Piracy's Price Prisonbreak Written by septia. That night, Trix's info-bug would not return to their cell, but would be waiting outside, cloaked, silent. Its duty was not precision work, info-bugs of that calibre worked in swarms, forming a relay network and scoping out interiors. This one was alone, without any possibility of remote control. It was difficult to not act suspicious, to not turn her head every few moments to check on the outside… To think, if at any part of the programming she had entered a wrong parameter, all their work could be in vain. But she had tinkered for days, it had to work… right? She looked quizzically at Urlan. But the unkhari remained quiet. But her ears stood high… The final call for before lights out realed through the ship. Trix counted the seconds with beats of her antennae. Five… four… three… Lights out. Two… one… The drone wizzed to life -Zbsbt-, zipping off along the wall, through blind-spots in the monitoring. “How long?” Urlan whispered. “Two minutes, if all goes right. Three with leeway.” “And after four?” Trix swallowed. -Bbpprrwpwpth- a flutter of fumes snuck their way out of her cheeks, spritzing the air with a sprinkle of soggy wheat mold fried in greasy doubt… Urlan merely nodded. The info-bug tailed the last guard through the grate out of the prison segment, back up along the wall, sliding a maintenance hatch panel out of the way just enough to sneak by. It crept through husks of technology and artifice: functions hidden by frivolous design… . It followed paths into the guts of the machinery. Every step, every turn, and every shift mapped out, calculating for the weight of the Jyrr scale. -Ckkng- It clanked against the wall as it flew. The drone adjusted and continued. The scale, slipping, ever so slightly out of its grip. Trix was not spiritual, it was difficult for her to come to terms with the existence of the gynegean living deity if all the tales of the Vel’Ren were to be believed. Yet, at times it was comforting, to think that somewhere, tied to her very DNA, there was something looking over her. If it was true, she hoped it was looking now. -Cllcnk- Another stumble, the polished scale shifted in the info-bug's grippers. It moved along the arteries of the living light, finding the pathway to enter before the light was transmuted into the hard-light barriers. And if the schematics were correct, there would be a sluice grate… there. Too narrow for the bug to traverse. But on the other side it saw a tendril, a swirling, mellow helix of cyan, ade,and saffron yellow. The drone compressed, its form, folding thin to its bare necessities, and wedging, gently, through the gap, into the chamber of living light… Metal grating against metal, scratching the bottom of the grate… it was through. It shifted upwards, quick, so the light would not be able to process it yet. Right, in the coordinates Trix had transcribed… -Chhtnk- it deployed the scale, and mirrored not just photons but perception itself, warping the light back up into another of itself, cutting off access to just two branches the network fractured into, but the only two they needed. -Cbbrshst- With a zip of dissipating particles the lattice net over their cell vanished. Urlan rose. Outside, all was the same, with just their cell, and the control panel above, open… the bars dimmed. They started towards the gate. -Clsnk- The shard, slipped from the info-bug's grasp. Trix watched as Urlan stepped through over the threshold, as the light shimmered back into place, locking her behind… Urlan turned on a dime. Trix stared into the equine's face of dread and tears, standing so still they could bend in over her slick back mane. The jyrr scale flicked, in the artery, tilted? Then -Cthht- wedged stuck as the tube shrunk. Diverting the light, once more. The barrier between them fell, but the control panel a level above stood solid. But… the one at the far end of the corridor… “Halt where you are.” Came a voice of guards on patrol. Trix stared at the end of the hall in despair, then towards the guard, but as she did, she passed by Urlan's face … and she was grinning. “Keep them busy,” she shrieked, then buckled her knees, the triple jointed leg contracting, then erupted in an explosion of motion, pistoning the equine off the ground. The clack of three toed hooves a marching drum against the ground- Trix darted out, standing in the way of the two approaching guards, ducking and weaving in to pry the stun rifle from one’s grasp and using it as a cudgel to beat in the second's visor. But as she'd done that motion, Urlan was already at the end of the hall dashing into the control room, and laying her hands on the panel. Trix was struck in the back by the first guard, and in the distraction the second grabbed her antennae. Tension left her body straining and aching through her nerves. She manifested her recklessness with a headbutt into the helmet of the guard, enough of a shock for them to unleash her, before a sweep over the legs had them down, tumbling before the first guard. She turned to face them, they were on even height, but through the helmet she couldn't tell what they were, what she should look out for. -Brrzzkcrrt- A crackle spurted into a buzz, as lights beamed on through the ship, and all at once, the gates to the cells crumbled away into nothingness, fading into the aether. The Officer was caught off guard, and let Trix catch them, and get himself thrown off of the railing, falling three levels. Bet they really wished they'd gotten those railig supports now. -Crrllltrckt- A more pertinent, close buzzing distributed her neck, leading to a click. -Ckkrthc- And the prison collar unlatched. The yellowed suit acchordioned back into nothingness with it. The collar tumbling down behind her as she stood there, naked in the light. She heard a tsunami of the same snapping roar across the ship, as an army of nude prisoners, walked free. ~ 1 ~ The guards began to mobilize, but the prisoners crashed upon them in a tsunami of pent-up emotions and fervor. Trix watched as a semi-translucent, emerald creature below siphon mass from across their form into their abdomen, letting it billow free out and steamroll a pair of guards stationed nearby, the bulk slammed them to the ground, and through the hazy dermis she saw the slime stripping away layers of the guards’s clothes, fur, scales, skin, and muscle tissue. Elsewhere an imposing, bottom disproportionate, pale primate squashed their hind over a handful of guards, their struggles and cries smothered under their bulk “Fmmggh-.” -Chpprllgth- as their form shimmied along the silver clad bodes with the graze of an obese anaconda… -Shhfrlptth-. Wherever she turned where the shouts and screams of guards. Though, also those of the inmates. -Bbztbc- The guards were still equipped with handheld stun guns, beaming down inmates into limp heaps, but, for every few that fell, another guard was brought down. Had it all been for not…? She heard the clangs of Urlans's feet, as the captain jumped onto the railing. “Alright, ya sickening bunch of hecklers and starless, are you going to sit there and take it, like you've all been doing for month? Or… do ye all wanna show these pompous stiff lips,” then her neck arched back in a harrowing holler, “why they 'ad to lock us up here in the first place?” The cacophony of the ship stemmed up, a union of cries and shouts drumming through the crow. Urlan jumped to the next railing, kicking an officer aimed on her in the heat of the moment and jabbing a finger towards a layer above. “Cell number two, duck and move a layer below, constrict the reinforcements,” then another leap and shout, “Oknytt boy, put your knuckle head to use and man their control panels, they ain't getting their systems up and running again.” “On it, captain. I ain't staying in that slammer one second longer. But don't call me that,” Oknytt boy shouted and kicked the shins of a guard in front of him. The floral creature above phased down along the railing to the lower level in a tangle of vines, hooking tendrils around the guards coming in from the gateway to deeper in the ship, only for other inmates to converge upon them. Trix stood on the cusp of the cell, mesmerized by the cacophony of chaos spreading out before her. She saw a snouted alien project a sound wave to knock the armaments form the guards, before enveloping one in their prehensile appendage, the guard reduced to a series of bulges warping down their scaled coat. Elsewhere, the upright crustacean crammed a guard feet first into the gnawing snaps of its claw, but as they did a blast of light had them stiffened, toppling over like a dropped wineglass. “They may be better armed,” Urlan shouted as she stomped a guard's rifle into their chest, “but their artillery is soft, and we, don't, play, fair.” She shouted so the inmates erupted in a chorus of cheers. -Splltch- A droplet of liquid smattered into Trix's hair, she ducked back, peeking up to see an insectoid with sharpened forearms clutter the upper half of a guard with one pair of arms, and with the other two carving into the innards of the ÖA officer. -Chrhrothth- And hearing the sickening crunch and strain of slime clotting muscilage as an kloabarmk eel-looking beast collapsed his jaw around a guard from neck to gut, tearing off a 'V' shaped cavity in their frame where the guard's torso had been a moment prior, spitting out the connected head and chest before slithering to the next target on Urlan's command… “They took us for prisoner, we won't grant them the same courtesy,” Urlan cried. Trix honed back in on the captain; the figure of her storybooks, the protagonist and villain of many tall tales across the stars, there she stood in all her glory, commanding slaughter and dominion, allowing the naked horde to feast in regulated abandon. It was… just like her stories. Trix followed the naked equine's motions, the gestures, of command and encouragement. She followed the motion, eyes darting across the battlefield, witnessing the chaos dispersing, the guards devoured and maimed and fallen inmates, not a chaos, but a pattern. They were notes in arteries and tethers, forming a network, just like the living light of the ship's security… It was there all along, but Trix needed another perspective to comprehend it. So now that she saw it all as an intricate web, all leading back to Cion at its center, pulling the strings and bolstering moral as-… Cion? Trix's mother, Cion Vun'Aran, matriarch of the Vun'Aran branch of Gynegea's military, stood hoisted on the railing, commanding her troops… The mirage faded within moments, reality came back, and the superimposed silhouette of Cion vanished from Urlan. But she could still Cion, in her gestures, and actios of stirring the crew into action. Despite days of plaguing her stomach with coarse dehydrated wheat, and longing for real food… Trix, had lost her appetite. “Greenie,” Urlan shouted. Trix shuddered, but steeled herself. “What is it?” “Take the reins, I've got a straggler to catch.” “You want me, I can't-…” “Wasn't a request, I insist. We have them on thee ropes, tie the sack into a noose around their necks, Trix.” Urlan had spoken her name. Gathering herself, Trix leapt out, joining Urlan on the walkways, before the equine dashed off with a smile. Trix stared out over the field of chaos, the orchestra of combat. Seeing less and less inmates fallen, and more officers enveloped in orifices of flesh, scale, skin and slime, reduced to bloats and bulges squirming on the mobilized thugs’ bodies. Her stiff antenna eased into soft curls, and she and begun conducting. ~ 2 ~ On the outskirts of he structured calamity breaking through the prison ship, one officer hid away in an abandoned cell to the ships front. The pointy eared officer dialling a sequence into the side of her helmet. “Alert, Dendre vessel Zero one one compromised, code mauve seventeen, coordinates to-.” And that was as far as they got as a blur of white snapped through the air and cracked into the officer's helmet -KKKRtxxxrktsh- a crater of features shattered from the glass panel with the metal buckling, as the officer was flung into the cell, and knocked to rebound off of the toilet into the floor -Ctth-Dddnnsk-. “Rnwngns… ugpsh…” they wheezed, staring up at their assaulter. Urlan tapped her hoof to the ground in her waltz up to the guard. “Oi now, sure you've heard enough addege of snitches in jail now, ta know what fate befalls ‘em?” Urlan mused. The guard reached for their stun gun, but a with a clack with the equine's hoof stomped it out of their grasp. “Oh, oh no, don't get up, all,” she hummed, placing the hoof on the guard's torso, then snided, “allow me…” The three jointed leg reeled back, pinched like a piston before recoiling right into the officer's gut -Ththwhsp-. The jettisoned of the kick shoving them up against the wall “Prhhauuwss-,” she wheezed in her helmet, arms wrapping up over their chest. Urlan clicked her lips, grinding her three toed hoof into the officer's gut. “Bilvav fabric, shock it is shock absorbent, I never saw it fit myself to splurge on such suits, but considering your investment, this shouldn't hurt at all, ain't that right?” she grinned with clasped molars, folding her arms over her chest. In a whipping crack her leg spooled backwards and ricochet into the guard's gut -Twwwkdkng-. Then again -Shh-Tddndnskg-, and again. A flurry of strikes, each one knocking the ÖA guard higher up onto the smoothed wall, gravity having no chance to take them before another strike pummelled into their torso, the air awash with streaks of after-images of the equine's grey leg – giving the look of chalk-scribbels drawn back and forth into the officer. “Owuthhg paguahg, Ougha parigah-.” The guard choked back wheezes and grunts of pain in the salvo. “Haa, phaa, haa…” the pained utterances matching the rhythm of Urlan's breathing, her tongue hanging down her lip in the effort, but she wouldn't stop until the moment and force of her kicks had raised the officer all the way to standing height along the wall, so that when she stopped… -Ddfhth- The guard slumped standing, caved back against the wall, wheezing, shaking “Pha… aha. H-hah-… has been long since I got some proper exercise in,” she huffed out with a whistle, stepping up to the wall and pinning the guard’s neck down with her palm. “Moreover, jerks like you benefit from all the tenderizing ya can get,” she licked her lips. Urlan saw her reflection in the visor, the officer's choked neck contrasting hers, free of the prison collar. Her body feeling the recirculated air against her coat. “Mm… haa… it is so freeing to be out of that uniform; A grace I shan't grant you,” she mused. Urlan's clacked her lips, once, twice, each time her maw broadened, the stout muzzle gaping its black curtain to make way for radioactive pink flesh and tongue. A clack of a pickaxe striking a block of taffy rung out -Crhrglltwwhlp- as her jaw unhinged, displaying two rows of yellowed molar lining the entrance to the dark emptiness of her throat. Urlan craned her head over the guard's, the distended maw slotting down over the helmet, a squeal of rubber against glass as her lips ensnared the helmet, -Vhrlrlsgh-. Urlan hoisted her arm up along with the guard's neck, twisting her maw down to spread her jaw around their shoulders, guiding head and neck up along with her own grip into the confines of her maw -Chfrlpst-. “Haaofom aoomgpsh, ommpgs-…” Urlan mumbled out, straining her jaw as she arched her lips down over the officer, all the way along her cheeks her skin stretched and swelled in the outline of the helmet, the swallows furthering this obstruction to begin inflating her gullet… The equine alien gyrated her neck back straight, so her lower jaw rested against the officer's collarbone as she withdrew her hand -Shhrllrpth-. “Mmf fhrist grub in forever, and this bilvav fabric aint doing it for me. After all that effort to tenderize you, I've been craving something juicy…,” she mused with her maw full, cheeks blotted broad and spread to a matching oval around the perimeter of the guard's shoulders. The pressure in her amped up, as she -Oogughgsh- hoisted up the guard at the same time, arching down her upper body to swathe her way down the neck, over the chest, cheeks crammed with shoulder blades. Her teeth sinking into the fabric to grind into the skin beneath -Chhhrrlth-. She bit down, sending a chorus of spasms through the guard, rippling her cheeks, but this was suspended by the pressure of her jaws. Urlan twisted the guard in place as she swallowed, turning their shoulders closer to her teeth again before, another crunch -Chhhrhrg- the molars bracing against the guard's body, their suit reducing the impact, but the sustained pressure sweeping straight through their limbs, into theirs bones, through their joints… -Chhrkktch- A crack, -Chfhtlp- a pop of uncorking a submerged wine bottle. “Fmgmpgthsht-” a scream, and squirms of the bulge congesting Urlan's neck as their shoulder joints ejected from its socket -Cllttwwrlcth-. “Fmmfs, ooofn you'll fit alright. You won't need those bones where you're going, fmms, is it ever, satisfying to hear em pop…” Urlan waltzed. The equine alien screwing the body of the officer straight into her jaw, chomping down enough to hearmuffled -Chrhpthp- -Kkrrkxrkthc- cracks and ejection of joints through the uniform, vibrating under her teeth in each turn. -Glrugmsp- -Chhrht- -Ooogullrks- -Ocgjthgssk- with each clamp the officer's body compacted, easing the subsequent gyre and bites. Urlan worked her way down chest, stomach, gnawing down on those hips clogging her face till they compressed enough for her lips to -Shhrrlslptht- suckle over. The congaline of bulges down her gut starting to define with the bulbed helmet splaying out her upper abdomen, but growing all the more distinct, mangled lumps malforming her gullet in between swallows -Ooogglpsmsp-. -Ckkrkthc- Another crunch near the calves. Urlan resting against the wall with her chin, stomach jabbed into the smooth grey cell wall producing a smooth, flattening arch to the jumble of bloats sloughing down through the oesophagus. The pirate’s muzzle came up to the officer's boots, and with a snicker she hooked a finger in each of them to flick them of her morsel's feet. “Even now, I wouldn't deign to lick yer boots,” she mused and saw that the uniform extended a full body, socks, swathed over the guard's soles, but the fabric stained, trails of deep crimson gathering to burgundy soaked splotches. She tilted her head back, and curled up her tongue over the last of the guard, sampling the life nectar blotching the fabric, a bright copper brine she'd been bereft of for so long. -Chrlrlspth- her tongue swathed and lapped up along the soles, over the heels, and in her gentle swallows -Shlrptu- -Cllpsthtsup- -Slpgugugmsgps- until in one gulp they fit snugly in her muzzle. -Clllthc- Urlan's teeth clatched shut. -Ooopglgsuamp- a rattle of convulsions streaming down her neck as the bulges down her gullet swelled, and then steamrolled flat, ferried down to engorge her gut, spreading out wide against the walls, front flattening but all the more dispersing the bulges warping along her sides, “Oooh, yeah…” she mused and brushed down her stomach. -Cbttwwph- A slam from the side distended out into a pillar of stretched skin, and a guttural groan bubbled away from her meal- -Ghhgbghauhg- “Fmms, just the way I like them…” she mused out and ground her knuckle down into the bulge to -Ghrhbghghs- squeeze it back into the churning mass of dipping abdomen. “My pleasure to invite you to solitary confinement.” Urlan tapped her chest -Bhhuraauruurrrslp- a swirling smog spiralled into galaxies of guttural gales, -Chhgrrotwh- contracting the space in her gut to tauten over her prisoner. “Fret not, your sentence should be over in a few hours’ time…” From around the corner outside the cell, Trix peeked in on how she delighted in the cracks of hearing bones. Urlan turned to face her. “Greenie, how are we holding up?” Trix's antennae dipped for a moment. “Everything, is fine.” ~ 3 ~ “Mmmg mmapd… pha… oooh there you come…” Urlan mumbled under her breath as the corpulent bale of umber bowel tar billowed out of her gaping brim. The soft serve of digested officer held together, but straps of burnished silk fibre was lugging down over the closed toilet seat in a serpentine chain of cement. The thick mulch holding its buff shape as it plied and polished through Urlan's pucker to soften and meld in a uniform heap of slag over the pitiful excuse of a toilet. Her pucker clutching the last gel and dropping it with a horn thrust of -Bbfpwhhroorwhrhth- rippling the tar below her in waves as the rings of colon gas funnelled through her flank in a loose, smoggy circle, puffed out by a practiced pucker. -Fbpwht- -Bwbofht- Pprrbbrrpth-. “Phaa… serves yommf... Serves you right, can't wait to get off this system and catch some real grub…” then she turned. “How's that? And to hear form the Gynegean.” Trix adjusted her familiar collar around her neck, satisfied to be back in her skin tight gravuit, her antennae jittering and bulbs bobbing as she sampled the rich aroma reminiscent of caceumycin and beef broiled in a putrid vat of chocolate and onions. “An impressive showcase, a touch uniform, though the smells are in line with you, boisterous and potent, you are sporting an impressive fudge factory.” Urlan clicked her lips. “Could see that review printed in infobolts.” She rose from the seat. Halfway on the railing, halfway down to the next level, laid a pile of lilac sludge, looking soft and plump as a plumb but drooling of a muddy ointments. The uniform texture broken up by fractures of bones jutting out of the heap through cracks and shimmies here and there. Trix and Urlan walked past the pile, getting a whiff of the matured, fermented tinge of roasted plaster and morning dew. “You knew how to handle the living light… Let me guess, it was not about mechanics, it was about tricking it?” Trix wondered. As they slowly tagged along with fellow inmates, walking around heaps of dung in a melange of bright yellow hues, with feathers plastered in patches by the mounds; third squares of blackened asphalt converting and warping in impossible angles to singlular white dots; greasy tangles like wires with a porous, chalk texture and slobbery loaves and scales stacked neatly below, and all of them drooping molten plastine fabric of crumbled helmet and shards of black visors. Further ahead a communal pie of greasy, brown and turquoise weighed up the railings, the crew officers of the ship reduced to a museum displaying a range of native sector species' excrement. “More charming it, letting it believe all was as it should be, if the system thought all was right, there would be no alarms.” “That's, quite a feat, to fight with words alone.” “Oi, it wasn't as as difficult as flirting with a gynegean.” “Huh?” But Urlan just chuckled and caressed down Trix's hair. “But, what about the collars? You never even said you could disable them.” Urlan chuckled. “Those who regale it all, shall soon have no tale left to tell.” “You don't act it.” “Well, ah didn't become captain by divulging all my secrets, just some.” They moved further down the ship, towards a hanger that stored the captured vessels of the inmates, grand chambers with ships and vessels Trix had never encountered. And there, further at the end of the walkway, her Gynegean scouting vessel. She wanted back, back to her bed, her functional bathroom with purity gel, and a cabin three times the size of the shared cell. “My ship, it looks unharmed too.” “Where?” Urlan mocked, holding her palm above her eyes and scouting. After Trix showed her, she merely snickered. “Ah, that thing. Well, not to brag… oh, whomst am I kidding.” She leaned against the wall. Trix turned confused. Then her eyes bulged. That wasn't a wall… Standing as tall and as long as the interior of the prison complex, with Zero point thrusters suspended in trios at the ship’s rear, the oblong, domed front. The white underbelly of the ship melded in with the prison vessels' interiors, almost as if it had once been the same... and the upper front was black as midnight nebula. Trix's ship could fit in it twenty times over without issue, and its design laid smooth, round and in the guise of some frivolous, delighted fish. “That, is impressive,” she began. But then, the gynegean looked closer, she saw the walls were not uniform, but patched, multiple times, there were cracks filled and polished over, and the thrusters were of different makings and markings, were they even compatible? “She's gotten me this far, and a bit further on,” she mused, and looked toward the inmates, as they dispersed to find their respective ships, some followed her, right into Urlan's vessel. “I'm building a new crew, we got some real tough stuff behind these bars, will give my old ௫۝Ꙛⴃⴙⴙ꘨ᵺ a run for their money.” “I suppose, everything worked out in the end.” Urlan peered up at Trix, and caressed her cheek, instilling the Gynegean to crouch down ever so slightly to stay at eye level. “That includes you.” “… Oh.” “You aren't – that – dense,” Urlan mused, “you've shown initiative, cleverness, tinkering, ruthlessness, and one fine gassy booty, one I'd be honored to keep on my crew, perhaps, even as my, first mate,” then she whispered, “maybe the only kinda mate you'd ever be.” Trix stared into Urlan's eyes, and looked up at the ship. Ramshackle, but plucked from her dreams as a young ling, to join forces with a pirate captain… Trix smiled. “I decline.” Urlan clicked her lips twice -Cllt- -Cltk-. “Well I… insist~.” Trix took a step back out of Urlan's grasp. “Sorry, no. I won't come with you.” Urlan's ears flicked up. “Thought you didn't have anyone.” Trix looked towards her ship. “It, isn't in my nature to command others, or, to be commanded in turn. There is a lot I want to see, much I want to learn, and I want to greet the galaxy as Trix, the explorer. Instead of, Trix the pirate.” Urlan clicked her lips over her teeth. “Trix the explorer,” she rolled it on her tongue, “doesn't have the same mouthfeel as Greenie.” Trix snickered. With a long sigh, Urlan shook her head. “Then, this is where our paths part, in that chaos of a network that be the universe,” she said, and held onto Trix' shoulder. Trix followed in turn. “Fair well, Trix.” “I'll see you again, Captain.” Urlan scoffed. “With our luck, you'd rather not.” They took a few steps apart. Urlan opened a bottle of water, and poured it out through her fingers, letting it drain on the ground. “A symbol of luck and fair travels of my people, may your journey be smooth as water.” “May no obstruction block your way,” Trix returned. -Pprrwwwwrrhhthtsp- -Prwrbrbrpsrprht- A sharp swirl of fumes siphoned out of the two travellers' hinds, a cosmic wind ripe of sour grains and mole roasted cloth. “And what about that? That got a meaning in your culture?” Trix smirked. “That can be a new tradition: our traditional farewell.” With that, the two turned back to one another, leaving with the lingering hint of each other still in the air. ~ 4 ~ Trix sacked back in the cockpit. Staring at the stars. Thinking back to the past days. To what she would do, where she would go. She thought of the past, she thought of the present, she thought of the future, all were dominated by a single image: Urlan standing tall, invoking a visage of Cion, of command, of principle. If not for those old stories, would Trix have wished to explore the stars? To be a heroine, to move away from the subjection her people imposed? But… Seeing Urlan… she wondered what her own dreams, even meant anymore. She looked around her cockpit. And… struggled, with a knot in her chest. A question… why did her own ship's living compartment, feel more washed out, and so much smaller, than a prison cell?