Greene looks relieved as he switches to Farsi. "Work with me - with them, at least on paper. Learn their ways, find out what they plan to do with Earth, and tweak their plans. If they plan to glass our planet, then twist it, sabotage it so maybe they just take over. If they want to take over, smooth things out so they just, I dunno, keep France or something."
"Think about it, doc. We both know you're not gonna give up Earth. If you're not useful, they'll kill you... either outta spite or through interrogation."
Greene looks relieved as he switches to Farsi. "Work with me - with them, at least on paper. Learn their ways, find out what they plan to do with Earth, and tweak their plans. If they plan to glass our planet, then twist it, sabotage it so maybe they just take over. If they want to take over, smooth things out so they just, I dunno, keep France or something."
"Think about it, doc. We both know you're not gonna give up Earth. If you're not useful, they'll kill you... either outta spite or through interrogation."
"Right. Treachery. I like that...I'd like to think I've become pretty good at it since we left Earth. Let's get to it."
"How 'bout a tour then?" Greene motions to his two Turai, who walk over to Max. One watches the scientist as the other soldier unclasps the tether keeping Max chained to the center of the room.
"How 'bout a tour then?" Greene motions to his two Turai, who walk over to Max. One watches the scientist as the other soldier unclasps the tether keeping Max chained to the center of the room.
"Sure. I appear to have nothing better to do right now." replies the Action Scientist, observing everything in the room and taking mental notes from here on out.
Greene has the two Turai escort Max out of the round chamber. One Imperial walks ahead of the Action Scientist, the second one behind. Greene follows up. As the chamber door dilates, Max is struck by how loud the corridors are. The din of what can only be construction rattles, hums, and whines through the ventilation and thrums beneath his feet. To punctuate Max's theory, a trio of crew in black undersuits, draped in tools and accompanied by a safety-orange maintenance drone trot past.
"Watch your step," Greene mutters, pointing to a ragged gap in the deck ahead. Sparks trickle down like fluttering snowflakes, giving Max the impression that there must be a problem with the internal gravity. Max chances a peek as they walk by and sees a rough-hewn tunnel blasted through at least ten decks and littered with the gently falling debris of a hasty patch job. The air smells like blood and smoke.
"Take a left up here," Greene barks as they approach a corridor hub. Another crewwoman, this one in a spacesuit, jogs through the hub on her way to a tunnel marked by flashing red glyphs.
Greene's directions lead the group to a lift. The doors part smoothly and a blast of stale air rolls out along with the smell of bacon grease. The lead Turai punches in an access code - Max notes the glyphs - and the elevator begins to move... eventually.
"Looks like you've got some problems. Hull breach? I can help with that, you know. Because despite my general animosity toward anyone not born on Earth, I do like breathing...a lot. And is the bacon I smell? I'm guessing it's not bacon." says Max to Greene, committing the elevator access code to memory.
"We had to lock down a few compartments when they caught fire. Smell's probably wafting out through the system now that the fires are out. Cap'n Verrill did a number on this fucker when he went."
The elevator comes to a gentle, then jarring, then rumbling halt. The doors open onto a mesh-bottomed control center. Max looks down onto several hundred meters of sci-fi engineering nightmare. The Needleship's massive drive is spiderwebbed with interconnecting access tunnels. Tiny figures jet to and fro with jump harnesses or slide tool packs across to damaged areas.
One of four techs in the room steps past Max to light up an overlay. Greene starts pointing out the various subsystems.
"Our main drive's at 30%. Lifepods are offline. The hangar's been blocked by debris - we should have that cleared first. Multiple breaches here, here, and here. Our long-range vox comms are down, we're limited to lasers for LR comms. Anyway, you can see the shit we're both in."
"We had to lock down a few compartments when they caught fire. Smell's probably wafting out through the system now that the fires are out. Cap'n Verrill did a number on this fucker when he went."
The elevator comes to a gentle, then jarring, then rumbling halt. The doors open onto a mesh-bottomed control center. Max looks down onto several hundred meters of sci-fi engineering nightmare. The Needleship's massive drive is spiderwebbed with interconnecting access tunnels. Tiny figures jet to and fro with jump harnesses or slide tool packs across to damaged areas.
One of four techs in the room steps past Max to light up an overlay. Greene starts pointing out the various subsystems.
"Our main drive's at 30%. Lifepods are offline. The hangar's been blocked by debris - we should have that cleared first. Multiple breaches here, here, and here. Our long-range vox comms are down, we're limited to lasers for LR comms. Anyway, you can see the shit we're both in."
"Verrill?!" replies Max, with the tone of shock and surprise.
"I can't believe he's still alive. So he passed through here? How'd he even get here...wherever here is?"
"Nah, man, they must've turned his ship into some sorta giant space Claymore. When he blew up it ripped this ship to shit."
"That's comforting. I was beginning to think he was still alive. I really hate the military. They have neat toys, but always manage to pull rank at the worst imaginable time."
Greene and the two minders let Max peruse the engineering console briefly before dragging him off to the lifepod bays. Max's short stint in the system puts the Perfection Vendetta heading inward from one of the two outsystem gates in the star system where Napai is. There's a massive drydock/fortress called the Akwhela's Eye orbiting the Imperial capital planet and that looks like their destination.
Max ponders his ironic proximity to the team's objective while he puts on a spacesuit. The lifepod bays are depressurized and with the Vendetta coasting in, without gravity of any kind. One of the Turai minders shows Max the magnetic couples on his boots and straps a simple thrust-belt onto the scientist's back. A short wait and a handful of toolbelts and diagnostic equipment later and Max finds himself floating in what looks like a darkened morgue with "coffins" the size of VW Beetles.
Greene and the two minders let Max peruse the engineering console briefly before dragging him off to the lifepod bays. Max's short stint in the system puts the Perfection Vendetta heading inward from one of the two outsystem gates in the star system where Napai is. There's a massive drydock/fortress called the Akwhela's Eye orbiting the Imperial capital planet and that looks like their destination.
Max ponders his ironic proximity to the team's objective while he puts on a spacesuit. The lifepod bays are depressurized and with the Vendetta coasting in, without gravity of any kind. One of the Turai minders shows Max the magnetic couples on his boots and straps a simple thrust-belt onto the scientist's back. A short wait and a handful of toolbelts and diagnostic equipment later and Max finds himself floating in what looks like a darkened morgue with "coffins" the size of VW Beetles.
Max starts accessing the damage and undertaking at hand. The fact that most of the Turai onboard have on suits that would survive a catastrophic decompression doesn't help his sabotage cause.
"For now, I guess I should get life support back online. At this rate, we're not going to be at the dry dock for a while."
Max works slowly in the silence, but manages to restore power to the lifepod bays. The hull breach is tended to by drones, and as the machines work, the castoff and debris from their cutting and welding hangs in the bay like ash.
Greene returns after an hour has passed with a small vox-pod from which he delegates repair teams and makes small talk (as it were) with Max. Max fills in the cyborg on the last season of LOST, Greene rambles about the Imperium's impressive technology, how he's got them tricked, how his grand plan to weasel his way into inheriting the Earth can't fail now that Max is on his side. Max wonders how "not capturing the Earthlings and wasting a ton of Imperial assets" is actually going to impact Greene's imagined career path.
Max will continue to play along with Greene's ambitions. When the crazy train looks like it's heading for a derailment, that's when he'll make his move.
"Yeah, about your plan. How exactly do you intend on carrying it out?"
"You're gonna help me get the codes to the Gateship headin' for Earth once we get to the Akwhela's Eye drydocks," Greene offers. "My access is high enough to tell that it launched last week from an outpost on JGH-361, but I can't get aboard through its Gateway. We get aboard the Gateship, plant some REAL time-delayed charges. Somethin' on the order of a year. That way it drops their plans back decades and... it makes up for me tellin' em. Givin' up which star was ours. They took me back to that jungle planet, wired up to one of them jellyfish. You had... you pointed out where home was way back then. That ain't something you forget when you're out there cut off from everything."
Max leaves Greene's guilt trip alone, although his admission that there is a Gateship currently bound for Earth is a bit worrying, and if JGH-361 isn't a code for Whiirr, then there's no telling how long Earth has. Even if Greene's mystery ship left from Whiirr, it's still cutting Earth's invasion deadline in half.
These thoughts occupy Max as he's brought up to the internals for the Perfection Vendetta's vox array. A massive short's fried all manner of delicate and strangely moist fibrous bundles, and Greene puts Max to work here.
Eventually the vox comes back online in time for the Vendetta's crew to broadcast their auth-codes without the use of their backup laser comms. Max gets a glimpse of the Akwhela's Eye as he's led out of CIC: A massive slate-steel wall, a battle-armored Delaware ripped from the Earth's crust and placed into high orbit above the dark, twinkling sphere of Napai, the Imperial Motherworld. Needleships are big; a single-file line of the vessels in drydock crawls the skin of the massive fortress like spines on a cactus.
A gaping maw opens in the Eye's outer-facing facade, an iris blast door the size of an orbital Gateway. The Perfection Vendetta slows to docking speed, its stricken engines yearning for rest and shuddering the deckplates.
"C'mon," Greene tells Max. "We're going in there." He turns to the two Turai minders. "Take Doc down to the Keeper subcomplex. Don't let him out of your sight. Don't let him touch anything. Don't kill him, at least nothin' permanent. I'll catch up."
Greene turns to address the Needleship's bridge as one of the Turai shoves Max forward into the corridor leading out of CIC.
"C'mon," Greene tells Max. "We're going in there." He turns to the two Turai minders. "Take Doc down to the Keeper subcomplex. Don't let him out of your sight. Don't let him touch anything. Don't kill him, at least nothin' permanent. I'll catch up."
Greene turns to address the Needleship's bridge as one of the Turai shoves Max forward into the corridor leading out of CIC.
"Don't take too long." says Max to Greene, stumbling as he's forcibly prodded through the corridor.
There's a waft of vaguely lavender-scented air from the ventilation when the lift doors open onto Pavilion 21. Max steps forward, flanked by the two Turai, and looks out an immense reinforced screen that frames the primary continents of Napai. Veins and starbursts of light from the cities crawl across the planet's nighttime surface.
As for the Keepers' pavilion itself, the observatory area that the lifts open onto is crawling with vegetation. Vinelike tendrils with broad fronds snake up trellises built into the walls. There are a few padded benches, low couches, and crescent tables - all in all, a peaceful place to study, relax, or just sit and watch the stars.
That's when Max feels, rather than hears, his wrist restraints disengage with a subtle click. He's free and the two Imperial guards haven't seemed to notice.
Admiral Duck Sauce
