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The system's star looms ahead, taking up the entirety of the viewport, the adaptive display working overtime to dim its light to below eye-searing levels.
You hail the <span class="mu-i">Astral Thorn</span> and after several seconds of waiting, you get a connection.
<span class="mu-i">"Is this Elne Blavis?"</span> an unfamiliar, but decidedly female voice asks with a strange amount of intensity.
"I suppose it would be, yes," you answer.
<span class="mu-i">"I know what you did,"</span> the voice hisses. <span class="mu-i">"You tried to hurt my Marchioness. You are a bad, bad person and you deserve only the worst to happen to you. I hope you die in a fire, Elne Blavis. And I hope-"</span>
The connection drops abruptly while you and Fia, who was listening in from the co-pilot's seat, share a look full of raised eyebrows.
"So I'd need a longer voice sample to be sure," Fia is the first one to break the silence. "But I'm like sixty percent sure this was a designermate."
"Oh? How can you tell?"
"Voice harmonics. Vocal cords are optimized across models to deliver the most soothing, agreeable, and submissive tone possible. Variation exists and the pitch may be up or down-shifted depending on client preferences, but-" she's interrupted by the chirp of the comms console.
"This is <span class="mu-i">Percheron</span>, how can I be of assistance, <span class="mu-i">Astral Thorn</span>?"
<span class="mu-i">"You contacted us a moment ago, </span>Percheron<span class="mu-i">,"</span> it's the Marchioness this time. <span class="mu-i">"I assume - and in fact sincerely hope - this is about the flight plan."</span>
"What the fuck," Fia mutters and you give her a nod. Yup: Dragonbloods.
"I would first like to make sure that whoever I just talked to lacks access to your craft's armaments."
There is a noticeable silence on the other end.
<span class="mu-i">"She does not. This was my pilot. She has been reprimanded."</span>
"Well if you say so, I have no choice but to believe it," you snort. "I will begin the slingshot maneuver in T-minus... twenty-eight minutes with change. Sending over the flight plan now."
<span class="mu-i">"Flight plan received. Hm. Leaving the elliptic?"</span>
"Worried, Marchioness?" you smile to yourself. Even now, seemingly at the height of galactic expansion and relative stability, there persisted countless superstitions and ghost stories about the fates of voidcraft that strayed too far from a system's elliptic plane: the well-tread traffic routes, the networks of communication satellites, and the patrol routes of local militaries.
<span class="mu-i">"Certainly not. However, I am curious as to our ultimate destination."</span>
"All in good time, Marchioness. For now I'm still focused on simply leaving the system. Incidentally, if you see my craft doing any superfluous maneuvering during the slingshot, it's because of damaged heat shielding - I will be trying to spare it as much as possible."
<span class="mu-i">"Understood. But if you're concerned about your craft's integrity, wouldn't it be safer for you to come aboard the </span>Astral Thorn<span class="mu-i">?"</span>
"Depends entirely on your definition of safe, Marchioness. This is <span class="mu-i">Percheron</span>, over and out."
(cont)
