Ghost of IRIS.

The feeling of a shift in gravitational pull is something Onii’kvi will never fully get over. Stepping out of his pod, feeling his body and organs shift, readjust to the new redistribution the atmosphere is forcing upon him, he nearly stumbles. Taking a look around for his bearings doesn’t work either because even the immediate vicinity around the ship, the ground beneath Onii’kvi’s boots, it’s all virtually desolate. Black. Empty. Of course, it isn’t actually but it definitely feels that way. The density of the air, the foliage around him, and the planet’s actual distance from any type of sun or star means that nights on the surface compare to the empty voids of black holes.

[How am I supposed to navigate the ground if I can’t even use my flashlight, ‘cap?] Onii leans against the ship and looks down at the gauntlet on his arm, trying to activate the lights on his suit, a headlamp, something to give him the advantage of sight. [I’m basically Kaskan food if I don’t have some kind of light.]

{Ninety clicks to the signal ping, Oni.} Sai’urn’s voice comes through on the communications channel. {Use the radar, it’s the strongest light source you’re going to get. Besides, Kaskan hunt in the mountains, we’re about fifty-thousand clicks from their normal hunting grounds. Just walk towards the ping on radar, I’m meeting you there.} 

For the first fifteen or so minutes of walking in complete darkness, staring at his radar hoping and praying nothing sees him at a snack, Oni faintly wishes Sai’urn were beside him already. At least then he wouldn’t be navigating this void of a jungle alone and underpreppared. After those fifteen minutes pass, and Oni begins tripping over small things–a tree root popping up from the ground, a large flower, a rock–he’s suddenly grateful for the silent, lonely treck. Gods know the Captain wouldn’t ever let him live it down if he’d have seen it happen. 

After another ten minutes, the sound of his own thoughts begins to gnaw away at Oni’s sanity. [Cap, you there?]

{Mmm-hm. Something wrong?}

[Erm, not really… can I ask, how long have you been stationed on IRIS?]

{Longer than you’ve been a pilot, or in school for it, I can promise you that.}

[So… longer than six years?]

{I’ve been stationed with IRIS for about ten years. Before that I jumped ship pretty often, working on some of the most physically-demanding stations we have in the GDC doing either odd-jobs or acting as extra muscle for assignments.}

[Gods… Wait, so you went to Caelestis, then went into freelance work?]

{Exactly. I was trying to figure out if I’d rather be stationed somewhere, or if I was ready to take on the throne, work with the Council on more civic matters, attend meetings and such.}

[And?]

{Well, obviously I didn’t fit in with the Council staff quite yet, nor did I think a good use of my time was to be in court settling trade agreements. I was your age, I’d just turned twenty-three, there was no way I’d sit in a court for the rest of my life, only seeing the galaxy for Royal Court business. It just… it’s not me, yet.}

[I think I can understand that… not the royal council stuff but, wanting to see the galaxy on your own terms. Before I moved to Holarus everyone kept telling me it wouldn’t work out, that there was no way I’d survive the school, graduate, become any kind of a pilot or even a technician.]

{Well, I think it’s safe to say that the people in your home world don’t know what they’re talking about. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever met a graduate more eager to get out and help in every sense of the word than you, Oni. You’re just so genuine in your interest in the technology, the way things work on the ship and in the world… honestly I admire it.}

[Sheesh, that… really means a lot, Sai, thank you.]

A comfortable silence envelopes the pair as they walk their respective paths. It honestly felt like neither one could stand to break up their peaceful moment. Eventually, though…

[I’m coming up on the ship, Cap’. Three clicks out.]

{Four for me, I’m walking south now, be with you in a sec.}

As they come upon the ship on radar, barely visible blinking lights shine in the pitch blackness suffocating them. Oni draws his gun instinctively, catching a shimmering glare of Sai’s rifle out of the corner of his eye as the pair begin their approach.

[It’s just a personal pod?] Onii’kvi observes, circling the foreign ship and the feeling of its impact on the ground, muted by his thick boot but identifiable nonetheless. [Scratch that, it’s… bigger. Lighter. ‘Left a crater in the ground on impact. Even a crash landing would’ve tore a personal pod to shreds with Ac’ai’s force of gravity.]

Oni can just barely see an outline of Sai’s suit as he circles the pod the opposite direction, and lowers his rifle slightly. On the opposite side of the ship he reaches out, brushes a gloved hand over an insignia on the outside, something Oni almost recognizes. Looks… familiar, but not enough to strike a response out of him. Sai looks like he’s seen a ghost, though. 

[Cap…?] No response. Oni lowers his gun completely and waves his hand in front of Sai, then turns on his flashlight to wave that instead upon reaslizing his hand wouldn’t be seen from that distance. Sai doesn’t even look up. [Captain Ne’la’c? What is it?]

{Get ahold of IRIS. Now.}

“That’s all he said? He didn’t give you any other information? Did you recognise the insignia he was looking at or anything at all?” Nox all but flails his arms in frustration, walking beside Oni through IRIS’s halls. 

Oni throws his hands up and shrugs exaggeratedly. “Yup! That’s all I got! Nothing! First he stands there-” The pair freeze as a higher ranked officer walks by in a group of three, looking like they’re rushing towards something. It was always something. Oni quiets down before continuing with the recap. “First he stands there like he’s seen a ghost or a note telling him the world is going to end if he gives me any information, and then he’s telling me to get ahold of IRIS, get back to my pod.”

Nox grabs Oni by the collar of his hoodie and yanks him into an empty study room nearby. “And you did it? No questions asked?! What the fuck, Oni!” The other boy hisses, slapping his arm in offense.

“Listen it wasn’t like I was going to flat-out ignore a direct order, Nox!” Oni peeks his head out to look both ways and make sure they weren’t spotted and/or followed by another crew member or worse—an officer. “I wanted him to give me answers too, hell I was the only one he brought with him to even check it out! I deserved to know! I still deserve to know, but I wasn’t about to disobey him directly. I hauled ass to my pod, contacted IRIS, and the next thing I know they’re telling me that this stays between Cap’ and I and to stay on IRIS for the next few days. No BLIPs to visit my dad, no breathing a word about ever being on Ac’ai in the first place!”

Oni exhales deeply, like a weight is lifted off his chest. He all but collapses against the wall, sliding down to sit on the floor against it, his knees pulled to his chest. Nox copies him, sitting beside him with his head on the other’s shoulder. The both sigh in unison.

“So… what are you going to do? If they told you no BLIP’s, don’t breathe a word… shit, that has to be some heavy stuff, right? You got pulled into some serious shit… and you had the Captain right there with you.” Nox reaches for Oni’s hand, interlacing their fingers together and offering a gentle squeeze.

Oni shrugs, resting his head against Nox’s in return. “I… have no idea what I’m going to do, or what’s going to happen. I saw them taking a body to medical, or a body bag at least, and the ship was going downstairs to labs.”

“They’re probably running tests. Maybe the Captain saw it was a biohazard or something, wanted to get it tested as soon as possible?”

Oni snorts softly, “If it was just a biohazard, they would have told me that. We’ve dealt with a hundred of those since we got stationed, Nox… This just felt different. Heavier.”

For a few minutes the pair sit against the wall in the dark room, hiding from the thoughts of what could come of this assignment, what possibly could have scared their fearless leader so badly to immediately get them out of the area and essentially lock Onii’kvi on board the space station. 

Footsteps approach from the South Wing hallway, the officers’ barracks. Oni and Nox quickly open the door a bit more and flick on the light, taking a seat at one of the tables so that they’d be seen casually ‘talking’ instead of sitting weirdly in the dark as they had been. Nox buries his nose in a magazine left on the table: The Art of Mecha-Link and BLIPs – Is Holarus The Answer? Thankfully for Nox he’s read the article fifty times and picks the longest page to skim. Oni pulls out his phone and props it up with a video against one of the potted plants in the middle of the table.

A quick glance at the officers as they pass is all Onii’kvi needs. Sai’urn, Cayde, and Nal’eid. Shit. Oni clears his throat and stands, stuffing his phone in his hoodie pocket. “Hey, I’m going to head to the showers, try and clear my head a little bit… you’ll swing by later, right?” His eyes flick to the door, then back to Nox not-so-subtly faking his magazine interest. 

Nox glances up and nods, tucking the reading material back into the rack he hastily yanked it from. “‘Course, I’ll be ‘round in a few hours. Text me and I’ll head down, okay?” He tries to clean the room up a little bit to look busy as Oni leaves, staggering their exits to look less suspicious for any passers-by. 

With Nox out of the equation for the moment, Oni glances down either hallway and heads up the North Wing, towards the communications room where he saw the officers heading a few minutes earlier. With enough luck he sees Cayde’s grey tail enter the room before the door shuts. At least with it being so late in the night, there aren’t many people roaming the halls, most of them confined to their own rooms for the night or in the common areas on another floor. The only things on this floor besides the officer’s barracks and the comms rooms were a few bathrooms and some restricted-access rooms for the higher-ranking pilots to use for training. 

  With the space around him checked out and clear, Onii’kvi stands outside the locked door for a moment, trying to listen through it and see if it was about their mystery distress call they’d intercepted. After a few minutes of unintelligible mumblings through the metal door, Oni pulls out the custom-made amplifier Tick designed for him in their Academy days. He pushes the device into his ear gently and presses his head against the panel of the door once more as the voices begin to make sense. 

“What do you suggest we do then, Lieutenant? Just let the corpse sit in the medical bay until he walks in and finds it?” That sounds like Cayde, ever the challenger in a serious conversation between officers. 

“I’m not suggesting we leave the corpse in the med-bay, Cayde, OR tell him the truth, Sai’urn. The boy wouldn’t be able to handle something of this… caliber. I’m not sure any of us could handle it in his position.” Were they talking about Onii’kvi? They had to be, right? And what did Sai mean by ‘telling him the truth?’ What did Sai find that Oni was connected to but couldn’t know about?

Sai’urn’s loud, defiant groan filters through the door. “Yes, Captain Ne’la’c? Would you like to add something to this conversation besides your inane suggestions to tell the boy everything?”

“Why are you two afraid of him knowing the truth? He’s MY responsibility, you’ve already said so before. I’ve vouched for his abilities on assignments despite your doubts and I’m the one that authorized his medical treatment while he’s on board IRIS and living on Holarus when not on the station. I’m aware this is not my jurisdiction as it is not my solar system we’re residing in, but I do still hold some pull in situations like this. He deserves to know the truth and you don’t deserve to pass judgement on whether or not he’s able to handle something.” Sai groans.

“You care for the boy, clearly, but this isn’t entirely your decision either. This is a matter of GDC security and to be frank the personal ties here are none of the agency’s concern, and they shouldn’t be your concern either. Care for the pilots and crew, yes, but don’t stick your neck out for them when it is not your issue to begin with. Know where to draw the line with the people in your care, Sai’urn.” Harsh, but that sounds pretty accurate for Nal’eid. The Rules above anything personal, the Code upheld. Sums up his entire personality. 

Sai’urn goes silent for a few minutes while Cayde and Nal’eid conference call other officials from a few different stations. One of them being Kepni, Onii’kvi’s home planet, from before he attended Caelestis Academy, before he became a pilot, before he was diagnosed. The group of officers talk about the incident, and as they go over Sai’urn’s official report, it settles it in stone. They were talking about the assignment, the distress ping and whatever Sai saw there that shook him so badly. 

“Have you talked to the boy, gotten his side of the story? Does he know what you found out there?” One of the people on the speaker asks, a little harder to hear than the rest.

Nal’eid clears his throat. “No, ma’am, we haven’t spoken to him, but Captain Ne’la’c is certain he didn’t see anything on the ship, or at least didn’t recognize anything.”

“Seeing something and recognizing it are not so different. If he saw what was written on the ship, the insignia, it’s very possible he’s already looked it up and found out what happened on Ac’ai many moons ago during the Xhi’ka Conflict. Captain Ne’la’c. Can you positively tell me he didn’t see anything on that ship?”

 There’s a long pause, and Onii’kvi has the briefest white-hot flash of fear running down his spine. He never thought about if Sai’urn had noticed him that entire time. Sure, he didn’t respond or look directly at him, but he was very spacially aware. It’s entirely possible that he’s aware Oni saw the insignia. What happens if Sai’urn tells them? Is he going to get kicked off of IRIS? Is he going to get thrown in some kind of max-security prison for what he saw? Blackmailed to never pilot another ship again?

“I can say with absolute confidence that Pilot Onii’kvi did not see any defining marks on the fighter ship, nor did he recognize it as being one of the GDC’s.” What?! It was one of theirs?! It didn’t look anything like their ships! From what Oni saw it was really old and rusted and the materials they use for the ships now are used primarily so they don’t rust or crush completely flat upon emergency impact. There’s no way that ship was one of their models!

One of the officials on the phone clears his head and makes an acknowledging hum, clearly believing his captain’s testimony–whether or not he was lying to their faces. He might not have actually seen anything. 

“Mhm… what about the pilot? Were we able to figure if they were DOA?”

Sai'urn sighs heavily, one of the office chairs creaking slightly as he sits down. “First Officer Shaii’kvi died on impact due to engine failure in the pod. We suspect she was seeking refuge on station RELLE that was taken down a decade ago, sir.”

Wait.

Mom?