A week had passed since the death of the Lord-Captain. John was currently in negotiations with the remaining Shrell, the last of the original inhabitants that remained aboard the Hargrutship. His ruby eyes unfocused and he looked through the many heavy bulwarks between his delegation and the rest of the team.


    Vic was out of her power armour, one hand pressed against the impassable portal’s event horizon with her head bowed and her eyes closed. She had made this a ritual over the last few days. They had set up a shuttle service, bots passing back and forth to transmit messages in not-quite-real-time. They had “spoken” with Ryn everyday.


    Events on Earth had spiralled dramatically since they left. Newly unfettered people who had chafed at the Accords had run wild and the Monarchs were spending almost as much time dealing with Reavers and Cullers as they were preparing for the invasion. It varied from territory to territory. Magic and Death weren’t putting up with any shit, to put it mildly, so east Asia and Africa had been spared the worst of the troubles.


    South America, as well as the entire world, were terrified of Frost after she put down a small band of Reavers, entombing them in ice but somehow keeping them alive. The unfortunate Reavers had been dragged through portals, trapped in their icy prison, and paraded through every settlement, their muffled screams of pain echoing faintly through their cryonic tombs.


    Death had invested his territory with millions of flying, undead drones. They were a mishmash of shapes and sizes, none the same as any other but all were equally grotesque. As soon as one spotted a Reaver it emitted some kind of silent summons that drew a vast swarm of the things together in order to kill the criminals, adding their biomass to his ever growing reserve of matter to craft yet more minions. The new mass would then dissolve into the small flyers again and spread out. No one messed around in Death''s territory anymore.


    Magic was seemingly some kind of teleporter, ritual circles appearing just in advance of his arrival. His mad laughter and insane ranting presaging the deaths of any Reavers or Cullers in his territory. Earth Bob had no idea what kind of monitoring system he was using, his best guess was that it was some kind of magical array across the whole continent, akin to something from a fantasy story.


    Liberty seemed to be less concerned about Reavers, she only put them down when their rampages came close to damaging towns and cities or impeding the construction of the new fortresses that were springing up. She spent most of her time hunting Cullers, the murderers seeking to level up by killing other humans operated in her lands only at great risk.


    Life had Europe in an iron fist with a velvet glove. Perhaps too much velvet glove and not enough iron, according to Bob. The factions and settlements in Europe were largely self governing and had to call on him to get him to intercede. As a result some areas had suffered badly, the weaker zones being wiped out, whereas more powerful locales, such as Wayfaire, were largely untouched by the new powerhouses.


    John was glad Ryn was on Mars. Large parts of the population from Wayfaire’s allies, such as Ascension, had been moved to extraplanetary sites on the moon and in orbit. They commuted back to Earth for hunting and trading, the portals to the new colonies were fiercely guarded and no strangers were permitted to use them. Some had taken to living away from the pale blue ball of their birth with surprising enthusiasm while others naturally felt a great homesickness creating an almost bipolar feeling in those new cities with many ecstatic but with just as much melancholy.


    John watched as Vic turned and walked back into the stash at Doris’ foot, vanishing from his new vision. He turned his gaze back to the conversation at hand. They had reached an impasse and had been going round in circles for days. The Shrell had to leave for their mission to flag as complete. The squid-things had to leave or be killed, and as the negotiations dragged on John had gradually been coming to terms with simply murdering the irritating, arrogant little bastards to solve the problem.


    “I am now the Lord-Captain by right of strength!” Piop was the highest levelled Shrell left at thirty three. John suppressed a sigh. He wanted to be done with this messed up mission and get on with their little odyssey.


    “I’m fine with that,” he ground out from within his power armour. One reason he worried about Vic wanting to lay her flesh and blood hand on the portal so often was that these squids could vent the ship from the engineering section.


    “With that acknowledgement I believe we can negotiate fairly,” Piop replied, farting smugly.


    “What are your requests?” John asked. He fought off the urge to point out that deciding who was in charge of the Shrell was something the humans had not been involved in. Five days had been wasted while they bickered over who got a promotion in the ashes.


    “We demand you withdraw from the ship and permit us to get back under way,” Piop burbled with its tentacles writhing happily.


    Easy John. We’re finally getting somewhere, Bob sent via his implant.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    “We cannot do that. You are outcasts and we have been ordered to kill everything on this ship. We can offer you another option, though. We would very much prefer not to have to kill you,” John said slowly, as though speaking to a child.


    “We have a new Lord-Captain. Once you savages are off the ship we will be restored to our honourable station.” The little squid was apparently wildly optimistic. Some of his comrades shifted and burped uneasily as John crossed his arms and stared down at the newly promoted Shrell.


    “We have a choice. Either you go back to Earth where you will be allowed to live as you see fit or we have to kill you. The system doesn’t change its mind. You. Are. Outlaws.” He angrily spat the last three words in a harsh staccato rhythm.


    “You savages! We are back in control of the primary systems and I am not without power. You will decamp the ship. There is an asteroid belt around the local star. Another voidliner will collect you once Hagrutship is back underway and blessed by the Light.” The Shrell was either ignorant or immune to John’s rapidly diminishing patience.


    How is our little outpost going? John sent to Bob.


    We’ve got a comm relay setup and some basic manufacturing. In a few years this system will be swarming with my drones, prepping resources for export back to Earth or wherever else we can set up on our holibobs.


    This isn’t a fucking holiday, Bob. Could we survive there while we wait for the Kipragtsek? John replied.


    Sure but would they ever stop for us if we fuck up our first mission?


    Good point Bob. So either these guys go back to Earth, we kill them or we blip them off the ship. Can they survive in outside the ship?


    Bob made a snorting noise over the comm link.


    Dumping them in space is just killing them slowly. They’ll live for a while but not a long while.


    “We have three options for you. You can go back to our world where being an outcast will not be an issue. You’ll be valued advisors and consultants, able to do whatever work you prefer. Next; we can leave you outside this ship with limited resources. Once you’re off the ship we should get an ‘atta-boy, mission accomplished’ from the system and perhaps you live, for a while.” He took a deep breath before continuing.


    “Or we kill you. Our assessment is you won’t live for long if we teleport you outside the ship and that you’ll die slowly. Which rules that option out for us. So you can either go back to Earth or we will be forced to remove the obstacle to us completing our mission that your presence represents,” he finished in a frigid voice.


    Very fucking diplomatic! Bob laughed in his head.


    “You cannot speak to a Lord-Captain in this fashion!” bridled Piop but it''s colleagues had all backed away from the armoured giant looming over them.


    “Piop. Please be realistic. We are currently in control of this vessel,” John replied gently. Bob had managed to infiltrate every system except for engine control and had been indescribably smug for the last couple of days as a result. “We have clear instructions from the system to purge this ship. We are taking a fucking gamble because we don’t want to kill anyone we don’t have to.” He took yet another deep breath. There was a lot of whisky in his near future. “Even if you’re outcasts.”


    You know I’m going to liquidate them back on Earth if the system doesn’t recognise us as having cleared the ship? Bob sent.


    I fucking know, dude. Do not let Ryn see if it comes to that. There was a double click on the audio link for confirmation. John suppressed a sigh and marshalled his thoughts to try and deal with whatever crap Piop was about to burble out into the universe.


    Piop stood perched on its many limbs for a moment then deflated slightly. It slithered back and forth before moving away from John towards a large bank of controls. Next to the controls was a long window revealing the inner workings of the engines.


    The glass was heavily shielded and tinted so that the blinding energies flowing within the ships propulsion systems didn’t roast all their eyes. John was quietly confident his new eyes wouldn’t have a problem although his skin might if he was out of his battle armour. He could see through the shielding and the containment fields anyway. The intricate spirals of power that threaded through the barriers and fields within a machine John could only describe as insanely complex were like surrealist art in his vision.


    “Piop, don’t touch that console,” said a floating drone from behind John.


    The Shrell clenched up, bringing all its legs in close and wrapping them around its body. It shrank down till it was barely five feet tall, a tangle of limbs with a grey head and big black eyes popping out of the top of the nest. The head pivoted until the eyes were locked on John.


    He removed his helmet, the silver mask of his under armour retracting as one hand reached up to scrub over his shaved head. The metal felt cold and hard against his scalp. Christ, he wanted to get this job done.


    “Piop. If you reach out to any console I will teleport you a million kilometres away from the ship,” he said sadly as his hand fell back to his side and his ruby eyes met the aliens black ones.


    “How far away is that? Your savage measurements don’t make any sense to civilised beings,” Piop replied but it was clear from it’s tone the fire had gone out of the being. It was beaten and just needed a way out. A face saving opportunity. John thought for a moment before he opened his mouth and took a risk.


    “You can never go back into the system, Lord Captain.” The Shrell rose up slightly at the use of the title. “You and those of your people that remain will always be outcasts from the Alliance. But that doesn’t mean you can’t run a voidliner.”


    Shut up, John, Bob sent. John ignored his friend and continued speaking off the top of his head.


    “We have plans to build our own versions of these vessels. Plans to set up our own runs between the stars. We’ll need good crew-beings to serve on them. It will be a different kind of run, ferrying willing sentients and materials, you’d be the lifeblood of our federation. It wouldn’t matter if you’re an outcast.”


    John you are an utter arsehole on occasion. Saying that shit out loud and outside the stash. Fucks sake man!


    John ignored Bob and smiled broadly as Piop untangled its limbs and drew itself up, slithering slightly closer to him.


    “New runs and new ships?” it asked quietly, dark eyes gleaming.