Archive of Our Own

"Right, so I've rolled a seventeen. I deal ninety damage to your Model 2E86T Craft and that's the last of your fleet. I win!"

"Dang it," Impulse muttered. "I almost had you! One turn from getting the homing missile off!"

Grian cackled. He dropped the rest of his cards onto the hovering table set up between them and leaned back in his chair, lacing the fingers of two of his hands behind his head. Impulse followed his gaze out the cockpit window to space flying by in swirling blue. Hyperspace travel almost matched the colour of the diamonds in their cargo bay. Almost. It never stayed the same shade for long, the drone of the engines bending light and space around them.

Grian shifted his third and fourth hands resting on his stomach to pull a map up from his wrist communicator. He projected the array of holographic stars over the cockpit. Impulse followed one blinking red dot — the Midnight — on its path along their typical shipping route to the rendezvous point with the flagship of Boatem Intergalactic Trading.

"Man, this is taking forever," Grian whined. "I swear this route doesn't normally take this long!"

"Did we have to go around something?"

"I don't think so, there's no recorded deviations in our course."

Impulse held up a card. "Want to go another round if you're bored?"

Grian twitched an antenna. "You really want to lose again?"

"Hey!" Impulse protested. Grian smirked. "You're just getting lucky with your rolls!"

"Yeah, definitely not a skill issue."

"I- what- hey! No! It's not a skill issue!" Impulse sputtered.

Grian flicked the map away. "If you say so. You wanna take first turn?"

"You're on!"

Impulse shuffled his deck, only for his hands to still when the navigation system beeped. Grian's own cards fell to the table, his hands flying over the controls. Impulse leaned forward to get a better look. Blinking shapes outlined in solid red lines directly in their path were scattered over the screen, all different sizes and shapes. Most were irregular, but Impulse frowned at a few large chunks. A handful of unusually triangular pieces with straight edges.

"Meteor shower? Here?" Grian said.

"You sure? Those are some weird-looking meteors."

Grian hummed. "System says meteor shower."

"There's too many straight edges for those to be meteors." Impulse hovered a finger over the display, towards one blinking shape. "This looks an awful lot like the wing of a 2E86T."

He'd know. He had just been staring at the last surviving member of his fleet of cards. Impulse sifted through his deck and held the 2E86T card next to the screen.

Grian made a low trilling noise in the back of his throat. "Alrighty, yup, that's a debris field alright. We're staying far away from that."

"What? Grian! What if there's survivors! There could be escape pods or something!"

"Impulse, that ship looks mighty dead!"

"Come on! We should at least check!"

"I don't think there's gonna be anything."

"Grian!" Impulse held his gaze. He refused to blink until Grian flicked his antennae back and grumbled under his breath.

"If my ship gets damaged, you're fixing it."

Impulse smiled. He reached over the console and flicked on the life scanner. "You have my word. Promise."

Grian pulled back on the throttle and eased them out of hyperspace. The engines quieted. Cerulean morphed into the darkness of space, while the smears that were the stars caught up with their own light until they were back as twinkling pinpricks in the void. As the ship slowed, Impulse squinted for stars blinking in and out of existence, watching for passing debris off their starboard side. Metal flashed along with the transits over distant stars, lit by the nearby Asdca Star System with its blinding blue supergiant star.

His hand stilled above the controls while he stared. There had to be thousands of pieces, all the shattered remains of a 2E86T spacecraft.

"Don't like the look of that," Grian commented.

Impulse nodded. He pulled his eyes away from the debris to activate the scanner for signs of life. Light pulsed over the screen. Once, twice, and a third time, negative with every scan. Impulse chewed on the inside of his lip. Maybe someone had already found the survivors. He couldn't see anything that looked like an escape pod in the debris, something he chose to interpret as a good sign. A sign that friends of this ship had already rescued them.

He also chose to interpret the lack of floating bodies as a good sign.

Finally, the scanner beeped. A single dot pulsed on the screen.

"Huh, would you look at that," Grian said. "There is someone out there. You gonna take the shuttle to go get them?"

Impulse laughed and rubbed the back of his neck. "Maybe not. You're the better pilot here."

Grian shrugged and snatched his helmet off the floor next to him. He stretched the remaining three arms while he rose. "I trust you not to crash my ship at least."

"I think I'll manage," Impulse said. "I'll guide you from here. Be careful."

Grian threw a grin back over his shoulder from the door. "When am I not?"

"Pretty much all the time!" Impulse yelled after him.

Grian was still questioning why he agreed to this by the time he reached the hangar. Whoever it was out here in deep space, would probably be able to fend for themselves. One simply didn't come out this way if they weren't trained to handle the dangers.

Curse Impulse and his bleeding heart for making them take this detour. And curse himself for listening and not being able to say no to his friend.

Grian vaulted himself up into his shuttle. A small craft, not particularly fast and lacking a hyperdrive, but stable enough to manoeuvre through debris. He secured his helmet in place, twitching his antennae out through the slots and fired up the ship. The engines whirred to life with beeps and blinking lights. Grian kept his two lower hands on the steering and kept flipping switches with his other two, all familiar movements after years of flying.

"Impulse? You read me?"

The comms crackled. "Loud and clear."

"Good. Which way am I heading?"

"Starboard. Pretty close to the edge of the field."

"Alrighty." Grian disengaged the landing gear and directed the ship through the shimmering blue barrier, the separation between the hangar and the vacuum outside. A grinding noise filled the cockpit, a hydraulic hiss from the wings shifting into flight position. Grian stabilized the ship and activated the headlights. He brought the ship lower and pulled back on the throttle at the edge of the field.

"Little to the left. Go around the chunk in front of you and it should be right on the other side."

Grian skirted around a piece of the ship's hull, reinforced layers of metal shining in his headlights until it gave way to dull shadows. Green and black paint. He frowned. A colour combination with a clear meaning— Octagon. One of the three massive intergalactic trading corporations in the galaxy and Boatem's biggest rivals, along with Big Eyes.

Slowing the ship further, Grian flattened his antennae back over his helmet when the darkened surface gave way to buckled sheets of metal.

Like something had ripped its way out from the inside.

"G? Why'd you stop? The signal is right in front of you."

"No, no, Impulse, look at this." Grian fumbled to activate his visor. He sent a signal back to the Midnight.

"Oh. Oh no. That- looks like an explosion."

"You tell me. And I think this might be an Octagon ship. Or- well, rather, it was an Octagon ship."

"Right. That's not a good sign. Maybe the one survivor can tell us what happened. Can you see any escape pods?"

Grian nudged the shuttle away from the hull. His eyes darted to every charred scrap of metal passing by, some pieces barely larger than a hand while others dwarfed his shuttle. All in a similar state of crumpled destruction.

"Stop, stop, stop! It's right in front of you!"

"What? Where?" Grian craned his neck. Debris, debris, and more debris. "Impulse! There's nothing here!"

"How? The signal's right there!"

"Are you even watching my view?"

"Yes! I just- I just don't- I don't know, man…" Impulse paused. His voice softened when he spoke again. "Oh. Didn't matter anyways. Signal's gone."

Grian sighed and closed his eyes. "Sorry, Impulse. You're right. It was worth a try."

"Maybe the survivors already got picked up by their friends."

Grian ruefully smiled to himself. Maybe they did. He wouldn't mention how nobody would've survived an explosion like the look of this one. With one last scan, he navigated back to the Midnight the same way he came. The wings folded up, engines humming until the ship touched down. He killed them immediately after.

Another perfect landing, if he did say so himself.

The Midnight's crew was already approaching the shuttle with a fuel line before Grian had even stepped out of the ship. Grumbots. Worker robots reaching just past his waist with rectangular head displays, each featuring a two digital eyes and a moustache. Grian had helped with their creation, but they owed their existence to his best friend: Mumbo. It was Mumbo's work that allowed them to form the crew of the Midnight with the technical capabilities to keep the ship running in any situation. All centrally controlled through a Robotic Efficiency and Prime Optimization system— a Grumbot Prime AI.

But right now, they weren't needed. Grian waved the pair of Grumbots away. "Don't worry about it," he said. "It was a short enough flight."

Their features flashed green and returned to white. Knowing they'd return to their docking stations, Grian left them to their own devices. He tucked his helmet under an arm as he walked back to the cockpit.

Impulse hadn't moved from the co-pilot's seat. He sat with his elbows on his knees and listlessly shuffled his deck of cards, his head lifted to stare out the front window. His wings hung limp from his back with no effort made to keep them folded, along with the tip of his tail twitching where it hung just above the floor.

"Ready to keep going?" Grian asked.

Impulse startled, jerking his head over his shoulder with a stifled yelp. Two pairs of ears on the sides of his head flicked out to the side. His cards fell to the table. "O-oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm good."

Grian kept him in the corner of his eye while he sunk back into the pilot's seat. He dropped his helmet on the floor and busied himself with flipping switches to reignite the engines and realign their course. Words leapt to the tip of his tongue and melted away.

"So… an Octagon ship, huh?" Impulse said after a minute of silence.

"Looked like it."

"Didn't know they used this route."

At a tiny green light blinking on the dashboard, Grian pushed forward on the throttle, engines roaring with a burst of acceleration. Hyperspace melted light and space into a swirling blue tunnel.

He engaged the autopilot. "It's a pretty popular route," he said. "Mostly us and Big Eyes that uses it, but I've seen a handful of Octagon ships stopping by the Rados system."

"Right. Yeah, of course."

They lapsed back into silence. Impulse fidgeted over the steady noise of the engines, leaving Grian to occupy himself. He projected the holographic map again and zoomed in to watch the star systems fly by. Efqub, thirteen light years towards the outer rim with its five planets and 372 moons between them. sDoc, thirty-two light years away towards the galaxy's centre, a system rich in minerals but dangerously close to a neutron star. The Asdca system. with its blue supergiant star sat barely two light years from their route.

Only fifteen light years to go until the rendezvous. Fifteen light years too long. Grian flicked the map away and reached for his card deck. "Another round? Could probably get one more in."

Impulse's hands stilled. He gave Grian a weak half smile. "Sure. Why not."

Grian shuffled his deck and dealt himself a hand. He let Impulse make the first move, his eyes flicking back to his own cards to strategize while Impulse played his 2E86T card and added one unit of fuel. Grian's own Model WQ87 card in his hand would do well against it if he could get it played and properly fuelled. Perhaps the QD98 Destroyer would be a better first play until he got a better supply of fuel and effect cards in his hand.

"G? It's your move."

"I know, I know," Grian grumbled. He played the WQ87 and one unit of fuel. "I'll attack for forty damage. Where'd the dice go?"

"Uh- good question- oh, here it is," Impulse pulled the dice from the box and held it out. "I-"

The dice flew free from his hand when the ship lurched. Grian barely caught himself on the ledge. Blue became black. Spinning. The ship lurched out of control. Engines sputtered and screamed. Maybe it was him and Impulse screaming. No way to tell where the sounds and lights were coming from anymore. His upper hands yanked back on the throttle. The Midnight shuddered. Shook. Metal groaned from the strain. Dizzy. Listing. Grian grit his teeth and braced himself with a knee to manually engage the stabilizers.

He had never once in his life heard the kind of noises coming from the Midnight now. Even as the ship righted itself, the screaming hull dug blades into his mind. Stabbing pain melted to concern once they stopped spinning enough for him to think, a feeling that only grew when the lights flickered, dimmed, and extinguished. Grian didn't dare move his hands. Not even when the engines fell silent and the throttle no longer responded.

The Midnight lay dead under his hands.

Impulse was certain they were going to die.

He didn't want to open his eyes or unfold his ears. Any minute now, the force of the impact would throw him from his seat and out the window to be crushed by the vacuum. Only a throbbing pain in his arms from where he had gotten thrown against the console, his heartbeat roaring in his ears, and the ship groaning like an injured beast told him he was still alive. Nor were any windows broken.

He'd hear the depressurization if the hull had been breached. Even unfolding his ears revealed nothing other than creaking metal and Grian's rapid, shaking breaths. Otherwise, dead silence. 

"Impulse?" Grian whispered. "Are you alright?"

Impulse cracked his eyes open to the cockpit flooded in starlight. Somehow, in the absence of the artificial lights, Grian had stabilized the ship. He sat perfectly still in his twisted position, with a knee bracing himself against the console, two hands on the throttle, and his other two splayed over the dim control panel. "Impulse?!" he said again, panic rising in his noise.

"Here! Here, I'm fine! I'm here and I'm fine!" Impulse stammered. "Are you okay? What the heck was that? Did we hit something?"

"I'm fine. I think. And I dunno! We've completely lost power!"

"What can I do?"

"I can't see anything, dude. I need you to get the auxiliary power connected. Should be a blue button on the right side of the console."

"Blue button on the right side of the console. Okay." Impulse squinted. "Right side… this one?"

He tapped the button. The cockpit returned to life with a faint, low level hum from the engines. Emergency lights built into the floor flickered to life.

Grian sighed. "Dude. What just happened? I'm- I'm scared to let go of the controls- if the ship starts listing again-"

"Let me hold the stabilizers," Impulse said.

"Okay. I'm gonna let go."

Impulse pressed a hand down on the button the moment Grian moved his. With one hand, Grian flicked switch after switch with no results. "Oh no. Oh no. We've lost everything! I can't access communications, can't divert any power, nothing!"

"Are we even sure the ship's still intact?" Impulse asked. A stab of pain flared up at the roots of his horns. "I can't tell! How do we know we're not just gonna die as soon as we leave the cockpit?"

Grian's breath hissed out from between his teeth. He fumbled for his wrist comm. "Prime! We need a damage report, pronto!"

Impulse's heart sank at the burst of static.

"C'mon, c'mon," Grian muttered. "Prime! Come in!"

"Voice recognized. Scanning for damage. Please hold."

"Please find something easily fixable," Impulse whispered. His chest tightened.

"Scan complete. The connection to the main power source has been severed. Oxygen systems have been disabled."

"What?!" Grian squawked.

"What do you mean, severed?" Impulse exclaimed.

"Scanning for further information. Please hold."

"No! Impulse! Why'd you do that! Override! Prime, what's our oxygen at?"

"Command overriden. Oxygen levels currently at 67%. 66%. 65%."

"Impulse!"

"Okay! Okay! I go fix it!"

"Hurry!"

"I'm hurrying!" Impulse dashed out of the cockpit, having enough presence of mind to snatch his tool belt off the floor. The jarring movement sent spots swimming through his eyes. Another painful spike ground its way through his skull. He grit his teeth and slowed to a fast walk.

He couldn't help but dart his eyes to every flash of movement. All of it illusory, but real enough to leave his gut twisting. Angled starlight from the windows chasing away the darkness like it was alive. Impulse's throat tightened. The scaled skin of his wing membranes twitched and spasmed.

He slowed just enough to glance over his shoulder. Nothing leapt out at him. Not that he was expecting something to do so.

He still couldn't silence the nagging feeling of wrong.

Shadows flickered in his vision, reaching out before receding back to their alcoves as he passed. The hull creaked against the vacuum of space, unnaturally loud without the familiar hiss of air being pumped through the ducts. His tail flicked of its own accord in agitation.

Maybe it was the dwindling level of oxygen messing with his head. He could almost pretend that was the truth, if he ignored how oxygen deprivation wasn't known to make one's skin crawl. Nor was it supposed to cause an eerie sense of being watched.

Impulse flattened his ears back against his head and quickened his pace to the oxygen controls.

A tower of blinking red lights greeted him there. Impulse gave the system a once over for severed wires. Everything was intact. It was like someone had interfered with the connection, rather than actually destroy it. His hands darted over the controls, flicking switches to perform a manual reset. Red lights became green.

Impulse couldn't help his relieved sigh at the flood of air returning to the vents. He tapped at his wrist comm. "System's back up. Looks like the connection got disrupted, but there wasn't actually anything broken."

"Well that's a relief," Grian's voice crackled back. "Dude. I've had Prime running diagnostics here, and it's not looking good. The severed wire is deep inside the hull and I don't think we can get to it from the inside."

Not without losing the integrity of the hull, went the unspoken statement. Impulse left oxygen behind and sealed the door behind him. "What're we supposed to do then?"

Grian hummed. "I guess we've gotta get a signal to Pearl, Mumbo or Scar and see if they can swing by and grab us. Whoever's closest. Can't access comms from here though."

"I'll-" the words froze in his throat at a series of rapid taps from above. The sound of something organic against metal. Running. His ears flicked and twisted, pinpointing the sound moving through the vents. They slowed. Then stopped.

"Impulse? You gonna take a look?"

"There's something here," Impulse hissed. "In the vents."

"What? What do you mean, there's something in the vents? You mean air?"

"No! I mean-" he stiffened when the footsteps continued on their path, passing directly above his head and stopping again. It gave two faint clicks and fell silent. Impulse squinted up through the slats of a duct.

Nothing. His hand drifted away from his comm.

Movement flashed with jaws snapping around the slats. He yelped and recoiled, wave of pain shooting through his wings from his back slamming against the wall. The metal vanished into the creature's jaws with an echoing snap. Two beady, dark eyes stared back from a spiked silhouette, massive in just a glimpse.

It didn't give him a chance to study it further. Not with how it screeched. A horrible, grating noise like an asteroid scraping against the side of a ship. It was enough for Impulse to pin his ears back and clap his hands over them for good measure, heart pounding through the lingering whine while the creature's scuttling footsteps faded away.

"What in the primordial soup was that?!"

"In- ack- the vents! Something!" Impulse stumbled over his words.

"What did-" Grian's voice dissolved into a sea of static. Impulse swallowed and drew in a shaky breath. He shook his head and made to follow the direction where the creature had run off— towards the cockpit— only to yell and stumble back when the door slammed shut in his face. "Grian!"

With a series of metallic screeches, each door around him slammed. The corridor became a prison, with air hissing through the vents and the hull groaning with threats to collapse on him. Impulse stood frozen, any cry for help trapped in his throat while static blared from his wrist comm.

"Impulse? Impulse! What did you see!" Grian yelled into his comm. Static. Nothing but static. "Impulse! Come in!"

Grian jerked his head up at a scream. Not from his comm. Out in the halls. Panicked, terrified and definitely Impulse.

"Impulse!" He abandoned the controls and sprinted down the hall until he was forced to skid to a stop at a sealed door. He pounded a fist against it. "Impulse!"

"We're not alone! It's huge and in the vents and I'm gonna die!" Came the yell from inside.

At least Impulse was alive. Grian rolled his eyes. "The hull's not breached, dude. And you got the oxygen back on so you're not gonna die. Relax."

"I'm stuck in here!"

"Okay, okay, hold on, I'll get you out." Grian flipped open the control panel and typed in the passcode. It flashed red. A different passcode yielded more red.

"I can hear it in the vents!"

Grian's hand stilled. He frowned at the ceiling. "I don't hear anything?"

"I do! Get me out of here or I'm cutting my way out!"

"Don't you dare cut through my doors!" Grian barked. The third passcode he tried flashed green.

The door slid open.

"Why are you cowering in the corner?"

"There was a thing!" Impulse exclaimed. His tail lashed back and forth. "In- in the vents! Some kind of huge… creature! That bit right through the metal and screamed at me and ran away!"

"Dude, slow down. You saw a creature. In the vents. In the middle of space."

"I'm serious!" Impulse jumped to his feet and pointed. "Just look at the vent!"

"Are you sure you-" Grian cut himself off. His breath locked itself in his lungs at the mutilated metal above their heads, gouged with clear teeth marks. "Oh. Oh no. I don't like that. I don't like that at all."

"Now do you believe me?"

"Didn't say I didn't believe you."

"Uh huh. Sure."

"Look, we don't have time for this. It's probably just something that got onto the ship back at the port, right?"

"Those fluffy things? Didn't look like one of those."

"I thought you didn't get a good look at it?"

"Well I got a good enough look to know it didn't look like that!"

"It's probably nothing to worry about," Grian reassured him. "But we are gonna have a lot to worry about if we don't get the ship fixed!"

Impulse groaned. He scrubbed a hand over his eyes and pinned his ears back. "I know, I know. But you said the severed connection to the main power was buried in the hull."

"Comms," Grian decided. "Let's go fix the comms so I can at least talk with you without following you around. Then we can try to get a hold of someone."

Impulse threw his hands up in surrender. "Fine. Anyways, I don't hear the creature anymore so there's that now."

"See? It's probably fine. It's probably more scared of us than we are of it and it went to hide somewhere!" Grian patted him on the arm. "We can find it once we get going again and reach the rendezvous."

"Yeah. Okay." Impulse's tail twitched. "You're gonna have to open the door then."

"Yup, yup, yup," Grian punched the code in and the door slid open. "Why are the doors shut anyways?"

"You didn't do that?"

"No? Why would I?"

"Well, it's your ship."

"Impulse, I never shut the doors. They're programmed to close automatically in case of a fire, but when something's not on fire, they're always open."

They turned a corner. Grian flinched at a horrible, crackling noise snaking through the hull. Much louder than it should be in the deafening silence. He could hear every shift in the metal, every change in air pressure normally hidden by the steady hum of the engines.

He hated it.

"Hey, G? Do you think the creature might've shut the doors?"

"What?" Grian paused with a hand raised to the keypad of the next door. "How would it do that?"

"I don't know, but if it wasn't you and it wasn't me, and it probably wasn't Prime either so…" Impulse shrugged.

"That's-"

The emergency lights extinguished, plunging them both into pitch darkness. Grian stifled a yelp, biting his tongue in the process. He turned on the spot, finally squinting to spot the faint lights lining Impulse's suit. "Impulse!"

"I'm right here! What the heck was that for?"

"I didn't do that!" Grian squawked. "C'mon! Why would I do that? Now I can't see!"

"Okay, fair point."

"Dude, I don't like this!" Grian flung a hand out and knocked it into the wall.

"Hold on, hold on, I've got you." Fabric rustled, and Impulse's fingers wrapped around his lower left forearm. "Well, the communications bay is right here. Uh- what's the passcode?"

"One, seven, five, six, eight, two," Grian said. The door hissed open. "Right. Now we've really gotta get the comms back up so I can talk you through all the repairs."

Impulse tugged on his arm to direct him forward. "You still want to do the comms? I can go fix the lights first."

"And if you get trapped again we're gonna have a problem cause I won't be able to find you."

"Good point. Well, we're here. I can see the central tower, so I'm gonna let go of you now."

"Sure." Impulse's hand disappeared. "So here's the plan then. We get the internal comms working again, then we've gotta get the lights back on. Cause maybe you can see but I sure can't. Then we focus on getting a signal out to either Pearl, Scar, or Mumbo, whichever one of them is the closest," Grian said.

"I know, I know, I can only fix one thing at a time!" The lights on Impulse's suit moved with him while he circled around the tower, the only indication Grian had to where he was. "Can't you get the Grumbots to take care of the lights?"

Grian froze. "Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. Have you seen any of the Grumbots since the power went out? They should've all been working on the problem already!"

Impulse's tail scraped across the ground in the silence. "Oh," he whispered. "I haven't seen them, no."

Grian didn't need to voice the question they both had.

"I'm gonna get the comms fixed," Impulse said, his voice carrying a slight waver. "Here. It's not the best, but I do have a glowstick so you can see a little better."

Grian wrapped his fingers around it when Impulse nudged his lower right hand. It snapped and flooded his vision with faint white light, yet the glow barely reached a metre in front of him.

"Actually, can you bring that light over here?" Impulse said. Grian followed his voice to the central tower. Impulse tilted his head and prodded the wires. "Don't see anything cut in here. I think I can reroute the power through-"

His ears twitched towards the open door, to a sound Grian couldn't detect. "Uh… I think there's a Grumbot coming this way," he whispered.

"Really? Well that answers that question then."

"I- don't know about this. It sounds weird. Like- really weird."

Grian raised an eyebrow, but Impulse had his gaze firmly fixed on the corridor. Grian waited, holding his breath until clanking footsteps came into earshot. Definitely a Grumbot, but Impulse was right. The rhythm was off. Its footsteps were irregular, like the robot was stumbling.

At the display face rounding the corner, Grian relaxed. Normal. Two white round eyes and a moustache on a dark display backdrop, exactly how it should look. The Grumbots did tend to get themselves damaged while working— a flaw Mumbo was still attempting to fix. Likely, that had happened with this one. "Grumbot!" he called. "Good to see you! Can you go get the emergency lights fixed?"

The Grumbot stilled at his voice. The face tilted. It took another step forward.

"Grumbot?" Grian tried again. "Hello? Do you read me?"

"Grian! Back up!" Impulse called.

"Why? It's just a Grumbot!"

"Something doesn't feel right about this!"

Grian rolled his eyes and turned back to the Grumbot. "Really, Impulse? Come on. You read me, Grumbot? The lights? Hello?"

The Grumbot took another stilted step forward. "Hello? The lights? Please?"

Digital eyes blinked once. White flashed to red and the bot stumbled at him. Electricity flashed electricity in the darkness. "Kill-" the bot said in a monotone, tinny voice.

"Woah, woah, woah, hey! Hold on!" Grian leapt back out of range. "Grumbot! Stop it! Hey! Shut down! Shutdown override!"

"Kill."

"Impulse! Do something!" Grian yelled as he dodged another spark.

"I'm trying!"

The Grumbot followed Grian with a relentless slew of attacks. Sparks leapt beneath crimson eyes and moustache beyond the reach of his glowstick; a distance Grian fully intended to keep. A short-lived plan when his back bumped into something. His hands ran over unresponsive buttons and hit the corner of the bay.

The claw reached out.

"Grian!"

Grian flinched away into the corner and held his breath. He'd well and truly trapped himself now, unable to tear his gaze from the sparks stretching closer. They strained to leap onto his suit, into his flesh— with no way he'd be able to kick the bot away before it could shock him.

His thoughts ground to a halt with a crackle of plasma roaring over the sparks. The Grumbot's face flickered once and melted back into darkness, followed by the clatter of metal against the floor. Grian stared, trapped breath rushing out at once while Impulse deactivated his plasma cutter.

"You alright?" he asked. All four of his eyes fixed on Grian, unblinking with his ears fanned out to the side. "G?"

"Y-yeah," Grian whispered. "Yeah, I'm fine. Didn't get me."

"Good, cause what the heck was that about?"

Grian swallowed and moved the glowstick closer to the wreckage. The Grumbot's head lay severed from the rest of its body where Impulse had cut it clean through the neck, but despite inspection, it had no sign of any interference on its shell. "Hijacked?"

"Okay. Okay, that's just great. I'm closing the door."

Impulse drifted out of the light. Hijacked. The Grumbot had been hijacked. Controlled, detached from Grumbot Prime and sent to kill them. Too many questions and not enough answers. The who, what, why, and how.

Grian still flinched at the door slamming shut. "Hey, Impulse?" he called. "We need to get Prime back online. There's just too many things I don't understand here."

"I'm working on it," Impulse said. "Keep a listen out for anymore Grumbots. Or- creatures in the vents."

"Creatures in the vents," Grian muttered to himself. "Why are there creatures in the vents. The Grumbots suddenly trying to kill us aren't enough. No, there has to be creatures in the vents too."

Not that Grian had seen this creature himself. He froze with a hand on the wall, following it to the door. Impulse had seen something running through the vents, specifically calling it a creature. A huge beast able to bite through metal that appeared immediately after they lost power.

Maybe Impulse had a point about the creature being the culprit. It was too much of a coincidence.

"Impulse?" Grian called. "I- I think I change my mind. You might be right about that creature having something to do with all of this."

Impulse's repair work stilled. "You think they're connected now?"

"It all lines up too well to be a coincidence," Grian continued. The painted metal of the door materialized into the light. He took a moment to press his ear against the centre slat, to listen for the clanking of any more Grumbots. "I mean, you saw something and immediately got a door slammed in your face. You got trapped, I came and saved you, and now the lights are out."

"I don't know how would it do that though. You have a point there. I didn't get a good look at it but I don't think it had thumbs."

Grian scratched at his chin. "Cybernetics, maybe? I dunno, where'd it go after you saw it?"

"Uh- it went towards-" Impulse paused. "Oh. Oh no. It went towards the cockpit."

Grian let his hand drop and whirled around to face Impulse. "It went to the cockpit and you didn't think to mention that?"

"It could've turned! I didn't think that was important!"

Grian buried his face in his hands and groaned. "Is there anything else that you didn't think was important?"

"Uh- no I think-" Impulse fell silent at lights flickering to life on the communications tower. "And we're back online!"

Grian was tapping at his wrist comm before Impulse finished his sentence. He projected the hologram. "Fantastic. Okay, Prime? Do you read me?"

Static responded. Grian frowned. "You sure, Impulse?"

"Yeah, its definitely on. Look." Impulse activated his own comm. "Testing, hello?"

It was hard to tell with him with the same room, but Impulse's voice definitely came from the comm. Grian tried again. "Prime? Hello? Where you at, buddy?"

"-ie."

"Uh- what was that?" Impulse whispered as he stepped into the light. Grian blinked at the flicker in the hologram where he swore he just saw part of a moustache.

Grian shushed him. "Hello, Prime. I need a status report. Do you copy?"

"-ie- shop at- die die- ie- -eyes -die die die die -shop at Big Eyes -the place- in the galaxy -die die" Grumbot Prime's voice crackled over the comm, disjointed and staggered while its face blinked in and out of the hologram. The same red as the Grumbots.

"Excuse me? No, no, no, Prime, you don't get to do that, come on!"

"-detection in communi- comm- eyes- die, die, die- life- detection- comm- units converge- kill- die- shop at Big Eyes- die, die, die, die, die, dieeeeeeee-"

"Shut it off!"

Grian needed no further encourage and killed the the channel. He threaded his fingers through his hair, the echo of Grumbot Prime's broken words heavy in the still air. Neither he or Impulse made a move to break the silence. Every groan of the Midnight's hull sounded directly above their heads, impossibly close yet deceptively far away.

The stilted footsteps of patrolling Grumbots clanked through the halls. Even Grian could hear them now, and he could tell Impulse did as well with how his ears fanned out to the side.

He felt like he could hear lighter, pattering footsteps as well. Scratches of claws against metal. A distant screech— Grian didn't know if it was a rock sliding along the hull or the unnatural scream of an invader. Or if it was even there at all.

"G?" Impulse whispered. "I don't- I don't really know what to do here. Why was Prime saying something about Big Eyes?"

Grian swallowed. Big Eyes. Whatever was happening, Big Eyes probably had something to do with this, a vague memory teasing at the back of his mind. "I think- I think I heard something about them doing bioengineering experiments a while back. Maybe it was Octagon. I don't remember. I do remember something about derelict ships being collected for testing."

"To test what? Something that can-" Impulse paused. "Oh. Something that can take over and destroy a ship from the inside."

Grian breathed a shaky laugh. "Right. This isn't gonna happen. I'm not dying in the middle of space on my own ship. If I go out, it's gonna be on my terms and my terms only."

"I'm with you on that." Impulse nodded. "So we get the ship back. Lights on. Engines back on. We smoke this thing out and throw it in an airlock before it can do any more damage."

"Only problem with that plan is that the severed wire to the main power is buried in the hull."

"Oh. Shoot. Forgot about that."

Metal thudded against the door. A pneumatic hiss followed.

"I was afraid that was going to happen," Impulse muttered. "I changed my mind. How about I fix the distress beacon?"

"You know what? Distress beacon sounds great. Forget the lights, forget everything else. We've gotta get out of here."

Hurry.

Impulse had never attempted to repair something as fast as he did now. Part of him was concerned he'd make a mistake— that he'd break the system more than it already was, stranding them for good. No communications, no way to call for help in the vast emptiness where no one would find them. Unless they coincidentally dropped out of hyperspace in this very spot.

That was unlikely. Impulse forced himself to breathe, willing his hands to remain steady. To work fast, but carefully, and not flinch at the grating metal from outside the door. The Grumbots. At least four of them. He could hear them even with his ears flattened against his head. Uneven footsteps, hissing joints, and the crackle of sparks hitting metal.

He jumped when the metal plate he'd been cutting through clattered to his feet. His thumb brushed over the switch to deactivate the plasma cutter. It got left on the console next to him while he pressed his hands to his legs to stop the shaking.

It was fine. He just had to fix the distress beacon.

Impulse took another deep breath. Exhaled. His gaze darted to the blinking green lights of the close-range communications tower, then over to Grian as he paced. He wore a path between the fallen Grumbot and the door, pausing at the latter to listen before turning again.

It was distracting. Impulse dropped his head and sifted through the bundles of wires in the distress beacon. While he could see in the faint starlight, enough to distinguish one bundle from another, he couldn't exactly separate colours from one another. Each appeared the same shade of grey.

One shifted from its tightly locked position just from a brush of his hand.

"G? Need the light again," Impulse called.

The wire shifted from grey to red in the light when it fell from the casing. A clean slice at the end.

"Bad?" Grian asked. "Sounds bad from the noises you're making."

"It's been cut off from the rest of the ship."

"Right. Definitely bad, then. Next question, what does it need?"

"Well, I could gripe about how these communication systems really need to have a battery for situations just like this," Impulse muttered. "Big oversight and flat out safety hazard, if you ask me."

"Impulse."

"We need another power source." Impulse waved the ends of the wires. "And I don't think anything in this bay has a battery so that's just great."

"The Grumbot does."

Impulse jerked his gaze up to Grian. "Where?"

"In its back." Grian drifted away. He dragged the body of the Grumbot back with him, screeching against the floor. "You just need something to remove the bolts."

Impulse didn't dare waste another second. He carefully cut the battery away from the Grumbot's delicate machinery, working in silence to connect it to the severed wires. He kept any words of uncertainty, his silent pleas for this to work, firmly stifled in his chest while Grian held the battery in place.

He twisted the last wire into place.

Sparks erupted. Impulse flinched away, but hope bloomed. The beacon returned to life and power, lights blinking and an electronic drone humming within the casing.

"I'm not moving this thing!" Grian yelled. He jerked his head up at a crash from outside. "Just do it! Open channel! I don't care who finds us as long as somebody does!"

"Right!" Impulse leapt to his feet and slammed a hand on the button. "Hello? Is anyone out there? This is the Midnight, requesting urgent assistance!"

The channel squealed in lieu of a response. "Come on! Somebody!" Impulse muttered. He adjusted the frequency. "Hello! Someone! Anyone! Please! We need help out here!"

Static crackled. A snippet of an indistinguishable word, lost a moment later. But, it was something. Impulse's heart leapt in his chest. "Hello? Hello!"

"Impy?! Is that you?"

He knew that voice. He'd know that voice anywhere.

"Pearl!" the name tore itself from his throat. Impulse's thoughts tumbled over one another. "Help! Need power lost help and there's a chip on the sreature!"

"Uh- say that again, mate? What happened? You two weren't at the rendezvous!"

"Impulse, breathe buddy," Grian said. "Calm down. Can you hear me, Pearl?"

"Grian?!"

"You've gotta come get us!" Grian called. "We've lost power and we're in big trouble here!"

Impulse took a deep breath, and another for good measure. His hands itched in his gloves, aching from keeping them clenched. But he didn't dare relax. "There's a creature. On the ship. Might be destroying it. Not sure yet," he breathed.

"We're two light years from the Asdca system! On the central galactic axis!" Grian yelled. "Pearl, please, you've got to come get us!"

"A creature? What kind?"

"We'll explain later, just-" Grian cut himself off at a deafening screech of metal from the door. Any sense of calm Impulse had managed to create evaporated instantly at the shadowed dent along the seam.

"What was that?!"

"Grumbots are trying to kill us!" Impulse exclaimed.

"They're what?! Okay, keep the channel open, you two! We're-" Pearl's voice was cut off. The channel went dead, along with the entire distress beacon. Lights melted back into shadow.

"No!" Grian shouted. "No! Come on! She said to keep- she said to keep the channel open… no…"

Impulse prodded at the system. "Power's gone," he whispered through his tightened throat. He bowed his head. "We've lost her. Come on, man!"

Grian made a noise of frustration in his throat. The battery fell to the floor. "Now what? Are we gonna have to get another battery from one of those crazy robots outside?!"

"I don't know! Probably!"

"Oh, that's just fantastic," Grian snarked. "That's exactly-"

He stilled at another crack of metal. "Oh no. Oh no, please tell me that's not what I think it is. That's not the Grumbots."

"What?"

"The engines, dude! That- that- thing! It overloaded them!"

Impulse heard it now. A high-pitched whine, the sound of rising temperature and pressure. Cut-off exhaust. Burnt fuel with nowhere to go.

An impeding disaster he hadn't even noticed with how his ears were trained on the threat of the Grumbots.

"Forget Pearl! We've gotta go!"

"The Grumbots!"

"Then give me a weapon of some kind! Anything!"

Weapons. Impulse patted his belt. "Wrench? Best I can do."

"Good enough. You open the door."

Grian wandered to the centre of the bay, with the short-range communications tower at his back. Glowstick in one hand, wrench raised in another, and the other two curled into shaking fists. He flattened his antennae back over his head. "I'm ready. Do it."

Impulse nodded and fired up his plasma cutter into a spinning blade. His fist slammed into the controls, metal screeched, and the Grumbots poured in.

They went for Grian. Five of them. Displays flashed red. Sparks. Impulse charged the one closest to him, lowering his makeshift weapon to slice through its neck. Metal clattered. Glass shattered from Grian swinging his wrench.

Two down.

Grian leapt away from an arc of electricity with a yelp. Impulse took the bot down. The remaining two Grumbots turned on him. He backed away, brandishing the spinning plasma as the tool shook in his hand. The casing poured scorching heat through his gloves. Impulse grit his teeth, pain eroding through his concentration. His steps stumbled.

Glass shattered. Another red eyed display vanished into the shadows. The last Grumbot turned to Grian. Sparks flew.

Impulse lunged and swung. He had the plasma cutter deactivated and dropped onto the nearest console before the Grumbot hit the floor. Pain prickled through his fingers, burning against his palm while he tore his gloves off. Not like he could see his skin in the dim lighting beyond a faint outline.

"Impulse! We've gotta go!"

"Sorry! Sorry, I'm coming!" Impulse flexed his fingers. It hurt. Bad.

Grian paused. "Did you hurt yourself?"

"I'm fine!" Impulse insisted. "It just gets a little hot. That's all."

"I can take it if that'll help?"

"Don't worry about it," Impulse said. "Come on!"

"Impulse!"

"No time!"

Grian grumbled under his breath, but he still followed. Nor was Impulse lying. There was no time. The burn was already subsiding and the engines were nearing critical pressure judging by the sound. The vice wrapped his throat tightened further, and only got worse at another locked door looming from the darkness.

"Door!" Impulse yelled.

"On it!" Grian was typing at the keypad in an instant. Red. He typed the code a second time. "No! That little- it changed the passcode!"

The engines sputtered, a momentary lapse into silence. Enough to send Impulse's heart into a panicked frenzy. The plasma cutter poured heat into his other hand and the blade plunged into the seam of the door. He could feel the deadbolt snap, the change of pressure vibrating through his palm.

Grian was at his side to yank the door open. "If this was any other situation, I'd be yelling at you for that."

"I'll fix it later," Impulse promised, his voice coming out in a strained wheeze. He extinguished the plasma cutter again. A short-lived reprieve from the heat, when they had to cut through two more sets of doors before the last one sent a scorching wave washing over them.

Pressure gauges at the max. The fuel cells shook with their shells giving off ominous creaks in the flood of light. Impulse squinted for the outline in the flare, shielding his eyes as best as he could with one raised hand.

"Not good!" Grian yelled. Critical pressure. Burning. Blue exhaust trapped inside the engine, burnt fuel, light— bright— deafening—

"Open the exhaust!" Impulse shouted. He pinned his ears back and sprinted for the left engine. The base of his horns ached like the fire had reached out to burn him. His hands closed around the lever. Yanked down.

Exhaust roared. Safe. Out into space. Impulse felt the ship lurch under his feet from the sudden release. He steadied himself with a hand on the console, panting for breath in the burning air. He coughed. Eyes watering, he registered a hand wrapping around his arm. It directed him to cooler air, a darkened hall, and the safe, normal, steady hum of the Midnight clinging to life.

"Breathe, buddy. Deep breaths, come on," Grian urged. "We're not out of trouble yet. I can't do this without you."

The glowstick cast an eerie glow over Grian's face. Impulse shook his head. "I'm fine," he wheezed.

"Dude, you're definitely not."

Impulse took another deep breath. The air cooled. The vice around his chest loosened. He cleared his throat. "You got a plan?" he strained.

"No, of course I don't!" Grian threw his two upper hands in the air. "I'm just trying to keep us alive!"

"Alive is good," Impulse muttered. Grian's hand dropped away from his arm when he stepped away to lean back against the frigid metal wall. He bit his tongue, stifling the question of whether it had always been this cold, or if they had another problem on their hands. Fanning his ears out, he closed his eyes and listened.

Crackles and groans from the hull, the Midnight's cries of pain. Grumbots patrolling the halls, none of which were close to them now to pose an immediate threat. Air hissing in the vents. Grian's deep breaths, forced into a slow, steady pace while his feet shuffled on the floor.

Impulse's eyes flew open at a series of clicks above their heads. Metal snapped.

He darted forward without thinking, grabbing Grian by an arm and hauling him out of the way when the ceiling caved in.

"Woah, woah, woah! What're you-" Grian yelled. "Wait, is that the-"

The creature in the centre of the crumpled heap of metal screeched and cut Grian off a second time. It still rattled Impulse's thoughts into an incoherent mess. He managed to crack his eyes open just enough to register a head with flashing blue points forming a crown. Sharp claws scraped over steel and parted it like an explosion ripping through a ship.

Yet, somehow, the creature barely came up to his knee in height.

"That's your huge creature?" Grian called once the screech died down. His voice was muffled by the ring in Impulse's ears.

"It looked a lot bigger when I saw it, okay?" Impulse barked.

The creature snapped its jaws at them and scampered down the hall.

"Get it!" Grian yelled. Impulse took off running after him. The creature darted around the corner. Five steps ahead. Grian swung his wrench at it, but it was long gone.

Impulse was gasping for breath when he followed the creature to the left, around the corner and in time to catch it lunging for delicate machinery with open jaws.

"No, no, no, no!" Impulse yelled, stretching out a hand in vain while the creature sliced through the sheets of metal like it was nothing more than delicate fabric and gathered an essential bundle of wires in its teeth.

It clamped down.

The bay exploded into sparks.

Grian knew three things at this point.

One, this creature was definitely behind all their problems since they lost power. He wouldn't have believed it had it not destroyed the stabilizers in front his eyes.

Two, this thing was clearly engineered. Cybernetics were at play. And if what Grumbot Prime was spouting off was true, Big Eyes was behind it.

And three, they had to get out of here before this thing killed them both.

Grian yanked Impulse away from the bay and stumbled when the ship lurched under his feet. The hull screamed, the hallway tilting down at a steep angle. It no longer mattered when the floor released its hold on them. Artificial gravity and stabilizers gone. Destroyed.

The creature was nowhere to seen in the halo of sparks. Nor could Grian hear it anymore in the cacophony of the hull. Screeching, grinding metal that could only spell disaster.

"Impulse!" Grian yelled. He flailed his remaining three arms, only succeeding in spinning himself and nearly losing his grip. "We're leaving! Abandon ship!"

"Yeah! Sounds good to me! We're past the point of fixing over here!" Impulse pulled Grian back and readjusted his grip to bring them both closer to the wall. The wall that was now the floor, complete with windows spaced between raised edges they could grab onto.

The metal rumbled beneath his fingertips.

Impulse flared open his wings as he passed over the gap, staring down into the darkness. "No- Please tell me that's not what I think I think it is. Come on-"

"What?" Grian squinted into the abyss. His eyes widened at a flash of metal over a smooth, round surface. "Oh, come on, dude!"

"And if one escape pod is gone, then the other probably is too," Impulse groaned. "Any other way out of here?"

"The shuttle," Grian said. "That's our last chance. We get to the hangar and I can fly us out. We can try to call for help again!"

"Let's go!"

Grian followed him through the downwards slant of the hallway. Paint flickered in and out of view in the light from the dimming glowstick. The walls swapped with each other. Starboard became port. Ceiling became floor. Disorientating, dizzy, echoing groans surrounding them while they moved. Hand over hand, Impulse using his wings and tail to stabilize himself. A brief hesitation, and he darted around the corner.

They cut through one last door and were met by red display faces and sparking electricity. Impulse yelped and swung his plasma cutter out, falling short. He beat his wings against the air. Grian planted his feet firmly against the wall and kicked off while both Grumbots had their attention on Impulse.

His wrench punched through one's head. Yanking it free, Grian flailed his arms to turn himself, kicking the first Grumbot in the process to drive the wrench through the fragile glass of the other.

He didn't bother to pull it free. It slipped from his hand when his fingers went slack. Behind it, a perfect silhouette against the shimmering barrier directly below him. A shadow against pulsing blue.

A shadow torn to pieces. Wings and pieces of hull floated separate from the main body.

"No!" Grian yelled. "No, no, no! You're kidding me! No!"

A hand caught his.

"Grian!" Impulse yelled. The air stirred from his wings flaring, tail lashing to stabilize them. Grian instinctively stretched a hand out to grab a hold of Impulse's forearm. He stared, words failing while his heart wrenched at the wingless shuttle floating in the hangar bay.

Their last way out. Gone. Destroyed. Like the Midnight would be, only it would now take him and Impulse with it. Grian didn't even know where the creature had gone at this point. It didn't matter. Not with the Midnight listing as much as it was, the shimmering barrier below him and Impulse the only separation from the hangar and the crushing abyss of deep space.

All the creature had to do was deactivate it.

"Sorry about your ship, G," Impulse strained. "I know I said I'd fix it, but… well. Yeah."

"It's not your fault," Grian whispered. The barrier rippled. "There was only so much we could do with the main power cut off. Not like any of that matters anymore either."

The air stilled. Impulse's fingers tightened around Grian's before he spoke again, his voice uncharacteristically dark. "I hope our friends get Big Eyes back for this. If it is them responsible. They can't- they can't get away with this."

Grian wordlessly nodded. He tore his eyes from the barrier to trace the corpse of his shuttle on its drifting path across the bay. Bolts and wires. The two broken Grumbots with a halo of shattered glass around their darkened displays. A debris field of their own that would become a fraction of what would spread over this pocket of space when the creature tore the Midnight apart.

Maybe their friends would find them later. They could retrieve the diamonds before pirates could steal them and take their bodies back to their home planets. Funny thought, how him and Impulse would die together, but they'd be buried a hundred light years apart.

Even now, Grian could hear the strain on the hull. The low hum of the engines burning barely enough fuel to maintain oxygen and the hangar barrier; their last defences between life and death. It didn't prevent the ship from listing, not nearly enough power with the stabilizers gone, nor would it stop the inevitable.

There was nothing he could even say to Impulse at this point. Instead, he closed his eyes and listened to the dying flare of the engines. Until they weren't dying anymore. They whined, pressure building in a crescendo to what would be a massive explosion. Him and Impulse would never reach the engine room in time to stop it.

"I never thought I'd go out like this," Impulse breathed a shaky, halfhearted laugh. Grian knew he heard the engines too. How they got louder with every passing second stretched into eternity.

Only, the pitch wasn't the same. It didn't sound the Midnight's engines.

Grian's eyes snapped open when the whine morphed into a roar, the sound of power, of fuel burning at a much greater rate than the low level of life support. The sound of a shuttle rising through the barrier into the hangar.

He'd recognize the crescent moon design next to the cockpit window anywhere.

The resignation settled in his chest burned away to a giddy laugh. It escaped, rushing out as the airlock slid open and Pearl's upper body leaned out. Her eyes widened with a pulse of white light snaking up her antennae to settle at the tips. "Guys! Come on!" she yelled.

"Line!" Impulse yelled back, his voice cracking on the word. Pearl's antennae bobbed. Metal ratcheted and buried its sharpened tip into the floor with a thud. Pearl yanked on the other end and sent a dotted pulse of light up the line.

Impulse never let go of Grian's hand, the air swirling around them from the shuttle's engines and the furious beating of his wings. Grian kept his eyes fixed on the light until he wrapped his left hands around the line.

They pulled themselves down. Pearl's antennae bobbed like a lure—a promise of safety with how the Midnight groaned. Hand over hand, Grian ignored the horrible noises and focused on the light. Wire on his left, Impulse to his right.

Impulse tugged him away from the line at the bottom. "Woah, woah, woah! What are you doing!" Grian yelped and flailed his left arms.

"I've got you!" Impulse called. "Pearl!"

All four of Pearl's hands wrapped around Grian's left. "Got him!"

Grian could see again. Cool white lighting along the floor within the airlock, and the sweet, sweet pull of artificial gravity keeping his feet firmly planted on a solid surface. He pressed his hands to the wall, taking deep, filling breaths while Pearl pulled Impulse down through the door. She slammed a fist over the controls and sealed the airlock. "Scar! Get us out of here!" she yelled into her comm.

"Hold on to your hats!" Scar's voice crackled. Grian stumbled when the shuttle lurched, saved by Pearl catching his elbow and steering him out of the airlock compartment and into the hold. Engines roared.

"We were starting to think we lost you when your signal cut off," Pearl said. She steered them both over to a set of a table and two chairs. "What in the world even happened?"

Impulse just shook his head and rubbed at his eyes. His wings hung limp from his back with his shoulders bowed in exhaustion. Grian spoke for them both. "We found a debris field in the route and stopped to check for survivors. Didn't find any, kept going, then we lost power. Impulse saw a creature of some kind in the vents, then the Midnight just kept turning on us. Oxygen went down, doors slamming, reactor meltdown. You name it, it happened."

"I could only fix so much," Impulse added in a murmur.

"Whatever it was took over Prime too," Grian said. "All the Grumbots were trying to kill us!"

"You think the creature was hijacking your ship?" Pearl flicked a crescent-tipped antenna.

"It had to be! Everything started happening as soon as Impulse saw it! It's the only logical explanation."

Pearl touched her chin and frowned. "And you said Big Eyes might have something to do with it too."

"That's what Prime was saying."

Pearl hummed in the back of her throat. "I wonder. Let me check something."

She disappeared into the cockpit. Grian exchanged a look with Impulse before they both followed her. Off to the side, her fingers swiped through a series of screens flashing in the holograms from her comm, while the pilot glanced over his shoulder and grinned.

Grian made no attempt to stop the wide smile creeping over his face. "Scar!" he exclaimed.

"Well hello there! So good to see you! You gave us quite the scare!"

"Glad our signal reached you all," Impulse said.

"Oh yes! Mumbo's on the Lighthouse! We were all there going over logistics and-"

"Scar! Focus and land the ship!" Pearl admonished.

"Right, right, give me a second." Scar's tattered wings twitched at his back as he returned his attention to the looming hangar bay of Pearl's ship, the Lighthouse. Grian sank into the copilots seat. Scar caught his eye and smirked before smoothly directing the shuttle through the barrier. Worker Grumbots bustled around the bay, but Grian focused on the tall figure pacing back and forth while wringing two sets of hands in front of him.

Mumbo. His best friend, the appointed CEO of Boatem Intergalactic, and perpetual nervous wreck. Grian certainly owed him a drink at the very least for putting him through this.

He didn't hesitate to leap out of the shuttle's hold and wrap Mumbo in a hug even before the door had touched the ground.

"Oh my goodness! Thank the stars you're alive!" Mumbo exclaimed. "Don't scare us like that!"

Grian flicked him with an antenna and pulled back. "Dude, I thought we were dead. It- it wasn't good."

"I thought so too!"

"Sorry, Mumbo!" Impulse called. He stepped out of the ship with Scar at his side and Pearl trailing a step behind him. "I-"

He trailed off, his words morphing into incoherent noises while he pointed at the creature leaping off the hull of the shuttle and scampering across the bay.

"Get it, get it, get it!" Grian yelled. He chased after it. If this thing got into the vents of Pearl's ship— bad. Very bad. He couldn't let it happen. The creature narrowed its eyes at him when Grian moved to cut it off, jaws snapping while it released pulses of blue light along its spines.

Plasma flared in his peripheral vision, crackling until the sound died to the creature's shrieks when Pearl's net engulfed it. It writhed over the floor, snapping and screeching whenever it failed to bite through the plasma.

"I knew it," Pearl said. She pulled a hover drone from her belt and sent it at the net, lifting the furious creature off the ground. "So that's what Big Eyes was up to."

"Up to a what?" Impulse said. Him and Scar stayed a safe distance away from the creature with their ears tightly pinned back against their heads. Mumbo ventured a little closer, only to leap back with a startled yelp when the creature lashed out.

"Seriously, do none of you read the holonet?" Pearl rolled her eyes. "There were leaked reports of Big Eyes bioengineering experiments, aiming to create a part-living, part-mechanical being that could survive in the vacuum and hijack ships. Project Shwammy. Any traces of their experiments vanished after the reports hit the net, but clearly, they managed to finish them."

"And they were targeting Grian and Impulse?" Mumbo asked.

"Targeting shipping routes," Pearl corrected. "Mostly the ones we use, but also the ones Octagon uses. Both of us are targets here."

"Destroy our ships so we can't trade," Impulse muttered. He shook his head and his expression darkened. "They can't get away with this."

"Can we get that thing out of here? Please?" Scar asked with his hands pressed over his ears.

Pearl nodded and headed for the hall. Mumbo followed. "Don't let it out of the net! It can chew through metal!" Grian called after them.

"I won't!" Pearl yelled back.

Grian left them to deal with the creature. Instinct carried him to the shimmering barrier between ship and space. He could just barely make out the silhouette of the Midnight's husk. A derelict wreck. The diamonds were still inside the hold, but for once, Grian didn't care. He had liked the Midnight. It still made a few strange, probably concerning noises that he should've let Impulse fix long ago, but it was his, and it hurt to see it in this state.

"G?"

Grian swallowed and tore his gaze away to Impulse.

"I said I'd fix it, and I'm gonna keep my word."

"Don't worry about it." Grian shook his head. "It's- it's just a ship. I can get another one."

"But it's your ship," Impulse said, like he had somehow read Grian's mind. Grian bit his lip to hide the persistent ache in his heart as his gaze returned to the Midnight.

Impulse cleared his throat and continued. "I've got a buddy on Skangill Three. Head mechanic at the spaceport. He's got a salvage ship and owes me one ship repair worth of sweat equity for a favour. And he's the kind of guy that always repays a favour even if I tell him not to."

Grian jerked his gaze back to Impulse. "Really? But what about your ship?"

Impulse waved him off. "I can fix my own ship if it comes to it. Besides, I probably got us in this whole situation to begin with. Bet we picked up that creature at the debris field."

"Nuh uh, you're not blaming yourself for this," Grian glared at him. Impulse grimaced and dropped his eyes to the floor. "If you weren't there, I would've been super dead. So, thanks. You know. For keeping the ship functional and all that."

"Just doing my job," Impulse muttered. "Is that a deal then? I get your ship fixed and then we figure out what we're gonna do about Big Eyes?"

Grian shot him a grin. "Deal."