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STATUS// UNKNOWN

Lareina's depature from the med bay wasn't ideal, but given all the work that needed to be done, she determined that time to rest would have to come later. Her shoulder ached deep inside and breathing was a little hard, but nothing immediately life threatening. She sat down to help out with the lighter tasks, some soldering, fitting wires together.. anything to help make the ship.. well, survivable.

Slender fingers froze at the invasive voice, talking through her own mind. A choice? What sort of a choice was that? To die or live the life of a slave with guilt on her conscious.. well, it did mean still being alive, a state of existence that Lareina quite enjoyed. As a mercenary, however, she was also partial to the idea of creating her own additional options.

First step is first, focus on getting the engines and shields up and running. She was assisting with the shields when it happened - their ship fired first, getting a solid hit on their enemy. She could feel a moment of panic, knowing they weren't ready for it. The alien ship returned fire, hitting the shields which then.. shattered. Everything was down, and she could hear the tell-tale hissing and creaking metal. Then she realized life support was down.

Lareina ran for the escape pod, knowing there would be competition, but still banking on it as she wasn't one to give up. She reached the cooridoor - it's still there! But then he was there, and suddenly the escape pod was launching without her. She stared only for a moment in disbelief, instincts kicking in.

So her fate was to sit and die? No thank you!

She grabbed a space suit, the air tank built into the backside, and slipped it on with speed she never knew she had. Okay, well, for now she didn't need oxygen anyways. Lareina made her way back up, dismayed to see the majority of the crew lying still on the ground, leaving only some of the species and robots that required no air. There weren't enough suits, were there.. She grimaced.

Mourn later, survive now. The remaining crew hastily 'borrowed' some space suits - they might not need oxygen, but pressurization and temperature might still be concerns. The small unit worked quickly, efficiently, hastily pulling parts together and hoping the alien ship saw no further need to address the ship, given it's inoperable and primarily destroyed nature. They were fortunate to have some operable robots - together they utilized the casing of an elevator and one of the rocket engines, hastily pulled out and wired together. Robots clung to the outside while the few survivors crammed inside for a last desperate attempt at life.

The launch went surprisingly well, all things considered. Safely leaving the area was as large a relief as might be expected, but when the engine blew out and the casing split in half, they all agreed it was a decent time to panic at least a little. The two halves floated apart, and Lareina found herself left with just one of the robots. Right. Still not the time to give up. The prior escape pod had gone off in.. that direction, over there. So she punctured her one spare air tank, the propulsion enough to get her going in the right direction. If she got lucky, the earlier escape pod will have sent out an SOS for a third party to step in. If she got lucky, maybe they'd find her along the way. Ideally before her oxygen ran out.

As luck would have it, a third party rescue ship did indeed come through. Although they didn't technically see her, the robot that accompanied her had long enough arms to grip the side of the passing ship and hoist them to the ship's surface, where upon she prompted clambered over and knocked on the captain's window. She was fairly certain one of them too a picture of her spread-eagle form on the window before they determined to let her in.

Lareina survived.

Name// Lareina
Species// Human
Would you like to enter the raffle for the Quill of Reflection?// Yes

STATUS// UNKNOWN


There was a tapping sound over the communications system followed shortly by a soft clearing of the throat to get everyone's attention.


”This is your Captain speaking. Regardless of how this turns out, I’d like to thank all of you for having enough faith in me to place your lives in my hands. Despite the brevity of time we've spent together on board this ship, I want all of you to know that it has been a great pleasure serving with you on the SS Arcadia II.”


There was a deafening silence as if to let all of that sink in while the Captain took a deep breath and moved on to more sombre matters.


“All hands on board grab onto something and brace yourselves. We’re taking the shot in 3, 2, 1…”


Kyle didn't need to be told twice, immediately jumping into action like a cat on a hot roof to snatch a nonplussed Semaj up and dash out of the shield generator room because it made absolute sense to not hang around anywhere that could potentially go boom if the systems overheated or overloaded and did the pretty sparkly thing with the wires that got Ern hurt earlier on.


”While I do recognise the advantage that getting a surprise attack in on the enemy when they least expect it will give us, a little more warning will have been much more appreciated Captain.”


Kyle laughed despite the gravity of the situation that was at hand. Well that was the Semaj he knew since Day 1. It was aggravating at times but made the little alien all the more endearing to him all in all. He didn't know how they were going to get through this mess short of a miracle happening, but he was going to cross his fingers and hope to all the powers that be out there given that they've already done all that they could to get themselves this far now.


It all happened in an instant. The attack that landed right on target, the shields shattering from the sheer overwhelming force of the counterattack that was directed back at them, the automated warning that was repeated over and over by the ship’s system of the failure of the life support system along with the advice that all hands on board should get themselves to the nearest evacuation pod and abandon ship.


”Well, we tried. Looks like we screwed up real bad regardless.”


Kyle shrugged, trying to remain nonchalant as he glanced sideways at Semaj. There was no point making his way to the evacuation pod. The SS Arcadia II was going down and even if he survived the evacuation, there was a very high chance that the enemy would shoot his evacuation pod down regardless or, worse, retrieve it and put him through even worse things. Death wasn't quite that scary considering what else was out there so no, he was staying put where he was and…


”... … what's that smell? Did you just fart in my face Semaj? I think I'm going to throw up…”


And just like that, Kyle was down and out. Still alive but unconscious even before Semaj could get a word in about his unproven accusation.


”That wasn't me! You should know that I have much better manners than to attempt something like that. Hey!”


He tried to press his paw to Kyle’s face, knead it so that he would wake right up to tell him to stop what he was doing. Only to find that he was paralysed. What the…? Was this related to the offensive smell that Kyle was complaining about? He felt a chill run down his spine the moment he saw them.


“Excellent. Call off the attack. Tell them that we've secured the stolen ship thanks to our infiltrators working from within. Round up those that are still alive and ship them back. Make sure that you sell them to the highest bidder.”


Turning to look at Kyle, Semaj tried to press himself closer to his human companion. Hang in there you idiot. Do you even have any idea at all as to the kind of s**t that we are all now in. Fffff… We'll get through whatever they throw at us and make our escape when we get our chance eventually.


I'll make sure of it so don't you go dying on me now…




Name// Kyle
Species// Human with an alien companion Semaj
Would you like to enter the raffle for the Quill of Reflection?// YES

STATUS// UNKNOWN

Jana jumped as a noise suddenly invaded the room - the entire ship in fact. Was that...? She quickly found a monitor and gritted her teeth. Some idiot had fired on the enemy ship. The engines weren't fixed yet, who even knew what the status of the shields was. Dammit! Why couldn't any of these people coordinate better than this? Turning away in disgust, she tried to move even faster with some kind of repairs. So far, it didn't seem like the enemy had hit them back. Maybe they got lucky and whoever shot the other ship disabled it ...?

Flash of light. So bright it hurt to open her eyes. Flash of heat. Motion, then a hard thump. Jana opened her watering eyes and saw that she'd been propelled out of the now flaming engine room by an explosion. All up and down the corridors of the ship were similar explosions, rooms on fire, people running everywhere... chaos. Through ringing ears, she heard screams and shouts. The shields were down. The engines were down ... well obviously. No weapons either.

Groaning, she sat up with a hand on the back of her head where it had apparently hit the wall. "STOP PANICKING!" she shouted. "They don't want to kill us, they want us as slaves. So if you don't want that to happen, get ready to fight!" Mind going into overdrive, she looked around for anything useful --- just as the life support gave out.

Spitting out a curse, Jana ducked back into the flaming wreckage of the engine room and spotted something she thought she remembered seeing - an oxygen mask. Shoving it onto her face, she grabbed the others hanging there and flung them into the hallway for anyone to pick up that happened to be actually paying attention. Heading back out into the corridor, she got ready to yell at anyone who wasn't picking up a mask. But the sight that greeted her was that of bodies lying everywhere, or slumped against the walls. What the ...?

her weapon commented softly.

"I think ...." Jana started to reply, but a wave of dizziness swept over her. Whatever had knocked everyone else out... the mask wasn't keeping it out anymore. Falling slowly to her knees, Jana struggled to stay alert, just barely managing to do so long enough to see shadowy forms coming down the corridors in masks of their own. Her vision went dark just as one of them touched her.

--------------------------------

When she woke again, she was floating in blue. Confused, she tried to move, but only manage the barest of motions - too weak to do very much at all. Slowly, she tried to look around, and realized that she was in a pod of some kind. There were other pods all around her... hundreds of them. Many, many more than should be needed for the others on the ship.

Suddenly, movement. A person was walking down the rows of pods, holding a tablet and doing something with it ... making notes, checking off a list ... it was hard to tell. They paused in front of each pod for a moment, then moved on. When they got to Jana's, they glanced at a monitor in front of it, then up at her, down to the tablet ... then slowly back up. "Oh darling," they said. "You shouldn't be awake yet." They reached out to the monitor and everything went black again.

--------------------------------

"I hope that this will be a good fit for you," she heard, indistinctly.

"Me too! I'm so excited, I finally saved up enough to get one!" Another voice, sudden motion. Confused, she tried to talk. but had no voice of her own, not really.

"Whoa I can hear it! Hi!"



"Wow, I thought they were supposed to be smarter than this. You're my new weapon! I finally saved up enough to buy a sentient weapon and you're this clueless? I hope you get better."

Jana fell silent, the impact of his words sinking in. The enemy had said something about slavery... and ... she had never truly questioned how the sentient weapons came to be. s**t. This was not ... what she had thought of at all, back then. She started to say something to the person holding her, but was unable to. In fact, she wasn't really sure why she was upset at all. She had no memories of before this moment. She had been created to serve ... and that was all there was.


Name// Tedan // Female golem, so he is going by the name Jana Gallows
Species// Human, with a sentient flamethrower gun (Arda)
Would you like to enter the raffle for the Quill of Reflection?// YES (752 words)

saving a post to edit!! heart because i want this au book omg

STATUS// UNKNOWN 

Lingering in the engine room wasn’t helping and she’d gone to the galley while the attack started, grabbing with both of her hands around a jar, trying to open it. Of the increasing things she was not good at doing, opening jars might have been at the top of the list. Or everything else that involved having thumbs. Odd that evolution hadn’t garnered that for her…

CRASH! BANG! WAZOO!

Something bright made her look away from the small port window nearby and the ship shook like an earthquake was moving through it. “Woooah…” In the process she dropped the jam and it shattered, slowly sliding along the ground as the ship veered and started to tip. 1YAR-1’s derpy grin was eerily close to being disrupted, and that was dangerous. Though she didn’t have time to have that happen as there was a loud “sighing” noise from above and she stared at the vent above her.

“Better see~” She said in a sing-song voice, wiggling along towards the hallway, watching as other crewmates were running around like the chickens with their heads cut off. Chicken? That’s what it was! Chicken nuggets. Drooling, she wandered along to the smell, ignoring the people passing out nearby and she sniffed the air. Chicken nuggets weren’t an insult to her not having thumbs, and better than thumbs. It’d also been so long that they’d been on a planet with a certain famous burger place: space edition.

Smelling it made her feel heavy even though her stomach was full. Each step made her want to fall over, but it felt so warm…

The smell came back quickly and she woke up in a small room. When her vision had gone, she fell down somewhere on the ship. This didn’t look like a ship though, and didn’t feel like it either. Something about her felt different… Her arms moved and the color was alarming; a deep purple. 1YAR-1 looked up as someone walked in.

“About time you woke up. We paid a bit for you.”

“Pay?” She repeated, looking at the shadowy figure.

“Yes, you’re perfect…” There was a dark shadow on the person, but when they stepped forward a clown with red hair and a red nose dressed in yellow, white and red appeared. “Our new Hamburgler!”

1YAR-1 looked back at herself and she’d been shoved into a mascot suit and she wiggled, standing and turning around. There were so many questions. Where had the crew gone? Were they all sold? Were they killed? The smell still filled her nostrils and she asked her only question.

“Do I get chicken nuggets?”

“All you can eat.”

1YAR-1 had never been so happy in her entire life.

[McEND]

Name// Iyari (1YAR-1)
Species// Pict (looks like this)
Would you like to enter the raffle for the Quill of Reflection?// YES

STATUS// UNKNOWN

"Quantum neutrino generator," October mumbled to himself, pressing a series of buttons that hopefully made the correct combination. His fingers slid across the console, a slight frown of concentration on his face; for the first time all day, it seemed that the usual lethargy and mopish nature of October Flynn had finally given way to actual intelligence and determination. It wasn't so much that October wasn't smart; it was just that he usually preferred to expend his efforts elsewhere.

Like not at all.

He could still hear the voice of the alien rattling in his head, but October had already hastily moved sideways to reconnect two wires that gave loud sparking noises as he thrust them together. It did the trick, however; the console lit up, buttons flaring, and October slammed his hand atop several of the buttons.

The ship was shaking; it was rattling in his bones, making him feel unsteady where he stood, darkness creeping into his thoughts, twisting the black. Beside him, Tuesday let out a trilling, mechanic meow that rang out amidst the chaos, but October didn't have much more time to waste. He bent without looking, scooped her up, and let her climb up to sit on his shoulder while he worked, brow furrowed, hoping that the intruding presence was too busy doing other things to notice what was happening in the weapons system room.

Fire.

October heard, rather than felt, the zipping, high pitched sound of the lasers firing, and then the ripple effect of something being fired at them. The alien's ship was returning fire, October gripping the edge of the weapons console in an effort not to topple over, Tuesday meowing plaintively in his ear and making him wince a little.

"Hush, hush," he mumbled, staggering as something else hit the shields -

- and then they were gone.

There was an audible, soft sound, like a gust of wind or a quiet breath. October felt his eyelids flutter, his fingers curling around the edge of the console, swaying back and forth drunkenly. The sleepiness and tiredness that was slowly starting to claw its way through him was not like his usual lethargy; this was heavy and draining, and he was wobbling, trying desperately to stay upright, for once not wanting to lie down.

Except I do. I just want to sleep.

There were flashing lights; the muted sound of sirens, the alerts going in and out of October's ears like nothing at all. His eyes felt like they were being dragged closed, and finally he slumped, the energy sifting steadily out of him until October was half draped over the console, sliding uselessly onto the floor.

At some point in time, he thought he heard footsteps, or maybe that was just his imagination.

At another point, he thought he might have seen someone else - figures, coming into the room, but maybe he was hallucinating.

He was sleeping - he liked sleep - was he going to wake up..?

When he awoke, days later, Tuesday curled by his side, they told him that the ally ship had arrived "just in the nick of time." October listened for approximately thirty-two and a half seconds before rolling over and going back to sleep, for what he hoped would not be a permanent slumber (and it wasn't).

Name// October Flynn
Species// Human with cat robot AI named Tuesday
Would you like to enter the raffle for the Quill of Reflection?// YES

STATUS// ALIVE

Things moved so very quickly around the ship. Of course, that made sense, since all of their lives were in grave danger. It was strange, though. It felt like one moment he was in the cargo hold, the next he was making his way to towards the shield generators, then there was more of that awful telepathy invading his mind again. It was all happening so very quickly, yet so slowly. Like a movie reel or something in stop action. In that time, Bart did not feel particularly helpful. He tried to run around with the computer he had found, but nothing worked. He concluded that he was not of much help, but he tried very hard. Each time he tried the little computer on something, he got very frustrated as he was never successful in making any difference. Still, he tried and tried. Then, he heard shouting and felt the turbulence of action. He wasn't certain of what was going on, but it didn't exactly sound good. Although, from the shouts, he could tell they had the hyper drive almost ready, and the shields were up. He then decided to dedicate his time to working on the hyper drive. At this point, he saw fleeing as their best option. They did not know what they were up against and, thus fighting would be very difficult.

Then, as he made his way to the bridge to see what was happening and how he could assist, Bart felt himself thrown against the wall as they broke into hyper drive. After breaking out of hyper drive, Bart nearly threw up. However, the menace was gone. The entire crew let out a cry of celebration and drank the night away. Bart was not a big drinker, but he was happy to oblige this time. They did all almost die after all. Their lives were definitely worth celebrating.

Of course, Bart began to ponder what would come next. There were so many different options and galaxies to explore. There also, was the option to stay with the captain. After a while of debate, he decided to stay with the ship. Although it nearly got him killed, he figured he now had history with the captain and one day wished to possibly become the ship’s captain himself. Until then, he would work hard, make connections, and make the ship better, so that he could hold a fearsome fleet and one day conquer planets.

Name// Bart.
Species// Human
Would you like to enter the raffle for the Quill of Pride?// No, thank you though!