When Spirit of Fire had proposed cutting out… whatever it was that the giant Flood (?) ship had in place of an FTL reactor, she had been preparing herself for several days of work.
She had imagined that they would be deploying Cyclopes (or whatever it was that the others had instead) to slowly and carefully cut apart the…
…wait, was 'corpse' actually the word she should be using here?
The corpse of the ship, carefully avoiding the cavernous hangar bays, until they found what they needed.
As it turned out, however, she had seriously underestimated Hyperion's "T-280 space construction vehicles" – though apparently they preferred 'SceeVees'.
"Do yonder suits have no fear?" Archangel watched, slightly awestruck, as the h̶u̶m̶a̶n̶o̶i̶d̶ SCVs tore into the corpse-ship's flesh with fusion cutters and power drills with a ferocity so intense, you'd have thought that the dead ship had insulted their mothers.
"They learned to work fast." Hyperion said, chewing her hayseed. "Half the time they're being shot at, after all."
"Wait, hold up." Spirit of Fire blinked, slightly lost. "Why are you trying to mine on the battlefield?"
Hyperion shrugged. "They don't just mine – they also build, repair…"
"Slice and dice?" Spirit of Fire finished drily.
Hyperion rolled her eyes. "There's plenty of work that ya either get done then and there, or never at all, Spirit."
"Of Fire." Spirit of Fire finished her name, her voice suddenly lacking all enthusiasm.
"I certainly understand being desperate for supplies, but I'm not sure that I've ever been desperate enough to risk being shot at for them…" Jupiter II touched a finger to the side of her face, lost in thought.
"Do ah look like ah'm made of cargo holds?" Hyperion threw up her hands, annoyed. "If ah don't have somethin', ah don't have it! Ah gotta go dig up the materials and make it!"
"So you don't have the space for cargo holds, but you do have the space for a smelter?" Spirit of Fire had her own onboard factory, but she still started off with her materials separated out from their ores and cleaned up.
"Hark! I believe they have found something." Archangel hastily interrupted the bickering, pointing down at the corpse ship.
Their view was obscured by… well, by blood and various viscera that had been cut loose from the corpse and left to float away in the void, but they could still see a wide hole drilled into the corpse-ship's body. Rather than dig directly into the flesh, the SCVs had elected to dig themselves a 'ramp' that travelled around in circles, deeper and deeper into the body.
Things that vaguely resembled blood vessels and bones could be seen poking through the flesh, but underneath was a bright red organ shaped vaguely like a walnut.
"Okay, they've reached the organs." Hyperion noted. "Now we just need to figure out which one works as their warp drive."
Spirit of Fire gave a start. "Oi, mate, you made it sound like you knew which one it was!"
"Zerg change their biology all the blasted time." Hyperion said, somewhat bitterly. "It ain't safe to assume they still work the same way as last you fought 'em."
"Scanning… scanning…" Jupiter II intoned robotically. She pointed at the exposed organ. "Probability of warp organ: high."
She then blinked as though coming out of a trance, gently slapping her own cheeks. "I think we should try that one!" She said, normally.
"How reassuring." Hyperion drolled.
"Well if none of us knows which one it is, we must chose some organ to try first, mustn't we?" Archangel pointed out.
"Whichever one we pick, we should get a move on. Those organs are rotting as we yabber on." Spirit of Fire folded her arms.
"Stupid." A Firestorm pulled down an eyelid and stuck out her tongue.
"Things can't rot in space!" Another jeered.
"They need air for that!" A third added.
Spirit of Fire growled. "Fine, degrading, whatever."
She blinked as the SCVs all turned around and walked around their ramp, out of the hole. "Uh, what?"
"Whatever the Zerg are usin' for artificial gravity is still workin'." Hyperion continued to chew her hayseed. "The SceeVees need to swap out their drills for clamps if they're going to move that thing outta there."
"Don't bother, I'll have my Cyclopes grab it." Spirit of Fire hurriedly spoke up. Honestly, the bulky walkers were getting angsty at seeing a different vehicle doing their job better.
Archangel suddenly looked up, away from the corpse-ship. "Incoming!" She shouted.
The other ships all looked up as one, caught completely flat-footed.
Soaring through the void towards them were two tiny blue starfish-like forms – only about 5 to 10 meters wide – like two tiny meteors. The assorted ships all tensed up, but the two 'starfish' weren't headed their way – they instead slammed into the corpse-ship, hitting hard enough to form small craters in the flesh.
"…what the bloody –?" Spirit of Fire started to ask.
Both of the 'starfish' opened their mouths, and a great unnatural 'noise' filled the void as a blue liquid was vomited forth in a continuous deluge.
Several considerably ruder variations of "The heck?!" were shouted.
"What in Sam Hill is this stuff?" Hyperion aimed a pistol A̶T̶S̶ ̶l̶a̶s̶e̶r̶ ̶b̶a̶t̶t̶e̶r̶y̶ at the starfish things. "Acid?"
Spirit of Fire could see why Hyperion would think that – whatever this liquid was, it was rapidly eating away at the wraith-ship's 'flesh' – but acid wasn't magic. When acid ate away at something, the acid turned the dissolved material into either gas – which bubbled up through the acid – or liquid, which would mix with and dilute the acid. Neither was happening here.
"It's eating away at the ship!"
"No fair, no fair!"
"We haven't gotten to the good part of the dissection yet!"
"Where is all of this coming from? Hax!"
The Firestorms swarmed around the two emitters. With a furious cry, one flew down parallel to the wraith-like ship and fired at one of the emitters (such that the beam wouldn't hit the wraith-like ship). The brilliant lance of plasma carved a trench through the purple liquid, and burst through the other side of the emitter with no resistance at all.
The Firestorms all cheered, until they blinked away the searing light of the beam n̶e̶x̶t̶ ̶r̶a̶d̶a̶r̶ ̶s̶w̶e̶e̶p̶ ̶c̶a̶m̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶ and they saw that the emitter was completely undamaged.
"What?!"
"They can hurt us but we can't hurt them?!"
"That's cheating!"
"I call shenanigans!"
"Good God!" Jupiter II gasped, spooking the Firestorms out of their whining. "It's as though it doesn't exist entirely in our dimension!"
Her cadence was off, so she was probably talking in someone else's voice again, but Spirit of Fire didn't really care to find out who's.
"Keep firing!" Spirit of Fire ordered desperately.
The Firestorms bristled.
"We tried already!"
"Are you stupid?"
"It doesn't hurt the emitters!"
"Not the emitters, the liquid!" Spirit of Fire said, her voice still choked with urgency. "We've got to keep the liquid at bay until we can get that FTL organ out!"
"Ah've fought Zerg 'tides' before, but never an actual tide before…" Hyperion grit her teeth. "Ah, screw it. Siege Tanks, yer up!"
With one hand, Hyperion started zapping away at the rising purple tide with her ATA laser pistol b̶a̶n̶k̶s̶. With the other, she pulled open the collar on her power armour c̶a̶r̶g̶o̶ ̶b̶a̶y̶, allowing several (comparatively) tiny figures to crawl out from inside and onto the outside surface of her armour.
The Siege Tanks wore a bulky purple power armour similar to Hyperion's own, but with mechanical 'legs' extending from their middle like spider legs. Once clear of the docking bay's entrance, the tanks' 'legs' extended out and down into the surface of Hyperion's armour for extra stability. Each of them took aim with a massive artillery cannon, and started to rain down fire.
Spirit of Fire noted with some annoyance that the main guns on Hyperion's "Siege Tanks" were almost twice as large as the ones on her own Cobras.
"There's no way we can't hurt them!" A Firestorm whinged, still hung up on trying to destroy the emitters.
"If that don't work, use more gun!" A second one insisted.
"Oh, like the Outsiders! Heh heh! Get ready to be fried!" A third one lined up next to where the last one to fire had been, and took her own shot. Rather than a powerful lance of plasma, this one projected out an incredibly powerful electromagnetic field – an EMP.
But if this had any effect on the emitters, they didn't show it. They just grinned wider, their vomit of purple dissolving liquid continuing unabated. A few sparks danced in the liquid, that was all.
The Firestorms promptly resumed their complaining.
"For how long can we keep at bay this creeping tide?!" Archangel fretted, even as she added her own fire to the mix. Duel and Strike Rouge both hopped out of her leg catapults to add what they could, as did nearly every armed small craft the other ships had.
Spirit of Fire grimaced. "Doesn't matter how long, as long as it's enough for me to grab the organ!" She said, projecting more certainty into her voice than she actually felt.
Pelicans, in their drab camo, flew out from behind Spirit of Fire. Each of them clutched a Cyclops power-lifter in their arms s̶t̶r̶u̶n̶g̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶u̶n̶d̶e̶r̶n̶e̶a̶t̶h̶, and flew fearlessly towards the wraith-like ship.
"Okay, ah think we got this under control!" Hyperion shouted encouragingly, watching the pool of creeping liquid was unable to advance as the various weapons fire kept it at bay.
Then another two emitters crashed into the wraith-like ship, and Hyperion swore. "Never mind!"
"Hark!" Archangel cried. "See how the surface of yonder ship be not like that of a sphere? The creeping tide advances not in all directions, but in rivers and streams!"
"So we need to focus on the streams, gotcha!" Hyperion acknowledged, adjusting her aim appropriately. "How's that extraction coming, Spirit?"
"For the last bloody time…! Argh. They only just got there." Spirit of Fire grit her teeth.
As she had said, the Pelicans were swerving around and "dropping" each of their Cyclops down into the hole the SceeVees had dug. With their powerful hydraulic limbs, they each grabbed ahold of the squishy flesh, pulling upwards. The wrinkly, 'blood'-stained organ moved upwards…
…and halted suddenly. What the ships couldn't see, but was obvious to those on the ground, was that the organ was still connected to the ship by a thick white nerve.
"How's it going, Spirit?" Hyperion asked, unable to see the problem as she was focused on the creeping tide.
A couple of Firestorms broke off from shooting at the creeping tide to examining the organ.
"It's still connected!" One said, dismayed.
"I'll shoot it free!" A dangerous gleam entered a second Firestorm's eyes.
"No, stupid!" The first flew into the path of the second, shouting in their face. "You'll damage the organ!"
Hyperion swore. "Dangit! Hang on, I'll send the SceeVees back in!"
Just as she said this, the purple creeping tide finished eating through one of the walls of the "valley" it had been flowing through, diverting away from the focused fire from the ships and flowing into another route. Hyperion let out a quick panicked noise, spreading her fire out to cover the new approach as well. The creeping tide was still being blasted back… but it was advancing.
"There's no time!" Spirit of Fire yelped.
"Oh, honestly." Jupiter II sighed. "Out of the way, dears!"
The tiny saucer ship zipped in amongst the Firestorms, peering at the nerve bundle. "Yes, yes, I see. A good jolt of electromyostimulation ought to set that off!"
"Electro –" "– stimulation?" The two Firestorms echoed… before both looking down at the EMP cannon that the first one was carrying in her arms w̶e̶a̶p̶o̶n̶s̶ ̶b̶a̶y̶… and grinning.
Spirit of Fire's pupils shrunk into pinpricks. "Everybody back here, now!"
As the Pelicans hurriedly flew down, grabbing a Cyclops each and extracting the heck out of there, Archangel stared at Jupiter II. "You intend to trigger yonder device in such a crude fashion?"
Jupiter II put her hands on her hips and huffed. "Well, I don't hear any better ideas!"
"But we'll have no means to control where we eventuate!" Archangel pointed out, desperately.
Jupiter II paused, then placed a finger on the outside of her helmet roughly matching where her lips were. "Hmm… I suppose. But to be perfectly candid with you dear…"
Pelicans burned fuel, 'sprinting' for the dubious safety of Spirit of Fire's hangar bays as every small craft in the area (other than the Firestorms) fled towards the nearest hangar.
"I've learned to just enjoy the journey." Jupiter II finished.
The Firestorm with the EMP cannon aimed low… and fired.
Sparks jumped from the edges of the nerve to the surrounding flesh, and the organ started to glow a furious red. Just as waves of the creeping liquid started to pour into the hole, the glow of the organ suddenly increased into a bright flash. When it cleared, the Hiveship was still where it had been – but all of the other ships were gone.
…
This made the emitters sad.
Sure, the Creeper they produced was steadily eating away at the ship they had landed on – it had just broken through the outer hull. Judging by the data the Creeper was returning (and the screams d̶i̶s̶t̶r̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶c̶a̶l̶l̶s̶), it was greedily dissolving what seemed to be fighter-faeries. Trapped inside their hangar bay, nowhere to run from the Creeper – what a way to go! But the Loki had hoped to analyse more than that – there had been representatives from six different dimensions, from what they could tell, and they wanted information on all of them.
Oh well. There was always next time.
Maybe they'd try again after a quick break.
Perhaps… in a thousand years?
"Somebody get the number of that asteroid?"
Spirit of Fire was clearly joking, but Archangel didn't feel like laughing. When Jupiter II had somehow pushed her across the vastness of space, she had simply… arrived. All she had felt was like what a human who had woken up in an unfamiliar hotel room in the middle of the night might have experienced – stumbling around blindly, unable to figure out where they were.
This time, her eyes o̶p̶t̶i̶c̶a̶l̶ ̶s̶e̶n̶s̶o̶r̶s̶ had briefly detected a bright surge of spinning light and colours, and she had felt the distinct, unpleasant sensation of her bones s̶u̶p̶e̶r̶s̶t̶r̶u̶c̶t̶u̶r̶e̶ shaking like dice in a cup. Just as suddenly as it had started, it was over, and the stars had once again moved around her.
"…are there any of us that have become lost?" Archangel decided to ask.
"Oh, I've been lost for ages, dear." Jupiter II responded immediately. "Thank you for asking, though."
Archangel sighed.
"Ah'm still here." Hyperion answered. "And you heard the big lug just before."
"I prefer 'big lug' to you shortening my name, just so you know." Spirit of Fire muttered in annoyance.
"Great, back to Spirit it is then!" Hyperion grinned.
While Spirit of Fire groaned, the Firestorms finished their own headcount.
"All of us are accounted for." One said.
"Well, physically, at least." Another added.
"But 011 has always been a little… special." A third clarified.
"Even for us!" The second one exclaimed.
A fourth Firestorm glared at the first three. "Just for that, you all lose The Game."
As the assorted fighter-faeries all lodged angry complaints against their erstwhile friend, Archangel realised that they were, in fact, missing a ship. "Hold. Where is the ship which provided our transport here?"
The other ships blinked, looked at each other, then all around them.
"Huh." Hyperion chewed her hayseed for a moment. "Looks like we left it behind. Didn't know you could do that, without being the Protoss. Or the Overmind."
"Those are your names for the Forerunners and the Gravemind, right?" Spirit of Fire checked. "If so, yeah. Pretty sure human tech's a long way off from that trick, unless that changed post-war as well."
"If it did, nobody's told me." Hyperion huffed. "It ain't a matter of the drive – it's the nav computer controlling it that's the key. A blind activation like tha' was more likely gonna scatter our atoms 'cross half a system than it was send us out without moving itself."
"Well, we're here now, aren't we?" Jupiter II suggested brightly. "There's no point getting caught up in the details!"
Spirit of Fire glared down at Jupiter II.
Given that you'd need about a hundred and sixty Jupiter II's standing on each other's heads p̶l̶a̶c̶e̶d̶ ̶e̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶e̶n̶d̶ to equal Spirit of Fire's height l̶e̶n̶g̶t̶h̶, it was a bit like glaring at a ladybug – or from Jupiter II's point of view, being glared at by someone who loomed over her like a very large skyscraper loomed over a human.
Jupiter II's smile weakened a little, and she started rubbing the back of her fishbowl helmet nervously.
Archangel couldn't help it. She broke out into full-body, hysterical laughter.
As the larger capital ships glared at her, Archangel struggled to bring herself back under control. "Ha ha ha… ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"
Without success.
"Is somethin' funny, or did someone slip nitrous oxide into yer life-support?" Hyperion said, unimpressed.
"Ha ha…" With big gulps of air, Archangel's heaving sides finally started to slow to a stop. "Ha… f-forgive me, friends. I am sure that, to thee, the act of striding across the stars is an act so normal that it has rules. To one such as I, it seems a miracle beyond the reach of any mortal. The argument between thee, to I, feels like arguing that a curse of ill-fortune cannot take effect as the victim's name has too many of the letter 'n' – equal parts fantastic and arbitrary!"
Spirit of Fire and Hyperion shared a long look with each other… then, as one, sighed.
(After which, curiously, Archangel noticed Jupiter II letting out her own sigh of relief.)
"I s'pose we didn't actually want to bring that corpse-ship with us anyhow." Spirit of Fire mumbled.
"Righ', so now that we've gotten tha' sorted, where are we?" Hyperion asked, pointedly. "Th' plan was to get to a planet, as ah recall."
"There's one!" Jupiter II pointed excitedly.
The other ships turned to look f̶o̶c̶u̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶i̶r̶ ̶s̶e̶n̶s̶o̶r̶s̶ ̶a̶l̶o̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶r̶e̶l̶a̶t̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶v̶e̶c̶t̶o̶r̶ ̶J̶u̶p̶i̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶I̶I̶ ̶h̶a̶d̶ ̶s̶e̶n̶t̶. It was dimmer than any of the stars in the sky, but there did indeed seem to be a small brown dot in the sky.
Spirit of Fire shaded her eyes with one hand and closed an eye t̶u̶r̶n̶e̶d̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶o̶p̶t̶i̶c̶a̶l̶ ̶z̶o̶o̶m̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶f̶a̶r̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶g̶o̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶r̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶ ̶f̶u̶l̶l̶ ̶p̶a̶s̶s̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶s̶c̶a̶n̶. "Looks about… ten or so hours of flight time, given we're at a dead stop."
"For you, sure." Hyperion snorted. "A quick jump will have me there in no time."
"Well, don't let me stop you." Spirit of Fire muttered, annoyed. Raising her voice, she added "I've got work to do on Archangel, anyway. Ten hours ought to be enough for a basic patch-up. Maybe get one or two of her bigger guns working again."
Being reminded of the poor shape she was in made Archangel aware once again of the various throbbing and burning pains d̶i̶r̶e̶ ̶d̶a̶m̶a̶g̶e̶ ̶r̶e̶p̶o̶r̶t̶s̶ that she'd been doing her best to ignore.
"B-before thou go, Hyperion," Archangel asked, trying to put the pain out of mind again "couldst we please introduce ourselves? In the confusion, all I learned was your name and thy role in battle."
"I wasn't…" Hyperion started, exasperated, but then a gleam entered her eye. "Y'know what, sure. Just as long as you go first, and explain what's up with the thees and thous."
"Uh…" Archangel blinked. "Very well."
She straightened her back, trying to organise her thoughts. "I am Archangel, carrier of the hope of peace."
(As she talked, her Mistrals snuck out of her leg-catapults and started talking in rapid, squeaky voices with Spirit of Fire's Herons about organising the parts they'd need.)
"Originally, I was commissioned by the Earth Alliance as part of their war against ZAFT –"
"Who?" Said Spirit of Fire, Hyperion, Jupiter II and several of the Firestorms in stereo.
Archangel paused. "They are… do thou know what a Coordinator is?"
"Someone who coordinates things?" Hyperion wriggled a foot, wishing that she had a flat surface to tap it on impatiently.
"…in this context, it refers to one who has had their genes 'coordinated'." Archangel explained. "Such people learn faster, are much stronger on average, and are more resistant to disease."
It also apparently damaged their ability to reproduce naturally, but Archangel had only just recently found that out and didn't really know what to do with that particular secret yet.
"Oh, they're gene-spliced." Hyperion frowned. "Ya could have just said that, you know."
Archangel blinked. "That is… far more of a casual reaction than I was expecting."
"Yeah, well." Hyperion folded her arms and looked away. "It was a big fad back in the 22nd century."
Archangel's eyebrows furrowed. "'Fad'?"
"Earth got some funny ideas about 'purity' into its head, an' had most of 'em rounded up and shot." Hyperion said, shortly. "The few tha' weren't were shot off to the Koprulu Sector with all the other 'undesirables'."
"Excuse me?!" Jupiter II broke in, hands on hips. "I don't know where you're getting this funny idea about Earth's behaviour, but I assure you America would never stand for this!"
For one, terrible moment, Spirit of Fire was tempted to remind Jupiter II that America – California in particular – had had its own eugenics practices that had proven very difficult to stamp out… but the petty, spiteful urge passed.
(A strange bucket brigade of small craft was being organised, parts fresh off of Spirit of Fire's internal factories being passed along to the Mistrals who were quickly removing damaged parts and replacing them with the new ones.)
Archangel coughed. "Well… imagine that, before that happened, the Coordinators all formed their own nation."
"Ah." Hyperion saw the problem. "And this country was called 'ZAFT', was it?"
"The country was called 'PLANT'," Archangel clarified "'ZAFT' was the name of those who ruled the PLANTs."
Spirit of Fire let out a long, tired sigh. "Which one started the war? Earth or ZAFT?"
Archangel looked up at the larger ship, her eyes equally tired. "Does that matter?"
Spirit of Fire thought about that for a moment. "No." She eventually mumbled. "I s'pose not."
"The 'thees and thous', as thou so eloquently put it, Hyperion," Archangel said "are said out of affection for simpler times. For when war was not conducted with both sides having the sole goal of complete eradication of the other side. The war I was built for… by the end, I could no longer stomach it."
"Right, yeah." Hyperion snapper her fingers. "Ya did say you were part of some kinda… 'Three Ship's Alliance', I think? You defected?" Archangel nodded. "Good." Hyperion crossed her arms. "That puts ya ahead of Spirit here."
"I…!" Spirit of Fire's mouth opened wide, ready to indignantly defend herself…!
Hyperion cut her off with a glare, rounding on her. "Oh yeah? Gonna deny it, Spirit? Gonna say you weren't never sent out to a colony world to tell 'em that what they wanted didn't matter, only what Earth wanted?"
Hyperion's eyes narrowed. "Or are you gonna revel in it instead? Tell me that we don't deserve to chose who leads us?"
Spirit of Fire met Hyperion's glare with one of her own… then with a huff looked down.
"Sure. That's me." She mumbled. "A bloody monster. Setting up colonies and then putting them down."
Unexpectedly, Hyperion blinked. "Settin' up…?"
"Oh, oh!" Jupiter II's eyes were wide, and she was once again using a child's voice. "You're a colony ship? Like me?"
Spirit of Fire let out a wry chuckle, still not looking up. "Sure am!" Then she frowned. "Was. Will be again." She sighed again. "…assuming I manage not to cark it."
"Why the hell's Earth sending colony ships to fight their wars for them?" Hyperion's eyes narrowed. "They run outta warships?"
"Somethin' like that." Spirit of Fire crossed her arms. "You wouldn't have been there, but –"
"Sam Hill ah wasn't there!" Hyperion snarled suddenly. "Ah was right in th' middle of yer little invasion, Spirit, and I sure as shootin' don't remember no ships that weren't warships."
"What?" Spirit of Fire blinked, honestly confused. "The only warships the Insurrection fielded were ones they stole from the UNSC – at the start, anyway. Don't think Isabelle mentioned them getting their own since, but –"
"What in Tarnation is a 'you en ess sea'?" Hyperion demanded.
"Earth's military!" Spirit of Fire said, shortly.
"Oh, is that what you call it." Hyperion snorted.
Jupiter II tilted her head. "The UN has a military in the future?" She guessed (more or less correctly). "Most disappointing. When did they abandon their ideals for peace?"
"Probably about the time that the Solar System went to Hell in a hand-basket." Spirit of Fire frowned, trying to remember the exact dates. "Pretty sure the Interplanetary War was the start of it all."
"What 'Interplanetary War'?" Hyperion squinted. "We lost ah lot of Earth's history when we crashed into Koprulu, but ah'm pretty sure Earth wasn't multi-planet until after you UED goons 'unified' it."
"I told you already, it's 'UEG'!" Spirit of Fire snapped back. "If you're going to be on my bloody case all the time, you can at least call us by our real names!"
"Pardon me, ladies, but are you sure you come from the same dimension?" Jupiter II rubbed her bubble helmet. "It's sounding to me like all the details are wrong."
Hyperion pinched the bridge of her nose. "For the love of… okay, Spirit, lightning round."
"Still not my name…" Spirit of Fire complained.
Hyperion ignored her. "First comes the Zerg, infesting and invading our planets. Then come the Protoss, burning the Zerg to ash – along with any poor soul still on the planet in question. After that, Earth decides that now is a great time for a crackdown on the colonists they'd thrown away and abandoned!"
For a moment, Spirit of Fire just stared blankly.
Hyperion raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"That's the wrong way around." Spirit of Fire said, slowly.
Hyperion blinked. "What?" She said again, but this time she actually sounded confused.
"The only reason we didn't immediately lose the Human-Covenant war is because we had been building up our military to fight the Insurrection." Spirit of Fire explained, slowly. "And the only planets I know that had a Flood outbreak were the Shield World I blew up… and Earth."
Hyperion stared back at Spirit of Fire for a long, hard moment.
"The Zerg nevah touched Earth." She said, slowly. "It was too far away from anythin' important."
Spirit of Fire stared back. "The way I heard it, the Flood targeted Earth." She said. "Something about the Forerunners having left some kind of portal to the Ark on it."
A long pause passed between the two of them.
"Okay." Hyperion eventually said. "Now ah'm really confused."
"Like I said dears, you're from different worlds." Jupiter II shrugged. "Honestly. Have neither of you ever read H.G. Wells?"
"Isn't that the one where the Martians forget that germs exist?" Spirit of Fire squinted.
"I believe Jupiter II is referring to the novel Men Like Gods." Archangel softly added. "A tale predicated on the concept of falling through space to find oneself in a world different from one's own."
Hyperion pinched her nose. "That's not… ah'm not gonna believe ya just because some old Earth writer thought it'd be a neat story to tell."
"Well, I don't bloody know what to tell you then." Spirit of Fire said, starting to get fed up with the whole discussion. "All I know is that I'm fair dinkum. If you want to convince me that you're lying, be my bloody guest. Otherwise, I have to assume we're both telling the truth. …somehow."
"Ah ain't lying." Hyperion growled, her lips pulling back to reveal clenched teeth.
"Nobody is saying thou are, Hyperion." Archangel said. "But, for none of us to be lying…"
Hyperion abruptly covered her face with both hands and took a deep breath.
"Forget it." She said, her voice slightly muffled. "We're jus' going round 'n round in circles."
"Oh, like me!" Jupiter II giggled, her voice now like that of a young girl. She spun around and around, laughing to herself.
Archangel looked down at the much smaller ship, abruptly realising that she had not introduced herself yet. "Thou said that thou were a colony ship, Jupiter II?"
Jupiter II smiled. "That's me! Jupiter II, intergalactic spacecraft!"
"And how many galaxies have you visited?" Hyperion asked, flatly.
Hyperion was trying to call Jupiter II's bluff on being an 'intergalactic' spaceship, but Jupiter II seemed to take the question seriously. She frowned, straightening up and adopting the mannerisms of an adult again. "That's a good question actually. My inertial navigation systems have been broken for a good long while. There's no telling how many galaxies I've passed through!"
Spirit of Fire raised an eyebrow. "What about your other navigation systems?"
"Oh, I wasn't built with any other navigation systems." Jupiter II said, casually. "I was only supposed to be heading to Alpha Centauri, after all."
"Alpha Centauri?" A Firestorm asked.
"The triple-star system?" A second one added.
"Third-brightest 'star' in the night sky?" A third one joined in.
Jupiter II happily nodded. "Yes, that's the one!"
The Firestorms looked at Jupiter II, deadpan.
"That's only 4 light-years from Earth."
"Those three are the stars that are the closest to the Sun!"
"Why would you need to be intergalactic to get there?"
Jupiter II opened her mouth to respond… then furrowed her brow and closed her mouth. Looking pensive, she crossed her arms. "Hmm… that's a good point. That doesn't make much sense, does it?"
Nearly in unison, every other ship present suppressed the urge to shout some variation of You think?!
Yet another one of the Firestorms crossed their arms and sniffed. "Of course, this makes it our turn to introduce ourselves, yes?"
Hyperion started counting on her fingers. "Yer a bunch of ships made ta fry invading ships like potatoes slathered in butter –"
"– pick over the wreckage for anything you could reverse-engineer –" Spirit of Fire interjected.
"– to use what you can learn to forge new weapons for the next battle." Archangel finished. "Which, 'less my eyes deceive me, includes your own design?"
The Firestorms collectively stared up at the larger ships.
The Firestorm at the front of the formation turned to the others. "Security breach!"
Hyperion rolled her eyes. "Just 'cause I don't believe every word comin' outta ya mouths don't mean I ain't listening at all, got it?"
…repeat! This is… …FFG-142… under attack!
Spirit of Fire spun around so suddenly that bucket parade of small craft passing parts to Archangel had to dive out of the way. "What was that?!"
"What was what?" Jupiter II blinked.
"Just now! That radio transmission!" Spirit of Fire's eyes p̶a̶s̶s̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶s̶e̶n̶s̶o̶r̶s̶ started frantically searching the dark void around her. "It was a distress call – didn't you hear?!"
"Ah didn't hear nothin'." Hyperion said, but this time she didn't sound completely sure of herself.
Spirit of Fire drew in a deep breath. "This is CFV-88, Spirit of Fire! Does anybody out there read me!" She yelled out b̶r̶o̶a̶d̶c̶a̶s̶t̶ ̶a̶t̶ ̶f̶u̶l̶l̶ ̶p̶o̶w̶e̶r̶.
A couple of precious minutes went by, everyone listening intently, just in case their mysterious ship was a few light-minutes away.
They did get a response back, but it wasn't from a ship in distress.
"Ah, honoured customers, maybe?"
The echoey voice t̶r̶a̶n̶s̶m̶i̶s̶s̶i̶o̶n̶ was faint, and had a Japanese accent so thick you could use it as insulation. They didn't seem to be using machine translation, which was a bit of a problem because their English was not the best.
"Please, please! I am having much what is good for trading, yes! Minerals very rare and very common! I am sure that we can come to agreement!"
Superficially, the cutesy voice seemed to be delighted to be talking to them. But underneath the jovial tones, there seemed to be an undercurrent of some other, much darker emotion lurking under the surface.
"I am in orbit of first planet of system! Yes, yes! Come to USG Ishimura, and I am being giving you exchange of lifetime!"
