Synth

TO almost wished that DH hadn’t given them that medicine infused water as the pain In their body would have stopped their mind from its spiral of thoughts. They kept placing themself at the front of the maze of events and trying to find an alternative solution to everything, but they could find nothing. Had they not done everything they could? Had they not done everything right?

No matter what, they couldn’t think of a way they could have influenced things from the point where they woke up to the moment when Mark was shot which would have kept Mark safe. Yes, they could have left Mark at the split in the hallway, but then what? What if Kei had gone that way, rushing to the ship instead of having Lake bound in the storage room? TO didn’t know, and Kei doing that was a lot more logical in TO’s mind.

Besides, if TO left Mark at the split in the tunnels, Lake still would have rushed past on the way to the ship, telling Mark what was going on before taking Constance and bringing her to the ship while Mark made his way to the storage room to get shot.

“… Where’s Constance?” TO asked as DH pushed them into their small living area. The control room where TO and DH had spent so much time in relative peace on the way to Arkane was instantly comforting to TO, despite the fact that there were two civilians there–an older one with thin, spindly legs, and a younger who seemed thinner than was healthy–strapped into the chairs that TO and DH used for landing.

“She’s up in the weapons bay,” DH said, “with the others. She’s safe, and she’s ready for launch-“

“She’s supposed to be with us.” TO said, “I promised Mark-“

“I know.” DH whispered, “She’s safe, though, and you need medical help as soon as possible. As soon as we’re out of here, you need medical attention.”

They couldn’t get the wheelchair further back into their living quarters, so DH picked TO up from the chair, held them carefully in their powerful arms, and carried them. Despite what TO could recognize as potent g painkillers, the movement in their knee sent a spasm of pain through their body and made them cry out in agony.

“Shh, it’s ok.” DH promised, “It hurts, I know. I’ve got your knee bound so it won’t get damaged anymore.”

How bad was their knee damaged already? TO hadn’t even considered that yet. They recalled every strange twist and crack and pop, their mind replaying the feeling of something ripping in their knee.

“How bad is it?” TO whispered.

“… I don’t know.” DH said as they lay TO down in the bed. They carefully arranged TO’s limbs before picking up straps at the edges and using them to bind TO to the mattress. “I can look when we get off this planet. Whatever’s wrong, we’ll fix it, I promise.”

Once TO could lay still and the straps held them in place, the pain once more gave way to the strange coolness that seemed to cover every other aching part of them, they breathed a sigh of relief. Their relief only lasted for a few seconds though as their brain once more beat against the walls of the maze, looking for any better path they could have taken.

“TO…” DH’s voice was soft, but as TO glanced over, they could see the worried way their ears flicked. “… I can’t give you any more medication right now. With the injuries you have, I’d rather have you unconscious for launch, but we don’t have time for that.”

“It’s fine.” TO said, “I’m not in pain-“

“You were when I picked you up, and it’s going to be worse in a minute.” DH said. “I… I can’t even hold your hand. I have to keep my mattress against the other wall for support.”

TO nodded, “Alright.” They said, their ears dipping. The one thing TO wanted in the galaxy at this moment was for DH to be close, to hold them while they took off. They wanted to hold on to their mate while pain arched through them. That was impossible though: they had to lie flat like this during launch.

“It’s going to hurt badly.” DH said.

“…. Can I have something to bite on?”

DH nodded and rushed to the medical table where they grabbed a clean towel, twisted it, and held it to TO’s mouth. It wasn’t so thick that it was uncomfortable, but it would keep TO from grinding their teeth or biting their tongue. Once that was done, DH took out their communicator.

“Tham… is everyone ready?” they asked.

“Yes, we’re all ready up here.” Tham’s voice had a strange echo on the communicator, but it was clear nevertheless.

“Alright, are you secured?” DH asked as they lay on their bed, adjusting straps over their legs.

“Yes. I used my tail to turn on the communicator, but I don’t think I can use it to turn it off again.” He sighed, “Still, I taped the communicator to the floor next to me, so at the very least, it won’t go flying and hit someone.”

Ah, that would explain why his voice seemed so weird.

“Alright. Prepare for launch.” DH said as they slipped the band on their wrist over their hand, connecting their chip.

“My chip.” TO said, suddenly realizing how bad it was that it was gone. Without the chip, TO had no access to any parts of the ship! “Did Kei leave it behind, or-“

“They didn’t.” DH said, their ears pinning back as TO mentioned Kei. “But Vik can make you another.”

“But if Kei has the chip, they have access to all my files, my messages-“

“Kei’s working on that. Don’t worry.” DH said. “Just… Brace yourself.” They strapped themself in, slipped another band over their chest, then made a gesture with their hand. A moment later, TO could hear the ship powering up. The hum of the ship’s engines turned into a powerful road from the engines in the lower pits of the landing bay. The ship shook with a force that TO had never experienced before, and they didn’t like it.

no, nothing’s wrong. I never saw the ship do this before because it’s never taken off from a planet before. They strained to look at the screens over by the control panel, but the way DH strapped them down made that impossible. They attempted, on instinct, to check their chip for any error reports, but they had that same awful mental block which made them feel as though they were trying to move a limb they no longer had. “DH!” TO called over the noise, “Do all the readings look ok?”

“No Alerts.” DH called back, “Everything looks fine!”

The ship shuddered, then moved. Movement was slow at first as the ship rose from the ground and hovered a safe distance in the air above the city before initiating the actual takeoff. The previous roar of the engines had clearly been just a warmup, as now the force of the engines seemed to dominate every sense as the force of their sudden vertical movement hit them all at once like a massive weight against their body pushing them into the mattress. Their knee once more exploded in pain, but the noise drowned TO’s scream out as they surged forward. They tried to breathe, tried to focus their mind as they had back in the storage room with Kei, but they couldn’t seem to catch their breath, couldn’t seem to hold a thought.

Their vision went white with the pain, their lungs burned as they tried to gasp for air. Then their vision went black, and everything was blissfully silent.

======

Anxious voices filtered through the silence of TO’s unconsciousness, pulling them from blackness and back into the waking world where their knee still ached, but the pain was a mere echo of what it had been once. The worse of it, the core of the pain still burned inside them, but the rest seemed to have developed that dull coolness.

“….early….. targets….”

“….What…. Evasive…. Weapons systems…”

Whatever was being talked about seemed important, and once TO was able to think properly again, they dragged their mind from unconsciousness, their eyes opening to the comfortable lights of their ship. They attempted to push themself to a sitting position as they could feel the straps absence from their body, but the moment they did an awful pain arched through their arm and knee, driving them back down.

Right. they had hurt their arm back in the storage room. They recalled landing on it funny, but it hadn’t hurt this badly before.

“TO!” DH, who had been at the control panels, rushed to TO’s side, a hand on their shoulder, “I’m sorry. You were unconscious. Once we get to safety, I’m going to-“

“Safety?” TO frowned, “Did the launch fail?”

“It didn’t, but-“

“Let them see.” It was Flit’s voice that came from the other side of the control room, near the control panels. “They need to see.”

“But, they can’t help-“

“Let me see, DH.” TO said, struggling again to prop themself up. This time DH only sighed and pushed TO gently up into a sitting position, propping them up with pillows so TO could rest and still see clearly.

Vik, Flit, and GiDi stood up on the other side of the room, watching the large screen before them. The image showed a fleet of ships, each one bearing the double spiral of Decon’s Crest.

“Decon’s fleet.” TO said, “It’s here.” They frowned as their eyes flicked over the ships. Most of them were familiar from the simulations back in training: the fleet’s mother-ship, a handful of defensive units, some repair units, and the tiny individual combat ships that circled the mother-ship. There was one ship which TO didn’t recognize; a massive vessel consisted of five rings that orbited a brightly glowing orb. It was massive compared to the other ships and gave off an overwhelming blue-white light.

“It’s a small fleet.” TO said, eyes flicking over the other ships, “That big one: It’s... “ They frowned as they looked over it. The orb was likely a power supply of some kind, and it seemed as though the ship had been made to transport the power supply rather than the power supply being used to fuel the ship. “A weapon, I’m guessing?”

“It might as well be.” Flit said, “It’s a Terraformer.”

It seemed odd to TO that they had never seen a Terraformer ship before, not even in photographs. With the proper knowledge of a planet’s makeup and geography, a Terraformer could use its immensely powerful laser to alter planets. Powered by the glowing core: a miniature, artificially created sun, the Terraformer had the power to melt ice-caps, trigger super volcanos, or increase the temperature of the core of the planet itself.

They were rare ships, given that the miniature sun could easily become unstable.

“...They’re going to do it.” TO said softly. “They’re really going to kill everyone on the planet.”

“Seems like it,” Flit said, their ears flicking back. “We knew that was likely. That’s why we got off the planet when we did.” They cursed under their breath, “How did we miscalculate though? I thought we had more time-“

“But we’re off the planet.” TO said as Flit’s reaction made a knot of panic form in their stomach, “We had enough time! We left early!” they looked from Flit, to GiDi, to Vik, then they looked up at DH, “We made it, right?”

“Not quite.” Flit said, “They sent a message to us. They’re blocking our escape until we allow them to board our ship.”