I hunkered down in the maintenance shaft I'd been calling a bunk for the last week and thought about my life choices up to this point.
Okay, joining up with Soban Fleet Command? Still think that was a reasonable choice in the moment. I like space. I like spaceships, despite the last month. I liked my job as navigator and helmswoman. I definitely had no idea this would happen then.
Running, a month ago? In retrospect, still seems like a good call. When half the bridge crew starts chanting "WE ARE THE SHIPMIND WE ARE ONE" with their eyes lit up from within by suddenly glowing neural implants, you get the hell out of there before trying to figure out what happened. That's how they got the doc, Lieutenant Commander Fritz. He stayed behind to examine the captain while the rest of us bolted, and the next time I saw him his eyes were lit up like a christmas tree.
Calling security after? Probably a mistake. We should have called them down to engineering and just hunkered down. Instead I think we lost a solid 70% of our weapons and the people who knew how to use them. Including Lieutenant Grelik, the extremely hot butch saurian who I'd been hoping to ask out for... well, probably long enough that I was never actually gonna do it, as long as I'm being honest with myself.
Allowing one of them access to engineering, when the rest of the crew had holed up there, so we could "negotiate"? Absolutely a mistake, but I was outvoted, and shooting all the naysayers would definitely not have helped.
Now, do I like the fact that I opened fire on their "negotiator" as soon as they stepped out of the door? No. Am I sorry that I shot the captain? Yes. Do I think I should have used a setting higher than "stun"? ...probably not, I don't think it would have changed much. Do I think maybe we could have avoided getting shot by the security detail that swung in after her? If we'd taken up fortified positions like I'd suggested at the time, absolutely. Do I think it was necessary to open fire? Yes. So, a solid 80% good there, probably, B minus.
From there, really the only choice was what I did, which was: lock out the controls of the hyperdrive and duck into whatever maintenance shaft I could find, hope I could link up with the other free folks later. I did, too, but by that time the rest of us could be counted on one hand.
I tick them off on my fingers. Starille went to the computer core to try to shut it down and got jumped. Could have given her backup, but we probably just would have both been seen. James went on spacewalk to try to manually send an emergency beacon out, and chose to jump off rather than get captured, poor bastard. No way I could have helped him. Phrog and Lilly got hungry and decided to try to sneak some supplies, which went pretty well until they were scurrying back into the vents and Lilly got stuck in a forcefield trap. Phrog came back and gave me the supplies before turning right around and saying he was going to go get Lilly. Dipshit. I sealed the conduit behind him. Which is good, because I heard them pounding on it not long after.
So, okay, I can't think of any place where I really could (or would) have done anything differently, but I'm still here in a tangle of pipes, surrounded by meal trash, unable to even sit up straight because the ceiling's so low, and being hunted by a creepy hivemind. I have three ration bars, half a liter of water, a self-defense pistol at 30% charge, and a datapad I don't dare turn on because they can track the damn things. Not a great situation.
I'm thinking that my best chance is still probably to try and get to the escape pods. The ship's still dead in the water, but eventually someone from SFC will notice we're gone and send a ship to find us. As long as I can tell them to blow the ship to kingdom come before they make contact with it, it should all be fine.
Of course, the problem is they've probably already thought of that.
Good thing I've got a backup plan.
Well, it had been a good plan, I thought, staring at the empty rack of escape pods while the ship's self-destruct warning chirped in my ears. Put the datapad on engineering with a delayed command to log into the network and try to access the lockouts to activate the self-destruct sequence, check. Both of those together draw out the hivemind to run there and capture me in the act, and even when they see I'm not there, they have to stay to try to stop the destruct sequence, check. I go along the maintenance shafts, sneak past them, and get to the pods, check. I take one of the pods, which automatically unlock during the self-destruct sequence, and get out scot free.
I didn't expect them to have already scuttled all of them.
Well, at least my troubles would all be over in about two minutes- and there go the emergency lights and the all-clear signal. Lovely. Back to the vents it is. Stupid lousy goddamn datapad. Should have paid more attention in my remote cryptography class.
I turn to run, and immediately get hit by what feels like ten thousand volts and knocked backwards. I rub my head and look up at the clear floating haze of a forcefield between me and freedom. Fuck. And then, behind it, there they are. The captain, the doc, Phrog, Lilly, even Lieutenant Grelik, all standing there watching me land right on my ass with that eerie glow in their eyes. Fuck me. On top of that, my gun's been knocked out of its holster and is on the wrong side of the forcefield. Fuck me sideways, there's no way out!
I can't help it. I start panicking. There's no way out. There's gotta be a way out. I run around the small chamber, looking in the emergency lockers. Empty. There's gotta be another pod, one they missed. There isn't. Lockers again? Still empty. There's a console on this side of the door! I could lock them out! Failed login, command denied, terminal shutdown. Fuck, fuck, fuck! They're still standing there, watching me like a rat in a cage. There's nothing I can do. There's nothing I can do! There's nothing I can do!!
"Hey. Hey! Lieutenant Declan! Declan! Sarah!"
It's Grelik. She's trying to get my attention. I decide that my best course of action is to hyperventilate in the furthest corner away from her.
"Sarah, come on, we're not gonna hurt you." I laugh, a single manic bark. "Please, Sarah, breathe with us. In-" and all of them, together, breathe in, holding up fingers in unison, one, two, three, four, "and out-" again, in perfect sync, four, three, two, one.
I don't breathe with them. What if that's how they get you? I deliberately try to breathe out of rhythm, I squeeze my eyes shut, choke off a sob. I'm me, damn it, I'm me, just one me!
A few moments later, my heart pounding, I risk a look up. They've all gone, except for Grelik. That creepy light still shines in her eyes, but at least she's alone. And damn it, she's still hot, her red scales complimenting her security uniform, biceps rippling.
"We sent the others away," she says - they say? "We don't want to hurt you. We're worried you might hurt yourself. Come on, come down out of the corner. Please?"
My blood's still rushing in my ears, but I can almost pretend she's talking on behalf of the crew instead of being one with them. I unfold myself marginally.
"You must be hungry, right? We thought the supplies Phrog gave you would only last a few days, maybe a week. We made your favorite. We're gonna push a plate of it in now, okay?"
I weigh my options and my ability to shove past her when she lowers the shield, which is made moot when she only removes the bottom part to push in a plate of chicken, rice, and spices. It smells... it smells really good. I eye the plate suspiciously.
"Come on, it's okay. We're not a virus, we don't spread through food."
That... is probably true. Maybe. I am hungry. I sniff the plate, pick up the fork like it's going to bite me (it's a plasticine safety fork, it couldn't if I wanted it to), and poke suspiciously around in the rice for a few moments before loading up a forkfull. It's delicious, especially after living on ration bars for most of a month.
"There, see? It's all fine."
I grab another bite and watch her suspiciously, in case she lowers the forcefield and grabs me while I'm not paying attention. It'd be... much less sexy than in my imagination, I'm certain. She sighs and sits down cross-legged, a very difficult position for saurians to get up from quickly. Gradually, I lower myself onto the floor and put my plate in my lap to eat.
"There you go. See? We're not gonna grab you without your permission."
"Oh, yeah?" I say, through a mouthful of chicken. "Then, what, you just let me waltz back through to engineering and hit the self-destruct sequence again?"
"No, obviously not. Jesus, Sarah, you've been living in the fucking vents for weeks now, we've been worried about you! Try and see it from our perspective."
I snort. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
She - they - roll their eyes at me. "Look, we know we got off on the wrong foot-"
"Yeah, you should have ominously chanted 'WE HAVE CAKE' instead."
"We were sorting things out! You try speaking out of a dozen mouths for the first time and see how you do!"
We glare at each other across the forcefield for a moment. I break first, looking away as I put my plate down and hug my knees to my chest. I chew on my lip and look back at her - them - and swallow. Their expression softens.
"Look, we know you're scared. Some of us were scared before we joined together, too, but we're all happier, now! We can feel the solar wind on our hull, taste across dozens of tongues, share secrets and intimacy without worrying about everything all the time-"
"So the sex is pretty good, then?" I can't help but needle them, it's the only weapon I've got in my box, now. My leg bounces as I say it, though.
"Oh, it's fantastic, Sarah, like you wouldn't believe." Going for the old genuine-answer defense against embarrassment, I see. My face reddens in response to their sudden, if still glowing, bedroom eyes.
I look away again, hugging my knees even tighter. "This is how you got the others, huh? You give them someone they trust, or look up to, or whatever, promise them the world, then slap them in a contraption and take over their brain?"
"Sarah, please, it's not like that. Yes, we know you had a crush on Grelik" (it's so weird to hear her talk about herself like she isn't there) "so we thought maybe you'd find it easier to talk to this body. You'll probably say we're lying, but you know, she had a crush on you, too." She blushes, scales on her cheeks turning a darker crimson, and I realize with a growing blush of my own that it's not her, it's them.
"S-so," I try to deflect, "when do you use the matter-transposer and make everyone an identical copy, huh? All one big happy family?"
They give me such a look - disgusted, confused, and maybe a little pitying. "Why would we do that? We like ourselves as we are. Sure, we might get some of us on gender treatments, and we've been thinking about some extra augmentations, but we mean, you've got tattoos, right? It's not like you're a stranger to modifying your body just because you want to. But you wouldn't cut off your left arm and replace it with another right arm just because they're not the same, right?"
I guess that makes sense. I stay quiet for a little bit, thinking about that. "So... what happens now?"
They lean back, putting their hands on the floor. "That's up to you, really. If you want, we could stick you in the contraption," they stick their long, forked tongue out at me, "but we won't do that if you don't want us to. Really. We won't let you blow up the ship, but otherwise you could unlock the hyperdrive and we could keep doing what we've been doing - charting deep space for SFC. Or we could stare at each other across a forcefield for another month until another ship comes looking for us and you could try your luck with them." She pauses. "Of course, there's always the non-contraption option for joining us." They wink at me.
I gulp, throat suddenly dry. Was that implying... I take an unsteady breath. "Can I think about it?"
They stand up, and the forcefield drops. They extend a clawed hand towards me, and I flinch, but they just stand there, hand extended. Gingerly, I take it. "Of course," they say. "Take all the time you like." They pull me up into a tight hug, and whisper into my ear, "but we do hope you'll join us."
It's all too much. Too many emotions in too short a time. I hug them back, and cry into their shoulder as more of them surround me in a big group hug.
