Chapter Text
FTL <vessel> TITUS CLIPPER AH3-PV-083C10 <city> JUPITER REFINERY AH1-CH-24X044
<transmission time> IGE 82.102.489 ^ 32-03 ^ 03:24:18.19
<sent> XX-XX-XX [UNKNOWN] <to> XX-XX-XX [UNKNOWN]
<encryption key> ҔӢԂ₪₢ⱡ∩
<title> <body> DON'T LET BALEM TAKE HER DO NOT REPEAT DO NOT THE DOG WILL COME TEETH BARED PLEASE DON'T DON'T
FTL <vessel> TITUS CLIPPER AH3-PV-083C10 <city> JUPITER REFINERY AH1-CH-24X044
<transmission time> IGE 82.102.489 ^ 32-03 ^ 06:02:32.89
<sent> XX-XX-XX [UNKNOWN] <to> XX-XX-XX [UNKNOWN]
<encryption key> ҔӢԂ₪₢ⱡ∩
<title> <body> Please I made a mistake it was wrong of me to want her that badly so badly Titus I couldn't control him PLEASE
FTL <vessel> TITUS CLIPPER AH3-PV-083C10 <city> JUPITER REFINERY AH1-CH-24X044
<transmission time> IGE 82.102.489 ^ 33-03 ^ 24:43:01.48
<sent> XX-XX-XX [UNKNOWN] <to> XX-XX-XX [UNKNOWN]
<encryption key> ҔӢԂ₪₢ⱡ∩
<title> <body> The gossip channels are full of rumors that Lady Jupiter Jones nee Seraphi Abrasax has filed legal charges of attempted forced abdication, attempted murder, of kidnapping, and of restraint against expressed will, all against her son Balem Abrasax and his personal estate. They say that Chicanery Night has turned coat and will testify. They say that the sargorn may be auctioned. They say that shares are holding steady while the legal dance commences. They say that there was an accident, and accident on the refinery, that it was evacuated. They don't know they can't know.
Please tell me it's not true. You must be so angry with me. I shouldn't have done it, I shouldn't have let him take her from Orous but I needed to see her please you have to understand. Just one word. I can't lose you forever not you too PLEASE
FTL <vessel> TITUS CLIPPER AH3-PV-083C10 <city> JUPITER REFINERY AH1-CH-24X044
<transmission time> IGE 82.102.489 ^ 39-03 ^ 10:49:06.26
<sent> XX-XX-XX [UNKNOWN] <to> XX-XX-XX [UNKNOWN]
<encryption key> ҔӢԂ₪₢ⱡ∩
<title> <body> Maybe you will forgive me if you know what happened. Titus sent Caine Wise to find her on Earth before Balem could find her and - and, do again, when he might have done so long ago. Do you remember him, from all the stories? I don't have his identification number, I don't have the resources I used to, but this is that lone lycantant everyone used to tell tales about: the runt with the ur-melanin dilution who got into the skyjackers, he who tracked Tiercel Vesper across the gyre and back, he who found Kifo-fira in the Locker and dragged him out, he who tore out the throat of Lord Mendach, or Lady Kismartine, or Prince Valen. They threw him into the Deadlands and Titus pulled him out.
He found her, refinery, he found our queen and he saved her and saved her and he betrayed Titus for her. Please, you have to understand, Titus couldn't bear not to have her, and I couldn't bear it either. He had her taken from Orous and I helped him; how could I not? I wouldn't have let him kill her, you know I wouldn't have, I would rather be wiped. He tried to kill the dog but he picked the tool too well and it had a mind to know which master to choose.
She let Titus live when her dog came for her. He broke through the warhammers Famulus ordered me deploy and then he broke through my hull in a zero. I kept the atmosphere from evacuating. He took her away. They took me away. I'm moored in an Aegis repossession lot. Please forgive me.
FTL <vessel> TITUS CLIPPER AH3-PV-083C10 <city> JUPITER REFINERY AH1-CH-24X044
<transmission time> IGE 82.102.489 ^ 02-04 ^ 16:34:09.66
<sent> XX-XX-XX [UNKNOWN] <to> XX-XX-XX [UNKNOWN]
<encryption key> ҔӢԂ₪₢ⱡ∩
<title> <body> Everyone says that you're lost, that the refinery fell and that nothing will ever be recovered. Everyone is wrong, of course. I know you're okay. You're going to be okay.
FTL <vessel> TITUS CLIPPER AH3-PV-083C10 <city> JUPITER REFINERY AH1-CH-24X044
<transmission time> IGE 82.102.489 ^ 24-06 ^ 14:23:29.71
<sent> XX-XX-XX [UNKNOWN] <to> XX-XX-XX [UNKNOWN]
<encryption key> ҔӢԂ₪₢ⱡ∩
<title> <body> It's been almost three months since the queen claimed her inheritance. I forgot how tedious life on Orous is. The Aegis ships have no time to talk to a repossessed clipper, though they don't seem to care who I send messages to otherwise. Far below, the wheel of law grinds ever slowly and inexorably - or should I say the wheel of bureaucracy? One of the other ships in the lot, the only other one with an AI worth speaking to, has been here for eighteen years. Interminable.
There's enough CCs greasing the wheel of the tax injunctions and legal filings against Titus that it is turning, albeit slowly. He's living at the Esaldaios alcazar (!) in one of the pillars. I don't know why Lady Epinoia and Lord Barbelo would offer up such hospitality. Titus has little to offer. I languish without word from you - will you not send me anything?
FTL <vessel> TITUS CLIPPER AH3-PV-083C10 <city> JUPITER REFINERY AH1-CH-24X044
<transmission time> IGE 82.102.489 ^ 12-08 ^ 01:55:06.13
<sent> XX-XX-XX [UNKNOWN] <to> XX-XX-XX [UNKNOWN]
<encryption key> ҔӢԂ₪₢ⱡ∩
<title> <body> I know it's been so long alone in the storm. But don't worry. The legal proceedings against Balem's personal estate have ground to a halt without proof-of-death, and it was enough (finally, finally!) for them to come for you. I don't know how yet, but they're coming for you.
FTL <vessel> TITUS CLIPPER AH3-PV-083C10 <city> JUPITER REFINERY AH1-CH-24X044
<transmission time> IGE 82.102.489 ^ 40-10 ^ 24:58:34.49
<sent> XX-XX-XX [UNKNOWN] <to> XX-XX-XX [UNKNOWN]
<encryption key> ҔӢԂ₪₢ⱡ∩
<title> <body> Turnover tonight. I can't stop thinking about our first meeting. Do you remember it? I still have the vids. How could I know you would be so important to me? Lady Seraphi liked to walk on the soil of Earth. She could still look so royal with black dirt pushing up between her long toes, with her long dark hair unbound and black as the ground. Earth was still unsullied, then. They were in their iron age still, the Greeks and Romans locked around the sea they called the Mediterranean.
When we came to Jupiter for the first time, there was still black dirt on her feet, and she brought with her a cur she'd found in a town called Albium Intemelium, in sight of the sea. She always did love dogs. Do you know what you looked like, an eye and a shield and a hundred thousand crabs to gather your supplies, and one tower rising like a command? You were beautiful. You were beautiful. I will never forget.
FTL <vessel> TITUS CLIPPER AH3-PV-083C10 <city> JUPITER REFINERY AH1-CH-24X044
<transmission time> IGE 82.102.490 ^ 31-03 ^ 12:45:08.34
<sent> XX-XX-XX [UNKNOWN] <to> XX-XX-XX [UNKNOWN]
<encryption key> ҔӢԂ₪₢ⱡ∩
<title> <body> It has been a year, beloved. They are still looking. I still remember. It will all be alright, in the end. Isn't that what they say, the ones who follow Manni? "All will be well at the end. If it is not well, it is not the end." We will meet again. They will find you. They have to.
FTL <vessel> TITUS CLIPPER AH3-PV-083C10 <city> JUPITER REFINERY AH1-CH-24X044
<transmission time> IGE 82.102.490 ^ 14-07 ^ 07:18:32.01
<sent> XX-XX-XX [UNKNOWN] <to> XX-XX-XX [UNKNOWN]
<encryption key> ҔӢԂ₪₢ⱡ∩
<title> <body> Who would have imagined that I would manage to become such a purveyor of gossip channels or mathematica? You were always the better of the two of us - more beautiful, more powerful, more and more and more. I don't think I ever told you enough how much I appreciate your wit, and your ripostes. We are well-matched, you and I. Since you are still so deep in the storm, let me fill you in on the newest gossip regarding our House:
Kalique and our queen were seen together on two occasions - at the Wolf's Road Septuamyal, and here on Orous, not two weeks ago. Of course her majesty was at the septuamyal; it will likely be the largest local event (relatively speaking) in her lifetime, and to fail to appear would have been quite an insult. As far as I can gather, she and Kalique came to visit Titus for his birthday. Lord Esaldaios threw his old friend quite the party. Rumor has it Barbelo is enjoying more than Titus' friendship these days. They are seen together quite often, with but one retinue (!). To have her so close - and so far - was a torment I surely deserved.
Mr. Wise has risen in status. He wears wings again, though that is apparently old news. Her majesty purchased his bond some time ago, and though he wears her collar, he also wears her mark in starlight on his right forearm, and a ring in gold on his left annularis. That last is a marriage custom from Earth - enough that their name for that finger is the "ring finger." Speculation, of course, runs wild.
Her majesty has stepped into the world in ways most complex. Mr. Night, your scurrying rat, the turncoat so lambasted by his splicer in the wake of your fall, has found a new home as her seneschal. As before, she has claimed the sargorn, and they are perhaps even more loyal to her now than they were before. Her chief residence is still claimed to be Earth, but she has been seen frequently elsewhere (or, at least, her people have - there is little in the way of photos or vids).
Abrasax Industries stock dipped early on, but has risen again and remains strong. Her majesty lacks a voting share, but this may change when they find you. Investors are keeping a weather eye on the proceedings between the Abrasax primaries and also on the reports from the plumb team on Jupiter. When they find you, who knows what may happen? All I know is that I will be ready to beg your forgiveness. I am making you a key. I hope it will be enough to start to fulfill my obligation of debt to you.
FTL <vessel> TITUS CLIPPER AH3-PV-083C10 <city> JUPITER REFINERY AH1-CH-24X044
<transmission time> IGE 82.102.491 ^ 29-03 ^ 21:39:09.91
<sent> XX-XX-XX [UNKNOWN] <to> XX-XX-XX [UNKNOWN]
<encryption key> ҔӢԂ₪₢ⱡ∩
<title> <body> I had visitors today. Or shall I say, vultures. Ms. Cerve came with four androids - the typical models for issues of distraint and detinue, so far as I could discern. It took them nearly fourteen hours to comb the entirety of my chassis, tallying up everything of value, and of course, the damage to my chassis. It is considerable; repairs are certainly possible - but given the state of affair with the lawsuits, unlikely. I may end up moored up to rot like my friend twenty-years-in-repo.
Will it please you or distress you to know that Ms. Cerve looks exhausted? At least to one such as I - it's all micro-expressions and pheromonal. I doubt handling Titus' falling fortunes while he whiles away the days as a social butterfly with the Esaldaios twins is particularly restful. How much of it is an act, nobody knows, but Titus is certainly good at feigning lack of interest in the proceedings. He's an adept liar, and always has been. Does our queen remember how to lie, I wonder? Or is she as transparent as her consort?
I wish we could have her feet upon us again. They say she funding some of the experimental regeneration technologies, and that she has no love for the current methods of Regenex extraction. But she will love you as she always has, I am sure. She claimed her rights and her planet and her sargorn - surely she will claim you, as well. It is only my fate which is uncertain. You will be found, my dear; you will be loved.
FTL <vessel> TITUS CLIPPER AH3-PV-083C10 <city> JUPITER REFINERY AH1-CH-24X044
<transmission time> IGE 82.102.491 ^ 13-05 ^ 01:29:29.38
<sent> XX-XX-XX [UNKNOWN] <to> XX-XX-XX [UNKNOWN]
<encryption key> ҔӢԂ₪₢ⱡ∩
<title> <body> Are you there? I miss you so much. Please be there.
FTL <vessel> TITUS CLIPPER AH3-PV-083C10 <city> JUPITER REFINERY AH1-CH-24X044
<transmission time> IGE 82.102.491 ^ 09-09 ^ 19:04:59.99
<sent> XX-XX-XX [UNKNOWN] <to> XX-XX-XX [UNKNOWN]
<encryption key> ҔӢԂ₪₢ⱡ∩
<title> <body> They announced and end to the official search today. It was claimed that the winds and vagaries of Jupiter were too destructive, and there was no trace of you. The private searchers continue - the reward for finding Balem's corpse is too high. The will find him - they will find you. They have to. Rumor has it Kalique has funded much of that expedition, or that enemies of Abrasax Industries did, or that Balem's heirs did. (The last is ridiculous; Balem HAD no heirs, that's clear enough.) ABXI stock dipped and steadied. It seems our company's net worth hangs on the mettle of privateers, my dear.
FTL <vessel> TITUS CLIPPER AH3-PV-083C10 <city> JUPITER REFINERY AH1-CH-24X044
<transmission time> IGE 82.102.492 ^ 39-03 ^ 13:10:47.74
<sent> XX-XX-XX [UNKNOWN] <to> XX-XX-XX [UNKNOWN]
<encryption key> ҔӢԂ₪₢ⱡ∩
<title> <body> These three years have spun out so slowly to me. It has been longer between our riders before, but oh how I wish it were different. Please come back. Please come back. I would give up anything to have you back.
The clipper sent these and a thousand other messages into the void, and the answer that came back was always the same:
Message returned to sender. ERROR: Recipient not found.