Homestar Saga

Chapter 24: Outcasts

"Do you think Blingy's gonna be alright?" Yvian stared pensively out of the viewport. The Hub was slowly receding. There were no hard and fast rules about using a Jumpdrive near a station, but Mims had decided it would be more polite to do so from a distance.

"Probably not," the human answered.

Yvian shot him a glare. He couldn't see it through her visor, but she knew he knew that's what she was doing. In answer he shrugged and continued, "They know it's alive, so there's a chance they'll be gentle, but I think it's more likely they'll run any experiment they can to figure out how it works. The Xill aren't exactly known for kindness and empathy."

"You could at least try to make me feel better," Yvian muttered. She'd been much more comfortable with the idea of handing Blingy over before she'd known it was alive. Now she was feeling guilty. It didn't help that the little ship had pulsed with happiness every time she'd linked with its control node. Blingy had liked her. Trusted her. She had betrayed that trust. She'd handed it over to the same group that killed its creators.

"I don't want you to feel better," Mims told her.

Yvian knew he couldn't see her sticking her tongue out at him. She did it anyway. Jerk.

"You want her to feel bad?" Lissa asked, looking up from her station. "That's kind of a jerk thing to say, isn't it?"

The Captain shifted his seat so he was facing both of them. She couldn't see his face, but he held himself with an intensity she could not ignore. In a grave voice he said, "We sacrificed someone today. A person, maybe. We'll do worse before this is over. Maybe a lot worse. But we can't let it be easy. it should hurt. It should be hard. If we try to make it easy on ourselves..." He lowered his gaze, shaking his head slowly. "The more we tell ourselves it's alright, the more evil we'll do. There's a fine line between being desperate and becoming a monster. I don't want to see either of you cross that line. So yes, I want Yvian to feel bad."

Yvian didn't know what to say to that. Lissa gave a thoughtful grunt and remarked, "I didn't think you cared about Blingy that much."

Mims shrugged. "I don't. But Yvian does." He turned back to his station. "Anyway, we're headed to Fint. Initiating Jumpdrive."

"Fint?" Yvian asked, confused. "I thought we'd go straight to the Federation. They've only got nine days before the Xill attack."

"True," the human agreed. "But we need to set some things in motion on the Confed side, first. I can't access the Nexus from Terran space, and we don't know how long we'll be there. A few hours on the comms today might save us from being hunted and killed two weeks from now."

"Why Fint, though?" Lissa asked. "There's nothing there but a couple of Ag stations."

"That's kind of the point." Mims sat back as the Gate effect took hold.

A couple of seconds later they arrived in Fint Sector. It was just like Lissa had said. No star, no planets, no asteroids. Just a Gate and a pair of Agricultural stations floating in the void. One of the stations had a Node, and Yvians' wrist console gave a ping as the Encounter connected to the Nexus. The crew ran down their Jump checklist. Finding no threats and no damage, they relaxed and removed their helmets.

The Captain's first call was to a law firm. After identifying himself, a secretary put him through to one Flilvis Dytha. Mims told Advocate Dytha he needed to establish Proof of Life for himself and the Kiver sisters. While they were discussing the details, Yvian got bored and decided to check her messages.

She found several messages from her mother. The N-mails increased both in frequency and level of panic over the first two weeks or so since she'd rammed her way into Klaath space. She skimmed through it with mild annoyance until she reached that last entry. It had been sent two days ago. It read: