Chapter 25

Chapter 25

The exact nature of the stations haunting still eluded me.

Hello. It is time to talk about ghosts.

Or at least, it will be, after a brief update-based tangent.

The station is currently holding in matched orbit with the debris cloud from the destroyed ship. A good chunk of debris, in any spaceborne combat, is going to just kind of vanish. Not literally poof gone vanish, but with nothing to slow it down, small chunks of kinetically encouraged material are going to start moving, and basically not stop. So, theyre gone.

Whats left of a destroyed ship tends to be the still connected pieces of hull, the things contained within, and stuff cut away with beam weaponry that still has a matched velocity. This close to a planet, also, gravity tends to help keep stuff clumped up, especially if its soon going to be crashing into the planet. This close to Earth, theres something like five thousand still operational surface stations that project something akin to the old interdiction field I still have stapled to a drone somewhere around here. They help too.

Were here for four hours. Any longer and we risk getting hit by an oncoming ultra-dense section of the orbital scrapyard that I have on my map, or by a recycler swarm that holds this general zone, or by one of the hostile energy fields that prowl these areas outside of my station homes normal mapped out course.

We have engines, in three styles. We can go wherever we want. But we tend to stay in our normal orbit, because going too far into the unknown is a massive threat. Not everything shows up on scanners, not everything announces its presence. Ive bumped into an isolation cell once before, in a single casual accident, and it cost me two whole levels of space station.

Anyway. We - myself and the two AI - are here at the closest thing to the site of this noble ships death. Why, I couldnt quite explain. I had set the course here immediately after the ships death, but I didnt really understand why. Well, technically, I had ordered Ennos to set a course here, and then remembered painfully that Ennos wasnt capable of actually doing that yet.

Were we here to investigate the launch? To salvage it? To hold a sacred call for the dead?

Possibly all three.

I do not, exactly, know how my home is haunted. Ive said the *word* a lot - haunted - but I never actually thought about what it meant. Its a feeling, first, and a reality second. Sometimes, I am watched from angles that make no sense. Small noises that the machinery doesnt make, physical sensations that cannot be brushed aside as radiation poisoning. Parts of the station I just dont go to, because the dark there fills me with an animal dread that I havent felt since I first learned how railguns work.

There are a few undeniable things, though. Something here is looking out for me. I avoid, carefully, thinking someone, and I especially try to not consider that I know exactly who that someone is. But even without naming names, something has been doing *something*.

Cats dont just randomly get the ability to speak, for one thing. Especially not from a point exactly an inch and a half to the right of my throat.Updated from novelb(i)n.c(o)m

Its possible Im looking at this wrong, and its less that the station is haunted, and more a matter of *how haunted the station is*. But regardless of what, who, or how, the core thing I keep trying to remember is that no matter *how* haunted we are, its still something thats either helping, or hasnt been able to kill me in four centuries.

Why am I bringing this up?

Ah. Funny story there.

While my home is rather ambiguously haunted, and the exact cause of that haunting could be anything from a degrading ancillary AI to a glitch in the lighting electronics, it is *rather challenging* to say that the wreckage were standing post at isnt *incredibly haunted*.

I need to interrupt my thoughts as I take this corner. Oh, I am running, by the way. Ill explain as I go.

My paws slide across the deckplate; I keep my claws in so that I get maximum slide distance, using the far wall to stop my momentum before I take off again. Behind me, the corridor lights cut out with a shower of sparks and a scream that is absolutely not just from warping metal. But Im moving too fast, and the darkness just barely laps at my heels as I sprint down toward the next emergency door.

I have ruled out *ghosts* from the haunting list this time. Ghosts arent stopped by security doors.

I get enough distance from the disturbance on this straight shot of a hallway that my AR flickers back to life, and I yell a command at the local station system to prepare to seal the door Im bolting toward like my life depends on it.

Three seconds and a dozen rapidfire steps across the deck, and I fling myself over the lip of the security door, momentum taking me entirely through the low gravity connector room and over the other side, tumbling into a structural hub. It used to be a common room, but I moved a lot of the pillows and stuff to more useful places, so now its mostly just a long room that serves as a connective point for a bunch of different corridors that lead to more interesting places.

Okay. I say after five minutes of awkward attempts to access a complex data storage device with only my mouth. Got it?

Got it. Ennos replies after a couple seconds. Six hours of sensor data across thousands of kilometers of local space, and it took them seconds. Theres an open tesseract bridge between us, and this point here. A model of our station is projected, spinning to show where were looking nearby. It matches to the last spotted position of this. Ennos adds in the destroyed Earth ship, showing chunks of debris around the signal. Theres a secondary signal thats harder to get a lock on, but it appears theres also something *here* that whatever is infiltrating us is also linked to. They pause. Also, Glitter is here. Still showing signs of power use, but cut off somehow.

Tesseract bridges are for physical connections, not data. I comment. Also no ones used those since Luna Polis uh I try to think of a way to say it delicately.

Ennos sighs. I am aware that we might be removed from reality at a moments notice. I assure you, I will be screaming later, when we have time. Its good that theyve got their priorities sorted out. Regardless, yes. It is meant for physical connections. But seeing as whatever is coming through is physically damaging our home, I would say that is happening.

Super. I comment dryly. Okay. Im gonna shoot it.

That is your answer to everything. Ennos sounds put out, but I dont say anything in response, just staring at the map until they add to their comment. Alright, youve convinced me.

I try not to let my tail flick too much in amusement. Whats facing it, firing arc wise? Ive lost engine control so I cant rotate us.

Railguns 14, 16, 20 through 26, and 30. One bombardment canon that I do not think would have the accuracy you are looking for. The singularity shotgun, a plague dropper, five different pain inducers. Two missile tubes, four particle beams, one inferno lance, a magnetic flux projector, an x-ray array that you have marked as no, the third and fifth segments of the pulse field generator, and the point defense flack cannon that you have named Larry.

Oh man, I remember back when I named guns. I muse distractedly. Okay, Im going for the lance. Least likely to be interfered with by what? I pause as Ennos brings up a diagnostic for the inferno lance. Offline. Great. Okay, the pulse field offline too. Do we have access to *any* of this?

No. Ennos says, a creeping dread in their voice. All armaments are unpowered.

Oh. I am completely disarmed. Thats never happened before. I uh Apparently panic isnt just Ennos job. I should um

I should what? I am, suddenly, very small indeed. I am a *cat*, playing at participating in a world where most weapons fire projectiles bigger than I am. I cant build anything new myself, I cant apply the vast amount of engineering knowledge I have without thumbs, I cant just pull a solution out of...

Lily? My friends voice draws my focus, cracking the shell of dissociative anxiety around me.

I look up. Huh? Yes. Im fine. I just what

Ive found you a working gun. Ennos, my best friend in the world, tells me.

A video window opens near my eyeline. A real time feed from a part of the station we still have control over.

I built two space suits, once upon a time. One, modified for engineering and exploration, perfect for actually having something approaching fine motor control. And one

One designed like a strike craft.

Ablative armor, field scramblers, stealth systems, sealed and secure and ready to go, with two high powered plasma throwers on the flanks.

All I have to do, is get to the drone bay, and hope that nothing bothers me for the hour it takes the armorer system to seal me into it.

I think, Ennos says, apropos of nothing, that I have an idea for a distraction. To buy you some time.

I have decided that I will be getting my friend a very nice early birthday gift.