Episode 110, Paradigm
25 Sep 2024Ryuko Ntsikana
Episode 110, Paradigm
Orion Spur
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Ceri glanced around the bridge, feeling a stranger in her own skin. After two weeks confined to the medbay, enduring a grueling system cleanse and repairs for the damage she had inflicted on herself, she felt like a discarded glove—every bit of her stretched thin and the metallic taste of the treatment lingering in her mouth. The medical droids had kept her in a near-constant state of hypnosis, a numbing trance meant to calm her mind, but even now, she felt the shadows of uncertainty tugging at her consciousness. The last time life had made any sense, she had been on the bridge of her own Anaconda, newly promoted, standing at the precipice of a future she had thought was hers to control.
But then, on that same maiden voyage, she had been outmaneuvered and crippled by a lone pilot in a Type-8 freighter—a humiliation that had cost her everything. Her clan had cast her out for the failure, and the man who had defeated her had, inexplicably, offered her a second chance—a new home, and a path forward she hadn’t believed existed. She wasn’t the only one. Meredith and his daughter had been in a similar position, bested by the same man who had then taken them in, offering them more than what they had lost.
Now she found herself in a Krait Phantom, engineered for rapid mining runs, gathering Tritium from pristine ice rings for the fleet carrier they all called home.
Home. The word felt alien on her tongue, foreign to someone who had spent her life adrift on one ship or another, always in transit, always at the mercy of others. Her first roles had been servicing crews, a nameless asset in a world that valued nothing beyond utility and obedience. She had fought her way up, proving herself enough to be promoted to pleb—a nearly impossible achievement for a girl with no name, no past, nothing but the label they had given her.
The life she had known was brutal. Unforgiving environments, relentless abuse, and ruthless raids on cargo-laden ships and settlements—each one devoid of mercy or remorse. She had adapted, become a creature of that violence, wearing her scars like armor against a world that demanded nothing less.
Yet here she was, the scars still there but the armor stripped away by the very man who had defeated her so effortlessly. Every minute she spent in this new reality gnawed at her, uncertainty biting deep. Part of her still waited for the facade to crack, for the kindness she had been shown to reveal its true, cruel intent. It was a lesson learned hard and early: kindness always had a cost.
The man at the ship’s controls was a pirate, but not like any she had ever known. Beau, one of her clan’s hierarchy in the system she had served, had called him a valued business partner. And then, just as easily, that man had thrown it all away to rescue her—someone he had beaten without breaking a sweat. It made no sense. In her world, defeat meant death, and sparing her should have been a fatal mistake. But not for this man. No one she had ever heard of thought or acted the way he did.
And then there was his woman. She moved with an eerie precision, her gaze unsettling in its intensity. There was no overt menace in her eyes, but something colder, sharper—a silent calculation, as if Ceri were being reduced to data points, weighed and measured against some unfathomable scale. It sent a chill through her core, a discomfort she couldn’t shake.
This was a world she couldn’t navigate, where the rules she had lived and bled by didn’t seem to apply. She felt exposed, raw. Vulnerable in a way she had never been, even in the worst moments of her past. And she hated it.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the man’s voice, steady and instructive. “Today, we’re going to work on precision flying near and around tumbling Tritium-rich asteroids without the flight assist. By the time you’ve mastered this, you’ll be able to point the nose of any ship at any target you choose—and keep it there.”
Ceri’s expression tightened with unease, while Ashlyn’s eyes sparkled with excitement. Meredith, noticing her tension, leaned over with an encouraging smile. “Don’t worry. He put me through the same drill. It’s actually fun once you get the hang of it. You’ll nail it in no time.”
The memories surged unbidden: the Type-8 freighter dancing behind her Anaconda, its movements impossibly nimble for such a bulky ship. Fragmentation cannons had shredded her shields in seconds, while a solitary turreted burst laser carved into her thrusters, systematically dismantling her ability to maneuver or flee. She had been outflown, outmatched, and utterly defeated.
Meredith’s smile widened as he watched her, the understanding in his eyes clear. He knew exactly what was running through her mind—he’d had the same doubts, the same sinking feeling when he first faced this challenge. “Yes,” he said softly, answering the unspoken question. “This is how he beat us both.”
A massive white rock suddenly loomed before them, and Ceri’s muscles locked. She gripped the armrests, bracing herself for impact—but then the ship twisted, sliding around the asteroid’s jagged surface with a grace that defied reason. She found herself holding her breath as they stabilized, the ship tumbling in perfect sync with the rotating mass of ice and rock. The stars and other asteroids outside the window blinked in and out of view, their erratic dance mesmerizing as the ship held its position.
Her pulse thrummed in her ears as she tried to process what she had just experienced. This was beyond the brutal, direct confrontations she was used to. She stole a glance at the man at the controls. His helmet turned slightly to one side as if he could read her thoughts.
“This is a beginning. Once you’re proficient in this ship, we’ll move you up to something larger than the Anaconda you once flew. You’ll also be learning how to utilize both SRV types for more than their standard functions.”
It was all so confusing. Why me? A part of her wondered, struggling to understand how someone like her ended up in a place like this. The hardened side of her, forged through years of violence and betrayal, warned that fairy tales didn’t exist—only nightmares. Her thoughts were interrupted by Meredith’s voice, soft and reassuring. “Don’t worry,” he said with confidence. “You’re going to do well.”
Ceri exhaled slowly, feeling lost in a way that was both unfamiliar and terrifying. She turned her head away, watching the rotating rocks outside, her mind spinning as a tear formed in the corner of her eye.
At the controls, a subtle smile crossed Ryuko’s face. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere,’ he thought, allowing Ceri the first moment on her road into a new life. With a swift motion, he activated a prospecting limpet, launching it at the icy core in front of them. Progress, in more ways than one.