crocuta mentha

“What, you don’t have the sacks to off me yourself? I get out of here and I’ll take you and the rest of your prick crew.”

Mirèlha doesn’t look up from the small tear in the joint covering of her chassis as she repairs it. “Tempting. But no, you’re not getting out.”

The pirate — internal data retrieved references to callsign Wedge, maniple designation Target-5, given and family name unknown — just sneers into his cockpit camera. “I know you Gate types. You’re too pussing soft to do anything, you’re probably under orders to take survivors alive, yeah?”

“Are we, now? I think your former crew would disagree, if they could.” His bravado falters for a moment, but he quickly makes up by spitting some obscenity her dataplating isn’t quite able to translate. “You’re all talk now, but you won’t kill someone who can’t fight back.”

She sighs under her breath, and pauses her repairs for a moment. She looks over at the pirate chassis: its armour is thick, and the cockpit is well-placed in the very centre. Probably why Target-5 had survived the fight at all. But nearly a square metre of it is coated in buzzing greywash nanites, flashing orange-hot here and there as they slowly but surely corrode through the metal plating. He can’t have more than a few minutes left before they reach the cockpit, and with almost all systems down, it isn’t like he can do anything about it.

Then, a thought occurs to her. She pings another maniple of greywash to scan for recording-capable devices in proximity. System response: null. She glances back to the display of Target-5’s cockpit feed. “You’re from here, in Calliope, aren’t you?”

“Piss does it mean to you?”

Her eyes twitch in the suggestion of a smile. “From the way you talk, I thought so. I don’t imagine you ever would have heard of Crowngarden, would you? Beautiful little world in the Interest. My parents were financiers. Successful ones, maybe even wealthier than some noble families. Well enough to send me off for education in the homeworlds, at least, but ultimately my family was actually plebeian. It’s funny, the way people here conflate us with the nobility. To us, the two classes couldn’t seem more different.”

The silence of the pirate’s lack of response is punctuated by a sharp snap and hiss as the greywash reaches a live wire and begins devouring it, following it deeper into the chassis’ systems. Target-5 startles slightly in his cockpit at the noise, but quickly resumes his posturing. “Slit your family. Quit running your mouth and crack the hatch. I know you’re just gonna take me cuffed, so just get it done with.” This time, there seems to be a hint of stress in his tone that wasn’t there before. She elects to ignore his request and stands up, stretching in her hardsuit, before walking a slow circle around the disabled chassis to assess the damage.

“Of course, there’s not too much I could really tell you about Crowngarden these days. I didn’t remember much of it even before coming here, and now it’s two centuries later… who’s to say what it’s like these days, hm? And the funniest thing of all, up until a few weeks ago, I couldn’t even tell you for sure that my mission still existed. For all I know it got lost in paperwork somewhere. Even now, I haven’t had any word on a target.”

“What do you want me to believe, you’re some kind of pussing Karrakin assassin?”

“The technical term is asset, actually,” she corrects him. “And I suppose it doesn’t really matter if you believe me or not, does it? Not much longer now.” She pauses, and chuckles quietly as a thought occurs to her. “I guess you can understand how I feel, being stuck waiting around like this.”

“You’re piss mad. Let me—” there’s a violent hiss as one of the compressed air tanks in the life support system ruptures. “You’re insane! You think your soft crew would let you do this?”

“Probably not, no. Good thing for them they’re off in the other section, hm? Interference from the ship’s systems is too thick for us to keep a lock on each other more than a couple rooms away. No, it’s just us here for the time being. I’d advise you try to relax. Struggling won’t slow them down any, and you may as well be calm before they get in. I imagine it’s a little more pleasant that way.”

“You piece of—” Target-5’s threat is abruptly cut off as there’s another loud hiss of the cockpit being breached and depressurised. The cockpit feed persists, but after a few moments there’s nothing much left to see. She dismisses it from her display and recalls that maniple to its compartment. She glances back over to her chassis, and sees that she’s left the repairs half-finished. She chides herself mentally for that; it’s unprofessional to get caught up in personal conversations like that and let it distract her from the work at hand. A few minutes later, she receives a ping from Wake. “Roil, find anything?”

“Not much. A few usable spare parts, but that’s it.”

“Understood. If you find Spark, I’ll get Tails Up and we can ship out.”