Nobody Can Hear You Scream
17 Jun 2022Aurora Bael
You know how... sometimes I do this drunk? Okay, here we go. So spot of bother in Wayutabal. I was sent to go do some shady spy shit for an Imperial client so I could become trusted enough to pay a visit to an old friend. No worries, done it a couple times, right?
Well...
Things sometimes don't work out the way they ought to.
I knew as soon as I got there something was off. Smoldering, glowing, ashen scars on the hull, bits of it scattered every which way. I tried to find the target quick and get out of there, but... suddenly everything in the ship just *stopped* working. For a moment, I was dead in the water. That's when I realized I had just fallen into a Thargoid's trap. I'd never seen one with my own eyes before, luckily. They were... beautiful. It's like... It's like instead of thrusters, they just bend space to move everywhere. From the largest to the most trivial distance. The lights and colors of it were like I've never seen. And it... SAW me. It was cold and prickly and intensely alien, but it saw. When they get close the canopy in the middle looks for all the world like a giant eye, just staring straight into your soul... An intelligence ancient and vast that regards us in the same way as we regard ants. (Fuck me did I just accidentally quote War of the Worlds? Bloody Hell, I am drunk.) After that they just... left. Off to scan some other ship. As I watch, these engines of destruction just... let all the local traffic leave. It was the damnedest thing, I'd always heard these beings were savage and bloodthirsty, and here they are just letting everyone go without a fuss.
...So here's where it all went wrong.
I see these eldritch void monsters being agreeable and even...kind... so I decide it's reasonably safe to try and complete my mission. They scanned me with my hardpoints deployed, I figured I could try and hack the data point... While I'm setting that up, I accidentally bumped my hardpoint button, then hit it again and quickly redeployed. O no. THAT got their attention. And they did NOT like it. That was when I had the presence of mind to take this picture; when one started staring at me in anger.
Thank god Blitz is so fast.
I bolted. I straight up bolted. Full pips to engines, drop cargo and OFF. Just as I'm charging the frame-shift drive... Their peppering attacks break my shield... and one of the tiny smart bombs or whatever the hell they are slams directly through the rear center of my hull. Luckily for me, they took out the limpet collector instead of my FSD, and I was off back to my 'home' system...
I've never done EVA that close to a star before. But I had to go and find vacuum hull plates to cannibalize to patch my pressured hull... Goddamn it was hot. Not quite Roast Rory part 2, but the work was slow enough and the sun hot enough I thought it might be... Thankfully, so far I think I'm physically okay.
Psychologically, on the other hand? No. No I am not alright. When I limped back in the station, Blitz's spaceframe bent under its own weight on landing. The techs wrote it off as a totaled ship. Why? Because paying them the rebuy meant I could make Blitz's papers 100% legitimate. She's mine now, by rank and right and title. History of this spaceframe? What history? This is a brand-new spaceframe! What these marvelous mechanics actually did for me was repair and reinforce the bent section to bring it back up to spec. Cost me three meters per second, but I'm not affronted. There's no way to describe to you the amount of relief that brought me. Last time I wrecked a ship, the facsimile they sent me never flew the same. It felt dull and dead in my hands. But Blitz? Blitz is who she is. And she's going no goddamn place.
Heh... Wow I just completely dodged the psychology there, didn't I? Fuck. See this is kind of why I like getting wasted after big things happen. It numbs everything out and gives me a while to just be. ...Getting rushed by a Thargoid so badly, though — being so outmatched in such a good ship that can stand up to opponents thrice it's size feels... Vulnerable. But at the same time, the way they let everyone but me, the one who drew down on them (by accident, but how could they know that?) fly away free is making me question the whole 'existential threat's narrative we're being sold.
All the same, I have more pressing personal matters to attend. A recent call with the folks in Azura left me some promising leads. That's why I'm reaching out to my old pal Rixses. A friend of his, Dr. Beatrix Burbarry, managed to isolate the subspace burst associated with that brainwave device I was unwittingly wearing inside my left optical orbit. She's... Clearly very good at all of this underground shit. Makes me looks like a bleeding amateur. Maybe she's a research scientist, I don't know. But certainly she wasn't always. And clearly she's got Imperial roots like Rixses has. Made me tell her everything about my past, my situation, and my plans for what is clearly dangerous Imperial intelligence. So... I did. I told her everything. Even dropped my faux Federal voice and spoke as I was raised to speak. She was... Sympathetic. Empathetic. Even shared my distrust of the government. But more than that she didn't shrink away from my past. She comiserated with me. Made it clear, however subtly, that what happened to me was a miscarriage of justice and a perversion of Imperial Conduct on many different levels. She wasn't happy that I've killed as many as I have (who the hell would be?) but still had genuine concern for my safety...
...I haven't picked my fake accent back up since then. Even drunk, I can't speak that way anymore. There's no need. The institutions are sometimes broken, but these people... These are my people. This is my culture. My home. And it fits like a glove. I felt dirty every single day working for the Federalist, but here? ...It's weirdly comfortable. So comfortable that I'm thinking that reclaiming my birthrights might not be the worst decision I can make...
But that's all for later. Right now, I have to see a man about a horse. And that man is living out of an Imperial Capital Ship. To get what I need, I'll have to handle this exactly right... Otherwise, I may well find myself losing my right lung the same way I lost my left: hacking an Imperial Listening Post. There is no way that would end well. So... Walking into the lion's maw openly and honestly may be my only good way forward.
I just hope it works... If there was ever a time I needed to see the compassionate side of my home country? This is surely one.
Stay safe out there, Commanders.
Aurora Bael
"Squire", Imperial Navy Auxiliary