Zenith’s day-long rest was finally over. He’d been weaned off pain killers as he slept, his body having returned to relatively full function. Modern medical tech was a bit of a blessing in that way, making injuries that would be debilitating for months a rather quick fix. Regardless, it didn’t fix the burn of his sore body. As much as that was better than the stomach-turning pain he’d be experiencing without treatment, it was still an annoyance and left Zenith in a bit of a sour mood on its own. Remembering why he was in this condition in the first place certainly didn’t help any.
Regardless of his emotions and frustrations, Zenith had little say in the whim of the universe. He’d have to get going soon, and that required a bit of prep work to be done on his ship. Zenith thanked the doctor one last time and followed the directions he’d been given to the research outpost’s ship bay. It was a large ship bay with a large, shutter-like ceiling to allow ships in and out as needed. He was met by a Ventara he hadn’t seen yet aboard, seeming to be expecting his arrival. He looked like a mechanic, judging from his tool and loop covered outfit and the large set of spacecraft maintenance equipment deployed near him. There was a few scientific vessels in the bay, as well as one that was obscured by a large sheet.
"That one mine?" Zenith asked, gesturing to the covered ship. The mechanic nodded.
"I have no idea how you survived in that thing, bud. ‘Certainly doesn’t look like yah did on the inside, ‘tell you that much." The mechanic chuckles. "Name’s Lex, by the way." He extends a hand, Zenith taking it in a firm handshake.
"Zenith. Take it you’ve ran a little diagnostic on it already?" He felt a little bad with the cold introduction, but he just couldn’t be bothered with pleasantries right now. He managed to smile, albeit briefly.
"Oh, yeah, she faired a little better than you did. Most systems are still reportin’, but there’s a lotta severed connections here and there. If ya can get this to a good Nocterra shop you’d be good to go in a day or two, no problem. Just need some patch panels, probably." Lex chuckled. "You wan’ta see inside, kid?"
"At the bloody mess I left?"
"Yea, well, from what I heard you got your head knocked real good in there." Lex gestures with a ratchet he had in his hand at Zenith’s ears. "You’ve got those warrior’s ears now."
"They’re torn up that bad?" Zenith reached up to feel his own ears, noticing the cuts, notches, and holes left from assumedly the debris inside the cockpit. He wondered how torn up he’d really gotten from that attack. His ears were mostly intact, at least it felt that way.
"Oh, not too bad. Little bit of a reminder ‘s all." Lex gestures towards the ship and starts walking toward it, Zenith following him. "Suits ya well, don’t ya worry kid. Here’s what we hauled ya back in." The mechanic yanks on the large sheet and then rolls it up in his hands, at a certain point the rest of it folding down to the floor. He works on tossing it aside as Zenith walks up to his ship, shocked at the sight.
"Holy shit." Zenith crouched down to look at the underside of the cockpit area, seeing a massive hole torn through the bottom of that part of the hull. It was like an explosive had gone off under there, taking out a large part of the ship. "Here and there, huh?"
"Maybe that was a little generous, aye?" Lex tosses the sheet to the side. "She’s got some serious issues, that’s f’sure. Nothin’ that can’t be fixed, but any lesser of a ship would be scrapped." Zenith walked around the ship, looking at the torn up atmospheric flight blades, obliterated thrusters. The ship was properly torn up. Whatever he’d been shot with certainly wasn’t some kind of single-shot rail gun.
"Do you know what could’ve done this kind of damage?" Zenith reaches the back of the ship, followed closely by Lex. The engines on the back are mostly intact, although some are warped or crooked. One of them is destroyed completely, flared out and gutted itself.
"Some kinda scatter shot, suppose. Military gear or somethin’. Whatever it was, pretty armor piercin’ to tear through that Blackwood Steel." Lex summoned over a ladder that carted itself over, climbing up and getting a better look at the wing. "Heavy or piercing, hard t’say. You wanna look?"
"Definitely, yeah." Lex got down and let Zenith up. He peered over the top of the ship, noticing the massive structural damage throughout. He was certain that Olwen hadn’t survived this now, especially not a head-on shot like that. Zenith quickly buried the thought.
"Saw the radio’s stuffed on her. Convenient for ya." Lex unholstered his PDA, seemingly connecting to the ship’s computers remotely as some lights blinked to life in the cockpit. Zenith started down the ladder.
"Expensive fix, isn’t it?" Zenith asked, hopping off the last rung of the ladder a little haphazardly. He cringed slightly from the biting pain, shaking it off rather quickly though. Lex snickered.
"Take it easy boy, that medicine’s not some miracle product." Lex smirked, and Zenith nodded with a sigh. "Anywho, yep, expensive fix. Luckily for ya, that means you’re untraceable on the way to the nearby Space Hub. Even better, if ya mod your transponder, the ship won’t be crying on the Exogrid about it. Convenient, aye?"
"Certainly keeps eyes off me, I suppose." Zenith looks at the ship. "Let’s get the radios reprogrammed then." Lex nods and heads over to his diagnostic station, plugging it back into the ship as he gets to work.
"You got a code you want to use for your transponder? Got’ta check the network on what’s available, but ya never know." Lex looks over at Zenith, who had moved the ladder over to the cockpit and was making his way into the ship.
"Hmm." Zenith paused and thought for a moment, then continued. "You got any ideas?"
"Well…" Lex lightly tapped the keys with his fingers. "Could be ‘Velvet-33’, that’s what the system suggests, hah."
"That’s a little… too flowery for my taste." Zenith chuckles, cracking the cockpit open. He was hit with the potent scent of his old blood, then the sight of the cockpit. It was a proper horror show inside. Every panel of the ship was at least splattered with a few droplets of blood, others with messy hand smears. His seat was the worst, the black-and-gold styling of the security-issue hardware almost completely dyed red. "Uh… You got crimson available?"
"Hm." Lex typed it in. "Looks like there’s a CRIMSON-1 for ya, if you want it. Surprised that wasn’t taken, hah. ‘s a bit edgy but can’t fault ya."
Zenith climbed into the cockpit. "Go for it." He looked at the control panel, which was equally as messy and gruesome a sight. "You’ve got cleaning equipment too, right?"
"Thankfully, yeh. But all that’s not gon’ wash out too good, and the smell’s gonna stay ‘til you can get the cockpit rebuilt." Lex starts the programming process, grabs some basic cleaning supplies and heads up the ladder with them. "Could help ya clean in there, if ya don’t mind being cozied up with a bird for a while."
"Sure, that’d be great. The less time I gotta be bent over cleaning the better. Whole body aches, eheh." Zenith smiled at Lex who snickered.
"Oh, wait until you’re properly old, boy. You’ll learn to deal with that, hah." Lex hops into the cabin with him, handing Zenith his half of the cleaning tray. "Or those scientists of yours have some remedy for that, heck if I know."
The two spend the next few hours cleaning the inside of the cabin to make it a little more hospitable, casually conversing the whole time. By the end of it, you could barely tell someone had almost died inside the ship. That is, if you ignored the bloodstained fabrics of the pilot’s seat. That was a little harder to clean, and Lex didn’t have the right cleaner for the fabrics used here. Regardless, Zenith used some of the remaining patch panels from inside the cabin to patch up the external holes in the cockpit the best he could. This thing had to be vacuum-tight if it was going to make it into a space hub, after all.
"So, doc, how’s she test?" Zenith carefully got down from the ladder, the cockpit closing itself up as Lex fired up the diagnostic program. The ship’s electronics kicked on, internal generators screaming to life as the landing lights almost blinded Zenith.
"Lookin’ good. The seal’s passin’ now, far better than it was. Was leakin’ real bad before, now she’s pretty tight. Transponder took the programming too, so yer good to go." Lex closed up the diagnostic computer, leaning on the diagnostic cart with a hand. "How are ya, tho? You space-worthy, Zenith?"
"Yeah, good enough. Better to get moving than stay a sitting duck." Zenith extends a hand, Lex shaking it. "You’re a good guy, Lex."
"Oh, thank ya. Just doing right by you, is all. Awfully young to be burned like this."
"So I’ve been told." Zenith feigns a smile. "I’ll work it out."
"Good luck to ya, kid. You’ve got my code, so if yer ever needing someone to catch a drink with, just ping me, aye?" Lex grinned at Zenith. "Don’t be a stranger."
"I’ll hold you to that." Zenith’s heart sank a bit as his mind made some unpleasant connections in the moment. Nevertheless, he did his best to not show it, nodding to Lex.
"Ya better, kid. Stay safe out there." Lex hit a switch on his belt and all the mechanic’s equipment began following him into the ship bay’s storage area, the bird whistling away to himself as he left. Zenith couldn’t help but be amused by the colorful character.
Zenith’s trip to the nearby space hub was far from eventful. Sitting in the cockpit of a dead ship is one of the most boring experiences he’s ever had, but a necessary one if he was ever going to fly this ship again. For one, something he’d learned in flight school was that you had to face your near-death experiences, not hide from them. That meant sitting in the same seat he’d almost died in, even if it did leave him feeling a bit uneasy the whole way. It was also proving useful to figure out what exactly was broken. The mechanic’s report might’ve been clear to Lex, but the terms those mechanic tool suites use didn’t align with anything Blackwood used. Zenith had dug out a pen, going through the list and rewriting the names of various pieces of equipment, checking them as he got through testing them.
Being radio-free also meant that he had to let the researchers negotiate the ship bay entry for the both of them, which was a little hairy. It’s not often that a research vessel hauls in a military craft, especially a disabled one with no radio. Regardless, from what Zenith could tell, things went without a hitch. His ship moved from behind the research vessel to beside it, being touched down on the landing pad by a large arm that was typically used for excavation, apparently. His landing gear deployed, and the ship slammed roughly into the ground, knocking Zenith’s pen out of his hands. Bit of a crap landing, but he’d been in worse as a co-pilot.
Zenith locked the ship up and hopped out onto the landing bay floor, gritting his teeth slightly before he started over to the researchers exiting their ship. He waved to them and lightly jogged over.
"Thanks for the tow, guys." Zenith grinned. "Bit of an unusual sight coming in, I’m sure."
"Certainly was," a Ventara that was seemingly the captain of this particular ship replied. "Baymaster didn’t want to let us in at first, had to flash some Collective creds before they were happy. Should be all good now. They didn’t ask many questions."
"Oh, good. Well, thank you for everything. I’ll be figuring out my way out of all this now on my own, will do my best to stay out of your feathers." Zenith chuckled. Most of the researchers had split off already, the remaining few a little amused.
"Wish you luck, Zenith. Better get that ship of yours to a shop as soon as you can." The captain nodded to him, Zenith returning the nod and waving as they split off to head their own separate ways. They were surely taking the trip to the hub as an opportunity to enjoy themselves for the day. There are a ton of fun things to do at a space hub; they’re nicknamed "space malls" for a reason after all. Unfortunately, Zenith was here on business.
After a bit of searching the hub’s directory on his PDA, he found a shop that seemed to be fairly reputable. With only 30k credits to his name in emergency funds, it was gonna be a stretch to get both a room and his ship in order within that budget. Regardless, the ship mattered the most – even if he had to bum around and sleep in his ship the next day. Zenith checked the hub’s map and set off to the shop he’d picked.
"40,000 credits? Seriously?" Zenith was sticker-shocked for sure. 30k would typically be enough for most of a ship, so that bill was insane.
"We don’t work on these Blackwood ships ever," replied the owner of the shop. He was a Nocterra, a foot short of Zenith in height. Anything but adorable, though. This bat would screw you if you let him, at least that’s what it seemed. "Gonna have to make custom parts. Your ship’s got more holes in it than a net, too. We gotta rewire most the ship, and these Blackwood Interceptors have some huge wire harnesses. How’d you tear this thing up so bad anyway?"
"Certainly wasn’t anything too pleasant." Zenith folded his arms. "You can’t be serious with 40k though."
"I’m dead serious. We’re gonna have to basically rebuild the thing to fix all of this. At least a full day of work, and I mean 24 hours straight." The Nocterra shook his head. "You oughta just get picked up and have this thing scrapped."
"Can’t do that, need it fixed. I’ve gotta get going pretty quick, can’t wait for a pickup." Zenith dropped his arms down, looking back at the ship that had been towed over.
"What’cha in such a rush for anyway?" The bat looked up at him suspiciously. "I’ve never heard of any Valen asking for service on their military issue ships from strangers before. This is all a bit strange to me."
"What can you do for 20k?" Zenith looked down at the Nocterra rather sternly. "I won’t be answering any questions about what I’m up to." Pretty typical response from a Blackwood pilot. The mechanic took that at face value, convincing enough.
"Eh." He looked over at the ship, thinking, then back to Zenith. "Could get her flying again, your radios fixed up. Lot of the fancy gadgets are a bit of a nightmare to wire up, so you’ll have to get that fixed when you’ve got a bit more budget." He shrugs. "We don’t have any Blackwood Steel though, so you’ll have some soft spots unless you can source some."
"Got quite a few patch panels inside, could possibly rework those?" Zenith suggested.
"Probably. Works well enough. If you trust my shop to handle those, at least," the mechanic chuckled. Zenith seemed unamused. "Kidding. I’ll keep a nice log of the work we do for you. Should be up to your standards, we don’t nick stuff."
"Very reassuring." Zenith sighed. "Will have to do for now. Where’s your payment terminal?" The bat turned around and grabbed a pad off the counter, slotting it into his PDA and dialing in the charge. He turned it to Zenith, the price on screen.
"There ya go." Zenith dug out his unnetworked, emergency payment card and tapped it to the pad, authorizing the payment with a finger press. "Anonymous card, huh? Someone’s doing some spy work, aren’t ya?"
"No questions." Zenith stuffed the card back into a pocket.
"Whatever, mister hot shot." The mechanic rolled his eyes. "I’ll ping you when your ship’s good to go. Give us 24 hours at least, we’ll update you once we cross that time. Hopefully I overestimated the amount of work we’ve gotta do."
"Yeah, hopefully." Zenith chuckled and shook his head. "Thanks anyway. Would appreciate some discretion as well, if you could."
"You were never here, kid." The mechanic winks. Zenith smirks and waves, heading off and into the rest of the space hub. He was certain that Nocterra was gonna ask him for more when he went to go pick his ship back up. Would have to be a bit careful with the expenditures.
The interior of this particular hub was quite pleasant. Maintained by the Ventara’s government, The Collective, and positioned neatly by the Koshyo’s home planet Theta, the station featured various native flora to the planet decorating the open spaces. In some places it almost felt like you were walking down a street on a planet, strolling past clothing stores, restaurants, you name it. This particular hub was a rather bustling one, Zenith navigating through a few light crowds of just about every type of folk on his way to the rental rooms. The scents of the restaurants were rather alluring. Zenith remembered just how long it had been since he’d sat down and had a real meal. He must’ve been still just barely running off IV drip, or something else. Zenith was starving, though, quickly making his way to the hub’s food court.
Zenith didn’t stick around long, though. He swung through and picked up a to-go meal. It was a fairly simple chicken and rice dish with some very fresh-tasting, fried vegetables stirred into it. The smell was enough to make him drool, but he had to get somewhere a little more private before he decided to settle down. He was fairly certain that he’d just pass out the second his stomach had something in it, his eyes feeling far heavier than they had on the way over already. The long walk certainly wasn’t helping things, although all the greenery was rather comforting. He continued admiring the décor of the hub, idly fiddling with the container of food and holding back his desire to just sit down, open it up and scarf everything down.
There were some large displays every so often in the halls of the hub that would show various things. Most often, they displayed a basic news ticker of current events as reported by the news organizations spread throughout Magnus. There was a headlining story that kept popping up about Blackwood that Zenith had yet to catch on his walk, but he finally got to give it a read as he neared the room he’d reserved. The story was titled "Blackwood Security Killed During Illegal Arms Trade." The short summary below it said "Two security pilots were killed while engaging in an illicit exchange with pirates. The exchange was intercepted by Blackwood Military." There was a rather disturbing image of a Blackwood Interceptor alongside the article, a massive hole right through the center of its cockpit. At least that unknown was resolved now.
The only thing Zenith could be particularly happy about in that moment was that the report said he had died. It was a somewhat recent report, from a number of hours ago. The researchers said they’d wait to radio another day if he got his ship into a shop as soon as possible, which he of course did. Blackwood wasn’t looking for him yet, at least he hoped they wouldn’t be. At the very least, he’d be a ghost for a while. The idea of hiding from his own government was still a strange thought, even if they’d seemingly betrayed him and Olwen as they had. It was all off, nothing that happened made sense for it to have been Blackwood’s doing. Regardless, though, there they were, lying about what happened to reporters. Blackwood even making a statement about pilots getting killed was unusual alone. They certainly had something to hide.
Unsurprisingly, puzzling over this wasn’t proving to help his mood at that moment. Hungry, sore, sad, and tired were all words that described Zenith at that moment. He exhaled sharply out his nose as he finally got to the door into his temporary accommodation. He dug the payment card out once more and hit it against the payment terminal adjacent to the door, confirming the payment with a thumb. The bulky, automatic door unlatched and opened, Zenith walking in as it hissed and latched behind him. Typical behavior for one of these rooms, especially ones with the security package he’d specifically paid for. Had a cool little feature where it’d set off alarms if someone was trying to get into the room, which would give you just a few extra seconds to react. Very handy.
The room was quite nice, featuring a large, thick window that could be digitally dimmed. It looked out into space, having quite a pleasant view of Theta, the colorful home of the Koshyo, right outside the window. There was also a large bed with two side tables, one on each side, as well as a large monitor across from the end of the bed. It was cycling through a few screens, similar to the ones in the hallway. This one seemed to enjoy providing information about the climate controls in the room for whatever reason. Zenith wasn’t too worried about that, though. He sat down on the side of the bed and finally tore open his meal, slowly digging into it and giving himself a bit of time to enjoy the flavors. It tasted far better than it smelled, and it smelled quite nice. Either that, or his body was just begging for anything. It was hard to tell. It was a more than satisfying portion of rice, though, Zenith wrapping up his meal by slamming down the bottle of water he’d ordered with it. He sat there for a few minutes feeling rather satiated, tapping his spoon against the bottom of the container idly as he continued to process things.
Everything was a bit overwhelming for Zenith at the moment. He’d had his breakdown already in the medical bay. Now it was just all a bit numbing, especially with how helpless he still felt. Even if his ship was fixed, it wasn’t any more capable than it was. He wasn’t even sure who he was up against – was this some sort of effort by Blackwood itself? Or some splinter group within the military? Was there one person directing all of this? Or was this all just some knotted mess he hadn’t untangled yet? He had all the time in the galaxy to figure that out, at least he hoped. Zenith unholstered his sidearm and set it down on the side table next to his bed.
He took his PDA off his belt and tossed that onto the bed, unfastening his belt and folding that up onto the side table. Zenith tapped his flight suit on the neck and dragged a finger down to about his mid abdomen. He pressed in and the advanced, thin, and overall body conforming bodysuit unsealed and split down the middle rather neatly. Zenith slid the arms of the suit off himself, pushing it off his legs before lifting it up and fastening it to a hanger in the closet near his bed. He took a moment to look at himself in the mirror of his room, noticing how beat up his ears had gotten. Lex was right, though. It wasn’t too bad. If anything, he was already learning to like the look a bit. Getting cosmetic work done would be impossible in his current situation, anyway. Luckily, looks like he’d survived without any lasting gashes or major scars, even on his arms. Those meds really work some magic.
Zenith climbed into bed and grabbed his PDA, flicking through the menus on it and clearing out all of the Blackwood-related software he’d installed on there. It was his PDA he’d purchased on his own, not one that Blackwood had given him, so he was pretty certain he knew what was and wasn’t on there before. It was pretty easy to anonymize the PDA this way, although he was slightly concerned about being tracked from stuff he did earlier as he’d networked the thing to navigate the hub. It should’ve been read-only network access, but he was a bit paranoid, nevertheless. He turned his PDA off and set it on the bedside table, taking one last look at his sidearm for the evening.
Zenith uttered out "Room, night mode," and just about as fast as the voice system could react and knock the lights down, the Valen was fast asleep. The bed was infinitely more comfortable than the one he’d spent a whole day sleeping on with the Ventara. It was almost blissful for the sore pilot, finally having a comfortable break with some real privacy. He was already dreaming, and luckily, it wasn’t a nightmare.
"Told you I’d get a drink with you, dummy," Olwen teased Zenith, ruffling his friend’s head fur. Zenith was quite sad, holding his drink and sipping it. "Why so glum, bud?"
"You’re dead, aren’t you?" Zenith looked at his friend a little teary-eyed. This all felt a little unfair, just as he’d almost properly buried these feelings.
"Oh, quiet, you. Enjoy the moment. I made you a promise, and I was gonna keep it. Even if it’s not quite, you know. Heh. What I imagined it to be." Olwen smiled, setting his drink down on the counter as it disappeared into the smoke of the bright, abstract background of this idea of a bar. "You’re gonna do me right, aren’t you?"
"I- I think? I don’t know what to do, Olwen. You were, you know, the one guy I trusted pretty much." Zenith slams down the rest of his drink, setting the cup aside. "What does that even mean, what do I need to do?"
"Heck if I know. Just, don’t give up, alright?" Olwen sets a hand on Zenith’s shoulder. "You’ll figure it out, you always do. There’s no rules anymore, you’ve gotta write ‘em. No more excuses." Olwen chuckles.
"Alright…" Zenith sighs. "I won’t give up, I promise." Zenith smiles a little at Olwen. Olwen grabs Zenith and pulls him in for a big hug, crushing Zenith a bit in that awkwardly strong way he used to.
"That’s the spirit, dude." Olwen lets him go. "See you around. Live your life, buddy."
Zenith is rather abruptly awoken by the scream of the alarm of his room, the lights on. He immediately grabs his sidearm and aims at the nearest, unusual, blurry blob of color in his room. He blinks his eyes clear, sitting up in bed and fumbling his way out of it, aimed at the stranger all the while.
"Who the hell are you?!" Zenith shouts, the rooms alarms muting at the sound of his voice. The figure was most clearly a female Koshyo with light blue fur. Seeing one of these dragon-looking folks in space was incredibly rare in itself, but one of this color was especially unusual. "Back away, now!" The female backed towards the window, opposite the room’s door.
"I’m here to help, Zenith," the Koshyo replies, her hands up as she calmly retreats.
"Yeah, sure, help arrives by breaking into my room. How did you even get in here?" Zenith glances around, seeing no obvious entry points. "And how do you know my name?" Zenith narrowed his eyes. She nods, still as calm as ever.
"It’s simple, Zenith. One’s name is etched into their mind, it’s quite easy to retrieve." She smiles at him. "Similar to how I know your ship’s coded as CRIMSON-1."