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Nepeta stretched lazily in the captain's armchair before snuggling back into its ploofy embrace. She liked the late star watch. Firstly, most planets in this far flung system had similar day hours, thanks to the general size of the sun stars and orbital distance the colonized planets occupied. This meant that there was generally a time when by necessity of sleep schedules the planetary patrol ships weren't terribly active. Even the poor junior grade planet troopers who only got "night" shifts tended to fall asleep at the helm, as it were, around late star watch. It meant that for a while the sleek dark gray form of the Purr-suit could float through the black without having to be stopped by the Law.
Secondly, no one else on board liked the late star watch, and while Nepeta was a person who liked people, she also valued, after sweeps and sweeps with the smuggling ship's crew, her purrivate time. Said private time was usually spent watching movies of a romantically inclined, but action oriented persuasion. The whole crew loved said movies, which was why most of their entertainment database was stocked with the genre, but Rufioh had a tendency to rib Nepeta about her taste in neo-Bollywood films, and her completely non-existent 'nope it's never been there, its existence is a fake rumor of the coarsest grain in the rumor mill' crush on a certain star of a nubby horned purrsuasion. She used to rebut the accusations quickly with the fact that it was hard to find trolls playing the heartthrob in anything, she was just doing as the writers wanted to, and playing along to heartfelt perfurmances.
Rufioh pointed out that he was also a troll, and he didn't sigh dreamily along with the lead actress in every single scene. And he certainly hadn't tried to practice certain pieces of choreography in the engine room.
Nepeta in response had pointed out he did sigh along to every single one of his magical girl animus, so it all came out to the same thing, and what about his not-so secret cosplay obsession she was helping him with?
After that, Roxy spent seven shifts trying to get them to speak to one another. And to her, as the engine room dance numbers had been her idea in the first place, and the Magical Troll!Remoka cosplay had been undertaken at her urging.
Most days the crew ambled about, planning stops, sales, and transfer points without a hitch. However, they all realized living so closely together did mean that they knew a little too much about each other's points of pride and points of embarrassment. Purrivate time was important.
The proximity alarm blared, causing Nepeta's shorter hairs to rise straight into the air, a startled roll from the captain's armchair, and her viewing screen to skid across the bridge. The Purr-suit rattled and shook—another ship must be passing right overhead, or had doxed out of paraspace right overhead. Their starport, open to the heavens for traditional navigational purposes, despite Roxy's neat little nav program that had left Rufioh a little miffed given that it seemed to question his ability to pilot, was blotted out by the hard spiked maroon of an imperial battlecarrier.
On the floor of the bridge the frozen image of swoon worthy caring red eyes blanked out to be replaced by something a lot less gray and more human looking, even from the angle Nepeta was at as she got to her feet. The voice which echoed from the small speaker on the viewing screen was even familiarly human.
"Yo, unident—oh. It's you. Hey, Nep? Your Ex-Impurryal Captain-ness? Your view screen is facing the ceiling. I swear, if you fell asleep watching neo-Bollywoods again—wow. You know this might be the first time in eight space years that I've had to wait for someone to pick up."
It crossed Nepeta's mind, remembering a particularly unpleasant wait after returning from a deep space assignment to find out how he had done on the officer's exam which she had sponsored him for, that the new experience would do Dirk some good. Also it gave Nepeta time to find her pawsome Freebooter Captain's Coat. But the sound of nervous tapping changed her mind. Dirk was one of the most controlled people she knew. He made Kanaya look impulsive and spontaneous. And he was tapping gloved fingers in a staccato rhythm all over the control port on his end of the view screen.
Nepeta sauntered over and picked up the tablet sized view screen. "Hey, sorry, the prox alarm startled me. What can I do for you, oh Official Imperial Second Lieutenant Admiral, sir?"
"Just Captain Strider will do. Captain Strider of the Battlecarrier TimeausTestified if you've got to get your formal on. They've been so impressed with my mad hair styling powers some lost person up top decided to give me my own ship," Dirk rolled slightly back in his chair to give her a clearer view of the battlecarrier's bridge, manned by a few sleepy-eyed looking species of a bi-pedal nature and a few more celaphopod-y types, whose eyes Nepeta didn't know how to read. "I'm taking the gift horse and running without looking back, if you know what I mean."
He sounded hollow. Nepeta wondered if he was still dreaming that he could undermine the Empire of Skaia from within, or if he had given up. From the flatness of his voice, she wanted to give him a rousing speech and some amazing pelts for hive decoration, and wrapping up in on cold nights.
"Well, great for you!" was all she managed to say, however. "So, what's so im-purr-tant that you have to dox out of para space right over a nervous kitty's ears, hmm?"
"You familiar with OF3L-7?"
Familiar, yes. They had stopped going there after a girl in the space port had tried to jam a silver thorn through Rufioh's vertebrate husk. It was little more than the space port. There were several big bio domes and the port was teaming, but OF3L-7 was an inhabited meteor, and nothing more, so Nepeta had felt fine in burning her contacts there. It had been nice opurrating somewhere Imperial Law did not run, but crew safety was her furst priority.
"What's up in meteor town?" Roxy called out over Nepeta's shoulder, and Nepeta watched Dirk's eyes shoot up over the rims of his non-military issue shades.
He said, a little too loudly. "What's that? Static. I have better switch you over to the channel in the captain's quarters. Hal can usually fix anything." And the screen went blank.
Thirty seconds later two red circular glows were staring up at Nepeta. She passed the view screen over to Roxy in disgust, and went to get her captain's coat. She didn't get along with that "automatic security program and responder" a.k.a Call-Me-Hal-Because-We-All-Particularly-the-Self-Loathing-Creator-Know-Where-My-Creation-Is-Leading Dirk had built and she doubted that the artificial purrsonality had gotten better with age. There was just something about it that made her itch to get out the metaphysical masking tape and glue, and get it all reassembled, though how you could reassemble something that wasn't broken was beyond her. Meulin always told Nepeta that she knew exactly what the girl meant about the auto-bot.
She returned as Dirk managed to get Hal to make the channel three way, instead of two way to Hal.
"Roxy. When I said you needed to get seven galaxies between yourself and the current ruler of the DerseSector, how exactly did that translate into getting yourself on a Derse-ite smuggler's ship, running through the void badlands? I seem to remember, pretty vividly, hatching a plan that got you so far from Jane's borg'd up horizons that you couldn't be seen from Skaianet's all knowing gaze."
"Ah, you know me, just turning up like a bad penny," Roxy laughed the accusation off, before leaning back in the stolen captain's chair, trying her best to look indolent and in control. "Also, for reals, exactly what made you think I'd wink out on a friend, much less two? I know you didn't have any mumbo-jumbo plan in the works, so stop fussing that there's a rogue element," she winked outrageously, and Nepeta gave her a fist bump, "in your plans. What's up?"
The was a noise of gritted teeth, which Hal helpfully informed everyone he was amplifying, for Dirk's own good, so he could see what an asshole he was being, and then Dirk just sighed.
"Five hours ago a psionic went nova on OF3L-7. Practically everything's obliterated. It's highest level telekinesis and we're trying to get all of the populace to the nearest colony before the psionic goes Dark Pheonix. I'm telling all ships to hightail it, and I'm warning you, as well, but," there was more gritting of teeth, and Hal chimed in with a goading "You might as well tell them. They'll never forgive you otherwise. Of course, you tend to like it when every one justifies your shitty opinion of yourself so maybe I should shut up and just let everything cascade down on you."
"But," Dirk continued with a frustrated determination, glaring at something off to his side. "There was an extraction team sent in to shut down the psionic. Some up high hat either wanted to get them all killed or has way more faith than you could imagine because the team was sent in with the Battlecarrier TenaciousCruelties."
Ice filled Nepeta's veins, while Roxy just looked confused. Knowing that she was going to have to explain a lot of Imperial Space Fleet scuttlebutt later, Nepeta snatched the view screen. "Which psionic went nova?"
"The only one the captain of the TenaciousCruelties would show up for, and make sure was either saved or everyone got extremely maimed or dead while trying," Dirk confirmed in that delightfully circular way of his. "You've guessed who's on the extraction team."
"Let me think, my co-lusus sister? Best protective doctor type in the Empire?"
"Yeah. And her current soulmate-best friendy thing you guys care so much about—"
"Morail, Strider. Remember the term, there will be a test later."
That only got a strained grin, but Strider continued. "And Pyrope. With that space dragon parent of hers that blows stuff up by looking at it. It's kind of a royal mess. I've got a ship full of civilians—every cargo carrying ship in the sector's got some on board, I think. The Calligula's Aquarium is supposed to be bringing out the last batch, but, look, there's a psionic sort of hanging in the wreck of the spaceport oxygen bubble, and maybe pulsing up toward fiery star inferno power and you're telling me Eridan Ampora's not going to try to take the lives-of-the-many-outweigh-the-needs-of-that-one-loser route? When I left, the TenaciousCruelties was flying in hot, all weapons at the ready. You can see where it stands. Two battlecarriers duking it out over a ruined asteroid, with half of the population of that asteroid inside one of them, and neither of the dudes in command are the most considerate assholes on the best of days."
"Haha, wow," Rufioh has his head poked around the door. "And here I thought I'd done all the escaping of naval politics I ever needed. You sure you want all of us to know this?"
Nepeta rolled her eyes. "Rufioh, of course he does. He's Strider."
"And he sounds half exhausted and in a bind," Rufioh Ambled close enough to the viewscreen to wave at Dirk over Nepeta's shoulder. "Sorry, dude, you look a wreck. Not that I'm blaming you. I wouldn't know how to get Kurloz and Eridan to get along, and I'm not responsible for half a civilian population. Um. Shit. Look, try to get some sleep, like for real sleep, before you get your plan pants on, alright dude?"
Dirk laughed mirthlessly. "We are so far past that point it can't even be seen on long range sensors."
"You were past that point as soon as you identified the Purr-suit, weren't you?" Nepeta shook her head affectionately. Dirk at least had the grace to look ashamed.
Actually, he looked more than ashamed. He looked downright despondent. She remembered that look. She had worn it once, and he had curled up with her in the mess of her officer's quarters, and told her it was alright, really. She had been betrayed and it was alright to admit to that. It was alright to think about betraying in return. She didn't have to go troll murdertown. There were other options, because she was smart and brave and had nerves of steel that wouldn't let her down. After an hour she had been able to smile and tell him the definition of moirail, and inform him at some point in the future there might be a test.
Roxy's head went back and forth from the nervous eyebrows of the pilot to the upset frown of the captain. "What's going on, you all?"
"We've got an extraction team to help, or extract," Nepeta said, before fixing her yellow eyes on Dirk very hard. "And if we die, it wasn't because of you, okay? If you hadn't warned us we would be flying unheeding into dangefur, so don't be a big goober about that. I've still got at least seven lives left."
"I think I've only got the one," Rufioh began before seeing Roxy's frantic "ixnay" motion. "But hey, what's life without a little adventure, you know?"
"And we've got totes the best plan in the galaxy," Roxy said, raising a thumbs up in Dirk's direction. "Don't you worry."
The best laid plans rarely survived initial confrontation, which was why Nepeta thought it was good that they didn't have one.
The blue-red flickering flare of Mituna's psychic fire lit the asteroid like a spike, even in the vast looming shadow of the TenaciousCruelties which was an older vessel, built for a time when size mattered because the kinds of weapons it held were not simple things, and a battlecarrier was a flying Nebuchadnezzar of destruction. It simply couldn't dock, even if a docking ring had been available at the space port. Eridan's vessel of bright yellow and white with shocking flashes of what Nepeta knew was seadweller violet for trim, floated like a shark on the other side of the meteor, smaller and sleeker than the grim pure purple companion ship. All of the Purr-suit's sensors snarled in alarm because both space faring weapons were charged up to the point where they were bright suns on the monitors, and who knew what a tactical officer might see as a threat.
As Rufioh parked the Purr-suit's shuttle on the surface, he looked up at the two leviathans and gently collapsed around the steering column. "Things are going to be really unpleasant," he called out to Nepeta, who was adjusting her oxygen field. "Not matter how this goes down. Jeepers. I hope everyone gets out of this all right."
"We don't have much time, y'all," Roxy said from the outer hatch. "Asteroid wide announcement that if any civilians are not aboard the Aquarium's shuttles in six hours, they get left to chance. I'd guess that if Mituna so much as twitches after the three hour mark has gone by, your pal would use that as an excuse to open fire."
"He might have grown up since he was six sweeps old," Nepeta suggested with a hopeless shrug.
"That is indeed a thing that could have happened!" Rufio chimed in, turning on his oxygen field and hurrying out of the shuttle.
"Dirk didn't think so," Roxy reminded them.
Nepeta told herself that battlecarrier captains rarely liked each other, and so Dirk was probably not a reliable judge of character in this case. It had to do, she suspected, with the kind of person that generally got promoted to that rank. It took a certain skillset to be considered capable of turning from peace time to war time without batting an eyelash, and being responsible enough to conserve the awesome firepower for when it was needed for a big military type plan, which they would have to put into motion, generally on their own.
She stepped into space dust, checked the heat readings, and grimaced, because whatever Mituna was doing there as he dangled listlessly, it showed up as physically hot as the battlecarriers did on tactical scans. They had to hope that the extraction team was in the spaceport, because they'd never see them on scanners.
Inside the shell of the port, the oxygen dome crackled ominously, and the wind howled. It was a wasteland filled with the skeletons of buildings rather than animals, and Nepeta wished it was the other way around. Animal skeletons meant that at some point there might have been something to eat. Lights flickered in some places, while in others the power was totally out. Most of the light that they did get was starlight with a harsh rim of the nearest star peaking over the TenaciousCruelties' shadow.
Roxy drifted towards her as they walked through the spaceport. "Hey. So, I know we don't have much of a plan, because there's fleet politics and psionic issues, and general troll stuff that you can't really cover in a five minute briefing. But, if everything could work out peachy keen, how'd you like it to work?"
"We'd get Mituna conscious, and I suppose back to his handler, and everyone else home safe," Nepeta said. "That's the beginning and end of it."
"Then that's what I'll do," Roxy promised. "Can't let my Captain down."
"I wish I was more plan-y about the whole thing," Nepeta admitted. "Feferi was better at this."
"More troll stuff?" Roxy guessed, putting a hand on Nepeta's shoulder.
"And fleet politics," Nepeta nodded toward the flashing spike. "It all comes around again, doesn't it?"
Roxy nodded. "Indeed it does. Well, without either, we wouldn't have met, and now the three of us are the best team."
A chair slammed into the wall in front of Roxy's nose, and they jumped back, looking around wildly, but the whole port was deserted in their section. Then something managed to blot out even the light from the near star, which sent Nepeta and Roxy scrambling for the nearest enclosed spaces and Rufioh winging upward with a whoop of triumph.
"Pryal! Lady Brighteyes! No, no, shoosh, don't look at me. Am I glad to see you. Is Latula about?"
"Down here! What are you doing Hotwings? I didn't think you were allowed back on this meteor as long as Damz was lurking about."
"Hey, you know us," Rufioh coasted down to a shadowed doorway, where Latula was waving, a strained grin on her face. "Just catching a view, trying to make sure you all get off this rock in one piece. Uh—Damara isn't, uh, around, is she?"
Nepeta felt a little sheepish as she slinked from hiding, but Latula looked even more so. "I don't know, and that's the truth. I'd swear that casual ass human captain got everyone out of the port, if it was the last thing he did, but this is Damn-Girl-How'd-You-Get-There? we're talking about. And she's got that mean streak of hers when other psionics are about, plus she's got telekinesis, too. If Mituna does go all Jean Grey on us, she probably could survive that."
Nepeta wondered if she had the only crew in the universe that could all nod sagely when making human comic book references. "Is he going to?"
She wished she hadn't said that, because as soon as the words were out of her mouth Latula looked as though she was staring into an abyss. "Well, Horuss' special long distance psiblockers are containing him, but they should have shut him down neatly and Meulin keeps telling me to cheer up, which I'm guessing means that they're failing," she sighed and shook herself. "Anyway, Dragonmom's looking out for Damara, just so we can keep one massive angry wrench out of the works. She'll be able to warn me—and you, come to think of it. C'mon, I'll get you to the other—"
Two former storefronts away something exploded in a shower of rubble and a bright spark rocketed upward for a minute, before something else zoomed after them, their jetpack leaving a trail of searing white on the back of the eyeball.
Latula didn't have to say anything, the small group was off and running. When they got to the scene of the explosion, Meulin Leijon was picking plaster out of her thick hair, and looking thoroughly disgusted with herself, though she brightened up as soon as she saw the small group.
"Pet-pet! Oh no, guys, you shouldn't be here! I'm so glad to see you, but it's really furry dangerous! Gah. I got plaster on my tongue."
Nepeta launched herself at Meulin, not caring about the plaster, or the small gasp as Meulin braced against the impact. It felt like hugging a mountain. Meulin always had felt like that, even after the post academy growth spurt.
"We're getting everyone out of here alive," Nepeta purromised fiercely. "We're on a mission to do that!"
Meulin laughed and swung Nepeta around for a moment amid dust and whistling debris. "You might regret that hission. We did find Damara skulking around."
"Even Damara. I know you sort of like her, at least And as long as she doesn't actively try to kill us, we can all get along."
Latula coughed. "Not for nothing, girlz, but I'm not terribly interested in placating angry witches for the spirit of friendship, ya know? Now is Horuss stuck in the rubble, or did he go after her? Because if she gets near Mituna, Dragonmom is going to have breakfast, you get my message?"
Muelin shot Latula a dark look over Nepeta's shoulder. "We understand purrfectly. Even if we disagree! Ah, I think Horuss has her!"
The large form of the final member of the extraction team, kitted out with enough gadgets to make even Nepeta wish she had some, and Roxy's eyes light with obvious envy, was descending to their position with a tall angular troll who was looking downright murderous. She was, Nepeta noticed with some relief, without any long pointy objects, and no one was holding her so she was probably coming back of her own free will. That generally made it much easier to deal with this particular rogue psionic.
Latula stepped forward. "What are you doing here, Damz?"
"I live in a house. Just down the block," the troll crossed her arms and jerked her head. "What are you doing here? Going to watch your former squeeze's moments before his brains boil out of his eyeballs?"
Latula smiled very sweetly. Nepeta suspected she had been spending some time practicing that smile. "Damara, I'm the only person here you haven't tried to kill at one point or another," she ignored Roxy's raised hand. "And we both know why. Now, you get off this meteor before I have to change the fact I mentioned above. There's still plenty of time to get to the shuttle, girl. Even if I have to escort you there."
In the light of Damara's truly nasty smile with her terrifying squared off human fangs all on display, Nepeta had an epiphany. "Wait! She's a psionic. She could, if she wanted to, shut Mituna off without hurting him."
"He's already done a lot of damage to hisself, though," Meuling put in unhappily. "He could damage Damara if he's too fur gone. Also, there's no reason she'd want to—"
"Roxy can doctor up a new identity for ANYONE. She can make the fact that there's no records or information for a person look like all the records and infurmation," Nepeta felt her brain moving at light speed.
Behind her, in perfect timing, Roxy flashed a thumbs up. "I've done so well with some of my slick file changes not even the Crocker Corp types question it. You'd be easy to fix up."
Nepeta nodded. "She can even make that person look as though they're not psionic and don't need a state keeper, isn't that right Damara-who-only-lives-a-block-or-two-in-that-direction-on-a-meteor-which-isn't-covfured-by-Imperial-Law?"
Damara rolled her eyes. "You Leijons and your puns. It ruins dramatic tension. Alright. But he is half—hah—gone. You will give me my new identity, whatever state he's in. If he doesn't wake up," she shrugged. "Not my problem."
"I know a battlecruiser captain who would make it your problem," Latula muttered.
Damara just smirked. "He would not dare."
They walked in hesitant procession as Damara led them down the main street of the star port. The wind whipped at their ankles, and then tried to knock them off their knees, and then the air was growing warm and there were screams in it just on the edge of hearing. Meteors in ghostly shapes crashed all around them, and Nepeta wondered if this was how everything would end, with psionics ripping through reality as though it was string cheese. She hoped not. It was going to be hard enough to make sure that neither Damara nor Mituna got hurt in the middle of this, and rebar was beginning to spin lazily past on the wind.
Her mind tingled. Well, maybe it was her think pan. It just felt as though everything between her ears was tingly. Latula had stopped dead. It looked as though she had walked into a physical wall. Meulin rebounded off another part of hardened air, and Horuss rushed over to help her up, even while Roxy walked through right next to Latula, and then turned around in astonishment.
Rufioh, though—Rufioh was glowing blue which streamed off him, and colored the wind currents. Nepeta gasped.
Damara just snorted. "This is the psychic envelope. Do not be impressed. A great will here will go a long way," she glanced over her shoulder. Latula was slamming her fists on the invisible barrier. Damara's satisfaction with her work was evident.
"Get flying," Nepeta growled to the curling horned troll.
Between herself and her sister, she had always thought it was obvious who was the more powerful. Meulin was like royalty, striding into a room and filling it with her purrsonality and good cheer. Nepeta felt that she was small and furrendly and good-hearted, but the difference there was the "small" bit. The look Damara gave her, however, before she went airborne made Nepeta wonder if she might look more powerful in someone else's eyes.
She looked down. She was glowing maroon. It didn't stream away from her. It just sat under her skin comfortably, waiting, like a cat in a window.
A chunk of concrete the size of her head spun past.
"Rufioh, try to keep that windy stuff from hurting anyone!" Nepeta said.
"Got, Capi-tan."
A great will, huh? Well she wanted everyone to be okay and whole and in one piece. That was her will. She walked forward, and high overhead the spike of blue and red flashed bright white.
"I still want a jet pack," Roxy was saying as Rufioh piloted the shuttle containing the extraction team toward the TenaciousCruelties. Quarters would be spare on board the old battlecarrier, and Nepeta doubted the medical bay would be able to hold more than Mituna, who kept waking up, saying his head hurt, why was he wherever here was?, and going promptly back to sleep. Still, it was better than sending him into the ship that had its guns trained directly on the exhausted sick looking psionic.
Quarters aboard the Purr-suit were going to be spare as well. Damara would be staying aboard until Roxy finished working her magic. It was not, as Damara pointed out brusquely, as though she could just walk aboard an Imperial battlecarrier, if she was trying to stay out of reach of Imperial minders, and they weren't leaving her on a half wrecked meteor to starve.
Damara traced the path of something on the star port. "It is there for the stealing," she swung around, grinning. "Come, rogues, let us go steal some jet packs."
Hopefully it wouldn't take Roxy too long to doctor those documents. Nepeta had a sinking feeling that if it did, there would be another member of her crew that couldn't bear too much scrutiny from Imperial Law in the Derse sector.