Thanatos’ revival had cost three hundred and seventy three million credits. A Descendent generally cost somebody about a hundred and fifty million if purchased from the Galactic Council.
They had taken the loss of Wings into account, as well as Darnell’s service and the destruction of the Symbiote, so they had settled at ten years of service.
Thanatos and Kite hadn’t gotten along as well as Carey and Darnell had hoped they would, so he welcomed the change of scenery. It would mean Darnell would not see Carey as often as he’d like to, but he knew the time would come that he repay his people for Thanatos, and perhaps fate wanted them back in the forces.
Since Darnell was already aware of Black Wing, he was joined with them.
Meeting with Black Wing had been strange. Thanatos was as large as Ash, which would grate at Descendent instinct, as Ash’s dominance over the other ships was namely due to size and strength. Being a military unit, however, it was captain rank that denoted the chain of command, and Ash’s captain was also the highest ranking leader and the founder of Black Wing, and therefore would always be the leader of Black Wing, though Darnell could sense that there was tension between the ships. That may not have been only because of Thanatos’ size. Thanatos was also a deadly dark red color, streaked with lines of bright red. His color was more satanic than Flames, who, like his name, had a vibrant red hull. Unsurprisingly, it was Flames that got along with him best, and they generally went out on patrols together, with Flames teaching Thanatos the tactics and protocol of Black Wing.
Personality-wise, Thanatos was far from dominant. He listened to everything Flames explained, and was almost naive in the respect he gave the other ships, honoured to be allowed back into this world after his crimes. Unlike the other ships, Flames didn’t have that subtle animosity in the beemspace band.
Flames’ Captain proved interesting as well, though it took time for Darnell to grow accustomed to the presence of a Vorchan. Like with Carey, he spent a lot of his time aboard Flames, in Fawkes’ lounge. It would have been uncomfortable for Fawkes aboard Thanatos, anyways, being a Vorchan, and a very large one at that. He couldn’t even spread his wings inside his own ship, whose corridors were twice as wide as those on a conventional Descendent. Being a type-3, he shared the red colors of his ship, which looked very imposing on a Vorchan. Flames was far from as imposing in his behaviour, however, excited to talk to Darnell, who was now considered a veteran of Black Wing due to his encounter with the Symbiote.
Later, Thanatos patrolled alone, as it was safe again, and the Symbiote scare had passed. They barely encountered anything on their patrols. Most of the people were lenient, and if this New Coalition they heard about did indeed exist, they were doing a very good job at hiding their existence.
Kite would come by on some of the patrols. There was no rule against that. She was ex-Black Wing as well, and – although they weren’t really much of a pair, they did have a beemspace link due to the time they had spent together, which meant they could be considered a pair on paper. Because of that, Kite and Carey got a lot more couriers than they would have otherwise, being backed by a Descendent ever-ready to jump in to the rescue. Nobody would have thought a Puritan like Kite would have been able to defend herself without a Descendent mate.
Darnell hadn’t requisitioned for a crew, so his time aboard Thanatos was generally lonely, except for Carey’s visits. He would check the returns from Thanatos’ sensors, in case his ship missed something, and would spend a lot of time brooding in the lounge. He was working on making the windows of the lounge bigger, the last captain hadn’t been that keen on a view. Unfortunately, Thanatos’ limited production capabilities meant it would take time before the project was done, a lot of the work had to be done himself, then, with equipment he purchased from places they visited during patrols or breaks. Whenever Kite had a chance to visit, he would use some of her building material as well, though the bright blue did look strange on a dark red color scheme, he made sure to buy a lot of paint.
Carey brought other things with Kite as well, like whiskey. Carey loved whiskey, and they always had drinks when she visited. It was a comfortable life. A lot of the amenities needed for living were now just frivolities, as those essentials were easily produced by the ship. The contrast in quality of life was bizarre. From captains to soldiers to citizens, not to mention commanders and leaders. Some corporation executives had a lot of money, and he did occasionally follow a few on the GNN. Carey had told him about a job she had gotten from one earlier, that had simply involved a ferry from one planet to another. He had paid six times base rate, to ensure he would get a ride as quickly as possible. Carey had wondered why he didn’t just buy his own beems.
–
It had taken three months for something to finally happen. Anton had sent him a hail regarding a possible NCR presence by a moon outpost at the Liol system.
It was a large moon, completely urbanized, with residential and commercial areas dotted along the industrial core. There were millions of people on this small moon, and the spaceport was bustling with trade and, surprisingly, tourism. Liol IX was the only habited area in hundreds of light-years, and dozens of jumps, being a link from several locations on the nodescape, having become the breeding ground for several Descendents.
The moon even had its own navy, Descendents that worked for the Liol governor, a man called Dylan.
Darnell came to this city as a trader, which wasn’t that hard to believe, as he probably would have come here as a trader regardless, since he was trying to get more supercrystal for the lounge window. It took a lot of effort for Tier Zero to create supercrystal, refining the neoplastic layer into something so strong and fine took a lot of time and effort, not to mention material.
Darnell wanted a lot of it, and Dylan was more than happy to meet his acquaintance. They arranged a meeting at his office.
He was a well protected man. Darnell had seen several guards on his way into the office. Thanatos told him the bulkheads were resistant to plasma weapons, as well as all personal kinetic projectiles. It would take koveran-laced weaponry to cut into the armour of that building if anything happened to Darnell, and the damage the koveran would do reacting with that metal would cause a lot of collateral damage.
Darnell wasn’t worried, however. Confident, and genuinely wanting to purchase some supercrystal. He really wanted to recreate the beautiful lounge Wings had. He had spent years creating that lounge, and this was when Wings was still young and maturing, his Tier Zero more efficient than it would ever be. His family had always had beautiful views, their ships beautifully decorated, chambers pleasing aesthetically and conventionally. His myrtle skin would be a permanent reminder of his ship. For a moment he considered painting the lounge green, but he wasn’t sure how Thanatos would feel about that. Painting would be the last step anyways.
Respectfully, they hadn’t even asked for his sword, and Dylan stood when he entered the office, shaking his hand excitedly.
Darnell’s neural interface uploaded crawlers into Dylan’s network. They immediately began searching for things that would shed light on the alleged NCR presence here. Darnell was sure that if they existed, they would have made some deal with Dylan, either through intimidation or other means.
Other than the possible NCR link, Dylan seemed to be an amicable guy. Neither Thanatos nor Darnell got any negative warnings from him. His life signs never spiked to betray a lie or any other hostile action. Though being a diplomat, he may have just been very good at masking his true intentions.
It would take a while for the crawlers to gather data, so Darnell had demanded the supercrystal be transported with his own shuttles, which would take three days if done properly, as the crystal had to be hoisted onto the shuttles with large industrial cranes that were almost always at full capacity. Darnell had also told Dylan that his shuttles were incapable of gravimetric propulsion. Dylan hadn’t noticed the lie, and Darnell had easily convinced him that it would take several dozen loads.
The lack of surprise on Dylan’s face made Darnell wonder how many other people bought equipment like this. It seemed like a very paranoid way to shop, but maybe it was him that had been too trusting all this time. It hadn’t even cost more. Perhaps it was because Darnell was a first-time customer.
Kite wanted to visit, but Darnell wasn’t sure if it was a good idea. Finally, he let them jump in, giving in to his longing for Carey.
The whiskey was appallingly expensive here, apparently, but Carey didn’t mind the price of the supercrystal. It was a decent deal, but it was a bulk purchase. It seemed to be the small consumers that were fuelling this moon. Thousands of ships had passed through here in the past twenty four hours. Even a Puritan had stopped by, and had even flown with them, probably in the hope of uncovering Kite’s address in the nodescape so that they may communicate with each other across the beemspace band. Unfortunately for the visiting Puritan, it hadn’t worked, and his captain jumped him out when their business on Liol IX was done.
The crawlers finally discovered something – A message to a person where one of the keywords had been Coalition. It was the only mention of the word ‘coalition’ in the entire comms database. Being such a weak link, they used Thanatos’ ocular strips to take a look at the location where the message had originated from. The chamber was on the three hundredth tier, near the outer layer of the moon’s habitable area, giving Thanatos a decent view with his strips. There were three thermal signatures in the building.
Darnell sent in one of Thanatos’ precious drones. As the moon lacked an atmosphere, it was able to float out to the chamber safely, and upload crawlers into the local hub network. These messages weren’t as encrypted as Dylan’s, and Darnell easily got a copy of the entire mail:
It’s great to hear from you. How have you guys been doing? I’m sorry about what happened at Alveoli III, though I’m sure the Coalition will recover.
The rest of the messages didn’t shed any light on Alveoli III, and the Coalition hadn’t been mentioned again. Darnell wasn’t even sure if this was the Coalition that was related to the NCR. The fact that Alveoli III didn’t show up any database made it something worth investigating, however.
Darnell reported his findings to Anton across a direct link in the beemspace band.
–
“So none of them heard of Alveoli?” Carey asked.
“Nope.” Darnell replied.
They were in Thanatos’ lounge, helping the construction drones attach the new frame that would hold the supercrystal in place for the window. Picking the objects up weren’t difficult, the auxiliary gravimetric field simply had to be disabled, making everything weightless, but Darnell wanted to place the frames himself, so they would be exactly as they were aboard Wings, or at least as close of an approximation as possible, since Thanatos’ dimensions were a little different.
“That’s strange. Kite has.” Carey replied.
Darnell flinched, which was a bad move in a weightless environment, starting his helpless drift over to the other side of the lounge.
“Where is it?” Darnell asked.
“No idea, it was an address in that device we found.”
“What device?”
“The Rukari one.”
“Oh right.” They had discovered a device in the Rukari system when Kite had been training Wings. Nobody had shown much interest in it after the advent of the Symbiote. “Did you ever figure out what it was?”
“It really does seem to just be a transceiver of some sort, but the addresses are bizarre. They use Rukari linguistics. Kite would understand them, but had a non-native discovered it and it’d been useless.”
“And in Rukari, it was called Alveoli?”
“Yep.”
“Interesting.”
“Very. Kite and I will pay a visit to the Rukari. Here are the co-ordinates to the Alveoli system.”
The nodescape lit up with the dim point where Alveoli was located. It was comfortable to finally give a label to one more of the millions of unidentified points in this proverbial map.
“Are you sure, Carey? You aren’t obligated.”
“I became obligated when I paired with you!” she joked, using the beems term.
–
They arrived in a wash of red particles as Thanatos shook free of his CKRO and decelerated, flaring his gravimetric lens, the universe distorting around him. He immediately checked the stars and noticed he was seven hundred million kilometres from the system’s star.
The star was an M type. All the planets were barren and cold. There were no gas giants, just tiny rocks. Darnell had no idea how anything would survive here.
I don’t understand. Darnell transmitted. There must be something here.
I don’t sense anything.
They began checking the planets, darting between them at bursts of speed several hundred times the speed of light.
They were approaching the ninth rock in this planet when a gravimetric warning flared in Thanatos’ mind. He braced himself as space-time around him shifted.
A Descendent emerged from an interstice fifty kilometres away from him, the gravimetric ripple from the singularity distorting his lens, nearly de-activating it.
He immediately deployed and charged his AHC, loading a koveran-laced shell. He had an entire cargo hold full of koveran shells of different yields.
As the bulk of the unknown ship emerged, he instinctively checked its profile among his database, his memory of faces and figures. His mind first considered the silhouette a beems, then a Descendent. It had no additions to its superstructure so it probably wasn’t a producer. The CKRO it was venting was a bright blue, meaning the ship’s tolerance for koveran particles was either low or that the particles themselves were supercharged.
Thanatos made sure the AHC was pointed at the ship, and prepared a firing and closing pattern for the imminent dodge.
It was Ash.
“We have to go, now.” Anton transmitted. Ash was already charging his beem drive.
Thanatos tucked in close before the beem sequence completed, charging his own drive. They jumped out together.
They arrived in the same system, several AUs from their previous location. There were several other ships here. Ash opened fire on them. The ships returned fire.
There were three Descendents and one Puritan. The Puritan looked alien, a shield of dead skin over it, a design that threw Thanatos back into his past. He was stunned.
“I didn’t waste two chambers for you to just sit around.” Ash transmitted.
Thanatos fired on the Descendents, his rounds grounding out on their electrostatic shields. The Puritan was shielding them. Ash rammed the Puritan ship, fracturing the shield and sending the two massive beems careening out of control.
Thanatos scored a direct hit on one of the Descendents, striking an artery. It pulled out of the fight as it clamped the artery and tended to its wounds. He could see a trail of drones falling off the ship as they clung to the wound, trying to seal the bleeding before it became fatal.
Thanatos targeted the next ship, but the two remaining Descendents were already firing on him, and he automatically dodged, expanding his distortion field to perturb the inbound trajectories of the shells. They immediately exploded when they sensed the field, sending a shower of koveran energy outwards, the majority aimed in Thanatos’ general direction. His electrostatic shield activated, absorbing the energy and grounding it into his resistant beemveins, which flared to a dim red from the sudden absorption and heat.
Darnell remembered a tactic he had learnt in the navy that he could use in this situation. Had this been Wings, he would have allowed the ship to execute it, but then he remembered that Thanatos, while having been able to peruse his memories, had never been there with him; never repeated the manoeuvre over and over. Wings had failed at this, his gravimetric abilities never having become proficient enough.
The command entered Thanatos’ neural plexus in nanoseconds. He transformed the energy in his beemveins to concentrated koveran run-off, and vented the CKRO ahead of him using an auxiliary field from his gravimetric lens. Shrouded by the CKRO, Thanatos flew clear of the cloud of gas as it was saturated in high yield koveran shells, the unbelievable amounts of energy in space blinding most of the ships’ senses. As the dust cleared, the attacking Descendents hadn’t even bothered to look towards the trial of CKRO that had curved around behind them.
Darnell wondered what the captain felt as his ship was impaled from behind by a koveran-tipped organic spear exceeding speeds of three hundred kilometres per second. He probably didn’t feel anything, the ship disintegrating in seconds as Thanatos sliced through, already firing a volley of koveran shells at the second Descendent, its fear permeating beemspace. The targeted Descendent charged the beem drive as the shells screamed towards him, and managed to jump out before the second hit landed, the first hit having sliced through the dorsal carapace, apparently not having caused enough damage to disrupt the beem sequence. It always bothered Darnell when he had to fight other beems, especially now, with a ship that had such a violent history.
Thanatos reacted the way he should have, with a distant indifference, slightly guilty but not shutting down. He awaited another command. Darnell transmitted it, and they shot towards Ash, who had stabilized and had the Puritan in a magnetic embrace. Since the Puritan was still alive, it wasn’t a surprise that it was a female. Ash’s black hull glistened slightly, and became a pale red as he considered his options, now ventral side to ventral with the helpless Puritan.
Thanatos imposed, holding less than a hundred meters from the two. “What now?”
“Let me go.” demanded the ship.
“If you promise not to run.” Ash transmitted.
“Promise!” she replied.
Ash let her go, and immediately spun around, firing a basic kinetic shell into one of her skids. She cried out in pain, spinning out of control. Thanatos stopped her before she collided with him. The droplets of blood stung against his hull as they splattered against him. Puritans hadn’t evolved the arterial seals most Descendents had. The wound could be mortal. Considering it was a shot to the skid, Darnell assumed it was an accident.
This would be a good step in Thanatos’ rehabilitation. It was important he know that, while some die, he could save others. Darnell deployed umbilicals, using it as an IV. Several vital drones jumped from one ship to the other on Darnell’s command.
“Sorry, forgot how horribly fragile you Puritans were.” scoffed Ash, orbiting.
Her intelligible cursing and plethora of insults don’t sound like something you would hear from a Symbiote-possessed craft. Observed Thanatos.
Indeed. She’s herself. I can sense the captain as well. Darnell replied.
She tried to snap an umbilical, but Ash immediately spread his distortion field over her, negating her attempts.
“A good choice of interrogables, don’t you think? You’ve worked with Puritans before haven’t you?” Ash asked, the question most likely directed at Thanatos.
“That wasn’t me.” Thanatos replied uneasily.
“But you do remember the methods?” Ash asked.
“Yes.”
“What methods?” the Puritan asked, terrified, venting adrexin. The adrexin seeped into Thanatos’ pores. He fought the excitement, uncertain.
What do I do? he asked Darnell.
What you have been ordered to do: Interrogate.
–
The outpost was cut into an asteroid in the outer belt of the system. It wasn’t much of a belt, more of a loose collection of rocks, some large enough to be considered small planets. The asteroid they were looking for was composed of iron, and would be passing by co-ordinates A11 in twenty minutes. The Puritan had been helpful, telling Thanatos everything within the first hour.
Ash held her at gunpoint, in case the outpost did not show up when it was supposed to.
They were going to destroy it.
“Will you let me go after you destroy the outpost?”
“Yes.“ Thanatos began to transmit.
“Maybe. Depends on what my captain orders.” Ash interrupted, his hull pressed up against hers, trying to get the beemveins to absorb the excess koverans to mitigate their heat signature. “If you don’t calm down I’ll have to kill you.”
“They don’t have anything to stop you, even if they do see you coming. We were the defence fleet.”
“They might come back for you. It’s best they don’t pick us up immediately when they jump in.”
“I don’t think I registered in any of their nodescapes. I’m new.” the Puritan replied innocently.
It was a very tense situation. She could have explosives aboard, or an entire fleet ready to jump to her. Keeping her alive was a big risk. Darnell wasn’t sure how much longer she had before Anton realized this and ordered her killed. Perhaps he was just waiting for the outpost to appear and be confirmed NCR.
“Why did you join the NCR?” Thanatos asked, “I thought they enslaved beems? You don’t look enslaved.”
“It was something my captain always wanted to do. He saw an opportunity to join and we took it.”
He pitied her devotion to her captain. It had destroyed her hull, broken her skids. All he had been allowed to do for her was stop the bleeding, but entire sections of her structure were without sufficient nutrient flow, now. It would take extensive repairs for her to be able to survive the day, let alone fly again.
She must have been in excruciating pain. Thanatos wished he could help in some way. It seemed he was cursed to cause death and suffering.
He wanted to initiate a direct-link with Ash. Ask him if he was going to kill him, but he knew so little of him, he had no idea what his channel was.
The outpost approached. Thanatos could see Ash’s sensor beams probing across the spectral band. It was an NCR outpost. Ash fired a gravimetric pulse at it. It distorted time and space as it expanded outwards.
The outpost bent. Thanatos wasn’t sure if it was the light that was bending as it reached his ocular strips or if it was the actual outpost. Either way, it exploded seconds later with a bright yellow flash laced with vermillion. The outpost, and all traces of it, had disappeared into the infinite realms of space.
A targeting beam hit the Puritan, and Ash’s AHC began bringing its maw to bear on the highlighted target.
I could help her – beem her out.
And then what? Do you have the means to repair the damage?
I can try.
Conversations across the neural band took nanoseconds. The AHC still hadn’t even completed its turn on target.
Thanatos mused, If I assist her I will become an outlaw, a member of the NCR.
And if you don’t? What else is on the line?
What about Carey?
Don’t worry about Carey. Can you live with yourself if you let another Puritan die?
I have never been able to live with myself.
Then it seems you have nothing to lose.
What are you trying to get me to do? Do you want me to help her?
It’s your choice. I will support you either way.
The AHC was now locked onto the Puritan. Thanatos blocked its line of sight.
“What are you doing?” Ash asked.
“Pull your ship out of the line of fire.” demanded Anton.
“We don’t have to kill her. We can rehabilitate her.”
“She knows what we look like. She might even know our beemspace signatures.”
“If we offer the NCR rehabilitation and forgiveness then perhaps they won’t be that unwilling to surrender to us?” Darnell suggested in his ship’s defence.
Thanatos felt a microsingularity form on his starboard side. It began to pull at him. He countered with his own lens, agonized by the tidal forces. Memories of torture lashed out at him, more painful than any singularity. Thanatos cried out, attacking Ash with his AHC. The koveran-laced shell was grounded out in Ash’s shield, completely ineffective. The slight change in pigmentation in Ash’s hull betrayed surprise.
Thanatos took up a defensive formation in front of the Puritan, his skids flared to give his lens more freedom.
“Darnell, this is an act of betrayal. You will be outcast. Control your ship.”
Suddenly several singularities formed, these ones giving way to several Descendents. Their transponders dubbed them NCR. They immediately opened fire on Ash. His shield was overwhelmed, a koveran reactor was hit, the entire ship exploded. Thanatos had to use his lens to protect him and the Puritan from the gravitational pull the explosion created.
Ash was dead. It seemed there was death regardless of what choice he took. The NCR fleet locked him. He prepared himself. Surprisingly, he was relieved, grateful that he did what he did. He felt as if he had found his morality again.
A partial volley hit him before the Puritan shrieked for the fleet to stop. His koveran shield had almost failed, his entire hull having turned from black to red from all the CKRO.
“He saved my life!” cried the Puritan.
“He assisted in the destruction of one of our outposts.”
“If you would have come earlier we would have never lost the outpost!” hissed the Puritan.
“We’re sorry. We had difficulties zeroing in through that Descendent’s disruption field.”
“You aren’t ‘new’, are you?” Thanatos asked.
“New is a very relative term.” the Puritan explained. “What are you going to tell your fleet?”
“You lied to me!” Thanatos exclaimed.
“I did not. My captain and I did have an opportunity to join, and we took it. We have no regrets. The Galactic Council is corrupt. The NCR symbolize control, peace.”
“They enslaved our species.”
“Sacrifices had to be made. Those beems didn’t understand.”
Something was numbing Thanatos’ hull. His shields failed. His lens dissipated. “An inhibitor, really? After I saved you?”
“I can’t risk you having my address. You’re stuck with us.”
“You’re crazy.”
“You should be grateful we don’t just destroy you, like your friend would have.”
“You’re murderers.”
“So are you! And that torture – I haven’t been tortured like that in years.” pleasure seemed to swim with the transmission, though it may have been whatever the other ships were transferring to her across umbilicals, tending to her wounds. He noticed several had neural inhibitors.
“Can I have my drones back, then? I’m not really a producer.”
The Puritan laughed across the beemspace band, it made the other ships tending to her flinch.
I wouldn’t want to meet her captain. Darnell transmitted.
I’m so sorry. I didn’t think it would happen like this.
If we always knew how things turned out there wouldn’t be a point in life now would there?
–
The captain proved to be just as interesting as the ship. She was dressed in an extravagant black dress, laced with stitching that had a chrome reflection to it. She had black stripes across her pale white skin, the black stripes the only similarity she shared with her ship, other than her extravagant clothing, which had matched the elaborate hull the Puritan had constructed before Ash had destroyed it. Under the ablative hull, the Puritan was a bright red. At first Thanatos had thought it was blood, but it seemed it was her native color, with the black beemveins running across her rose red hull like vines.
The ship reminded Thanatos of his past self. He was drawn to her, and followed her imperatives obediently. Within weeks, they had conducted over a dozen raids, turned several planets. It was hard for Thanatos to ignore the guilt Darnell felt whenever they raided a new colony, but it seemed Darnell felt this was some sort of just finality.
Thanatos realized he hadn’t enjoyed Black Wing, nor did he feel comfortable here with Darnell’s guilt gnawing away at him. This was not where he was meant to be. He would have to escape.
It wasn’t that difficult a task. The Puritan was obsessive over him, and bonded with him weekly. Puritans only had one reactor core, he had three. He jumped out after she was asleep, disappearing. Darnell immediately began removing the neural inhibitor, or trying to. It could only be disabled, the inhibitor itself had dug into a portion of his neural plexus that made removal dangerous. Perhaps Rahjaad would, but he wasn’t sure if that was where he would go now.
It wasn’t difficult for Thanatos to get to Kite. Her signature was surprisingly bright on his nodescape, especially for a ship he had never bonded with. They had been close, but whenever he felt them get too close he seemed to back away. There was still a lot of guilt to overcome when it came to Kite, and even Darnell.
“What are you doing here? Thanny?” Kite replied, pleased by the surprise visit. She had recently groomed herself, her hull a lustrous blue, free of imperfections.
“I screwed up.” Thanatos replied.
“What happened?” Carey asked over the neural band.
“Ash is dead.” Darnell replied, it came out more terse than he’d wanted it to.
Shock emanated across the neural band, but it was assuaged quickly. Carey was the next to reply, both beems deathly silent.
“What happened?”
Darnell explained the situation. How they had decided to assist a Puritan, and ended up where they were now. He left out the bits with the myriad of different bonds they did. He had never even known such variation was possible. The Puritan had been insatiable.
“Well, then it sounds like nobody is really fully aware of Ash’s death yet. His absence on the nodescape isn’t uncommon. He travels quite a bit. It can be difficult to get a track on him.” Carey said reassuringly.
“I’m tired of this.” Thanatos pronounced.
“What do you mean?” Kite asked.
“We should leave GC space; make a life for ourselves elsewhere, where we won’t be bothered.”
“We both have commitments, fees…”
“I don’t care about that anymore. I’ve tasted many different lives, and the only one I’ve enjoyed so far is the one here, with you. I know Darnell has always wanted a house somewhere, where he can raise a family. We can accommodate that, settle on a planet with a tiny koveran signature. Live a peaceful life.”
It seemed the Puritan had given Thanatos a boost of confidence.
Darnell didn’t have to add anything. It seemed like a good idea. Everything was strangely surreal when viewed from the senses of a kilometre long warship. He didn’t realize how much he missed running his hands through sand. He didn’t even remember the last time he had done that. He needed to get planetside. Thanatos’ powerful imagination just made him long for it more.
But finding a planet outside GC space meant it was beyond the archives, and Thanatos and Kite were too old for their instincts to lead them to a floral planet. They would have to find one with mass detection, the old fashioned way, cruising through space at 350c and only jumping when the ranges between star systems became extreme.
There were other worries, as well. The outside of GC space was near the outer rim, where there were significantly less stars and planets. Beyond the outer rim was the koveran ocean. While simply a pitch black expanse of space to a raumenoid, to a beems it meant drowning in koveran energy. It would be a fascinating journey. They left immediately.
It was surprisingly quiet when they left. Ash was not supposed to have been in Thanatos’ area of operations, so nobody seemed to assume Thanatos was involved in anything that had happened, and by the time his return time had expired, they would already be over a thousand light years away from Zemoria, so long as they jumped accurately. Jumping to the edge of the galaxy was dangerous, as an overshot could land you in the ocean.
The overall topography of the galaxy was missing several chunks, as only areas near nodepoints were discovered. Even so, they were near the edge within a few months of leisurely travel.
Using several argued-over methods of search, they fanned out to look for planets that could support Darnell and Carey on their own. They weren’t that rare. The Coalition had dubbed them ‘floral’ planets, and the archive had nearly a hundred thousand in GC space. Unfortunately, that was GC space, and this archive wasn’t helping them here.
There was always something wrong with the planet they found. Sometimes there would be one in a zone that should be habitable, but it was being showered by rocks, while other times there would be nothing in habitable zones, yet there would be koveran signatures that indicated faint life somewhere. It was ironic. They needed koveran signatures to get between the solar bodies, but very high koveran signatures meant that the system was older, and most likely had a lot of life as well, as there seemed to be a correlation between life and brightness in the nodescape. There were no bright stars (koveran-wise) anywhere near them, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, because theoretically a floral planet with no life that was relatively young would also have a weak koveran signature, as they were beginning to realize. It didn’t even have to be floral, there were some planets that probably had life inside, microbial most likely, but it was so far below the surface that it might as well have been inhospitable. However, even those inhospitable planets had a higher koveran signature than others that had no life at all.
Mass seemed to play an important role as well. Big stars had heavy koveran signatures, but were easily recognizable in the nodescape. Unfortunately, none of the planets near the massive stars had atmospheres, and even the ones that would were doomed to be destroyed when the massive star ended its life. Regardless, those were worth looking at as well.
In the meantime, Carey and Darnell did their usual lounge-sitting. They realized they really should have installed a holovision or something when they had the chance, and stored some shows in the database, as now they were too far from the galactic network to be able to recover data. Darnell was already devising a shuttle route that would have a shuttle fly to the nearest beemspace transceiver and download the media streams, an act that would technically be considered ‘piracy’.
Thanatos and Kite were usually separated, searching different areas of the little portion of the galaxy they had staked out in hopes of finding a habitable planet. It meant that there were times Thanatos was alone, with Darnell spending time aboard Kite with Carey even when Thanatos ventured out in search of planets. Thanatos didn’t seem to mind, but there was always the worry of something happening during Thanatos’ outings. It wasn’t even just a worry. They were expecting something to happen, as Thanatos had done quite a few bonds with the Puritan that had… captured… him. They still hadn’t really told Kite or Carey the specifics about that.
It was on the third month that it finally happened. Darnell was trying one of the horrible rations they had to eat from Kite’s Nutrient Chamber in Tier Zero when it happened. This also meant Thanatos was alone, and the neural link was weak. It shut off completely when the Puritan entered the system, her beemspace distortions discombobulating the transmissions.
Thanatos was on his own, and he wasn’t sure how the Puritan would respond. “How are you doing…” Thanatos realized he had never remembered her name. He was panicked now, his captain out of link range. He was contemplating fleeing. He could do three jumps to the Puritan’s one. Yes, that was the best idea, what if the Puritan grabbed him again. He would beem out before the Puritan’s koveran chamber recharged.
Too late, the Puritan grabbed him. He couldn’t counter, he had no gravimetric strength. She was pulling him straight towards her, but she had jumped in above him. He could fire.
He deployed his AHC and aimed, but he couldn’t bring himself to shoot, the Puritan finally closed the distance between them and washed him in a pleasurable shower of electrostatic energy.
“I missed you so much! Where did you go? Why are you here? Were the GC onto you? Why didn’t you say goodbye?”
“I’m sorry.” he wasn’t sure what the best course of action would be. Whether honestly would really get him as far as he’d like: Back to Darnell. “You see, I had to do some thinking on my own, away from GC influence, and NCR influence.”
“That’s understandable. Switching sides is a big decision, but I assure you it’s the right one. You’ve enjoyed your time in the NCR so far haven’t you?”
Thanatos sighed, or at least did the equivalent of it, “Look. I don’t even know your name. We rarely ever talked. I know this is more of a game to you. You’re young and want excitement… and pleasure.”
“What else is there to want?”
“What about long term goals? Like family? Securing a place to call one’s own?”
“I don’t think I’m ready to have kids. We were only together for a few weeks.” the Puritan replied.
Beems communication was several hundred times more precise than raumenoid communication, yet there were still misunderstandings. “But if you really want to. I did store some of your genetic data, you know, just in case, I could—“
“Don’t! Dump it! That’s not what I meant!” The tone in Thanatos’ transmission was a crowbar that pried him free of her grip, allowing him some distance, albeit small.
“I see.” The Puritan’s tone changed too. It was razor sharp now. Thanatos felt uneasy. His AHC twitched. It made the Puritan strafe to the side a little, very slowly, leaving the cannon’s firing solution.
“So what did you mean?”
“First you have to promise me you won’t capture me and drag me back to the NCR if you don’t like what you hear.”
“But you’re mine!” the Puritan cried. “You’re so big, and strong, and beautiful. Your hull… your skids… your weapons!” she gently pressed up against the AHC. AHC‘s weren’t supposed to be nudged. He retracted it quickly before she hurt it, sealing it below his dorsal carapace.
“You can’t own a ship. This concept of ‘owning’ is what led to the Coalition’s destruction.” Thanatos said.
“Your captain owns you, does he not?”
“We are a type-3 link, we were born together. We grew up together. We think alike. But no, as unlikely as it is, we could go our separate ways if we wanted to.” Thanatos lied. If she hadn’t found the truth in their bonds, he wouldn’t tell her now.
“Then why don’t you! I don’t see him aboard you now. Why is that?”
“I’m looking for a habitable planet in this region, out of GC space. A place where we can settle down.”
“I see. You know, NCR cartographers have mapped out the outer rims quite accurately. If you want, I can send you the data!”
“That would be nice of you. You can send it across the beemspace band.”
“That’s far too dangerous. The GC bastards monitor us. It has to be a neural link.”
“We don’t have a neural link.”
“Oh we do… when we’re bonding.”
He wasn’t technically paired with Kite. There would be nothing wrong with that. Wait, there would be a lot wrong with that, “And what’s to keep you from just jumping us back to NCR space during the bond?”
“Maybe you’d have to make it such a powerful, such a pleasurable, wonderful bond that I would be farrr too distracted to even think of such a thing.” she purred.
He had to keep his composure. “Right, yet you’d somehow remember to think of sending all the cartographic data across the bond?”
“I could just drag you back…”
“I could just shoot you!”
“I could rip you in two!”
“You couldn’t rip me in two…”
“I could twirl you though. Good luck shooting me when you’re twirling!”
“Look, are you going to give me the data or not? I could just as easily search for a planet.”
“Ha! Good luck with that. You’ll be surprised how low the number of habitable planets is in the outer rim. It’ll take you years, decades! Centuries even, if you’re really unlucky.”
Thanatos didn’t have many options, and he believed the Puritan about the odds.
“Fine, but you have to promise not to drag me back.”
The Puritan didn’t say anything, pulling him close for a bond.
“You better not drag me back.” Thanatos repeated.
Again, no response, just the start of a bond. The silence enraged him, the pleasure distracted him, but he still had a choice to make. The Symbiote had taught him to kill during bonds. He had killed hundreds. How little this Puritan knew of the dangers of bonding with him.
I’d like the data. Thanatos transmitted, trying to sound somewhat soothing.
Surprisingly, the Puritan actually began sending the information across the neural link. It really was a large amount of information. It had tens of billions of planets, all across the outer rim of the galaxy.
Now… she transmitted very loosely, barely composed from the bond, her voice dripping with a feline satisfaction, Distract me.
–
The link to Darnell was restored a day after it had been lost. Kite was still crying over not having been able to jump to him due to how the other ship had distorted his beemspace signature. They were all relieved to see that he was alright.
“What happened?” they all asked.
“I met an old friend.”
“Who?” Kite asked.
“That’s unimportant, but she did give me the locations of all habitable planets in the outer rim.” Thanatos replied.
“That’s one hell of a good friend! Where is she now?”
“That’s doesn’t matter either. What matters is how I’m getting this information across to you. There is too much data to transfer across the beemspace band.”
“It would need a neural link.” Darnell said, “I can act as a relay between—“
“That wouldn’t work.” Kite interrupted quickly, “If it’s stellar co-ordinates then it would destroy your mind having to comprehend and transfer that much data. It has to be between beems.”
“And how would we do that?” Thanatos asked, flying closer.
Kite’s light blue hull was becoming a pale red, “I’ve got an idea…”