spacepaladin15

Prisoners of Sol 18

Sitting in the white armchair, I could feel the psychologist’s eyes boring into my skull. I was determined not to tick any of her little boxes, since I didn’t want to be punished out of my career in the Space Force for getting captured. It was funny how eager everyone was to analyze my mental state and herd me into mandatory psych evals—like that was helpful for settling back into normal life! I didn’t want that black mark on my records, that label defining me. I had to convi...

Prisoners of Sol - Android Ambassador (8/13)

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Tollu had been quite opinionated about fiction, so I picked a movie based on a true story: The Disappearance of Voyager. I’d se...

Prisoners of Sol 17

Earth Space Union’s Prisoner Asset Files: #1284 - Private Capal 

Pick-up Site Alpha (Vascar Central Command)

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When your death is a certainty, it often raises a number of questions in your head. You might ask yourself how you ended up in a place like this, or regret that fate led yo...

Prisoners of Sol - Android Ambassador (7/13)

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The first thing I noticed was that I felt smothered, soaked in sweat and enveloped in darkness. What was heaped on top of me? It was so da...

Prisoners of Sol 16

CW: Slight torture descriptions (the chapter is mostly dialogue with Mikri, skip to paragraph 14 if you want to pass that part!)

Reality became colorless and empty when my entire existence was suffering. It was easy to forget that there was a world outside the misery; there was no comfort, reprieve, or solace to be found in this laboratory. I could feel my innards twitch and the dread boil over, every time Larimak or Tilian paid me a visit. The sole emotion that stuck around was hatred,...

Prisoners of Sol - Android Ambassador (6/13)

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There was no sign of Tollu in the murky water, as I felt my long hair billow out and the oxygen-deprived tightness begin to nest in my lun...

Prisoners of Sol 15

CW: You know why (torture)

The coldness of the metal beneath my back was the first thing I noticed upon waking. There was nothing between my skin and that sensation, suggesting I’d been stripped of my attire. My eyes opened to find myself with thick, steel bands wrapped all around me—multiple on each limb, around my waist, and one tightly around my neck. Fluorescent lights pointed down at me from overhead. I was stretched out like some guinea pig in an Asscar lab, as the br...

Prisoners of Sol - Android Ambassador (5/13)

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With shaking hands and leaking eyes, I crawled over and scooped up the shards in some desperate hope that I could glue them together. Even...

Prisoners of Sol 14

Spirits were high as we glided closer to the city. I tried to shake my feeling of unease and enjoy myself. I leaned my skull back, imagining that I was a dog sticking my head out the window. Mikri seemed relieved that I was back in the truck alongside him, and I decided against telling him that our proximity didn’t improve my odds of safety. My pupils turned toward the farmsteads we passed, where I saw one parent hurry a child away from the windows and shut the curtains. Out of the corner o...

Prisoners of Sol - Android Ambassador (4/13)

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The history museum was the most fascinating place I’d visited on Kalka thus far; Galcip hit the nail on the head with his choice to brin...

Prisoners of Sol 13

What humanity had learned from our crash landing on an asteroid was that our materials were durable in this universe. As long as we built vessels for collision resistance, it should be feasible to hurtle through Jorlen’s atmosphere and slam into the ground; friction was much more forgiving here. We’d wasted no time in constructing drop pods and having our Vascar friends test them in simulations. Taking down the orbital defense network on and above the planet would be critical, since they ...

Prisoners of Sol - Android Ambassador (3/13)

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There was no applause as a Vascar entered the stage, and I looked to Galcip for any social cues I needed to follow. The machines didn’t ...

Prisoners of Sol 12

Ground zero for humanity was by the newly-constructed Space Gate, where we were forming quite the military complex. The fleet we’d constructed was ferried in to have an army at the ready. As I understood it, the Asscar had an orbital defense network similar to Kalka’s, which made sense with how deadly projectiles were in this universe. I imagined to soften them up, the ESU might opt for a hands-on approach; human troops were already running training exercises on this side of the portal, t...

Prisoners of Sol - Android Ambassador (2/13)

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I was excited when Tollu ushered me into the auditorium, built for pure functionality; the metal chairs weren’t built for comfort, but that wasn’t going to kill my buzz. One of the things I missed the most about living on Earth were the science confere...

Prisoners of Sol 11

The Vascar—and in this context, what is meant are the organics with bushy brown manes and bendy claws—allowed the humans to send a shuttle with their diplomat. The actual fleet had to wait several systems away from the planet Jorlen, which translated to Rebirth in the Earthlings’ tongue. They were aware of this thanks to deciphering Mikri’s language, which the android helped them to accomplish. Proper translation software was functional from English-to-Vasciv only, so it was suitable ...

Prisoners of Sol - Android Ambassador (1/13)

Prologue

It had been an exhilarating prospect to soak up everything I could about the Vascar, ever since I learned that they were an artificial intelligence race. I wanted to understand how they thought and how their society functioned, to establish rapport with them. Humanity knew they weren’t thrilled about Mikri telling us that truth, and that they weren’t fond of organi...

Prisoners of Sol 10

A lot had changed in the Sol system since Mikri threw himself at our mercy. I remembered how nervous our robotic friend had been entering the ship, with a human he didn’t know. The Vascar had been all but hiding behind Sofia, though he had nothing to worry about with Kendall Ryan. She had erupted with excitement when she saw that our new ally was mechanical in nature, and interviewed our friend on video for the ESU. Once the transmissions were sent back to Pluto Station, that was the real p...

Prisoners of Sol - A Mikri Simulation

[RUNNING SIMULATION 1,209,611,422]…

Mikri was nervous to reveal itself to the organics, but after months together, its hope was that the bond formed through months together might be enough to avert their hatred. It had decided to explain both its nature and its people’s history, in the hopes that Vascar may still receive their kindness. The fact that Sofia had said that she would miss this unit specifically implied a personal attachment. Could those chemical feelings be applied to a...

Prisoners of Sol 9

The Vascar balked when he saw a third crew member among our occupants, and insisted that we enter as just the two of us. His voice was never emotional, but I thought he seemed skittish—spooked. Kendall agreed to stay back on the ship, insisting that we tap on the walls three times as an SOS. I trusted Mikri not to harm us, but there was no question that his behavior was erratic. Stacks of papers and folders were scattered across the floor, and he seemed to freeze when the two of us entered....

Prisoners of Sol - Android Ambassador (Prologue)

I was thoroughly engrossed in writing my report on the latest Gap findings, a careful consideration of what might’ve happened to the ESU Pilgrimage when it vanished in the mysterious border opening. The wall around our star system was the subject of many scientific papers and public fascination. Religious leaders had the easiest time explaining any of this (and the barrier had long been used to prove every large faith, shaping their beliefs), but I couldn’t just write the Captivi...

Prisoners of Sol 8

The portal ride was as discombobulating as the first time, though at least we’d known what to expect. It was like pressing a rewind button—everything felt heavy and crushing, while my muscles seemed feeble and my breaths were too short. I found the presence of mind to press the switch during transit, since the lighter thruster output wouldn’t do a thing under Sol’s physics. Thousands of scientific instruments were trained on this point in space, scrutinizing it under every criterion i...

Prisoners of Sol 7

It was difficult to keep track of the exact time we’d been on Kalka, but Mikri was happy to supply a specific answer. Two months, a week, five days, seventeen hours, and fifty-three minutes. I half-expected him to count it all the way down to the femtosecond.

The time had flown by in the blink of an eye; the Vascar apparently had repaired our ship within a week, but they had to wait for Earth to utilize the portal again. Humanity did send a probe, which had a long antenna, through The...