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Artemis' Bow Chapter 1, Part 2
🕑 Added 2016-11-14 13:14:56 +0000 UTCPart 2A
“Alright, pull us up alongside and give us a full sweep, please.”
Artemis hesitated as the word ‘please’ tumbled out of her mouth; since when did AI need to be asked nicely? She sighed and rubbed her eyes. Too many late nights. Although it was hard not to anthropomorphize AI, one of the first points in the handbook warned against usage of words like please and thank you.
“Of course, Artemis.” The AI’s voice was neutral, as always. Cool, impersonal.
At least one of us is doing things right, Artemis thought to herself, chair creaking as she made herself comfortable.
The dull thrum of the Jackal’s engines changed tune as the ship adjusted her course, radial jets firing to maneuver her smoothly on her new trajectory. A holographic display flickered to life over a console to the wolf’s left that mapped out the new course along with an estimated time of arrival of about twenty one minutes. Plenty of time to prepare.
Artemis sunk into the cool, yielding leather of her chair, shutting her eyes as if it could block out the thoughts that swam behind them. Salvage missions always made her feel at least a little melancholy. Back in the day, she’d done a ton and practically all of them ended the same way. Unless you crewed a ship large enough to tow a piece of junk like that back to a station, you walked away with nothing but what you could fit in your hull, and the sour taste of rummaging through someone’s grave. It didn’t matter if the crew was dead or jettisoned, there was something sobering about stepping into another person’s ship. Someone’s whole life, memorialised forever, drifting in the void of space.
Alright, perhaps a little more than melancholy.
With a helpful, chirping beep, another holographic panel came to life to the right of the cockpit; detailed scans of the Orca and her floors scrolling across it. There was too much information to make heads or tails of much before it scrolled past, but Demeter helpfully provided a couple of bullet points along the side. They told of a woeful, but common story for a derelict.
The Orca was old enough to be the Jackal’s sister, but not nearly as cared for. Where Artemis poured her blood and sweat into her ship, the Orca’s crew either didn’t have the money or didn’t care enough to keep her properly maintained. From the logs Demeter was pulling up, it sounded like a mix of both. Her containment shielding looked to be as old as the ship itself and poorly maintained. A hairline fracture became something bigger, and over the years, infinitely more deadly. By the time the crew realised their mistake, it was too late to do much. Deadly levels of radiation spilled through the vessel, enough to kill anyone who remained.
Artemis squinted.
There wasn’t an ounce of fuel left on the ship, not an atom - that was one of the few things a scanner could accurately get a read on. It meant that the crew had potentially loaded up a lifeboat or two. They were probably gone. Hopefully.
“Anything interesting in the hull?” Artemis almost squeaked, blinking as she wondered where this nervousness came from. Pull yourself together girl, she scolded herself, you’ve done this a hundred times before!
“As you know,” Demeter began, “I am unable to ascertain the exact properties of most kinds of cargo. We can rule out fuel and radioactive isotopes. Floor imaging has indicated the presence of a small to medium sized cargo haul.”
The wolf nodded. “Better wake up Alex. That’s going to be a bit of heavy lifting.”
“Of course,” Demeter replied. “I will assist you.”
“Oh right!” she answered excitedly. “The loading drones! Yeah, that’ll be awesome, thanks.” Artemis blinked. Damn it, I said it again.
“Of course.”
* * *
Clank.
Thunk.
Hiss.
The Jackal shuddered for a moment as her docking port lined up and sealed with the derelict Orca’s. Artemis shifted her weight from foot to foot, glancing at Alex, who shot her a sleepy nod. Dragons didn’t exist in The Empire of the Phoenix, but if they did Alexandra would definitely be one. Artemis never asked if Alex was extensively gene-modded at birth, or if some time in her life she’d just said ‘to hell with it, I’m gonna be a dragon’. She didn’t plan to ask, either. This far out, everyone had their secrets. The only thing that mattered to Artemis was that Alex was personable, good with a gun, and that she made the best carbonara fettuccine this side of the rim.
Alexandra had lavender hair and was covered head to toe in fur, except across her stomach, chest, and the underside of her tail, as they were covered in scales. She also had white, feathery wings. As Artemis looked the girl over, she decided Alex must have had some pretty big gene-mods. She figured, nobody gets to look like that naturally, right? Alex must’ve noticed her staring, because she winked at the wolf, her feathery wings giving a playful flutter behind her.
Artemis blushed and snapped her eyes straight ahead.
“Hull pressurized.” Demeter’s voice was a welcome relief from the bright red burning of the wolf’s cheeks. “Atmospheric levels... stable. Radiation levels... minimal. You are clear for entry.”
Artemis was relieved. She hated donning the bulky anti-rad suits she’d have had to wear if the engine was still pumping out it’s radioactive poison.
“Demeter, run a scan on trace levels of organics in the atmosphere please.” Her voice shook a little, but she told herself it wasn’t because of nerves.
“Processing... done. There are minor elements indicative of rotten or spoiled food.”
A more pronounced sigh of relief helped take the weight off of Artemis’ shoulders. No corpses. Any sort of decay like that would be in the ventilation. Demeter would be able to smell it before either of them did.
“Alright Alex, let’s get this over with.” The wolf switched on her flashlight and stepped into the open airlock. She heard Alexandra move to follow.
“Yes captain.”
* * *
As she’d feared, walking across the deserted halls of the derelict was a sombre affair for Artemis who, at the best of times, had a squeamish disposition. The crew had left in a hurry. From the cargo decks to the cockpit there were signs of a rush; plates of food left uneaten, rotting in sickly smelling heaps. Clothes were scattered about rooms and suitcases were left, dumped in the middle of hallways as their owners realised they wouldn’t be able to take everything with them. Artemis had Alex going through the crew quarters and looking for anything particularly valuable. It was an unsavoury job but it didn’t pay to leave anything behind, as chances were that nobody would be coming back for it.
The galley was largely empty, but Artemis managed to salvage a couple of fabricator packs compatible with the Jackal’s autochef. For the most part though, everything was... empty. Artemis’s light shone dull on the bronze walls of the great, floating leviathan. There were no corpses, no people, no monsters, no nothing.
Standing in the cargo bay, the wolf couldn’t help but feel a slight sense of envy. It’d have been nice to have this much room to store goods, but Art new she couldn’t afford to maintain such a ship. It was expensive keeping a beast like this in the air.
With Demeter’s loading drones watching overhead, Artemis began prying the tops off of cargo crates and peering inside. For the most part she found standard stuff for a passenger ship - food, personal effects, half a dozen agricultural processors. None of it was worth much more than the effort it would take to load into her hold. However, the wolf uncovered a more peculiar set of crates tucked into the corner and covered by a dusty black sheet.
They were white, made of shiny metal and stamped to contain medical supplies. What made Artemis most curious was that each crate was sealed with a built in cooling unit. Whatever was in there had to be kept fresh and that meant profit. Setting her flashlight down, Artemis moved to open the lid of the one closest.
“Wait.” Demeter’s voice echoed startlingly through her mind, stopping her in her tracks.
“Gods Demeter... you scared me.” Artemis’s finger gently made a trail in the dust as she wiped it across the lid of the crate. “What is it?”
“The drones are picking up... biological specimens within.” Demeter’s drones hovered above the crate, their single metal eyes blinking as the gears within buzzed and whirred. “Preserved. Meat. Or plants. Opening them risks beginning a decay cycle.”
Artemis glanced over. There were three crates in total. She asked, “All of them contain the same thing?”
“As far as I can tell.” Demeter replied, her drones moving their metallic lenses over each crate in turn.
“Right.”
Artemis leaned over and pried the lid of the crate gently open. She wasn’t going to let anything onto her ship without a decent idea of what it was. With a hiss the crate’s seal was broken, a white fog spraying gently into the air. Holding the crate open with one hand Artemis waited for it to clear, the image of what was contained within slowly solidifying through the misty haze.
“Mushrooms?” she said aloud.
Lined in neat rows, each cap nearly identical to the last. The mushrooms were slightly brown, slightly yellow and though Artemis had never been overly fond of them as a foodstuffs, even she had to admit these particular ones smelled delightful. She could feel the drool forming in her mouth, holding back the urge to just pluck one from the crate and bite into it. Feel its juicy flesh split into her mouth, its flavour spill across her tongue. If it tasted even half as good as they smelled, it would be like biting into heaven.
“You seeing this?” Artemis asked, remembering that she was standing in the cargo bay of a slowly decaying derelict. There would be time to gorge herself stupid on mushrooms later. “Do they look familiar to you? Toxic?”
Demeter stared at the mushrooms for a good few moments, her drones studying them from different angles as she presumably compared them to entries in her database. It took her a while, longer than it should have to find a match.
“Yes,” She finally said, her voice echoing gently through the wolf’s mind. “They are familiar. These mushrooms are favoured by the locals of Amanita Beta, and have been genetically engineered to thrive in the atmospheric conditions of the newly colonized planet. There is evidence to suggest their purpose is medicinal, although information on them is hard to come by.”
Artemis’s mind spun. Amanita Beta was close by, which meant it was possible that the Orca had been en route when its core shielding gave out.
“What do you think they sell for?” She asked.
“327 credits each. The combined haul is estimated to be worth 28100, over one eighth of your current debt.”
The wolf’s stomach turned a little, the thought of her debt sitting sourly. It was a decent find. Provided she could get them to Amanita, she’d almost certainly pay off a decent chunk of her debt. And yet another part of her almost wanted to sample the mushrooms.
Just a taste, she told herself. Those backwater colonists wouldn’t even notice it was gone.
General Vote: (make your vote here: https://strawpoll.de/s1231yw )
A, (The Prudent Choice: This choice will allow Artemis to pay off her debt faster, meaning more credits, less stress and a bigger budget for the future): Stow the mushrooms and set a course to Amanita Beta. With a little fuel burned she’ll be able to offload the agricultural processors and the fungus at the same time, making a tidy little profit on the trip.
B, (The Impulsive Choice: Artemis and Demeter are unsure about the medicinal properties of the mushrooms, there will be side effects): Stow two of the crates and have one brought to the galley. Alex will probably agree it’s been far too long since they’ve eaten fresh mushrooms.
Part 2B
Aava had a mouthful of sammich when the door to her room slid open, the light of a sapphire sun unexpectedly shining on her face. AR was good like that. Stepping over the threshold into her room felt like stepping through a portal into another world entirely. The overweight bunny padded from the cramped, rusted interior of The Jackal and onto a sunswept plateau, a palace of golds and reds rising around her, gazing out across a pristine valley far below.
“Whoa.” The word came unbeckoned to her mouth.
“I hope this is adequate.”
Demeter’s voice sounded, like always, from both everywhere and nowhere. She wasn’t hardwired in Aava’s head like she was for Artemis but so long as Aava willed it, the AI had as much access as it could ever need. Aava couldn’t imagine a likely consequence that might make her reconsider such freedom..
“What now?” Aava asked, bringing her sandwich up to munch on.
Lettuce and tomato slices slid out and plopped onto the floor, but she barely noticed, instead taking in the bustle, the sights, sounds and scents of the palace around her. Demeter would clean it up anyway.
“It’s up to you, of course,” replied Demeter. “Perhaps visit the kitchens? They’re not too far.”
“If you’re sure.”
Although she wasn’t sure what she could want with a digital kitchen, Aava decided to trust in the AI for now and padded along. It turned out to be fairly easy to locate. The scent of fish grilled in spices was alluring enough to have drawn her attention even if she hadn’t been looking. She passed ornate carvings, palace guards of various shapes and sizes and servants, all who bowed before her as she moved.
In reality, Aava was barely walking at all. The bunny had surrendered her body to Demeter. She now waddled, eyes glassy, in the direction of the galley where one of Demeter’s drones was pulling out a mixing bowl with a mechanical hand.
It’s not in an AI’s nature to be mischievous, as most of them were so rudimentary they barely understand the concept of mischief. Pilot link AI’s are typically particularly complex, but even they are, for the most part, all business. And for Demeter, tonight was all business. Aava had requested to be entertained and the AI had pinpointed several very distinct pleasure centers that lit up in the bunny’s brain when she cradled a stuffed stomach full of fattening foods. If the most direct route to pleasing the rabbit was feeding her, Demeter saw little reason to bother with anything else.
In Aava’s mind, she stepped through a doorway inlaid with golden carvings and into the steam swept room beyond. Here, servants hurried with pots and pans, scurrying from table to table. Giant fish lay scaled and gutted on tables, whilst polar bears and vixens with knives like swords worked on separating meat from bone. A pig bigger than any Aava had ever seen (bigger than any that existed, she suspected) was being spit-roasted above a massive, blue flaming firepit. When a servant bumped into her from behind, the bunny almost lost her balance. She recovered and the servant, a mottled brown feline boy, threw himself to the ground.
“I’m so sorry, Your Highness!” As the words drifted through the busy noises of the kitchen, the chefs began to murmur among themselves, looking at Aava with awe. “Please forgive me!”
Aava blushed as she pulled the poor cat up onto his feet. “A little heavy on the power fantasy, don’t you think?” Aava commented.
“You deserve a break now and then,” Came Demeter’s reply. “What better way to spend it than being doted on?”
None of the other beings in the room seemed to hear Demeter speak, but that made perfect sense to Aava. All of this was nothing more than a program. A way of blowing off steam. She smiled. She did deserve to be doted on.
“Alright my darling pets,” The bunny nearly purred as she strode with purpose through the kitchen. “Your Queen is hungry! Hungry beyond bounds and this simple little sandwich will not satisfy.”
That didn’t stop her from nibbling it.
“To the man or woman who can sate my appetite,” she said as she lowered herself slowly upon a seat at the very end of the kitchen, “you will be rewarded with all the gold you can carry.”
Every eye was on her now, every knife frozen mid-slice, every mouth open wide.
“Well? Chop-chop.”
And that was it.
Like pandora’s box, opened, Aava watched the kitchens become a hive of activity as she had never seen before. Everyone was working together, working around each other, preparing dish after elaborate dish. Aava nibbled on her sandwich as she beheld the sight. It was true, she pondered; she was far too hungry for this morsel of a sandwich to fill her up, and if she were in VR as she suspected, she would be able to consume anything she wanted with no consequences.
Alas, Aava was not in VR. She was standing in the galley of the Jackal as Demeter’s drones pumped lard and nutrient paste into a large mixing bowl in front of her.
What the rabbit didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt her. At least until later. It was scarcely a matter of minutes after she’d finished her sandwich, licking the crumbs off her fingers in both realities when the first of the servants approached with a roasted bird, cut into crisp, mouth watering slices spread out across a large tray. The food had apparently been marinated, roasted, carved and then drizzled with various oils, but Aava didn’t care about any of that. All she cared about was the smell of it. The look. The way the steam wafted gently above it.
Perhaps she was sure she was in VR, that nothing she ate would manifest in any way on her body. Perhaps she just didn’t care. Aava reached forward and plucked the first piece of roast from the platter and shoved it whole into her mouth, only pausing in her chewing to lick the grease and oils from her chins before she reached for the next piece. In reality she was reaching forward, her chubby paws dipping into the doughy, lard-laced nutrient paste and pulling thick, dripping handfuls of it up to her mouth. If she weren’t being entertained by Demeter’s version of events, it would have tasted beyond bland, even oily. As it was, Aava only tasted the most succulent of meat, a subtle blend of flavours that danced, if only for a moment, across her tongue before she took the next, greedy, hungry mouthful.
It wasn’t long before Aava’s stomach began to manifest the effects of swallowing so much food. The sandwich she’d eaten just prior was still being digested and the bunny had been anything but starving for as long as she’d been on the ship, her belly always bloated with one meal or another. With the kind of speed reserved for the winners of eating contests, her stomach began to bulge behind the tight fabric of her one-piece outfit. What had seemed practical (leaving much of her flabby legs exposed) was becoming anything but as the suit which covered everything from the top of her thigh up strained to contain the growing, inflating mass of her stomach. It began to creak. The sound managed to seep through even the barrier between reality and Demeter’s augmented world, but Aava didn’t notice. She didn’t care. Tonight was about her, and she was going to enjoy it.
The platter of roasted meat fell to the ground, empty and spilling its delicious juices across the floor as another platter, this one with cooked fish, was handed to her. Aava noticed that it was rested upon her stomach, but all this did was block the damage to her waistline from view. To anyone else, she was really starting to puff up, her gut bulging forward and filling her lap. As far as Aava was concerned, this was only round one. If there would be no consequences, she saw no reason to stop after one measly platter.
Back in reality, Demeter’s drones hovered uncertainly over a now empty mixing bowl, observing with a hint of worry the way the rabbit’s stomach sloshed and jostled as it contained what had to be thirty pounds of nutrient paste mixed with blubber. Their red iris’ slid across the rabbit’s form, minds working to easily calculate just how many more pounds this would add to her frame, and she still wanted more.
Patreon Vote: (make your vote here: https://strawpoll.de/1za9dze
A, If she wants more, she’ll get more. After all, Demeter was programmed to serve, was she not? The AI will prepare a feast big enough to make sure the gluttonous crewmember is finally satiated.
B, Aava has had enough, for tonight. Perhaps it’s time to take care of Alex, she should be on her way back any moment now and after all that work she must be dying to wind down and relax with a nice, big meal.
Comments
OrbitalOwl
Gonna way in my vote for a prudent choice!
Athan
Nicely done; can't wait for the next one!
