Eris and the Quote of Licci Vade

by on-campaign

Colonists from Mars escape bombardment by Grineer and seek refuge in Corpus territory. They quickly find that there is no home left. For them, its either indenture or death.

1. Chapter 1

Eris and the Quote of Licci Vade - Part 1

In all the system, it was a difficult thing to say we had a colony on Mars, all to ourselves. There wasn't any such concept, to own something so large without someone bigger owning you as well. And yeah, that's how it went with us, under the Corpus' thumbs for so long. The thing of it, though, this one Mars colony, was that the Corpus didn't want to bother so much with it. Just wanted it to work and for us to send them their dues, and we'd keep on keeping on. In the fifteen days of flight after our escape from the bombardment, I had this one really slow day. Clara had the freighter piloting down by then. The last families were all accounted for (it was easy to lose a kid even on a smaller freighter like we had), twenty-six people in total, everyone in decent shape, food from the larders all rationed out. I sat down with Ms. Quinn, the old administrator and asked if we could do the math. What's the number, the big number, the money. How much was lost? Just how impossible would it be to see something like our colony again? She never gave me a number, or really spoke at all that day.

Now, we were shooting for Neptune, a rifle at my side and Clara in the seat next to me. She was wearing the same brown tank-top and coveralls, tied tightly around her waist. They used to be a stoney grey, but the oily, grime-ridden holes she climbed into to keep the freighter running painted them muddy. She was reading some operations manual she dug up out of a late engineer's desk. Many of these days, we sat in quiet, still reeling from the attack. Still felt like it was only hours ago. She asked me once, where do we go. I don't know, I could've said. Everything any of us knew just evaporated like it never happened. How the hell could someone know? Maybe there was no where to go, or maybe there was everywhere. I could have said a lot of things, but the fact was there was nothing left. Only one direction to go in. I couldn't even say that.

And there was Neptune now, the crown jewel of my bad ideas when she asked again, where do we go.

"But what if they don't take us in?" Clara asked.

We pressed into orbit, the planet shining like a blue marble, like encapsulated sky. "We have a Corpus ship," I said. There was quiet. The ship hummed and rattled. I couldn't help but think we were piloting an old refrigerator. I looked from the viewer to her. The big round blue of Neptune's surface gleamed off the teary sheen of her eyes. Slack jawed, still scared, not yet numb to it all.

"It's their ship."

"The Grineer don't know how to track this stuff, Clara, it was hijacked tech. They probably think they blew it all up, anyway."

Her eyes set on me, expelling Neptune's image from them. They were a hard, darkly brown. Any other day, I'd have admired that sharp a gaze. "That's not what I mean," she said. "You know that's not what I mean."

The ship groaned as we entered gravity. It was already battered. In disarray. The Grineer never knew how to take care of much. Those few weeks ago, I watched two of them gargle commands at the Messers' kid to fix the shoddy cargo bay door, their logic relying solely on the fact that they saw him scrubbing the floor of machining grease that day. They were big guys, especially in their lumpy, bulbous armor. Each one had a wrinkled, cut up face that was essentially a scowl stretched over two bright coals for eyes. The kid was right to do what they wanted, even if they themselves didn't know how the work could be done. They used their guns like clubs on that skinny Messers' kid when he didn't know how, either. I hoped the kid made it out of the blastwave, but I'd never know for sure if he did or not.

The viewer lit up with protocols, logistics. Technobabble I could make little sense of. I assumed it was some sort of docking procedure that fires up when you get close enough to a waystation.

"They're calling it in, I think," I said. We lurched as the ship tugged away at a different angle, aligning itself to wherever it was being told to go.

"Do we just let them take it in?" Clara asked. "Won't they be surprised when none of their techs are on board, just a bunch of stowaways?" She hadn't noticed the notification icon in the viewer. She wouldn't have. Never spent much time on the ships with them to recognize the symbols. It was a small, almost innocuous red pip, like an alarm or alert, at the bottom right of the protocol windows that trilled and blipped and filled with litanies of Corpus text. It was blinking there, like an eye. The Corpus already knew.

Whatever plan I had washed away in that moment. Something felt wrong. Show up on Neptune, I had thought. Give 'em back their gear, get a pat on the back, and re-assimilate, but it hit me just then that it had been a year since the colony was taken by the Grineer. A full year since the occupation. Fifteen days since the bombardment. Would they even register us as their own, anymore? Were we strangers? Maybe part of me would have liked it better that way.

Was there anything I could do about it, now? I never asked. Just keep going.

My fingers were cold. Bone cold, like Neptune's terrible chill was already sucking the life from me. I tried my best to chip away at the controls; overrides, hailing commands, anything. I didn't know how to do any of it. We plummeted closer.

"You're breathing too hard," Clara said. "The oxygen budget."

The protocols stopped. I stopped. Bold Corpus text dominated the viewer, like a banner. It read Welcome back to Corpus Space! A rough voice played over comms, more like barking than language. "Who is piloting vessel, designation S113-C?"

Clara hunched forward in her seat. She looked small. Her tank-top had blackened with sweat around the collar. The question repeated, with an addition. "Silence will indicate non-compliance. The use of force may be deemed applicable."

Clara gave me one vacant look. I stated my name.

Silence.

"This vessel, designation S113-C, is marked as written off. You will be redirected."

"What does that mean?" she asked. I couldn't bring myself to say anything. I had no idea.

A face appeared on screen, translucent, giving the impression that it was imprinted on the surface of Neptune itself. He seemed jovial, but poised. Makeup dominated his features, playing up his cheekbones like gaunt, alabaster cliff edges. Markings hung under his entirely silver eyes like black cradles. "You speak with Licci Vade, today. With whom do I converse?"

I stated my name.

"Allow me to access your accounts," Licci Vade said. His gaze never shifted, just staring right through us, and the way he spoke verged on song. Gratified, even. No doubt he already knew everything about me that any of their logs would betray. "Oh this is unfortunate. What was your business on Neptune?"

"We were returning a Corpus ship, wanted to return under Corpus citizenship," I said. "What's unfortunate?"

Licci Vade smiled. His perfectly unmoving head lent the smile an unnatural elasticity, as though strings had pulled at the corners of his lips. "To begin, this ship has been marked as written off, were you aware? The reason is listed as theft."

Clara straightened in her seat with a jolt. "We pulled it from the Grineer. They kept it when they took the colony," she said. "It would have been garbage two weeks ago."

"Your name?" asked Licci Vade. His wry smile persisted, his eyes still dead, still full of metal.

Clara winced, like she had been spotted hiding on the other side of a wall. "Clara," she said.

"Full names are acceptable." Licci Vade's tone flattened, empty of all humor. He seemed like a man who cared about pleasantries, manners, social protocol, but I knew full well he had a system of inquiries in front of him that could only accept a full name. Before I could shake my head to protest, she knew what I was thinking.

"Clara is all you'll get," she said. She was sitting upright, angry, coiled.

Systems trilled somewhere on Neptune, the tune to Licci Vade's ceaseless, spectral gaze from beyond the viewer. In this brief moment I realized he had yet to blink. His smile would not relent. "Records indicate one Clara Dirsk as the designated inclusionary shipping & handling specialist for cargo vessel S113-C, as per the "We Profit Together" program for closed Corpus colony #1246, of Mars."

Clara crossed her arms, looked away. A week ago, she'd have been invincible, probably would have given her full name and her mother's too just to seem that way. Untouchable. Even when it was Grineer knocking in our doors, Grineer pumping oil through the crops to fuel the lighted catwalks on their gun emplacements. She worked her shifts, toiled. Somehow Licci Vade corroded whatever armor she had left.

"Licci Vade," I said. "They destroyed it, tore it down from orbit. We just want to get back to our lives and 'profit together' or whatever it is you need to hear."

He didn't spare a second. "One-point-two-seven-five million credits."

I don't know for how long I stared blankly at the viewer before finally uttering, "What?"

"You see, as the designated inclusionary shipping & handling specialist, Clara Dirsk is responsible for returning Corpus equipment limited to within and including cargo vessel S113-C, punctually, or incur late fees per hour of her failure to return it. In addition, the written-off status of the vessel due to theft ended her "We Profit Together" ship insurance. S113-C is to be refurbished upon collection and retrofitted to remain current with Corpus technology, due to its markedly damaged condition."

I should have realized that being alive and willing was never enough for the Corpus. You had to pay for that, too, just for admitting it. "What about my services in the militia," I said. "I have to be entitled to some kind of credit, or military discount."

Clara shot me a look, as if to say are you serious.

Licci Vade's image froze for a few moments, or was he thinking. "Mr. Dirsk, your services in the 'We Profit Together' program were exemplary," he said. "According to records."

I smirked at Clara, or at least attempted a smirk. Instead, more of a half-satisfied grunt escaped me. But Licci Vade continued.

"Unfortunately," he said. "As per the closing of colony #1246, nearly all accounts have been terminated. Reactivation fees are reflected in my, Licci Vade's, estimate."

There was no oxygen, my lungs pulled emptiness. Should I have been surprised? All that time hanging in space on the question of a tether to home. The boarding parties. The Grineer. For nothing.

"We won't comply, Vade," Clara said. She was bent under the controls now, fiddling. Tinkering.

"Full names are acceptable," he said. "And as you are doubtlessly aware, vessel S113-C has been called to a secure docking station, where we will discuss your several financing options on high-risk colonies." At this, Licci Vade bore his teeth in a glinting, leprous grin.

The rifle next to my seat hummed, called to me. If anything, if it all went to hell, at least I could look threatening before they gunned us down. The high-risk colonies were the incinerators of the Corpus empire, where all of the write offs are sent. The gun was a Lanka, a long sleek thing that was all metal and corners. It had belonged to one of the technicians we boarded the freighter with, before the attack. It could hold a charge if you kept on squeezing the trigger, ready to rip a hole in whatever it was pointed at. That's exactly what the technician did to the Grineer navigations-man who tried to make off with the ship when he realized he'd be going down with the colony. Who knows. Maybe I could carve out a hole in the greeting party large enough for everyone else to run through. That's how it worked on the seventh Profit Sortie aboard the Cast-in-Gold. I could do it again.

Sparks shot down over Clara in a shining cascade. She was on her back now, half vanished beneath the console. The ship trembled and the rifle rattled away onto the faded brown stain where the Grineer navigations-man fell a few days prior. Clara grunted as she yanked a bundle of cables that didn't want to tear.

"How did he do it?" she asked, absently. How do who do what, I thought? What the hell was she doing? She pushed herself out from under the console and sat up. Her face was ashed by cinder, the frayed edges of her hair singed. That look in her eyes. Resolute.

"Pull these," she said, pointing over her shoulder to the tenacious bundle of cables.

I looked out at the image of Licci Vade. Still smiling. He was enjoying these last moments of our hopeless, defiant panic. All of my muscles pulled, went hot. Whatever plan Clara had, we needed it to work. "Take a seat," I said. "And keep your eyes on him for me."

She reached up and I pulled her to her feet before wedging myself under the console. It was hot, the air almost rubbery with the smell of melted cable casing. Above me was a morass of multi-colored wires twisting into each other, some cut, some fused together. A few were almost entirely exposed, the red cables coiling into greens. Someone was in this before. A fat arm of bundled cables hung close to my face, spiraling into some kind of black box. I curled my arm around it and braced it against my chest, turned so that my back was to the seats. I pressed my boots against the back of the console and heaved. For a moment the room spun as the cables let go. The last thing I saw before my head clapped against the floor were Licci Vade's mercury eyes, panoptic, seeing all. The ship stalled.

"You okay?" Clara asked. "I think it worked."

I stayed flat on my back for a few moments, coughing as the room pieced itself back together into focus. I had only one question.

"Did he blink?"

"He blinked," Clara said.

"I did not," Vade barked.

I clambered back to my feet and looked at the viewer. No more smile.

"What did you do?" Licci Vade asked, his voice verging on demand.

"Got you to change the look on your weird mug, for one," I said. The scowl it inspired on Licci Vade's face could be heard from orbit. I glanced at Clara and smiled, and she rolled her eyes. I kept on smiling. She smiled, too.

"We didn't do much, Vade," Clara said. "Just before the colony came under fire, we followed a few of the technicians that the Grineer kept alive on-board. The auto-pilot had already engaged when they prepped it for take-off. There's some return-to-sender hardware somewhere in there that started piloting the ship back to some way off repair station as part of the colony's SOS signal. Real sneaky bit of hardware. I don't know much about it, but your techs did.

"The problem, Vade, was that the auto-pilot was taking us right into the firepath. It was like flying into the Sun. So the techs went to work right here in this console. They were too panicked to care that I was watching. Once they freed us from the auto-pilot and got us out, they patched it back together. Whatever damage they repaired, I guess it was easy enough to undo. I never understood why you guys put me in charge of shipping & handling."

I sat at the controls and fiddled around, washed over by relief coming down in buckets. Clara did exactly what I had hoped. I think I heard myself laughing as Neptune spun out of view and stars streaked across the viewer. Licci Vade's face remained etched into the screen, ethereal, darkened by the blackness of space. His silver eyes glittered with hatred.

"We're not bringing the ship back, Vade," Clara said. "Just forget we came at all, why not?"

That trilling played again from behind Licci Vade's unwavering image. What was he doing, now? I swear he spent these moments simply looking at us, appraising us with those eery, ball bearing eyes. In the wait for him to speak I had realized how badly my shoulders ached, like two steel rods were shot between my arms and neck. Finally, he spoke.

"An asset protection team has been dispatched. A receipt for this transaction has been sent to your net-comms address as provided by your accounts," he said. "Have a splendid day."

With that, the image of Licci Vade tore away in a flash of static, leaving only a silent, vast distance we could hide in. He could chase us all he wanted. I stared at the launch button that would boost the ship into Punch. It wouldn't solve our problems, but it would get us away from at least one of them, and for that it looked golden. I pushed the button.

"Admit it," Clara said. I could hear her smile. Knowing that almost helped. I didn't look to see. I pushed the button. "Come on, admit it," she said again.

I slammed my fist on the button. "Yeah, this was a bad idea," I said.

"I was just trying to be funny."

I looked at her. She looked hurt, confused maybe, angry in the way she used to be when I said something stupid. Like a little glimmer of her had come back, in the corner of her lips where they curled up slightly, sarcastically, as if to say damn right you owe me an apology. Something must've happened when I ripped those cables out. I was so sorry I had to say it.

"We're not accelerating."

That numbness washed over her face like her mind shrank away to some far place. Her eyes lost their shimmer under heavy lids, and my heart squeezed.

"Oh."