Author's Note: You can braid anything into hair.
Enjoy!
The Fifth Seo, her skin a chocolate brown, fro-hair bobbing, slick stylish jacket gleaming beneath the lights, dashed into the engine room before the others. Checked around her, looking for any sign of the chorus she'd heard, before, over the loudspeakers. But… nope. No one was in here.
No one was anywhere. Not one living soul on this ship!
Even though… they'd heard them!
Still. Better look at the engines. Weren't sounding right, if Seo knew her starship engines — and she did. She leapt over, bent down.
Huh.
Fusion drive.
Go figure. Not expecting that! Seo hadn't thought, in a universe like this, there'd be any chance of seeing someone with a fusion drive engine. But maybe it was a lucky break for her. Just so happened, Seo was queen when it came to fusion drive engines.
She dove towards the engine. Started taking bits apart, trying to work out where it had gone wrong. Funny, that. She'd done this a thousand times, was an expert, really, but… whatever was wrong, here… just didn't make sense. Seo couldn't figure it.
And she'd kicked butt with fusion drive, in the past!
Like when she'd swung by the Fourth Great Civil Rights movement? That was where she'd picked up Mibon — and he was probably the best eye-candy of an assistant she'd ever had, absolutely gorgeous guy. Total whiz with fusion engines. Also, he was part-Venothol, which meant Seo stood up for him.
Hey.
That was her duty, as a member of a minority group, right? Stick up for the little guy?
(Didn't hurt if he was a bit cute, too.)
"Yo, Chibi-Me," the Fifth Seo called out. She tossed a component over her shoulder. "Catch."
The Fourth her caught it, easily. Then stared. "Fusion drive?!"
"I know, right?" said Fifth Seo, continuing her work. "What are the odds?"
"I'd say about zero," Sixth Seo cut in. Still wearing her boring-looking sweater, and a pair of unstylish black pants. "Especially since this is a fusion drive from a Seven-Twenty Jezobian space ship. You can see their copyright sign."
Seo Five froze.
She could. Damn. Should'a noticed that one.
"How's that possible?" said Chibi-her. "Unless those Knights of Byzantium were more right than they knew. And there really used to be a permanent link between this universe and ours."
"There wasn't," said the Fifth and Sixth Seos, together.
"Something's wrong about this," the Sixth Seo decided. She chewed her lower lip, analyzing their surroundings more carefully. "We're in the middle of a space fleet. Composed of space ships we've never seen, before. All carrying technology from the wrong universe."
"Definitely something we're missing," Fifth Seo agreed, getting up.
A breeze swept through the room. A breeze that was almost a whisper. One that echoed through each and every one of their minds.
Creation process complete.
"Creation process?" said the Sixth Seo. She looked around herself. But could see nothing. "Come out of there! I know you're hiding. What creation process?"
"They're getting it from us," said Seo Five. Crossed her arms. "Our minds. Pretty obvious, if you think about it. Plucked out our thoughts, and gave them life."
"We had to be somewhere before the process started, though," Sixth Seo pointed out. "We're in space. You proposing we were floating around in the vacuum before this space ship got built around us?"
"If there's fire in a vacuum, here," Chibi-Seo proposed, "maybe we can breathe in a vacuum."
They all looked at one another.
Then laughed it off.
"Better question," Fifth Seo proposed. "They're creating ships from our thoughts and memories. Why?"
"Because our sacrifice is the most glorious thing of all," said the Jezobian creature who emerged into plain sight, brandishing its gun. "All must sacrifice in war. It is our duty. A glorious sacrifice. For the glorious goddess."
The Seos all looked at one another.
So. Brainwashed Jezobian replica. Interesting.
"Guessing this… 'glorious goddess' would be… Glorificus?" Fifth Seo proposed.
"We conquer the Vptorian Galaxy in her name!" shouted the Jezobian. "Her glorious honor! Her…"
"Vptorian Galaxy?" Fourth Seo stepped forwards. "I've never heard of that one."
"It is awash with the stains of blood from the many glorious sacrifices before ours," said the Jezobian. "We offer ourselves. Our lives. Our duties. We offer them so she may take them. Take this galaxy. As she bid us do, a thousand years ago."
"A thousand, again," muttered the Sixth Seo. She ruffled a hand through her super-short blond hair. "That number keeps coming up."
"All must strive to reach a thousand," said the Jezobian. "It is the holy number. The one of the glorious sacrifice."
Another explosion, and the entire ship shook once more. The Seos clinging to whatever they could find, trying to keep their balance.
"It begins," the Jezobian declared, reverence and awe in his voice. He turned, and headed out of the room. "It begins. Our wonderful deaths."
"What?" shouted the Seos.
They all raced after him, Fifth Seo finally grabbing him up and twisting him around, so she could hoist him against the wall of the space ship corridor. "Who are you fighting?" she demanded. "What's this about?"
"We fight for her," the Jezobian said. "We are born in her wisdom, and we die for her sake. She is perfection, and when this ship is destroyed completely, then our purpose will have been achieved."
"Did he just say 'destroyed completely'?" Fourth Seo asked.
"We have to die!" cried the Jezobian, managing to wriggle out of the Fifth Seo's grip. "It is our duty! To die! To let this ship be destroyed!"
The Fifth Seo lunged for him, again, but he swiped at her with a strange stick, crackling with blue energy. Fifth Seo cried out, as it impacted on her skin. Leaving an angry purple welt, and making her drop to her knees, the Jezobian getting away.
Chibi-Seo swung around, and fired.
A bolt of light seared through the Jezobian, and he dropped to the ground.
A tiny, high-intensity energy gun was still smoking in the Fourth Seo's hands, her expression grim and determined.
The Fifth and Sixth Seos looked at the gun. Then their former self.
"I just stunned him," Fourth Seo said. "What do you think I am?"
The others reflected. Then shrugged.
"Forgot we used to carry around a gun," said Sixth Seo. "Braided into the hair, wasn't it?"
Fourth Seo exposed the bottom of her slightly undone right-most pigtail. With a small smile. "You can braid anything into hair."
The ship's alarms began to flash, as the count-down to self-destruct began.
Sixth Seo swore.
"Chibi, look after Cool-me," said Six, racing off. "I gotta disable that self-destruct."
Four looked after her. "Shoulda let me do it," she muttered, tucking the gun back into her braid and turning to the injured Five, lying on the ground. "It's my talent."
"This place is nuts," Fifth Seo said, letting Chibi help up. "I don't think they're fighting an enemy at all. I think they're just killing themselves."
"Have you noticed something else?" said Chibi. She went over to the wall, and engaged one of the Jezobian computer systems. Showed Fifth Seo the statistics. "This battle fleet. It's composed of exactly 1,000 Jezobians on each ship."
So… their sixth self had been right.
"A thousand," said the Fifth Seo. "Well. Can't be the 'holy number' for nothing."
Four reached into her pocket, brought out some field-medical supplies, began patching Five up swiftly, without any pause in her actions.
"You must be a pro at that by now," Five pointed out.
Four glared. "We never had a choice, you know," she said. Voice dark. "If STP hadn't done this, children on countless worlds would have been harvested as drugs. We had to get involved. Where it went, in the end, was…"
"Inevitable," Five said. "I remember."
Four finished up her bandaging. "Let's get after the Mom-Us," she said. Turning around. "Help disable that self-destruct."
"Wonder why she hasn't done it, yet," said Five, following Four down the corridor.
They found Six in the middle of a full-out ninja style fight with the Jezobians on the bridge. Four and Five immediately raced in, as well, trying to help Six get to the deactivation controls. But they never seemed to make progress. Jezobians were everywhere, and they couldn't get through. Couldn't…
The countdown finished.
Three…
Two…
One…
Fourth Seo got to the console.
But that was when everything exploded around them. And fell apart.