Mal

They/she. Queer enby. Has lots of opinions and writes some of them down.

Hekate's Call

Hekate's Call, Chapter 36

Ilina had memorized the shifts of everyone in mechanics. After she'd snuck into the foreman's office where Taitle had been taking a nap, she was minorly scolded for not having asked instead of resorting to her usual tactics. Asking for things had never really worked out

Hekate's Call

Hekate's Call, Chapter 35

There was a date. A cute date happened between Krystyn and Ilina, who seemed particularly enamoured by the experience practically running from shop to shop. Krystyn's hair appointment was the first order of business, done by a broad and unhappy woman who did not ask how she wanted

Hekate's Call

Hekate's Call, Chapter 34

There was something comforting about the changes Velia had been making. It felt like progress. After years of stagnation followed by a massive upheaval, things settling into a new normal felt more like progress than anything Krystyn could think of. Even if not everything was progressing in ways she was

Hekate's Call

Hekate's Call, Chapter 33

Morian had left sometime in the early morning to do some tests and pilot check-ups. Ilina stayed in the bed for a while longer, shifting into the indent Morian had left in the mattress and soaking up the lingering scent of cigarettes and disinfectant. She grabbed some gel packs from

Hekate's Call

Hekate's Call, Chapter 32

Krystyn sat on the floor among the wreckage, worrying herself sick about that face Ilina made before she ran. And because the universe sought to rightfully punish her, the door slid open and Manya peaked in excitedly. "Oh," Manya giggled and closed the door behind her. She raised

Hekate's Call

Hekate's Call, Chapter 31

It took begging Velia to create a bunch of work to keep Krystyn busy, and asking Morian to drag out Krystyn's weekly exams, for Ilina to get a whole twenty minutes alone with Manya. It was her only hope, and she felt so stupid the moment she got

Hekate's Call

Hekate's Call, Chapter 30

It was challenging to adapt to a new commander. Charlatan was used to being given objectives and figuring out how to achieve them on her own, but the new Control was more vocal and hands-on. Specific instructions and detailed plans. It felt like taking orders from a less charming and

Hekate's Call

Hekate's Call, Chapter 29

It was another blistering hell-day on the beautiful, barren, radioactive planet Fucking-Nowhere and Hunter Falke was crawling through more rubble on the freshly bombed outskirts of a city. Didn't matter which one. A month and a half ago people lived here. Went to school here. Commuted to their

Hekate's Call

Hekate's Call, Chapter 28

Krystyn was the last to file into Crater's office. Any time she called for a meeting outside of the regularly scheduled times, it felt like something bad was going to happen. Crater sat behind her desk, as usual, barely bringing her eyes from from the endless stream of

Hekate's Call

Hekate's Call, Chapter 27

After a week doing debriefs and paperwork and making up for financial losses, Hekate's Call returned to the Gestalt and Gravity. Krystyn had a lot to answer for as the field commander. Paperwork was a fine enough punishment, and Crater was willing to let her off with a

Hekate's Call

Hekate's Call, Chapter 26

Adrenaline had long since faded from Ilina's system by the time the titanic stickbug came to a halt in some carved-out hanger in the mountains. She was suspended by a bunch of cables she'd gotten tangled in and she was in a really bad way about

Hekate's Call

Hekate's Call, Chapter 25

There was still daylight as Hekate's Call set up camp under a devastated overpass. Tomorrow would be operation day, which meant that they were going to be having a bunch of meetings tonight and then break early and tune up their machines, and rest. For the first time

Hekate's Call

Hekate's Call, Chapter 24

FB-number-number was another blasted hell pit of an end-of-life mining colony. Or rather, it was at some point a bustling world with culture and cities and life before its vast wealth of important materials was discovered and it was rapidly converted to a mining colony. The company that owned a

Hekate's Call

Hekate's Call, Chapter 23

Dr. Morian Kyrnn was not a licensed doctor. She didn't go to medical school either. Apparently her original trades were the bodily sciences – tissues, bone, muscle, blood, brain – and the rest she either intuited or experimented until she got it right. The woman was a horror show all

Hekate's Call

Hekate's Call, Chapter 22

The bar's lights were awfully dim. Another scuffle from the last week had knocked out another lamp or two. It set the mood better that way, anyways. Hid everyone's bruises from getting knocked around all day in their cockpits. Charlotte was three drinks in with a

Hekate's Call

Hekate's Call, Chapter 21

The shuttle ride to the staging ground, some DIN-controlled training field, was quiet and dreary. Vigil and Manya sat across the isle in an odd silence. She wasn't used to Manya keeping her mouth shut. Krystyn refused to let go of Ilina, but that was... okay. It was

Hekate's Call

Hekate's Call, Chapter 20

The notice that Morian Kyrnn and Ilina Falke had docked in the zipdrive shuttle came only minutes before a ship-wide alert declaring level one battlestations. Kyrnn was bound to bring trouble with her everywhere she went, but as much as Krystyn wanted to track her down on the ship and

Hekate's Call

Hekate's Call, Chapter 19

The Gestalt and Gravity sailed through space at a respectable enough speed towards a gate several weeks away. There was an upsetting calm and quiet to things that was driving Krystyn up the wall. The minute Kyrnn was off the ship everything changed. The drugs, of course. Couldn't

Hekate's Call

Hekate's Call, Chapter 18

The scent of medical disinfectant and cigarettes clung to Morian Kyrnn so strongly that they might as well of emanated directly from her skin, and Ilina found it so intoxicatingly easy to find peace buried in that scent. Tense memories of her first meetings with the woman in skeleton city,

Hekate's Call

Hekate's Call, Chapter 17

The week's training was cancelled and all the machines had to be refitted and tested as the Gestalt and Gravity finally started making active preparations to continue its journey. It wasn't Velia's passport that had held them at port for so long, but Kyrnn&

Hekate's Call

Hekate's Call, Chapter 16

The medical bay was just about the only place on the Gestalt that Krystyn had found she didn't get fuzzy-headed from the pervasive drugs being pumped into her system at all times. The only thing that made her head fuzzy in Kyrnn's domain was the scent

Hekate's Call

Hekate's Call, Chapter 15

Of all Hekate's staff, the only person that Ilina was ever excited to see was Symeon Vigil. Morian barely counted as Hekate staff, and Velia was a very lovely freeloader. But she'd only ever had good encounters with Vigil. Also she was hot. Like insanely hot.

Hekate's Call

Hekate's Call, Chapter 14

The pilot's gym had all sorts of specialized equipment, and access to the flash-fabricator in case you needed new specialized equipment. Fancy stuff with lots of lights and numbers. Manya used some of them, but it wasn't like she needed the additional information they offered with

Hekate's Call

Hekate's Call, Chapter 13

Hours passed. Manya really wasn't coming back tonight. Krystyn laid awake, completely alone for the first time in years, staring at the ceiling. Somewhere deep down she didn't want to close her eyes because the nightmares might come back. She was doing fine until those three

Hekate's Call

Hekate's Call, Chapter 12

The air on the Gestalt had changed since they got back. It had been nagging at the back of Krystyn's mind. She screwed up trying to get on Ilina's good side. The doctor said there was no real coming back from that screw-up. The girl holds