Chapter 4: Shock and Awe

The walk back to the hangar takes nearly twice as long as the previous direction. It isn't so much the dark as she'd made this trip plenty at late hours, but Artemis had filled her pack to the brim with food and it now weighs her down considerably, and off balance too as it hangs only on a single strap. She'd taken mostly snacks and pre-cooked meals; she isn't much of a chef and has no idea if Athie would bother making anything for her. Besides, if Artemis is right and the excitement of receiving the keys does in fact cause Athie to want to stay for the next few days, then the Opulentsia girl will probably be too busy working to want to do any cooking.

And if Artemis is wrong, she might want to camp out with the ship for the next few days anyway. Retrieving the keys didn't go as smoothly as she'd hoped.

Finding them had been easy enough. It was in the same place that she'd gotten the hangar card. Artemis recalled the day after Uncle Terry left when Jamie had showed up with the pack, a haggard look about him as if he hadn't slept at all the previous night. He'd knelt down to the younger Artemis and told her to keep it for a while, he didn't know how long. Her mother then came to the door, tore the pack out of Artemis's hands with barely a "good morning" for Jamie, and tossed it in a closet proclaiming that, "He can take it out himself when he comes back."

At the time, Artemis had still believed that her uncle would be back in a matter of days.

Earlier this night, she dug through the closet and found the pack, no worse for wear than it was years ago. Quickly rifling through it revealed the ring of keys as she hoped. She must have made more noise than she thought though.

"Art! You're home." It wasn't a greeting so much as an observation.

"I lost track of time. Was working with Athie on an assignment, and…" Artemis tried to brush past her mother, mumbling the rest of the sentence purposefully incoherently.

"You missed dinner."

"Sorry, mum."

"And Art, if you need a new backpack I can always buy you one. No need to touch that ratty old thing."

Artemis hated when her mother called her that. Art was such an… ugly sort of nickname.

"It's good enough."

The conversation only got worse from there. Eventually her mother's thin mask of helpfulness gave way and she bluntly told Artemis that she shouldn't be touching any of Terry's things, that she didn't want the girl to even be considering him as anything other than scum and failure. No, it didn't matter that Terry was her brother, he was a bad person and no child of hers was going to pick up on that influence. There was shouting, and eventually Artemis's mother tried wrenching the pack away from her. One of the straps, old and ragged as it was, tore clean off and Artemis dashed for the door.

She'd stopped at the store for the food, and spent what little cash she had on it.

Athie is already at the hangar when Artemis returns, sitting on the ground by the door as if ready to leap inside at a moment's notice. Artemis supposes this is how the Opulentsia girl shows her enthusiasm, because damn it all if she'd show it any other way.

"Good news, I hope?" Athie asks as she stands and holds her hand out .

Artemis tosses her the keys and searches her pockets for the card to open the hanger. "For you, I guess.

Athie's lips turn up at the corners. Smiling? That's odd for her. Hopefully it's for her own reasons, and not some sort of schadenfreude for Artemis's trouble. It's probably not the latter though; Athie doesn't even seem to have noticed or made the effort to care, for as soon as the hangar shows even a crack beneath the door Athie ducks under and hustles-almost runs-for the Vagabond.

Artemis makes a somewhat less energetic entrance, waiting for the door to fully rise and heaving herself and the weighted pack inside. What is it that has Athie so upbeat for once? Had something happened while the girls had gone to their respective homes? At that thought, Artemis realizes how little she actually knows about Athie's home, or anything else in her life. All that had really come out from her was "I was born above you," or some variation to that extent. Honestly, as much as Artemis has been desperately holding onto some notion of potential friendship, Athie has instead been treating it more as a business contract.

What kind of friendships starts off with one party making a sort of veiled threat to the other, anyhow? With, "I know you have access to an old starship that's not yours, assist me in repairs and I won't inform anyone"?

Once inside the Vagabond, Artemis veers off to the common room to unpack. She carefully places the mini-Artemis onto the table first, but otherwise this mostly involves tossing packages of food into a cupboard without much patience. There's a rattle as she knocks aside a bottle of the medicine she'd been keeping here-there isn't anywhere safe in the house where her mother wouldn't see it-but thankfully it doesn't spill. Two cans of cocoa are left out, and Artemis takes them now and starts tossing them to herself. She quickly finds a rhythm, two tosses with each hand, then throw them to the opposite.

"Drink them both?" she says to the figurine. Left, right, left, right, switch, switch.

"I wasn't going to-okay maybe I was." Left right, left, right, switch, switch.

"Well okay, fine." Left, right, left, right, switch, switch.

She stops for a moment to depress the tab on the lid of each can, feels them start to heat up, then resumes juggling as she heads up to the cockpit. Artemis hears Athie let out a shout as she approaches.

"Primitive! Bloody!" Left, right, switch, right, clang.

Artemis swipes the can back off the floor and holds both tightly near her chest. She enters the room to find Athie on the floor, under a console. One of the Opulentsia's hands is in a fist. She strikes the console in apparent frustration but a second later there's the ker-chunk of a heavy lock falling open. Athie's head is out of sight and though her words come muffled by plastic and metal the wryness is still apparent.
"That smells good." The cans have nearly finished heating, and a faint scent of warm chocolate is rising from them.

Artemis holds a can down near her. It's the one that had hit the ground. "One's… for you."

It's a quick reaction. Too quick, in fact, as Athie manages to hit her head on the way out. She almost says something when she takes Artemis's offering; when their looks meet though, she instead rolls the one eye capable of such a motion and turns her head while she pushes herself upright. Artemis finds a seat in the pilot's chair, leaving herself looking down at Athie as the girl massages her head and sips her drink.

"So Athie…"

"We're leaving."

"We just got here!"

"I mean…" Athie takes a large swig. "Well, this vessel is really the one thing we aren't leaving."

It takes a moment, but soon Artemis's jaw slowly lowers. "You mean right now?"

"Twenty minutes, give or take. I believe there still remain a few in the engines." Athie shakes the keyring.

"My whole life's on Dresda!I can't just… just go."

Athie tilts her head back and guzzles the remainder of the can's contents. "Can you, though? There isn't anything here you'd miss, I don't think." When Artemis narrows her eyes Athie continues, "I pay attention to more than you assume. You don't want to be on this world. If there was something attaching you to your home, well, I don't think you'd be present here nearly as often as you are. You gave up long ago, and yet still you come to this ship, every single time I ask. Though I'll admit, more than once I've feared…"

As she stands, Athie sweeps her eyes up Artemis's body. She gives a derisive chuckle. "Well never mind that."

Artemis finds herself struck wordless, her face flushing red. "Plus, you talk to yourself," Athie concludes as she makes for the door.

"Why didn't you tell me it was almost done?" Artemis chokes out finally.

"You could have seen first hand had you cared to look." With that, she's gone.

Artemis sinks into the seat. "She thinks she knows me…" she mutters, before catching herself. But Athie couldn't possibly…?

There's a difference between wanting to escape, and actually doing so. The responsibility of being out there, putting her effort and faith in the Vagabond as her protection, and her life. Not to mention the hell she'd have to endure upon returning home. Or would she have to? Athie doesn't quite seem like the type to go joyriding, for sure. She has a plan, as loathe as she'll probably be to share it, and it's a plan which apparently involves Artemis. "We're leaving," just like that. It wasn't a question, or a request, it was a sure statement of things to come.

Then again, that's how Athie always is. Infuriatingly certain in her unnecessarily fancy diction.

When the Opulentsia returns, the first words out of Artemis's mouth are, "So what's my job?"

"Pilot," Athie replies. "Don't look at me in that manner. Would you rather maintain the engines? Prepare the phase drive? Navigate? All I require of you is a relatively simple role."

"You'll show me how… right?"

"Would I trust you if I didn't?"

The Opulentsia girl takes the pilot's seat first to take the Vagabond into the air, demonstrating to Artemis everything she does in the process. To Artemis's relief, only a fraction of the intimidatingly many instruments and controls are required. In fact, it looks relatively simple; she begins to think she could do it herself already with a little help. Of course, the isolated hangars probably provide Athie very little in the way of difficulty.

"Find it hard to believe you've done this before, honestly," Artemis says. "Were you flying these things at six or something?"

"I haven't done it before."

"Then where did you learn?"

"Same way I learned the art of restoring a vessel neglected for ten years," Athie replies. "I read how."

This seems a bit much for Artemis to swallow, but it's difficult to argue with the results. The ship is flying, and quite smoothly by the feel of it. Athie shows her how to transition from atmospheric to orbital structures, and the stars slideinto sharper focus. Dresda's gas giant looms larger in their vision than the world itself, finally revealing to Artemis its true size. She inhales sharply.

"Is it your first time this far up?" Athie's voice has dropped a few notches from its normal overpowering volume.

"Well, it's… yeah."

"You act like it." And now she's speaking firmly again. She points to a numbered readout. "That's our altitude. Don't go any lower than we are presently." Then she stands and cedes the chair.

Artemis can't help but feel giddy as she wraps her hands around the main maneuver controls. Her heart beats faster, her mouth curls upward of its own accord. "Oh." She has a thought. "I'll be right back."

"Don't-" Athie begins as she bounces out of the room.

Seconds later, mini-Artemis is installed comfortably on top of the console and Athie is leaving, imparting something about performing a last inspection of the phase drive.

After waiting for Athie to get out of earshot, (and then a few more seconds for good measure,) Artemis says simply, "I'm flying." She tries putting the ship through a few experimental turns, and notices… how slow it all is. Despite this she still manages to do it incredibly clumsily, turning too far in many cases and hurrying to stop the motion in many cases. Well, she supposes she's actually travelling far faster than it appears, and it's just the sheer size of space up here that makes it seem otherwise, but still. Artemis expected acrobatics, darting around like a leaf on the wind or something.

Something in her memory-either from Athie or elsewhere-stirred to tell her that phase engines need to be further out from the local gravity well to function. Artemis tilted outward; maybe it would be nice to be ahead of things for once.

A small flash ahead catches Artemis's eye. It's brighter than the stars, but not by much. "Ensign!" she bursts out in her best impression of a noble battle captain. "Read me the scannah!" She looks down at the mini-Artemis expectantly, hoping it might actually manage to fill her in on such details as from where such sensors might even be read.

She nudges it aside to find a handy display directly underneath the figurine. "Good job, Ensign! I think you deserve a promotion for that!" Artemis briefly considers that she needs to ask Athie how to read the thing, though. The best she can figure out is that the origin of the flash is about four thousand kilometers away. There is a handily-marked section of the display to open communications though…

She presses it. Nothing much seems to happen at first save for the communications label changing to "transmitting." Artemis takes a breath anyway and starts talking.

"This is the Vagabond, uh, contacting you to…" To what? Shit. She really hasn't thought this through; she'd just been curious. "To… test our… communications systems…" Yeah. That sounds about right. Everything needs to be ascertained to be in working order, right?

For a moment it seems as though there will be no response, but then another, nearby screen blinks to life to reveal a clean shaven man, probably in his early thirties. He wears a worn-out dress suit, a pair of round glasses, and a weary smile. "Hoi, Vagabond," he sighs, "captain of the Squalor of Wealth here. Dunov-class heavy freighter. Recently arrived in… Dresda, is it?"

He rubs his temple as he continues with little enthusiasm. "Everything seems okay on our end. Is yours clean?"

"Mm-hm. Say, Dunov? How big's that one?"

"Miss, you aren't the commander of your vessel, are you?" The Squalor's captain pushes his glasses up and peers at Artemis skeptically.

"I could be," she challenges. "I'm flying the thing, aren't I?"

"Miss…"

"Alright, alright," Artemis concedes. "I guess you want Athie."

"You need me for something." Perfect timing from the Opulentsia. She sweeps into the room, quickly spots the frieghter captain on screen, and sets her jaw. "What are you doing?"

"I was just testing-"

"Is that your commander?" The captain finally displays a hint of energy. He snickers at Athie. "Little Cogeye?"

Athie reaches to her face unconcsiously, then snaps her hand back down. "That doesn't even-"

"I didn't think I'd see a cyborg this far out," he continues. "Find a poor girl you can drag around as a servant or something? Think you're just that good? 'Cause you have a few pieces of metal welded to your face?"

It's difficult to tell, but it looks like Athie's already dark face is deepening to a redder hue. She exhales sharply a few times, apparently trying to speak. Artemis is far too shocked by the captain's sudden change of attitude to even attempt a retort. "You… you will not speak to me like that!" Athie finally spits out. She's begun to shake visibly.

"Why not? What are you going to do to me, cyborg? Just a kid anyway."

"A kid whose family could buy twenty of your little freighter."

This is too much for Artemis. She slips away as the two bicker, finding another seat to stare out the window and try to tune them out. She could be at one of those points of light in a phase jump and a few days' time... each containing its own people and stories, sights and adventures. There's probably more in the galaxy than one could even experience in a lifetime, or even in ten, or twenty. Artemis doesn't know what Athie's plans are but what she would give to spend the rest of her time travelling, witnessing as much of it as she could.

Another flash, just like the one which indicated the arrival of the Squalor of Wealth. Maybe they'll be-there's another two, in rapid succession. Soon the small section of space is flooded with flickering lights. A quick glance down confirms to her that they are in fact each a new vessel. There's dozens here now.

"Athie." Artemis quietly tries to butt back into the argument. She shakes the Opulentsia girl's shoulder. "Athie."

Athie slams the console, apparently cutting off the communications link. "What!" she demands, spinning to face Artemis.

"How do you… sensor… thing…" she asks meekly.

A few angry finger jabs does it. "What…" Athie repeats, uncharacteristically terse. Nearly all of the ships are quite large, some of them even more so than the Squalor. They're composed of all odd curves and flat bodies. "Get us out." She heaves herself out of the pilot's seat and points in the direction away from Dresda.

"Yes ma'am!" Artemis salutes intentionally clumsily, hoping maybe it'll lighten Athie's mood. If it worked, the Opulentsia girl doesn't show it.

That's when the new arrivals begin to fire. Sickly green bursts of something Artemis can't identify stream out toward the Squalor of Wealth. Where they strike, jagged holes are immediately ripped into the ship. The comms get Artemis's attention; it's the Squalor trying to establish contact again. Artemis reaches for it, but Athie grabs her wrist. "I said go!"

Artemis pushes the Vagabond to as fast as she knows how, while Athie pounds rapidly on another console. Soon, the comms cease their incessant call for attention. One of the ships gets close enough to appear as a dark shape in Artemis's vision. "Slow down," Athie orders. "Forty-five degrees… that way." She opts to jab a thumb to the right instead of something more complicated.

"Ready?" Athie growls once that's been done. Without bothering for Artemis's answer, she grabs a handle, twists it, and pushes it forward. A few moments later the view is overtaken by a mercurial pattern of bright white. There's no noticeable change in motion to go with it though. Artemis immediately presses her eyes closed in pain. She wasn't ready for this.

"Athie what-"

"Don't." The Opulentsia girl stands. "Don't call me 'Athie.'" She stomps out before Artemis can even consider a reply.