Chapter Text
-Deck 6, ARAR Dormitory 4-
Blinking awake to an internal alarm, a replika realizes It’s exciting being up in the stars. Her eyes adjust like a camera lens as the fluorescent lights of the ceiling drag her further from her tiredness. When ARAR-H19-CL7-124 - or Tann, as she was called - was originally told she was being transferred from Heimat, she was nervous. But now that she was here, sailing amongst the inky depths of space, she couldn’t be happier.
She was stationed on a light cruiser named the Freya as one of its maintenance personnel. The ship was currently halfway through journey from Heimat to… somewhere. All she knew was the vessel was meant to rendezvous with a fleet. She didn’t know the coordinates nor what fleet they were meant to rendezvous with. Nobody but the command crew were told, for security reasons of course, possible Imperial spies and all that.
For all she cared, she was in heaven. In her footlocker were enough technical documents and service manuals to last a decade. Every little thing on the ship needed to be kept in top shape. Tann was more than happy to do her job and make sure that an incident caused by poorly maintained equipment never happened.
Suppressing the runaway thoughts in her mind as she sits up in bed, she checks her mental clock. Her shift down in the maintenance tunnels would start in an hour. Ten hours of being alone in cramped tunnels tinkering with equipment. No people. No distractions. Just her, some tools, and three dozen repair request documents.
But first, she needed something to eat. Pushing herself out of her bunk at the mere thought of food, she quickly gets ready. Popping open her footlocker, she seizes its contents. A tool belt around her waist and a mask around her head. She makes sure to grab that chocolate ration she traded for an off the books “repair” she made for the VLGR units. As usual, someone was messing with the lights in their dorm.
Feeling prepared for her day, she walks into the halls. It didn’t take long to arrive at the mess hall. She steps in line behind a flock of Eule’s and awaits her turn to be served. The owls are always chatty about something, but Tann pays them no mind.
It only takes a few minutes in line to get her rations. She decides to sit down by herself at the end of a table, making sure to get a seat next to the large reinforced glass window of the mess hall. She doesn’t eat immediately, Instead she waits a few minutes for someone to show up, eventually growing impatient and eating anyways.
She elects to study the outside as she munches her food, turning her head to the viewport of the mess hall and out into the inky blackness beyond. She locks eyes with a small, glowing ball in the far distance of the near emptiness of interplanetary space. Heimats gas giant was already so far away, not much more than a speck amongst dozens in the sky.
The thoughts remain and linger, until it’s the only thing she can think about. She wonders what life on Heimat was like right now. How things would be if she arrived at her original station. The comparisons between working maintenance at a small arms factory, and working as maintenance on a ship are conflicting. On one hand, there was the familiarity and confidence that came with her old workplace - on the other, a new place gave her a fleeting sense of wonder and adventure.
A light tap on the shoulder startles her. She lets out a small squeak, whirling around to look at the Eule who had touched her. The Replika in question swiftly backpedals at the sudden movement. Tann calms down when she recognizes the replika looking back at her.
Blüchen. Blüchen was the name of the Eule who just scared her. Tann wasn’t very good at interacting with anyone. It didn’t matter if they were Replika or Gestalt, she would always struggle. So when a Eule had come up to her and tried to befriend her, she was reluctant to say the least.
Originally, it was just Blüchen sitting down next to her during a meal and talking to her. It took some time, but now the friendship has blossomed. Blüchen was late today, which was unusual and annoying.
“You startled me, Blüchen.” Tann bitterly mutters her words, more out of nervousness than anger. “Also, you’re late.”
“Sorry, sorry, I had to do something.” The owl hisses her words out, looking a little remorseful. “I can eat with you now, if you’d like.”
“I have to be down in the maintenance deck in twelve minutes, so maybe at the end of our shifts.”
“Okay!” the Eule goes to walk away and mingle with some other people.
“Can I ask what you were doing?” Tann asks before she can get out of earshot.
“Oh, I needed to help a Star with something.” Her eyes quickly darted away from Tann and quickly darted back. She is trying to be dismissive about the situation, Tann notices.
“And what did a Star need your help with, exactly?”
Blüchen twiddles her thumbs in thought for a few seconds. Visibly coming to an internal decision, she leans closer. “You can’t tell anyone or I’ll be reprimanded, okay?”
“Since when do I talk to anyone other than you for more than thirty seconds?” Tann replies in a completely monotone voice.
The Eule lets out an amused huff before leaning closer and cupping a hand around Tann’s ear. “They were asking me about a gestalt I work inventory with. Command is worried about a possible spy on the ship,” she whispers.
The idea of a spy brought a nervous look to her face. Dozens of variables and possible targets for sabotage are calculated in her mind. They are followed immediately by calculations of the required materials for the repairs of each possible sabotage point.
“Aren’t you worried about it?” Tann asks, after a few moments of internal computation that nearly sends her into a panic.
“Nope.”
The answer brings a little peace of mind back to Tann. She gives a simple nod in response before standing. “I have to get to my shift. I’ll see you later.”
“Bye!” The owl gives a wave before running off.
She rolls her eyes, wondering where her friend gets all this energy. Putting the tray she ate from at a depository, she casts one last glance back at her friend. Blüchen is giggling along with some of the other Eule’s in her dorm. At least she’s in good spirits.
Tann wonders if she could ever be as social as that with her dorm mates… Probably not. They gave each other a wide berth and only really talked to report on which of the crew the ARAR’s should avoid. There was a reason the armory has had a broken lock for the past two cycles, and that reason is a STCR with a superiority complex. The captain stopped trying to force the issue after the seventh request went unanswered.
She smiles. They were learning fast.
Shaking her head in amusement, she exits the mess hall and climbs into the nearest entrance to the maintenance tunnels. It’s a tight fit, but she’s practically purpose built to fit in cramped spaces. Climbing through the tunnels, she eventually reaches the location where the first repair on her docket was. After a quick radio message to confirm that she’s where she’s supposed to be, she gets to work calibrating the local life support systems.
-Four hours later, Maintenance Tunnels-
Tann grunts as she forcefully rips a bundle of wires from within the interior of a shorted out heating unit. A hiss escapes her as a few sparks hit her synthetic fingers. It stings a little, but it wasn’t anything major. She gives the bundle a last glance before tossing them to the side without care. A loose collection slides off into the depths of the access shaft she’s working in. She mentally shrugs as she watches them fall. The wires were shot anyway, who cares if they fell all the way to the cargo deck. It’s not like anyone other than the Ara’s came in here anyway.
She wipes her arm over her face in an attempt to get some grease off of it, though it just makes the problem worse. Just as she reaches back into the heating unit to begin rewiring the electronics the entire ship rumbles and the lights flicker. That was weird, and certainly not something she caused. Maybe one of the gunner units using their ammunition ration to do some target practice.
A large boom resounds throughout the hull, accompanying shockwaves rocking the vessel to its core. Tann loses her footing from the immense vibrations of the cruiser. She manages to just barely stop herself from falling into the vertical maintenance shaft by grabbing onto a nearby handhold. Her ears ring from the sound as alarms begin screaming their pointless warnings, adding even more to her already overwhelmed senses. The lights flicker and pulse to the silent tune of electrons before turning dark. The machines and equipment within the maintenance tunnels take a final, futile breath before shuddering to a stop and plunging the vessel into a deafening silence.
That is not target practice.
A soft whirring sound from nearby catches her attention, a few seconds later the lights flicker back on. She turns her head to look down the formerly pitch black shaft illuminated by the reignited lights and breathes a sigh of relief. It takes a few seconds for Tann to register that the lights are dimmer… that’s not good.
Whatever happened caused the main reactor to be powered down. The ship is now getting power from the secondary reactor and backup generators. Calculations race through her mind at the materials needed to repair the damage, coming back to her calculations for possible sabotage from earlier. The fact she wasn’t dead told her the main reactor didn’t overload and it went through its shutdown sequence successfully. That’s good at least.
Tann pulls herself to her hooves using the handhold that saved her from a fatal fall. After readjusting to her claustrophobic surroundings she goes about collecting her tools. No point in continuing what she was working on with the main reactor offline.
She tunes her radio to the frequency reserved for maintenance, trying to pertain what just happened, and hears nothing but static. She hesitates in confusion before tuning to all the other frequencies the ship uses. Silence. Comms are down as well? Fuck…
Whatever had hit the ship had done it hard. Main reactor disabled, communications array down. The idea of a malfunction was doubtful at best considering two major systems were just crippled. To put it bluntly, the ship was nothing more than a floating hunk of metal until the reactor came back online. It seems her work would never end.
Walking back to the vertical shaft, she grabs onto the sides of a ladder and slides down. Four floors later and she’s at the reactor deck. Stepping onto a nearby platform, she opens the hatch from the maintenance tunnels to the ship proper. She pushes her thumb into the button, the door opens half an inch before shuddering to a stop.
Tann angrily pushes the button again, to no avail. “Are maintenance tunnel doors not powered by auxiliary generators? Who designed this!” She growls at nobody in particular.
She slams her fist into the button with an annoyed grunt. The control panel crumples in on itself and lets out a shower of sparks that temporarily blind her. Tann yelps, covering her eyes in an attempt to protect them. The door, after a moment, begrudgingly slides open. It voices its protest with several egregious noises.
The sparks die down and Tann blinks her eyes to remove the blindness from them. She surveys her work with satisfaction. “That’s much better,” she says. Her expression sours into one of bored indifference as the words finish leaving her mouth. “I’ll have to fix that later won’t I?”
She steps out onto the deck of the ship, silent alarms warning of a general state of emergency light the metallic corridor. She looks around the area, seeing the crew milling about in a confused panic. Quite a few are gathered at a nearby viewport. Tann follows their gaze, struggling to see anything, until an imposing silhouette moves in front of a distant star. The distant object fills her with dread, causing her peripheral vision to darken as every sense she has focuses on it.
As soon as Tann finally makes out what it is, her oxidant runs cold and automated warnings run through her mind. A heavy cruiser, based on the size. The Imperial coat of arms is plastered over the sides of its hull and on the turrets of its main guns.
Memories flash through her mind as Tann tries to find something, anything that matches the silhouette. Thumbing through imaginary handbooks and documents in an attempt to find a match. She remembers the silhouette from a document about imperial raiders, and the image makes her head whirl.
An imperial capital ship, a battlecruiser at that. Tann feels herself grow faint. The main guns on that vessel were enough to turn the cruiser she was on into little more than slag. She was more than certain to go along with it.
Alarms sound, commanding the crew to get to battlestations. The people around her scramble to get to their positions, some shoving her in their rush. The blast shields close down over the viewports as yellow warning lights flicker on throughout the corridor. The heavy metal hisses to a stop as they seal in place, protecting the crew from the vacuum of space.
Then, the thunder starts. The distinctive sounds of weapons fire resonate throughout the ship. Every single weapon the light cruiser has launches rods of steel towards its target. Railguns and coil guns fire their projectiles at mind boggling speeds through the vacuum of space to be embedded in the titanium hull of the enemy.
The cruiser begins shaking as it buckles under the weight of retaliatory fire. The hull screeches in agony as projectiles embed themselves in the armor belt. Ammunition that misses detonates outside the vessel, making it rattle so much that Tann was convinced that every seal, bolt, and weld was about to snap and turn the ship back into its base components.
It’s too much. too much noise. too much happening. She clutches at her head and tries to cover her ears as all the senses she has are completely overwhelmed. Tann can hear yelling, explosions, gunfire. She can see the crew running in panic. She can smell fire and the foam that is meant to suppress it. She lets out a roar that vocalizes dozens of tumultuous emotions as she forces her way back to the maintenance tunnels. She can feel herself run into several people, pushing them to the side any time she does. No hands reach out to try and stop a lone macaw on her quest for a small illusion of safety.
Clambering back into the maintenance shaft, the macaw slams the emergency shut button. The doors to the shaft close with the same agonizing noises it made when it opened, adding insult to injury. Spotting a nearby crawl space, Tann gets on all fours and slams her shoulder into the cover. The grate buckles under the weight of a humanoid hewn of plastics and metals.
With the way clear, the Ara ushers herself into the confines of the ship. Minutes go by as she clambers through tunnels built so meticulously it would make an ant envious. She finds a place that drowns out the sounds of explosions and the screams of the soon to be damned. Curling into a ball and hugging her knees to her chest, she begins sobbing.
She cries until the only thing she can feel, both emotionally and physically, are the tears leaving her eyes. The sounds of battle are diluted away by memories of happier times. The bad emotions and thoughts are kept in the deepest recesses of her mind by telling herself it would be okay. Tann says it will be okay so many times she actually begins to believe it. Lulled into a sense of security, the replika drifts into the serenity that is the unconsciousness of sleep.
-Six hours later, Ventilation System-
The synthetic woman awakens, encased on all sides by aluminum. After a soft stretch to soothe her cramped joints, guilt floods through her mind. She wasn’t there to help in the battle- wait, the battle. She listens to the world around her, there are no sounds of cannon fire. She wasn’t dead. Which meant they had gotten away, right?
Tann adjusts herself in the confines of the ventilation system and begins crawling through dark tunnels and small junctions. She’d never seen sewers before. She’s heard of them, imagining they would feel like this. There’s so much dust, it’s suffocating. Forcing herself not to cough, she presses forward.
There's a hint of light she can see a bit of a distance away, a vent grate. A way out of this stuffy, cramped place seems like a godsend. She loves these places usually, but curiosity as to what happened drives her further from her comfort zone. Pulling herself through the dark metal tunnel, Tann peeks through the vent cover into the room beyond. It’s dark, the only light coming from the room is a flickering ceiling light.
A pair of overturned tables lay in the chamber, the documents that formerly inhabited their surface littering the floor. Tann can see a small splotch of red on the floor, some turning the papers as red as the ink on its surface. Is it Blood? Oxidant? Her internal questions are cut off by a soft noise reaching her ear. It sounds like a sniffle, which is followed by soft sobs.
“Hello?” She calls out into the darkness of the room. The quiet sobs stop almost immediately followed by shuffling somewhere out of her view. She raises an eyebrow at the sudden end to the crying. Whoever was in here might need help. Perhaps they were just scared. She reorientates herself onto her back, positioning herself so she can bust through the cover with her legs.
A swift kick with her hoof causes it to buckle. she grits her teeth before kicking again, causing one of the bolts to give. It’s not like she could undo them from inside the system anyways. A third kick proves to do even less. Only making the metal let out a horrific screech and not much else.
Tann repositions herself again, crouching down next to the metallic barrier. She presses her shoulder against it and then pushes with all her weight against it. The vent cover bends with an audible creak. A second bolt pops out and a loud snap reverberates around the room as Tann falls through onto the floor.
With her face laid down on the cold, hard metal, Tann groans. She rolls onto her back and sits up.
Lifting herself up from the floor, she takes in her surroundings. She doesn’t see any movement or any indication of where the crying came from. Her eyes land on the source of the red fluid and she chokes back a gag. A pair of Starlings lay dead, one spread over a table and the other slumped against a wall. Their weapons lay in their hands, spent casings litter the floor. Portions of their armor are shattered from the impact of rifle rounds that punctured through. Oxidant trails from the gap between the armor plate and where it attaches to their body.
She steps up to the one laid over the table. Tann can tell they died recently. Their face is left in a state of tranquility, almost as if she had accepted her fate with open arms. Tann shudders at the thought, the idea of death was terrifying. As she goes to examine the wounds, she hears shuffling from the corner of the room. Footsteps rush towards her. Tann turns her head and sees a figure charging towards her, a glint of metal raised over their head.
Letting out a gasp and acting instinctively, she throws up her arms to defend herself. Tann catches the hand before the blade the attacker is wielding can do any damage. A swift knee into the gut of her attacker sends them to the floor with a grunt. Tann quickly pins them to the ground and snatches the knife out their hand.
“Let me go!” The figure screeches, thrashing violently in her clutches.
Recognizing the voice immediately, Tann loosens the death grip she has on the Eule. “Blüchen, hey- it’s me. Calm down, it’s Tann!”
The owl struggles underneath her for a few more unbearable seconds before breaking down into a crying, incoherent mess. She struggles to vocalize words between sobs. Even then, nothing the smaller replika was able to get out was coherent. Seeing Blüchen like this hits Tann in the gut in a way she didn’t know was possible. She resorts to holding the EULR unit close to her chest and whispering ‘it’ll be okay’ and ‘I’m here, you’re safe’ repeatedly until she finally calms down.
“I was so worried,” Blüchen squeaks. She shifts herself so she’s no longer under her guardian of circumstance, but still holding her. “The ship was attacked. I heard gunfire in the halls. I- I came here to hide.”
Tann considers her words for a second. It now made sense why the ship wasn’t a drifting wreck when she woke up. The Imperials sent over boarding crews and seized the vessel. She looks back at the two dead starlings in the room with them. They had fought till the end. Who knew how many more aboard this damned ship had shared a similar fate. As far as she was concerned, she and Blüchen were the only ones left who weren’t dead or captured.
“What do we do?” Blüchen asks. The words cut Tann off from her observations, she looks back at the Eule whose face is contorted in fear. She decides then in there that her biggest priority is keeping both herself and this terrified replika alive.
She glances back at the dead starlings that share the room with them. “I don’t know. but we can’t stay here,” the Ara says. “I don’t know what the empire will do to us…”
“Maybe we can find others?”
“Alright, sure, that’s as good a plan as any,” Tann replies, her voice filled with hesitance.
“Okay.” The Eule nods. She seems so filled with hope that Tann can’t bring herself to tell her their odds were slim to none.
She treads over to one of the bodies before bending down to search them. Her hooves click on the floor the entire way. down, Tann searches them. They have a pistol and a shield, though the former was empty and the latter was torn to shreds. She searches the Starlings vest and finds two spare magazines. A little pressure on the release sends the empty magazine clattering to the floor. She pushes the new magazine in and racks the slide, putting the spare in her toolbelt.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting us weapons… You know how to shoot, right?” She inquires as she goes through a similar motion with the other dead starling. Scavenging another pistol with a full magazine. Sadly, there wasn’t a spare to go with it. She holds the gun out to the owl with the safety on.
After a suspiciously long silence, Blüchen very unconvincingly shakes her head no.
Tann scoffs. A hint of amusement dashes across her features. “You’re telling me that with all the time you’ve spent ogling at your Star while she was on the range, you never picked anything up?”
She pouts at Tann. If the situation weren’t so desperate she’d find it adorable. “Shut up.” The Eule takes the pistol from Tann with a huff. “Do you even know how to shoot?”
“In theory.” At the very least she had Blüchen’s mind off the scene in front of them. “I’ve serviced enough of these that I know how they work. It can’t be that hard, right? You just line up the sights and pull the trigger.” She shrugs at her own explanation. Surely it was good enough.
Blüchen grumbles in annoyance. “Okay fine, I’ll admit it. I know how to shoot, Nine showed me.”
“There we go, was that so hard?” Tann teases. “At least now I know that your Starling was good for something.”
“Hey!” Blüchen stomps her hoof in annoyance. She opens her mouth to yell some more but Tann quickly pushes a hand over it.
“Shhh, shush, we don’t want to get found,” Tann states nervously. “Okay?”
After lowering her hand, Tann waits for her friend to speak. “Just don’t tell anyone,” Blüchen requests. “She might get decommissioned…”
“Blüchen-” Tann turns her head away, glancing at the dead starlings. “I don’t think there’s anyone left to care, let alone listen.”
Blüchen gives a slow nod in response. “Do you think Nine is okay?” She asks, attempting to avoid looking at the bodies.
“She’s a STAR, they’re tough. I’m sure she’s fine; safe and sound somewhere on the ship,” Tann replies. For Blüchens sake, she really, really wishes it’s true.
“We can look for her, right?”
“Of course.” The macaw adds another item to her growing mental checklist. “We should go.”
Not waiting for a response, Tann puts herself in front of the Eule and pushes out into the corridor. After scanning it and confirming it’s clear, she motions for Blüchen to follow outside.
Tann casts one last glance back at the dead Starlings. She hoped they didn’t end up like that; trapped rats awaiting their stay of execution to unceremoniously end with a burst of rifle fire. The tranquil look and empty eyes of one of the deceased stare back at her, almost pleading with her to join them in their blissful end.
The automatic door closes, and she silently thanks it for cutting off her view. The ARAR unit lets out a final exhale before leaving their modicum of safety behind. Making damn sure to keep the Eule behind her as she advances through the metal corridor.