Stars Without Number: Scions of the Stars, Ex astris intellectus Options

[JxJxA]

Whenever I think I'm finally over it, the nightmare returns.

"What are you doing?" Gevin demands. He levels his void carbine at the man I would later discover to be Nestor Crane.

The "tech" withdraws a small, black tetrahedron from his pocket. He casually tosses it towards the cargo hold's viewport.

"Testing a theory," he says. As soon as the tetrahedron strikes the viewport's pane, it distorts and dissolves. The corners of his mouth pull back into a joyless grin.

I can hear the sound of weapon discharge back in the hallway. I look back towards the door, swinging my laser rifle towards the door to cover the area.

"We have to get out of here," I tell Gevin, "before those shriekers get over here."

"Thankfully, they are no longer your concern," Crane says. He drops his own weapon and draws his second sidearm, a semiautomatic pistol. Before Gevin or I can say or do anything, he shoots the viewport. The transparent aluminum pane shatters, something that should not be possible. The vacuum greedily sucks out the air, carrying us all with it. I lose sight of Gevin, and then my eyesight gets fuzzy. I feel my lungs begin to swell, my eyes freeze and shatter, and my ears burst. For an eternity of agonizing pain, I feel myself tumbling in the nothingness of space. At some point I can't quite remember, the pain begins to dull. Finally, I feel nothing at all.

Until I feel something once more. A spark of life creeps through my system, with an explosion of pain following soon behind. I can't see, I can't hear, I can't think, and I can't even breathe. A few seconds later, my body begins to stitch itself back together. My senses return, the pain subsides, and I see who is responsible.

Those fucking shriekers.

Sometimes the nightmare stops here, leaving me to fester in a mess of fury and guilt. Fury at having to owe them my life. Fury at having them leave Gevin out in space to die. Fury at myself for being stupid enough to fall for Crane's promises of power, and letting him put those machines in my body---machines that I would eventually have to get scraped off of my bones. Finally, guilt at feeling that way towards the people who went out of their way to save my shrieked ass.

Unfortunately, tonight's nightmare is not so kind as to leave it at that.

Standing on his ship---no, Gevin's ship---we confront Crane with the fact that his standoff no longer matters. Thanks to some hacking, stalling, and blind luck, we defuse the thermonuclear bomb linked to his heartbeat. We tell him there is nothing he can do to escape his fate.

That is when he starts to melt.

"You think you've won," sneers Nestor Crane, even as his flesh around his face grows slack, "yet you have not." Hair begins to fall from his head in clumps, and what can only be described as droplets of liquid flesh dribble from his ears, his nose, and his fingers. As each horrid drop strikes the ground, it sublimates into nothingness.

"My work will continue, even if by different hands."

An eye grows watery and spills from its socket and onto the deck. His bones grow almost as thin as his skin, and we can hear the wretched crackle as his skeletal remains begin to give way to gravity.

"The door you have opened can never be shut."

His legs give way, and he collapses to the ground. Smoke lazily wafts out from underneath his clothes. His head lands in the center of the "puddle." He stares back at us---at me---and looks directly into our souls with his one remaining eye. What is left of his face turns into a grin like the one he wore before, except that this time there is definitely an emotion behind it: anticipation.

"We are coming, and there is nothing you can do to stop us..."

This is when I wake up.

Ezri's eyes snap open, and she sits up straight in bed. She looks around, assuring herself that it really was only a nightmare, and that she is just in the small spartan confines of her quarters onboard the Terra Firma. A shrill beeping sounds, making her jump in response. It takes her a few moments to realize what the sound is. It is just her alarm clock, letting her know that the ship is about to drop out of drillspace.

Ezri sighs, gets out of bed, and stumbles over to her refresher. She stares into the mirror. Her blue eyes are outlined with dark circles, and the color has drained from her face. Part of this is from the subject of the dream. The other part comes from not having felt a sun's light in days. She turns on her sink, splashes some water on her face, and musses up her short brown hair into something visibly acceptable.

She gets dressed, grabbing her underarmor and a set of clothes, a white shirt and brown pants made out of synthetic materials. She quickly pulls them on, along with her boots. Finally, she grabs one of her most prized possessions---a black jacket made out of genuine leather. She has had it since leaving home, and somehow it managed to survive getting explosively decompressed with her into space.

Ezri leaves her quarters, and walks down the Terra Firma's main corridor. Nobody else seems to be out and about, which is perfectly fine with her. The sound of her boots hitting the deck as she walks and the hum of the spike drive are the only sounds she can hear. She reaches the bridge, slips into the pilot's chair. She takes a moment to look at the strangely beautiful azure wash of drillspace, and lets the comfort of the familiar sight to banish away the bad memories the nightmare exhumed. As she lets herself settle down, she begins pulling up nav data.

"GAIA," she asks the ship's General Artificial Intelligence Assistant, "ETA until we reach Kuphon?" The ship replies via terminal.

<<ETA 3 minutes until dropping out of drillspace.>>

Good, I have time to figure out where we're going.

Ezri looks over the system information. Zaxus immediately stands out as the best destination, with Waypoint Station being the system's major refueling hub. Even better, the station is unaffiliated. That means fewer regs, and more job opportunities. She begins plotting a preliminary course based on their expected point of realspace reentry. Her fingers move deftly over the control panel, punching buttons and tapping flatscreen icons as she masterfully constructs a quick, dirty, yet surprisingly detailed travel solution with little more than hunches to work with.

<<Dropping out of drillspace now.>>

The blue waves of drillspace recede, and are quickly replaced by the star speckled panorama of realspace. In the distance, the Kuphon washes the system with bright blue light. Part of that panorama is cut off by the bright pinkish-white light of a swirling nebula that seems to dwarf anything else in the system.

<<Establishing contact with system navigational networks to verify coordinates. Connecting... Connected. Coordinates found. Refreshing navigational data.>>

Ezri begins updating her navigation calculations. She enjoys a self-satisfied smirk as she sees how little she has to change in her travel solution. Other than a few recent metadimensional hazards, it is nearly perfect. Once she is satisfied, she punches them up on the nav computer. She can feel the Terra Firma's hull hum once again as the spike comes back online and feeds power into the drill foils. The view outside gains a slight sapphire haze as the ship shifts into a higher energy shear somewhere between drillspace and realspace and begins soaring gracefully towards the gas giant Zaxus.

Ezri activates the ship intercomm.

"Wake up, folks. We just made it into Kuphon, and should arrive at Waypoint Station in an hour and a half. Do what you've gotta do to get ready to disembark."