Chapter Text
Captain Jane Douglass woke as she usually did, with a scowl and a fist directed at her whining alarm. She stopped just short, of course, it wouldn’t do to shatter the obnoxious contraption as it so rightly deserved - with resources stretched as thin as they were, wasting anything was unjustifiable. Still, the threat was there.
“When we return home, by every star in the sky, you are going into the smelter.”
She settled for aggressively whacking the “stop alarm” button and rising from her bed, pushing her white-streaked hair from her face so that she could examine the same morning sight she’d seen every day for the last year.
Jane was a lucky girl, really. She got her own room, while all the poor sods under her command were crammed in like sardines. She got her own rickety cot, her own coarse, horrible blanket, her own grease-stained mirror, her own creaking sink, and of course, her own shrill, wailing alarm clock. Not that 24-hour time meant anything in this stars-forsaken system.
Day after day, that same dingy room greeted her. The only change was the face in the mirror, growing more and more haggard. She sleepily grabbed at the curled bottle of cream on her sink, squeezing it with all her might for a few drops to dab on the fused skin where her left eye had once been.
Stars, what a mess she was. She stared at her reflection, taking in the silver in her hair, the lines on her face, the bag under her one remaining eye. Yet, she smiled, seeing the usual fire in that eye. She pushed down the weariness, letting the burning in her belly wrap around her. She stood up a little straighter, pulling on her uniform, listening to the satisfying flutter of her epaulettes and feeling the smoothness of her bright brass buttons. Before her in the mirror, the ageing, tired woman transformed into Jane Douglass, Hero of the Accord, Captain of the Chimera. She affixed her usual steely glare and withdrew the pistol from beneath her pillow, sliding it once more into its holster. Then, without further ado, she pushed open the door and marched through the familiar, narrow hallways to her command centre.
Four hundred and twelve days… That’s how long her beloved Chimera has orbited this pointless rock, far from the comforts of home, and far from making any impact on the war.
“When I get home I’m spending half my pay on coffee and the other half on a stars-damned spa day!”
The doors opened with a smooth hiss… In her fantasies, which she indulged in as the aging metal grumbled open. She sat before her console, snapping her fingers until the night’s reports were placed before her.
Chimera was old, and so was Jane. Both had already served more tours than one had fingers to count, even if that one wasn’t Billy Eight-Fingers down in maintenance. The ship and its captain went together. Old, and scarred, but proud.
Jane looked at the reports before her and thanked her decades of experience remaining steely-faced. In her mind swam the image of a ruined city, searing tungsten carved into smouldering buildings, soot and blood fused into red-black paint. She smelled the scent of acrid smoke and burning flesh. Irritatedly, she flicked a salt-and-chocolate strand of hair from her forehead, shoving it back into her neat ponytail.
She reached over to the intercom, blasting her message to all six thousand crewmen under her command.
“Alright, listen up. This is Captain Douglass speaking. Put down the cards.”
She removed her finger briefly, excitement thrilling her, competing with fear and horror for her limited mental real estate. She kindly asked them to vacate. Jane may not have been the most professional captain, but she knew the jarheads and grease monkeys respected her for it. Half of these people had been with her since the Eureka campaign, and the other half were green as a weed and needed a bit of bravado.
“Four hours ago, Demeter went dark.”
She let her words linger, the tinny speaker’s echo returning down the claustrophobic hallways. Everybody knew what that meant, or at least, some knew, and the others only needed to know that Problems™ had occurred.
But those who knew, knew. Demeter, peaceful, idyllic agri-world as it was, sat just one system away, in the ass-end of nowhere. And now, for whatever reason, it had gone dark - and there was only one reason for an entire planet to go dark all at once.
“One system over, fifty million Terran citizens are in the grip of the weeds. Demeter has fed us the whole time we’ve been stationed here. Now, a bunch of xenos are feeding on our people.”
Jane’s face flickered, remembering the propaganda. The blank faces and adoring smiles. Those people would go giggling into the mines, or into empty cans. Tinned human - such a delicacy.
“I’m not waiting for this to get back to Terra, for those old bastards to mull it over…”
“Setting aside that I’m an old bastard myself…”
“You’ve got four hours to get this bucket of bolts combat-ready. We aren’t letting fifty million screams go unanswered.”
She withdrew her hand, fingers twitching. She noticed the lines over her hand, the spots that grew with every day. Just like her Chimera. She clenched it into a fist.
Silence fell - or as silent as her baby ever was. The rattling air vents wailed like the chains of ghosts, the pumping of fuel and whine of engines screamed like a banshee. But no footfalls echoed through the ship. She slammed her fist against the intercom.
“That means NOW, damnit!”
The sound of bustling crew met the ghosts and banshees. Jane nodded. That was more like it.
There was, of course, the unspoken fact that in two years of war, not a single scratch had been placed upon an affini ship. If the legendary guns of the Dauntless or the thousand fighters of the Chernabog couldn’t so much as scratch the paint…
She ran a hand along the worn metal of the Chimera’s console. She and it, one soul. Chimera had faced the railfire over Eureka, the anti-air barrage of Minerva’s Landing. It was her Chimera that duelled the battlecruiser Echo of Annihilation and sent it crashing down into the seas of Thalassa. It was her Chimera that broke the siege of Vulpes Prime and liberated the quivering masses.
Chimera was old, and so was she. She glanced at the pings across the comms screen, tracking nearby Cosmic Navy signatures. There wasn’t time to wait for the Eighteenth Battlefleet to mosey its way over - if Admiral Pickett even responded. She knew very well her standing within the Accord ever since Nyrina.
“Pickett you bastard… Make sure to pick my bones from the weeds teeth, if there’s anything left when you get here. If you even come…”
It wasn’t any use. Every vessel within a week’s range of reinforcement was moving rather determinately away from the possible Affini planet-devouring fleet. Of course they were! It was certain death, and all that was required to escape it was to ignore fifty million terran lives…
She pressed her forehead to the panelling. Chimera wore her scars with the same dignity as Jane herself.
“Die with me, old friend?”
The humming in Chimera vibrated through her, an old, familiar pattern. It was like her heart synchronised with the purring of the ageing warship. She smiled.
“Screw death, then. We’re sending those weeds back to Hell.”
The sound of her loyal crew stirring to motion was an orchestra, and Jane was the conductor.
The screaming of banshees rose as the antiquated jump drive stirred to life. Jane wished she had a cup of coffee to sip.
“Once more into the breach…”