OK THEN

[awakener]

The Awakener had some acquaintance with being suddenly abducted from a planet's surface and whisked off into space by shady and probably illegal personages, so he would have considered himself relatively prepared for this, but last time it had been a lot more personal and he'd been told what was up pretty much as soon as he was conscious. This was just kind of worrying.

It seemed like they were rebels, which was pretty much a thing that he could get behind, but you could never really be sure with border-raiding rebel factions. These ones didn't seem particularly hostile – not now that they were done razing the hivestructures of the unjust oppressor, anyway – but in his experience people who didn't seem particularly hostile frequently tended to become pretty fucking hostile if, for example, his dark glasses got knocked off, even if they did oppose the cruel and unjust caste system that made that a problem in the first place.

He tugged his hood over his head a little more and did his best to make himself relatively inconspicuous amongst the little throng of similarly kidnapped trolls while he tried to take a few deep calming breaths and stock of the situation, but unfortunately he couldn't come up with much better than "Shit, shit, shit, I am trapped on a spaceship with no way off and I am probably going to die."

It wasn't a very confidence inspiring summation of events. He'd dealt with worse and got out okay, but, well, there was a first time for everything.

Comments

[awakener]

"Yeah," he said, lowering his hand slowly. "He should have been better off without me." He paused, took a deep breath, and seemed to regain at least a semblance of composure. "But," he added, "I guess he was always kind of unreasonable."

[aerolith]

At that, she finally grinned more fully.

"Yeah, I got that impression, oddly enough," she said. "He'll probably want to talk later, though, after it's settled in some more. It was probably kind of bad timing for him, since I doubt being in that engine block again does great things for his head."

"He'll probably be weird about it," she said, after a pause. "But he's weird at everybody."

[awakener]

The Awakener laughed weakly. "Weird is fine. I just ... I didn't want to upset him." He sighed. "I should probably ... is there anywhere I could go on board here to be alone for a little while? I kind of have a lot to think about."

[aerolith]

"Oh, yeah, totally," she said, brushing that off with a wave of the hand. "I can probably get you a block to yourself and everything. The Aerolith is pretty fucking huge - I personally share a cocoon, but that's because one legged, cycloptic pilots are hella sexy, and not due any particular lack of space."

She tapped a few keys on the control pad.

"I'll take you to the habitation blocks and see what we can drum up."

[awakener]

He laughed, glancing not for the first time at the exposed machinery of her leg, but going by his smile he wasn't about to dispute her assertions about the sex appeal of bionic amputees.

"Thanks," he said, with a sort of weary relief. "I mean, pretty much anything would be great, usually I just sleep in people's ablution traps."

[aerolith]

She snickered at that genially.

"Pretty sure we can get you set up better than that." The ascender slowed to a halt, the door leisurely sliding open. "Come on, I'll show you around."