Chapter Text
[FILE START: TIMESTAMP XXXX. XX. XX // SECTOR: THE VOID ]
ENCRYPTION: 1024-BIT BLACK-BOX // FORBIDDEN
ACCESS: PACK-UNAUTHORIZED [USER: THAME]
SUBJECT: THE DEVIL'S BARGAIN// PARASITE BOUNDED
The bridge was quiet; the only sound was the long-range scanners. A red light flickered on Thame's private console. It was a frequency encrypted with a 1024-BIT designation. He knew who it was without even seeing the person on the other side.
Thame checked the perimeter. Nano was tucked into his bunk for a midday nap; Dylan and Jun were recalibrating the thrusters; Pepper and Po were taking care of Pepper's plants in the hydroponics corridor. Once he was sure they would disturb him, he hit the toggle.
The holographic projection of Permika shimmered into existence. She looked exactly as he remembered–sharp, cold, and possessing a gaze that felt like it could make the atmosphere collapse.
There was a time when he looked up to her. She built herself up from nothing, just as Thame had done. He had nothing going for him. He was from a poor colony, and his family was barely getting by. He had to scrape for every credit to get access to training to fly a spacecraft. He wanted to see the stars.
He wanted to fly through the universe.
He said goodbye to his parents. He said goodbye to his home world. He joined Permika's crew and became one of the youngest Flight Leaders in recorded history. He had done that on his merit alone because he was a genius in the cockpit. Permika saw that, and she honed it.
Thame had wanted her praise once upon a time.
The day she named him her Flight Leader of the Raptor Squadron, he thought back to the days he barely had food in his belly. He beamed with pride as he was cheered for. He thought he would protect the galaxy.
Now, when he looked at her, he just saw a villain in a polished flight suit.
When she was fully focused, she didn't waste time on pleasantries.
"Captain," she said, her voice like ice, "Or should I still call you my Flight Leader?"
"What do you want, Permika?" Thame's voice was low, the edge of a threat etched into every word.
Permike smirked, amused by his audacity to speak to her and call her by her name. She wasn't Commander Permika. She was just Permika. If he truly were still her Flight Leader, he would have been reprimanded, but he was merely a low-life criminal with a high-priced asset.
She sighed, "Is that how you greet your Commander?"
Thame rolled his eyes. "It's been a long time since you were my Commander, and I don't answer to you. So yes, that is how I greet you—especially with a death warrant over my head."
"Hmm," Permika hummed, shrugging her shoulders. "You kidnapped my Asset."
"P'Po isn't an Asset. He's a person."
"With eyes that see into the very galaxy," Permika replied, tilting her head. "It's so disheartening to see what you have become, Thame. You had so much potential."
Thame looked away from her, his hand closing into a fist at his side. Every second in her presence felt like a blade to his chest. The guilt he'd spent burying surged back, a suffocating ledger of every tactical strike and sector stabilization he'd executed under command, back when he still believed her vision was the galaxy's one hope.
He shook his head, glaring at her with venom in his eyes, "No. You don't get to do that. Not after the wreckage you've left behind."
Permika's brow arched in genuine surprise, "Wreckage? Thame, I have brought order to the chaos. I have helped the galaxy thrive."
"You're strangling it! You're putting a hollow-point through the heart of the very people you swear to protect!" Thame's voice broke into a shout, the sound echoing off the walls of the bridge. He hated acting like this. He hated letting her see in the cracks in his composure, but the way she lied to his face was a special kind of torture.
Or worse.
She actually believed her own lies.
The silence that followed was heavy. Permika watched him through the projection, her expression unreadable. Finally, she let out a slow, tired sigh, "There are always collateral variables in the transition of this scale, Thame. You understand that better than anyone when you wore my wings."
Collateral variables.
His throat constricted, his breath caught in his throat. To her, the lives he'd taken and the family he was now protecting were nothing more than an error in her grander equation.
Thame's hand hovered over the kill-switch, his finger trembling with the urge to plunge the bridge back into darkness. The coldness in the voice, the way she reduced innocent people into variables, was a poison he'd spent years trying to flush out of his system.
"Progress requires a cost," Permika continued, her expression calm and relaxed while Thame's own frustration continued to grow with each passing moment, "For the sake of the greater good, we all must make sacrifices–"
"Shut up," Thame rasped, the comment cutting through her measured tone, "Just shut the hell up, Permika."
She didn't so much as flinch. She tilted her head, her holographic eyes tracking the sweat on his brow with a detached, predatory interest.
"Don't give me the lecture on galactic progress or the greater good," Thame snarled, leaning into the projection until his face was inches from her flickering blue image. "I've seen the graves those variables fill. Now, stop the theatrics. Tell me exactly why you risked a high-frequency burst to reach me, or I'm cutting this line and ghosting every sensor you have left."
Permika sighed, a sound of disappointment. She folded her gloved hands in front of her; the symbol of ONER on her cuff seemed to taunt Thame with every movement.
"Very well, Captain," her voice dropped slightly, losing its performative softness, "The Asset is the only reason you're still breathing. His eyes are the key to the next phase of the conquest, as you have deemed to call it, and I want him back in the lab where he belongs. Give me Po, and the MARS-ALPHA gets a clean slate. I'll scrub your bounties, verify your 'ghost' status, and let you, Nano, Dylan, Jun, and Dr. Pepper vanish into the Rim with enough credits to buy a moon."
She leaned forward, her image blurring for a moment, "But if you refuse? I won't just come for Po. I'll dismantle each one of you, piece by piece, until there is nothing left of your family but the memory of how they died for a boy who belongs to me."
Thame's voice dropped, the edge of anger soothing into a hollow ache of disbelief. How could she be… so coldhearted?
"How can you do this to him?" He whispered, "After everything? P'Po is… he's kind, Permika. He's sweet. He wants to see the stars without them destroying him. He's the only truly good thing left in this universe."
For the first time since the transmission began, the mask on Permika's face shifted. A flicker of something ancient and weary crossed her features. It wasn't quite regret, but something close enough. She looked away from Thame, her gaze drifting to something far away, like a memory tucked away where she could no longer reach it.
"I know what he is," she said, her voice uncharacteristically soft, "I raised him. I saw his kindness. I nurtured it. I sat with him through the nights where he could no longer see for a few moments, scared to be blinded for good."
She turned back to Thame, her eyes hardening into the cold, impenetrable glass of the Commander once more, "But the galaxy is not kind, Thame. It doesn't value sweetness. It consumes it. Kindness is a luxury that only the powerful can afford to protect, and he is not powerful. He is a catalyst. If I don't control him, someone far worse than I will tear him apart to see how he works."
She leaned in, her image flickering with the intensity of her conviction, "You think you're saving him? You're just keeping him in a different cage, waiting for the wolves to find the door. Give him to me. I can give him a purpose that survives the shift."
Thame's grip on the console tightened until the metal groaned. He didn't look at the hologram. He looked at the small, grainy feed from the galley on his secondary monitor, where Po was resting his head on Jun's shoulder, safe and warm.
"You're wrong, Permika," Thame said, his voice dropping into a dangerous calm. "You talk about him like he's a piece of hardware you misplaced, but he isn't yours to give or take anymore."
He finally looked at her in the eyes, his glare sharp, "P'Po didn't get captured by the MARS-ALPHA. He chose us. He chose the grit. He chose the danger because for the first time in his life, he's not being looked at through a microscope. He isn't an Asset here. He's a person. He's our P'Po."
Permika's expression didn't change, but her image wavered as the signal began to degrade, "Choices are for those who can afford the consequences, Thame. He is a child playing in a minefield."
"Then we'll walk the minefield with him," Thame snapped, his finger over the termination sequence, "We'll always choose P'Po."
Thame's finger froze an inch above the kill-switch. The static in the transmission cleared for one final, crystal clear moment, and Permika's expression smoothed into a terrifying calm.
"One more thing then, Captain," she said, her voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "If you're so sure about your choices, let me offer you this last warning. Don't bother recalibrating the long-range scanners or scrubbing the hull. I didn't send a scout to find you. I sent a gift."
Thame's blood turned to ice. "What did you do?"
"A sub-quantum tracer," Permika answered, "It's folded into the ship's own graviton wake. There is no nebula thick enough, no void deep enough, and no jump long enough for you to hide the MARS-ALPHA from me. Every time you breathe, I hear it. Every time you burn fuel, I see the coordinates."
She leaned back, a pitying smile touching her lips, "Enjoy the next few days with your… family, Thame. Truly. Let them laugh. Let them eat their fill. Because these will be the last days any of you will ever have. When I come for the Asset, I will not be coming to negotiate."
The hologram didn't wait for him to respond. It flickered once, turned into a needle of white light, and collapsed into nothingness.
Thame stood in the silence of the bridge, the green glow of the consoles suddenly making him feel as if he were inside a tomb. He looked at the secondary monitor. In the galley, Po was laughing at something Nano said, leaning his head back.
They weren't running anymore.
They were a beacon.
Thame walked to the galley like a dead man walking. His feet felt heavy, and his heart was beating so rapidly in his chest that he thought he would explode. He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry.
But he didn't.
The laughter in the galley evaporated as soon as Thame arrived, and their eyes fell on him. His face was a mask of exhaustion, his eyes fixed on Po with a look that was part mourning, part war.
"Permika reached out," Thame said, his voice sounding as if it were being pulled through gravel, "A private channel."
Dylan slammed his coffee cup on the table, the liquid sloshing over the side, "Thame, are you fucking kidding me? My scanners are literally turned to pick up a sneeze in the vacuum, and you took a high-frequency burst without flagging me? We're a pack! Do you have any idea what this means?"
"She offered a trade," Thame ignored the outburst, his gaze sweeping over the others. Nano was sitting there with a half-eaten sandwich; Jun was leaning against the counter, his expression tight. Pepper had gone deathly still. But Po... Po didn't react. He was so still. As if he already knew. "She wants P'Po. If we give him up, the rest of us are free. Diplomatic immunity. Credits. Freedom."
"You said no, right?" Nano interjected, eyes wide and already filling with tears, "You said no, right, P'Thame?"
Po's breath hitched, his violet-ringed eyes wide as he stared at Thame.
"And if we don't?" Jun asked.
"P'Jun," Nano yelled, looking at him with disbelief for even asking, "Who cares?! We're not giving up, P'Po!"
"Then she dismantles us," Thame said, his voice a flat line, "'Piece by piece'. And we can't run, P'Dylan. She admitted to a sub-quantum tracer folded into our graviton wake. We're a lighthouse in a dark room."
Pepper let out a shaky breath. He pulled off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, "So… we're just waiting for the wolves to show up at the door?"
"No," Thame said, finally looking at the others in the room, meeting each of their gaze, "We're done running. If she can see us everywhere we go, then we're going to lead her exactly where we want her to be."
The galley went deathly quiet, the ship's life support suddenly feeling like a countdown. Po stood up slowly, his fingers trembling as they let go of the edge of the table. He looked at each of them–at Nano's tear-filled eyes, Jun's scarred knuckles, Pepper's tired eyes, Dylan's furious glare, and Thame's shattered expression.
"No," Po whispered, his voice small, "Give me to her."
"P'Po, no," Thame shook his head, but his voice lacked its usual authority.
"Thame," Po's voice shook slightly as he took a step closer to him. Thame instinctively took a step back, shaking his head. He looked more like a child being scolded than a Captain of a ship. He wasn't listening. The Captain wasn't listening because the lover wouldn't hear of it. Po never doubted for a second that Thame and the others would choose him first. That's what made this dangerous.
Po sighed, "Thame, you said so yourself. She'll dismantle you all. She'll kill all of you to get to me. If I go back… if I give up… the tracer stops being a threat. You all get your lives back. You can be free."
He looked at Nano, who was already shaking his head, a choked sob escaping his throat, "Nano, you could have a real kitchen. Jun, you'd never have to worry about being decommissioned. Pepper could open a clinic again, and Dylan could chart as many stars as he wanted."
Po turned back to Thame, his violet-ringed eyes shimmering with a mix of terror and absolute love, "I've had my strawberries, Thame. I've seen what it's like to be a part of a family. I love you all so much. I never thought I could have something like this. That's more than I ever thought I'd have. Don't let them die for me."
"P-P'Po… stop," tears were already streaming down Thame's face as he shook his head, "No."
"Thame…," Po reached out and touched Thame's face lightly, "Aren't you tired, hmm? … I'm just a variable, Thame."
Jun stepped forward, grabbing Po's other hand. He didn't look at Thame or the others. He looked straight at Po, his voice low and dangerous, "You say something else like that again, I'm locking you in the reinforced hold for your own safety. You aren't a variable. You're P'Po. You're our P'Po."
Nano moved next, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. He stepped forward and took Po's hand from Jun, "You think I did all that auditing and strawberry stealing for a variable? P'Po, you're the only person who listens to us without judgment. You see me–you see us. I'm not trading you for a kitchen or a clean slate. I'd rather eat sludge with you than steal with the Board."
Pepper leaned back, crossing his arms, "I spent my entire life thinking I was saving lives by preserving them. At one point, I was destroying lives. Then you showed up—someone who actually finds the stars exciting instead of profitable. I'll do everything in my power to keep you safe, P'Po, even if I have to flirt with every dock master in the quadrant to keep you safe. I'll consider it a professional challenge."
Dylan let out a frustrated huff, but his eyes were fixated on the console, already scrolling through lines of counter-code, "You're a logistical nightmare. You trip every alarm, you're a walking bounty, and you're the most inefficient member of the crew."
He lifted his gaze to Po's, "But you're our nightmare. And I'm the best Navigator in the galaxy. I don't lose. Especially not to her."
Thame reached out to cup Po's face, "You asked me if I'm tired? I'm not, P'Po. Not since we found you in that transport vessel all those months ago. We thought we were finishing a job, but the second you looked at me–– looked at all of us–– it felt like we finally found the piece that had been missing. You gave the MARS-ALPHA a reason to stop running and start living. We're getting out of this together."
Po stood shaking in the center of their warmth. He wasn't the Asset anymore. He was simply a boy who was loved.
"Okay," Dylan snapped, his fingers flying across his data-pad as he broke the emotional atmosphere, "If we're doing this, we do it right. Permika thinks a tracer is a leash, huh? But a sub-quantum tracer signal relies on a ship's own graviton wake to stay folded. If we can generate momentary singularity–essentially burping the engines in a high-G turn around a gas planet–we can create a feedback loop. It won't break the tracer, but it'll blind it. It'll make her think we've imploded."
The galley was a whirlwind of tactical noise. Dylan was shouting technical jargon about graviton envelopes at Nano, who was already mentally auditing their space battery cells to see if they could survive a power surge. Jun was cracking his knuckles, his mind already calculating how many manual braces he'd need to install to keep the hull from buckling. Even Pepper was on his coms, scouting the nearest gas planet for the perfect atmospheric thicket to hide their heat signatures.
In the center of the storm was Po.
He watched them with a wide-eyed, trembling wonder. To anyone else, they were arguing about physics and fuel; to him, they were building a fortress out of sheer defiance. Every sharp word from Dylan and every frantic tally from Nano was a brick in the wall they were placing between him and ONER.
The fear was still there. It was a cold knot in his stomach that whispered he was the reason they were all going to die. He felt like a lightning rod in a thunderstorm, terrified that his very existence would eventually call down a bolt that struck them all.
But then Thame reached out, his hand resting warm on Po's shoulder. Thame didn't even look away from the star-chart he was discussing with Dylan as his thumb traced a slow, reassuring circle against Po's collarbone.
It was a silent vow.
We chose this. We choose you.
Po felt like someone loved. The weight of their loyalty was heavier than any corporate contract, and as the MARS-ALPHA groaned, pivoting toward the nearest planet, Po realized he had stopped looking for the exit.
[FILE UPDATE: KINETIC SHIFT // THE PACK IS ONE ]
[NOTE: THE CAPTAIN WILL ALWAYS CHOOSE HIS CREW ]
[SIGNAL STATUS: STEADY // DETERMINED ]