Chapter Text
The space they jumped into was on the periphery of an F-class star, slightly brighter and warmer than the earth’s sun. Enid knew it was called Sol but to her it had always been the sun. This one was a very stable star but there weren’t many planets around it, the mass either flung away or drawn deeper into the galaxy.
The only permanent installation near it was a decrepit looking space station, solar panels dangling off and twisting occasionally where they weren’t shattered by some passing particulate.
Enid peered at it looking confusedly at whatever this thing was. It looked almost like it had been made of wood? Or maybe scrap? The parts forming the exterior did not seem like they could possibly form an airtight shell but the layout was like an old habitation station. Two rings remained with connecting lines between them.
A few of those connector corridors looked to have ruptured, but no crystallised atmosphere had built up around the edges. That suggested there had not been any air inside when it was broken.
‘So what is that thing?’ Enid asked as Wednesday typed away at her keyboard.
‘Old family hideout’ Wednesday answered, not bothering to look up. Which made sense with their being basically nothing else in system the question could have referred to. ‘About three hundred years ago we moved an old outlook station here to serve as a place to hide if one of us needed to lay low for a while. Accidental planetary destabilisation, murder, bank robbery... you get the idea.’
Enid did, which probably meant she had spent far too long with the captain.
‘Is that why we’re here? Are you going to hide there until the UWSA stops looking for you?’ Enid didn’t see that happening because Wednesday would have told her something but... she had been surprised before.
‘No’ Wednesday shook her head. ‘Just a convenient place to message home from. Any messages sent to us over the past few months will have been directed in the vague direction of where we were. They’re lost. But I can ask that they be re-sent here before we go in.’
‘By your family or the system? Because one gives us away but the other means I probably don’t get any of my family mail.’
Enid had quite forgotten to tell her family they were going off grid for months so her family had no way of knowing if she was dead or alive, and that thought had her stressing out for months. She had about two hundred messages she desperately wanted to send out but if they were still needing to sneak around...
‘If they tried to make use of my family’s system then they will have copies on hand’ Wednesday stated with disinterest, hitting send on whatever it was she had been working on.
The mysterious Addams system was something Enid had not asked Wednesday about, not because she thought Wednesday would hide it from her but because Enid strongly suspected she would have no idea what Wednesday’s reply meant. All she knew was that it was even faster than other FTL communications and she hadn’t heard about it.
‘Fine then... should I send my messages though?’
Wednesday looked pained as she considered.
‘Can it not wait until we are safely back at the house?’
Enid didn’t like it but the fact was three more days wouldn’t kill her family. So she relented.
‘It can wait. But what are we going to do until the next jump? Bearing in mind I am never playing chess with you again.’
Wednesday looked past Enid to the abandoned husk of a space station.
‘I suppose we could see if anyone has been through recently’ she answered.
Enid turned to look over her shoulder at the husk of peeling station which seemed to stay in place only due to the lack of outside forces.
‘Will we survive that?’
Wednesday offered a tiny smirk. ‘We have so far.’
Not as encouraging as Enid had hoped.
Wednesday stepped from the shuttle gently, only a little momentum carrying her towards the hatch leading to the disguised airlock of the hide-out. There was, intentionally, no way to connect a spaceship to this facility. It required a spacewalk and as Wednesday gently slid towards the tunnel Enid shot past quietly cursing over the radio as she tried to slow down.
‘Having difficulty with your strength mia luna?’ Wednesday asked as Enid tried to slow herself on the wall and spun as the force was transformed into angular momentum.
‘Just peachy’ Enid shot back as she bumped against the doorway and hooked arms around the crank-wheel. As she did, two camera arms shot out of the walls and started looking Enid over. When Enid realised the devices were there, she started waving her arm at them but they retracted beyond her reach.
Wednesday tapped her thrusters and came to a gentle stop as the jerky moving cameras finished their scan of Enid and withdrew. They had not even noticed Wednesday to scan.
‘Is there an AI out here?’ Enid gasped as she made space for Wednesday to clip on. Wednesday took an elastic cord from her suit and clipped to the door before nudging herself horizontally and revealing the hidden access panel.
‘No. The facility has the infrastructure to support one but putting one here would be a punishment. One that has thus far not been needed.’ Wednesday left off the known effects of isolation on artificial minds intended for frequent interaction. Such things were not in Enid’s interest. ‘There was a mind here during construction and repositioning but they were extracted and a caretaker system installed.’
One of minimal capacity.
Wednesday could feel Enid looking around as the door began cycling open. A little frost dusted the space around them as it was shaken off the door. Poor maintenance that. Perhaps a diagnostic check before they moved on. They would not stay long enough to do a repair sweep.
Inside the airlock the system did not even begin adjusting for their presence until Wednesday typed into the panel manually and air started pumping in. She got an odd feeling as the air ran over her suit but dismissed it. As soon as the pressure stabilised she opened the door but behind herself she heard a hiss.
‘Freakin’ b- that’s cold...’ Enid shivered. Momentary fear flickered in Wednesday’s gut.
‘Did you even check that the air was breathable first?!’
‘Chill’ Enid chuckled. ‘Of course I did. Oh-two balance is fine. Just really freaking cold.’
Enid shivered as Wednesday checked her own suit’s readings. Oxygen was about 19.6%. Just the right side of hypoxic but still low, not that Enid seemed to notice.
‘This place is running low-oxygen to hypoxic. If you do any exertion, you might...’
Enid grumbled as she pulled her helmet back on, clearly pouting at Wednesday.
‘Yes yes, careful careful. But why is it so cold in here?’
‘Because it’s not intended for people to be living here full time. It’s kept cold unless needed otherwise. You’re lucky there was oxygen.’
Wednesday gently launched herself away with a nudge of her toes, adjusting her trajectory with her palm. Even with atmosphere present there still was no gravity. The station was too old for that.
She felt more than heard Enid follow but she did hear Enid’s grumble over the radio.
‘I did check first.’
Wednesday did not respond but did tap her jets so that she slowed back down and Enid caught up. She still stayed in the lead though. She was the one who knew the layout of the facility. The journey from the airlock to the communications centre should be short and simple, and any recent visitors would have left their markers there. Her mind was already ahead when she felt Enid place a gloved hand on her shoulder and pull her to a sharp stop.
‘So this place is abandoned?’ Enid asked quietly over radio communications. A look at the radio in Wednesday’s hud showed Thing had been flagged by Enid to listen in.
‘Not abandoned but it’s use is infrequent. So I can understand the inference.’
‘Right, but there was no other ship in system’ Enid hissed.
Wednesday had grown used to Enid’s directness so her dancing around this question was annoying. Worse, Enid was not even looking at Wednesday but staring down a side corridor with her head lamp on.
Enid continued her hoarse whisper, ‘If that’s the case why are there footprints?’
Enid found a sort of haggard beauty to the abandoned space, no matter what Wednesday called it. The soft glitter of frost on the surfaces and the quiet dark corridors. Enid was no longer afraid of the dark and so she could appreciate the interplay of light and shadows where almost all was dark.
Which was why she noticed when there was an interruption in the frost. At first she had not understood what she was seeing, and then she had thought maybe it was innocent but...
There in the centre of her torch beam, a footprint. A large one.
Enormous really.
Wednesday was silent and Enid waited for an explanation. An old footprint, not yet faded? An oddity of the electrical system that reduced the frost in that area?
‘Hmm...’ Wednesday hummed.
‘Not reassuring’ Enid hissed, swinging her torch beam back down the path they’d come from. Her instinct said they’d approach from that direction and while she failed to find anyone, there was another four of those enormous footprints crossing the path they had just come down.
Prints that had definitely not been there before and that the two of them, floating, had definitely not made.
‘Wednesday?’ Enid whined, heart rate picking up. She was spooked, she could admit that much to herself. They had wandered in and there was someone or something waiting for them. And considering the sort of stuff the Addams seemed to have lying around that could only be dangerous.
‘Thinking mia loba’ Wednesday answered infuriating casually. ‘Have you sensed anything since we’ve been on board?’
‘No, but my senses are super muted in this helmet’ Enid grunted. ‘You?’
‘My senses are not so clear’ Wednesday answered, which was the closest to an admission of limitation as Enid was getting.
‘What do we do? Retreat?’ Enid knew the air outside was freezing but she still felt a cold snap as Wednesday rejected the idea.
‘This is my family home’ Wednesday said slowly. ‘My territory. We do not retreat, and we do not abandon. Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc’
There was an old cold fury in those words as Enid glanced at Wednesday. The other girl had drawn a pistol from somewhere. Enid wasn’t sure how as the space suit had no pockets that looked big enough for the weapon but she had long since abandoned questioning where Wednesday got her weapons from.
‘Is that ammo ship-safe?’ Enid asked, remembering their recent troubles with munitions on space-vessels.
‘Yes’ Wednesday answered quietly. Enid thought she was ashamed but a glance in Wednesday’s visor revealed her eyes were closed.
Whirr bzz bzz-err-err bzz
‘Thing has identified a single launch-pod on the far side of the facility’ Wednesday answered offhandedly before Enid could ask for the translation. Unfortunately that told her nothing because she had no idea what a “launch-pod” was. Before she could ask, Wednesday continued. ‘I can feel... something nearby but it’s slippery. It would be hard to use in a combat situation.’
Wednesday opened her eyes and looked to Enid.
‘Can I ask you a favour mia loba?’ she asked, batting those long eye lashes. It was not done intentionally but it still did things to Enid’s heart.
‘Anything my love’ Enid promised, taking the moment to grip Wednesday’s arm through the space suit.
‘Can you hunt the intruder for me?’
Enid hated how that sent a deep thrill up her spine. She was supposed to be the sweet good girl to Wednesday’s darkness, but when Wednesday involved her Enid found she had a bloodlust to share with her dark captain.
‘For you my dark star?’ Enid grinned. ‘Anytime’
Enid reached up and unclipped her helmet again. Immediately the cold shot in to cover her face. It really was freezing but shivering would definitely interfere with her cool points here so she just kept a big bloodthirsty grin on her face.
Releasing the helmet it started to spin gently in the air, rather than falling. Still no gravity but that wouldn’t matter much.
Stretching out Enid extended until her fingers just brushed the roof of the corridor. Then her feet touched the “ground.”
Braced like that, she inhaled.
Information flooded her even as a heady flow of energy slowly rolled up her spine. As her skull lit up she inhaled again.
Frost and steel. Old dry oils and peeling plastics. Dead skin. Sparks.
Her ears pricked up and she growled deep in her chest.
The vibrations travelled up her limbs into the metal and moments later she felt it in her skin.
Thump... thump... thump...
Slow and heavy, like a heartbeat only it was feet moving quickly. Circling to come up on them from... above?
Enid twisted and snarled in that direction. The sound echoing off into the station. She heard the footfalls come to a hesitant stop but she still knew roughly where they had gone.
‘I have them’ she told Wednesday. ‘Should I go make introductions?’
‘Are you yourself? Or is this the bloodmoon?’ Wednesday asked.
Bloodmoon. Enid’s curse, or rather an illegal, unknown, unregulated contaminant that someone had pumped into her bloodstream. It gave her mood swings, increased strength and heightened aggression. But right now,
‘This is all me baby’ Enid smirked, turning to look Wednesday in the eyes. Those eyes twinkled in response as Wednesday gave a little dip of a bow, somehow managing to make the gesture look elegant while floating in the air.
‘Then by all means, hunt.’
Something in Enid released as she immediately kicked away. She heard the other start moving again but they were large and slow as she shot through this new space. It was not a location she was familiar with. Unknown doors, unknown corridors, dark and cold.
But as her breath steamed from her lungs and trailed behind her she felt powerful.
She was strong, and with Wednesday behind her there was nothing she could not do.
Doing a flip from what, was to her, a ceiling she came down to the floor on all fours, looking up at the stranger.
They wore a strange protective suit. The most notable feature was the enormous head piece. A sphere of coppery reflective metal revealing nothing of the person within. Truthfully, a little spooky.
Enid’s eyes devoured the rest of the strange attire in a tactical assessment. Ungainly gloved hands and booted feet, magnetised to stick to floor and walls. The material of the suit was so bulky, grey plastic sheets, that it had to be armoured. It would probably need a fair amount of small arms fire to punch through that. And an enormous back pack that probably contained a lot more than just a life support system.
Heavy defensive capabilities and unknown offensive capabilities?
Enid grinned, her fingers gripping unconsciously and crumpling the floorplate under her hands, providing her an excellent launch point for when she pounced.
‘Try me’ she growled.