Chapter Text
When your ship touches down on the (miraculously existent) landing pad of the tiny, quaint planet Merribee, you wonder very much how you ever managed to get yourself convinced to take any job here whatsoever.
You're a city troll, born and raised. You grew up in the slums of Alternia itself, far from Earth and all of its silly politics and strangely-named animals and overpriced kitschy merchandise. You routinely hacked into the Alternia government for fun, almost getting your ass blasted a few times and even nearly getting culled once when you didn't properly cloak your blood color in a infiltration scheme. And yet here you are, captain of a respectable crew, on a respectable mission to a disgustingly respectable planet that's far too close to Earth for your liking. You bet they have kitschy merchandise galore here. You wrinkle your nose.
"What the hell is this dump," your first mate says flatly, blinking in the unnaturally cheery sunlight and tossing her long black hair over her shoulder. She came from similar upbringings as you, practically hatched in the same brood. You bite back a grin. You can always count on Aradia to be unimpressed, no matter the situation. Nepeta, on the other hand, is already collecting seashells like she's on a personal vacation, and Aradia has to yank her back before she wanders too far off track.
"Where are we going again?" Nepeta says begrudgingly, stuffing a pawful of sand-crusted seashells into her pocket. You check the memo on your transmitter.
"The seaport right over there. We'd better book it, too, this planet obviously has no semblance of public transit so we're gonna need to walk from here."
"Sounds clawful. Can't I just keep collecting shells?" Aradia just gives her a look until she sighs and starts following you both down the beach.
By the time you get to your destination town, which was much further away than it looked and involved an uncomfortable wade through extremely salty, knee-height seawater, Nepeta has completely deflated and is pouting as she rolls her pants back down over her calves and shakes off residual water. It's times like these that you have to remind yourself that this is your Defense Officer, and that her affable demeanor is, as it turns out, a huge advantage in combat. At any rate. You quickly locate the Intergalaxy Center (only one on this whole planet, not that you're surprised) and straighten your collar smartly, preparing your Business Voice for this encounter. A single tiny troll is perched on a stool at the front desk. She looks to be a midblood — not too much power, but still higher ranked than you on the hemospectrum. Not that it matters when you've got a Government-issued badge, pardoning you for your lowly status. Honorary tealblood, what a fucking joke.
"Yes, m'dear?" she says blearily. She looks as though she's never gotten a patron and isn't quite sure what to do with one now that you're there.
"Sollux Captor. Technical department manager for Intergalactic Support. Are you the sole contact for this planet's IC?"
"Oh, no of course not!" she says. Well thank the signless for that, you were starting to — "My moirail helps." You massage your forehead resignedly.
"Well, ma'am, were you aware that you've been sending out unauthorized radio signals from this location? All outgoing communication must follow government regulations as per your instruction manual that you received upon getting this position...you did receive an instruction manual?"
"Yes, yes, of course!" she says, her claws tapping nervously on the linoleum desk. "I keep it with me at all times. What kind of employee do you think I am?" She pulls the thick manual out from a side drawer and blows on the cover, sending up a thick puff of dust. She coughs. "Here it is. Ahem! I read it every day."
"Right," you say suspiciously. There's something going on here, but you're not sure what. Is this dinky planet a cover for some sort of underground operation? Now that would be a plot twist worthy of Troll M. Night Shyamalan. "Well, there's a section in there, Section IIVI if memory serves — " (you're so prepared, you can't even handle yourself), "— on inter-planetary communication encoding and signal regulation. Please read that section carefully and be sure to take special note of the subsections about unauthorized signal lockdown. As you know, if we catch any more non-regulated communications coming from this location, we'll have to suspend you temporarily from the network." You pull a tiny digital clipboard from your jacket pocket. "Please sign here to confirm you understand these consequences and have received adequate notice should we be forced to take action."
She signs reluctantly, hand shaking. "But dear, I don't know anything about any, eh, unauthorized signals. This is a tiny planet... we hardly get more than a Galaxy Pizza delivery request every once and a while."
"Well," you say, looking at her over the top of your two-toned glasses, "you'll have to figure it out, won't you? Perhaps your moirail can help."
"Oh er, yes dear, perhaps he can." She looks over her shoulder and calls towards a door in the back of the room. "Charles, lovely! Would you come here for a moment?" She pats her curly horns, adjusts her tiny spectacles as she waits. A hunched-over, elderly human finally appears from the doorway. He's wearing the most hideous floral shirt you've ever seen.
"What is it, Amatha darling?" he says blearily.
"This gentleman here says we're having some troubles with our radio signals. Do you know anything?"
"Trouble?" he croaks. "But we only use them for pizza delivery!"
"That's what I said! You see, sir, you must be mistaken." She directs this last part at you as her moirail strokes her shoulder. "Would you like a town guide? The beach is wonderful this time of year and the seasonal ice cream flavors are simply divine. Burrberry is one, I think? Is that a flavor, dear, or is that the bag?"
"The bag, I dare say," Charles says, brows furrowed in thought. You've heard enough.
"If you have no further questions, we'll be on our way," you say sharply. Disgusting pale, and with a human? You know it's more accepted on these border planets, but you just cannot see the appeal. Not only do they not have horns or properly toned skin, but everyone knows that humans have a disturbingly shallow understanding of romance compared to trolls. You'd be amazed if thisCharles person even understood what a moirail is.
Your business obligations now complete, you tuck the clipboard back into your pocket, give them both a nod, and march out of the office, your crew members trailing behind you.
"Gosh, Sollux," Nepeta says wryly. "A little harsh today."
"I just want to get off this goddamn planet as fast as possible," you grumble. Humans everywhere. The streets are absolutely crawling with the little pink and brown creatures.
"Oh, no no no," she says insistingly, grabbing onto your arm. Obviously, she's recovered from her sea-trudging trauma. "We have to check out the town first! I hear the crab rolls are purrrrfect!"
"...Fine," you relent. "But only because I'm hungry." Nepeta cheers victoriously and skips ahead, pausing only to play with a stray cat that's begging for scraps of fish at a nearby dock.
"Harsh?" Aradia says next to you, out of the corner of her mouth. "I do think you've gone soft." You elbow her with a huff and she bumps you back with her hip, snorting. You have the best moirail. It's you. And you're nice and subtle about it, unlike SOME people. They should really take a lesson from respectable trolls like yourself. (Respectable of course meaning the lowest of the lowblooded scum of troll society, but hey, at least you can PRETEND to have some class!)
Nepeta bounces back to you, a fat, two-mouthed, very grumpy looking white cat trapped squarely in her arms. "Look at him! He's gorgeous!" she squeals at you both. "He looks just like Pounce! I wonder if you were supposed to be someone's lusus?" she wonders, peering at him with squinty eyes. He makes a low hissing noise and flattens his ears.
"Alright, Nepeta, release the local purrbeast," you say dryly. "We have work to do, you know."
"Lunch! Yes!" Nepeta says. "I would never forget. But Pounce the Second can come with us, can't he? Just look at that face! All he needs is a little attention!" Pounce the Seconds looks absolutely livid to you, but what would you know. You're more of an insect guy. On a related note, this planet's name is really its only redeeming quality. Meribee. Ehehe.
You finally arrive somewhere that looks like it sells actual food and not awful tourist garbage. Why anyone would willingly visit a planet like this is beyond you, but hey. You suppose you're hanging around to partake in the local cuisine instead of booking your ass out as soon as your job's over, so you can't really talk.
"No pets inside," a stern-looking clerk says to Nepeta sharply. "The kitty stays out." Nepeta visibly droops and defeatedly drops Pounce the Second on the cobblestone street next to her. She kneels down next to him. "Stay here, okay?" she tells him gently, scratching him behind a ragged ear. He meows uncertainly. "I'll bring you some fish!" she assures. He flops down in a patch of sun, apparently satisfied. You sigh. She's the purrbeast whisperer, you swear. Probably due to her lusus. You wish your stupid lusus gave you bee-whispering abilities, which would have been really helpful for your silicomb cultivation, but unfortunately your lusus was a wonderful, useless, one-of-a-kind mutant like you, and unless you happen to find another two-headed-cyclops-whatever-the-hell-he-was-hybrid, you're merely stuck with the very special bestowed gift of thinking a lot about binary. Not that you're really complaining about this skill. It's helpful for understanding husktops and such, you suppose. But still.
You all enter the tiny shop, which is decorated in an obscenely quaint fashion, with tiny string of seashells hanging from the ceiling, framed photos of beach balls and sand castles, baskets of dried starfish and mollusks...the works. Anything this cutesy should be illegal. You shudder. This crab roll had better be goddamn worth it. You wait in line with a expectedly mixed number of trolls and humans for what you've seen of the planet. The trolls, to their merit, tend a lot more towards the raw shellfish, and the humans, to your disgust, towards their grossly well-cooked, decorated seafood with cilantro and parsley and who-the-hell-knows-what-else strange human herbs. Earth must be an awful place.
After standing in line for what feels like a trillion years, you're finally at the front of the line. A human woman greets you. She has a clamshell barrette clipping back a portion of her long blonde bangs.
"To what do I owe the honor of having such fine Government officials gracing my humble establishment?" she asks you, tilting her head to the side.
"We're just hungry," you say flatly, nudging your badge back out of sight with as little self-consciousness as you can manage. She titters.
"Very well, very well. What'll it be?"
"Three crab rolls," you say. "Troll style." She nods, adding your total, and you pass her your IGC card, thanking your lucky stars for the convenient existence of Galactic Credit Bureau. You then sit on a nearby artfully-antiquated bench while you wait, and Nepeta runs back outside to check on Pounce the Second. A bell announcing your order dings, and you finally get your crab roll, extra rare, just the way you like it. It's a beast of a roll, claws and shells and buttery pink legs sticking out from the well-browed bread at all angles. Yum. So much better than the fancy human version. The three of you trundle outside, Nepeta luring Pounce (you've accepted the name. You're done.) with a piece of crab leg, and sit on the dock, staring out at the endless expanse of ocean. Nepeta swings her legs over the edge, chewing ferociously on her roll.
"So worth it, riiiiight?" she says, with a mouth full of crab.
"Yeah, yeah," you say. You have to admit, it is pretty damn good. But you'd never say it plainly enough to warrant the smug reaction you deserve.
"Never got food like this in the slums," says Aradia, glancing at you. "Maybe the sea troll colony had it right."
"Don't talk to me about sea trolls," you hiss. "A bunch of overprivileged assholes who don't know how good they've got it." Sea trolls, as everyone knows, are the highest on the hemospectrum, topped by the Condesce herself. Or at least they were, before the Pact. Once the Troll-Human Intergalactic Peace Pact (THIPP) was formed, the first thing to go was the Empress (and the first thing to come was a healthy wave of unmemorable acronyms). Losing the Empress was great because she was a power-hungry fearmonger who plunged Alternia into a millennia of suffering, but of course it was also unfortunate for the next in line for the throne, who just happened to be the only decent sea troll you know of. Instead of a lifetime of royalty, she was offered a captain position on the highest-ranked starship in the government fleet, with her asshole seadweller moirail as co-captain, and you haven't seen her since. You hope she's happy with her consolation prize.
At any rate, when the empire fell, a bunch of rebellious seatrolls who'd been sitting pretty in high ranks under the Condesce were suddenly shafted when they realized that if they weren't the next-in-line, they weren't going to get a high-ranking position unless they deserved it. And so, after a small failure of a rebellion against the IG (Inter-galactic Government), a large number of them migrated to various border planets. Since it's mostly ocean, Meribee was a particularly popular choice, and a vast seadweller colony soon grew across the ocean floor. Luckily, they mostly fend for themselves so you haven't seen much of them around, but it's really yet another reason to hate this planet.
"Speaking of sea trolls," Nepeta says slowly, checking her transmitter which began beeping wildly a few seconds ago, "We're getting a distress call. From Feferi's ship."
The ex-next-in-line, speak of the devil. You're instantly alert. "What's it say?"
"We're to head to Metropiter immediately. Apparently they're in dire need of assistance. Some sort of mass blackout — they can't power up their ship to get it off the ground. It looks like their transmitter is on its last legs too."
You sigh, rubbing your forehead. "That planet is one big city, don't they have their own technician??" Nepeta shrugs.
"It's an official order, it's not like we can say no even if it doesn't make sense."
"I know, I know," you say. "I just wish there could be an urgent issue on our side of the galaxy network."
"As if we'd ever be that lucky," Aradia says with a shallow smile. You sigh.
"Okay, messaging Equius now." You press a button on your wrist transmitter and the screen lights up.
"Yes, Sollux Captain Sir," says a deep voice into your ear, overly-polite as always. "I am at your service."
"Equius," you say. "We need to get to Metropiter on the double. Will you check the charge status of the ship?"
"Of course," Equius replies. You can hear the rustle and click of buttons and the slow rumble of the engine. "The ship is at 95% charge. Permission to disconnect from the landing site without completing?"
"We're going to need all the power we can get for this trip," you say. "Let it finish, and make sure the backup batteries are ready as well. We'll be there soon."
"Understood." Your transmitter blinks once, and the screen goes black.
"Alright," you say. "Our ship is almost fully charged, so we'd better walk fast."