Post 54

The awful motion finally comes to a stop. You slowly uncurl from the fetal position you’d unconsciously adopted as you were thrown around the interior of the cargo bay. You take stock. Shori is a dead, pale green. A couple dendrites are still firing, but her normal pearly gray or golden color is gone. You can see a portion of her spine is cracked. The walls are leaking green fluid. The bay itself is a minefield of debris and broken equipment. You haul yourself up to find a couple med-stim packs from the equipment pile and slap them on the worst of Shori’s wounds that you can see. There’s no sign of Hoshi. You limp your way up the bridge toward the control center and med bay, looking for more stim packs and hoping for good news. 

There’s green fluid everywhere. Hoshi only has a few more stim-packs, so you shove those into a backpack for later. You’re hoping Hoshi doesn’t need them more than Shori, but it’s not looking like luck is on your side today. You grab a handheld bioscanner, two Lazarus patches, and a manual medkit and head up to the control center. 

It’s dark. There’s no neural activity above you and the interfaces are all dead. Even Shori’s crystalline cornea view screen has a giant crack through the middle of it. There seems to be less bleeding up here, but you can’t tell the full extent of the ship’s damage. Or where Hoshi is. You make your way back towards the engine room. 

Shori’s heart, the engine, is still pulsing weakly, but slow and erratic. You slap a Lazarus patch near the sinoatrial node and activate it. The one-shot diagnostic suite opens on the interface and flashes, SHOCK ADVISED< CLEAR, so you pull your hands away and step back. Electricity arcs over the giant heart once, twice, three times. The rhythm stabilizes and roars back to full strength, shimmering the air around you pearly white and flashing nerve action potentials above your heart to reverberate up the neurons toward the control center. With a deep thrum, you can feel the air system kick on again and Shori groan as her skin ripples back to life. The Lazarus patch flashes again and discharges its load of antibiotics, coagulants, system stabilizers, and plasma into the heart and you see a strong flood of green fluid pulse along the cartilaginous corridors, racing from room to room and through the axial spinal cord. With it, most of the bleeding/leaking seems to stop. 

You haul a servo out from the cargo bay up to the main corridor so it can lift you high enough to slap a stim-pack on the giant crack in the middle of her spine. The bone crackles as the pack stimulates osteoblast activity, knitting the crack up before your eyes. You let out a small breath in relief as the groaning around you eases and Shori seems in less pain. But still no Hoshi. 

“Hoshi!” you try to shout, but your voice breaks and you can’t get out more than a whisper. You cough in annoyance and massage your throat. When you do, you realize your hand is badly cut. Adrenaline is masking the pain so far, but you glance down to see if there’s anything else you should be feeling. Your knee is at an odd angle, almost as if it was dislocated and popped back into place. Your shoulder is definitely out of joint. You can feel bruised or broken ribs now that you are paying attention and one of your fingers dangles without much feeling. You shrug and slap a stim-pack on yourself and the immediate cool rush of opiates and healing factors makes you let out a grateful breath. You head back down to the cargo bay. 

In less pain and healing slowly, you start gently moving debris and organizing what’s left of the bay, at least the light and easy stuff. You have a quick flash of seeing Hoshi grown into the floor near the door console, so you make your way that direction, moving bits into organized piles while you do. Your heart stops as you see a crushed hand buried under a shattered servo control box. You try to heave it off him, but you’re too weak and the thing is too heavy anyway. You look around frantically and see the protein net and winch still semi-functional, hanging from the ceiling. Moving as quickly as your fractured knee will allow, you hook the net up to the servo and one-handed begin manually winching it up. 

The higher it goes, the sicker you feel inside. You’re pretty sure Hoshi is dead and that not even a Lazarus patch will be able to bring him back. You stop and anchor the winch and stagger back to Hoshi’s body. It’s gray already. Purple, black lividity pooling around his extremities and what’s left of his back and hip. You glance over to see chunks of him have separated and are lying like discarded pounded meat cutlets next to him. You feel your breathing start to speed up and something like panic rumbling around the inside of your chest. You find his head, still attached, just hidden from your view as you rotate the body and start to pull it out where you can examine it easier. The skull is still intact. In fact, you notice that not only is the skull still intact, but it’s glowing with familiar turquoise light. As you give the body space, the light spreads down the ruined flesh and you can see ephemeral scales and the wisp Hoshi’s true form escaping through the biomask. 

You laugh a little in relief as you see that the Pontifax shell has protected him, but try not to let the laughter become hysterical. Hoshi, the real Hoshi, not the shell, isn’t moving and isn’t coming out. He must be unconscious or trapped in the failed bond, you think. You’ve never built or worked with Pontifax shells, but you know what they are and roughly how they should work, though, since they are definitely not mechanical, you’re a little shaky on the details. You put your fingers on the underside of Hoshi’s shell jaw, feeling for the tiny connections that should act as the activation points for his psychic energy. They are very tiny. You root around in the medical kit to find a needle to depress the linkages. There are over a dozen and it takes you several moments to delicately disconnect each one. When you do, there is a flash scent of burnt ozone and then Hoshi’s translucent turquoise form is lying on top the ruins of its shell. It’s still not responsive, as if it’s mind or psychic energy has been burned out. You’ve never been this close to a living Void Dragon before and you can help but reach out to touch him. 

He’s solid, though he looks like nothing but living light. But his skin changes color along the path your hand took and his body morphs and ripples as if he was air or water. You gulp a little. He’s beautiful, but very, very weird. Not like any other lifeform you’ve ever seen before and it makes you deeply uncomfortable. And how are you supposed to heal Light? He doesn’t have a body to apply the Lazarus to, if it would even work. And his organic shell is completely destroyed. There’s nothing to save of it left. 

You reach your hands under Hoshi and find you can lift him. He weighs nothing and you have to be careful to gather him up, as if he were heavy smoke, as bits of him keep slipping off and disappearing into nothingness. But you find that you can waft him into a little bundle to carry and you make your way to the med bay. Carefully.

You lay him in one of the med beds, the one used for stasis so it has shallow walls, and immediately, the smoke-light-Hoshi expands into his resting state. Four legs, scales, tail, twisting, sinuous fluidity confined by the bed. It makes you shiver a little.

Watching him, you think you remember that Pontifax shells not only provide structure for their psychic carriers, but they are also energy conduits and collectors that can augment and amplify the psychics skills. Without worrying about keeping his form, Hoshi can use the suit to collect ambient energy, condense it, and amplify his own healing skills. You wrinkle your nose a little. So...energy? I just need to pump him full of what, light? You look around. Most of Shori’s equipment is broken or still shallowly bleeding. You grimace a little and dig through one of the diagnostic sensors. You’re pretty sure it’s powered by cesium. Radioactivity is like light, right? It’s energy anyway. You pull on a set of gloves before you remove the protective cover plate, drop it into the stasis bed and close the top, watching through the clear, lead-lined glass anxiously. 

Nothing happens. 

After a few moments, though, you can see Hoshi’s form a little better. Now, he seems to be able to keep a consistent size, his scales are defined, little wisps of himself stay put instead of dissipating immediately. That’s a good sign, right? You think. You hope, because you don’t have any more good ideas and your knee/shoulder is killing you. But you shuffle painfully to the control center to see if Shori is awake and can tell me what the fuck is going on. 

Shori is not in a good mood. In fact, she refuses to talk to you for the first few hours, obviously in shut-down/rest mode. You hobble down to check on Hoshi, who seems to be recovering very, very slowly. If at all. But you end up napping in the pilot’s chair, one hand idly shoved in the organic computing interface waiting for Shori to get up from her rest.

Dimly, you gradually become aware of a sort of insistent buzzing in your mind. You open your eyes to see a flickering representation on the view screen as Shori opens her eyes for the first time since the crash. A jungle is what you see. Shori has crashed in the middle of what might be a rainforest. Or a well-lit swamp. You can’t really tell yet. You can see sunlight, dense plant growth, and you can see that Shori is partially submerged in a vast river. Only her head bobs up from the water. As you watch, you can feel her change buoyancy and the angle of the viewfinder gradually shifts as if she’s coming up to the surface. Nothing about the place looks familiar. Or inhabited. You sit up expectantly and note with approval that the med stim has done its job. Your shoulder and knee have stopped aching and almost feel usable again. “Shori?” you say tentatively, not knowing if you should try to use the interface or if she can hear you out loud. “Are you okay, girl?”

Through the interface, the ship pours a ton of sensory information at you that makes you shut your eyes futily and snatch your hand out of the computer goop. “Easy, girl. I’m not feeling so hot myself. You’re going to have to slow down a little.” Obediently, the viewscreen shifts from the outside image to a black background with white letters. Very simple. IS HOSHI ALRIGHT?

“Yes, maybe. I think,” you answer, a little confusingly. “I have him in the med bay, but he’s not healing very well. His Pontifex Shell was damaged and I’m not sure what he needs. Do you know?”

ENERGY

“Yes, okay, but where? Do you have enough to fix him?”

NO. SUNLIGHT.

“What about sunlight?”

The view again looked out to the river and the jungle before flashing back to black. SUNLIGHT.

“Oh,” you blink. “You mean, I should take him outside? What, like a cold lizard?”

YES. I’M DOING THE SAME THING. 

“Very clever,” you say, impressed in spite of yourself. Hoshi had obviously engineered quite a companion for his space journeys. How many other ships were solar powered? “Shori, are you alright? Can I help you with anything?”

INTAKE REACTORS ARE JAMMED. CANNOT FEEL WINGS.

“You can’t feel your wings? Like, you don’t know if you can fly again?” I pictured Shori’s manta-ray configuration. Her wings were the majority of surface area on the ship. If all of that was dead, maybe it was a spinal cord problem. I wish Hoshi was awake. This is more his thing than mine. 

YES, flashed on the screen and you can feel a rush of unhappiness at the thought of being groundbound on this world. 

“Shori, are there any people around? Can you tell where we are? What this place is? Any towns? What about Daiki’s ship? Can you see if anyone is still following us?”

NO ONE FOLLOWED US. WE SHOULD BE DEAD, she writes. BUT I CAN’T TELL WHERE WE ARE. MY MAPS ARE SCRAMBLED. EVERYTHING IS SCRAMBLED. 

“Great,” you huff. Well, at least no one is going to come hunting us for a little while. Might as well let the weirdos sunbathe and see what happens. 

The viewfinder goes back to the image of the empty jungle as Shori retreats into herself for whatever healing or rest she can do as you contemplate the vast, green wilderness before you. I hate nature, you think. Stupid camping trips are never as much as people pretend. Alright, Hoshi, let's get you out for a tan. 

He is a little easier to carry this time. You’re able to gather him up and make your way to the cargo bay. Shori has moved to a sand ridge nearer to the banks of the river where the water is shallow and dropped her wings down so you can walk on them, but the water is still deep and you are not nearly tall enough to make it without partially swimming. But it’s only a few feet and you’re able to haul yourself and Hoshi up onto Shori’s wings enough to stretch out in the sunlight. After settling Hoshi, you stare up into the white-gold light, almost in awe. As a child of near-constant space travel, you’ve never actually seen this much sunlight through an atmosphere before. The sound of the water combined with the bird calls and thick, heavy smells of the jungle puts you to sleep almost immediately. 

***

You wake up when something wet and cool plops on your face. Your sunshine has been tempered by rain. Sheets of it, actually. You’ve never been in the rain before, just seen it. You close your eyes and let your hair and clothes get plastered with the wet, opening your mouth in delight. It tastes fresh and floral, like liquid flowers. You hear a chuckle next to you and look over to see Hoshi floating near you. His form is defined now, solid-looking, although you can see the rain pass through him. You look happy, Burke, he says without speaking. 

“I was happy, until you ruined it,” you say, being mean unintentionally. Something about Hoshi just seems to bring out the worst in you. You feel guilty for the snark and immediately mumble, “I’m glad you’re okay.”

Yes, I’m better. Still a little weak, but that was quick thinking on your part. Thank you, Kas. His iridescent turquoise skin seems to shimmer like oil on water in the rain and you flush a little, immediately feeling stupid. Hoshi’s alien face doesn’t register emotions, but you get the feeling he is amused. What do you think of my real form? He asks you, teasingly. Aren’t I handsome? He stretches out so you can see all seven feet of lithesome, blue-green creepiness and spins a little, doing a couple acrobatic swoops in mid-air to show off. 

“You’re alright,” you grump. “Annoying as ever.”

Ha. You can’t be sure, but you think that his mind-voice feels just a little out of breath, if that was possible. As if the exertion had been a little too much for him so quickly. Thunder growls overhead and the rain intensifies. “Come inside, dragon-man. You may not have to worry about material concerns, but I’m wet and cold and don’t want to be hit by lightning. Besides, Shori needs a check up.”

She’s injured? His skin seemed to flash a multitude of shades of blue before settling back to the normal turquoise. I thought I regenerated most of her during the crash. 

“Uh, I don’t know what that means,” you say, making your way down Shori’s wings, slipping consistently enough that you give up and just slide down her side into the water. The river feels bathwater warm now and you don’t mind the quick swim to her ‘mouth’. Hoshi hovers above you. “But, yes, she’s injured. I took care of her as best I could.”

Gosh, Burke. That sure looks cold down there. You poor baby.

“Oh, don’t you worry, you overgrown lizard. I’m going to help you build a new Pontifax,” you say through gritted teeth as you haul yourself up on the sandbar and make your way back into Shori. “There’s no way you get to stay all immaterial and shit. We have things to do.”

Indeed, came the dry response. 

There’s a flash of lightning and tremendous crack of thunder that makes you jump. When your eyes clear, your attention is captured by a single rider on some kind of speeder hovering about thirty feet in the air, obviously waiting. The shape of the machine and the armor of the rider looks somehow familiar to you…

With sudden understanding you make a spring towards Shori’s cargo bay only to get cut off halfway by another body, this one the same imposing woman from before. Only, you know, in a different outfit. You brush your palm against the pistol you stole from her, ironically appreciating seeing her while you’re wearing her stuff. “Zubaida,” you say pleasantly. “What a nice surprise, come here often?” Low rumbles in the sky cut off whatever reply she might have had as you fire to quick shots to her forehead and roll back into the murky water, thanking your controlling parents for requiring swimming lessons when you were a kid. 

Another boom of thunder that rippled the water as you popped your head up to see that no one was following you. Zubaida was on the ground, but two other mercenaries had set up some kind of energy-cell discharge or magnetic field. Hoshi was obviously incapacitated. Held motionless three feet above the ground. “HEY!!” you call, trying to draw their attention to you. “ASSHOLES. COME AND GET ME!” But no one pays attention. One of the armored figures, you’re pretty sure its Daiki, strides forward with some kind box, snaps the latches open and before your eyes, Hoshi begins to dematerialize. Like he’s being sucked into a black hole, his form spaghettifies, lengthening, almost vaporizing until Daiki snaps the lid closed on him with a snap. A traumatizing sound you can hear over the thunder. 

You rush up the sandbar, going to one knee so you can better fire at Daiki. The other mercenary quickly steps in front, throwing up a pure energy shield to absorb the attack. You grind your teeth in annoyance and sprint closer, sand dragging at your feet raining more fire down at the two through the storm. The figure on the speeder swoops in firing two shots, one hitting your abused shoulder, the other forcing sand and grit into your eyes as it strikes right in front of you. By the time your sight clears, Daiki and Hoshi are gone. 

“Oh FUCK YOU, UNIVERSE!” you shout. “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?”

The storm rumbles on, unconcerned as you make your way back to Shori and stumble in through the cargo bay, sealing up the room and calling, “Shori, honey, would you please submerge us again? Daiki is here.”

No response except for the tell-tale grind and heave of the ship rolling herself back into the water as you make your way to the control center and thrust your hands into the interface for maximum efficiency. “Shori, can you find Hoshi?” A feeling of assent. In your mind’s eye, Shori lets you see a heat map with a kind of mental lodestone feeling that must be Hoshi tracking north-northeast. Fast. Fuck. “Can you fly yet?” Negative feeling followed by regret. You try to keep your temper. It’s not her fault. “Shori, does Daiki know what Hoshi is? Is there any chance that he wouldn’t know what a Heilong is?” Negative feeling followed by regret. You let out a scream of disgusted frustration, yank your hands out of the interface and fling the nearest object across the room. 

Shori flashes, DON’T THROW THINGS on the screen when you turn back. It makes you angrier. “GODDAMN IT!” you scream and look for more things to throw, but unfortunately, you already cleaned and organized most of this earlier in the day. It’s very unsatisfying. 

DAIKI IS TRAPPED HERE. NOTHING CAN FLY DURING THIS STORM. HE’S ONLY A FEW MILES AWAY. YOU CAN GO AFTER HIM.

You snort. “Me and what army. Have you looked at me recently, sweetheart? I’m not really the fighting type. More nerd than ninja.”

HOSHI NEEDS SOMEONE. 

“I know! I know, I know. Just let me think, okay?” you hold your head in your hands and try to think of anything other than just running out into the wilderness after your ghost-dragon boyfriend. Good god, this seems like a bad idea. “Shori, is the merc ship close? Can you open a comms channel to them?” There was a short hesitation then,

YES

“Good. Communications to merc ship please.” You settle into the pilot’s chair and try to think of what you are going to say. Nothing comes to mind. You hope that inspiration will strike on the off-chance anyone answers. But no one did. “Try again, please,” you say through gritted teeth, trying not to feel impatient and enraged about the whole stupid situation. After two more tries, Daiki’s image finally shows up on your console. “Daiki,” you breathe in relief, which then makes you feel stupid as you try to think of something clever to open with. Fortunately, he takes the initiative.

“Burke, was it? What do you want?”

“A deal, if you’d be so kind. I’d like Hoshi back and I’m willing to negotiate.”

Daiki tossed his head back in genuine laughter. “A deal? For a Void Dragon? Kid, I could retire on what that fuck-up Hoshi’s hide is worth alive. Why on god’s green earth would I need to make a deal with you?”

“He’s sick,” you blurt out. “Very sick. It’s a virus that can get spread through light. And Hoshi’s dying. If you take him, your AI will short out and Hoshi will still be dead by the time you get to anyone who might be willing to buy him.”

“You’re lying, kid. I can taste it.”

“Who are you even going to sell to?” you say in desperation. “You know the only group with enough credit and balls to defy the Technocrats is Thiel and no one even knows where to find them!”

You can see that you might have gotten his attention with that one. 

“So? A Void Dragon is still worth something somewhere, even dead. Hell, maybe more valuable if what they say is true about Snow.”

Your stomach twists with a shot of ice. No one should know about that, you think in horror. Especially not someone like him. 

“So what’s your play here, kid? I don’t have time for this. There’s nothing you can say or do to change my mind. Your boyfriend’s mine. Why are we even talking?”

“I…” you stop. You’ve got nothing. You’re screwed and Hoshi is fucked. “I….”

Daiki shakes his head and looks at you with what could almost be considered compassion. “Look, kid, if I had known Hoshi was more than just a good whore, I would have done this years ago. And the fucker would have never taken out half my crew with his psionic bullshit. But here we are. I’m going to take him apart, piece by piece if I have to and sell him off to the highest bidder and there’s nothing you can do for him. If I were you, I’d take that nice ship and go somewhere quiet and far away and just be glad that you don’t have to get fucked by Hoshi anymore.” He shrugged. “I’m not really sure why you’re all upset. Hoshi’s a good lay, but you’re better off without him. Everyone knows the Heilong are bad down to their non-existent bones.”

You flush hot and cold and feel your fists tightening as you look down, breaking eye contact from Daiki’s combination of pity and contempt. “It’s not like that,” you scrape out from vocal cords gone stiff and dry. “Don’t do this.”

Daiki shakes his head and cuts the channel, leaving you alone in the dark. 

Forty minutes later, Shori has swam up the river, closing the distance between you and Daiki and you’re standing in the cargo bay door, waiting for her to stop so you can continue on foot. The storm is still going strong and Shori’s sensors support it staying that way for a while, meaning you have a shot. I’m so stupid, you think acidly, watching the water stream past and eddy as Shori slows. I’m getting killed. I’m so getting killed for that stupid lizard. Why? Why am I doing this? You settle Zubaida’s rifle more comfortably on your shoulder. It’s hard to hold it there over your backpack, but you only read the operating manual for it, never actually shot it, so it would probably feel uncomfortable even without the backpack. Fuck my life. You check the little GIS beacon you’ve programmed with Hoshi’s location and flop out into the water, awkwardly doggy paddling the short stretch to the beach and drag yourself onto land, trying not to feel like a drowned kitten. Pathetic. 

The jungle is confusing, but your homemade beacon stays steady and true and much sooner than you’d thought, you’re crouched behind a tree staring at the mercenary scout ship. It’s smaller than you’d thought, obviously a limited distance-runabout. Something about the design seems familiar. Isn’t this a DS-674 model? You think, suddenly feeling hopeful for the first time all day. You know that the DS-674 was discontinued several years ago for a critical design flaw under atmospheric conditions. A broad grin spreads over your face as you unhook your backpack and draw out the all-terrain servo you’d rigged up. It was about the medium dog when unfolded. Its six legs were bent backwards, like a cockroach’s and its main body was filled with a carry compartment, rudimentary keyboard/screen interface, and a small selection of critical tools that could be used autonomously. It was also Bluetooth enabled. You quickly punched in instructions and dropped in two large containers of bleach and ammonia. They were the only chemicals Shori had available in large quantities from her filter washdown and nitrous waste tanks, but they would do. You pat the little robot on the butt as it makes its way towards the intake engine side of the runabout. 

You take a moment to see if there was another way inside or what your next move should be. 

“Whatcha doin?”

You start, hard, catching your breath a little and realize that there is, in fact, a young woman lying prone next to you with her head pillowed comfortably on her hands as if watching a vid program. 

“Uh…” you seem to be having a little trouble speaking. She’s dressed in almost rags, shaved head, thick wraps around her wrists and forearms. She cocks her head and blinks at you, waiting. “Um, my friend,” you try again. “My friend was kidnapped by those people.” You make a small motion to the ship. “And, uh, I want to get him back.”

She nods as you talk, as if encouraging you. “Are they bad people?” She asks innocently. 

“Yes,” you say, a little cautiously. No one in your experience is ever this nice or pure. There has to be a catch somewhere. 

“Okay,” she says and bounces to modified crouch of some kind effortlessly holding her weight on one foot as if poised for flight. “Did you send your little robot to do something to their ship?”

“Yees,” you draw it out, not sure if you should tell her anything. “It’s going to flood their environment with toxic gas and cause an explosion in their engines when they start them.”

“Sweet,” she says with a big smile and points to your gun. “And you’re going to shoot them when they run out?”

“Um, yes? Maybe? I’m not really--”

“Good plan! And….break. I’ll see you in a bit!” And the girl disappears. You didn’t even see her move, but somehow she is running, no floating almost effortless through the tree canopy before alighting on the mercenary ship like a bird. Like a crouched, angry, violent bird, you think as you watch her leap up, flip elegantly in mid-air and drive her foot through the door as a single mercenary opens it. You barely manage to get into a good firing position as your robot finishes dumping the chemicals into the ventilation system and the fight starts in earnest. 

You settle behind your scope and watch as the girl somersaults her way into the ship, immediately flinging out bodies that you promptly pick off with laser shots well assisted by the ACOG site. It’s easy. So easy, in fact, you realize you are enjoying yourself. After each shot, you pick up and move closer to the ship, occasionally taking a knee to fire, recover, and move serpentine through the jungle. Why do people think this is so hard? You wonder as you lay down another two perfectly placed shots. This is the easiest job ever. Another pop pop and you step over a body on your way into the ship. The girl surprises you again, sitting comfortably on the ship’s roof looking like she’d done nothing more than take a gentle walk through a garden. “It’s all clear in there,” she chimes happily and looks around at all the bodies. “Good shooting!”

“Um, thanks,” you say. What a weirdo. You sling the rifle over your shoulder and switch to the pistol as you slip into the ship, searching for Hoshi. It’s empty except for Daiki slumped next to a console, blood leaking all over the electronics. You pull him up gingerly, expecting it to go wrong, but all he can focus on is taking short, shallow breaths. You glance at his armor and see fist-sized dents compressing it from all directions. Ouch, you think, even more impressed with the girl. Not bad for just her fists. You shake him a little and he lets out a little moan. “Hoshi,” you say. “I want Hoshi.” The man gurgles up blood and you’re suddenly very bored with this whole episode. You shake him again, but he’s not responding. You let out a deep sigh and drop him back into the chair where he slumps down again and fire two shots point blank into his skull to put him out of his misery. 

You survey the ship. Some nice equipment here. If lizard-brain isn’t dead, maybe we can even use some of it. “HOSHI!” you shout. “Where the fuck are you?” You look down and see a shimmer of red on the interface display. Hello containment field on emergency power. What are you hiding, I wonder? You deactivate it and immediately, the door to what was the storage locker pops open, revealing the same box as before. You cradle it a little to your chest and pop the latches. Hoshi flows out. His color is faint and he looks even more like a ghost dragon than before and you feel a little twist in your insides. “Hoshi? Are you okay?”

No, he says faintly. I feel…

But he doesn’t finish the sentence and his form degenerates to that heavy smoke texture again. Fuck. You waft him back into the box and shut the lid, tucking it into your backpack and head outside again. The girl executes a lithe backflip and starts walking next to you as you make your way back to Shori. 

“Is your friend okay?” she asks in a high, charming sing-song voice.

“No,” you say curtly.

“I could help him, maybe.”

“I doubt it.”

“He’s a Heilong, right?”

You stop, nervous. “Heilong? I don’t…”

She waves you off. “Oh, you don’t have to lie to me. I can sense him. Don’t worry, he and I are a kind of, kin, I suppose.” She skips ahead with her hands behind her back. Hands that are wrapped in bloody fabric. You swallow a little. “I can help you,” she calls back. “I promise.”

“Well,” you don’t really know what to say. 

“Besides, you oooowwwee me,” she says, effortlessly backflipping to face you again. “And a Burkentheil always pays their debts, don’t they?”

Your eyes get big and now you feel very, very nervous. You gently place Hoshi on the ground and call your servo to you, folding up its legs and putting it back in your backpack to buy a little time. The girl cranes her head under your face and smiles at you. “Come on, Kas. I won’t hurt you. I told you, me and Hoshi are kin.”

“Are you reading my mind?” you say, a little breathless. 

“Of course.” She looks confused. “What else would I be doing? Come on, Kas, let’s go home.” She scoops up your backpack, hands Hoshi to you with a little flourish, and tucks her arm in your elbow as if you two are old friends. “You’re going to be a wonderful friend. I can’t wait to meet you.”

“Um, yeah. Okay. I guess,” you stammer as you head towards Shori. “What could possibly go wrong?”