The blaring of alarms shocked him awake.
Merchant-Lord Deiad Boreas stumbled out of bed, frantically throwing on a pair of pants and grabbing his overcoat. Within seconds his vox-bead crackled and he angrily slapped the button, accepting the link.
"Report," he gruffly ordered, "what's the situation?"
"Warp signature Captain, forming two-hundred thousand kilometers off our bow," came the static-filled reply, "no identification yet."
He frowned. They were expecting someone, but… better safe than sorry.
"Standby and await my arrival."
"Aye sir."
He strode out of his cabin, briskly making his way to the bridge. A thankfully short journey, he arrived just in time for the alarms to cut out. Catching sight of him, the Choir-Master Telepathica offered a quick bow.
"Alarms shut down. Good news then?"
"Aye my lord. Identity was confirmed, we are approached by the Mori ab Dryadibus. They signal for transfer duties."
The Captain grunted, unceremoniously collapsing onto his command throne, "About throne-damned time," he gestured to the Master of the Vox, "Contact Colonel Mattias. Tell him to get the 4th off my damn ship. Drivemaster, prep for warp jump. We'll be off in… three hours. That should be enough time for the Colonel."
"Aye Captain. What's our destination?"
"Bettes Sigma," a voice cut in, "In the Plingal system."
Boreas turned, greeted by the sight of his XO, Enginseer Prime L-Q B1UE, entering the bridge clutching a dataslate.
"That so, Blue? I take it your logic algorithms have provided a suitably profitable venture?" he asked, arching an eyebrow.
B1UE gave him a slight nod of the head and handed him the slate.
"Affirmative. Bettes Sigma. Minor agri-world, 3.02 light-years from here. Population 1.26 million. Recently assaulted by rebel forces. Repelled the attack, but suffered significant civilian casualties." He leaned in, "Insufficient workforce, unlikely to meet quotas."
Boreas slowly nodded, glancing over the dataslate with experienced eyes, "So they need warm bodies and are on a time crunch, and we've got a belly full of refugees. That'll do."
"Captain, Colonel Mattias is saying that transferring the Astern 4th Mechanized regiment will take at least five hours."
Boreas opened his mouth to offer some choice words about Colonel Mattias and his regiment, but bit them back at the last moment.
"Fine," he growled, "We've already been waiting here for near a month, might as well wait another couple hours. But I want us in the warp the moment those guardsmen are off my ship."
"Aye Captain!"
"They're guarding them now."
The two were hidden inside an overly large vent that overlooked one of the maintenance hubs. Down below were the last of the servitors, whose numbers they'd been painstakingly whittling down over the past few days. Unfortunately, those rapidly lowering numbers had finally been noticed by someone above, as these last few were accompanied by raggedy-looking guards.
Yang frowned, studying the haphazard-looking armsmen with an annoyed glint before angrily blowing the hair out of her eyes, "Was bound to happen eventually. They gotta know the servitors are being hunted, even if they don't know it's us."
Blake didn't respond, ears flat to her head as she looked over their new opposition.
Yang was silent a moment more, before offering a shrug, "Honestly, we were lucky. It took them, what? Six days to notice? And hell, they didn't even send the actual soldiers."
Blake's eyes narrowed, "Yeah… I wonder why not? The soldiers haven't exactly been doing much the last few days."
"Don't know. Politics? Or maybe it's some jurisdiction thing. Still, it makes our job easier."
The Faunus shook her head, quickly disagreeing, "Not really. The room's too open for me to take them out by stealth, and if they ID us… I don't want to spend however long we're still on this ship running from the crew."
Yang chewed her lip, thinking the problem over, "Knockout gas maybe? The soldiers probably have some. Or we separate them somehow."
"What are you thinking?"
The blonde pointed to the corridors that branched off from the room, which looked to be towards the engine section, "What if we get the servitors to go somewhere the guards can't follow?"
"The reactors?"
"Or a coolant stream, or those, uh, radiation… waste places? Or just some really rickety catwalks. Basically anywhere a thinking person wouldn't want to go."
"They're called dump sinks. And what if they have protection?"
Yang cast a dubious look at the poorly-equipped armsmen, before glancing back at Blake with a raised eyebrow.
"Good point," Blake conceded, "but that still leaves a problem."
"And what's that?"
"We would need to damage a system that's critical enough that all the remaining servitors would respond, while also not being critical enough to pose a risk to the ship. And of course," she continued, frowning, "it needs to be somewhere the guards won't follow."
Yang frowned at that, before slumping.
"Well… crap. We might as well ask for a miracle."
The two sat in silence for some time, overlooking the busy group below.
"Maybe we're overthinking this," Blake said at last, "All we really need to do is stop them from being able to identify us. Some masks and a big cloak could do that. Maybe build some sort of radio scrambler to stop them from getting reinforcements as well."
"Or we could just take out that guy," Yang replied, pointing to a guard hefting a bulky box on his back, "I think that's the radio-err, 'vox caster' guy."
Blake brow wrinkled, and Yang let out a laugh at the sight.
"Remember Blake, these guys aren't Atlesians. In-helmet radios are a luxury."
"Yeah yeah," Blake muttered, "Forgive me for thinking the interstellar empire would have something as advanced as a basic scroll."
"If they do, they didn't give them to these morons," Yang agreed, still chuckling, "Come on. Let's go find some big cloaks."
"Thrones above, what are they?!"
"I don't know! Just keep firing!"
"Emperor protect us!"
"Forget that, protect me!"
Yang dropped the hunk of metal she'd been using as cover and reached out, grabbing the poor girl who tried to shank her by the head and slamming her into the guardrail. Even as the armswoman slumped to the ground she was already moving, blurring towards the next group of unfortunate guards. They panicked, one turning to flee immediately while the others sent a spray of inaccurate fire her way.
She didn't even need to dodge.
She barreled through the first two without pause, her sole fist burying itself into the stomach of a third while her foot lashed out and hit a fourth with enough force to shatter his chest-piece. He flew back several feet and she grimaced. 'Got to remember these guys don't have aura'. Twisting, she snapped the barrel of a shotgun to the side, the slug it fired grazing her cloak, and head-butted its wielder with a snarl. He toppled to the ground bonelessly. Hearing a sound, she turned and rammed the shotgun into another's head, sending him tumbling to the ground with a shattered visor.
Pausing, she realized everyone around her was firmly unconscious, save some idiot that seemed to be… kneeling to her? Arching an eyebrow, she stepped to get a closer look at him. After a moment, she let out a laugh. He wasn't kneeling, he was doubled over! It was the poor guy she'd punched in the stomach, which he was weakly cradling after having emptied it onto the ground.
"Sorry fella, bad day to go to work."
Huffing, she gave him a light whap on the back of the head, knocking him out cold. Glancing around, she saw there were only a handful of guards left in the room. A few were fleeing, but she left those to Blake. The ones still shooting were her priority. Even as she watched, a few spotted her and began popping shots her way.
Reaching down, she ripped a panel from the floor and threw it at them. To their credit, they all, even the ones who weren't originally looking at her, spotted the sheet of metal flying at them and dove out of the way. It slammed into the ground with the screech of metal on metal, and as they trembled in relief Yang followed in its wake.
Relief turned to panic.
One of them desperately scrambled to his feet only to be immediately beaten back down via a fist in the face. Another had his head abruptly snap back as Yang's foot introduced itself to his jaw, the poor guy getting launched at least a foot off the ground. A third was then grabbed and single-handedly thrown into the sky where he slammed against the ceiling before falling back down.
For her part, Yang juked to the side, a laser beam screaming through where she'd been a second before. The lasgun-wielder had been more disciplined than the rest, attempting to track her movements and land a single decisive blow rather than unleash a hail of useless fire. It didn't help her though, as Yang easily grabbed the falling armsman out of the air and tossed him right at her. The armswoman rolled aside, letting the unconscious body crash to her side, and immediately bringing her weapon back up to bear, but it was too late. Yang was blurring right at her. Panicked, she tried to swing the butt of her rifle forward but the Huntress simply reached out and yanked the weapon from her hands before slamming it back into her face, the crunch of bone heralding a broken nose. She slumped, and Yang relaxed, regarding the area with a satisfied smirk. Easy victory, even with her down an arm. All the guards in the immediate vicinity were firmly out cold, and so all that remained was…
A panicked scream sounded out, abruptly being cut off with a solid-sounding thud. A little later, Blake strode out of a near-by corridor, the last unconscious armsman swung over her shoulder. Yang gave her a wave, but did a double take at her appearance.
"Um…," she asked, "You ok?"
Blake glared at her, her hair ruffled and clothes singed.
"Genius here tried to blow himself up with a grenade."
Yang pursed her lips, "Ah."
The Faunus glared suspiciously at her a moment more, before letting the matter drop.
"That all of them?"
"I think so. All that's left is…" she trailed off, any joy she'd felt for their victory evaporating at the sight of their targets.
The servitors were on standby, having completed whatever maintenance task they'd been working on during the fight. Yang couldn't resist clenching her fist, 'Brothers, there was a firefight raging around them and they barely even twitched'.
"I know," Blake said quietly, "But we can't help them, and I refuse to let them suffer like this."
"Yeah yeah," Yang ground out, "Let's just finish this."
By the time some of the guards regained consciousness and sent for help some fifteen minutes later, the two perpetrators were long gone, their identities still a firm mystery. In their wake they left a total absence of functional servitors on the vessel.
On the bridge, while observing the last of the Astern 4th Mechanized soar through the void towards the awaiting light cruiser, L-Q B1UE frowned at the notification that scrolled across his networks. Devoting 0.089 percent of his attention, he reorganized the work shifts of the lower-deck technicians and labor workers, adding another two hours to the maintenance cycle, and quietly recorded the need to purchase another detachment of servitors when they next docked at a sufficiently supplied word.
Affair settled, he did not concern himself with such a trifling matter again.
Yang and Blake arrived back at their hidden base about an hour later, the trek through the ship having taken a lot less time now that they knew how to navigate its winding corridors. When they completed their journey they were greeted by not the sight of a tiny and pathetic closet, but by a dusty old kitchen room.
Over the course of their stay on the vessel, they had discovered a myriad of abandoned chambers and cabins, this one being among the biggest. With their previous accommodations poorly situated and increasingly uncomfortable, the decision to switch to this new locale was easily made. Over the following weeks they had altered the room significantly, converting a section into a small sleeping space (only one bed, sleeping in shifts as they were), and another into a workshop.
There, sitting on the main bench was Yang's arm, its cover off and innards exposed. Next to it were dozens of small potentially helpful pieces of machinery, each just as disassembled and exposed as the arm. Several of those pieces were wired to said arm, and with a hopeful glance Yang disconnected them and picked the limb up. Attaching it to her stump, she reached inside and hovered her finger over the power switch.
"Fingers crossed," she muttered, firmly pressing on the button.
There was no sound from the arm, though that was to be expected, as modern prosthetics didn't usually give indications of passive power. It was supposed to be always functional after all, that'd get annoying after a while.
And so, with eyes desperate, she slowly tried to put actions to words. For a heartbeat nothing happened, but then, with the whine of small servos, the hand unfurled before crossing the index and middle fingers over each other.
"Yes!" Yang cried, her hesitant expression instantly replaced by an exuberant grin, "Take that you stupid universe! You can't keep Yang Xiao-Long down forever!"
Blake glanced over from where she was inspecting their food stock, offering a rare grin of her own, "Good job."
"Great job," the blonde corrected, holding her prosthetic hand out, "C'mer you sourpuss. Give me a high-five!"
The Faunus actually laughed at that, before rolling her eyes and returning the gesture.
"About damn time!" Yang exclaimed, lowering the hand, "I was worried that-"
She cut out suddenly, causing Blake to glance back at her, "Yang?"
"Oh no," the blonde whispered, "Nononono."
She was trying to close the hand, and it was closing, but slower, and slower, and slower. With a slight creak it stopped entirely, still half open, and Yang slumped, gaze vacant.
Blake slowly approached her, lightly grasping her by the shoulder.
"Yang?"
The blonde closed her eyes, shuddering as she let out a breath.
"I'm fine," she said at last, disconnecting the arm and putting it back on the bench, "Just disappointed."
"We'll figure it out. We still have plenty of things to try, like those lasgun power packs we nabbed."
"...Yeah, I know."
Blake lightly pulled her close, just holding her as Yang shook softly.
After an unknown amount of time, the two detached, the Faunus eyeing her partner with concern.
"Are you ok?"
Yang took a steadying breath, before nodding.
"Yeah. Yeah I'm good."
The concern in Blake's gaze didn't lessen, but after a moment she gave a slight nod.
"Of course," she glanced around, "Listen, we're starting to run low on food, so I'm going to go grab some more. Stay here alright? I'll be back soon."
Yang's eyes were still wet, but she slowly nodded.
"Yeah, ok. You go do that. I'll uh, I think I'll take a nap."
Blake didn't bother telling her that sleeping unguarded was a bad idea, just returning the nod. She needed the break.
Someone shaking her shoulder abruptly woke her.
Yang launched up, her sole fist reared back to haymaker her assailant, only to find Blake's wide eyes staring into her.
"Yang, we have a problem."
"Blake? Wha-"
"The soldiers. They're gone!"
"What… what are you talking about?"
"ALL HANDS, PREPARE FOR WARP JUMP"
The ship shuddered around them, a shadow fell across their souls, and suddenly their auras lit up like miniature stars.