheed-Bolte - and us - once Zaes pulls the right strings.”
At this point, the whole group was quickly walking back towards the hangar. They had what they came for and it was time to leave - preferably before X’deven returned. Then Ellie remembered something, pulling away from Mel for a moment. “Hey, Euvi, where do you want to go?”
She jumped. “Me? Go?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, you said you just came up from the interior, like, yesterday. Do you want to get out of here? Explore the galaxy? I’ve got a lovely beach world I dropped off some other galactic newcomers on that you’d probably like.”
Euvi stopped in the middle of the hallway, apparently shocked by the offer. “Hey, c’mon, keep moving. Think and walk. Got it?”
Somewhere far away, deep within the core of Sibdael itself, something that had been frozen in time for centuries finally awakened. On Amira Station, dozens of alerts bleeped to life. Sections of the stasis field buckled, and some collapsed, but enough still held to - just barely - keep the star together. Jin La’Rojin, Claril Hvet, and dozens more staff monitoring the situation swore, spilled drinks, did double takes, or otherwise regarded the numbers in shock. Two technicians in particular sent off an urgent report to a distant system with an unpronounceable name, giving the signal that the time was now.
And the master alarm - the one that signaled an immediate, all-hands evacuation from the station - began to wail.
[Euvi will...]
- Go with Ellie, Mel, and Honar.
️ - Track down Ifan and help him.
↩️ - Go with Ellie, Mel, and Honar, but request to be dropped off with the Federation later.
[Station staff were...]
- Ready for an immediate evacuation... mostly.
- Caught off-guard by the evacuation order coming two days early.
[The mystery fleet is...]
⏩ - Already in hyperspace.
- Spooling jump drives and on its way imminently.
(Winners: , , )
- Go with Ellie, Mel, and Honar.
️ - Track down Ifan and help him.
↩️ - Go with Ellie, Mel, and Honar, but request to be dropped off with the Federation later.
[Station staff were...]
- Ready for an immediate evacuation... mostly.
- Caught off-guard by the evacuation order coming two days early.
[The mystery fleet is...]
⏩ - Already in hyperspace.
- Spooling jump drives and on its way imminently.
(Winners: , , ) 6 2
2 6 2 3 4@Story Notifications
Scene 47
“Okay, lads, just like we practiced! No time to grab anything; just go, go, go!”
Gim Owen snatched his own tablet - only because it had the evacuation instructions - and held back, surveying his team as everyone filed into the corridor. No one seemed to be missing that he could tell, so that was probably good enough. Workstations were left unlocked, lunches left uneaten, and personal items left scattered around the room. He didn’t spare any further time thinking about it and instead immersed himself in his duties, pushing through to the front of his group and tapping at the instructions with his other hand.
“Follow me, team,” he yelled, marching down the corridor at a quick but orderly pace. Other monitoring teams and their respective supervisors were doing exactly the same thing, filing into the hall and pushing against Gim’s staff as an entire station’s worth of people tried to cram into the hallways at the same time. Thankfully, Gim had apparently been pretty quick on the draw and he managed to slip past most of the other teams before they could get stuck in the press of people.
The fellow made of resonant crystal was at the front of the line. “Gim, it - it’s too early, right? It wasn’t supposed to be today. Are there going to be any ships around to-”
“Don’t you worry,” he replied, loudly enough for the rest of his team and probably a few others to hear. “Got the confirms right here.” A tap on the tablet. “Enough ships for everyone; no problem. All we need to do is make it to the hangar.”
[This is a branch point. There are likely roughly ten scenes left in the story.]
[How long will the station last?]
⏱️ - Minutes. Many, but not that many.
⏰ - Hours. But not many.
[Which cruiser arrives at Amira Station to ferry evacuees?]
- The Lockheed-Bolte cruiser.
️ - One of the two Federation carriers.
[... Dr Zaes? What are you...? Oh no.]
️ - ████
❤️ - ██████████
- ██████
(Winners: ⏰ , ️ , ❤️ )
- The Lockheed-Bolte cruiser.
️ - One of the two Federation carriers.
[... Dr Zaes? What are you...? Oh no.]
️ - ████
❤️ - ██████████
- ██████
(Winners: ⏰ , ️ , ❤️ ) 
2
4 2 4 2 3 2@Story Notifications
Scene 48
Ifan leapt off his transport and hurried out of the way to make room for the crush of Amira Station employees who immediately took his place. He jogged through the hangar towards his ship, observing the barely-still-organized evacuation and listening to Val.
“No sign of them after the grull got Alborn out of the medical ward. I’m trying to get ahold of someone in hangar control, but everyone’s too busy right now. As you might expect.”
“Their ship is gone,” he noted stiffly. “They must have got what they came for and left. Was the whole thing a setup? Were they playing us the whole time? They must have taken something, but what?”
“It’s hard to tell. Everything’s so much of a mess right now that no one really has time to investigate. I’m sorry, Ifan, but they really picked their time well. I don’t think we can possibly figure it out in time before all the evidence gets eaten by the sun. Sometimes you need to know when to give up.”
“...” Ifan knew of Ellie and Mel, of course - the hunter/handler pair had been among the most wanted criminals in the galaxy for almost a year, culminating in the Aesop incident where Joley Enterprises had lost a cruiser, a CEO, and an enormous amount of capital. He and many other Federation field agents would have killed to be the ones to finally take them down.
Then they had gone quiet, sticking more to the outer spiral and less objectionable jobs. Over time, their notoriety had faded in the face of newer, more dangerous criminals. But Ifan hadn’t forgotten, and now it seemed that they had jumped straight back into the limelight with a heist the size of a solar system and civilian casualties to match.
And then he remembered. An old tale from his shaman when he had been young. Those with ancient blood - sons and daughters of the tempest - shared a connection with their primeval roots, no matter how dilute that blood got over generations. Sometimes, especially for those with bright souls, that connection got too much to handle. The shaman had demonstrated, invoking fevered ravings in a tempest-son with the aid of only some powdered herbs. Then he had reversed the ailment with...
The captain was old, and his memories of youth were distorted. Still, he did his best to copy the gestures and words the shaman had taught him so many years ago. Initially, the treatment seemed to do nothing. But as minutes passed, he felt the fever begin to abate. Eddis braved another feathery touch and replaced the confusion and fear he found there with peace. And, almost half an hour after her initial collapse, Daya groaned and woke up.
Hot, achey, and powerfully disoriented, she was not the only person to suffer such symptoms in the Sibdael system. Many other ships reported similar fits from people of all species and ages, all of them immediately falling ill just before Amira Station’s evacuation had been announced. Most had recovered. Some had not, mostly those who were already elderly or infirm. In all, maybe one in every ten million people in the system had been suddenly struck down, though the reported numbers were much lower.
Official explanations were slow in coming. But one man knew right away.
- Ellie, Mel, Honar, and Euvi have some quiet, peaceful time to recover.
- Ellie, Mel, Honar, and Euvi spot something interesting in this unlabeled system...
❤️ - Be Zaes, briefly.
- Don’t...
(Winners: , ❤️ )
- Ellie, Mel, Honar, and Euvi have some quiet, peaceful time to recover.
- Ellie, Mel, Honar, and Euvi spot something interesting in this unlabeled system...
❤️ - Be Zaes, briefly.
- Don’t...
(Winners: , ❤️ ) 2 5 5 2@Story Notifications
Scene 49
Zaes clutched the red crystal heart as he felt something snap in the core of the star, so far away that light itself couldn’t convey information that quickly. An instant later, he grunted and fell to his knees under a distant psychic assault. Sensations washed across the system and resonated in his blood, nearly causing him to collapse. For a brief moment, Zaes feared his tired old body would give out and that would be that. An inglorious end to a decades-long search.
“... No,” he forced out, gripping the heart and willing it to life.
Skin split and a trickle of red mixed with silver flowed from his palm into the heart. His glow dimmed and the heart’s grew stronger. The psychic scream - the last breaths of a dying star - grew faint in his awareness as the heart did his bidding. Waves of agony, terror, and hatred parted around him like a slanted post in the path of a waterfall. He composed himself and stood again, slowing the drain of blood into the heart as the scream quieted down.
“... So fragile,” he breathed. “I hadn’t expected the balance to be quite so delicate.”
The man stared out at the sun again, taking in what he had just done. “After so much work, I still know so little. Who would have known that attempting to force a connection would be enough to overcome the stasis?” Another pause; he stemmed the flow of blood entirely and reversed it for a moment, using the heart to seal the wound he had just created. “I imagine Lee will shortly hear that the situation has deteriorated. He will require my directions; further experimentation will have to wait.”
Another glance back.
“... Soon. When the field has completely failed, the connection will work. I am certain.”
“Sibdael is under a full evacuation order right now; the Feds wouldn’t be sending anything else in. Plus, from what we got on active scanners before I shut them off, those aren’t Fed signatures. We’ve got a group of nearly two dozen heavy military ships that don’t seem to have any registration, all realigning here and preparing to jump into a system that’s about to explode. You want to tell me what the hell they’re doing?”
Honar shoved open the bridge doors, which Ellie had forgotten to re-power. “What is going on? Lights off; engines off?”
“C’mere, pal, and tell me what you make of this fleet...”
[This is a branch point.]
- Tell X’deven about the fleet, right now.
- Do a bit more investigating first.
- Stay quiet and out of the way until they leave.
⏪ - Just jump out, right now.
(Winner: )
- Tell X’deven about the fleet, right now.
- Do a bit more investigating first.
- Stay quiet and out of the way until they leave.
⏪ - Just jump out, right now.
(Winner: ) 5 3 1
1@Story Notifications
Scene 50
Euvi lay on the carpeted floor, curled up and hiding behind the low bed. She could hear the large man stomping around looking for her, but didn’t move. The important woman had said to stay put until he found her. So she did. It was a nice carpet, at least. Soft and deep and warmed from underneath by some sort of subfloor heating. A nice bedroom too, relatively spacious and with an actual walk-in closet.
Starships were new to her, but Euvi couldn’t help but try to reconcile her old image of them as cramped, utilitarian transport vessels with this new image of a ship so large and luxurious she could happily live here. And of course, it seemed the two important humans did.
The lights shut off with an audible click, throwing her into complete darkness. Much of the ship’s internal machinery slowed to a halt, leaving nothing to distract her from the near-total silence. Something crashed in the distance, accompanied by muttered curse words, then faster stomping footsteps back towards the bridge.
The lights clicked back on after a minute and, since no one had found her yet, Euvi stayed put. She supposed maybe this was just a thing that starships did sometimes, like how the station had to shut its lights off every night. Starships must be way more efficient, then, since it only took this one a minute to do what took the station hours. She didn’t really know the point of the cycles besides some nebulous notion of cleaning and maintenance, so maybe something like that happened here too. Probably with fewer killer robots, though.
Muffled conversation from the bridge, nearly inaudible through several doors and corridors. After a few moments, the noise dropped significantly to the point where Euvi couldn’t hear them anymore over the gentle hum of fans and pumps from the walls.
“Twenty ships, unless they’re all cruiser class, will not stand up to the fleet currently in Sibdael. And I do not believe we would have missed such a dramatic escalation of military strength.”
“Scans don’t say cruisers; no. But, to put it bluntly, Officer, that only makes me more nervous. Who in their right mind would jump into a self-destructing system controlled by a superior force? I sure as hell don’t know, but unless they’re actually nuts, they’re going to have a pretty damn devastating plan.”
“...”
“Officer X’deven.” That was Mel again, leaning a little closer to the screen. “We may be bad guys, but we’re not bad guys. I promise we’re not trying to trick you; we just want to help.”
[This is the second half of the branch point that started last scene.]
- Ifan rejects their information. [Unavailable due to previous choices.]
️ - The Federation prepares to fight off an attack, defending the civilian ships until they can jump out.
️ - The Federation prepares an assault force, to meet and destroy the incoming ships when they arrive.
⏩ - The Federation bugs out, right now. Every ship spools up and jumps ASAP.
[Or suggest another course of action in #story_discussion...]
(Winner: ️ )
- Ifan rejects their information. [Unavailable due to previous choices.]
️ - The Federation prepares to fight off an attack, defending the civilian ships until they can jump out.
️ - The Federation prepares an assault force, to meet and destroy the incoming ships when they arrive.
⏩ - The Federation bugs out, right now. Every ship spools up and jumps ASAP.
[Or suggest another course of action in #story_discussion...]
(Winner: ️ ) 1 5 1 1@Story Notifications
Scene 51
There wasn’t much time left. By the time Ifan reported the conversation and details had moved up to the actual fleet commanders, only minutes remained before the mystery fleet would arrive. Decisions were rushed, orders were given, and many combat-ready ships broke off into defensive screens, ready to repel any assault on the vulnerable civilian craft still frantically working on the last evacuations possible before the sun exploded.
At Amira Station, staff continued to load onto the docked Federation carrier, bouncing through massive umbilicals connecting its various hangar bays to the station’s even larger airgates. Some airgates, further from the carrier, loaded their staff onto smaller regular ships instead; many of these had already evacuated the system. Claril and Gim, both coincidentally near to a hangar when the evacuation alarm was sounded, were by now already in hyperspace on their way out of the system. Safe, and with no time to spare.
Maintenance was no longer possible and all crews had been recalled already. Those unlucky enough to still be stranded in the station’s interior piled into elevators and started the hour-long journey back up to the surface, hoping against hope that the field would hold long enough for them to reach safety. At this distance from the sun, when it finally blew, Amira Station would be obliterated in mere seconds. There would be no chance for any remaining ships to react, plot a course, and jump away if they waited; everyone remaining now did so at their own peril.
“System’s inhabited, but low population. Lots of orbital infrastructure; hangars and shipyards and that kind of thing.” A pause; a nervous grin. “Our probe was intercepted and blown up before it got too close. Someone in this ‘completely uncharted’ system has some serious orbital defenses.”
“We’re paying that system a visit after this,” he stated harshly. “In force.”
“Some of the people upstairs are working on that already. I bet we know where those missing executives went now.”
Someone interrupted on the other channel again; a voice dripping with fear and belonging to one of the freighter captains. “Sorry to bother you all, but we’re having some issues with our hyperdrive... I know we were supposed to jump out minutes ago, but it just isn’t engaging properly; we don’t yet know what’s wrong.”
Silence on the link for several seconds.
Then a different freighter chimed in. “Us - us too.”
A third. Fourth. Before long, the officer from before had to restrict the link due to the flood of chatter regarding hyperdrive problems. Ifan felt an electric chill of anxiety constrict his hair strands as he engaged his own jump drive. It struggled for only a moment before giving up and presenting a generic error code.
“Val,” he gasped, as if she could do anything to help. “What is going on?”
️ - Maintain position, fix the damn hyperdrives, and jump out.
️ - Blast the mystery fleet out of the sky; maybe it’s causing this.
[Meanwhile, on the Lockheed-Bolte cruiser]
- Zaes has a plan.
- Zaes does not have a plan.
(Winners: ️ , )
️ - Maintain position, fix the damn hyperdrives, and jump out.
️ - Blast the mystery fleet out of the sky; maybe it’s causing this.
[Meanwhile, on the Lockheed-Bolte cruiser]
- Zaes has a plan.
- Zaes does not have a plan.
(Winners: ️ , ) 2 5 5 2@Story Notifications
Scene 52
“I - I don’t know-”
“When was the last time someone jumped out? Before those ships showed up?” Thankfully, his console had a log of recent history and he could pinpoint the last nearby outgoing jump event: roughly thirty seconds before the mystery fleet had arrived. Nothing since.
He switched to the other channel. “The enemy ships must have something to do with this; we need to attack immediately. There’s no time to just sit here - clearly they want us to do that.”
Another tense delay as other officers considered his words. Ifan almost started accelerating on his own, but he’d be outgunned without support and would be leaving the others with an incomplete formation. Finally, someone agreed and much of the battlegroup split off towards the enemy fleet. Unfortunately, hyperdrives weren’t only used for full jumps into hyperspace - they also allowed for much faster but still subluminal travel within a system. Without that ability, accelerating took much longer and provided much less control at high speeds due to simple inertia. The thrusters’ force simply had much more effective mass to move.
Still, the signatures didn’t seem to be moving and the battlegroup was gaining on their enemies. Val cut in again, sounding very stressed out. “Ships by Sibdael V and VI aren’t having any issues; people there can jump out just fine. It’s only-”
“Areas where the mystery fleet is?”
“...Yeah.”
He checked the scope again; nearly within range of several signatures, but the computer hadn’t yet gotten a lock. “Working on it. Can you get the rest of the group we left back there to get moving? Try to spread out, at least? Maybe whatever they’re doing is an ongoing thing with a finite range, rather than something that permanently broke the drives.”
“... I hadn’t even considered that second option.”
“Probably better that way. Please go check.”
She went.
He returned to himself, sealing the wound on his palm and turning to meet the eyes of his crew. Hopeful faces. His connection to the enemy ship hovered just behind his back, tethered to the Aesop device by an invisible line.
- Zaes forces the enemy ship to drop its interdiction field momentarily; enough for his cruiser to escape.
- He waits for a while before playing his hand. The sun has yet to detonate, after all. No need to rush.
- Zaes contacts the Federation with what he has just discovered.
- He doesn’t say anything.
- He invades a few more ships, looking to create a coordinated opening for many others to escape.
(Winners: , )
- Zaes forces the enemy ship to drop its interdiction field momentarily; enough for his cruiser to escape.
- He waits for a while before playing his hand. The sun has yet to detonate, after all. No need to rush.
- Zaes contacts the Federation with what he has just discovered.
- He doesn’t say anything.
- He invades a few more ships, looking to create a coordinated opening for many others to escape.
(Winners: , ) 2 4 3 2 5@Story Notifications
Scene 53
“Worry not,” he assured the crew. “I have a solution. We can leave once our work here is complete. Captain, keep the drive spooled and ready to jump immediately once I give the word. Everyone else, maintain combat readiness and alert me the very instant that star explodes. I have some additional work to perform...”
...
“Spread out! Everyone pick a target and go check!”
Ifan accelerated quickly, Sibdael II shrinking behind him as he burned towards his selected signature. Someone by Amira Station had managed to target and destroy one of the enemy “ships” - actually just a radio beacon with some engines strapped on. Decoys. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a good way to tell these decoys apart from the actual ships unless they did something, so the battlegroup simply spread out to check them all.
His target was relatively near, and though he had to close to a much tighter distance than normal, his visual systems eventually managed to pick out the tiny block and calculate a shot. Laser cannons pulsed once and the beacon scattered into a cloud of debris. One down; only a dozen more to go.
As he turned his ship, angling towards a second beacon, Ifan started to wonder. A recent statement echoed in his head; some pilot reminding another how normal stealth systems worked. In general, you could become near-invisible to active sensors from other ships by shutting off your own systems, then keeping any remaining heat generated trapped inside the hull instead of venting it to space. That was the “normal” way to hide. These decoys were effective, but now that they had figured it out, the game would be up. The real ships would be discovered in only moments, so why weren’t any of them moving? Powering up? Trying to escape or fight back?
If any of the station’s scientists had still been around, they would surely have found the unprecedented phenomenon of a superluminal supernova incredibly fascinating - if incredibly frightening to be anywhere near. Unfortunately, the only scientist in the system still studying the star was Dr Zaes, and he had other priorities at the moment.
[At least one option is potentially deadly to Ifan. There are likely two scenes left in the story, plus the epilogue.]
- Search near the planet, in its orbit.
- Search farther out, against the background of space.
️ - Search farther out, against the backdrop of the sun.
- Close his eyes, point at a sector, and pray that whatever god may exist is feeling kind. [I will actually roll a die for this option; the outcome is not predetermined.]
[Meanwhile, Dr Zaes...]
[
] - ... is busy with a previous choice! [Zaes is currently unavailable for instructions, but he will act in this scene due to a previous choice.]
(Winner: )
- Search near the planet, in its orbit.
- Search farther out, against the background of space.
️ - Search farther out, against the backdrop of the sun.
- Close his eyes, point at a sector, and pray that whatever god may exist is feeling kind. [I will actually roll a die for this option; the outcome is not predetermined.]
[Meanwhile, Dr Zaes...]
[] - ... is busy with a previous choice! [Zaes is currently unavailable for instructions, but he will act in this scene due to a previous choice.]
(Winner: ) 1 4 2 1 5@Story Notifications
Scene 54
Dr Zaes felt the star’s death like a physical blow, and he wasn’t alone. Across the system, the very same people who had recently been afflicted with a mysterious aching fever simultaneously cried out, pressing hands to temples or whatever other anatomical features provided analogous functionality. Fevers returned in full force, and in three very rare cases, the victims actually spontaneously combusted, falling to the floor in a burning heap.
In more typical cases, symptoms were more similar to the previous affliction, though with the addition of spontaneous bleeding from various sensory organs. Several onlookers were shocked to see traces of flickering silver mixing with the various colors of human and alien blood.
Zaes grunted, but he was ready this time and kept himself upright through the heart and sheer force of will. This was what he had been waiting for, and he couldn’t simply fall unconscious now. Instead, he clasped the heart to his own chest, breathed deeply, and listened.
Nothing...
Nothing...
A connection.
For a fleeting instant, he was the star. Astral energy flowed between Sibdael’s core, the crystal heart in his grasp, and his own mind. Images; knowledge; traces of feelings and places and schemes beyond any reality currently known. Uncountable groves of serene, silver-white trees standing tall under a blank white sky. A city half-submerged in perfectly transparent, depthless water, its buildings formed only of shimmering outlines. A molten, burning heat and a flight of near-translucent steps leading up to it. Golden light mixing with silver, flaring and melting and spitting hateful sparks to the skies above.
Golden. Death. Silver. Decay.
This was what the star knew.
He checked the drive readings. Far enough spooled to jump somewhere, at least, but probably still in the field based on the uneven humming from the core. Plus, the supernova’s gravity was still encroaching fast and no one had found any of the interdictors yet. “To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure I can get out of this one.”
“You have to try! Just...” Val was silent for a moment and he could picture her, eyes squeezed shut as she furiously worked through possible solutions. “Get as far away from the sun as possible!”
“That’s your-”
“Shut up! It’s so simple - just get far enough away that by the time the interdictor gets destroyed by the sun, you’re still clear of the gravity well and can jump.”
“But if I do that, I can’t help anyone else escape. I’m already the furthest one out.”
“Ifan, you self-martyring idiot, get the HELL out of there! I don’t outrank you, but that’s a goddamn order anyway!”
[The next scene is the last one in the story, and will be followed by the epilogue.]
- Ifan continues searching for the last interdictor(s) to help anyone else escape.
- Ifan runs away, following Val’s plan.
[???]
- ???
- ???
(Winners: , )
- Ifan continues searching for the last interdictor(s) to help anyone else escape.
- Ifan runs away, following Val’s plan.
[???]
- ???
- ???
(Winners: , ) 4 3 4 3@Story Notifications
Scene 55
“...”
He considered the option; he truly did. Sat there, still tearing across space at a terrific speed searching for the last interdictors, and asked himself how much he was willing to sacrifice to save others. Even if he stayed, he could still - potentially - escape if he was lucky. And there was no total guarantee he would be safe even if he followed Val’s plan.
But deep down, he knew the risks. He knew which option would likely result in him surviving - but abandoning everyone remaining in the system to the supernova. And he knew which option... likely would not.
“I’m sorry, Val. I can’t leave them behind. Not when there’s even a chance I can help so many people escape.”
He couldn’t see her - the video call had ended when she had to leave the Senate building - but he could hear her desperation. No trace of her usual energy or lightheartedness; Val was begging him. “Ifan, please. Know when to retreat. You can fight back against the people who did this later. We’ll need your help. I’ll need your help. Just... don’t throw yourself away.”
Ifan almost broke then - one hand twitched towards the flight controls - but he held himself back. Maybe if he could have seen her tears or her messy, anguished expression, things would have been different. But he couldn’t, and his hand didn’t move. “I’ll meet you back on Gamma Veox in a few days, and I’ll bring the rest of this fleet along for the ride.”
And then, because he knew he wouldn’t be able to stick to his decision if she kept this up, he ended the call and turned off extra-system comms. Just for a few minutes, he told himself. He’d turn them back on within the hour. After he saved the day and jumped out of the system.
“Damn right,” she grumbled, flipping right side up again. “I’m no witch. And why do half of these talk about those hearts Zaes is so excited about like they’re the greatest thing ever and the other half like they’re actual demons?” She paused. “Wait, no, ‘demons’ are an entirely different fucking thing according to your little book there! I’m losing my mind, Mel. Seriously; none of this can possibly be real. We’re just doing research on old mythology and religions for our crackpot doctor now. None of this shit works.”
“Well, not that there’s evidence of since the Federation was formed, at least,” she agreed. “But it’s fascinating nonetheless. Aren’t you curious about what happened to Old Earth? All these tidbits from the past can tell us so much, even if the actual ‘magic’ isn’t real.”
“... I guess it’s kinda fun.”
Mel nudged Ellie with her foot, the only part that could reach as they sat across the room from each other. “So, if everything in here is just old myths and legends, and Dr Zaes is a crackpot nutcase, it won’t do any harm to give him the full data, right? Then we get paid, he gets what he wants, and you don’t have to get upset about lying to Honar.”
“Wha - I - upset about -???”
“I knowww you.”
Ellie fumbled for a few more moments, searching for something to say, before somewhat lamely ending up with “You sure do.”
[This is the last choice in the story, and will affect only the epilogue.]
- Ellie and Mel give Dr Zaes the full information on the crystal hearts from Amira Station.
- They withhold some of the more sensitive details.
(Winner: )
- Ellie and Mel give Dr Zaes the full information on the crystal hearts from Amira Station.
- They withhold some of the more sensitive details.
(Winner: ) 4 2@Story Notifications
Epilogue
Weeks after the supernova...
“Fuck you, Zaes,” Ellie said politely, nodding to the scientist as he stood to greet them.
“Good afternoon,” he responded. “Pleasant trip, I hope?”
Mel entered next, shaking his hand instead of swearing at him. “Pretty boring, but boring is good these days. We’re trying to stay out of the whole outer spiral... thing right now.”
He nodded, gesturing for the two of them to follow him. “Good, good. I agree; bad for everyone involved. My employer is, of course, heavily invested, but my projects are staying as clear as possible.”
Mel and Zaes continued to make small talk as they walked, so Ellie took some time to look around. The scientist himself didn’t seem any worse for wear after his hospitalization, though he did still wear a brace and light glove on his left hand where - she had been told - he had suffered a terrible burn. Aside from that, he looked basically the same. Kinda tall, kinda willowy, with thin silver hair and unnervingly keen eyes.
The facility was new, however. They were walking through recently constructed composite-paneled hallways in a lab located on a dead moon orbiting an equally dead planet, itself orbiting some horrifically out-of-the-way blue-white star named Nitar by some lone explorer centuries ago. The whole place held a muffled undertone of some vague chemical smell. Still, the presence of the lab itself meant that Lockheed-Bolte still saw value in whatever Zaes was doing. The man could do many things on his own, but constructing a brand new state-of-the-art laboratory on a mostly-uncharted moon was beyond even him... right? Well, it wouldn’t hurt to ask.
Ellie wedged herself back into the conversation. “So, Zaes, what’s your lab doing all the way out here? Did L-B want you somewhere distant so if you blow yourself up, you’re not going to take anything else with you?”
Conclusion
Hey, thanks for playing! To continue on the “how many protagonists died” metrics that seem to take the first paragraph of these conclusions: by my estimation, four out of the eleven named characters I had notes on managed to get killed over the course of the story. Plus, you know, the vast majority of the population of the Sibdael system. But on the plus side, that’s seven named “main” characters who lived! Also “the captain,” whose name remains a mystery. Maybe we’ll find out later.
Anyway, Amira Station is obviously the direct sequel to Eir Terminus, following it by about a year. It wasn’t originally intended to be, but you know how these things are where they sort of end up directing themselves. I liked it anyway. It was nice to see Ellie, Mel, Honar, and Dr Zaes again, as well as get some really critical information regarding lacre, the hearts, and this new stuff ‘ichor.’ I wonder if we’ve seen or heard of that before...?
So, what’s next?
Well, as promised in the last conclusion, I’ll keep going as long as I’m having fun and there are still people following along. Both these conditions are currently check and check, so onwards we go. I’m guessing there will be about three possible prompts for the next set, but maybe only two if I end up getting rid of the one I’m the most iffy about. Or four if I come up with another out of nowhere! We’ll see - they’ll be up in probably less than a week, basically whenever I feel like it. I’m being a bit more loose on the timing here since I’m continuously pretty strict on the “one update every other day” thing.
And as per usual, I’ll be archiving the current #story_updates channel and creating a new one for the next story in a few days-ish. The next set of starting prompts will be up, as stated, basically whenever I feel like it, but probably less than a week.
As always, thanks for your continued support and engagement, and I hope you stick around for the next one!
~ Shaun / @Mxblah
2