UPON VESTIA: CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

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Asher considered his words for a few seconds, glancing around the room as he thought, then looked to Kay again. "I've been thinking over everything that's happened today, and I feel like it would be wrong for me to leave Terra before the androids have been granted their freedom," he said. "I think it might be in the best interests of the children and the androids if I stay on Terra while Vestia goes on to the Imperium." He wished he could have phrased it better, but he just didn't know how. Ugh.

"I dunno. I mean, I probably should. Kay can't and we kinda need people who are citizens right? I might not look much like a Satare, but I AM a citizen and they can't ignore that. " hey if they were willing to force him to fight for them, they had to accept him as a citizen. "Luka's probably the best person to act as the face of the whole thing... you know, being full blooded Satare and all... and an actual soldier." Matt shrugged. "But me and Esk know the colony. It's our home after all." He looked down at his wheelchair. "that is of course assuming I can walk by that point." He sighed.

"Does it matter if you can walk or not? Asher was on the Silver Devil in a wheelchair, and he was fine," Tala said. Trapped on the lower deck for a while until they'd realized they could teleport him up, but still. "I wonder if any of the star dragons have been to the Imperium before, or at least know the language," she added thoughtfully.

Matt shook his head. "I don't want Thalia to see me like this." He admitted. "and to be fair, the Devil is... not a big ship. I dunno how practical it is to travel around it in a wheelchair when you have like.. you know.. organic needs." ahem. Yeah Asher could manage but he only needed a power outlet right? He highly doubted the Devil had wheelchair accessable bathrooms or dining facilities.

"heeey, if they need to learn i'm sure we can set up some like.. holo deck lessons or something? there's gotta be linguistics programs in there right?" He brightened at that idea. "we should totally ask them!"

Tala considered that. Normally she'd be the first to say that there was no shame in being wounded in battle but... wellll, Matt had kind of gotten himself injured by sheer hotheaded foolishness. So yeah, maybe he had a good reason to not want Thalia seeing him this way.
She decided not to comment on that. Matt probably already knew it.

Her ears wiggled. "That is true. Androids are well suited to all manner of living conditions, and I suppose you are much less so. That is unfortunate."
She nodded. "There must be such a program, to teach the dragons the language. And we can have them watch Luka until they master the art of becoming Satare. There might even be places to buy counterfeit microchips outside the Imperium, to complete their disguise."

Matt looked like he hadn't even thought about the chips. "Oh... oh shit.. yeah.. " He idly rubbed his wrist. "that's gonna suck for them. Unless they can like.. magic up fake signals or something I dunno." Hey, he had no idea.

"Maybe they can use false skin to cover the chips, it seems unnecessary to insert them in their skin," Tala said thoughtfully. "Either borrow false skin from the androids, or create some type of magical illusion." Surgically installing a chip just to remove it later seemed like a waste of time.

Matt nodded slowly. "Yeah it... seems pretty ott. " Hmm. Well they had several months to come up with a plan didn't they?

---

Mourn was enjoying being scritched and forgot about his food.

---

Kay watched the stars. It was less lonely being around people, but he still didn't really feel like being that sociable. This was a decent enough compromise.

---

(I missed a post) Armin smiled to Starr. "All will be well my friend, I have faith in that. The Weaver shall guide us. Already so much is coming right. Soon, your people and the androids will be free, the Star Dragons will have a new princess and this ship shall be full of the happy sounds of children playing. " He liked this thought. "Then we shall celebrate properly."

"We shall figure out something. The Satare will not know they have been fooled." Tala liked that thought. Who didn't want to fool the Imperium?

~~
Ellie watched Skye and Mourn, amused. "I thought you weren't a cat, Mourn," she teased.

~~
James moped about for a while, but eventually decided to cut that out. He'd head up to stop by the party.

~~
Ethan was still off doing library chores. He'd considered making a brief visit to the party, but Vestia said Kay was there.
He did NOT want to be anywhere near Kay right now, not when Asher was gone on some crazy mission and Kay was in who-knew-what emotional state. That just seemed like a bad idea.

Matt snickered "hey outsmarting those assholes sounds great to me." He had no real love of his mother's homelands, those guys hadn't exactly been kind to him.

---

Mourn glowered at Ellie. "Terran like head scritch too." He huffed, least some of them seemed to. But he moved so that Skye couldn't pet him any longer. Bah, stupid terran.

----

Luka went to return some books to the library. She'd probably heard there was a party but yeah, she'd probably drop past later on. She was in a pretty good mood, they were going home after all.

"They deserve to be made fools, they have created so much war," Tala said. "It will  serve them right." Like Matt, she was kinda bitter about the Imperium.

~~
Ethan was shelving some books when Luka came in, he jumped slightly when he caught sight of that familiar skin and hair color, but then his brain caught up to the fact that this person was female and a good five inches taller than Kay or Kaylr. Whew.
"Hey Luka," he said.  "Not going to the party?"

Skye sighed softly and looked to Mourn then to Ellie. "Different people like different things." She said quietly.

~~~
Starr smiled as well as she could in this form and nodded "Yes, and you will be well and strong again so you can see them too." She said with confidence. She hoped so anyway.

Ellie giggled. Mourn's catlike behavior kinda amused her, and she was insensitive enough to miss the fact that she was probably being kinda racist by calling him a cat.
"I wouldn't mind Shane head scritches," she said.

Shane looked to Ellie then shrugged "You usually wear hats, that makes it hard to give scritches. Not that I knew you wanted them." He said curiously.

Ellie giggled some more. "I don't want scritches specifically, I was just going with what Mourn said. I mean they're nice, but they're not something I daydream about or anything."

Mourn made a face at Ellie and went back to eating.

---

Armin nodded. "Yes, I believe you are correct. Already I am feeling much better." He brushed his hair out of his eyes. "though I must find someone who can cut my hair." He chuckled. "it gets in the way. "

---

Luka stared at Ethan as he looked flighty, uh.. okay then. She smiled and held out the books. " I'll pop in later." Hey, it was stylish to turn up late wasn't it? hah. "You're avoiding it all?" He didn't seem to like social events did he? She supposed it must be kinda weird, especially when you couldn't even get drunk to make it all more tolerable.

Ethan left the books he was shelving and went over to Luka, trying to look like he hadn't been startled by Luka's arrival. He liked to pretend like he was normal, thanks, and like his stupid robot brain wasn't still on the alert from Hewitt leaning on him earlier.
"I figured it wasn't worth showing up, probably just a lot of people wandering around drunkenly and laughing about stupid shit," he said. "Besides, there's always work to do here." He looked at her pile of books, "Did you like them?"

Starr smiled softly at that and nodded "Well, we can ask my people if there is a barber among them." She offered, though she didn't want to push unless he wanted that.
~~~
Skye smiled and looked up at the stars overhead again.

Shane shrugged a little and drank some of his beer.

Luka nodded "not quite as good as Satare literature, but about as trashy." She laughed. Apparently trashy romance adventure stories trancended species barriers.

---

Armin tugged at a wayward strand of curly white hair and nodded "that may be a good idea." He agreed.

"Good, I was hoping they'd have similar appeal," Ethan said. He looked slightly amused, it was kind of impressive how many people on this ship loved trashy romance or adventure novels. "Need any more? I got a few while we were on Terra." He didn't judge. Much.

~~
James would look around the party, deciding who to say hi to. Yeah, he wasn't going to approach Mourn's group, they looked kinda awkward. And Tala and Matt had the booze, so nah, maybe not right now. "Yo Swarm, you here?" he asked the air.

Luka laughed "Maybe, I dunno. I have a lot to do before we hit the empire... " Hmm, like a letter to write to her father. It was probably better to write than just turn up right? yeah..
write first. then visit.
Plus many more movies to watch with Rigel, eee.

She smiled happily. "If I get bored, i'll come browse through your new selection."

---

Swarm coalesced. ---we--- ---are--- ---always--- ---here---

"That's right, you'll be heading back to your home empire. You must be excited about that," Ethan said. He knew how much pride Luka had for the Imperium. "You planning to rejoin the military, or however that works?"

~~
James smiled at the cloud of insects. "This is why you guys are such good friends, you're always here when I need ya. How you guys doing?"

---we--- ---are--- ---well--- they spelled out, though a few of them broke formation, apparently disagreeing. Hmm.

---

Luka beamed. "I'm nervous. It's been so long, they likely assume i'm dead. I... " Her smile faltered and she frowned. "I don't... really know what to say to my father..."

James frowned a little, noticing that some of the bugs seemed to be in disagreement. It was a little worrying that some of them didn't seem to think they were well. "How about you guys?" he asked the disagreeing bugs. Swarm had been so secretive lately, it was weird and a bit worrying.

~~
Ethan nodded. "I guess it must have been a long time since you've contacted any of them." He considered for a few seconds, "Seems like he'd be happy to see you again, right? Unless he's an asshole, in which case you don't have to go home." Admittedly, Ethan didn't know much about fathers, so he was kind of just making guesses here.

Starr smiled and nodded "I will ask them" She said before dipping her head and asking those on Vestia about if any were good at hairdressing or being a barber. Soon she had a couple coming up to the room. "There are two coming up here, a couple."

---we--- ---are--- ---fine--- the majority repeated. ---do--- ---you--- ---think--- ---the--- ---rebellion--- ---will--- ---succeed?--- Swarm didn't seem to want to answer that question.

----

"My father is a wonderful man." Luka shook her head. "i just.. a lot of.. this is hard to explain." She waved her hand around broadly. Hanging out with aliens, hooking up with her captain who was also an alien, these were... not something she was sure her family would be quite so immediately accepting of.

----

Armin looked surprised. "so.. soon?" Oh dear, he hadn't really expected it all so suddenly. "t. thank you Miss Starr, you are too kind, and efficient." He smiled a little awkwardly.

Starr chuckled softly and looked to him again. "It is good to have telepathy sometimes." She said gently.

Soon enough there was a knock at the door.

"Of course. Androids are badasses, they'll save themselves, or my baby bro will save them," James said. He was eyeing Swarm though. "Seriously guys, I'm getting kinda worried about you. I know you've been sneaking off lately, on the space station and on Terra too, I'm pretty sure."

~~
"Don't tell him anything, maybe. Just say you lived off the land for years, hunting wild animals, until some Satare found you and brought you home. Satare are big fans of resourcefulness, right? And only people who can pass as Satare or Hexenfolke are going into the Imperium, I'm pretty sure." Ethan figured it was fine to lie if it made things easier. Sadly he'd never been a great liar in spite of that though, darn it.