Planet Telex

The starship Odysseus, crown jewel of the OTC’s deep space exploration fleet, was due to return from its maiden mission on the 43rd week of Tefir-3’s solar year. On the 22nd week, unbeknownst to it’s crew of one, the Accord had seized the planet.
"It’ll be good to be back home." mused Sierra to the ship's computer. "A year, alone."
The collie slowly paced around the ship's cramped bridge. The Odysseus was small, little more than a jump drive and nuclear reactor surrounded by heavily-shielded living quarters and observation rooms. No expense was spared in building the craft, and it showed. It was to exit the Veil Nebula to gather data with its extensive sensor arrays, and return safely. Few ships had left the Veil, fewer had come back.
"It will have been point eight three years upon your return, captain." replied the computer, correcting her as if to be helpful. "But, I can understand why you would want to return to your planet of origin."
"Yeah." Sierra sighed, mostly just happy to soon have some company that wasn't a machine. She'd not had any effective contact with anything sentient since she left, the dense dust that made up the Veil blocking even the strongest radio signals. "I should get some rest before we land."
"I've estimated that we have two hours, six minutes, and forty seconds until we arrive in the Tefir-3 gravity well."
"With an hour to land, that'll be enough for a quick nap." Sierra said and shut off the computer terminal in front of the captain's chair. "They'll be eager to hear all about the rocks I found, I'm sure..."

The AAC Claws of Gold was assigned as the primary patrol craft in the Tefir system. With the Core campaign in space mostly over, it had moved to a more supplementary role and served to deter any rebellions on the planet and its related installations. Nobody on board could complain about having spared any combat action, though -- fifteen brilliant white strokes on the hull catalogued the ship's unassisted kills, with hundreds of subtler grey ones below it representing assisted and minor craft kills. It had been the ship leading the charge for many of the pivotal battles, and the switch to a quiet patrol route was quite a change.
"We've seen nothing for weeks." lamented Wings of Cyan. She twisted the control stick on her panel around, causing the point defence pods on the outside to spin around aimlessly. "There's still ships on their capital world to blow up, while they're still trying to defend it."
The Gunnery Officer kicked her chair into a spin, as if to make it more obvious she was bored. Eyes of Black shook her head and tried to ignore it, instead looking forward to the space outside. A huge matrix of screens was inset on the fore wall, each displaying part of a larger picture, as if it were just one. Currently, it was pretending to be a window to the universe outside, showing tiny dots of light scroll by as the planet of Tefir-3 sat below them.
"I don't think that's true, Cyan." Black said as she turned her own chair to the right. There sat Tornis, her Communications Officer. Unlike all the other stations in the room, the displays and panels before him were all blank. He was an Assistant, and the chip was wired up to the ship's internal Mesh network, giving him everything he could ever want to know about the ship and its systems in the blink of an eye. To him, the displays were simply a courtesy to those who came to him for information, reading them himself was slower than just asking the chip for the answer. "Tornis, what's the latest report of their homeworld?"
Tornis poked his head up, having been lost in thought checking some system or another. He quickly scribbled down something on one of the many pads of paper littering his desk, and asked the communications relays to fetch the latest news. "I, uh, will just find out for you, Admiral."
"Bet we could have got a sixteenth mark if we were there." Wings of Cyan muttered, turning back to her own station. Her displays were lit with the phosphorous green outlines of cannons and missiles, and a control stick sat square in the centre. Many of the buttons on the control panels had been either drawn on with a black marker, for her reference.
Tornis turned to her as the report filed itself in his mind. "We've had uncontested control for two weeks now. Every ship we've tracked has been escaping. They're not the Tarnash, they know when to stop throwing themselves into the meat grinder."
"Well, damn it, I wish they didn't." Cyan crossed her arms and frowned, foot tapping against the floor.
"See?" Eyes of Black said with a small smile. "You might be bored here, but you'd be equally bored over there too."
"Fine." Cyan said, swinging her chair around to face the communications officer. "Since I've got nothing to do, might as well socialise."
Eyes of Black shrugged, and returned to staring into the representation of space on the far wall. "As long as you're not bothering anyone doing anything imp-"
"Hey, Tornis! What's new?" Cyan called, a few decibels louder than required.
Tornis had already sunk back into system diagnostics, and the shout directed at him caused him to almost fall out of his seat. "I... I, uh. Nothing new, ma'am, unless you want to hear about, um..." He tried to think of the least interesting thing that had been transmitted through his mind today, to ward the other Avian away. "...fuel efficiency ratios on the main thrusters."
"Hit me." Cyan replied, leaning forward and resting her elbows on her knees. "Better than looking into space."
Tornis sighed as his ploy failed to work. "Well, the new ratios in the plutonium mix we've been trialling have meant a ten percent increase in efficiency per square meter of fuel, at the cost of a slightly heavier mass. Compared to the weight of everything else we keep on the ship, though, the increase to our gross maximum is negligible." He mentally prepared the answer of exactly how much extra mass it was, in case he was prompted, but his response seemed to have done the job.
"See, at least he's having fun!" Cyan threw up her arms and twisted her seat back towards the wall display and the infinite darkness outside. "All I have is watching this!"
Eyes of Black smiled. "If you're in search of something to do, you can always show him the weapons systems." She stood with her teacup and saucer, and looked over the bridge. The pair of Avians to her right weren't the only ones in the room, with a half dozen miscellaneous ship staff occupying stations on either side of her own raised station. "Don't forget the new rules, the Communications Officer has to be able to fill in for any of us. Including you, Cyan."
Cyan shook her head in disbelief. "What, just in case something blows us but not him up?"
"It's because of the Igneous Talon, ma'am." Tornis said, remembering the text of the directive. "It's either teach me, or start eating the same food as I do."
Wings of Cyan's face curled into a disgusted frown. "Fine. But, just because some frigate in the backwater accidentally food poisoned their own crew doesn't mean it'll happen here, so, don't get your hopes up."
"I wouldn't dare." Tornis said. He noticed the widening grin on Black's face, and could almost imagine she enjoyed having him around, if only to back her up. "You're welcome to try my food, anyway."

Sierra stretched her arms out and yawned, dropping into the pilot's chair of her ship's bridge. When her ship appeared in distant orbit, the antennae couldn't find a Universal Network link, either planet-based or satellite, and it confused the ship AI enough to wake her up.
"Are we at the right planet?" she asked, switching on her control panels. "There's nothing here."
"Star alignment confirms that this is Tefir-3, captain." replied the computer, recalculating it again just in case. "Comparing planet surface with stored satellite imagery further confirms that our jump was correct."
"But, where are all the UN satellites? Scan them up. Are they ignoring us?"
A few moments later, and her sensors confirmed that the satellites weren't ignoring her, because there weren't any -- at least, no operating artificial ones. There was certainly debris, which the system began further scanning.
"Something feels... wrong." Sierra said, watching as the sensors started coming back with more details on what was around the planet. There were parts of broken-apart space stations, destroyed transmitters, and... "Oh, no. Please tell me that's not what I think it is."
The forward hull of the Core Military Defender-class ship Enduring Hope sat on the display in front of her, magnified as far as the optical sensors allowed. The section had been torn asunder from the rest of the ship, mangled and burnt metal curling at every edge. It looked like the reactor may have gone critical -- it could have been an accident, she thought. Accidents happen, but... accidents don't usually involve the entire planet losing everything in orbit.
"Try and see if you can get in on the inter-planetary links. Someone has to know what happened here."
The computer chirped in the affirmative, but before she could hear what it said, Sierra felt the shock-wave of the side of her ship disappearing in a burst of flame.

"Captain, something's on sensors." Tornis said as Black returned to the bridge with her cup of tea.
Eyes of Black raised an eyeridge towards him. "You'd not tell us if it was scheduled, would you?"
"No, ma'am. I try and keep that chatter comms-to-comms. This ship isn't broadcasting an Accord ship identifier, and it matches nothing scheduled." With a look of focus, Tornis pushed the sensor readings up from his mind to the main display screen. All that was there was a white blob against the blackness of space, slowly becoming more defined as the sensors honed in. "Requesting permission to focus a lock."
"Do it." Black replied as she sat and looked down at her captain's consoles. "I want whatever it is identified and a firing solution plotted."
"On the firing solution." Cyan said, tapping away furiously at their own panels, like they'd done hundreds of times before.
"No, Cyan." Black said, holding out a hand. "This one belongs to Tornis. Teach him on a live target."
The gunnery officer let out a long, deep sigh. "Fine, then. Get a good look at it first, grey."
"Focusing now." Tornis said, eyes closed shut. His mind was already dedicated to the task of getting it identified, and he barely registered the snark.
Every sensor on that side of the Claws of Gold tilted towards the unknown contact. Optical, radar, gravitational -- if the battleship had it, it was looking. The edges of the ship became sharper on the bridge display, the blobby colours of insignias appearing and then becoming more defined. Tornis didn't need this, however, to tell what it was, once he'd made sense of the raw radar data.
"It's an OTC survey ship. Core." he said, eyes opening. "Weaponless. Light shields. Meant to look and run."
"OTC?" Cyan asked, tilting her head at the insignia that was now in focus on the main screen. "Who're they?"
"Like, uh..." Tornis gestured with his hands while he tried to think of how to explain it to someone that had only ever known the Accord way of doing things. "OmniTech Corporation. Think, like... our Science Division, but not part of the government."
"They're the ones that took down the AAC Ferocious Eagle, so I suggest we assess them as a threat. Is it trying to warp away?" Black left her station to approach the fore wall, to look closer at the 3D wireframe spinning on the bridge display. "If it runs, Goddess knows what it's seen that we don't want it to."
"No... it's just... sitting there. It's not even scanning us." Tornis said, confused expression leaking out as static on the monitors for a moment. "What do we do?"
"Destroy it!" Cyan said, jumping up from her chair. "Tornis, lock it up, and we'll blow a hole through it with a capital gun." She noticed Black turning towards her with a disapproving frown, and lowered herself back down. "You know, together."
"He will do no such thing until I say." Black said, sternly. "Tornis. How do you know it's not seen us?"
"I don't know that it hasn't seen us, ma'am." Tornis replied, still very confused at the ship's lack of behaviour. "It hasn't radar pinged us, though, which is usually what the Core ships do, and its energy signature is low enough that they're not preparing a warp, so I can only guess they haven't noticed..."
"Do you remember last time we saw a Core ship that didn't immediately scan all around it?" Black asked, frown turning to a grin as if she'd been given the opportunity of a lifetime. "It was a few days in to the invasion, and it was a ship that had begun warp before we arrived. Meaning..."
"...if they're not looking for us, they probably don't know we exist." Cyan said, rubbing her beak in thought. "Okay, grey, you want to learn to shoot, then? We can hit the engines with one of our small lasers. That'll stop it from jumping out, then we can go board it."
"Yes, I agree." Black turned towards Tornis with a smile. "I am sure that the Ministry will love to welcome our new OTC friends. Fire at will."
Tornis looked up at the diagram of the ship and furrowed his brow. He knew that the thrusters had nothing to do with the warp drives they used, but knew that it was poor form to criticise two superior officers. "Okay. Let me try." He closed his eyes, letting his mind replace the feeling of his body with that of the ship. He took control of the weapons systems, panels on Cyan's desk lighting up with calculations and diagrams as the Assistant began to close in his aim. After a few moments the panels shone green with a valid firing solution and Cyan grunted in approval.
He took a deep breath, focused, and fired the laser.

"Computer, what the hell is going on?"
The computer terminal flashed a couple times, before coming alive again. "Power systems critical. Fuel systems critical. Oxygenation system critical..."
"What happened?" Sierra yelled, putting her hands around the console as if she wanted to violently shake the answer out of it. "Tell me!"
"...Gravity systems critical. Reactor control lost. Thruster control lost. Sensors lost. Cabin pressure dropping. Evacuate." continued the computer, before repeating the list of the damaged systems again.
Sierra felt lighter as the power faded from the artificial gravity system, the lights shortly following, only the red emergency strips glowing. The suggestion that the reactor was now uncontrolled and there was air leaking from the cabin said that it was only a matter of time before the ship was totally lost. "Computer! Prepare the escape pod!"
It didn't respond, instead repeating its messages of impending doom.
"Fuck it, I'll do it myself." Sierra muttered as she turned towards the door out of the bridge and pushed herself forwards off the consoles, floating in the microgravity of the planet below.

"That was a miss, Tornis."
The Assistant opened his eyes, the image of the burning ship fresh in his mind. "No, I hit it!"
"You hit the atmospheric wings, not the engines." Cyan continued.
Tornis looked up at the bridge's displays, pushing up the video feed and the updated wireframe model which lacked the large starboard wing. "Well, uh.. according to the ship plans, I hit..." He paused for a moment, irises losing focus as he looked at the captured ship plans in his mind's eye. "...okay, so, the wing is gone, and it took a chunk from the ship's side with it. I think that it may have hit the reactor coolant reserves."
"Aim again, and hit what you meant to this time. 'Might have' isn't good enough for the Accord." said Cyan, arms crossed. "At least, not for this weapons officer."
"Sorry, ma'am..." Tornis replied, lowering his head down in deference. "I will... wait... it's launched something. An... escape pod, I think."
"Guess it was enough after all." Black said, eyes on the large display. "Tornis, send out a ship to pick it up."
"Yes, ma'am." he replied as he scanned through the list of ready craft, dispatching one with orders to seize the escape pod. "What should we do about the ship?"
"Wait until they're free of the blast zone, then you can destroy it." Black stood from her chair, picking up her teacup to go and refill. "We've got enough wrecks to study already. Captured personnel are far more valuable."

Sierra gripped onto the handles on either side of the door, using them as leverage to kick it down. The formerly jammed door floated away as she pulled herself through, dragging herself down the grips on the wall towards the port escape pod. She hoped it wasn't damaged by whatever hit her.
"Warning. Reactor coolant pressures critically low. Reactor temperatures exceeding design limits."
Sierra ignored the warnings. There was nothing she could do now but try and escape, and with how thin the air felt in her lungs, she knew it had to be fast.
She pulled herself to the pod door and pressed the open button on the control panel. Much to her relief, the pod had an independent power supply and the door slid open as if nothing was wrong. Once she was inside, she hit the close button on the pod's panel, the door resealing and the air pumps attempting to re-pressurise it to a more breathable level. It was cramped, consisting of a single lay-back chair in a cylindrical pod, and it usually would have felt more like a space coffin than a life-saver.
She strapped herself into the chair, gave one final look at the control panel to verify everything was ready, and pressed the "release" button. The first stage thrusters fired, throwing the pod away from the burning ship and into space. The second stage thrusters then lit, but Sierra, now away from immediate danger, pulled the handle to reduce them to a slow burn.
Sierra breathed a deep sigh of relief, a relief that didn't last long. Quickly, three problems came to the front of her mind. The first was, what hit her? Would it fire on her escape pod? Secondly, did she have enough propellant to de-orbit herself? Lastly, if her escape pod survived and she was able to make a planetary landing, what were the chances that there'd be someone to save her? The lack of Universal Network links meant her emergency transponder was useless, and finding nothing but wrecks in low orbit didn't bode well for what things might be like on the surface...

"Yeah, that was actually a decent shot, at that distance." Wings of Cyan said, smiling at the blazing ship on the main screen. "Good enough."
"You wouldn't say that in front of the captain, though, will you?" grumbled Tornis. He zoomed out the display, the silver dot of the escape pod and the grey, boxy Accord cargo craft tracking it now visible in the corner. "It's trying to de-orbit... standard Core procedure. Not sure that they even know what happened."
"Has the pod tried to ping us at all?" Cyan watched the Accord ship close the distance, its four starship engines far more powerful than the monopropellant thrusters of the escape pod.
"No, nothing." Tornis zoomed in as the cargo transport intercepted its target. Its side cargo door opened as it aligned with the pod, pulling in front for a moment, and then turning at an angle. The pod flew cleanly into the larger ship, and promptly dropped to the deck, weak thrusters spewing flame uselessly. "Not that it matters, now."
"Well, lock up what's left of that ship. Black said you could trash it." Cyan smiled slyly, and tapped a button on her control panel. "Use the autocannon. The big one. Here, I've unlocked it for you."
"What, really?"
"Yes. Announce it over the comms, so everyone can see. Good for morale, seeing what they do."
Tornis shrugged, it wasn't his call to make. He sent the announcement throughout the ship to watch out the side, and put his feet flat on the floor and straightened up his posture, as if it might help him focus. Going through the process again, it wasn't long before the fire control panels lit up green.
"Relax, Tornis. Don't get jittery. You'll hit this one."
He nodded, consciously relaxing his tensed-up shoulders, and releasing the deep breath he was holding. Don't get jittery, just relax, and...
"Fire."
Tornis twitched his finger, as if he was pulling the trigger on the weapons control-stick, and the aft capital-class cannon fired.

Sierra sighed. The planet below looked as it always had at a distance, a mix of blues and greens, capped by white ice, but she knew something was wrong with it. No Universal Network, destroyed ships in orbit, fragments instead of satellites -- what happened? Did the government manage to somehow go from stable to an all-out civil conflict in just a few dozen weeks? And, then, would they be shooting at unarmed targets without warning? It seemed improbable.
The sudden feeling of gravity caught her off guard. Her pod fell a few meters down until it hit the floor with a loud clunk, her belt keeping her from being thrown around by the impact. She leaned forward and peered out the window, the angling of the pod meaning that all she saw was a pair of metal doors closing and locking together, as well as a dull grey stamped steel floor. Her eyes narrowed in thought -- this certainly wasn't an OTC ship, where even the loading bays were thoughtfully designed. The Core Military, however, did tend towards the more utilitarian...
She frowned as she worked the door controls, things fitting into place. Her ship had obviously been fired upon, the Core Military now seemingly happy to, without warning, attack a registered OTC ship with a valid travel authorisation!
"Someone's going to get a court-martial over this!" she fumed, clicking the last switch to allow the escape pod's doors to open, and pulling the red and yellow striped lever to engage the explosive bolts. As the door flung off its hinges and slammed into the metal wall of the ship, Sierra hit the release button on her belt and pulled herself up out of the pod, scowl on her face.
The group of Avian soldiers observing the pod almost fell backwards in surprise as the pod came apart, but quickly pulled their rifles to attention once something decidedly not Avian poked its head out. One of the newly enlisted soldiers panicked and squeezed the trigger on their rifle, causing a laser pulse to burn a hole through a cargo box on the far side of the bay.
Sierra ducked back into the pod when she was fired upon, only poking her head up once she wasn't fired on again, and only then enough to see who had fired at her. The half dozen feathered beings seemed to be more occupied with themselves than her, the best dressed of the group pushing through them and yelling obvious admonishment at another, the rest trying not to get in the way. She didn't understand what they were saying, her ear just hearing chirps and sqwarks.
"Sage! Trigger discipline, for goddess's sake!" The Agent pushed through the line of soldiers and confronted the rookie. "This is a capture, not a kill!"
"I, uhm, sorry, they just..."
"They just what? Existed?" the Agent replied, holding out her hand. "Give me that thing. This exo's going to cause me enough paperwork as it is, without you shooting them!"
Sierra watched in fearful interest. The one doing the yelling was dressed in a black suit rather than the grey pants and shirts of the others, and seemed to be in charge. The uniformed solider that had fired the shot before timidly turned their rifle over. Even though they were alien to her, the look on their face was of clear embarrassment. The one in charge hit a button on the side of the surrendered rifle, pulled out a black box which Sierra could only assume was some variety of ammunition, and then pocketed it before handing the rifle back.
"At least hit your target next time." grumbled the Agent. She turned towards the pod and pulled her own personal weapon from a concealed holster. "You two. Come here."
The leader stepped forward, and Sierra ducked her head down further. She looked around the pod, wondering if, and very much hoping, it had a sidearm kept somewhere. The Odysseus was a civilian ship, but, the OTC usually prepared for every eventuality...
"Hands up." said the suited Avian, in Common, to Sierra's surprise. A badly accented Common, but the language the Core Systems used all the same.
Sierra, unable to find any variety of weapon, and very aware of the trio of weapons pointed directly at her, decided that it was best to comply.
"Sage, go make yourself useful and go call it in. One out of one exo captured." The disarmed Avian that was called to nodded, slinging his rifle over his back and running off towards the rest of the ship. "Green, get ready with the cuffs."
Sierra, not understanding a word now that the bird was speaking its own language, slowly raised up her hands as she stood in the pod, trying to show she was unarmed. The leader waved her pistol, as if to order the collie out of the pod.
"Fine, just... don't shoot." Sierra said as she stepped out, not bothering to fight against the other Avian grabbing her raised hands and binding them with thick plastic ties behind her back. "You're not Core, are you?"
There wasn't any response, much to her frustration, but with how she was handled by the soldiers pulling her out of the pod, she had to guess the answer was a 'no'. They all wore strange insignias, ones she didn't recognise...

The destruction of Sierra's ship happened silently. She didn't see the shell hit it, but as she was led away she could see fragments of steel and glowing reactor core floating where her survey ship should have been.

"Tornis, who on ship knows their language?" asked Black. She had returned with a cup of tea to find that the capture had gone well, her interest moving to the photographs blown up on the main screen. "The Ministry reports will take weeks, and I want to know if there's anyone following."
The communications officer frowned a little as he mentally ran through the ship's personnel database and didn't get a good answer. "Uhm... fluently? Nobody but the Assistants with the knowledge loaded, ma'am."
Black sipped from her cup of tea with a furrowed brow. "Not even the Agent that brought them in -- Falcon, wasn't it? I know she'd not be happy with it, but..."
"Agents generally only learn enough to order, not converse." Tornis replied, his obvious disdain for the Ministry's right hand leaking through his tone. "Easier to interrogate them after the chip."
"Well, we can't wait for that. Plus, if they're research personnel, they won't be getting one anyway." Black drummed her talons against the teacup, thinking. "Tornis. Do you have the language loaded on to your chip?"
Tornis nodded. "It's standard issue for comms, ma'am."
"Good." The captain spun her chair to the left, waving to get the attention of one of the navigation crew. "Navigation! We might have cargo to offload soon, bring us over the capital. One storage pod, live cargo. You'll have to handle clearing it with orbital control, as comms is coming with me."
"Yes, captain!" replied the navigation chief, saluting in response. The row of Avians began flipping through map sheets and typing in numbers, plotting a solution to take them above the world's largest settlement. The chief flicked a switch to redirect communications to his terminals while Tornis was otherwise occupied.
"Tornis, come with me."
The Communications Officer felt his mind go quiet as the last trickle of incoming communication chatter was pointed to the screens instead. It was a strange feeling, and it took him a second to realise he was being spoken to. "Yes, ma'am!" he replied, standing and falling in behind Black, who was making her way out.
"Wings of Cyan, you have the bridge." Black said as she walked through the main door. "Don't screw it up!"
"Of course not!" Cyan replied with a wave. "Have fun!"
A few moments after the captain and communications officer disappeared from view, she cautiously stood from her chair, and casually sauntered over towards Black's. If she had the bridge, surely she had the seat, as well...?

"An hour? Admiral, you know how much time it takes to prepare the interrogation reports, let alone perform it." The Agent crossed her arms, crumpling the black blazer underneath. "You will just have to wait."
"I understand the effort that goes into these things, Agent." Eyes of Black smiled as disarmingly as possible, recalling the abilities that she'd used to so effortlessly climb the ranks. "I know you have plenty to be working on right now, and since I need it soon, I was thinking that I will have my Communications Officer perform the interrogation and prepare the paperwork."
Falcon raised an eyeridge and glanced over at the captive inside the nearby cell. "With all due respect, Admiral, I don't think that an Assistant can perform..."
"The interrogation will be credited under my name, I wouldn't want something from your office to cause you trouble. They will just be marked as the one that transcribed and prepared the report." Black turned to Tornis and smiled, the Assistant frowning at the idea of paperwork -- he took this assignment to avoid it. "Of course, your good conduct in securing the subject will feature in my report, of course."
"Oh, I.... thank you." Falcon seemed caught off guard by the flattering remark. A citation from an Admiral carried weight, even if there were substantial rivalries. "As long as I get to check the report before transmission..."
"It will be on your desk tomorrow morning. All you'll need to do is drop it in the outbox."
Falcon gave a cordial nod. "Yes, Admiral. Understood." With that, she saluted, and slunk off back towards her office, as Agents were want to do.
Eyes of Black could only give a knowingly smug smile as she turned to the Communications Officer beside her.
"Even I feel a bit slimy after that." muttered Tornis. He shook his head. "Probably why I didn't make it as a non-commissioned officer, I guess."
Black chuckled. "Well, you found a solution to that, didn't you?" She turned her attention to the cell, taking a good look at what sat inside. "Is it just me, or do all these... furred things look the same?"
Tornis raised an eyeridge at the Admiral, but didn't comment. He had to guess that without a chip, she wasn't categorising and recognising everyone and everything she met. "Shall we?"
"Oh, yes." Black swiped her ID card at the cell door, and the latch popped open with a click.
The pair walked into the nearly-bare cell, door closing behind them. There was little more than a pair of chairs on opposite sides of a sturdy steel table in the room, the rest of the walls being bare hull. The chair opposite to the Avians was occupied by a black and white furred dog, restrained by a pair of cuffs that were chained to a ring cast into the table. The harsh lighting was all aimed at the opposite chair, the rest of the room sitting in relative darkness.
"Hello." Black said to the captive, who blankly stared in return.

Sierra had been monitoring the conversation that was going on outside, wishing she could understand even a single word that the birds had been saying. Apart from knowing that they weren't the Core, or OTC, she had little idea what was going on, or where she was. Her questions appeared to fall on deaf ears, not that she could see any ears on them.
The two birds that were talking to her captor concerned her. One was obviously important, well-tailored black tunic sparkling with coloured bars and a metal designation of rank. The other seemed lower down the chain, staying quiet and attentive, dressed in a rather basic looking uniform, almost dress-like. They had a single set of fabric rank bars on their chest, the colours on which looked extremely out of place on the drab heather grey.
Whatever they discussed, however, meant that the one that had captured her left. It didn't really change her situation, but she was willing to be thankful for anything at this point.
The two opened the door and filed in, the important giving what she could guess was a greeting. She straightened herself up on the chair, and frowned.
"Do either of you understand me?" she asked, frustrated. "None of them seemed to."
The important Avian turned to the lesser one, who replied in quiet bawks.
"Yes, I do." he then replied, turning back to her. His accent was strange, but far more controlled than the couple of broken commands she'd heard the others bark at her. "I'm Communications Officer Tornis, of the AAC Claws of Gold, the ship you're on. This is Admiral Eyes of Black, the ship commander. Don't worry, we're not here to hurt you. We just want to ask some questions."
Sierra relaxed a little, even if she had little reason to trust them. She'd been roughhoused about enough for one day. "Okay. What do you want, then?"
Tornis leaned over to translate what was said to Black, and nodded when he was given information to relay back. "Where did you warp from?"
Sierra looked between them, and narrowed her eyes a little. "That's not information I can release without OTC authorisation."
Tornis tilted his head to the side. "There... there isn't an OTC anymore, ma'am."
Sierra scrunched up her face in confusion. "The OmniTech Corporation, I know they have offices here. This is Tefir-3, right?"
Black didn't understand a word, but from the confused look on Sierra's face, and what Tornis was relaying, she could put it together. "I was right." she muttered, nudging Tornis in the side. "She doesn't know about the invasion."
Sierra's face fell as the two conversed in their own language. She didn't think about it before, but... if there was no Universal Network, no friendly satellites in orbit, and the carcass of a torn battlecruiser was just left in orbit to rust...
Tornis winced a little as he realised that informing the captive about recent events had fell to him. He would have felt a little bad for the collie, but the chip isolated away the emotion for him. "The OTC has been officially dissolved, as has the Core government. The former Core systems are now under Accord military administration."
Sierra looked between the two Avians and shook her head. "No, no. That's not possible." She suddenly stood, growling. Tornis, despite knowing that the shackles kept her well away, recoiled a little. Black stood firm, and stayed silent.
"I'm sorry." Tornis said, voice cracking a little. "We can't promise anything, but, the Accord tends to be lenient on those that cooperate..."
"And what if I don't cooperate?" Sierra growled, pointing at her head. "You destroyed the ship, anything remaining about its mission is solely in here."
Black raised an eyeridge at the motion. "I think you'd best give her the full story, Tornis, lest she ends up annoying an Agent enough to warrant becoming a grey..." She turned towards the cell door as if to leave, but paused and turned back to Tornis. "I know she's an exo, but... it takes a kind to stand up and yell at an enemy officer."
"The kind that you leave in a locked cell with your comms officer?" Tornis muttered, eyes on the collie.
"You'll be fine. I've not seen an exo that's been able to subvert steel." Black smiled to herself and swiped her ID card at the door. "I need to head back to the bridge. I've a feeling that Cyan's already got her hands over my stuff. Debrief her, try and figure out what she knows. Maybe knowing what happened to the rest of her kind will convince her cooperation."
Sierra's rage turned to confusion as the pair of Avians exchanged words, and the senior one left. "Hey. What's she leaving for?"
"She needs to return to the bridge." Tornis said in Common, very aware of the lock clicking closed as the cell door shut. He could open it, just by asking the ship systems, but... "She suggested that I debrief you, as... it is obvious that things have changed significantly since you left the Core."

Sierra didn't know why she trusted the Avian's word, but she had little choice to. Even if they were overstating their accomplishments against her home systems, the classified information that Tornis was able to freely share made it obvious there was some grain of truth. There were gaps in his knowledge -- for example, that she existed at all -- but backups of the majority of the OTC's research, as well as apparently huge chunks of the staff, seemed to be seized before destruction.
"This chip... it seems like a waste to use it on me." Sierra said, with a frown. "I don't actually know anything important, at least nothing that an empire outside of the Veil wouldn't know."
Tornis shook his head. "No, no, you don't understand. The chip is used on those that aren't important. If their minds aren't valuable, then at least their capacity for physical labour is..."
"Then what's with you?" Sierra snapped back. "You said you have one, so shouldn't you be off digging a hole on some backwater planet? Or is that what you're on your way to do?"
Tornis winced. "I run communications on this ship, I'm not... not just a Class A. Avians are treated differently than the exos."
Sierra raised an eyebrow, as if confused.
Tornis walked his thoughts back a second. "Exoplanetary species. Or, if you ask the Agents, 'exotics'. It's what we call... anything sentient that's not Avians, basically."
"I see." Sierra wasn't sure if the nickname was pejorative or not, but decided not to ask. If it described the ones that the Accord subjugated, she had to guess that it was. "So, if I'm not important enough, they make me an automaton?"
Tornis nodded. "Well, yes. We've not quite worked out the mental maps of all of the different Core species, and in the end probably won't, meaning that it just directly controls their bodies. To be honest, I don't even know if the chip actually prevents the higher-level thought processes, or just..." He shuddered a little, trying not to think about it.
Sierra sighed. "Why are you telling me this? Why do you care whether I end up like that or not?"
"Well... two reasons. The chip, of course, pushes me to like anything good for the Accord, and the idea of you betraying your kind's secrets is certainly one of them. The second, well... if they decide you're useful, and don't chip you, then that's one less brainless drone for the Ministry of Internal Affairs."
"I'm surprised you can say that second part out loud." Sierra scoffed. "Not without ending up like me, anyway."
"I'm a Class C, it doesn't... report that kind of thing. So, I'm allowed to dislike the Ministry all I like." Tornis scowled a little. "Plus, it's not like many on this ship would report me for it, considering that the only thing keeping the Agents from being flushed out the airlock is because the Admiral said not to..."
"How interesting that not even the Avian... 'Assistant' likes their creator." she said, with a growl. "Should have stayed out in space."
"That's what we wanted to know, actually... is there any more missions like yours?" Tornis asked, voice a little hopeful. "If there is, we can at least capture them with a little less... force."
Sierra frowned, looking between the Assistant and the cuffs on her wrists. "Usually, during interrogations, there's one playing nice and another not. You're missing the latter."
Tornis looked a little surprised, and confused, at the comment. "I can... call over the Agent, I guess, if... if you want?"
"Hah. Not worth my time." she replied. Sierra sat back, the chains connected to her cuffs clinking. "I'm not saying anything."
"...you know that they'll torture it out of you on-world, and then chip you for your trouble, if you don't say..." said Tornis. He wasn't sure why the collie was defiant all of a sudden, especially now they were told how hopeless it all was. "There's not anything we can do for you there."
"I don't want your help." she said, sharply. "You, or any other bird, aren't going to get a thing out of me. I know that as long as I keep my mouth shut, everything I know goes to the grave. You can't even use those chips to get the information out of me, you said it yourself."
Tornis remained silent for a few moments, considering maybe that he'd said too much. "That's true, but..."
"Plus, they won't chip me. I bet your 'Agents' are short-tempered enough that I'll just get them to shoot me before long." The dog bared her teeth in a wide, intimidating grin. "And then, my final thought? It'll be that you're still up here, with that chip in your head, while at least I get to die free."
Tornis blinked in shock at the collie. "I... okay then." The emotional buffers the chip was running meant he didn't quite know how to process the situation, but it was clear he wasn't getting what he wanted. "I guess I'll... leave you to it, then."
Sierra kept her grin wide as the Avian stood. "Say hello to your commanding officer, for me. She, at least, looked like she knew what she was doing."
Tornis stayed silent as the door locks disengaged and he went through, back towards the bridge.

"Wow. Savage." said Cyan, as Tornis walked back into the bridge. "She really dug deep, didn't she?"
"Shut up, Cyan." Black snapped. "Tornis, don't worry about the report. Cyan volunteered to do it."
The Gunnery Officer grumbled at her terminal, turning back to a pad of paper and a pen. "Look, I didn't mean t-"
"She also volunteered to reprint all the documents that her awry tea drinking ruined."
Tornis looked at the pile of paper towel, coloured the yellow of tea, absorbing what liquid remained on the Admiral's control panel. "I see. So she's just going to make fun of me for it, then?" he snipped, the emotional buffers now disabled.
"No, she won't." Black glanced over at Cyan, who was chuckling to herself.
"Fine." Tornis collapsed down into his chair and closed his eyes. "It's so different, talking to just one."
"What do you mean?" asked Black, chair rotating to face him.
"We've dealt with lifeboats before, and surrendered ships, and all that. There's the defiant ones, like her, who you just know the Ministry will have a field day with. But it's different, telling a thousand their fate than just one."
"Ah, yes." Eyes of Black turned back to her tea-stained papers. "It's harder, when it's personal."
Tornis shook his head and rose from his chair. "I'm going to go get a drink. Something strong."
"But aren't yo-" Cyan began, before being silenced by Black.
"Just don't get caught." Black said, as the Assistant shuffled off to locate the staff bar.
Tornis shrugged non-committally. He knew he wasn't supposed to drink off shore leave, but he wasn't that concerned about the rules at the moment. "Eh."
Black smiled a little as the door shut. "He'll get the hang of it one day."