Starchildren Options

[Kane]

Two stories at once is a lot for me, so these updates may not be as frequent. I also did not plan on this but a certain young woman in my head refused to be quiet.

---------------------------------

Prologue (May 7th, 2330)
Ebbside, Neon City, Volii Alpha


Andromeda awoke with a start. Somebody was pounding frantically on the door to her sleep crate and had ruined a perfectly deep slumber after a long day of work and even longer night of partying to celebrate her birthday. There was no way in hell it was daylight already which meant she probably left her slate at Euphorika. Again.

The bleary-eyed young woman fumbled in the dark for her glasses while the pounding on her door continued. If whomever it was out there kept it up much longer, she felt like her head would start pounding, too. Having finally fished her glasses off of the cold floor Andromeda slid them on and then clicked her bedside lamp to life. Most of her clothes were strewn about the floor of her metal box, which also explained why she was now so cold.

Two minutes or so later, she was half-dressed, and her nearly decrepit Solstice was clutched tightly in her left hand. Please don’t fizzle out on me now old girl, she thought. Looking down at the worn laser pistol in her hand, she sighed and silently chided herself for never spending any credits on a decent gun. The little pistol had been thrown out for good reason, yet Andromeda had fished out of the garbage anyway and fixed it up in the most half-assed way possible. Each time she squeezed the trigger was just another gamble on whether or not the damned thing would even fire.

This time she prayed to gods she didn’t give a [censored] about that it wouldn’t let her down. And then she finally opened the door.

Andre burst into her sleep crate and slammed the door shut behind him.

“It’s about goddamn time you answered! What the hell took you so long, Dro?”

Andromeda blinked in surprise at the urgency in his voice. She’d known Andre for over six months now, and the man was usually as cool as a cucumber. Even when he drunkenly tried to flirt with her. Andre had taken a courier job for HopeTech on Valo and was reassigned here to Neon City, much to his initial dismay, but they had grown close in the time since. The man was of average height with dark skin and kind brown eyes that sometimes hid behind a mop of unkempt blue hair.

“Slow down, Andre,” she said. “What’s the big deal?”

“No time to slow down. The ‘big deal’ is that your [censored], Dro. Absolutely [censored].”

“Wha -”

“Gather up what you care about the most and stuff it in your bag. Security thugs are closing in already �" I set up a prox alert for when they get within twenty meters.” Andre saw her bag sitting on the floor near the door, grabbed it, and handed it to Andromeda. “Pack! Now!”

“Andre, I am not going to move another goddamn muscle until you tell me what the [censored] is going on!”

“[censored]. Fine. Start packing and I’ll explain while you go.” He waited until a few things had been shoved unceremoniously in her bag before continuing: “Those Ryujin files you hacked yesterday for your anonymous buyer? They were tagged for Bayu’s personal records. Dunno how he tracked you down so quick but if you wanna live to see your twenty-sixth birthday then we need to get you the hell out of this city.”

Her blood froze. Benjamin Bayu. The Administrator of Neon City and possibly the most corrupt man in the settled systems. His fingers crept into every business venture on the planet and the security force was at his beck and call. No one did business in Neon without giving him a cut, and his ruthlessness against would-be competitors was legendary. Everyone who lived in Neon lived comfortably by skirting his brutality.

If she was on his radar at long last, then she had definitely taken the wrong job, pile of credits notwithstanding. Being a Cyber Runner in Neon always ran the risk that Andromeda would one day cross paths with that monster, but she had always been careful about her choice of contracts in the hope of avoiding Bayu. Her luck had finally run out and yet she still was uncertain about leaving the only home she ever knew.

“I can’t just up and leave!” stammered Andromeda, freezing midway through emptying the contents of her wall safe. “My whole life is here! It’s all I’ve ever known!”

“Doesn’t matter. Bayu will have you killed just to make an example - “ Andre ceased talking abruptly at the sound of rapid beeping emanating from his slate. His face took on an unhealthy pallor and he nervously ran his hand through his hair. “Time to go. They got there sooner than I expected.” Andre pulled another slate out of his jacket pocket and gave it to Andromeda. “Here, take this and give it to Doc Manning at the clinic. He’ll give you a short makeover to fool security at the spaceport.”

“Andre, I...” Andromeda was at a loss for words. The sudden shock of what was happening and the thought of fleeing her life �" Neon, Andre, the friends and people she’d grown up around �" was too much. Hot tears fell down her pale cheeks and splashed on the floor of her crate. She raised a hand to brush them away, and then shoulder her bag. “This isn’t over,” she finally said with a firmer resolve than what she felt inside. “Bayu isn’t chasing me out of my [censored] home forever. I’ll come back for all of you, I promise.” Andromeda stood on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on Andre’s cheek. “I promise.”

“We’ll do what we can to clear your name. You need to go. Now. They’ll be here any second. I can keep them occupied for a few minutes but they’ll tell me to get lost before long. Go!”

Andromeda pulled her hood up to hide her vibrant fuchsia hair and fled into the night without another word. The garbled chatter of Neon Security radios echoed up from the alleyway to her right, so she moved silently away from them and ducked into a dark alcove that was still within view of her crate. It was hard to much of anything, but she recognized the dim form of Andre now standing back outside of her door and soon heard him pounding on it once again.

“Yo! Open up, Jen!” Andre’s voice rang out. “Open up!”

Flashlights illuminated and three security goons stood at the ready, their guns trained on her friend. Andre’s hands flew skyward while the nearest guard began to pat him down.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” demanded another guard.

“Damn, take it easy, bud,” said Andre. “My friend lives here and she’s gonna be late for her shift at Generdyne again. Just trying to get her ass on the move!”

“Jen, huh? Yeah, sure pal.” The guard shoved him aside and addressed one of his partners. “What do you got, Reg?”

“Andre Mitarn, known associate of one Andromeda Renault. Courier for HopeTech.”

“Did ya hear that you lying piece of [censored]?” laughed the first guard. “Jen my ass. Where’s the girl?”

“If I knew where Jen was I wouldn’t be here, officer.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever, punk. Reg, you know the drill �" get him out of here.”

Andre lowered his hands to leave while Andromeda released a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. Her friend turned to walk away but Andre only made it a few paces before two sharp cracks rang out through Ebbside. He fell to the ground in a pool of blood while Andromeda watched in silent horror. She shoved her hand in her mouth in a desperate bid to stop herself from crying out.

“Dump that sack of [censored] over the side. The chasmbass will get rid of the evidence for us.”

Two of the security goons forced open the door to her sleep crate and disappeared inside while the third dragged off Andre’s lifeless body and heaved it over the railing and into the churning waters far below. Andromeda slipped away unseen and headed silently for the Neon Core, wiping away the tears as she went. The nearest door to Bayu Plaza wasn’t far, and within five minutes she had stepped through it and darkened her glasses against the garish light that gave Neon City its name.

Every type of store and service imaginable spanned the length of the Core, brilliant neon signs and lights shining down upon everyone who walked the expansive length from Ryujin Tower to the Trade Tower. Even late at night (or early in the morning, as it was now), the walkways were teeming with citizens, tourists, guards, scumbags, and dregs.

Andromeda’s destination was Reliant Medical and thankfully it was only a short distance away. Doc Manning seemed to never sleep and with her life crumbling around her, Andromeda was grateful to see him sitting at his counter.

“Ah, there you are, Dro! Andre warned me you were coming �" c’mon around back and we’ll get you fixed up.” He paused at the signs of grief that had stricken her normally carefree face. “What’s happened? Wait… where is Andre?”

It took everything Andromeda had to not scream in frustration and anger. She settled for kicking helplessly at the front of his counter which only resulted in a stab of pan shooting through her foot. “They [censored] killed him, Joe! Bayu’s security goons iced him without a second thought and threw him over the rails of Ebbside!”

“Bastards,” sighed the Doc. “I keep hoping this city will change some day but I don’t think I’ll ever live to see it. Despite younguns like you fighting back, Bayu’s grip never seems to relent. All the more reason to get you out of here, I guess.” Doc Manning waved her towards the back again and dismounted from his stool. “Go on, I just have to lock up real quick.”

The back room had a small biological modification chair that the doc had somehow procured from one of the Enhance! stores that were peppered throughout the local galaxy. It must have cost a small fortune, but she once again found herself thanking gods she didn’t care about for its existence in the back of the clinic. Doc Manning followed her in a few seconds later and instructed her to take a seat in the chair.

“Okay, so Andre...” Joe trailed off and made a gesture that Andromeda had never seen before. His hand moved across his face in the shape of a ‘T’.

“What was that for?” she asked him.

“The cross? It’s from an old-Earth religion that most have forgotten about. I’ll explain some other time. Anyway… so Andre most have been tipped off pretty early and with a good bit of info. Bayu has your name, financial history, work records, and physiological profile; but not your DNA records. We lucked out there. A few cosmetic changes will get you past the spaceport sniffers.”

“Joe, I can’t pay for any of this,” said Andromeda. “All my accounts are probably seized and I have less than two-hundred credits in my bag.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Dro. You’ve already done so much for the hard working people of this city that your friends are lining up behind me to get you safely out of this place.”

Andromeda sniffled and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue from the box Doc Manning held up to her. She knew it would be a long time until she saw those friends again, and the thought of that hurt more than anything else. Then she laid back in the chair and closed her eyes while the doctor powered up the alteration arms. She knew it would take thirty seconds to a minute for the machine to fully boot, so Andromeda pressed her friend on what would happen next.

“I have another slate from Andre,” he said. “It will transfer enough credits to get you on an outbound freighter, and provide a new identity. But the tricky part will be getting you to the port with perfect timing. We need to have you at the gates just as the ship’s thrusters begin to burn, so that the guards will hopefully rush you through without looking to closely at your records.”

There was lot that could go wrong with that. However, she trusted her friends implicitly and so she closed her eyes again and let the doctor go to work. The procedure was relatively painless, but she did flinch from the occasional needle or sharp prod. Some calibrations to the machine were in order when she returned. If I can return, she thought. Benjamin Bayu had a long memory, and she doubted he would forget about her anytime soon.

Ten minutes elapsed before Doc Manning leaned back on his stool and powered down the alteration arms. He grabbed a mirror from a side table and handed it to Andromeda. The same brown eyes stared back at her, but Joe had completely changed her hairstyle and its color: the long ponytail she had entered the clinic with was gone, and only a small knot was tied up in the back. Instead of fuchsia, her locks were now dyed an incredible opalescent prism of stunning colors, and the strands on the right side of her face fell down past her cheeks while being tucked back tightly on the left side.

She noticed the bare skin of her neck and left cheek and inhaled sharply. “Did you get rid of my tattoos?! Those were really personal to me, Doc!”
“Relax, I just covered them up with some foundation. Keep your hood up a the spaceport or the rain will wash it away and give up the goose. They’ll stick out like a sore thumb. Oh, and leave your piercings here. Those are easily replaceable.”

Andromeda frowned but did as advised. She popped the studs out of her ears and nose, removed the loop from her septum, and slid the barbell out from her nose bridge. Doc Manning collected them all in a small steel pan and then dropped them into a medical waste bin. Andromeda slid out of the modification chair and gave him a hug.

“Thanks for everything, Doc. I’ll be back to repay you some day.”

“I already told you your credit is good, Dro. Just promise me you’ll be careful out there.”

“I’ll try. But you should know better than most that the trouble usually finds me first.”

“That I do!” laughed Doc Manning. “Damn, almost forgot �" lose the glasses, too. I have some lenses for you instead.”

She removed her glasses and chucked them in the bin with her piercings. The good doctor handed her a set of icy blue colored contact lenses and after a couple minutes of struggling, she managed to pop them in to obscure her natural eye color. Another hug for the Doc Manning. Then he tapped a slate to hers and ushered Andromeda out the back door of Reliant Medical. Syndal, her best friend from university and one-time lover waited somberly in the trash ridden alley running behind the shops.

“Time to go, doll,” said her diminutive cohort. “Ship leaves in six minutes.” Syndal was tiny even compared to the slight 1.6 meters Andromeda rose to. The top of her head just barely made it to Andromeda’s nose. She put a hand on the back of Andromeda’s head and pulled her down to a reasonable level, kissing her very briefly on the lips. “For luck,” she explained to Andromeda’s quizzical stare. “Don’t think we’re ever getting back together or anything.”

“Fair enough,” said Andromeda. “Are we taking the main elevator down?”

“Have to. It’s all you have time for. “Let’s go, and try to keep up. Security is swarming the Core for you.”

Andromeda nodded and followed along in Syndal’s speedy wake. It was easy to unobtrusively hang a few steps back and still keep tabs on the impressive length of platinum hair falling past her friend’s hips. It swayed to and fro in the constant gentle breeze flowing through Neon City. The draft was one of many effects of living on massive platform built high above the roiling seas of a water world. A world that Andromeda had never left. Or had ever planned to leave. Those idle thoughts helped keep her features neutral when they stepped back onto the main thoroughfare and snaked their way towards the spaceport elevator.

Neon Security had fallen for the gambit. None of them paid her any mind, despite having her former appearance projected on the inside of their helmet visors. Syndal led her right past squad after squad of the corrupt officers until they reached their destination.

“You’re on your own from here,” said Syndal. “Take the lift down to the port and make a show of rushing, but don’t outright sprint. Play the part of the late departee who is trying to make their flight. The guards down there are a different detachment than the Core goons and generally skew towards being less of an asshole than the ones chasing you up here.”

“Okay, I’ll try. Never was much of an actor but I can do this. I have to do this.”

Syndal slapped her on the ass. “Quit stalling. You’ve got less than two minutes.”

“Right. Bye, Syn. And thank you.”

The elevator doors opened and Andromeda rode the lift down to the docking port. Two guards flanked the it at the bottom but the alterations Doc Manning made to her appearance seemed to have fooled their scanners. She showed them her slate and they told her to get moving else she miss the freighter. Settling for a speedy trot, Andromeda sighed gratefully and flitted down the long catwalk spanning over the ocean below, squeezing her hood tightly to her face. The warm, wind-driven rain splattered against her while she half ran to the ship waiting for its final passenger.

It was an ancient Deimos model that took up most of the landing pad. Bright lights illuminated faded letters above the ramp: The Gryphon. A crew member ushered Andromeda inside with little patience and directed her to a jump seat in the main cabin. Unsure of how the seat worked, her fingers trembled while she tried to strap herself in.

“First time in space, dearie?” A middle-aged woman next to her smiled gently at Andromeda.

“Yeah. I’m scared shitless if I’m being honest.”

“There’s nothing to it.” The kind woman reached over and showed her which buckles went where, and pointed out the safety pouch under the cushion. “Mouth guards in there if you’re worried about biting your tongue off. Once we take off, just keep your mouth closed and you won’t need them.”

Andromeda thanked her, and the woman went back to humming an off-tune key. Voices rang out over the loudspeaker and warning signs began to light up all around them. The entire ship rattled and shook, and the message on the flight console on the wall across from her changed from ‘docked’ to ‘achieving thrust’. Seconds later the engines roared into life and the sudden g’s from massive acceleration pressed Andromeda back into her seat. Unable to move so much as a finger, she closed her eyes and whimpered slightly as the ship gained altitude.

And then the pressure was gone. She opened her eyes and the porthole in the ceiling above revealed the deep black of space, dotted with innumerable points of light blinking back at her from incomprehensible distances. For the second time in as many minutes, her breath had been taken away for very different reasons.

She had done it. She had escaped Neon City and the closing grasp of Benjaim Bayu.

The tears came again anyway. Her life as she knew it was over and she had no idea where things went from here. She didn’t even know where this ship was bound. She was alone among the stars. And then the engines powered down while the grav drive engaged, folded space around the ship, and leapt from the Volii System in a blazing show of cosmic light and energy, carrying Andromeda far way from danger with a dumbfounded expression on her face..

This post has been edited by Kane: Jun 20 2025, 12:59 PM

[Kane]

Welcome back, Gritsy! Just in time for a new chapter, too!

=========================

Twenty-six – Matters of the Heart and Home

The Oracle, Sagan I, Sagan System





Andromeda and Andreja stood rooted in place, unable to eavesdrop on the argument happening across the vacuum between the two parties. Whatever the mysterious phantoms were in disagreement over proved to be divisive and one of them had just turned to leave when the other began to writhe erratically. Its blue silhouette of energy suddenly became infused with a crimson corruption, and after expelling a burst of energy it turned violent and trained it weapon on its companion, and on our heroines. Faster on the draw than Andromeda was, Andreja wasted no time in aiming her infilctor at the figure and firing a particle beam straight through its helmet. The phantom-like body fell to the floor while the other remained standing in place as if nothing had happened.

“Dre, what the hell is going on here?”

“I do not know,” answered Andreja through their helmet comms. “But we must try to find out.”

Andromeda pursed her lips and nodded. “Let me see if I can access whatever channel they were on. That one doesn’t seem to notice anything happened, so maybe we can listen in.” She called up her slate HUD and scanned local frequencies for an active channel and found only one. “Gotta be it. Tune to the frequencies I’m sending to your wrist display.” A brief burst of static occupied her hearing followed by Andreja’s check-in. “There’s that sexy voice. Stay silent in case it starts talking.”

In the ensuing moments the remaining specter simply paced back and forth in front of the energy barrier in what appeared to be deep thought. Occasionally, it would stop and stare at the dead body of its companion before shaking its head and resuming the incessant pacing. This went on for nearly five minutes and sapped all of Andromeda’s patience until – finally – it spoke.

“Basira… how I am I to do this alone now? The engineering bay is much too far and I can’t access the power controls…” And then, with a flash of light, it vanished.

“Uh, so that was weird, right? I mean, even weirder than whatever the hell else is going on here.”

“Indeed,” said Andreja. “Perhaps we should consider restoring power to the station.” She cautiously stepped forward to where the previously hostile phantom lay inert, knelt beside it, bowed her head in prayer, and then plucked off an access card that had been pinned to its chest. “Basira Mir. May Jinan watch over you.”

“Off to engineering?”

“Yes. I will lead the way.”

The Oracle proved to be a labyrinth of long corridors, winding stairs, and expansive catwalks that were filled with the hostile phantomized remnants of the crew, and pockets of the weird energy comprising the initial barrier they discovered near their point of ingress. But all of the time Andromeda and Andreja had spent together began to pay off, and thanks to the latter’s comprehensive training of her previously less-than-capable partner, the two of them finally fell in-sync during combat and made short work of their enemies within the station. With each passing victory, Andromeda’s confidence grew and her focused increased – it wasn’t just her life on the line, but that of the woman she loved. Then that focus slipped.

[censored] me, thought Andromeda. When did that happen? I need to lay off the booze later or I’m likely to blurt it at her. She stared at the back of Andreja while creeping down another windowed corridor to what they hoped would be the engineering section. It didn’t matter where they were or what they were doing; she still felt butterflies in her stomach every time Andreja caught her eye. Ugh, I’m in this way too deep now. Goddamn beautiful minx. The hell did you do to me?

“Focus, Annie,” chided Andreja. “You are leering at me instead of being mindful of your surroundings. Do not become distracted now, you have done amazingly thus far.”

“Um, thanks, Dre,” blushed Andromeda. “Sorry, I had an unexpected thought occur to me. It can wait until later.”

Andreja winked at her and they continued on to, thankfully, the section they sought. The Oracle’s engineering bay was half a dozen stories tall and filled with more of the phantom-like humans. Further pockets and barriers of energy were interspersed throughout the various decks making navigation in zero g a tricky endeavor. Retreating to a safer fallback position, Andromeda perused the crew logs on a few stray slates they’d collected along the way in the hopes of gleaning more information on how to proceed.

“[censored],” muttered Andromeda.

“What is it?”

“One of these logs mentions another access card. We’ll need it for the engineering control station.” She read through the rest of the log and opened an audio attachment at the end. The voice of Sirak, the companion of the first hostile they had encountered, played back over their shared comms. He spoke of his observations on the phenomenon ravaging the station and of theories on how to return home. Near the end, the audio log pointed them towards the lower levels where another access card might be found. “Down we go, yeah?” said Andromeda while she disabled the playback.

“Down we go,” concurred Andreja. “Let us hope the path will be clearer than it has.”

“I’m not holding my breath. This place sucks.” Andromeda would have liked to given Andreja a kiss before they resumed their search but settled for a slap on the ass in lieu of removing her helmet in an environment without atmosphere. “After you, beautiful.”

“Ouch. Not so hard next time. That stung.”

“Sorry. Hard to judge applied force without gravity.”

Shaking her head, Andreja led them back into the towering engineering bay. After a hectic firefight that ended with only a couple of singe marks on their spacesuits the last of the phantom humans fell, and they were able to make their way deeper into the bowels of the station. Empty living quarters, raided storage rooms, a torn apart cafeteria, and more corrupted crew members all dotted their course until Andromeda and Andreja finally entered a control station and spotted the coveted card lying on a desk. Andromeda pocketed it with a satisfied smile and the two of them bid their treat back to the engineering bay with a haste made possible by virtue of having already ensured a safe path. And though they now had the required access, the duo soon became frustrated while attempting to restore power and gravity under the constant assault of an inconceivable amount of hostile crew members.

“Where the [censored] are they all coming from!” shouted Andromeda after another laser bolt struck the console in front of her leaving a black scorch mark.

“I am not sure,” replied Andreja. Three more phantoms fell to her particle rifle, their bodies vanishing before they hit the floor. “Though I am beginning to suspect that whatever anomaly has afflicted the station may be recycling these poor souls. The Oracle never had this many crew members. If we do not restore power soon I will surely run out of ammunition.”

“I think I have some heavy fuse cartridges in my utility pouch. Take what you need and use my rifle if it comes down to that.”

“How long until -” Andreja didn’t need to finish her question as she felt the pulling force of gravity return to the station.

“Hah! Eat [censored], you piece of junk!” Andromeda whooped and kicked at the console. “Now I can align the auxiliary power core and… YES!”

The bright lights of the station’s LEDs drowned out the darkness as power coursed throughout the electrical pathways of The Oracle and the electromagnetically sealed doors blocking them off from the main control center slid open. A rush of stale air filled the atmosphere as Andromeda and Andreja removed their helmets and breathed in something other than recycled suit oxygen.

“Well done, Annie! Come, let us see if we can find some answers on the bridge.”

She kissed Andromeda on a ruby red cheek and followed the wall decals directing them to the station’s main operations center with her smitten companion in tow.

What a time to be dealing with this, thought Andromeda. All she did was compliment me and she might as well have proposed on one knee for the way it made me feel. We need to get back to the ship. I need a distraction.

Fortunately for Andromeda, a distraction did come her way the moment they entered the operations center; along with the reappearance of Sirak, who stammered out a few frantic syllables that ended in cries of pain and frustration. More of the strange red energy seeped into the blue-white aura of his phantom-like silhouette and after a final scream of rage he turned his weapon on Andromeda and Andreja just as additional phantoms popped into existence all around them.

“ANNIE, FIND COVER!” yelled Andreja. She dove behind a short partition to avoid a rain of weapons fire that never came.

Reacting instinctively to the overwhelming amount of combatants, Andromeda unleashed the frightening power imbued in her at the first Temple on Tau Ceti III, and an oppressing wave of directed gravity exploded out from her center and violently launched the attackers backwards into all manner of solid surfaces. Those lucky enough to hit solid walls had their skulls crushed and were killed instantly. Some felt their spines shatter against steel columns and staircase supports before falling to the ground in agony. Others crashed into display screens and were subsequently electrocuted. In the end, the bodies dissipated a final time and only Andromeda remained standing in the center of the room until Andreja peeked over the partition with her mouth hung open in shock.

“Jinan preserve us. Andromeda, what did you do?”

“I, um. I-I… I don’t know,” stuttered a shaky Andromeda. “I s-saw you running f-for your life a-and I started seeing red. I didn’t want to see you get hurt. That was… that was the gravity waved I learned at the first Temple. Only I didn’t try to control it this time.” She went down to one knee and breathed rapidly. “[censored]. I need a minute, Dre. That really took it out of me.” She let herself sink all the way to the cold floor and sat down with her legs stretched out in front of her.

“Remind me to never piss you off,” chuckled Andreja. She sat down next to Andromeda, placed a hand on top of her companion’s, and offered her a canteen of water. “I never would have believed such power was possible if I had not seen it with my own eyes. Were you really worried so much for my safety? Did it warrant such an extreme display of your abilities?”

Andromeda stayed silent for a moment while she tried to formulate a response that didn’t involve blurting out her true feelings for Andreja and how they had driven the reaction that nearly leveled the operations center. They hadn’t been romantically together for all that long, and Andromeda had consumed enough bad fiction to know that sudden professions of unrequited love mere weeks into a relationship never ended well. She did not want to be the crazy girlfriend who scared off the one she cared so strongly about – especially when that person had little experience in matters of the heart. Or in showing any emotion at all. And that’s not to say that Andromeda fared any better in that regard. Her relationships growing up in Neon consisted mainly of drunken sex after a night in the clubs.

“Annie?”

“Sorry.” Andromeda shook her head to clear it. “I, um…”

“I believe I see where this is going,” said Andreja, staring out the window in front of them. “The teachings of Jinan Va’ruun state that one day the Great Serpent will return to the Universe and consume it all, save for his devout followers. I have traveled the Settled Systems far and wide in his name and I have met all manner of people. More often than not, those people left me with a poor taste in my mouth – the greed and blatant avarice of our kind is so concerning, yes? That always fueled my desire to continue serving the will of my people… and the will of Jinan Va’ruun. It carried me through the darkest of times when friend were scarce, and those I could trust were scarcer yet. And then I received a new directive: I was to infiltrate Constellation and learn how they were a threat to my people. You can imagine my surprise when I learned they were anything but.”

Andromeda listened with rapt attention. They’d of course discussed Andreja’s past before, but she never seen her stoic friend speak so openly and so voluminously in one sitting. She typically answered in short responses that only gave away what she needed to. This, however, felt like something different, and while Andromeda didn’t know where it was going, it certainly took her mind off of things.

“I suddenly found myself surrounded by the best humanity had to offer,” continued Andreja. “All in one small, relatively unregarded organization of explorers. People who sought only to unravel the secrets of reality, and help whomever they could along the way. People who sought to better themselves; to rise above the petty nature of humankind that often drags us back down to the depths of our baser desires. They were not at all what House Va’ruun led me to believe, and so the veil began to lower.” Andreja tore her eyes away from the unimaginable amount of twinkling stars beyond the station and met the hopeful brown eyes of Andromeda. “And then you came to join us, too. At first, I did not think you would remain. I felt your impetuous nature would steer you away from the ideals of Constellation. Instead, you latched on to me of all people: the one person in our organization who remained distant and distrustful by nature, and yet you refused to back down until those walls I erected were torn asunder. I found myself trusting someone again for the first time in longer than I care to admit. More than trusting, even. So much so, that despite all you have gone through, there are times like this when you care more for my well-being than your own. And at the end of the day, I find myself asking: does the Universe deserve the Great Serpent as all my people are brought up to believe? Are we truly the only ones who remain pure and unsullied by the easily corrupted nature of humanity? I used to believe in those ideals with a fervor that some would find disturbing. But now I see life for what it is more clearly. There are those like our friends in Constellation who outshine the lowest of the low, and seek to drag humanity into the light. And there are those like you, Andromeda Renault, who shine so brightly that they cast their radiance into the darkest depths of the indoctrinated souls acting in the name of false prophets and facetious men. You have shown me that no one is truly deserving of the Great Serpent’s return and its fearsome hunger. And for that, you have my heart.”

The thumping in Andromeda’s chest reverberated so loudly she thought Andreja could surely hear it. Her attention hung on every word, ever utterance, every carefully selected syllable and she scarce allowed herself to breathe until the those final four words caused her to inhale sharply. Then there was the subsequent follow-up that turned her world upside down. Or maybe right-side up for the first time in a long time.

“What I am trying to say… is that I love you, Annie.”

“Y-you…” Andromeda nearly fainted. “Holy [censored] is that a relief! Goddamn it do I love you too, Andreja. You have no idea how hard it’s been for me to not blurt it out at every opportunity! It’s why I got distracted a few times today, and I didn’t want to just throw it out there and scare you off! My hands were trembling the entire time you were speaking. I was hoping beyond hope that -”

“Shut up and kiss me, Annie.”

Andromeda didn’t need to be told twice. They remained locked together for sometime until a vortex of the mysterious energy expanded into the control center at roughly the same time Andromeda began to fumble with the zipper on Andreja’s spacesuit.

“Uh, maybe we should finish what we came her for first,” suggested Andreja “This really is not the place for what you have in mind.”

“Uuuuuuggggggghhhhhh,” groaned Andromeda in a drawn out manner. “Stupid [censored] anomaly.”

“Are you okay?”

“No,” answered Andromeda flatly. “I had plans for you and now my suit is going to think I pissed myself. Whatever, let’s just boot up the mainframe. Isn’t that what that Sirak’s guys log suggested we do?”

“Yes it was. Let me take care of something first. Please put on your helmet.”

Andromeda looked at her with a raised eyebrow but did as asked when Andreja donned her own helmet. She watched curiously at the sight of Andreja popping off a climate control system tube from the outside of her suit and snapping it into the redundant port on her own suit.

“Dre, what are you -” Quick as a flash, Andreja synced both of their climate systems and overrode the safety settings. The temperature in Andromeda’s suit plummeted to zero degrees celsuis and her teeth began to chatter while frost crept over the glass of her helmet screen. “W-what t-the hell is w-wrong with y-you!” she shivered. “It’s f-f-f-reezing in h-here n-now!”

“Good. Take off your helmet and let the cold out.”

“What’s the matter with you!? Why’d you do that!?”

“I had to sap that libido before it gets us both in trouble,” winked Andreja. “Did it work?”

“[censored]’s sake. Yeah, it sure as hell did. Now all I can think about is the fact that my nipples are going to poke through my suit lining, so thanks for that, dear.”

“Be nice, Annie.” Andreja gestured to a console near the center of the room that was larger than the rest. “That looks like the mainframe. Shall we?” Still thoroughly annoyed, Andromeda waved dismissively and let her take the lead once more. Andreja replayed the instructions on Sirak’s log and followed the system reboot procedures the late man dictated by entering a number of new parameters into the root screen until she hit a virtual wall. “Your turn, Annie. I am not skilled enough with cybersecurity to write the required command sequence needed to execute the system reboot.”

“Suppose we all have our own talents,” said Andromeda. She took Andreja’s spot at the terminal and looked over her progress. The necessary script wouldn’t be an issue. What would be an issue, though, was the fact that the moment she hit ‘enter’ and the reboot process completed, the entire spacestation leapt across folded space to an entirely different system than Sagan. “Okay, what the [censored] just happened?”

“Jinan’s pants!” exclaimed Andreja. “It cannot be!” Outside the windows of The Oracle there now hung a different celestial body. A rocky moon with a massive polar ice cap and a reddish-pink tinge to the atmosphere drifted silently around a gas giant near the inner reaches of an uncharted solar system. The sight of it froze Andreja. “That is Va’ruun’kai. I am home.”

This post has been edited by Kane: Feb 18 2026, 01:57 AM