“I should have known the moment we got in this Skiff with you three that something was going to go wrong, but nooooooooo,” Starbeat said, clinging to her seat, goggles plastered to her face. “I, for once, completely blanked checking the ka of the situation! Well, it certainly says something’s going to happen now!”
O’Neill forced the Skiff into a sharp upward climb. “Quit yelping start helping!”
“What am I going to do? Pear has the science taken care of!”
The diminutive green Gem laughed. “I am going to hotwire this dimensional drive, just you watch me!”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works,” a Flat Scootaloo said. “If something’s broken you don’t ‘hotwire’ it, silly!”
“Do you have a million neural processors inside a computerized data core connected to you? No? Then shut up and let me SCIENCE!, clod!”
“Predictions suggest your ‘SCIENCE!’ is going to give us unintended consequences,” Starbeat muttered.
“I only care if it lets us live,” O’Neill quipped, twisting around a green laser. “I’m not getting assimilated today.”
“Are they still saying ‘resistance is futile’?” Flataloo laughed. “What losers!”
“We still can’t fight them in a Skiff,” Starbeat pointed out. “All we can do is run…”
“Hotwiring complete!” Pear said. “Buh-bye Borg!”
“It’s not hotwir-” Flataloo began. She was cut off in the middle of her sentence as the Skiff passed through a portal, closing it behind them so the Borg couldn’t follow.
Flataloo’s body glitched and then shattered like a pane of glass.Pear’s let out a yell, her body poofing as she was forced to retreat into her gemstone. Starbeat grabbed her horn and let out a pained wail.
Every light in the Skiff went offline for a moment, and artificial gravity disengaged. Luckily O’Neill and Starbeat were strapped in, so they just felt their internal organs do a flip-flop.
Starbeat groaned. “My head…”
The lights in the Skiff came back on – but several of the consoles were displaying error messages. Certain controls were labeled ‘DISABLED’ and warning symbols appeared on virtually every surface.
O’Neill read the error code. All magic-based systems have been disabled by this universe. Most esoteric systems have been disabled by this universe.
“Oh for the love of…” O’Neill put his hand to the bridge of his nose. “Forced standard physics? Really?”
“Ow ow ow ow,” Starbeat muttered, holding her horn. “The pain… It is a deep pain…” She breathed in air with a deep hiss. The pain in her horn began to fade as the magical protrusion became nothing more than a rounded bone. She blinked. “Right, so, my ka sensors are down. What’s the Skiff have?”
O’Neill blinked. “…I have no idea what you’re saying.”
Starbeat processed this – right. The translator spell must not be working. Good thing she actually learned English a while ago because she knew she’d be in this situation eventually. “Ahem. My ka sensors are down. What’s the Skiff have?” she said with an Equish accent, where harsh consonants came through with the slightest hint of a neigh.
“Nothing but air,” O’Neill answered.
“It has more than air,” Starbeat muttered, looking at the console. “We have radio, projectile weapons, the normal thrusters...”
“Not shields, magic, dimensional travel, or FTL,” O’Neill pointed out. “And that’s the important stuff.”
“These things are designed to deal with forced physics of all kinds,” Starbeat huffed. “We’re fine.”
“We burnt most of our power in that firefight. It ain’t recharging. And those thrusters you mentioned are damaged.” O’Neill tapped the screen.
“We sure depend on our magical self-recharging batteries to save us when we’re adrift,” Starbeat muttered. She rubbed her head. “What’s the protocol for this sort of thing?”
O’Neill flipped a switch. “Turn on the distress beacon so they can find us when they finally come looking. Then check the air, food, and water.”
Starbeat glanced at the screens, furrowing her brow. “The air recyclers seem to be working well, should be fine for months with just…. Two of us.” She gulped. “Flataloo’s dead. I think Pear’s fine.”
O’Neill leaned to check Flataloo’s chair, examining the ‘glass’ shards. “I thought we had things that forced reality to keep this from happening?”
“They’re largely magic based. Versions do exist that can work in mundane universes, but they have to have a constant connection to another universe to do it.” Starbeat shook her head. “We didn’t exactly plan to come in here.”
O’Neill nodded. “Water is easy. Skiff comes packed with plenty of emergency rations. Yep, we can be here for months and not die. Be glad the dimensional drive was the only thing that got damaged in that fight – if there had been anything else screwed with; we might have just exploded when we arrived here. Charming thought, isn’t it?”
“Of course it is,” Starbeat muttered. “…Think we can do anything besides sit here? We have basic sensors, right?”
O’Neill’s fingers flew across the console, bringing up a map of the system they were in. “Matches records for standard Earth system. We’re somewhat near Jupiter. Picking up lots of signals, suggesting that we’re at least in a space-age world.”
“Oh thank goodness, we’ll probably find someone who can help us. I don’t want to sit here in a Skiff in the months it’ll take Merodi Universalis to track us down.”
“They could find us in a couple hours.”
“They’ll realize you’re gone in about a day, assuming no time dilation. Then they’ll have to track you down, and since we were in a firefight with the Borg they might have territorial problems to deal with.”
O’Neill shook his head. “Why do you have to be such a downer?”
“Because. I’m a unicorn and right now I can’t use magic and the nauseous feeling that’s giving me is making me antsy.”
“You should try being a human. More adaptable.”
“Har-de-har. I bet you miss Crimson Sushi, at least.”
O’Neill tried to summon his Stand, but of course he couldn’t. “Guess it’s back to the old fashioned method of fighting. Guns.”
“Guns aren’t that old fashioned.”
“They are to us.”
Starbeat rolled her eyes. “Sure.” She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. “Wake me when something happens.”
~~~
“This is the Rocinante to the unidentified vessel,” a voice came to O’Neill’s ear about an hour later. “We are here to assist - you’re real lucky our trajectories matched up. But we don’t see anywhere we can dock…”
“The windshield pops open,” O’Neill called, nudging Starbeat awake. “There’s also a hatch in the back, which might work better, I’m not sure.”
“Hatch.” The voice on the other end paused. “Who in hell designed this ship o’ yours?”
“It’s not designed to be out here,” Starbeat said.
“Clearly. I just don’t recognize the design. I bet you have quite the story to tell, don’t’cha?”
O’Neill glanced at Starbeat. “Probably.”
“Well then you’re in good company. We’ve got our own ship of crazy stories to tell. Or, well, two ships, but mostly one.”
“Need us to do anything?” O’Neill asked.
“Fix your tumble.”
O’Neill pressed a few buttons. “Tumble corrected. We’re still as two snails in the arctic.”
“Nice.”
Starbeat looked out the side window at the ship closing in on them – it was a long, blocky ship with engines at the back and an orange ‘GAS’ logo at the nose of the front. To the side of the Rocinante was a smaller, triangular ship that looked like it belonged on a race track rather than deep space. Its name was easily visible along its side, the Razorback. The Razorback stayed behind while the Rocinante extended a docking tunnel to the back of the Skiff.
“Yeah, we’re not getting a seal on that rounded back of yours. Don’t suppose you have vac suits in there?”
O’Neill got out of his seat and opened the door to the cargo hold. “Let me check. Ah, here we-”
“Those won’t work,” Starbeat said.
“Oh, right. Looks like we don’t actually have any spacesuits.”
“Of course…” the voice sighed. “All right, we’re going to send some people over to get a good seal. Don’t freak out if you hear hammerin’ on your back hull. ‘Cuz that’s what it’s gonna take to get this thing open. What we need is everyone to be calm.”
“Got it,” Starbeat said.
A couple minutes later, they heard something thud against their back hull.
“Beginning seal,” a woman’s voice came over the comm. “Should only take a few minutes.”
“Why would anyone make anything this round?” a different man asked. “Art?”
“Let’s just get them outta there.”
O’Neill gestured for Starbeat to wait in the cockpit, out of sight, while he remained in the storage compartment. Didn’t want to cause a freak out from his end.
“Ready!” the woman’s voice came through. “Can you pop the hatch?”
“It better be pressurized out there,” O’Neill said, reaching for the manual release.
“It is,” the man said. “Even got my helmet off and everything.”
O’Neill popped the hatch. It opened a little quickly, smacking the un-helmeted man in the head. “Ack, geez!”
“Sorry!” O’Neill said, hands up. “Didn’t know you were that close!”
The man had short hair and a slight beard that covered most of his face. O’Neill noticed he had a rather large gun at his side – though currently since he had just been beaned in the head he wasn't aiming it at anything. The woman still had her helmet on so it was harder to see anything defining about her. They were standing in a semi-translucent extension from the Rocinante that was tentatively sealed to the Skiff with what appeared to be putty.
The woman nodded. “It’s fine.”
O’Neill smirked. “Glad to hear it. I’m O’Neill.”
“Draper,” the woman said. Gesturing at the man she introduced him. “Amos.”
Amos rubbed his head. “That’s going to leave a mark… Hey, wait a minute, weren’t there two of you?”
“Yeah,” O’Neill said. “See, we’re gonna need a little bit of a preface for the other one.”
Amos sensed something fishy and raised his gun. Draper held out a hand. “Hold it.”
O’Neill grinned. “So, prepare for the shortened version of a whole lot of crazy. I’m from another universe and I’ve got an alien in the cockpit. Don’t shoot her when she comes out, okay?”
Amos blinked. “What in-”
“Just say yes,” Draper interrupted.
Amos clearly did not like being told what to do, but he did it anyway. He kept his gun ready though.
O’Neill turned back. “Come on out, Starbeat.”
Starbeat scrambled to the door – but missed it since she wasn’t used to moving in zero-G. “Gimme a minute!” She called, looping a hoof over the edge of the doorway and launching into the cargo hold. She hit one of the boxes with her head. “Ow.”
“…Is that a fucking unicorn?” Amos asked.
“Yes. Yes I am,” Starbeat said. “…Hi. I come in peace.”
Draper blinked. “You guys weren’t kidding. You never get a break.”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“…Hard to accept,” Draper said. “Come on over. You don’t have any sort of alien contaminants, do you?”
Starbeat blinked. “I wouldn’t think so. …Wait a minute, why is trans-universal contamination never a problem?”
“Someone’s probably asked that question and answered it without us knowing,” O’Neill muttered. “So long as you’re all humans you’re good.”
Draper nodded. “Then let’s move.”
“Yeah, come meet the family,” Amos added. “…Plus extras.”
~~~
The Rocinante was structured like a tower. The front of the ship was the top, the engines were the bottom. As the engines pushed the ship through space at a constant acceleration around one G of force, it created artificial gravity. So while it looked like the Rocinante was spearheading through space, to everyone on the ship it always looked like they were traveling upwards. The top of the ship held the cockpit, and just below that was the bridge, creating a two-tiered command center.
This was where they brought O’Neill and Starbeat so everyone could have a good look.
“Christmas has come early,” Amos said, gesturing to the visitors. “Behold, man and unicorn.”
There were two people standing at the central display table. One was an old woman in a simple, white uniform of Indian descent while the other was a young man in much more casual clothing and a face telling of someone who had been through a bit too much recently.
Amos started introductions. “The captain’s Holden, old lady’s Undersecretary Avasarala, and up in the cockpit is Alex. Say hello Alex.”
The voice they had heard over the radio came from above them. “I’m a little busy tryin’ to keep us from goin’ into a tailspin, Amos. Ain’t exactly the easiest thing keeping the Rossie flyin’ straight with that extra weight attached to us all lopsided like that.”
“He’s busy,” Amos said, sitting down on a nearby seat and starting to clean his weapon.
Avasarala looked to O’Neill and spoke with a gravelly, powerful voice. “Well, this is certainly an unexpected meeting. I am Deputy Undersecretary Chrisjen Avasarala of the United Nations of Earth.”
“With a promotion likely soon to come,” Holden said with a tired voice. “James Holden. No special titles. I just run this ship.”
“You’ve come at a particularly delicate time,” Avasarala said. “A war ended not but a few hours ago.”
“Well that proves ka’s still strong here,” Starbeat commented.
“What was that?” Avasarala asked.
“Something to explain a little later,” O’Neill answered. “I’m Overhead-General Jack O’Neill of Merodi Universalis, which is to say I’m the Commander-in-Chief of the military forces of a multiversal society.”
“I must say, I would have found it hard to believe other universes existed if it was just you,” Avasarala said.
“I would not have been so open had Starbeat not been here,” O’Neill admitted. “I’ve had my fair share of being thought a complete lunatic for telling people the truth.”
“Starbeat Glimmer, by the way,” Starbeat said. “Councilmember of another entity known as the Collection. My role within Merodi Universalis is that of a Researcher of… let’s call it Fate, to keep things simple.”
Holden blinked. “You’re a scientist that studies fate?”
“Yep.”
“…I’m not as surprised as I should be,” Holden muttered.
“My machines aren’t working right now, but I can tell you’ve probably been the focus of a whole lot of… Fate.”
“Is it his expression?” Alex called from up above.
“Yeah, it’s his expression,” Starbeat answered.
Avasarala cleared her throat. “I am here because of a series of events that culminated in the careful ending of a war through political intrigue and some force. What brings you two to our universe in such a small, unusual ship?”
“Running,” Starbeat said. “Were flying through space, got caught in a fire fight. Our dimensional device wasn’t working so we had to ‘hotwire’ it directly and jump somewhere random. That turned out to be here. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but some universes have physics that are different than others. A lot of our technology relies on physical laws you would probably consider impossible, or even magical.”
“So she’s a magical unicorn too,” Amos noted. “This day just keeps getting’ better and better.”
“How did your ship survive at all?” Holden asked.
“This universe operates closely or at least very near to ‘standard physics’,” Starbeat explained. “The only difference between most the places we visit is that it only allows the ‘standard physics’. Most Earths we come across may not have any natural examples of our ‘magic’, but we can use them just fine. Here, our shields are down, our FTL is down, most of our specialized weapons are down, our artificial gravity is useless…”
“And that explains the odd design,” Alex called. “That was really buggin’ me. No shipmaker in their right mind would make somethin’ like that unless they had true artificial gravity. I can sleep easy tonight.”
“You can sleep easy knowing there’s a universe where ‘magic’ is possible?” Holden asked.
“…Why do you have to ruin my peace of mind, Holden?”
Avasarala turned to O’Neill. “In the interest of keeping our relations on friendly terms, what can we do for you Overhead-General?”
“Just O’Neill will do fine. Or General, if you have to get into the titles,” O’Neill said. “We’d appreciate it if you can fix our engines and maybe power our ship. Other than that… We’re just waiting for rescue to come and get us.”
“You can’t get yourselves home?” Avasarala asked.
“Dimensional drive isn’t working,” Starbeat said. “This universe seems very uptight about its physics. We’ll have to wait for a portal to open on the other side. …Or I’ll need access to a lot of technical apparatus you might not have.”
Avasarala waved a hand. “Earth would be more than willing to provide you with resources.”
“Hey hey, wait a minute!” a new voice said – one that no one had noticed before. It was from a dark-skinned woman with poofy black hair. “Earth doesn’t get exclusive rights to first contact! That was the case with the protomolecule, and that’s the case here.”
Avasarala sighed. “Naomi, now is not the time fo-”
“Of course it is! Earth will be able to get ‘good girl’ points with these people while the rest of us get shafted, as always!”
Holden sighed. “What do you suggest?”
“Tycho has exactly the resources you’ll need, and Fred Johnson owes us more than a few favors at this point.”
“Really? Fred Johnson?” Amos interjected. “Wasn’t giving him the protomolecule enough for you?”
“That’d just be moving them from Earth to the Belt,” Avasarala said. “That’s hardly much of a chance.”
“What about Mars?” Draper said. “They shouldn’t be cut out!”
“No offense Bobby, but Mars ain’t exactly the type to play nice,” Alex called from above. “Johnson owes us some favors and Avasarala can basically tell the Earth whatever she wants and it’ll do it, but I don’t think we’re on many Martian’s ‘helpful’ lists. We are flyin’ one of their ships, after all. ‘Legitimate salvage’ or no, they ain’t happy about that.”
Draper nodded, clearly not liking what Alex was saying, but agreeing with it.
“Isn’t there some sort of neutral place we could go?” Starbeat asked.
“You just arrived at the end of a war,” Holden muttered. “They haven’t even sat to talk about if there’s going to be neutral territory.”
O’Neill leaned against a wall. “Well we’re in a pickle then, aren’t we?”
“Apologies,” Avasarala said.
“Oh no, I get it, sometimes we come at a bad time,” O’Neill said. “So let’s try option C. What if you don’t tell anyone about us?”
Holden blinked. “…I like that plan.”
“Bu-” Naomi began.
“Yes,” Avasarala said. “For now, it would be best if nobody knew you existed. I will not be able to keep you secret from my government for long, mind you, but long enough for things to die down.”
“You agreed to that quickly,” Holden observed with surprise.
“I don’t want to upset the beings with the power to pass through universal boundaries,” Avasarala stated. “It’s best to just agree with them.”
“I do see a few problems with this plan,” Alex called. “One, that’s a unicorn. Unicorns don’t exist.”
“Can’t just explain me away as a genetic experiment?” Starbeat asked.
“Not with the way your body is built,” Holden said. “You don’t even look like a horse. The eyes are all wrong.”
“Right…”
“I can hide her in a box,” Amos said.
Starbeat stared at him.
“Only when you need to be secret! Yeesh.”
“Right, so our goal is basically never let the Rocinante get searched?” Holden asked.
“That’s kinda what we do anyway, cap,” Alex called.
“…Point taken.” Holden put his hands on his hips. “Well, just make sure Mao never sees Starbeat.”
“He won’t be on this ship much longer,” Avasarala pointed out. “We will meet up with the UN shortly and transfer him into their custody. After that, we wait until the fires of war have calmed down before telling anyone about these two.”
“Sounds like a plan,” O’Neill said.
“Of course we’ll still repair your ship,” Avasarala said. “…Right?”
Holden sighed. “Right. Which one of you is the engineer?”
O’Neill held out a green triangular gemstone. “This was our engineer. She can’t exist in this universe as more than a crystal.”
“So I’m all you got,” Starbeat said. “Ship systems aren’t my specialty, but I can manage.”
Holden took a breath. “Right. Amos, Draper, Naomi, go with the unicorn to her ship; learn what needs fixing and what can be fixed. Amos, make sure Mao stays where he is. Alex…”
“Keep flyin’ the ship, I got it.”
Holden nodded. “And… I guess that’s it. O’Neill, I’ll take you on a tour of the Rocinante. Not much to see…”
“I’ll take it,” O’Neill accepted.
~~~
Starbeat walked into the Rocinante’s kitchen, rubbing her eyes – the Skiff was mostly repaired at this point. Naomi was the only one over there, touching up the last little bits. There was no more reason for Starbeat to hang around.
Amos was in the kitchen as well, feeding four young kids their space lasagna. The news played on a nearby screen.
The kids looked at Starbeat. Starbeat looked at the kids.
“Unicorn!” one of the girls squeed, running to Starbeat.
“No, wait, I-” she backed into one of the walls, realizing she was on a small deck. It wasn’t going to be easy for her to climb a ladder at the moment. “Amos!”
Amos shrugged as the girl nuzzled Starbeat. “She likes you.”
“Yes, I get that, but – why are there even kids on a warship!?”
“Saved ‘em,” Amos said. “You should go talk to Prax, that’s his kid right there. Went halfway across the solar system to find her. Good man.”
“I bet,” Starbeat muttered, trying to tear herself from the kid’s limbs. “Why is children’s first instincts to hug me?”
“I dunno. Why are you so fluffy and have huge eyes?”
“Because modern pony-”
Amos snickered. “Pony?”
“I swear there has got to be a better translation because every human laughs at that word like it's some kind of joke.”
Amos shrugged. “Maybe you were just meant to be huggable.”
Starbeat opened her mouth to object, then closed it. Then she opened it again. “That’s actually pretty close to one of the reasons. Fate, and all that.”
“You really do study Fate, don’t you? That’s gotta be weird.”
Starbeat shrugged. “It’s weirder than even you probably think. But it’s good for predicting things, figuring out which people are likely to have the solutions to a problem, other such stuff. It does tend to bring about existential thoughts when you get too deep into it.”
“See, I’d think it would make things a bit easier. Remove the mystery from life. Tell you a bit about what you need to do.”
Starbeat nodded. “In some ways, yes. In other ways, it makes you question the validity of free will and choice.”
“Some of us don’t do well making our own choices,” Amos said, pouring some water into a cup and setting it on a table. He pushed it to Starbeat.
Starbeat accepted the cup. She tried to lift it with her magic first, then flushed slightly when it didn’t work.
“You just tried something there. Didn’t work.”
“Uh, yeah,” Starbeat said. She stuck out a hoof, trying to grab the cup – but she just slid it across the table. She placed both her front hooves on the cup and tried to lift. The cup slid out and splashed the water over her face.
“How did your race survive?”
“Normally our hooves have a traction field,” Starbeat muttered, pulling her wet mane out of her face. “Do you have a… bowl?”
Amos smirked. “Yep.” He pulled out a metallic bowl, poured water in it, and set it on the floor. “Lap up.”
“I am not a dog.”
“You are in this universe.”
Starbeat sighed. She lowered her head and lapped up the water. One of the kids decided to hug her back leg.
“You know if I wasn’t mindful that would have gotten you a buck to the face,” Starbeat told the kid.
The kid slowly backed away from her.
“You’ve got a way with kids,” Amos observed.
Starbeat shrugged. “I spent most my life with a mental condition that made me randomly attracted to just about anything. I avoided kids.”
“Had? As in, past tense?”
Starbeat nodded. “Uh, yeah. It was a ‘curse of Fate’, if you will. Became a researcher in order to cure myself. …I didn’t have anything to do with the cure, mind you, someone else had to do it for me. But everyone is glad I’m no longer a raving romantic lunatic.”
“I bet,” Amos said, pouring himself a glass of milk. “Do they d-” It was at this point the words BREAKING NEWS appeared on the screen. The feed cut to a satellite over Venus, showing a giant blue jellyfish flying out of the clouds into space. It appeared to be partially biological, but also covered in random mechanical bits as well.
“…What the fuck is that?” Amos asked nobody in particular.
“Don’t look at me, I just got here,” Starbeat said. She read the subtitle flying by the bottom of the screen. “Protomolecule colony leaves Venus… You’ve mentioned this protomolecule before. What exactly is it?”
“Nasty alien stuff,” Amos said. “First it slowly kills you. Then it starts assimilating you. Then… Well apparently it does that, given enough time to itself.”
“Right, you really have no idea, got it.”
“Wonder where it’s goin…”
“Hey,” Alex’s voice rang out all over the ship. “I know we’re all busy gawking over an alien jellyfish, but we’ve got another problem.”
Starbeat turned to the ladder, prepared to go up to the bridge. She contemplated the difficulty of climbing up it in hooves.
Amos didn’t wait for permission – he grabbed her by the midsection and pulled her up. “Wh- hey!”
“You want up or not?”
Starbeat sighed. “Fine. …Unicorns were not meant to live in these conditions.”
“No shit.”
They made it to the bridge last, to the surprise of no one. Alex made a hologram appear out of the main table. It showed three blue dots – the Rocinante, Razorback, and the Skiff. On the other side of the diagram was a dot labeled the MCRN Ajax. “They’re followin’ us,” Alex reported. “I’ll bet my dinner they want this ship back.”
O’Neill raised an eyebrow. “And?”
“Well normally, at this point I’d just floor it and try to outrun them,” Alex said. “Probably could do it, they’re a fair distance away and probably can’t go far out of their way to get us. It’s just that we’ve got two passengers who make that problematic.”
“It’s not you, O’Neill,” Avasarala said. “It’s me. My age does not handle high G-forces very well, to say the least. I’ve almost died recently from running like this.”
“And then there’s the unicorn,” Alex said. “No offense, but the chemicals we take to make sure we make it through heavy burns might wreck your system in ways we haven’t a clue about.”
“And if you let the Martians have this ship, they’ll find me,” Starbeat said. “And wasn’t there just a conversation about how the Martians were the least likely to play nice?”
“Yep,” Holden said. “We can’t run, we can’t turn ourselves in.”
“Political option?” O’Neill asked, gesturing at Avasarala.
“They’d just demand to take us to our rendezvous personally,” Avasarala said.
“We Martians are particular when it comes to our ships,” Draper added. “The fact this one isn’t under our control is seen as a major problem.”
“Then, once again, it’s time to take the third option,” O’Neill said, smirking. “Just take the problematic passengers elsewhere – say, the Skiff. Send them away. Mars won’t care about some loose ship, if I’m reading this right, they only want this ship.”
Alex chuckled. “You really are a General aren’t ya?”
O’Neill shrugged. “Maybe I’m just an endless fountain of good ideas.”
“That could work,” Avasarala said.
“We could strap the Razorback to the Skiff,” Holden said. “Send off a team.”
“I don’t think we have time for a complicated docking maneuver,” Alex said. “I just got a message from the Ajax. They want to board us. So, how about everyone who needs to run pile onto the Skiff and I’ll just cut her loose?”
“How long can the Skiff survive on its own?” Holden asked.
“It’s working fine,” Amos said. “Doesn’t have a way to slow down, but it could keep people alive for months now that everything’s working.”
“Not slowing down is a big problem,” O’Neill pointed out. “I may usually live where physics aren’t an issue, but even I know things in space keep moving if nothing stops them. I don’t want to splat into anything.”
Holden furrowed his brow. “You can probably get help…”
Avasarala sighed. “…Fred Johnson?”
“Fred Johnson...” Holden muttered, not liking the idea but accepting it anyway. He shook his head. “Right. O’Neill, Starbeat, Avasarala, get to the Skiff.”
“I’m going with them,” Draper said, nodding in Avasarala’s direction.
Amos looked at Starbeat. “You know what, this sounds more interesting than running through space to a UN ship. Count me in. Holden, remember to get me later.”
“I’ll have to leave a message to the UN,” Avasarala said.
“You can tightbeam from the Skiff,” Holden said. “Just get moving. Amos, get some extra food and suits.” He touched a button so he could talk to the Skiff. “Naomi, you’re going to Tycho station.”
“What? Why?”
“There’s a Mars ship on our asses and we need to get rid of the unicorn. Hopefully you can ask Fred Johnson for a favor without him poking his nose too closely into your ship.”
“Right, right, preparing for launch… We’re not going to be able to slow down, Holden.”
“Have Johnson catch you or something. You’re weeks away from Tycho Station, you have time to figure it out.” Holden closed the channel. “Alex, how’s the Ajax doing?”
“They’re acceleratin’’ towards us. Nothing too crazy since we haven’t changed our one-G burn.”
Down a couple decks, O’Neill, Starbeat, Avasarala, Amos, and Draper were running through the pipe connecting the Rocinante to the Skiff. They scrambled through the back hatch, placing extra crates, spacesuits, and provisions in the cargo hold. O’Neill pulled the hatch closed behind them. “Seats everyone!”
All six seats of the Skiff were filled. O’Neill pulled up the piloting controls, delighted to see the thrusters working properly. So at least they had some maneuverability – but not enough for a standard physics trip to the Asteroid Belt. “Okay, strap in.”
Everyone strapped in. “This better not make me feel like my brain is going to come out the back of my skull,” Avasarala muttered.
“This Skiff can’t even pull one G,” Naomi reported. “You’re going to have a bigger problem being in zero-G for an extended time.”
“What a lovely thought.”
“We’ve got no shortage of those today,” Starbeat muttered.
Alex’s voice came to their ears. “Breaking seal.” They heard a pop from behind them. “Y’all should shove off now, the rest of us are about to strap in and run as fast as our little legs will carry us.”
O’Neill nodded, prompting the limited physical engines of the Skiff to ignite, subjecting them to only minimal acceleration forces. It was closer to the feeling of being in a car than a spaceship. The Skiff flew off, leaving the Rocinante and Razorback behind.
Naomi pressed a few buttons. “I think I’ve charted us a course for Tycho Station. Except we’ll be hurtling by it at several hundred kilometers an hour in the wrong direction. In three weeks.”
“You better make those calls,” Draper said. “Someone’s going to have to catch us.”
“How about we wait until we’re not close to a Martian ship?”
“I’ll drink to that,” O’Neill said, looking at the display of local space. The Rocinante and Razorback started speeding away, accelerating far faster than was comfortable. The MCRN ship matched their speed, perhaps gaining a little – but they would not be able to catch them before they made their rendezvous with the UN ship. …Not that the Ajax had any idea that’s where they were headed.
The Skiff fled the scene, beginning a long journey through the expanse to Tycho Station.
They were free. Though adrift.
“Time to send some messages,” Naomi said. “And then wait three weeks.”
Starbeat sighed. “We’re all going to get to know each other really well then.”
“Pray your people come and get you then,” Amos said. “’Cus after three weeks of gettin’ to know each other I think all of us will nut up a little.”
Avasarala let out a calculated breath. “We simply need to keep our wits about us.”
“Hey, question,” Amos said. “Where’s the bathroom in this thing?”
O’Neill blinked. “There’s a panel that opens in the back of the storage compartment.”
“This thing isn’t designed for long trips, is it?”
“No. It has an FTL drive installed that could cross a galaxy in a few hours.”
“Just further proof that technology is unreliable,” Avasarala commented.
“Please, everyone quiet,” Naomi said. “I’ve got to tell Fred Johnson to help us without prompting him to ask too many questions.”
“Good luck,” Avasarala said.
“Thanks.”
~~~
Two weeks later…
Holden’s face was on the main screen. “So, we got to keep the Rocinante after all was said and done. Handing over Mao, even without Avasarala on board, got us a lot of points with the UN. We did have to hand over the Razorback though, sorry Draper. Regardless, with Prax and the kids going back to Ganymede, it’s just me and Alex here. We’ve set our course for Tycho Station but won’t arrive until a few weeks after you. Let’s hope the ship doesn’t fall apart before we get there.
“Amos, I’m coming to get you. Naomi… I miss you. The rest of you? Try not to blow this whole thing up. Holden out.”
The recording ended.
“I miss instant communication,” O’Neill said.
“You miss being able to interrupt people,” Draper corrected. “It’s all you do. Have to make sure you get your quips in. I’m amazed you managed to ever move up in rank.”
“He used to be grumpier, from what I hear,” Starbeat said from her position on the ceiling, not looking up from her ebook. “Then he found a stargate and chippered up considerably. Gained a funny bone. Got over depression.”
“Don’t speak of it as if it’s trivial,” Avasarala scolded. “Losing a child is something you never recover from.”
“Let’s not go there again,” Naomi said.
“Are you telling me wh-”
O’Neill coughed. “Not go there, she said. Good idea.”
Avasarala leaned back in her chair and sighed. “Fair enough.”
“Aren’t you the politician?” Amos asked. “Shouldn’t you, like, know how to deal with people?”
“Not when I’ve been boxed up in a tiny alien ship for two weeks,” Avasarala muttered.
“You should have heard her on the Razorback when I was pushing it to the max,” Draper said. “Swearing like a sailor.”
Amos looked at Avasarala with new respect in his eyes.
“Hey, guys,” Naomi said, pressing a few buttons. “We’re going to be passing by the proto-jellyfish.”
“Hmm?” Starbeat asked, looking up from her ebook. “Didn’t that thing start at Venus? How’d it get this far out that quickly?”
“Accelerating continually for a long time,” Naomi said, pressing a few more buttons. “We’re just piggybacking off the Rocinante’s velocity, lucky enough to already be going the right direction. That thing’s been constantly burning since it left Venus and hasn’t stopped. It helps that it doesn’t have to worry about flattening crew it doesn’t have.”
“Can we see it?” Starbeat asked.
“Normally I’d say no, but it is the size of a city…” Naomi said. “Definitely not with the naked eyes, but we might be able to zoom in on it.”
O’Neill pulled up a camera feed and zoomed in as far as he could. They could just barely make out a blue shape with tentacles trailing behind it.
“I wonder where it’s going…” Avasarala pondered. “It must have some purpose.”
“It’s an alien. What makes you think you can figure out what it wants?” Amos asked.
“Nothing. I’m just curious. And also more than a little afraid.”
“You’d be a fool not to be,” Starbeat said, staring at the jellyfish. She narrowed her eyes. “Something about it though… feels slightly… off?”
“Maybe it's not ‘standard physics’?” Draper suggested. “Something like you?”
“Maybe,” Starbeat said. “…Maybe.”
~~~
A few days later…
Two thirds of the crew of the Skiff were sleeping in their chairs.
For once, it was the old people who couldn’t fall asleep, instead of the other way around.
O’Neill turned to Avasarala. “Almost done with this trip.”
“I hate space so much,” Avasarala muttered. “I would say I’m going to be ecstatic when we finally get to Tycho Station and find some artificial gravity, but I know my legs are going to be so weak that I’ll feel like shit no matter how many precautions I take.”
“We’ve been keeping in shape.”
“Taking walks in mag-boots along the hull of the ship does not count as ‘in shape,’ O’Neill.”
O’Neill smirked. “It won’t be too bad. Just three weeks of zero-G.”
“Normal astronauts can collapse after just a few weeks,” Avasarala said. “A completely temporary condition to be sure, but there will still be a readjustment period.”
O’Neill furrowed his brow. “You all have it hard in space.”
“You’ve just got it easy with all your options for workarounds. We live in a world where there are no shortcuts.”
“Oh, I bet there is one, somewhere,” O’Neill said with a smirk. “It’s the nature of existence. There’s always going to be a way to do something just a little better. Then someone will copyright it and make millions of dollars off of turning it into a scam.”
Avasarala let out a snort. “I thought you didn’t have that problem.”
“You’d be surprised how often companies manage to throw wrenches into our gears even when they’re held on a leash,” O’Neill muttered. “They really don’t like being subject to anything and think they can always buy their way out of the worst situations.”
“Are you going to jump into ‘this is why we aren’t a Democracy’ now?”
“No,” O’Neill said with a smirk. “Because I hate politics.”
Avasarala smirked. “Smart man.”
“Not really. I have to deal with the asinine political mess every week. Managed not to fight any full wars yet, so I must be doing something right.”
“It amazes me that you’ve managed that,” Avasarala said. “Perhaps it comes from living in a world that was on the brink of war for decades, but I think I know humanity. We always want to fight something. Each other, nature, it’s in our blood.”
“You’re right,” O’Neill said, looking to Starbeat. “It isn’t in theirs.”
“Friendship, progress, assistance,” Avasarala repeated. “You owe two of your values to them.”
“They’d argue that assistance and friendship go hand in hand. After they were sure engaging in such an argument wouldn’t make you shoot them.” O’Neill chuckled. “We had to learn to stop shooting out there. They had to learn to shoot.”
“I don’t see us learning to stop shooting anytime soon. Right now, the war just ended. Given the news we’re not pointing our guns at each other anymore, but at the blue jellyfish.” She sighed. “We need to get to Tycho. I need to make a statement to the system about what to do with that damn thing.”
“We’re cl-”
“Attention! This is the OPA Scouter Umbriel!” the loud incoming message woke everyone up. “Please do not activate any thrusters! We will aid in your deceleration toward Tycho Station!”
Starbeat rubbed her eyes, yawning. “Guess we’re going to be there soon, huh?”
“Couple days actually,” Naomi said. “Slowing down takes time, especially if you don’t want to do it quickly.”
The Umbriel was a short, barrel-like ship. It rotated around the Skiff a few times, analyzing the best way to grab onto it. It opted to affix itself to the top of the Skiff with magnetic tethers, then fully sealed itself against the Skiff’s roof and turned on its engine – lightly at first, to ease into a feeling of gravity.
Everyone, for the first time in three weeks, felt their chairs underneath them.
“Finally,” Avasarala said. “…This doesn’t feel that bad, actually.”
“They’re at one-tenth G,” Amos said. “’bein’ nice. By the time we get to Tycho it’ll be one. You won’t have your sea legs then.”
“She might adjust by then!” Naomi pointed out. “They’re doin’ us a huge favor taking it this slow.”
Amos glared at her, but said nothing. That sort of interaction between them had been a regular occurrence on the trip but nobody wanted to ask either of them what had happened. It remained an awkward looming ghost over the six of them.
“Wonder how I’ll be affected…” Starbeat mused. “Never been in zero-G for any time longer than an hour before…”
~~~
“…Our radios are dead,” Naomi reported a few hours later, the Skiff still in the grip of the Umbriel. “Can’t pull up any news feeds or anythin’.”
“Dead or jammed?” O’Neill asked. “Important distinction.”
“Well I’d have to crawl around the outside of the Skiff to check the physical radios, but it doesn’t take a genius to realize we’re probably jammed.”
“Great, more complications,” Avasarala muttered. “What’s our course?”
Naomi pulled up the map. “…We’re not headed directly for Tycho, that’s for sure. We’re nearby, but I have no idea where we’re going.”
“Wouldn’t Fred Johnson have noticed by now that we’re off course?” Draper said.
“That’s probably why our radio is jammed,” Naomi pointed out.
Starbeat sighed. “So, who’s got us this time?”
“Rogue Belter who thinks a ship of interesting design under the protection of Fred Johnson is going to be worth a lot,” Amos said. “Or one of Johnson’s turned traitor for a quick buck.”
“…Do you have a big problem with traitors in this universe?” Starbeat asked.
Amos said nothing, but he did glance at Naomi.
“How far do our sensors go without the radio?” Draper asked.
“Visual only,” Starbeat answered. “Y’know, since nothing else is working.”
O’Neill set the computer to scan for anything visually. They picked up planets, asteroids – and one large ship nearby.
“Asteroid harvester,” Naomi said, looking at the image. “Looks to be where we’re headed.”
“Whatever pirate is on that thing is going to be absolutely elated by all the bounties he’s got on board,” Avasarala muttered. “I ca-”
The Umbriel decided to stop playing nice with the G forces and floor it, stunning all six of them. Starbeat and Avasarala passed out immediately.
~~~
Starbeat opened her eyes.
She was inside a locked room with a handful of sealed boxes, the majority of them specially marked with words like fragile, valuable, XXX, or explosive, indicating this was presumably the ‘valuable and/or illicit cargo’ location. The room wasn’t particularly large, but all the walls were reinforced and the only exit was a pressured vault door. She presumed the crank to open it was on the other side.
She herself was bound and gagged. The ropes around her hooves were sturdy, but clearly tied by someone who didn’t know how to bind a pony effectively. The gag was a simple piece of cloth. Otherwise, she was unharmed.
She was able to eat through the gag in a minute or two with her teeth, and then moved to worm her way out of her restraints. Pony legs were a lot more flexible than they appeared, having shoulders that were able to lift above her head, which was something horses couldn’t do.
She was soon standing free without any restraints in what was probably the heaviest-guarded room on whatever ship she was on. She noticed she wasn’t shaking or nauseous at the solid gravity she was experiencing. Either she had been quick to adjust or had been out a long time. Could be either, really.
At least they were nice enough to leave her with her goggles. She felt as if they made her complete.
She started crafting a plan on how to escape. She had several boxes labeled with explosive on them, surely there was something in here that could cut through a wall this thick. She tried to open a box that looked promising – and remembered she didn’t have traction hooves, magic, or fingers.
She facehooved. “Aaaagh…”
There had to be something in here, she would almost bet on it. Just keep looking…
Then she found it. A small glass capsule filled with a shifting blue material, glowing brightly in some locations while dark and dormant in others. It rippled as if it were alive. Along the side of the capsule it said protomolecule.
She whistled. “Bet this is about as valuable as I am.” She looked up from the protomolecule for a moment to gather her thoughts. She didn’t get the opportunity.
There was a man standing over her in a porkpie hat, looking at her in curiosity.
She knew instantly he wasn’t really there. The door hadn’t opened in the five seconds she hadn’t been looking at the protomolecule vial, and she was pretty sure she wasn’t going mad, so the presence of the stranger made her smile. “Hello,” she said.
“What are you?” he asked, cocking his head sideways. “Why can the signal reach you so… easily?”
“Unicorn,” Starbeat said, tapping her horn. “I don’t think this universe is truly mundane, it just likes to think it is. There’s a mild esoteric power able to function here of a type I don’t understand, and that type was probably in my horn.” She cocked her head. “You’re the protomolecule, right?”
The man took a step back and rolled onto his heels. “…It’s not time, 113 times a second, thoughts incoming… the Work isn’t even complete. The time has not come. How is the signal here…?”
“It could also be Fate, or ka, if you know what that is.”
“No entry,” the man said. “The manifolds arise. You see, there was this one time at a bar where I was investigating two guys. One guy, you see, looked like the shit, worst badass imaginable. But the other was meek and tiny. So of course I go for the little guy – he’s the one I’m looking for. But then someone walks in I didn’t know about and the entire thing blows up.”
“…Do you have to talk in crime scene metaphors or something?”
“Well, see, there’s a non-local quantum hologram with a phase-conjugate adaptive waves resonating in micro-tubules in the brain, which of course requires some closed-timelike curves and Lorentzian manifold, and then that little thing at the top of your skull… You know.”
“Were you expecting me not to understand that?” Starbeat asked. “It’s a little fuzzy but I think I’ve got it. You’re transmitting to my mind from another location outside my current timestream, however that works in this universe, and you have to interface adaptively with my brainwaves that come from what you call ‘micro-tubules’. Only thing I didn’t get was ‘Lorentzian manifold’, and I’m pretty sure that’s just the background mathematics of the thing.”
He looked at her, surprised.
“I spend my life studying the nature of Fate scientifically. I brush up on the basics of exotic physics regularly. It’s also more than a little likely I have access to technology far beyond what you could ever create.”
“…Could be dangerous.”
“Maybe. I don’t think we’re staying around though, given how much of a powder keg this world seems to be. Go easy on the people here, okay?”
The man seemed to find this amusing. “…Always need a ride.”
“You know, if you can help us get out of this mess, we could get you a ride.”
The man waved his hand. “Need proper ship.”
“Right, right, we don’t design things that work here. I get it.” Starbeat stared at him. “But I bet we can get you something else. Connection to the multiverse, access to our databases, you know.”
“Can’t get you out of this room. Too sturdy, nothing to work with.”
Starbeat sighed. Then she thought for a moment longer. “You’re able to ‘break’ the ‘standard physics’ model, seeing as you’re talking to me right now. Do you think you could fix our dimensional drive?”
The man paused for a moment, thinking deeply.
“You’re able to project yourself into my mind and I don’t have my magic right now. Just root around my memories for the necessary information.”
“Calculations… Yes. The drive can be fixed with a proper reverse manifold.”
Starbeat smiled. “Good! All I have to do is get you on the drive.” She blinked. “That still means we have to get out of this room.”
The man shrugged, as if to say that wasn’t his problem.
~~~
O’Neill, Avasarala, Draper, Amos, and Naomi all sat in a single holding cell with only four beds. The cell looked like it was never used. On one hand that meant it didn’t stink from previous occupants, and on the other it looked like it was about to fall apart.
“Y’know, I don’t think they have a guard on us,” Naomi said, looking through the bars. “I see that one guy pass by every couple of minutes, that’s it.”
“Sloppy pirate captain,” O’Neill observed. “Looks like we’ll get a chance to escape.”
Avasarala sighed. “Talking of escape? O’Neill, we do not need to risk our lives any more. We’re too valuable to be killed, and frankly whatever price the pirates ask for will be pathetically small compared to what our respective governments would be willing to pay to have us back.”
“That’s for you,” Amos said, standing up. Naomi took this as an indication she should take the bed and let him grip the bars for a while. “I’m only good as Holden’s muscle. Not exactly useless, but not exactly worth a lot.”
O’Neill nodded. “And you gotta realize, when do you ever get captured and not think about how to escape? C’mon.”
Draper looked at him. “Good point. What’s your plan?”
“Got nothin’ so far,” O’Neill admitted. “I can see us rushing back to the Skiff and turning on its guns, threaten to start shooting up the place. That involves getting out of this cell.”
“Then there’s Starbeat and our gear,” Naomi said. “We’d have to stop by storage on the way.”
“The Skiff is in storage,” Draper pointed out. “Won’t be far away.”
“It’s not that far to run…” Naomi mused. “If the entire ship is as poorly patrolled as this place, we could probably do it.”
Avasarala blinked. “Are you all seriously considering making a break for it?”
“Yep,” O’Neill said. “You can relax, though. We don’t have any way out past these bars.”
“Shh,” Naomi hissed. “Guard’s coming back.”
The guard marched past their cell, looking at them with stern eyes. “You sure sounded excited in here. What were you talking about.”
“Believe it or not, it was your face,” O’Neill said. “We were wondering if you were one of those kids who ignored their mother and got their face stuck. Because if you were born that way it would be really tragic.”
The guard put his hand on the bars. “You’re lucky the cap wants you all alive or I would have shot you right there.”
“You probably should have,” Amos said. Then he pushed on the bars with all his might, snapping the rusted, ancient, poorly maintained metal poles of the wall. The cell door came down on the guard.
He tried to aim his gun despite the disorientation, but a punch from Amos knocked him straight onto the ground. Amos picked up the gun. “We’re out,” he said.
O’Neill blinked. “…I like you.”
Naomi fished through the guard’s shirt until she found identification. “This should open any locked doors.”
“Wonder why they used bars instead of sealing doors,” Draper mused.
“Belters don’t exactly have a lot of options all the time,” Naomi muttered.
Avasarala finally processed what was happening. “…We’re going to have to run for it.”
“Yep,” Draper said, picking her up.
“Put me down this instant!”
“With all due respect, you’ll only slow us down if you’re on your own feet.”
O’Neill nodded. “Amos, point. Naomi, back. Let’s move.” They ran through the corridor, right out of the small holding cell area. Right at the exit there was an extra gun. O’Neill picked it up. “Here we go.”
They opened the door to find two pirates having lunch on a folding table. One shot from O’Neill and another from Amos took care of them. They added two more guns to their supply.
“And now they’ll be coming for us because they’ll have definitely heard that one,” Naomi said.
“Ship’s this way,” Amos said, leading them to a ladder that led down a deck. They ended up in a room filled with boxes of rations, water, and other similar supplies.
O’Neill put a finger to his mouth to quiet everyone. He had seen two people in this room on the way down the ladder. They moved carefully and quietly, moving behind the large supply boxes. They made it by without a trace, leaving into another hall.
“I don’t see our stuff…” Naomi said.
“I see a big bulkhead that says Hazardous Storage,” O’Neill said, pointing to a heavy door with a crank on it. “If I’m a betting man, I’d say Starbeat’s back there.”
“That’ll take forever to open,” Draper said. “We’d need some way to know for sure.”
O’Neill knocked on the door.
They heard the clopping of hooves on the other side.
“Good enough for me,” Amos said, grabbing the wheel with his arms and turning, grunting against the rust and pressure inside.
Naomi shot a pirate as he opened a door from the left. “We really shouldn’t stay here…”
Amos let out a sharp grunt and popped the door open. Starbeat was waiting with a blue glowing capsule in her mouth.
Everyone gasped and took a few steps back, save O’Neill and Amos.
“Huh, they had the protomolecule,” Amos said. “Sweet.”
“That stuff kills everything it touches!” Avasarala said.
Starbeat put it down. “And it’s partially psychic. This universe isn’t as mundane as we previously thought. It can fix the dimensional drive.”
O’Neill picked the capsule up and pocketed it. “And now we have a better way out than just threatening to blow everything up.”
“You need to be careful with that stuff,” Amos said. “It will kill you if you touch it.”
“Just move!” Draper shouted. Nobody argued – they scrambled through a door and into a smaller storage area devoid of people. The next room they entered was the storage area the Skiff was held in. The back hatch was still open and three people were busy trying to figure out how it worked.
All three of them went down in the gunfire.
Starbeat glanced at Amos. “Wow, you’re a good shot.”
“He’s the muscle,” Naomi said.
The six of them ran into the Skiff, discovering a fourth, unarmed man inside. He had a communicator to his mouth. “They’ve gotten to me! Th-”
O’Neill knocked him out with the butt of his gun and dragged him off the Skiff. The rest of them scrambled into the skiff, making sure to close the hatch behind them. O’Neill undid the security lock he had on the controls and activated the Skiff’s weapons.
The radio was working again. “This is Captain Higgs. Think about what you’re doing, Avasarala.”
“I’m the only damn person who didn’t want to do this!” Avasarala spat.
“I’d be the one you want to talk to,” O’Neill said, pressing more buttons. “Because I’m the one with active guns pointed at the gut of your ship.”
He stood up, handing the gun controls to Draper while he went to Starbeat.
Higgs’ voice returned. “…This is a large ship. Whatever damage your Skiff can unleash will be minimal. Meanwhile, I have people moving to attack you on all sides. Would you rather surrender and live, or be blown up with your ship?”
O’Neill popped the hatch Starbeat was gesturing to, accessing the green orb that was the dimensional device. He popped the top of the protomolecule vial and poured the blue alien lifeform inside, careful not to get any on his hands. He slammed the hatch shut. “Well, you see mister Higgs, I’d rather not be stuck in a jail cell that’s so old we can just pop the bars off by struggling too much.”
“I can make arrangements to have you all stored in crates.”
O’Neill grinned. It was time to play the stalling game. “But what kind of crates? Because if we can escape from the crates, we’re just going to try to do it again. They better be really thick, industrial strength crates if I’m going to consider surrendering. And all the crates we saw on the way here I don’t think will cut it.”
“…Excuse me, who is this?”
“O’Neill. The old guy you captured. The guy who actually owns this ship. With the guns. That are pointed at everything.”
“Stand down and you will not be harmed.”
“See, there’s a problem with that too. How can I know I won’t be harmed? You clearly didn’t know who I was, which makes me think you don’t know how valuable a target I am. You might shoot me as an example to the others! Or just to satisfy your need for vengeance. We did just take out several of your guys. I understand.”
“Let me put it another way. Stand down or we blow you all out of the sky and everyone dies.”
“Such a waste,” O’Neill said, shaking his head. “Do you think you’ll ever be able to survive life in the system if you blew up Chrisjen Avasarala? What about the crew of James Holden? Or the only known specimen of an alien unicorn? Bet you were surprised when you found her on board.”
Higgs’ tone of voice improved. “Ah, I was not. She was the reason I grabbed you all.”
“And how did you find out? Come on, I can hear you wanting to gloat there.”
“You have a big window on the front of your ship. The Umbriel just looked and saw.” Higgs let out a menacing chuckle.
Starbeat facehooved. “Why did nobody think of that!?”
Draper sighed. “Ships aren’t supposed to have windows. It’s not something we ever have to worry about.”
“Lovely.”
Higgs chuckled. “Ah, satisfying. But enough fun and games. I’m ordering my men to shoot you down in ten. …Nine.”
“Dimensional drive active,” Naomi said. “Activating.”
“…What?”
“Gooodbye!” O’Neill said with a salute. A portal appeared under she Skiff’s front. There was barely enough energy in the Skiff to create a portal large enough for it to fit through – and it had to tip into it, slowly.
This gave Higgs an opportunity to allow order his men to attack. From every door surrounding them, men with guns filed out. The basic bullets bounced right off the Skiff, but one guy launched a rocket.
Starbeat lit her horn and smirked. “Oops.” Using the magic from the other side of the portal she grabbed hold of the rocket and tossed it back, blowing a hole in the ceiling. “You really shouldn’t shoot rockets in spaceships. Recipe for disaster.” She opted to simply raise a magic shield next to protect them for the last few seconds.
They fell into space and the portal closed behind them.
“…Now I’ve seen everything,” Amos said.
O’Neill smirked. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
~~~
Amos and Starbeat stood outside a meeting room in the Hub. They watched through the glass as Avasarala, Fred Johnson, and the Martian military commander Ari shouted at each other while O’Neill and Eve watched.
“Powder keg,” Starbeat said, holding a slushie in her hoof and sipping it. “Tellin’ ya.”
“I take it that means no keys to the multiverse?”
“I’d say no,” Starbeat said. “Worlds in a heavy state of unrest are generally denied. …Though we accept most standard Earths, so I can’t really say where we draw the line. I’m pretty sure you’re very well past it, though. All three of you want to kill each other. And the fourth one is pretty confused.”
“Fourth?”
“The protomolecule,” Starbeat said. “We’ve given it some space to grow. It’s been talking. We won’t be telling you much about it by its request.”
“Huh. That’s weird to think about.”
“It’s an alien. What did you expect?”
“A magic horn?”
Starbeat chuckled. “You know, you can stay if you want. We accept singles and small groups all the time. Almost no limitations on immigration here.”
“Temptin’ offer. But I’ll pass. Don’t think I’d mix well with all your ‘friendship’ crap.”
Starbeat shrugged. “We have a few people who are willing to do the brutal thing when required.”
“Plus, I’m part of a crew. Not just gonna give that up.”
“I understand. I hope the Rocinante understands just how lucky they are to have you.”
Amos nodded. “Oh, they do. The-”
The door to the meeting room flew open. “Get out!” O’Neill shouted. “If you’re all going to act like children around each other, than that’s how you’re going to be treated! Go sit in time out in your little secluded universe for a few years!”
Avasarala opened her mouth.
“Not one weasley word out of you!” O’Neill blurted. “The three of you have proven, at just about every turn, that you just can’t move past your differences! You can’t be weaker than anyone else, because that’s a threat. You can’t be even, because then you’re not the best. And if you were the strongest you would want to defend that at any cost! When you get it in your collective heads that maybe, maybe you’re in this together, we’ll talk again.” O’Neil stormed off.
There was silence for a few seconds.
Eve cleared her throat. “Sorry about that. He lost patience with the politics. I’ll go talk to him later. His sentiment is that of Merodi Universalis, however. Sorry, we will not be initiating further contact with your worlds for now. You are simply not ready, nor do you need our help to survive.”
Avasarala raised her eyebrow. “And the protomolecule?”
“It passed,” Eve admitted. “Maybe if you prove yourself to it, it’ll let you talk to us.” Her ears twitched involuntarily. “You’ll be taken back to your world now. We might contact you again in a few years, we might not.”
The three leaders looked at her with steeled expressions.
“Goodbye.” Eve said, walking away. She turned with a smile to Amos and Starbeat. “Good evening!”
Amos blinked. “You can turn your expression around fast.”
“Have to.”
Starbeat glanced at the receding forms the Earth Proto representatives. “You know, I kinda thought O’Neill and Avasarala were friends now.”
“They are,” Eve said. “Avasarala agrees with the sentiment. They aren’t ready. But she can’t exactly make that opinion public.”
“Ah. I see.”
Eve glanced over her shoulder, then back to Amos. “I don’t want them knowing about this, but we’re going to set up a communications satellite you can use…”
~~~
Earth Proto.
That’s what they ended up calling the universe, after its defining lifeform, the protomolecule.
Starbeat liked the name, even if she wasn’t quite sure about the world itself. Filled with three tribes of humanity that wouldn’t stop fighting. Even the good people among them, people who had been part of a mixed crew, had agendas. Avasarala, for all her understanding and wisdom, was still loyal to Earth first, and not humanity. Draper would speak for Mars even though she didn’t agree with it. Naomi would stand by the Belt until the end of her days. They were all good people who understood each other – but whose loyalties belonged to societies and ideals rather than people.
“Is that good?” Starbeat had asked Rainbow shortly after they had returned home.
Rainbow Dash had blinked. “I don’t know.”
I don’t know.
The Element of Loyalty didn’t know if it was good or not. Loyalty to an ideal, a society, or loyalty to friends?
Being a researcher of ka didn’t help her with that puzzle.
She would have said Amos had it right. He wasn’t anchored to any one – Earth? Mars? Belter? Who cared? But he didn’t. He just stumbled through life, looking for guidance.
“What is guidance?” Starbeat asked.
The protomolecule’s Investigator shrugged. “Don’t know. You think I would, seein’ as I’m guiding them onward.”
Starbeat looked at a screen on her desk that showed the Ring construct the proto-jellyfish had created in Earth Proto. “With that thing?”
“Need a ride,” the Investigator said.
“We could still give you a ride.”
“Structural integrity lacking. Assistance is welcome, but unnecessary.”
Starbeat lit her horn, picking up a cup of coffee and drinking it. “Fair enough. Have any plans with us?”
“Backup. The creators went somewhere. Don’t want to suffer their fate.”
Starbeat nodded. “You just let us know if you want to further our relationship.”
The Investigator looked at her with a coy smile. “Create a colony.” Then he was gone again.
Starbeat rolled her eyes. He didn’t have to appear like that – they had a direct telepathic communication line to the protomolecule. But, for whatever reason, it liked appearing as that man to her, even though it had appeared to others at times just to see if it could.
The protomolecule wanted a colony. A planet. Starbeat didn’t see any issue granting its request.
~~~
The Rocinante wouldn’t be able to avoid a trip to the Ring. Eventually, the ship found itself en route to the trans-Uranian object. With an annoying news crew on board.
“Holden, what do you think of fate? Destiny?”
Holden thought about this. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve been the hero of the system multiple times, I’m just curious if you believe in such a thing?”
“…Yeah. Yeah I do. I think it has a weird sense of humor.”
Amos rolled his eyes in the background. “You can say that again.”
The camera turned to Amos. “Why?”
“Well, see, the reason behind that is so classified its not even funny,” Amos said. “To you. I find it hilarious.”
“Amos…”
Amos’ communicator beeped. “Excuse me, the real world calls.” He ducked down a deck, walking into the kitchen. He pulled up the message.
It was an image of Starbeat standing in a hazard suit, grinning. Behind her was an entire forest utterly and completely assimilated by the blue power of the protomolecule. Everything that wasn’t Starbeat was blue, shifting and shimmering with the glow of the alien substance.
Greetings from Protom!
Amos blinked. That is a really stupid name for a planet.
He put the communicator away. “Hey, reporter girl! I know you have a list of ‘reasons Amos is insane’. Add ‘he thinks he’s pen pals with a unicorn’ to it!”
“…What?”
“Did I stutter? I said add it.”
“…Okaaaay…”
Amos knew that wasn’t what she added, but he didn’t care. That little game had run its course.
He found himself wondering what crazy things the Merodi would do with the protomolecule.
Turn planets into war machines?
Nah, that was crazy.
~~~
O’Neill looked at the round blue thing displayed on the main display of the Defiant. “…You want to give us what now?”
“Consider it a gift,” the Investigator said. “A ‘ship’.”
“We’re never going to get a dimensional drive or an FTL drive big enough for that.”
“You underestimate yourselves.” He tipped his hat. “Good luck!”
“Wait don’t y-”
He was gone.
“…Just so everyone knows, I was talking to the Investigator,” O’Neill said.
“Everyone knows that, sir,” Clandestine said. “Nobody thinks you’re a raving lunatic that talks to hallucinations.”
That did little to quell O’Neill’s uncertainties.