TO stared at the single work on the screen, speechless. They wanted them? Why? Was that why they had asked for their original numbers? Did they want them and DH specifically, or was there more information that the insurgents could draw from those numbers?
“Us?” TO said as they turned to DH, “They want us?”
“... What if it’s the insurgency?” DH said, “What if it’s the insurgency, and they’re trying to stop us from getting to Arkane! They’ve already gotten rid of several other synths, so maybe they’re just trying to stop us before we even get there.”
Maybe. TO’s mind raced; that was a possibility. Where did the insurgency get the funds and materials for a space fleet big enough to take over a spaceport?
“Why did they want our old numbers, though?” TO muttered to themself. That part made no sense… Or did it? Their eyes suddenly widened as they turned to DH. “If GiDi came here… what if they got caught by the insurgency? What if they tortured GiDi to get information out of them? Sure, knowing our call numbers might be nothing important, but if they know us better, if they know more about us, then they can use that information against us, right?”
“How so?”
TO’s eyes narrowed, “By saying perhaps how close we are? By saying how I get dizzy at the sight of blood….” There were so many little things; tiny weaknesses that GiDi might have known which would make them more vulnerable to the insurgency. Things that TO knew GiDi wouldn’t tell the insurgency unless someone tortured them.
Another message came through on TO’s communicator, and with DH at their shoulder they read it together.
“You will leave your ship; your suits should allow for you to be outside in space for a short period. A drone will approach you, and both of you will enter the drone. If you destroy the drone, we attack. If you refuse to leave, we attack. If you power up your ship, we attack. Do you understand?”
“What do we do?” DH asked. “We… We can’t just go to them! They’ll kill us!”
“And if we don’t, they’ll kill us, anyway.” TO muttered. If the enemy opened fire on them now, what were the chances that they could destroy the synth ship before their weapons were online? How strong were their weapons? What weapons did the insurgent ships have?
TO didn’t know. What they knew was that their shields were down, as were the shields on Avery’s ship. They’d have only minimal physical defences against any weapons. The other issue was that if the insurgents had interrogated the other synths that had gone missing, then they might have a good idea of the various weaknesses of the ship.
“We can’t power up.” TO said, “There’s too many of them, and it would take too long to bring all our systems back online before they did significant damage to us.” TO looked over the video again, looking at all the tiny ships that were hovering about; tiny, but many. Even if they could get their ship powered up, the chances that they could deal with all the insurgents at once were minimal.
No, less than minimal; it was impossible.
“If we can power up, we can use a singularity bomb?” DH suggested. They had one singularity bomb intended for use dire emergencies much like this. singularity bombs were dangerous, creating a temporary high-density singularity that would pull things towards it and crush them once they got into a certain radius.
It was basically a tiny black hole.
“There’s a chance that the insurgents might damage the equipment too much before we got to use it. Also, everyone else is still too close to use; The civilians and Avery would get sucked in.”
DH’s ears pinned back, “Would they though?” DH said. They leaned over and scrolled back through the video. “Look, all the civilian ships are still in the anchor rings, and if those rings are strong enough to keep us from getting sucked into a black hole then I’m positive that they can keep us from being drawn into a singularity, right?”
TO chewed on their lip as they considered this, their ears twitching with thought. That was true, but how long would it take them to get their systems up and online to where they could drop a singularity bomb? How much damage could the insurgency do to them, or to the others in the time to prep their system.
A message came through once more.
“Please respond; we are giving you five minutes to make your decision before we will unfortunately be forced to take action.”
“Five minutes…” DH said, their voice fragile and quiet, “It would take at least that long to bring up all of our digital systems, let alone the actual mechanical ones we’d need.” Their ears pinned back as they looked at the message, then they looked at TO; their eyes wide and afraid. “What do we do?”
TO didn’t know. Their mind raced as they considered possibilities, but the smaller ships outnumbered them, and the enemy had synth and civilian hostages. In their training, they were of course taught that there was a certain level of acceptable casualties for situations like this; both civilian and synth.
Their training experience gave TO a solution that they didn’t like; outnumbered, with civilian hostages and an enemy that would capture them and torture them for information, then the best option was a self- destruct sequence on their ship.
If they could call Ark-1, that would probably be what they were told to do.
TO would not do that. Even if their training told them that might be the best option overall, they would NOT be doing that. They didn’t want anyone to die here; civilian or synth!
But still... What else could they do? A singularity bomb was probably the only option, but they couldn’t bring one up without powering up the ship! The only active weapon they had at the moment was their multi-gun, and they couldn’t drop a singularity with a multi-gun!
... Or could they?
TO suddenly nodded, and sent a message back, “Understood; we will leave the ship momentarily.”
They closed the system.
“TO!” DH said, grabbing at TO’s arm, “You can’t go out there! What if they kill you! Or Torture you!”
TO smiled and took DH by the shoulders. “It’s ok.” They said as they leaned forward and kissed DH just on the bridge of their snout. “It’s ok. I have a plan.”
They lowered their head a little, then kissed DH on the lips before they backed up and activated their suit. They had a plan, but it was dangerous, and in case the worst happened, they wanted to have that last kiss with DH.
======
They didn’t have time to power up the ship so that they could leave through the airlock, so instead they had to go to the smaller ship attached and leave through the main doors after securing everything else.
That, unfortunately, meant no tethers. Still, TO and DH had taken a long length of wire and tied it to one another. They also still had their thrusters so that they could maneuver in space.
“I still think this is a terrible idea.” DH said through the communicator, “I don’t have a better idea, but this is a terrible idea.”
“The alternative is giving up and doing what they tell us.” TO said back. “And… we can still do that.”
“You’d surrender?”
“If you wanted.” TO said. They didn’t want to surrender, but if DH would prefer it, then they’d do it.
They almost felt as though they wanted an excuse not to do this.
“No.” DH said, “If this gets messed up, at least death should be relatively fast, and we won’t get tortured and questioned.”
“Alright.. Let’s do this.”
It seemed so much different in this new area of space, on the other side of the portal; it was so much more cold and empty. The slight tint of the nebula that colored everything in vague shades of purple and red was gone, leaving only the cold black of space, interspersed with stars that stood out against the bleakness like holes in the universe.
Some of those stars were planets, TO told themself, and maybe one was Arkane.
They turned to see the docks nearby; to look at all the ships caught in the gravity rings. The much smaller enemy ships were hovering on the spot with red lights showing that they were armed and ready for attack.
Now that they could see the ships more clearly, TO was certain that they were all drones; likely all unmanned; that somehow made TO more angry.
The two used their thrusters to make their way around the ship until the insurgents, or at least the insurgents’ drones, could see them. As soon as they were in sight, a slightly larger ship started heading towards them.
It was the drone that the insurgents told them to enter.
“Last chance to choose to surrender.” TO said as they braced themself. They looked back at the shield around the black hole and hoped that DH’s aim and skill with a multi-gun was as good as TO thought it was.
“I’m ready to do this.”
The ship came closer. TO moved forward, positioning themself between DH and the enemy ship.
“Alright…” TO said, wishing that they had something to hold on to, “Do it now.”
With DH obscured from view of the drone by TO, they could quickly grab their multi-gun—which was turned up to the setting intended to do damage to buildings and barriers—and fired not at the enemy but at the shield that held back the gravitational pull of the black hole. The force of the blast pushed DH back, sending them spiraling back towards their own ship, dragging TO along with them by the wire around their waists.
They didn't move quite fast enough; the enemy drone fired and struck TO in the leg; thankfully, their armor took most of the hit and seemed to sustain minor damage. Still, the pure force of the hit sent them off course. While DH’s aim was very good, but this added force changed their direction and sent them off course. They still rushed to their ship, and while TO didn’t end up close to the entrance to the smaller ship, they did at least grab hold of the side of the ship with the magnetized hands and feet of their suit.
DH wasn’t so lucky; they sailed past, only stopping as the robe went tight once more and they stopped thanks to TO’s magnetic grasp on the side of the ship.
There was a flash of light, and at first TO thought that they had failed, and that the drones were attacking. When they looked up, they saw that the flash wasn’t coming from the drone; it was coming from the spot on the shield that DH had fired at; One of the modular shields seemed cracked.
It sparked, the lights flickered, and suddenly went out. As the light went out, the piece fell back into the hole.
They had just broken the one thing protecting them from the draw of the black hole before them, and as the shield fell back into the blackness to get crushed into a singularity, the pull of the black hole reached out, and pulled everything else to it.
