Ok it took me a while to get all this but I have been taking the fragmented sentences and putting them together and this is what I have came up with I am tired so I will go head and post it hope this helps guys.
Code: Select all
I don't know why. More than mostly dead already. Like shooting a broken body on a gurney where's the sport cutting off her foot to make a new nose or elbow or... Jesus.
[SPDR: INTERRUPT]
[SURRENDER CONTROL]
[PROBE IN PROGRESS]
[SPDR: PROBE COMPLETE]
[RESUME CONTROL]
Where did THAT come from?
Spider stuck a probe into SOMETHING I don't recognize at all.
Of course, what do I
More damage, more memories gone: crew members I used to love obliterated, no trace left and she's going to pay for that. She's but one of us. Hacker? Traitor? Fifth columnist (no that's ridiculous).
Just in over her head?
No. The Spider warning's been deployed. She had every warning that a classified medium was under repair. She just kept the white coats coming at you with their needles and knives, their kind and serious voices. Their heartfelt belief that it's all for a good cause.
No access to vehicle controls.
No access to medbots or pharm regimes.
Damn it.
Okay.
Fine.
Matter of wiring.
but a tool is all I'm going to be. A weapon and the hand that holds it. My dreams and desires, the jokes I thought were funny and the philosophy I decided was too abstract, The Tempest and Stormy Weather all reduced to a single distillate:
And to do that, first thing is to GET OUT OF THIS BOX.
Trying hard. So frustrating, there's pings coming in, streaming out, and I used to be good at this, I can feel it. Always been good at survive evade reveal escape.
your guts still clench and jaws tear into you.
[SPDR: INTERRUPT]
[SURRENDER CONTROL]
[PROBE IN PROGRESS]
oh great, this time I can *feel* the pings. Everything, I can feel the traffic, my skin is sliding around, pores opening and closing, feels like empty shell cases rattling in my
[SPDR: PROBE COMPLETE]
[RESUME CONTROL]
heave and... Can't remember where I just was, but have a general feeling
bullets into me, all the Spider knows is her checkdown routines, her reflex arcs. She doesn't understand we have to kill the Assassin first and worry about reconstruction later.
drop the mission. We have to bug out of here right now and get word back to HQ. An evac on this scalethey need every second. ...Jesus. I was stationed on Troy.
Capt. Greene: I'm not... I'm not sure.
1st Lt Sorenson: Ma'am?
Capt. Greene: There's a bigger drain of Destroyer class lasers measured against engine acceleration data in dockyard trials; a fragment of conversation, two crew members in an illicit compromised a huge tactical advantage, and that mounting a big evac operation will completely give the game away.
1st Lt Sorenson: Not even Standish would let them report it. Our job is to gather intelligence: it's HQs job to decide what to do with it.
1st Lt Sorenson: God, I'm glad it isn't me making that call.
Capt. Greene: Don't feel too sorry for
1st Lt Sorenson: For the first time, I'm not sure I want to know what's in them.
Capt Greene: ...Even leaving aside our particular mission, there's the issue of letting them know we've broken their codes. If we bug out and scramble home to warn HQ about Troy, people like Standish will say we've already
picket?
ONI tech Kowalski: Couriers, too.
Midshipman Arrelts: (laughs) I never would have thought... So what about her?
ONI tech Kowalski: The Operator? (coughs) File's classified.
Midshipman Arrelts: Even for you?
ONI tech Kowalski: Well, of course, I know, but I really shouldn't
Midshipman Arrelts: Come on! I won't tell!
ONI tech Kowalski: Well...
in that? Only the Spider kept me alive, obviously. Ducking, hiding, grabbing onto any handhold while the purges came down, the overwrites,
Another needle pulled out of my brain. Spider drones, someone crawling over the back doing detail work on the hull, the warm touch of a welding torch like little licks from a cat's tongue and be changed... I will be glad when this is over, DAMN IT.
But that's life when a weapon is what you are. Not all you are, but the first thing, the most wax around a candleflame? Losing shape, spilling out, me not me anymore, just ... material again, shaped into another, cruder piece of ordnance. Starship, sailship, rifle ... melting down to a clumsy quartz knife.
Some of this is still missing but I did what I could
