"I'm thsorry, AA," Sollux mutters for the two-billionth time since they were forced back on this ship twelve months ago. He hates himself for getting her involved in this bullshit. When he made that deal with Vriska, he didn't expect to have to cash in so soon, or at all. He thought her dumb pirate plans were all bunk, but NO. He had to go and make their home explode in his secret stash of mind honey. Aradia wasn't too pleased when they had to leave their entire lives behind again, but they kind of had no choice this time.
A groan.
Sollux's bicolored eyes snap open. He jerks his head up so fast that his helmet computer nearly flies off his head. "Aradia?!" He leans over the small vat and strokes her cheek lightly.
"Solluck?" she breathes. Her eyes aren't open yet, but she's definitely waking up!
"I'm here, AA. It'th Thollukth!"
Finally, her eyes flutter open and she looks over to him. "Silly, why are you crying?" she asks, laughing softly.
"I'm not crying." He blinks, feeling the liquid run down his face. He wipes them away, saying, "I'm not!" Time to man up in front of your matesprit. She tries to get up but he stops her. "Thtay there, you're in your own cocoon, you don't have to share."
"Neat." She takes a breath and looks around. "Where are we?"
"Vrithka'z ship. We survived and you kind of fainted after we took off." A pause. "You've been gone nearly twelve months."
Shocked, her eyes widen slightly. "I'm sorry. You must have been lonely."
"I wasn't lonely. I came here every day."
"You didn't have to," she says, turning away. He caught a glimpse of her face turning a shade of burgundy.
"Who else do I go to?" he asks.
Awkward silence.
"We're not swaying." She noticed. "Where are we?"
"We're not on Alternia anymore."
She blinks slowly, then scrunches her eyebrows together. "What?"
"Thpaith. Outer Thpaith. Bluh, that wasth hard to thay." He sticks out his tongue at the end of that. It's a stupid habit he developed after saying too many s's. Aradia giggled when she first heard it, so he never bothered to stop.
After staring at the ceiling for a few seconds, she asks, "How long have I been out?"
Before he could answer, the ship suddenly jostles violently, followed by Vriska yelling and ringing that bell of hers outside the door. The troll children who had been sleeping until now immediately spring from their slime and run out the door to their stations. He should too, now that he had time to think.
"What's going on?!" she shouts over the bell-clanging. She stumbles out of her cocoon and Sollux catches her with his psionics, leaving her floating midair.
"I have no idea!" He gains his balance again and finds Vriska, taking Aradia with him. He catches her at the stairs. "What the fuck is happening out there?!"
"Asteroids! Thousands of them! Out of nowhere!" She orders some other crew members to other parts of the ship. "I'm going to need all the help I can get, so get your ass to your station!" She rushes up the stairs to the top deck, yelling, "I'm not losing my ship over this!"
He can't argue with that. Shaking his head, he brings Aradia into his arms and carries her princess-style to the brig, the most secure part of the ship. "You just woke up, so you need to rest."
"You're so sweet Sollux. I'm fine, though." He squints his eyes at her. "Stop being so serious as death!" She hits his shoulder and gives him a sincere smile. He feels only slightly better.
"Okay. See you, AA." He backs away with a wave and charges back up the stairs, skipping steps. Finally, his mind can be at peace again.
Karkat feels like he's going to be sick.
Nope scratch that, he knows he's going to be sick. The ship being tossed this way and that by Vriska's terrible driving skills told him that much. Is she even qualified to have a ship this large?!
"Where's an experienced psionic where I need one!" Vriska shouts, dodging another giant space rock. One thing Karkat can appreciate is that the ship has not been hit. Yet.
"Right here," Sollux says from behind, a tiny version of himself otherwise known as "Mituna". How a screeching brat like him was a part of the key to their survival was beyond Karkat's comprehension.
"It's about time! Get these stupid rocks out of the way! My sevenfold can only predict a safe passage for a few miles at a time!"
"Aye, aye!"
"Karkat!"
"What!" Karkat yells.
"I need you with Kanaya at the stern with Kanaya! Make sure no one falls overboard! And get your lifeline on, you bumbling idiot! You're dead weight to me if you die! And dead weight gets thrown overboard!"
He can't argue with that, so he does what she says. Making sure his rope was secure, he fumbles and slips his way to the back of the ship in the turmoil. Kanaya also struggles to keep herself.
"I assume this is the worst possible time to talk about our ancestors?" she asks, keeping her eyes on the various crew in the sails above.
"You think?" Karkat does the same, finding it hard to find even one troll child.
"Karkat, pay attention!" She points to Cronus about to hit the railing. He rushes over and catches him just in time. Without so much as a "thank you", he springs away and climbs back to his post.
"What a douche, he didn't even—" Karkat is interrupted by another order from Kanaya.
"Incoming! Horuss this time!"
"Wait, what?!" BAM! The sweaty child slams into Karkat's side. Horuss at least mumbles an apology as he scrambles to his feet.
This is it. This is Karkat's life. Catching falling trolls and releasing them like he was on a fucking fishing expedition. Can it get any better than this?
Aradia ties herself to some of the bars of the cages in the brig. One thing she doesn't want to do is be thrown about like a corpse in a sarcophagus. Tightening her knot, she nods in satisfaction. She looks up after she is done and is taken aback by the sudden appearance of the spitting image of herself standing in front of her.
"Ohayou, Aradia-chan," she greets.
"Damara! You're getting better at surprising me," Aradia laughs. "But please speak Trollian, I'm a little rusty on my dead languages."
"Gomen-nasai, Ane-san." A pause. "Don't die this time." And just like that, she vanishes.
She feels a chill. Something about her descendant's demeanor told her that she wasn't referencing Aradia's recent brush with death. She double-checks her ties and slides down the vertical bars to the floor.
"I don't know much about omens, sis," a sudden voice breaks through the darkness. She jumped in response. "But I'm about Faygo percent sure that the tiny you speaks motherfucking miracles."
"What does that even mean?" She keeps her voice even. She's faced tougher foes than slime-addicted highbloods.
He just giggles to himself creepily.
Aradia sighs, deeming it useless to converse with crazy people. She focused on huddling in her spot, trying not to die.
After hours of near-death experiences and Captor-Serket teamwork, they clear the field mostly unscathed. Karkat complained of broken limbs, of course, and the ship sustained some scratches, but everyone else was fine, according to Vriska's mental sweep of the place. She sighs with relief and summons Aranea to take over steering.
"Sollux, keep us at double-light speed," she orders.
"How long?"
"Shouldn't be too long." She uses her special eye to estimate the distance. "Two-and-a-half hours at best. Make sure to slow to half-impulse when we get within two-hundred kilometers. It'll add half a day to our journey, but…"
"I guarantee you I am more done with thish shit than you are."
"Then I don't have to thank you." She pats his shoulder as she passes by.
Sollux scoffs as she walks away. "Whatever, bitch."
Vriska eyes her moirail being a bit too pale with a certain mutant, so she makes a bee-line for the pair. "Did anyone die today, Karkat?"
"Fuck you," he replies.
"Now that we're free from that debacle, it'll take about half a day to get to the planet. And since we have some time now…" She meets Kanaya's gaze coldly. "Kanaya, my quarters?"
"I'll be down as soon as I get Karkat to his cocoon," Kanaya says.
"He can find his own. He's not broken, just bruised. He'll get over it." Vriska feels her eye twitch involuntarily. "Now."
"Fine." Vriska turns. She hears Kanaya whisper something to Karkat, who responds with a dismissive comment. He's not a weakling. He can do things without help from others. Like walking.
"What do you need?" Kanaya asks as soon as the door is shut behind them.
"Are you pale for him?"
"Who?"
Vriska turns to her quickly. Is she really asking this question right now? "Karkat."
"Karkat?" she laughs lightly. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"You know full well what I'm talking about! You've been in his business for months like you want to get in on his quadrants for months now!" It came out a little strong, but her point was made. "Are you pale for him or not?!"
Kanaya sighs, eyes downcast. "It's not what you think."
Vriska narrows her eyes. "Enlighten me," she says through gritted teeth.
Kanaya looks up, but then looks down again. "He knows things about my ancestor," she confesses.
"Is that what this is all about? Your ancestor?!" Vriska yells. Kanaya visibly winces. It still came out a lot stronger than she hoped, but she forces herself to calm down. Kanaya's not cheating, they're just talking about the past, that's all! She takes a deep breath. "Sorry I yelled."
"You've had a tough year. You need time to mourn, and for the past twelve months, you've been busy navigating us through deep space. No one will blame you if you yell a few times."
"Thanks. When we get to the planet, I think—" A pause. Vriska has seen this before. That was real slick, Kanaya. Reeeeeeeeal slick. "I think you should tell me why you're suddenly so invested in your ancestor."
She hesitates. "Well, it rather uhm… It came on as a gradual curiosity than anything else." She laughs nervously, like she'll be hated if she tells the whole story. Pssh. As if. "Karkat's outburst about eight months ago may have been the catalyst that made my curiosity gain such magnitude."
"Look Kanaya, as long as you're not leaving me too, you don't have to explain a thing." Mainly because she doesn't care that much. Kanaya has her own life, and Vriska just needs to learn that not everything is about her.
"Vriska. Vriska!" Sollux's voice echoes in her head. How in the fuck?
"Before I ask how you reversed my telekinetics and getting into my head, are we there yet?" She sits up stiffly in her pod, groaning aloud. Kanaya was long gone.
"Yes."
Shit! "How long has it been?"
"Exactly how you calculated. Except for one detail."
"What."
"I'm about to pass out. I'm getting Latula's help right now getting my mind out to you, but I'm not going to last much longer, and the gravity field for this planet is taking a toll on my already exhausted psionics. You'd—ter—get up—"
"GOGDAMMIT, SOLLUX!" Vriska shouts as the ship suddenly jolts for the eight-trillionth time today. She races out of her quarters, extorting her excellent sea legs, and finally gets to the top deck relatively unharmed. She finds Sollux face-first on the wood, Latula and Mituna shaking him violently in an effort to wake him up. She orders them to get him to the brig, and for the rest of the crew to do the same. The sails were already drawn on all the masts, so she should have full and complete control of her ship.
Her mind wanders back to when she first designed her ship, constantly arguing with the Engineer troll girl. Vriska was told that having a system that constantly recycles the same amount of slime to be filtered back into the exact same pods was a stupid idea since slime was already a renewable resource as well as biodegradable and completely safe for the environment. That "stupid idea" turned out to be pretty handy didn't it! Hahahahahahahaha!
"Shit!" She nearly crashes into an artificial satellite. There have been a few of them lately. Were they remains from other planets? No, the dark planet below is lit up like a tree on Twelfth Perigree's Eve. She double-checks to see if everyone had made it to the brig. "Is everyone in the brig?"
There is a flurry of affirmative responses and some angry, scattered thoughts from Karkat.
"Then lock up and buckle down, trolls and gentlemen, we're going in for a rough landing!" She uses her sevenfold and spots a very small, unlit island in the darkness, just outside of another cluster of islands with lights on them, and steers in its general direction. It's a bad idea to land on an island that is completely cut off from civilization. But if the natives look nothing like trolls, they're all going to be fucked.
Then she spots the bow of her magnificent ship turn a bright orange. The ship is going way too fast. They'll burn up in the atmosphere at this rate! Ships don't have breaks, and if she can't find a way to slow down, she'll have to rely on the sunshields that were only meant to hold air. Another invention that Vriska fought tirelessly for. If she had her way, then they would have had more time to install the thing.
She reaches into her pocket with one hand and pulls out all eight of her eight-sided dice. She gazes at them for a few seconds before closing her eyes and blowing on them. "All the luck," she whispers to herself. It was too loud to hear, but she knew she said it. If there was any moment where she needed her luck, now would be the time.
The flares at the bow had engulfed half of the ship now and the sunshield is quivering badly.
She takes a chance and rolls the dice.
One-by-one they hit the deck.
1… 2… 3… 4… 5… 6… 7… 8. A Run! Vriska smiles wildly and grips the steering wheel tightly. It's just enough. "Yes!" All she has to do now is believe in her luck.
"I have to get the matriorb!" Kanaya screams.
"Kanaya, we have to get to the brig!" Karkat yells back. He's trying to drag her by her arm, but she is strong against him. "Let's, GO!" He wraps his dominant arm around her waist and gropes for something to grab onto.
"Karkat, release me! I have to get it!" She struggles, and finally escapes his grip. She slides along the smooth floor to the treasure room, where she kept the thing.
"Why is that fucking thing so important?!" He chases after her.
"Our mission would be for nothing! I need to—no, we all need it!" She throws the door open and enters, disappearing into the darkness. Karkat nearly slips on his own ass in all the commotion. Her reappearance startles him. She's clutching the small chest with one arm while balancing herself with the other. "You wouldn't understand."
"You're right, I wouldn't!" He snatches her hand and leads her to the last set of stairs to the deck below. "What I do understand is that I don't want you to die for some bullshit mission that probably failed before we left the planet! You're way more important than some stupid egg, dumbass!" Crap, that probably came out weird.
She didn't say anything else and let him take her to the brig and used the lifelines to secure themselves to the bars. He hopes that the bars are truly strong enough to withstand the strongest lusii, because he'd rather not die with these assholes.
"Karkat."
"Five more minutes, Terezi," he mumbles.
"Karkat, wake up."
"I said five more minutes."
"Karkat!" Slap!
He awakens with a jolt. "Oh my god, what?!" He holds his cheek in his hand and looks to whoever just hit him. "Kanaya?" She's looming over him like a mother grub.
"We've crash-landed. And we're alive." She straightens herself up and looks about. "It seems we are in a thick forest." She sniffs the air. "I can smell salt water, so we must be close to a beach."
"Where are the others?" he asks, sitting up. Every limb hurts. His head especially. Motherfucking everything hurts.
"I don't know."
He glances behind her and sees the matriorb's box. She managed to rescue it, he notes. "The matriorb?"
"Unharmed."
"You?"
"Also unharmed."
"What about me?"
"You're fine, Karkat."
"Good." He lies back down in the dirt and stares through the canopy accusingly, the sky above it a light blue. This planet is fucking weird. "Now what?"