Upon Vestia: Chapter Twenty-Two

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(Starts on day 15 at the Guild, I believe)

"Mourn says he can be repaired, probably," Ethan said. "We'll need some parts we don't have, though. For the moment, he's completely offline and can't be powered on."

Hewitt nodded, looking a little disappointed. He was fond of that little drone. They'd been through a lot together. "Aketi space is a few weeks journey from here." He'd been studying the stars, working out where they were. It was a bit tricky with all the magic interference, but he was mostly sure he knew approximately where the guild was located now. "Of course they'll argue it's more efficient and cost effective to just buy a new one." He shook his head. "but all my preferences are logged into that one. I don't want to have to teach another one." Ahh selfish to the end.

"Might be worth a visit then," Ethan said thoughtfully. "You're planning to go back to Aketi space anyway though, right?"

"I don't think they're coming to get us." Hewitt admitted. "Amity liked to say they were, I don't think his programming can quite accept that we just aren't important enough." He snorted. "Well, won't they be surprised when I show up demanding compensation." He looked haughty again. "The company has an obligation to salvage all those lost in the crash, within all reasonable logistics. Now, they'll argue that finding us when a war is raging was an unreasonable expectation, but there wasn't an active war when we sent our distress call. I'm certain they'd sooner not deal with the negative press after the crash, which no doubt already damaged PR. I'll get my compensation, I intend to ask to keep the drone as part of the settlement." He looked pleased with himself.

Ethan smirked. "I hope I can be there to watch that. It sounds satisfying."

Hewitt smiled. "It should be." He settled back against the wall. "What's the damage then? Anyone horribly maimed?" Hey, he was idly curious okay?

Ethan considered the question for a couple moments. "A lot of fatalities on our side," he said, "And many times more wounded. The hospitals are all at full capacity, and not everyone is getting the care they need. The people on this ship were pretty lucky though. Starr is missing, Asher's legs are paralyzed, Esk is half dead, Matt's spine is wrecked. Other than that, everyone is just battered and exhausted, but they'll recover. I think."
He shrugged. "All things considered, it could have been a hell of a lot worse."

"Starr, the dark winged one who changes form yes?" Hewitt could seldom be bothered learning names. "unfortunate. "

Ethan nodded. "Yes, she's missing. Kind of sucks, she's pretty popular here. Still, only one lost out of our whole crew is pretty acceptable." He asked, "Do you want me to help you with anything while I'm here?"

"Maybe she's dead." Hewitt suggested dismissively. "You can bring me some new books. No magic nonsense this time."

"Definitely possible," Ethan agreed. He rolled his eyes at Hewitt's request, but headed for the door. "Right. I'll bring you something to read."

"good android." Hewitt looked pleased with himself. he liked being doted on.

Ethan's posture stiffened a bit at that. Good android, huh? Humph. But he headed to the library anyway, to collect a pile of books for the professor. He chose some science textbooks, an assorted selection of novels, and stuck The Science of Astrology underneath them all, just because he knew it would frustrate Hewitt when he found it. Ha.
He paused at his desk to look longingly at the stack of books he hadn't had time to read in days, then headed back to Hewitt's room, carrying his cargo.
He knocked on the door before coming in. "All right, I found some books for you."

Hewitt opened one eye again and gestured to the desk. "Put them there, i'll get to them after my nap." No thank you, nope, this guy was far too used to being waited on.

Ethan rolled his eyes, but put the books down on the desk as requested. Maybe he was too used to waiting on people. He headed for the door again. "Right. I'll leave you to it, then."

Hewitt waved, and closed his eyes again.

(Timeskip to the next day?)

Ethan left the Professor to his rest, and headed to his own room. He needed some time to himself, to think over what had happened that day.

Kaylr's familiar red eyes flickered in his mind, going blank as death took their owner. After all those years of hoping for revenge, Ethan had finally gotten some taste of that feeling, and it was more of a weight off his shoulders than he liked to admit.

But at the same time, it hadn't been Kaylr, and that made beating him and shouting at him as if he was, well, kind of fucked up. Made Ethan wonder if he might lose track of who he was talking to again someday, except next time his victim might not be an evil keeper, it might be Kay.

A worrying thought.

Ethan sighed. It was too soon to tell. He just had to hope he wouldn't run into Kay alone any time soon, because he didn't really want to find out.

(i'm game to skip to morning)

TIMESKIP - DAY 28 - MORNING

Asher and James had both stayed on duty all night. James handled Esk's checkups, while Asher stayed in the med bay. James tried to get Asher to tell him what had happened with Ethan the day before, but Asher said nothing. He did ask about what James had done though, which James told him all about at length, in a whisper so as not to wake the patients.

~~
Tala woke up feeling sore and tired, but also proud and victorious. She pulled herself painfully out of bed, reluctantly decided to put on pants, and made her way to the galley to get something to eat.

~~
Ethan went to the library to check the place over. It had been s long time since he'd been able to just relax and look at his books, and he felt like it would be better than worrying about keepers anyway.

~~
Ellie pulled herself out of bed, groaning, and headed to the med bay to find painkillers. Just a normal morning, then.

~~
Vestia watched over her crew affectionately. Well, it was nice that most of them were here at least. She worried about Starr though.

Mourn worked most of the night trying to repair Amity. While most of the system seemed to be intact, and he could still edit and remove his temporary code from the little thing, the drone itself couldn't boot up properly. Amity's body, so to speak, was too damaged and would take quite a lot of work to straighten out the dents, replace the shattered holographic emitters and repair the fans.
Mourn was trying to find alternate ways to get the system to boot up so he could at least get some sort of communication from the AI, to make sure it really was alright and the damage was external and nothing was corrupted.
It LOOKED okay, but Aketi code was elegant while remaining complicated and neural networks were always a little tricky to be sure they were okay.

He finally fell asleep at his desk running a diagnostic and slept in.

---

Kay woke, aching, tired, sore. His first thoughts though, weren't on how much his legs hurt but more how worried he was about everyone else.
Had they found Starr? Were Matt and Dawn awake yet? Had Esk made it through the night? How was Asher doing?
And all the others.

He rose, hissing a little in pain as he moved his stiff legs and limped to the shower. How water would help his aching limbs.

---

Matt stirred slightly, twisting his neck a few times before actually waking up.
He groaned. yes, things hurt. His back throbbed and his head was aching. What the heck?
He tried to move, but his body didn't seem to want to do what he asked of it. He managed to wriggle his toes at least, that was something.

---

Esk slept heavily most of the night, drifting in and out of consciousness even mid sentence. He was too weak to make any snide remarks when James had come to check on him, half the times he hadn't even been awake when James had come in and the other half of the time he'd not been overly coherent and had been rather unnaturally compliant. He needed rest, a lot of it, and so that's exactly what his body did.

---

Armin woke early, having slept most of hte previous day he didn't feel quite as awful but he was dreadfully worried.
He asked Vestia for an update on everyone and whether they'd managed to locate Miss Starr yet, looking grim and sombre when he was told she was still missing.

He went to get breakfast, praying as hard as he could the Star Dragon would be found safe and well.

----

Luka slept in, rising at around 9 instead of her usual 6:30. Unlike the others she didn't ache so much, but she was tired and drained. She decided to forgo her usual run and just took a nice long shower before heading to breakfast.
Things felt... strangely normal now... it was weird.

---

Hewitt relaxed and flipped through the books Ethan brought. He rolled his eyes at the science of Astrology book, flipping through it and scoffing.

---

Swarm returned to their usual position, mostly hidden in various spots across the ship, watching, observing.

James trotted over to check on Matt when he woke up. "Good morning, man. Don't try to move too much, you took a hell of a beating yesterday. You're gonna be okay, but for now you're probably gonna feel terrible for a while."

Asher winced at James's bedside manner, and hurriedly tried to unplug himself from the wall so he could go intervene. He'd had to do this a couple of times last night, but even so, it was a bit of a slow procedure that was going to take some practice.

~~
Tala had the kitchen bots make her a breakfast stir-fry, and ate busily. Battles always gave her an appetite.

Matt frowned. "How bad? Is everyone else okay?" He tried to sit up, howled in pain and decided nope, laying down was just fine thanks. Damn.

--

Luka and Armin came in for breakfast. Armin bowed his head to the girls.

"My friends, it is heartening to see you well this morning."

Luka grabbed a plate and piled it up with stuff before sitting down. "How are you feeling?" She asked Tala.

"I told you not to move too much," James grumbled. "'Too much' meaning 'at all'. You gotta stay still, man."

Asher unplugged himself, looped his charging cable around his hand for the moment, and hastily rolled over to join the conversation. "Your spine is pretty badly damaged," he said, "You won't be walking for a while. A lot of the crew is injured, but all are accounted for except for Starr. Esk is injured the most seriously other than you, but he's alive."

~~
"I feel most glad for the rise of the sun and the fall of the Family," Tala proclaimed through a mouthful of potatoes. "Today we begin the rest of our lives in a universe free from the Family's blight, and see glory in what we have accomplished!"

Matt frowned, tilting his head to look at Asher. "What happened? " Man, Asher in a wheelchair was weird. "Wait.. we don't know where Starr is? How badly hurt is Esk? Where is he?" He looked a bit panicked, trying to get up again. Yeah, staying still was NOT something he was good at.
"How long is a while?" He huffed.


---

"Well that's a poetic way to put it." Luka smiled softly.

"Beautifully said my friend." Armin agreed, sliding his straw under his mask. "I worry for Miss Starr though... "

"She's still missing?" Luka frowned.

Armin nodded.

James put his hand on Matt's chest, trying to remind him to hold still, dammit. "Stay where you are, you're only gonna hurt your back worse by moving," he said.

Asher nodded. "James is right. We don't know how long your healing will take, it depends on whether Sawna or another healer can help, and how soon it's safe to start rehab for you." He tried to look reassuring, "Esk is stable, he's going to need surgery and time to recover, but his chances are fairly good. And yes, Starr is missing. We have the Guild searching for her in the city."

~~
Tala twitched her tail in concern. "We shall seek Starr. Perhaps someone may track her by scent, her smell is of reasonable distinction among other creatures."

Matt looked worried, but he remained still. Having someone's hand on your chest kinda helped remind you not to move. "What about you? What happened to you?" He asked Asher.

---

"What does she smell like?" Luka asked curiously.

"She is one of the strongest of us all, I refuse to believe she fell in battle." Armin shook his head.

Shane slowly made his way to the galley for breakfast, pausing when he heard them talk about Starr. "She hasn't returned?" Ok, he was worried now.

Skye woke and took a shower, tending to her feathers before she would come out.