And now we get an insight into the co-stars!
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Phaaze 03: Tech Hunters
When I wake up, the stiffness of cryo-sleep still lingers in my bones. I blink slowly. I think slowly. For a moment or two, even the dim light of the ship's interior blinds my eyes…I'm grateful for the tall, lanky body that soon blocks it out as I stretch, up and out of the cryo bed.
The smooth, quicksilver tongue of the Luminoth drifts through my ears.
"'Rise and shine', as your people say."
I rub my eyes and groan. Crack a few bones in my spine, my shoulders, and my neck. Cryo-stasis: love the way you sleep, hate the way you wake.
Once I've got my bearings, my fingers rake back through tight scattered dreadlocks and unkempt spirals of hair where the dreads came loose. I peer up at the moth-like creature before me, bug eyes blinking as the head quirks slowly to one side. I smile.
"What's the news, Nigul?"
My Bro, never one to disappoint, stands up straight and tall and leads me out. He's lanky, even for a Luminoth, but it doesn't subtract from the fascinating alien beauty in his form. I've always wanted to be a Luminoth myself, ever since I was a kid. They have this weird quality in how they look and move that I could never get out of my head. From a young age, I was enthralled by them. Their grace, their technology, their intellect—everything about them is a testament to galactic history.
That's why I've been working my hardest to help restore their home planet.
My name is Riina Claes. I'm a Deep Space Restoration Seeker on the Aether Resurrection Project. Folks on the Colonies call us Seekers or Tech Hunters. Nigul is my partner: he's pretty young by Luminoth standards, but worlds wiser than any human, and a sucker for technology—any technology. He loves the stuff. Give Nigul a broken contraption or five to work on, and he'll tinker with them until they work hundreds of times better than they could before. I met Nigul around six years ago; I was eighteen and Aether had just been cleared by the Federation as safe for surface landing. We bonded right away. He calls me Sibling; I call him Bro.
Still in my sleep top and underwear, I follow Nigul diligently to the helm of the ship, yawning and stretching the entire way. "We're back in the Dasha System," he reports, "but just skirting the outside edge. We'll have to make a landing to refuel before we can make it back to Colony G-07."
I yawn again. "Got a lock on a docking bay?"
Nigul graciously punches a few commands into the ship's navigation computer, and I take a quick glimpse at the span of stars and distant nebula clouds stretched out before us in soft colors. I manage a smile; damn, it feels good to be home!
"Found one." Nigul peers at the coordinates. "The Kaon Colony's not far; perhaps twenty minutes at the pace we're going." The leaf-like ears on his head flutter a bit and he turns to look down at me. "It won't be the nicest colony we've visited, but our currency will trade and the docking bay is open."
These days, no colony is a completely nice colony. I don't pay attention to that. "Then what are we waiting for? Set a course!"
"Yes, Sibling," says Nigul. He leers at me and the leaf ears twitch. I know he's being sarcastic by the way his voice changes pitch as he speaks. I just grin at him and reach up to scratch the soft puff of white fur on his chest. Nigul trills appreciatively.
"I'm going to get clean."
"There's food on the table," he advises, fixing the ship's course for Kaon.
I promise him, "After I get clean!"
The H.S. Victor, our precious ship and Nigul's technological baby, is tailored to fit deep space exploration and retrieval. I mean, all ships can travel deep space nowadays, but this ship is more like a second home away from home. Bounty Hunters and other fellow travelers at least dock in several colonies during their travels—they don't find themselves living on rations and cryo-sleep for months at a time. Even with the hyper-drive, Nigul and I could spend a long time away from the safety of our colony in Aether's orbit. We were gone for almost a year one time hunting down this piece of Chozo Tech; it was absolutely amazing, but a real bitch to find. Someone found signs of some ancient Chozo ruins on one of the lesser-explored planets—Wanderer class, floating on the rim of the galaxy. The terrain was thick with alien flora that bled corrosive gel and the atmosphere was all but destroyed. I almost got inflicted with heat stroke a few times.
We actually risk our lives as Tech Hunters more often than people take our word for. Most of them would never believe the places where we find some of the stuff we do. Nigul and I have been to every class of planet imaginable, even a few high-ranked Wasteland ones—places where you'd think there'd be nothing but rock and acid rain. We've been to places where the Space Pirates were hiding out, conducting their little experiments. We've had to steal from Space Pirates before; those are the fun missions. Space Pirates are easy to piss off; thieves don't react well to being thieved. But hey, it's a give-and-take world, and right now, we're giving Aether everything we can take.
Everyone is aware by now that, several years ago, Aether was struck by an extraterrestrial meteor—Federation calls it a "Leviathan" now—and what resulted afterwards sounds like something you'd only find in a science-fiction novel. Aether split in two, and a double-planet, a darker twin to Aether, began to orbit alongside it. These creatures called the Ing lived there, and unlike the Luminoth, they loved a good fight. I was young when this happened and my colony was just skirting around Aether's orbit. We were keeping our distance because of the Ing; rumors went around (and they turned out to be true) that they were attacking nearby colonies to Aether as well as Aether itself. Things got so bad that the Luminoth went into cryogenic sleep until things could get better.
We have a Bounty Hunter named Samus Aran to thank for the kick-start in recovering Aether's lost glory.
I've never met her personally; but after I heard the name, I found out what I could about the woman who saved my Luminoth friends. It's not really hero worship, or anything; I don't worshipher. I respect her. She sounds like the most amazing woman to me, especially the way she's gone head-to-head with the Space Pirates so often. Samus must be one hardy bitch to take so much abuse and keep coming back for more. Her skills, as I've heard, are positively unrivaled; she's supposed to be the best of the best. And she put those skills to use saving Aether from certain destruction. I am in awe of that generosity, and immensely thankful she went through all the trouble. Without her efforts, I'm sure Aether and the Luminoth would have gone the way of the Chozo by now.
The Phazon threat on Aether has been gone since long ago, with thanks to a combination of Samus, the Galactic Federation, and—ironically enough—the Space Pirates, who swooped in and picked clean whatever the Federation had missed. After that, for a time, the Federation provided funding to allow us colony-folk to help the Luminoth rebuild their home. The Luminoth thanked us for our assistance, and we provided it in any and every way we could. For a while, the Federation continued their support for our cause—and we got pretty damn far on the progress of things!
But then they decided that the Luminoth were no longer their problem. They had bigger fish to fry and left us hanging when they cut the cash flow. Never explained why they did it—just withdrew their hand of influence and told us to "do what we do". Typical government behavior; get involved up until something looks dandy, then pull back and focus on another project.
Now, don't get me wrong, it's not like the Luminoth are dependent on the Federation; or the colonies. I have no doubt they would be able to restore Aether all by themselves if they were left alone about it. The Luminoth are awe-inspiring like that. But the process would be much slower. That's what we're here for: to speed up the recovery. Colony G-07 in particular—the colony headed by my old man—has great relations with the Luminoth, and has been putting out most of the effort recently. In fact, it was on my colony where the Aether Resurrection Project sprung to life! With the help of local donations and contributions from other colonies, we started one of the largest and greatest Good Samaritan organizations in the known star systems.
The A.R.P. has two branches to it, and one of those branches has two more sub-divisions. The first branch is Base Recovery. The people in Base Recovery stay on Aether and in the colonies, helping the Luminoth rebuild their homes, reconstruct their tech and keep up with the well-being of the Luminoth and all those involved. The second branch is Space Retrieval, and those of us in Space Retrieval belong to one of two sub-divisions: the lesser-experienced people, limited either by lack of skill or just by choice, stay within the Dasha System gathering up regional materials to bring back to Aether for the recovery. We joke and call them the "In Crowd" sometimes, because they usually never leave the Dasha System.
And then there's the sub-division Nigul and I belong to, the Tech Hunters: sometimes made up of local folks, but all in all, comprised of outside help from skilled and willing Bounty Hunters who want to lend a hand (because we pay some damn good money for picking up pieces of tech). The reason being, simply, that Bounty Hunters have seen a lot more than the rest of us ever will. Applicants to our division have to take a Placement Exam to make sure everyone knows their stuff. Bounty Hunters usually pass with flying colors, but local folks are often put through some training courses first to make sure they know the "Four F's": Fight, Flight, Fetch, and Food. Know how to fight, when to run, how to get shit and how to ration. Because, let's face it: it would suck if you ate too much and found yourself stranded far from home with nothing to eat!
The item we just recently retrieved was way out on the outer rim of known space: a piece of strayed Luminoth tech that might allegedly help to improve the upkeep of Aether's Energy Controllers. It's a small box of a thing that's about the size of a portable freezer; I'm not sure what it does, and neither is Nigul; at least not completely. He wanted desperately to play with its insides and find out, but I reminded him that we aren't allowed to fiddle with any mission items. We don't want to unknowingly fuck up a perfectly useful piece of equipment.
Doesn't take me all that long to get clean, and once that's done, I just decide to dress up in a tank top, old Federation-issue jacket (my old man gave it to me once, and as much as we don't get along, I couldn't refuse), jeans and boots. My Celare Suit needs a good long break after all the trouble we went through for that little box. I'll let it get a breather until the next mission.
There's some fresh fruit on the table, just like Nigul promised: home-grown Aether jungle fruits that always taste like coconut and cinnamon. I grab one up and take a bite, joining Nigul at the controls. I lean back in the co-pilot seat and kick my feet up on the dash above the controls, sighing and gazing out at the stars with a wistful smile on my face.
"Nothing better than the trip home, eh, Bro?"
Nigul trills, steering the ship. A layered-on colony that I can only assume is Kaon drifts in front of our view, a growing dot on the horizon slowly turning into an actual formation. "Nothing better," he agrees. "And please take your feet off of the controls."
I grin wide at him, "Can I finish my breakfast first?"
"Don't be spoiled," Nigul complained, leaf ears flitting this way and that, "I just fixed everything after the last weather disaster we had!"
Obediently, I take my feet down and sit up, leaning forward as I take a bite out of the juicy violet fruit in my hand. I hold it out playfully to him. "Want a bite?"
"I ate already, thank you."
"You got up so early?" I frown. "When I said 'wake me', I meant as soon as you were up—not after you ran through your morning routine!"
Nigul squints at me, and I know he's trying to act wicked. I roll my eyes and whap him on one long arm. "Smart-ass…"
In heavily accented English, bass voice echoing from the hollow of his chest, Nigul replies: "It takes one to know one."
We start approaching the Kaon Colony, and we receive a transmission from their docking bay. The accent filtered on the translator makes me take a guess at some sort of reptilian species. Unidentified spacecraft, you are approaching Kaon Colony docking space. Please transmit your identity and standby for further instruction.
Nigul opens up the transmission pad and I punch in the code. Twenty seconds go by; then a response.
Hunter Ship Victor of the Aether Resurrection Project, welcome to the Kaon Colony. You are free for descent in Docking Bay A3. We are sending coordinates to you now. Please shut down all operating weaponry before docking and enjoy your stay.
I'm already wary about this colony as Nigul follows instructions and takes us to the docking bay. The place looks like it gets worse the lower you go, and the fact that Docking Control sent us the coordinates rather than escorting us there…not all colonies make it a courtesy to escort new ships into the docks, but I've noticed a pattern. The ones that send coordinates tend to have most of their hands busy with police work—which means a lot of crime—which means, I suppose, that we'll just have to watch our backs.
Bro apparently picked up on my concern; he's got three spindly fingers tugging lightly on my dreads within the moment as he pets my head. "We'll make it a quick visit," he promises. I nod my reply. Quick visits are good visits, especially in backwater colonies like this. I can't imagine why anyone would want to live here.