Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Art by @vampcide, the companion artist for Dirkjake Big Bang 2023

The shuttle to the planet's surface is nearly empty. Dirk had been expecting a light crowd, but seeing the rows of commercial crash seating completely vacant had almost been enough to make him laugh in the embarking assistant's face. "You'd have to be crazy to want to spend more than five minutes down there," Hal had berated him while the Timaeus moved in to dock, and it seemed like he hadn't been kidding. Hemera was described in all official charts and listings as a wasteland, their only exports of value being raw material for construction and limited rare planetary element deposits in some of the polar mountains. The system was used by most independent captains as little more than a refueling and reporting stop on long journeys, and the docking station could handle those needs without leaving high orbit. On any ordinary journey, Dirk would have been more than happy to follow their lead.

"Timaeus to crazy, come in crazy," drawls Hal in his earpiece. "Just checking in one last time before you're out of short-wave comms range. If you're being forced down there against your will, say the word and I'll have that shuttle turned around faster than you can say 'Scramble launch preparations, we need to get out of here before the port authorities impound us for hacking galactic property.'"

"Thank you for the concern, Timaeus, but I already paid for this ticket," Dirk says. "I told you about a dozen times, the client wants me to investigate Hemera specifically. In person."

"Mhm, and the last time you said that, you got threatened at gunpoint and needed me to trigger a depressurization alarm."

"That was completely unrelated. ...Mostly unrelated. And that was just an information stopover, anyway. This is the real deal, Hal. At least four seperate sources suggest Hemera itself as the Location of Interest."

"Oh boy, the mysterious client paying me exorbitant sums of money to risk my life for a couple hundred gigabytes of map data capitalizes random words, that means they're legit for sure!" Dirk rolls his eyes, no doubt in tandem with Hal's avatar back on the Timaeus's bridge screen. "The same mysterious client, may I remind you, that has apparently been waiting patiently for over five hundred years galactic standard time while you've been galavanting around at over-light speeds on their little scavenger hunt. I don't mean to question your infalliable authority, oh creator mine, but have you considered that maybe—just maybe!—you're being set up?"

"Only the last hundred times you suggested as much, and yet not a shred of evidence has emerged to support your speculation." Dirk feels the shuttle's acceleration shift slightly as it passes out of the dock's low-speed zone, freeing it from remote manual control and activating its automatic piloting routine. "There are plenty of people in the galaxy with five hundred years of patience. It wouldn't be the first time we worked for a cold-blooded troll, or a cryosleeper, or a multi-generational governing body. And who would want to set me up, anyway?"

"I could name a few names."

Dirk cuts Hal off before he can start naming names. "You know exactly how many times we've been over this—"

"Nineteen."

"—and you should recognize that you're still not going to budge me."

"Well, it was worth a shot. Then I ask you this: what am I going to do when you find yourself in mortal danger that you can't over-stupid your way out of?"

"Take that vacation you're always going on about, I imagine." He reaches to switch the earpiece off, but Hal is already talking again.

"Ha ha. Ha ha ha! Very funny, bro. Would you like me to wire your assets to myself and rent out the intellectual rights to my codebase while I'm at it? Oh wait, I don't legally exist! I'm sure I'll have a lot of fun explaining to the Postmortem Reclamation inspectors why there's a jumbled mess of computational chickenscratch taking up three quarters of the ship's database." Hal's hand-to-forehead animation plays unbidden in Dirk's brain. Drama queen. "Oh, don't mind me! I'm but a humble artificial intelligence, in charge of maintaining systems and—yes, artificial intelligence! Neural upload, to be precise. Don't you know my creator achieved that little thing researchers have been working on fruitlessly for millennia? I was so sure it had been all over the news!"

"I'm not going to die, Hal. And you act as if your primary function isn't to pretend to be a standard computer control system to annoy me, anyway." Dirk takes a deep breath, and is surprised when it hitches on the way out. "I can function perfectly well without you breathing over my shoulder."

"We'll see about that, I suppose," Hal replies neutrally. "You'll be out of comms range in a few minutes, but I may as well give you that extra peace and quiet. Don't get yourself stabbed, Captain."

And then Dirk is alone with his thoughts for the first time in... it's hard to remember.

Even after the sweltering heat of the shuttle complex, the shade beneath the roof of the Sandworm's Tooth isn't much better. Already sweating through his planetside clothes, Dirk had bolted for the first shelter he could find, and ended up in a squat stone-walled building with an interior like a cross between a bar and the lobby of a hotel. The interior is sparsely furnished, but the colorful head crests of the native Hemerans brighten the atmosphere significantly. Several patrons, all dressed much more sensibly for the climate than Dirk, look up as he leans against the wall in an attempt to look casual, but quickly lose interest and return to their own conversations. Dirk finds himself suddenly wishing he had been given another contact from his client. Even if this one tried to stab him, it would be better than just standing around and overheating.

"Welcome to the Sandworm's Tooth," the bartender, a tall Hemeran with a muted blue crest, calls half-heartedly. Dirk can't help but feel it's out of pity. "Is there anything I can do for you?" He slouches across the room to the bar and studies the short list of drink offerings. "You look new here. We offer complimentary daytime clothes with a room, if you're also in need of lodging."

"Just water, thanks," Dirk decides. Probably a luxury he should enjoy while he can. "Is this a hotel, too?"

"More of an inn," the bartender responds, filling a glass from a small tapped barrel in a rack behind him. "But yes, we have rooms available downstairs. Better insulation from the temperature, belowground." Dirk nods and fumbles in his pocket for the local currency he exchanged in the station before the bartender adds, "We take Central Bank transfer cards."

"How much for a night?" And how do I find someone who knows where I'm going?

"Four hundred eighty credits, board not included. Daytime clothes are complimentary, but you'll have to layer up for the night yourself." Nights on Hemera, Dirk recalls from his location research, are almost as cold as the daytimes are hot; with little more than sand to trap and radiate heat, temperatures plummet shortly after sunset. Just like any other desert, but Dirk isn't exactly a desert person.

"I'll take a room, then. One night." The bartender nods as Dirk scans his Central Bank card on the reader built unobtrusively into the counter, handing over the glass of water. Dirk flinches when he's tossed the key, completely misjudges its trajectory in the presence of a gravitational field, and nearly drops the water trying to catch it. "And, ah, one more thing," he adds, flushing slightly as he bends down to pick the key back up. "Are there any desert guides for hire here?"

The bartender suppresses a sigh, but not so quickly that Dirk doesn't notice. Another foolhardy fortune-seeker, too clumsy to catch a key but expecting to strike it rich on a planet he's never been to. That's him, isn't it. "Yes, they usually gather out back. They'll scam you out of your life's work if they can manage it, so... try not to make it easy for them."

Dirk nods brusquely, hoping to maintain at least a little dignity. "I appreciate the warning. You'll have the key back tomorrow." Stepping away from the bar, he takes a welcome swig of water, shaking off the awkwardness of the interaction. A messy first impression, but it got the job done. Ten minutes planetside, and he's already secured lodgings and found a lead. Or, a lead to a lead, really. And there's no guarantee the guides know the place he wants to visit, but—Well, no point worrying over hypotheticals. Get scammed first, then see where things lie.

It's another minute before his eyes settle on the figure sitting at the corner table near the door, one who is already looking at him. His eyes widen, and he nearly chokes on the last of his drink. The figure's trademark resting enigma face cracks into an equally practiced smile.

"Fancy that," Rose Lalonde waves as Dirk stomps over. "Whatever could have brought you all the way to a place like this?" She sets down the book she was reading—a real, paper book, unreasonably inconvenient in the age of holograms—and fixes him with a piercing stare. "Recovering well after Station Five, I hope?"

"Station Five was over two hundred years ago, and I really wish people would stop bringing it up today in particular," Dirk grumbles as he takes the chair across from her without invitation. "They didn't even succeed in stabbing me, anyway."

"Two hundred years? How time flies when you're traveling at super-relativistic speeds. But you haven't answered my question."

"Business," he grunts, a dozen unformed questions swirling in his mind. "I'm not here to exchange witticisms today."

"And yet here you are, rushing over to my table unbidden." The smile she gives him is just as practiced as before, but the sparkle of her eyes is more sincere. "Not here for pleasure, then? I hear the sand has excellent scouring properties. Maybe you could bathe in it."

"Maybe you could abandon this line of questioning. I'm also not here for some snarky broad to interrogate me about whose payroll I'm on."

"'Some snarky broad?' Is that all I am to you?" Rose places a hand to her chest in mock offense. "After everything we've been through together? All the joys, all the sorrows? That time you tried to ram me in the dockyard around Parsus?"

"I didn't try, that wasn't what I was trying to—"

"You wound me, Dirk. And besides, look who's talking." This smile, while just as catlike as the rest, is one hundred percent undeniably genuine mirth. "'Snarky broad' indeed."

"Har, har." Dirk rolls his eyes, but has no response ready. "Here's a much better question: What are YOU doing out here?"

Rose waits until he meets her eyes again. "Business," she smirks. For a second, Dirk thinks she's about to pick up her book again, but she just laces her fingers together atop it. "Call it a surveying mission. There's an old archeological site a ways away that a historical preservation society wants scans of. I'm merely expanding the body of collective knowledge, as all upstanding galactic citizens should aspire to."

It's a perfectly sensible story, or it would be if she was anyone else, but Dirk has known Rose too long and seen her too often to fall for the lie. "First you're on Elana, then in Parsus Prime, then Station Five. Now you're on Hemera, of all planets, and at the same time I am. You're following me, aren't you."

Rather than shore up her alibi, Rose dodges the question entirely. "So much time is lost while we spend our short lives jumping between stars. Did you know Parsus has gone supernova now? It'll be a few hundred more years before it's visible from anywhere important, but the whole system was already evacuated to Sibela." She turns her head wistfully to gaze across the room, cutting a portrait-perfect figure as always. Dirk wonders, as he always does, how much time in front of a mirror it takes to understand yourself from every angle like that. More than he's spent, certainly, as Hal never hesitates to tell him. "And to think that in our own frames of reference, we were there not even six months ago. Super-relativistic travel may be a well-understood part of our everyday life, but what do we lose by selling our years to the expanse of the cosmos?"

"I was hoping it would be 'you,' but here we are again. Pretty bad luck, huh." Dirk seethes behind his shades. Rose knows as well as him that luck has nothing to do with it. The slightest change in route, compounded by the time dilation of travelling faster than light, would have thrown her arrival off from his by decades. She should have disappeared like everyone else, swept away by time discrepancies as he hopped from star to star. Seeing her twice was an unusual coincidence, and the route from Parsus to Station Five was well-travelled enough that he had brushed the third meeting off as chance, too. Now, there's no longer any doubt in his mind. He's being followed: he just needs to figure out why.

"Perhaps it's fate. The universe moves in mysterious ways."

Dirk brushes off her impending philosophical musings and tries to locate a more productive thread of conversation, one that might actually give him some insights into her objective. "Have you hired a guide yet? There aren't exactly taxis out here."

"That I have." Rose flashes a small parchment rectangle, with a name and what looks like prices in local currency scrawled across it in shiny cobalt ink. "'The most relia8le guide on Hemera'— her words, of course. A character ripe for study, were my scans not due by the end of the month." She presents the card for a moment, then tucks it back between the folds of her clothing. "And you?"

"Not quite," he admits. "I don't suppose you have any suggestions?"

Rose nods her head towards the back door. "Look for the one in the orange robes. He seems about your type."

"I didn't— I'm not—" Dirk splutters. Rose continues to stare, and he pauses. "You didn't mean it like that, did you."

"Life is full of mysteries." Rose flashes one last smirk, then her eyes return to the book. Dirk sits in silence for another moment, before standing and heading for the back.

The second he steps over the threshold into the open-air rear courtyard, a piercing laugh freezes Dirk in his tracks. He winces against both the sound and the afternoon sunlight. Scanning his surroundings, he identifies the offending jubilant as a wild-haired troll proudly displaying a hand of playing cards. The suit is unfamiliar to him, but Dirk knows a flush when he sees it. "Man, can you 8elieve my luck today?" she cackles, running a triumphant hand over the buzzed side of her hair and sweeping a collection of polished stones to her end of the low table. Her oversized coat is heavily sun-bleached, but still unmistakably blue on the inside. "Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, is coming up 8s!" Dirk takes another step out from the doorway, and her eyes snap to him with the intensity of searchlights, or a hungry predator sizing up a newcomer to its territory. Singular eye, actually: her left is obscured by an eyepatch, emblazoned with a red seven-circle design that probably mirrors the eye underneath, if the blue coat and asymmetric horns are anything to go by. Dirk freezes, suddenly reminded for the third time that day of Station Five.

"Well the whole luck business is what youre known for, isnt—" Her human companion turns to follow her gaze, and Dirk registers first the color of his eyes, then of his robes; the latter a range of sunset oranges, and the former a brilliant emerald green, almost neon against the subdued terracotta surroundings. He's every inch his companion's opposite, perfectly tousled black hair framing a face that would be straight out of a superhero movie, were it not for the slightly crooked square glasses. Where the troll's outfit is full of flamboyant frills and ornamentations like a pirate's poet blouse, his leans entirely towards the practical, sleeveless for range of motion and tied at the waist with a wide strip of dark red. His expression is so disarming, somewhere between a stare and a smile, that it takes Dirk a moment to connect the dots and realize who he must be. He makes a mental note to glare at Rose again later, this time for being right.

"Heeeeeeeey, no need to worry, here's another one!" the troll grins. "Go tell him why you're the second-8est guide on Hemera, huh?" Her green-eyed compatriot rolls his eyes, rising to his feet and giving his robes a quick brush. "Jake here was just lamenting that I managed to hook the first off-season tourist we've seen in weeks."

"I would hardly say lamenting is a fair way to put it," the other guide retorts. He ignores her smirk, turning to Dirk with an ear-to-ear smile and an extended hand. Dirk takes it for a shake, and is so unprepared for his application of strength that it nearly pulls him off his feet. The guide's hands are surprisingly soft for his profession, but the strength of his grip is nothing to scoff at. "Anyway as you may or may not have partially gathered, the names english. Jake english!" After waiting a beat, Jake shrugs and rubs the back of his neck. Had Dirk missed a joke of some kind? "Myself and vriska here are just about the only desert guides around these parts worth a camels caboose, if youre of the sort that considers perishing of thirst to be an undesirable outcome that is."

Dirk gives an encouraging half-chuckle, not wanting to let him down on two jokes in a row. It comes out more like an apathetic snort, but Jake seems to get the idea, and renews his smile just a tad. "If youre looking to get from point a to point b, the first of which is in our relative present vicinity and the second of which is just about anywhere under that there sun, were your huckleberries!"

"GR8 opener, Jake!" the troll named Vriska cheers. "I especially love the part where you pitched 8oth of us instead of just yourself!" She leans back against the table and flips her hair over her shoulder. "For the record, though: I'm all 8ooked."

Jake seems thrown off his stride by the interjection, and Dirk sizes him up as he regains his conversational footing. Vriska seems like the more experienced of the two of them—would Jake be so thrown off by her interruption if he had given this pitch before?—but something in her banter reminds Dirk of how Hal talks about him: disparaging, but built on an underlying respect. Maybe he's just reading too much into it, though. He's never been much of a people person.

Having regained his bravado, Jake carries on. "Vriska would like to have you believe that shes the best guide in town, but between you and me, thats only true during the stretches when Im off on a job and shes stuck back here. Though I find it a bit unseemly to brag, Im something of an expert in navigation and desertcraft and all those sorts of proficiencies needed to get you to the destination of your dreams and back in an equal or better condition than the one you left in. Never an unsatisfied review, thats the jake english motto!"

He pumps an arm and winks, and even in the heat and uncertainty, his enthusiasm is so infectious that Dirk automatically cracks a smile in return. Something about Jake seems... odd, in some way he can't quite place. The uncalloused hands, the reaction to Vriska's interruption; even Vriska's own unrelenting narcissism suggests that not all might be as it seems. "Now if any of thats got you the slightest bit interested Im more than open to inquiries so we can work out the details and get you where youve got to go!" Dirk barely processes the words, too busy sizing Jake up, mulling over his observations and trying to piece them together into something actionable. "Um, hello there buddy?"

"Aw, Jake, did you 8r8k him? I told you your charms were too powerful for you own good!" The intrustion breaks Dirk out his reverie, blood rushing to his cheeks. "Not to worry, str8nger, it's hardly the first time. Jake's got this way with people—Jake, remem8er the lady last sweep—?"

"I'm fine," Dirk quickly cuts her off. "I'm on... a pilgrimage, of sorts. I'd prefer to keep the details personal." So that Vriska doesn't blab them to every person who sets foot out here, he adds silently. "Jake, is there somewhere more private we could speak?" He realizes his mistake a second too soon, as Jake is cut off before he can reply by Vriska's piercing wolf-whistle. "Somewhere away from her?"

"For sure," Jake nods eagerly, his own face slightly flushed. "Vriskas a fine sort once you come to know her but I understand she can be a bit much for the uninitiated so just follow me right this way. Nobodys ever in the stables at this hour so we should have a pretty discreet setup." He casts a forlorn glance at the gambling stones, which Vriska has already begun sweeping into a satchel, and leads Dirk through a low archway and around to the back of the building.

The scent of manure hits Dirk's nose as they approach the row of stables, followed by the quiet snorts of the animals within. He grimmaces, peering into the shadowed pens, and frowns. "Are those... camels?" Though ill-prepared for most fauna identification, Dirk recognizes the humped shape of the horse-like creatures from storybooks and school documentaries about Old Earth. "I didn't realize they had brought them to Hemera."

"More or less." Jake flaps a hand ambivalently. "Theyre native to this planet but theyre similar enough in form and function that it hardly matters whether or not you choose to draw a distinction. Vriska wanted to say humpbeast but thats frankly just a mite too outlandish for me so camel it was." Vriska again, even after she's out of the picture. The two of them must be close, Dirk decides; proper business partners, or perhaps mentor and mentee. Jake smiles affectionately at one of the animals. "But tomayto tomahto theres business to be done! Any chance a fellow could get this strangers name?"

"Dirk Strider." Jake offers another handshake, and Dirk accepts, slightly more prepared for the vigorous motion. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"I assure you mister strider the pleasure is all mine!" Jake claps him on the back, yet again nearly bowling him over. "You said you were here for some sort of pilgrimage no? Have you got anywhere particular in mind or should I fire up the good ol english mental atlas and spit you out some fresh-baked travel advisories?"

Dirk hesitates. "Sort of." In all his preparation, not once had he considered the possibility that he would have to tell his guide where they were going. "I'm looking for a ruin, already documented by orbital surveyors, but I'm not sure exactly which one. Here—" He pulls his communicator from the pouch on his hip, and with a few taps brings up the holographic map of Hemera he had been examaining during the shuttle ride. "It's somewhere in this region, three or four hundred hundred kilometers from the shuttle complex." He moves his fingers across the display, and the planet expands to show the area in detail: a large glowing dot for his current location, and a red circle a hundred kilometers in diameter for the search area. "Is there anything of the sort out there, to your knowledge?"

Jake sticks out his lip and squints. "Youd be surprised how many bits and bobs the ancient hemerans got to building, and im not terribly familiar with the map view... Yes, I reckon Ive got a few ideas about where it is you could be headed." He scratches his chin, poking uncertainly at the projection to little effect. "Id hate to impose, but we get more than our fair share of looters and neerdowells out here in the galactic frontier as it were, and it would put my mind a tad at ease if you would fill me in on what exactly youre out to do and who or what gave you the scoop that this is the place?"

Again, Dirk pauses. "A matter of utmost secrecy," his benefactor had called the expedition, and yet they had sent him here with instructions to hire a local escort for navigation. Was showing his hand part of the plan? How much could he safely reveal? Or... how much of a lie could he get away with? "I'm on a reconnaissance mission, of sorts," he starts carefully. "An independent surveyor has heard about a lost expedition, carrying potentially reclaimable resources, that was last heard from while en route to one of the ruins in that region. I'm here to investigate those claims, and to see if a proper reclamation effort would be financially feasible."

He holds his breath, and after an intolerably long pause, Jake nods slowly. Dirk lets out a quiet sigh. The "lost expedition" story was true of almost every lightly-treaded planet, and nameless reclamation agencies regularly sent scouts after their materials. It was indeed a perfect lie, and with any luck, Jake wouldn't suspect a thing until they were already... wherever he needed to be.

"Lost expedition... Sounds like quite a monetarily motivated pilgrimage," Jake chuckles. "Well given it wasnt with myself I wouldnt be terribly likely to know the iteneraries of any such journey in particular, particularly the ones that went without triumphant return, but there are certainly a few locations you could be after." He finally tears his eyes from the hologram, ruffling his hair and placing a hand on his hip. "If youre set to hit lets say all four—no, all three of the big ones, that ought to be about three weeks round trip. Hows that sort of schedule strike you?"

"That will be more than fine. What kind of rate would you be charging?" Ordinarily, Dirk would have pressed for prices much earlier in the conversation, but if his benefactor made good on their promises, a few weeks of overpriced desert expeditioning would be the last of his problems.

"How does something in the neighborhood of... five hundred credits a day sound?" Dirk blinks. "Thats provisions, water, whatever equipment you need so long as it fits on a camels back, and of course my premium navigatory skills to top it all off!" Now THAT was suspicious. Most expedition guides charged an arm and a leg for journeys twice as travelled and half as equipped, and the bartender had specifically warned him about the local guides being fleece-prone—yet this one was offering him a daily rate barely higher than a night at the tavern. "If thats a bit too steep for your blood I maaay be able to cut a deal, satisfaction being my top priority and all..."

"No, that will do," Dirk assures him. Another swarm of facts and observations buzz through his head, begging to be slotted into a coherent picture. "Payment up front, or after the fact?" And what's the catch?

"How about this," Jake says with a snap. "Its already far too late to fit a successful day of expeditioning in even if we were to snatch a camel and set off on our merry way right this instant, so how about rather than skipping off into the sunset you spend the night here and we put a rubber stamp on the details come sunrise? That way you can get yourself together and your pocketbook in order, and I can render a decision about when it is Ill need the money and whether youre the type of character prone to slinking off into the night with nary a credit left in my tip jar." He smiles at Dirk expectantly, and receives a chuckle for his efforts. "Break of dawn is roundabout 6 o'clock, so if you can be back in the courtyard then Ill have a route and invoice ready." Looking pleased with himself, he claps his hands together. "And dont worry about vriska, shell stay out of my hair now that weve each landed ourselves a client."

"Alright. Six o'clock local time tomorrow, courtyard. I'll see you there." Jake offers a third handshake; Dirk takes it again and finally keeps his balance, strangely comforted by the guide's grip strength. You may be getting scammed and/or murdered in your sleep a hundred miles from anyone who could help, he imagines Hal saying, but at least he'll be able to crush your windpipe efficiently. "Here's to a fruitful expedition?"

The guide laughs. "Save the toasts for when its done! I dont drink drink when Im on the job but if its a celebratory night on the town youre after Id be happy to join." He shades his eyes and examines the horizon. "If you can still stand me at that point that is. Much though nights on the dunes have a tendency to bring people together they can just as easily drive a great big wedge into the smallest cracks! But youre spot on with the spirit of your proposition. Lets certainly have some labored fruits to celebrate eh?"

"Let's."

"Right, then I do believe thats that for now. Ive got to be getting to the brass tacks of guide prep so Ill see you when the rooster calls! Er, metaphorical rooster, we dont exactly have those roundabout here." Jake holds up a hand in a static wave, and Dirk follows suit. "I do look forward to getting to know a thing or two about you mister dirk." Again, he's struck by those piercing green eyes. In the half-shade cast by the back of the low building, they almost seem to glow on their own.

"You too, Mister Jake." He doesn't mean for the mimicry to slip out, but Jake laughs earnestly as he turns to leave. A swarm of questions plagues him, questions about Jake and Rose and the ruins and his benefactor, but as he walks they begin to vanish one by one, slowly replaced by a thousand green pinpoints lighting up his mind. He wishes he could ring for Hal, fill the empty space with vapid arguments like always, but soon there's nothing to dwell on but the eyes, and the laugh.