New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Urle woke up screaming.

“Calm down!” he heard someone saying.  “Fuckin calm down ya!”

Restraints held him, but his body was pulling so hard against them that he’d nearly ripped them from the bed.

He . . . wasn’t dead.  At least he didn’t think so.  He checked his sensors and saw that there were no alarms for his intracranial pressure.

“Wh-what happened?” he asked.

“You wake unexpected,” Madspark said, sounding sullen and angry.  “Ops done, no bad.  You patched up to walk and the chems be out you shortly.  I want you gone fast whence you can walk.”

Urle felt it was odd for the man to be angry with him – if he woke up, that meant Madspark had done something wrong.

He did not reply, though the man was watching him carefully.  His internal alarms were still going off, and the sudden awakening of his organic mind was making it hard to comprehend what they were saying.

FOREIGN DATA DETECTED

FOREIGN DATA RUN EXECUTED – SECURITY COMPROMISED

EXTERNAL DATA BREACH ATTEMPTED

EXTERNAL DATA ACCESS INHIBITED

INTERNAL DATA STORAGE SECURE

HOSTILE ACTIVITY DETECTED

ACTIVATING PROGRAM ‘WETMEATWAKEUP’

TIME TO GO BACK TO WORK CHAMP

What?

He tried to fathom the meaning.  He’d found ghost data . . . of death.  His own death.  Or someone else’s?  Could it have been-

“What you experience?” Madspark said, seeming concerned suddenly, leaning in with some kind of device.

It sent alarm thrills through him, and he reached up, shoving the man’s hand back.  What he’d just seen and felt was a blur to him, and despite having just lived it, he could hardly remember it.  The ghost data was being purged, a good security measure at most times, but he actually didn’t want that now.

“I saw . . . someone’s memory,” he said.  “They were dying.”

“Who do the killin?” Madspark asked.

Urle paused.

“I didn’t say they were murdered.”

The man grimaced, then lunged.

Urle raised both arms, grabbing for Madspark’s hand, stopping him just before-

He had the same shock spike.  Urle recognized it, his scanners identifying it as the exact weapon that had killed the man in the memory.

The ghost memories flashed, and he almost lost control of the man’s arm.

He was stronger than Madspark, his parts better, but his system was not running at full capacity, and he couldn’t control himself as well as he normally might.  The man had considerable weight on him as well, using it to press him back onto the bed, and the knife ever closer to his face.

The point was approaching his eye, and Urle felt panic well up inside him, just like in the memory, his mouth opened but he could only make a strangled gargle, fighting as hard as he was-

And then Madspark flew back.  Surprise widened his eyes as he was thrown, crashing into a table and flipping over onto the floor.

Kell stared at Urle, his face as stoic as always.

“Are you all right?” he asked calmly.

“N-no,” Urle panted.  “The store owner, he- he’s trying to kill-“

The man was back up and lunged at Kell now, who turned to meet him.

Just in time for Madspark to drive the shock spike into his skull.

Madspark did not laugh or seem pleased with his work, but his eyes went to Urle, already moving onto his next task with computer efficiency, and Urle knew that he was not up to fighting the man again.  He was even more fatigued, and despite what the man had said he knew that the chems were not clearing up.  If anything the man had drugged him more.

Then Kell reached up, serenely, grasping the spike by the handle, and pulling it out of his head.

Madspark’s eyes jerked back to him, and alarm flashed over his face.

Moving even faster than the aug, Kell’s hands flew up, grasping onto each side of Madspark’s head.

“Agh!” the man bit out, grabbing Kell’s hands, trying to pull them free, his arm servos straining until smoke began to pour from them.

But Kell seemed to not even notice.  He gave a sharp, upward jerk, and the man’s head visibly jumped up, his spine breaking and his neck stretching horribly.

Kell frowned, looking slightly troubled.  Then he jerked again and the man’s entire head ripped off his neck.

Blood and oil splattered across the wall, and Urle stared in shock as Madspark’s body fell to the floor, twitching.

Kell still held the head calmly, watching the body.  He deliberately placed his foot onto the chest of the man, and pressed it down.  Metal, flesh, and bone yielded like butter, his entire chest caving in.

Kell dropped the head and turned back to Urle.

“Are you all right?” he repeated.

---

< Ep 7 Part 26 | Ep 7 Part 28 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Urle was only vaguely aware of anything.  As augmented as he was, even the most powerful sedatives that shut down the living body had no effect on his hardware.

These moments were rare, and in a way he found them wonderful.

The outside world and his concerns were beyond him until a certain time.  He could simply be, by himself.

It spoke volumes about how much he had been augmented that there was enough mental power to be aware while he was technically not awake.  His flesh-and-blood brain was almost fully unconscious, and he became a being of pure algorithm and code, aware, even feeling, yet no longer biological.  It was not fully human, not even fully him, but he often wondered if this was better.

Sometimes he longed to break that last tether, to cut away the last of his flesh and become purely electronic; more than nature could ever devise, with none of the weaknesses of the biological.  Alive for as long as there was a server somewhere that retained a copy of his consciousness.

Immortal and that much closer to being his greatest self.

The technology still was not quite there, the wetware that composed the human mind was just not built to be digitized, and the server power and storage needed to truly replicate him was more than any one person could reasonably allocate.

But even if that was no longer an issue, there was something else that would have stopped him; his daughters.

Not that they actually had asked him not to – they didn’t even know about his wish.

But if he did end his mortal life, he knew that they would not share in it.  He would not even have a real body, only a shell like Dr. Y.  While that might function just as well, and he knew he’d be able to experience their hugs and warmth and love-

What if they felt he was gone?  What if the code that would be his person was not enough for them?

Or, what if, even though the odds were small, that the brain scan failed or messed up and he became faulty code, unable to be himself or even self-aware?  It was a one-way trip, the best method being a full scan that required slicing the physical brain into thin segments to get every detail.  An external scan was safer, but it was much more likely to make mistakes and result in a broken consciousness, which would then be his burden to bear.

Even if Verena was still here with them he could not knowingly take himself away from his children.

They were too young to safely begin getting their own augments, and he did not feel that children could truly understand and consent to such body modifications – let alone to being fully uploaded as they were, never to mature and grow.  As much as he might wish to keep his children small forever, it was a selfish thought.

No, not until their minds had fully formed.  No matter how intelligent, how learned, how advanced their children became, they were still that – children.

But one day they would be grown.  And if they decided they wanted to follow his path, as he hoped, then they might all become more.

So for now, he would just enjoy these rare moments and how they renewed him.

It was trance-like, and he knew that when he awoke, and the cuts had been fully sealed with protein glue and his organic brain resumed consciousness, he’d feel whole – restored.

He felt something connect to his internal system, felt the extension of his capabilities.  The new port had been installed by Madspark – or more properly, by his surgical machine.  Who wanted a person’s hand inside their body?  That was barbaric, a machine should always be the one doing the actual surgical work.

That meant his skull was opened, but that hardly worried him.  In a few minutes it would be closed again, as if it had never been opened.

It was just odd to realize.

His system automatically began to scan the new port, checking it.

Something was off.  He lacked the computational power to really think through it at the moment – all he could really do was consider past memories and decisions dispassionately, not deductively reason.

His system noted several errors, alarms began to go off.  This part was not right, it-

The port’s memory storage contained data – a program that had just executed.

His system was trying to quarantine it, but it was nothing like any virus it had ever seen.  It had been hidden, deeply, as if deleted and only scraps of it remained, but the sense memories were strong, and as it had been for a visual port he was getting images-

The insensate darkness was split as suddenly he found himself in a room.

Red was over his vision, and he knew it was not the effect of rage upon the living but splattered blood.  A scan told him that it was not his blood, but he knew somehow that it was.

He raised his hand to look at it, but it was gone.

Missing, from the wrist on, and he saw blood splatter out of it, pushed out by the pressure of his pounding heart.

The rate of which was through the roof, and a thousand alarms of injury and malfunction were going off for parts he didn’t even think he had.

The room around him was cold, his infrared sensors could detect it and his body reacted, feeling the hard cold floor against his back, under his kicking legs.  He was barefoot, and his bare soles were dirty and cut, trying to push him away from something.

He had no control over himself, and the audio cut in suddenly, and the vibrations he’d been dully sensing were the feeling of his own screams.

Someone loomed over him, their body hulking.  Despite the shadows, he could see the man perfectly.

It was Madspark, watching him coldly.

“—agreed to this,” he said, his strange voice lacking any humanity.

Urle only screamed again, and the large man stabbed downward with a stiletto-like knife that Urle realized was a shock spike; a device that would shut down augments with minimal damage.

He tried to wrestle with the man, but the spike lowered closer and closer to his eye.  It went in just next to it, and he felt the sharp pain as it pierced his skin, then began into his skull.

Alarms shrieked, all new alarms, ones he’d never even heard before, that he couldn’t understand in his panic.

“You should have stayed asleep,” the man said, and then the blade pierced his skull and sunk deep into his brain.

---

< Ep 7 Part 25 | Ep 7 Part 27 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Her breathing was ragged and her side hurt, but adrenaline was a hell of a drug.

Leaning against a bulkhead, Apollonia listened carefully and looked back, to see if there had was any sign of pursuit.

But no one seemed to have followed her.  Which, frankly, she found surprising.  Even if she’d just been a bystander, security would usually want to talk to you.  Though maybe her view on that was skewed – on New Vitriol she’d always had the reputation as being the cause of trouble, no matter what.

Still, if they looked at the security footage, they’d see she was a part of it.  She might even be held responsible . . .

What she needed to do was get back to the Craton.  Surely once she was on the ship Brooks wouldn’t turn her over.  But what if she’d caused a diplomatic incident?  The kind that led to damaging relations with Gohhi, or worse – war with the Glorians?

‘The War of Apollonia’s Stupidity’ sounded like the kind of thing that might end up in a history book.

Putting her hands on her head, she rubbed her face vigorously.  The alcohol was making her give in to her own fears, she realized, and she had to fight that.

Despite the alcohol, her mind felt like it was working more clearly than it had in a long time.

Thanking adrenaline again, she looked around and realized that she had no recollection of what her path had been that had brought her here.

“Fuck nuggets!” she spat.  “Shitting dark-licking . . . gun-fuckers!”

A stream of the worst profanity she could think of came from her mouth, and she kicked a broken crate, shattering pieces of it.

The sound of movement behind her made her turn, and she saw a man, his skin oil-stained and dressed in parts of other outfits watching her from down the alley.

The whites of his eyes stood out against his dirty skin, and she did not like his stare.

Part of her wanted to lash out at him, to snap at him to look away, but she didn’t quite have it in her.  He didn’t make a hostile move, but she began to move away deeper into the narrow tunnels between the buildings that reached up high towards the center of Gohhi station.

She wondered if she should go higher, but really had no idea what she’d be looking for – the giant tube that made up Gohhi would curve away from her and possibly hide what she was looking for, if even there was a gap between the tops of the buildings and the roof above.

She took a turn, found it was blocked off, and went back, noticing that the man who’d been staring had followed her.  He was still distant, but now he was not alone, as two others were with him.

She did not like this at all.

They were still not moving towards her, at least, but she picked another route and hurried down it, coming out into a lane between businesses, though hardly where she wanted to be.

This was a red light district, and she nearly choked seeing the amount of clothing a lot of the dancers in window bubbles were lacking.

The fact that New Vitriol had been originally a religious colony suddenly snaked up in her memory, and she realized just how much worse a place could actually be than she had ever imagined.

Steeling herself, she tried to reassure herself that it wasn’t that much worse than the red light district on New Vitriol.  Larger, probably with more violence and murder and oh dark she stood out like a sore thumb-

She was about ready to turn herself in to station security, as numerous sets of eyes came to start watching her.  She had to blend, act like she was just another customer, but of course very few of their customers were young women, that was mostly what the merchandise was . . .

Walking swiftly, trying to seem self-possessed, she passed storefronts that were offering increasingly disturbing services in veiled language, and decided she was definitely headed the wrong way.

She might actually need to turn herself in.

Somehow she could do that with her system, but she did not want to whip out her tablet in this crowd.  Nor could she go into a store and ask to call security.

One sign glowed in white above a storefront, and she winced at its brightness, reading it off-handedly before pausing.

Unless it was the strange name of a club, this was not like the other places here.

The sign said ‘Salvation’, and standing out front were dumpy men in simple, uncomfortable looking garments – shawls and robes.

Dark, were they actually missionaries?  Here?

She took a risk, and stepped towards the men.

“How much?” she asked one skeptically.

The man met her gaze evenly.  “Salvation’s only cost is sin,” he told her.

Oh shit, these guys might be legit.

“Can I come in and . . . make a call?” she asked.

The man studied her a moment, contemplating, then nodded and gestured her inside.

The interior of the building was smaller than she expected.  It was very simple; the floor was simply buffed deck and the walls were covered in images of frescoes; not shown on screens, but actual cloth that depicted images of hewn rocks, with strange patterns on them.

“You were lost but are now found,” a voice said.

It was calming, and she looked – and was surprised to see that the speaker was a young man.  His face was symmetrical, his chin and nose strong, and his eyes vivid green.  He wore a brown robe no better looking than the men outside, though it seemed like it fit him better.  His hair was a paler shade, but not the radiation-washed type of pale, just . . . blonde.

“Not quite yet,” she said.  “But hopefully going to be found.  Can I, er, call the spaceport?  I need to get back to my ship and don’t know the way.”

The young man nodded.  “Of course.  But if you simply wish to be guided back to the Craton, that may be simpler.”

Her heart raced.  “How do you know what ship I’m from?” she demanded.

“You’re wearing a Sapient Union fleet uniform,” the young man replied calmly.  “And the Craton is the only Sapient Union ship here.  The local contingent at your people’s station would never come to this area.”

A smile tugged at his lips.  “You truly are lost.”

She felt foolish now; she was wearing a Craton jumpsuit, and all of that made sense.

“Ah, right, yeah . . . sorry.  I’m a bit worked up.”

Dark!  What a phrase to say in this area.  “I mean stressed!” she added quickly.  “You know . . . getting lost and found.  I guess I did need salvation after all, huh?”

The young man, who she could see now had some kind of metal symbol pinned on his chest, smiled easily, apparently not judging her for her poor choice of words.

Was he someone with some authority, she wondered?  The two outside hadn’t had that symbol on them, and it looked official.  Almost like a stylized eye.

“May I ask what faith you are?  There is no wrong answer, of course,” he said.

“Oh, uh . . . Reformed Tedian, but not really practicing . . .”

“I see.  You are from the Begonia system, then?  I am sorry for your people’s troubles.”

That caught her off-guard.  “Thanks,” she said, unsure how to feel about it.  “It’ll work out, I’m sure.”

“Things always work out how they should in the eyes of the Infinite,” he said.  “Though sometimes it takes longer than we should like.”

She nodded, unsure what else to say to that.  “What church is this, anyway?  Are you the leader?”

“We are the Esoteric Order,” the young man said.  “And I am merely a novice Priest.”

She had not heard of that – it must have told on her face, as he continued.  “We seek order in the cosmos by reaching out into the places man has never tread.  Only by experiencing the Infinite can we truly understand our role in the universe.”

“Wow, that’s . . . well that sounds pretty neat.  Do you guys really get a lot of souls to save in a wretched hole of scumbags and pervs like this?”

“You would be surprised.  Sometimes people achieve clarity after moments of their greatest darkness, and seek a deeper meaning.  When they come to us, we help them as best we can.”

He inclined his head towards her.  “And in that vein, may I show you the way back to the spaceport?”

Apollonia swallowed.  “Yeah.  Thank you, I’d . . . really like that.”

She kind of hoped he’d actually be the one to show her the way.

---

< Ep 7 Part 24 | Ep 7 Part 26 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Apollonia smiled, not understanding the words that Jaya had just said to her.  They made sense, of course, but-

The other woman’s face was turning to a level of serious that made clear there was no joke.

Looking over her own shoulder, Apollonia saw that a group was rapidly approaching the bar, straight towards them.  There were the spacers who’d bothered them several times – and behind them some of the Glorian officers.  Two of whom towered over all others.  Their uniforms were tight on angles that were too sharp to be natural, and she realized that they were heavily augmented.  The Glorians were famous for their colossal, augmented soldiers.

Apollonia stepped back and looked around for a security drone or officer, but she realized this wasn’t the Craton, and there wasn’t anyone to keep a handle on things.

Jaya clearly seemed set to stand her ground, glaring at them, despite how they towered over her.

“You the one defending the occupation of New Vitriol?” one of the officers demanded.

“I don’t believe it’s any of your business,” Jaya replied.

The tallest of them pushed through the spacers, looking down at her.  Jaya’s head barely reached up to his pecs.

“I’m making it my business,” the man replied.  “You know what happens when Glorians get their hands on sapeholes.”

Jaya felt her blood run cold – the Glorian elite were walking human tanks, called Dreadnoughts, more than capable of ripping a normal person in half.

“You’re not even a baby Dreadnought,” Jaya replied.  Her words were a taunt, but she said them coldly.  Only informing him of his own inadequacies.

The man glared harder, leaning forward, and Apollonia wondered just why no one had thrown the first punch; she knew it’d come at any moment.

“Hey!” the bartender yelled loudly.  “Take it outside!”

Jaya and the tall aug didn’t break eye contact.

Then Jaya shoved her away.  She was startingly strong, and Apollonia felt herself thrown hard enough to slide nearly a meter more even after she’d hit the floor.  The force had knocked the breath out of her, but she felt arms grab her, pulling her upright.

“Are you all right?” someone yelled in her face.  Apollonia didn’t know them, but turned to look back at Jaya.

She felt the arms release her, and she finally realized that it was some of the other officers from the Craton.  A dark-haired woman had helped her up, and the others were advancing towards the bar to back up Jaya.

“Stay here,” the woman said to her, and Apollonia nodded.

More heated words were being exchanged from the bar, and they were reacting to the Response officers approaching by moving to partially face them.

Apollonia wasn’t sure if one side would back down.  She was not sure if Jaya even wanted to, what with the slips of anger she had shown.

“. . . fuck up a place that was doing fine, you fucking sapeholes can’t stand a place that’s standing on its own legs . . .”

She realized he was still talking about New Vitriol, and suddenly she just couldn’t hold back.

“That’s a total fucking lie,” Apollonia found herself shouting.  Her head was swimming with white rage at the man’s words.  “I saw New Vitriol.  It was a dying shithole, and when the Sapient Union came in, you know what they did?  They brought fucking doctors.  They didn’t have soldiers.  They didn’t go in shooting.”

The man’s bloodshot eyes went to her, and she saw visible shock on Jaya and the other Craton officers.

“And how the fuck do you know?” the man challenged her.

“Because I’m from New Vitriol,” she snapped.

The man’s face contorted in rage, and he spat out angry words it took her a moment to understand.

“Fucking shill!”

The bottle the man threw sailed past her, hitting the wall near the entrance.

Apollonia ducked all the same, her skill at dodging thrown objects well-honed.  Jaya threw herself at the man who had thrown the bottle, who had immediately turned to to swing for her.  Jaya dodged it, moving faster than a normal person and grabbed his metal arm, slamming it onto the bar and driving an elbow into his neck.

All hell broke loose.

A full melee began as people began to punch, kick, throttle, and throw each other or objects.  The bartender was shouting for order, but no one was inclined to listen.  People who had been sitting peacefully one moment were now attacking each other in a mad brawl, or else rushing to watch and cheer the fight.

She’d seen plenty of bar brawls, and had always made it her plan to get the hell out of the way.

Apollonia knew she couldn’t do a damn thing to help; if anything, she’d just be a liability, a puny fucking normal person surrounded by people with titanium muscles and steel bones.  One hit from an aug, and she might just be a splat on the wall.

Stumbling towards the door, she grabbed onto the frame and looked back.  A chair flew, and she saw two of the Response officers tackling one of the Glorian augs to the floor, while Jaya was smashing the original drunk’s head against a table.

Shouts came from behind her, and she looked, seeing that men in official uniforms, with security drones, were rushing towards the place.

Getting arrested here, of all places, gave her immediate flashbacks to the pit she’d been locked in on New Vitriol.

She melted away, the security not even paying her a glance as she disappeared into the labyrinth that was Gohhi station.

---

< Ep 7 Part 23 | Ep 7 Part 25 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

“Patri,” Apollonia said.

“What?” Jaya asked.

“Patri was one of them.  She was an older gal . . .  Nicer than most.  She came over from Vitriol like I had.  We had that in common, but we hadn’t known each other before.”

“Why did she go to New Vitriol?” Jaya asked.  “It does not seem a desirable move.”

“Some people thought they could do better there.  ‘I’ll get a claim and strike a rich phosphorous vein and be set for life’ kinda thing.  But not Patri, she came over to escape like me.  I think she had a husband who beat her and she thought one day he’d just beat her to death.”

Apollonia’s drink was empty, and she signalled the bartender for another.  The man put one down and she continued.

“But Patri would wrap stuff up and leave it for me.  Actual meals sometimes, I knew she couldn’t spare them, but she did it anyway.  I guess she believed some of the religious stuff about being kind to the hungry.”

“She sounds like a good soul,” Jaya said.

“I don’t think I ever even said thank you,” Apollonia said.  “We barely spoke.  She wouldn’t meet my eye – or anyone’s, really.  She’d just come near me, set it down, and walk away.”

“Shy, perhaps?”

“She was shy,” Apollonia agreed.  “But I thought of it more like . . . tribute.  I was considered weird, ya know?  People thought I had spooky powers.  Sometimes people asked me to read their fortunes or try to take some curse off them.  But most of the time they just blamed me for bad luck.”

Apollonia twisted, touching her back above her shoulder blade.  “I have a scar there from a rock someone threw at me when I came into a restaurant.”

“Stars!  It’s . . .”  Jaya paused, as if trying to find the words.  “I’m glad you were not more seriously hurt.”

Apollonia went quiet a moment.  Then; “I guess they thought it’d be worse luck to hurt me.  But anyway – Patri.  She just seemed to want to keep on my good side by giving me food.  I didn’t question it.”

Jaya pursed her lips.  “Or maybe she just didn’t want to see you die.”

“I suppose,” Apollonia drawled.  “I wonder how she’s doing.  You think she’s getting medical attention now?”

“Certainly,” Jaya said.  “On the last report they’d driven the cancer rate down to . . . not quite zero, but near it.  We’ll hit zero soon.  And the rad shielding . . . it’s something like . . . eighty-four percent . . . oh bother, I can’t remember a damn thing right now.”

Apollonia could not push her thoughts past how she was feeling about all of it, though.  None of this sat well with her, and yet – she’d thought often about how much she wished the whole of New Vitriol would just fall into a star.  Even if she’d been on it, she’d thought it for some time.

But the guilty thought always came up, as if her thoughts actually mattered in the survival of the place, of people like Patri.

She took another drink.  She needed a lot more before she could really cope with all this.

Jaya seemed at a loss for something to say, and one of those long-standing questions that Apollonia had thought of at other times popped up.

“Why did you join the Voidfleet?” she asked.

For a moment, Jaya’s face was open with surprise, but she caught herself and looked down, trying to compose.

“My brother and I always talked about it,” she said.

The mention of her brother caused alarm to rise in Apollonia, and it took her tipsy mind a few moments to place why;

Jaya’s brother, who had been sent to his death in the line of duty.  Who had done so gladly, because he alone had been able to save the thousands of others on his ship.

An ache was growing in her chest, but the question had already been asked, and Jaya continued.

“He was the oldest of us,” she said.  “I was the youngest by ten years.  But we were very close – I followed his lead, and he always respected and listened to me, he saw my talent, I suppose.”

She paused, and Apollonia opened her mouth to change the topic, but Jaya pushed on.  “He joined first and wrote to me a lot.  Told me all about his adventures – I knew he embellished them, but I loved him for it.  Exploring planets and meeting aliens.  He even came here to Gohhi often – I don’t think this bar, but I don’t know for sure.”

She emptied her drink, but this time did not ask for another.  “I was in my first year when he died under Brooks, and-“

“Wait!” Apollonia said.  “He died under Brooks?!”

“Yes,” Jaya replied sharply.  “And I hated him for it – for years.  But I eventually realized that Brooks was right in his order, and my brother was right to obey.  But he’s gone either way, and we’re never going to-“

Jaya cut herself off, hissing a curse.  She took a few moments, visibly putting herself together before meeting Apollonia’s eyes again.

“It’s not pointless, though.  Even though it was not supposed to be this way, I am here.  I do my duty, and one day – I don’t know.  Perhaps there will be true closure.”

Apollonia didn’t really know what to say to that for several long moments.

“We always come back to serious shit, don’t we?” she finally said.

Jaya almost smiled.  “The universe is serious.  Now, I don’t mean to alarm you, but I believe trouble is about to break out.”

---

< Ep 7 Part 21 | Ep 7 Part 23 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

A word from the screen caught Apollonia’s ear.  She turned, feeling certain she had just heard . . .

“I recognize that,” she said without a thought, staring at the screen.

Jaya looked at her quizzically, before looking up as well.

It was New Vitriol on the screen.  The floating head had turned somber.

“The latest terrorist attack in the contested territory of New Vitriol has left three dead and ten injured, as moderate fundamentalist freedom fighters attempt to force out the Sapient Union.”

Another head appeared.  “While the Sapient Union has insisted that their presence is solely for humanitarian reasons, with no military force, some are saying that their actions amount to an occupation – a charge the regime vehemently denies.”

Yet a third head appeared, floating near the others.  “And since when have we heard that?  We debunk their lies all the time.  Let’s face it; every time the Sapient Union goes into a place for ‘humanitarian’ reasons, freedoms get trampled and rights get taken away.”

Apollonia waited for some sort of rebuttal, but the last talker seemed to have the final say.

She jerked her gaze back to Jaya.

“Is that true?”

“It is not an occupation, you saw that yourself,” Jaya said.

“I mean the bombing!” Apollonia snapped.  “I know it’s not an occupation!  And I’ve seen shows like this before – they always called us in New Vitriol ‘crazed cultists’ before we apparently became ‘moderate fundamentalists’.”

That area had been part of the shopping district, an out of the way part near the mining tunnels that had been dug haphazardly into the asteroid.  They were half uncharted and probably easy for people to obscure their tracks in.

She’d spent time in that shopping area.  It was one of the few areas where she actually mingled with people, ever.  And in those images, it had been a smoking mess.

On some level, even though she hated New Vitriol, it bothered her.

“Yes,” Jaya said, answering her question.  Her voice was soft, almost gentle.  “I’m sorry to say that there has been some trouble on New Vitriol.  There is a separatist group staging attacks against locals who are cooperating with our workers.  So far they have not attacked anyone from the Sapient Union . . .”

“Does that matter?” Apollonia asked, a flash of anger hissing out with her words.  “Are people from New Vitriol worth less than you guys?”

“No,” Jaya said.  “But since they are not attacking Sapient Union personnel, it limits our reaction options.  We are not there to fight anyone-“

“That’s bullshit,” a gruff man’s voice said.

Apple jumped – the man had spoken just over her shoulder.  He was leaned over, his breath reeking of alcohol.

“You sapeholes are the ones behind it,” he sneered.  “You do it everywhere – fake attacks, come in in more numbers, and th’ next thing anyone knows, everyone’s fucking assimilated like you shits.  All the good people gone or spaced or brainwashed.”

Jaya was glaring at him.  “Mind your own business.  A bar is for drinking,” she said.  “Have a drink, and enjoy the game you were watching.”

The anger in his eyes burned brightly, and Apollonia shifted away from him, wanting to give him a push to get back, but also knowing just how easily he might turn violent.

But the man just hawked and spat – away from them – and did turn away.

Apollonia almost wanted to move, but she had a feeling Jaya would resent even the suggestion.  It seemed to have taken all her self-control not to escalate the fight.

Even just moving to the other side of Jaya was not possible, though.  Those seats were taken, filled with two old spacers who seemed to simply sit in silence and stare at each other while mulling their drinks.

Jaya’s eyes, lingering on the man, finally came back to her.  “The terrorists have little support, thanks to the fact that we are improving conditions, but they’ve set off several bombs.”

“Why, though?  I could see for myself it wasn’t an occupation.  You were giving out medical care and building infrastructure, not . . . pouring in troops.  Even though Nec Tede tried to kill some of your people . . .”

“I do not know,” Jaya said.  “But in my opinion?  It is not home-grown.”

She heard the man hawk and spit behind her again, and shuffled her stool closer to Jaya.

“Well, I guess I shouldn’t even care,” Apollonia said.  “That place was hell, and I don’t miss it.”

“Is there really nothing positive you remember about it?” Jaya asked.  “No one who was kind?”

“Well . . .” Apollonia replied slowly.  “I guess there were a few people.  I mean, I lived, right?”

“With how you describe it, it seems that it was often up in the air,” Jaya said.

“I was hungry a lot.  I didn’t starve, though.  I mean, I guess I did a little?  And I was cold a lot, the power generators weren’t rated for a colony our size and the rock drank up the heat like a sponge so . . .  Yeah, it got cold.  But some folks would help.”

“So there were kind people, after all.”

“I guess,” Apollonia said, feeling a little angry at having to admit it.  “They’d just throw some stuff out.  Made it look like garbage, but it was really giving it to us – us being me and others who lived on the fringe.”

“Why go through all that trouble?”

“Didn’t want to draw attention.  Bottom-rungers like me, we were just considered wasteful mouths, I guess.  By the laws of the religion they couldn’t just space us for being useless, and they had to at least pay lip service to that shit most of the time.”

She laughed.  “Not that they really believed, ya know?  They would usually just pick and choose.  But they did harass anyone who tried to feed us on the fringe.  If we died of cold or hunger, well that was the will of God, wasn’t it?”

She shook her head, not meeting Jaya’s eyes.  Was it out of shame?

Or did she not want the woman to see just how angry she was?  So ungodly angry that it felt like she couldn’t even hold it in, that it would be shameful to show.

---

< Ep 7 Part 20 | Ep 7 Part 22 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

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“Now my absolute favorite,” Apollonia said, her voice slurring slightly.  “Is the Shark Hole series!”

“Oh scram it, is that the one with a black hole full of sharks?” Jaya asked, laughing.

“Space sharks.  But yes!  It’s fantastic, everything you want in a terrible movie.”  She started to count on her fingers.  “It makes no sense, the acting is terrible, the effects are terrible, the writing is terrible, but man is it fun!”

“I have not actually seen any of them,” Jaya said.  “I only know them by reputation.”

“They’re so bad, you have to see them.  All your concerns about real life just disappear when you watch someone get eaten by a flying space shark in a black hole.  Trust me.”

Jaya tilted her head.  “I’ve always wondered; are there just so many space sharks that their mass caused the black hole, or did they simply fall in and could not escape due to the curvature of space time?”

“Well in the first movie they seem to imply that it was their own mass, like further in near the core there’s even bigger, more massive sharks, which is why they can’t risk them all escaping . . .”

“But a black hole is a point object, it doesn’t really have a ‘deeper’ part,” Jaya pointed out.

“. . . But in movie three they explain that the space sharks were banished to the black hole by an ancient race of aliens they fought a war against.”

“So the sharks are intelligent?”

“Sometimes,” Apple replied.  “Depends on the movie.”

“I’m afraid I have never seen anything so goofy to suggest in return,” Jaya said, still chuckling.  “I think I mostly watch documentaries or historical series.”

Apollonia reached up and patted her shoulder.  “I forgive you.”

“Forgive me?”

“For being boring as hell.”

Jaya almost snorted her drink and then began to laugh, unable to control it for the longest time.

Apollonia glanced around, seeing new people entering the bar, more wearing an olive-green uniform she recognized as Glorian.  There were stares between them and the Craton Response officers at their own table, but the latter seemed to shake it off quickly.

It made Apollonia’s sense of alarm grow, but the Glorian officers found their own table and sat down, loudly demanding drinks, and the moment seemed to pass.

Jaya had stopped laughing, and as Apollonia looked back to her, her eyes were glued up on the screens above.

“Big savings for the mid-summer sales event, exclusives brought to subscribers on Your Pocket Watch, sign up and save 20% on a 12-month sub!  Today’s top deals are on home fabricators, starting with the mid-range Extruder 4400 by SleppCo.  While it’s a Sepht manufacturer, and I don’t normally recommend alien devices, it’s got an excellent internal service area . . .”

“Needing a new fabricator?” Apollonia drawled, trying to hide her smile.

“I’m just amazed,” Jaya said.  “How quickly we revert when our material conditions change.”

“What?”

Jaya shook her head, tearing her eyes off Your Pocket Watch and the amazing deals they were continuing to offer, all while plugging a monthly subscription for even more savings.

“In the Sapient Union no one wants for anything.  Some people leave all of that, heading to the fringes of space – like here – where there are fewer laws, fewer people, less development, and therefore a lower stage of production.  Rather than simply pushing through and developing their productive forces into full socialism or communism in a few generations they . . . simply revert to private property.  It’s not universal, of course, but surprisingly commonly.”

She gestured around.  “And here, of all places.  With Gohhi’s strategic placement, it could have developed in half a century.  Instead it is stuck in stasis, owned by a handful of wealthy lords who glut themselves on the labor of those below them, telling them they’re free because they can privately own a crumb of space while facing the constant threat of poverty and death.  And those exploited drink it down like addicts and keep scrambling for crumbs.”

Jaya grinned, her eyes sparkling, and Apollonia realized the woman had gotten a little drunk.  “It makes me wonder – back during capitalism did some people actually long for feudalism at times?  I can’t imagine it, yet I wonder.”

She shook her head and took another sip of her drink.  “We’re still so much full of the flaws that nature instilled in us.”

“Speak for yourself,” Apollonia said.  “I feel like I’m at least 50% plastic from all the weird synthesized cheese I grew up on.”

Jaya laughed.  “Well, I suppose that begs the question what natural even is?”

“Dark!” Apollonia replied.  “These are your drunk thoughts?  I didn’t expect to hang out with a philosopher.”

“I do get more talkative when I drink,” Jaya agreed.  “One reason I drink so rarely.”

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< Ep 7 Part 19 | Ep 7 Part 21 >