every time i caught you leaving

[nepetaleijon]

Make it count, Captain. We're only gonna get one shot at this.

There's a field of bizarrely horned ships, cruising with silent menace through interstellar space. And there's a much smaller ship carrying the elite infiltration rebel team, ready to slip through the fleet's defenses in the first moment of distaction.

The decoy team should be reaching the flagship and starting the diversion any moment now.

Comments

[nepetaleijon]

It takes barely seconds for the sensors to raise the alarm. Every drone and soldier on the ship responds to the alert, some converging on the incursion point, some alerting the other ships.

The second heavily shielded craft slides into position with a shoosh, and the stealth team begins its own (much quieter) incursion as Nepeta drops silently out of an exhaust vent and into a corridor.

[stridersgonnastride]

Over the PA system, and through every intercom on the ship, there is a crackle of static. And then a sick beat, dropping like anvils on animated coyotes.

Yeah, so peep out the manuscript
You see that it's a must we drop gangsta shit
What's my motherfucking name?

After Snoop has dropped his pearls of wisdom, and the hallway is clear, Dave's team continues to the armory. The music shifts sharply to someone shredding an electric guitar.

"we're about to make a big boom," he says into his wrist com. "you're gonna want to hold on to something besides your own asses"

[nepetaleijon]

Imperial drone soldiers are leaping to action all over the ship, pounding down the corridors toward the armory with weapons at the ready. A phalanx of them charges past a darkened doorway, their boots hitting the deckplates out of sync with the beat pouring out of the intercoms.

The moment after they've passed, the stealth team slips out and sneaks down the hallway in the other direction.

The plans won't be anywhere in the main tactics computer; too easy to access through any terminal on the ship. They're going to need to find the top security war room, and the code-locked case inside it. The captain is pretty sure she knows where it is, but now's when they find out if their intelligence was right.

The music shifts, and she grins at its first notes.

[stridersgonnastride]

Sure enough, as the song comes to a stop, there's a really big boom. It's audible throughout several decks, and it makes load bearing walls judder nervously.

Any alarms that weren't blaring before have started up now. "how does that stupid fucking line go

"today we celebrate our independence day, and here's your fucking fireworks"

There's a secondary explosion, and the noise of shrapnel ricocheting. "whoops"

[nepetaleijon]

And there it is, the war room, with two drones on guard outside. They don't make for much of a challenge.

Nepeta leaps over the remains of the larger drone and into the room, with the rest of her blurry faceless team coming in behind her and fanning out to either side. The crucial case is there on the table in the center.

Carefully, slowly, she reaches out both gloved hands to pick it up.

[stridersgonnastride]

Her com goes off. "nothing to worry about here," Dave says.

"just a slight weapons malfunction you know how it is i'm such a butterfingers i can't hold all these grenades

"how's it going over there"

[nepetaleijon]

"Almeowst got it," she murmurs, and thumbs the latches open.

(Wasn't there supposed to be a code, to unlock it?)

But no, the latches come up smoothly and without fuss, and the cover lifts smoothly upward, and --

-- and the case, its interior blurred and cloudy, begins to fade out of her hands into insubstantiality.

"Wait --"

[stridersgonnastride]

"hey you're kind of breaking up over there"

There's a crackle of static and then a long pause. "or maybe just waking up because i don't think the ship is supposed to have big holes in it

"or space i don't think space is supposed to have big holes in it either"

[nepetaleijon]

"Hang on," she says, sharp with sudden fear, "don't go anywhere, don't -- I almeowst had it --"

She plunges one hand into the cloudy interior of the dissolving case, groping blindly for the key she knows is in here, in here somewhere --

"-- can you hear me?"

[stridersgonnastride]

"this is how it went last time. i'll just schedule the next ghost roleplay session for whenever your brain is bored or however the fuck this works it makes a nice break from the double dead void"

Dave sounds remarkably resigned to the concept of non-existence, but he has had plenty of time to get used to it.

[nepetaleijon]

And of course this is how it went last time, she remembers now, with the entire dream starting to dissolve around her and Dave along with it. This is how it goes every time.

But this isn't how it's supposed to go --

Her hand closes around something that isn't Dave, and isn't a key either.

It's the hilt of a sword.

[stridersgonnastride]

"uh you wanna tell me what the fuck you're doing maybe"

That feels weird.

[nepetaleijon]

"Hold on --"

There's nobody else left in the room with her. There's barely even a room anymore, and only the faintest fading shape of a case in front of her.

But the sword comes out heavy and sharp in more than one sense of the word, light gleaming off the leaf-shape of its blade and glinting off its edges, solid and real in her grasp, more real than anything else around it.

There's a pulse, somewhere (nowhere) (everywhere) around her. A beat.

[stridersgonnastride]

When Nepeta opens her eyes, there's a weird red and white blur that resolves into a translucent and very surprised looking Dave.

"holy shit," he says.

[nepetaleijon]

She starts up from her pile of furs, staring openmouthed.

"Dave!"

(There's something heavy in her hand, pressing her knuckles down against the stone floor.)

[stridersgonnastride]

And just as she focuses on him properly, he's gone again.

Like a dream right after you wake up. It makes sense for a minute, but then you start wondering where you got the Cheez Wiz to begin with, or why they were trying to fill the submarine with horses, and you give up, turn over, and go back to sleep.

Usually, anyway.

[nepetaleijon]

For another few unbelieving seconds, she stares at the place where he stood, as though trying by sheer force of will to make him unvanish.

But it doesn't happen, of course, and she lets out a noise of frustration and loss that falls somewhere between a snarl and a wail, and slams both fists into the floor.

And then yelps, because one fist lands rather more heavily than it should --

Because there's a broken-off half-sword weighing down that fist. Hilt and spiked crossguard and maybe a handspan of blade jaggedly snapped off, gleaming solidly in the red glow of the firepit embers, heavy and sharp in more than one sense of the word.

Slowly she sits back, blinking at the broken sword in her hand.



It doesn't vanish.