Empyrean Iris Story Collection

Astrodust

Hurry it up, Convict, damn if this goes any slower ill have evolved and regrown my leg by the time you finish."

The outer hull cameras flashed with movement as "Conn." Flipped the captain the bird and went back to his work, the true meaning of the gesture was rather dampened by the fact that Conn only had four fingers. Thousands of white tendrils billowed into space behind his thin white frame. Large black eyes glittered in the light of the nearby gas-giant as he worked. Krill shifted nervously as he watched the creature work, floating eerily over one of the outer panels of the ship, a tool belt strapped about his thin waist, he looked oddly out of place with the tools gripped in his thin fingers.

Conn, as was his moniker, was a Starborn, a member of a sentient telepathic race of space creatures capable of surviving in the vast blackness of space. They had come across them not so many months ago, and during those few days of contact captain Vir had been, in order, saved by them, induced into aggressive tonic colonic seizures, burned by the cold, driven into a near crazed state, and then almost killed brutally by way of functional brain wiping.

He was not particularly fond of the Starborn to say the least. Turns out Conn, or "Convict." As the captain so fondly called him, was not far off from the actual idea. When the captain had come into his life, he was only a day away from execution on accusations of, "Attempting to maintain secret thoughts." Not only was it a delinquent, but it may as well have been a convict, and, according to the Catpain, Conn was an absolute ass. So far, he was the only person Conn had been able to contact telepathically, and he seemed to glee in annoying the captain to no end. Krill was under the impression he only kept Conn around because he had agreed to help with dangerous exterior repairs for the ship.

"Shove it up your ass, Convict." The captain grumbled turning towards the controls to the ship. On the screen, the glowing white creature bared its teeth in a sick approximation of a grin shoving the tool back into the belt loop and slamming the panel shut in the silence.

"What did he say?" Krill wondered.

"Nothing useful." The Captain muttered before leaning back in his seat, "You know that gasline that broke before we ran into the Starborn, yeah, anyway, in all the confusion, we forgot to fix it, and it may take a couple of days if he wants to do it correctly. He will want to go through my 'memory bank' for the instructions, and he suggests that we don't travel during that time. Seems that the warp destabilized the mainline enough that he'd be worried about doing another one because, as he says, our stupid little air-heads would explode.... Little bitch." He added as an afterthought.

"What are we going to do till then captain, the admiral won't like it if you're late to your own ranking ceremony."

"Yeah, I know, which is why I'm not particularly happy about it, but I'll call it in and we can check out one of those moons we scanned in on when we warped in. It looks like there might be a breathable atmosphere, and that means...."

"Life?"

"Bingo.... Get the HELL out of my head, Convict!"

Krill stepped back a little in surprise. It was really disconcerting when the Captain did that. He didn't tend to talk to Conn inside his head, and voiced his thoughts aloud out of habit. It lead for some very interesting outbursts in the middle of a quiet morning.

Vir motioned to Sunny, "Grab a team of your Drev and the marines, get a landing party ready, and set up my gear. I'll be down as soon as I requisition the parts for repair, and tell this asshole how to fix the ship. Krill." He turned away from Sunny and glanced over at Krill, "I want you with us this time. It seems like every time we end up planet side someone has to stick their squishy bits into something painful... me.... Mostly me."