Synth

The conversation with Tham took longer than TO though it would. The way that Chilacian families worked, or in truth, the way any civilian family worked, was still complicated to TO, and comparing and comparing how Chilacian family structures worked in comparisons was proving to be a difficult task. All they felt they had to know was that they had an Ankyra. And they had their mate, and they had others who they loved and who they considered family like Avery and GiDi. By extension, Pearla was their family as well, as was Tham… but trying to describe this using a combination of common words and Chilacian words which didn’t have a Galactic common equivalent. Tham also seemed to be struggling with the idea that an actual blood relation had little influence on the makeup of a pod once a juvenile had grown up.

In the end, DH interrupted them so TO could take some pain medication. Tham sighed and got up as they did, getting out of the way. Wordlessly, he headed to the elevator and TO worried that he’d take off and not come back. Pearla had asked them to spend some time with Tham and try to befriend him and while the task appeared to be going much more easily than TO first expected it would, they didn’t know how it would go if they had to search for Tham tomorrow.

“There’s other simulations we can run.” TO said, “Maybe DH could find a way to link you in properly so we can run more interesting ones.” They remembered the game that Flit had challenged TO to before, which TO had lost miserably. A little practice with Tham might be good for them to get used to the game before they challenged Flit again.

Tham stopped at the elevator and turned around. “What, you want me to come back?” He asked.

They recalled the plan made with Pearla, and the reason TO would give for spending time with Tham. “There’s little I can do with my injury, and I’m exceedingly bored.” They said. “I would enjoy the company.”

“But DH is here.” Tham said with a frown, “You have company.”

“I am here.” DH said, “But I’m also trying to fix some sudden issues that came up with our systems here.”

Issues? What issues were there? They wanted to ask but they had to convince Tham first.

“Maybe.” He said as the elevator opened before him. “Well see. I might have things to do.”

Maybe was better than a no, and TO nodded as Tham stepped into the elevator and disappeared behind the sliding doors.

“Had fun then?” DH asked as they passed TO their medication. “He was here for a while.”

“He was…” TO said as they took the tiny pills from DH and swallowed them, chasing them with a chug of water from the water bottle next to them. “I do have a question.” They glanced over at Vik, making sure the small hacker was still focused in on his work. He was. “You know the compressed air we use for cleaning electrical equipment?”

“Of course I do.” DH said, “I use them all the time to keep the setup down here clean.”

“Right.” TO said, “I am aware that the new kinds lack the chemicals to induce a high and have most of the bad effects, but what side effects might there be to trying to inhale it anyway.”

With a slow blink of their eyes and a dip of their ears, DH considered the question. “I.. I would have to look into that?” They said, uncertain of themself in this. “It’s not something that’s come up before…” They frowned and stared at TO with wide eyes. “Don’t tell me Tham-“

“There’s a bunch of cannisters in the hallway.” They said. “I have no idea how much he consumed trying to get high, but I need to know if there might be health issues as a result.”

Eyes wide, DH nodded, “I’ll took into it.” They said. “… How many canisters did he go through?”

“No idea.” TO said. “I have one. The others are still in the hall.”

DH sighed and turned to the elevator, “I’ll go check.” They said. “I swear, if he isn’t going to have medical issues from trying to inhale who knows what, he’s going to have medical issues from me if he’s used all my condensed air.”

======

There was something to be said for a medicated sleep. The way TO’s mind would get slippery as it slipped down into a warm, comfortable sleep was nice, even if TO hated the way they slowly lost control of their mind before that. They generally wanted to be active, to be helpful and productive, and their mind always fought against the way the medication made their body so tired. Once their mind slipped through that phase and sunk under the ocean of medicated calmness as well they were happy enough to sleep for as long as they could.

Waking up was generally more pleasant. The exception to that was when there was clearly something important going on around them and they couldn't quite manage to drag themself from sleep as quickly as they liked. This time, that was what happened. It was as though several frantic voices were talking, and TO's mind had woken up but their body was taking far longer. They had no idea how long it actually took them to wake: It would have been hours or it could have been seconds, but in the end it didn't matter: The half-lucid frustration they felt stretched out regardless.

When they finally had the strength to open their eyes and take in their surroundings, they immediately knew that there was something wrong. Flit, Snout, GiDi, and Pearla, had come down and were talking to Vik and DH at their computer. That was normal enough, and wouldn't have worried TO too much. Even Tham being there again didn't bother them, since Tham slept down there with the rest of them.

Pholi and Noss, on the other hand, hadn't come to their floor since takeoff. TO hadn't seen Noss at all since he got on the ship and just assumed he was staying out of sight. Honestly, that was the wise option given that most of the others on the ship probably wouldn't be thrilled to see the former Minister of Security.

"I don't think surrender is an option." Noss said, dabbing his forehead with his already soaked handkerchief. "King Decon is utterly unforgiving! More than I thought." his eyes were wide with fear as he looked from person to person. "I'd have said maybe if we surrendered he'd spare regular citizens but after the whole nearly murdering everyone on Arkane thing I'm willing to bet he wouldn't!"

"Not even the children?" GiDi asked. "He can't possibly thing that they're complicit in any of this. Half of them can hardly talk right yet!"

"It wouldn't be a punitive action." Flit said with a sigh. "It would be preventative. Kill everyone involved and the issue never comes up again. It's also efficient; the easiest course of action would be attacking the ship itself."

TO pulled themself to a sitting position, groaning slightly as they did. DH's gaze snapped from the screen and went right to DO. "Sorry. we didn't mean to wake you-"

"Don't worry about that." TO said, "What's happening." Whatever it was, it didn't sound good. The time for 'surrendering' was supposed to have been long past by now. They were supposed to be free!

"We're being followed." Vik said. he sent something to TO's chip and when they opened it they saw a simplified map of the solar system with two highlighted dots basically right on top of one another. Thankfully, this didn't worry TO too much right away. When seeing even a portion of a star chart, or even something relatively small as a solar system's map, two dots sitting on top of one another could still be a planet's width away. They selected the dots, and pulled up comparisons.

The other ship was still very far away. They weren't in attacking range, so TO at first saw no need to worry about it. However, after watching the numbers for a few minutes they saw the problem; The distance between them was slowly growing smaller.

The other ship was catching up.

TO did the math quickly in their head. The other ship would catch them within a galactic day; within 40 hours.

"Accelerate." TO said simply. "Our ship is going at a fraction of it's top speed. We can still accelerate and get out of the solar system faster. Once we're out, it'll be much harder for that ship to track us."

"Our top speed is lower right now." DH said. "Due to all the extra weight."

"A moment." Pholi said, "We're in space. weight shouldn't matter in space, right?"

"Weight matters in space." Flit said. "It's not the same effect as what we'd experience on a planet, but in escaping the solar system we are attempting to escape the sun's gravitational pull." They paused, frowning as they crossed their arms, their ears twitching as they figured the best way to describe the situation. "Imagine this solar system's sun as being 'down'. We're going 'up' and trying to escape it's gravitational pull. The effect is far less obvious, but it's still there. We're also dealing with the gravitational pull of other planets which affects the entire solar system."

"I thought we were doing something with the planets to save fuel." Noss said as he searched his pockets for a fresh handkerchief. the one he was using appeared to be entirely saturated.

"We are." Flit said. "But only specific planets. We're still being affected by the others, in a small way."

"What percentage of our max speed can we go at?" TO asked. They didn't' have all the numbers before them to do the calculations themself.

"87%." DH said.

"The ships we saw in Decon's fleet were designed for combat and destruction, not efficient travel like ours is." TO said, "If it's one of those, I think we can still go faster than they can." They looked away from their screen and to DH, "What are we travelling at now?"

"30%." DH said.

TO did a bit more math in their head. "Go to 62%." They said. "Just get us to that speed, and get us out of the solar system. We can cut the engines afterwards and drift for a while before we have to readjust our trajectory. It might add a day or so to our travel time... But it's better to get there hungry than it is to not get there at all."

"The ship following us will be able to catch up, TO." DH said.

"Civilian ships can't match the speed of even the older Synth vessels." TO said, "And these small ships are the speediest long distance vessels there are. Anything faster needs a mothership as a support vessel to travel any significant distance."

"I know." DH said, "But that's the problem. The ship chasing us is the exact same as ours."

A brief moment of confusion passed over TO before they put the pieces together. "Oh." They said, their eyes widening. "It's Kei's ship?"

DH nodded, and there was only one word TO could find to respond with.

"...Fuck."