#anyways uhhhhhhhh starship iris real good y'all

[waveridden]

FIC: fast talk

“Mayday, mayday, this is Officer Purpler on the Starship Iris, ID 27-Tango-53-08-Whiskey, mission priority 6, requesting immediate assistance. We had a catastrophic shuttle failure, I am the only survivor, requesting extraction.” (A Neoscum/TSCOSI AU, 2.3k)

A/N: This is an AU based on the truly incredible audio drama The Strange Case of Starship Iris. I tried to make it as accessible to non-listeners as I could, but all you really need to know is: it's in space, the humans got into a war with an alien species called the Dwarnians, and the reigning human republic isn't terribly nice.

AUcember || read on ao3 || title lyric

#

1.

There are a lot of ways to die in space. Tech knows this. He spent a lot of time reading about them, when he first got assigned to Starship Iris. You can die from depressurization, or explosions, or other people shooting at you. You can die in the human-Dwarnian war, which is less likely now that the war is over and the Republic has been established, but you can never say never.

And, it turns out, you can die if you run out of fuel.

He flips the switch one more time, hoping for anyone, anything, who can pick up his distress signal. “Mayday, mayday, this is Officer Purpler on the Starship Iris, ID 27-Tango-53-08-Whiskey, mission priority 6, requesting immediate assistance. We had a catastrophic shuttle failure, I am the only survivor, requesting extraction.”

He swallows hard. Only survivor. He hadn’t really realized it until now, but he’s the only one left on this ship. Fuck. Fuck, fuck. “Requesting-” he coughs, and it hurts his throat, which is raw with all of the tears that he’s trying not to cry. He checked the fuel reserves already. They’re low. Dangerously low. And the only person answering him is the robot assistant that runs the ship’s internal functions, which is a pretty bad sign.

“Don’t panic,” he whispers. He thinks about his nana, about how she’s still back on Earth, unless something happened, which is a real and horrible possibility, but it’s not one that he really has the time to think about in depth. “Don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t panic, just run the transmission again-”

He’s run the transmission six times now. The seventh takes up fuel that would be going to keeping the ship habitable. But there’s not a lot of point in keeping the environmental systems online if nobody is coming to rescue him.

Tech takes a deep breath. “One more time,” he says. He doesn’t know a lot about the ship’s frequencies, or how any of that works, but he’s been flipping from the backup frequencies to the main channels and back. Maybe that��ll help. Maybe it’s just sapping out energy that he could be using to make the transmissions. “One more time. Mayday, mayday, this is-”

“Connection lost,” says the gratuitously pleasant AI voice.

Tech feels himself paling. “No, no, no-” he flips a couple of switches. He can’t lose a connection. Not when nobody connected with him in the goddamn first place. “No, come on, mayday, this is- fuck, this is Starship Iris, requesting- requesting immediate- fuck -”

“If you would like to make a call-”

“I’m trying to make a call!” Tech shouts, because there’s nobody left to hear him scream and that makes it easier to be as loud as he wants. “I’m trying, but the fucking Republic shot me into space without really training me first, and now I’m on a starship floating to my certain death, and I’m going to die alone in the far reaches of outer fucking space! So if you could do me a favor and just let me make one goddamn phone call -”

“Hey,” a voice says, sounding alarmed. More alarmed than the AI is capable of. “Hey, you’re connected, dude, calm down.”

Tech stumbles away from the communications panel instinctively. This can’t be real. “I’m connected?”

“Yeah, you’ve reached the crew of the Xanadu.”

“The… Xanadu? As in the smuggling ship?”

“Well,” the guy says, sounding uncomfortable. “We do other stuff too. But your frequency is coming through loud and clear, what’s going on?”

Tech runs through the mental math. The Xanadu is the closest thing they have to space pirates - not as bad as some of the jackasses out in deep space, but still a bunch of dangerous people. There’s no telling what they want with a Republic ship, or a Republic officer. But he’s going to die if he doesn’t get off the Iris.

“This is Officer Purpler from the Starship Iris.” He pauses. If he’s going to die, he’s not super interested in introducing himself like a Republic monkey. “My friends call me Tech Wizard. Or Tech.”

“You good with computers?”

“No, I’m just the only one who knows how to make the coffee maker work.”

The guy laughs at that, startled. “Well, hey, Tech. My name’s Z, and I am actually pretty good with computers. What’s your situation?”

“My whole crew went out to planet 7293 for a scouting mission.” He swallows. “Their, uh, their shuttle exploded just before docking back on the Iris. So my systems are pretty damaged. And I’m the only survivor.”

“Shit,” Z says. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.” Tech sits on the floor - well, doesn’t sit so much as his knees give out and his whole body weight goes crashing down to the floor. He’s so tired, all of a sudden. Maybe there’s something about - about oxygen levels and blood and stress. Some logical explanation. Mostly, he thinks he’s just fucking tired. “You’re the only one who’s answering any of my distress calls.”

“Desperate enough to trust a pirate, Officer Purpler?”

“Look, man, I just don’t wanna die alone.”

Z goes quiet at that. “Who says that dying is your only option?”

Tech lets out a laugh. It’s a little miserable and a little hollow, but who can fucking blame him? “You got something else in mind?”

“Actually,” Z says slowly, “I might.”

2.

On the record, according to every doctor who has ever seen him, Squirt Purpler is a human man. A human man who has to see specific doctors because of a diagnosis he received as a child, but still just a regular guy. He passed all the space physicals. He’s fit for duty. He’s just a normal guy, with a very specialized health condition.

The thing that people don’t know is what, exactly, dermocrinal phagiosis is.

It’s a code, one that Tech learned when he was about five years old. It is a way of saying that wherever you go, you need to look for people who will help you. You need to find a specific doctor. It is a way of saying that one of his parents was a Dwarnian, and specialists who treat dermocrinal phagiosis are really just people who won’t kill him for being a freak of nature.

Even in the Republic, there are a couple of specialists who know about half-Dwarnians like him. They found people who could do his physicals without announcing to the world that he’s actually half-alien, who would keep him safe. He’s one of the lucky ones: he looks mostly human, except for the blotches of shiny purple skin up and down his torso, his back, his arms. He can wear long sleeves and be pretty safe. He can keep himself safe.

(Tech was four years old when his parents died. Not in the war, long before the war, but because people thought… well, thought that it was unnatural. Tech’s lucky that he made it out of that alive. Tech’s lucky that his grandmother taught him to keep quiet about his “diagnosis.” Tech’s lucky for a lot of reasons.)

3.

He doesn’t think to be afraid about what type of people the Xanadu crew are until he’s hurtling through space towards them in a jury-rigged cryogenic freezer. He doesn’t wonder if they’re dangerous until he realizes, through all of Z’s advice and jokes, he hasn’t actually said anything about himself. He doesn’t wonder if they’re going to kill him until it’s too late to turn back.

Besides, he figures as his eyes slip shut, if they kill him, at least that means he survived a little while longer than anyone expected.

4.

There’s a woman bent over him when he wakes up.

“Hi,” Tech says, even though he feels like there’s cotton in his mouth, ears, and brain. His nana would kill him if he weren’t polite.

“Hello,” the woman answers solemnly. She’s very short, but her hair is long enough that it’s swinging in Tech’s face. “My name is Pox. Zenith says that you came from a Republic starship.”

“Mhm.”

“He also said you’re probably cold.”

“Mhm,” Tech says. His best shot, as Z had explained it, was to repurpose one of the freezers that they use for biological samples to put himself into something simulating cryo-sleep. He’d used that as an escape pod and jettisoned out, and then hoped that the math was right and his trajectory would match the Xanadu’s. It looks like it had, more or less, if he’s here. “‘M Tech.”

“He mentioned that too.” Pox reaches behind her and comes up with a massive fleece blanket, ridiculously fluffy and huge, to put over him. “You’re going to have a rough couple of days, I’m afraid. We’ve hooked you up with our medical center as best we could, but-”

“But y’r pir’tes,” Tech slurs out. Talking is hard. Side effects of bad cryo-sleep, probably.

Pox smiles, looking a little sad. “But we’re pirates,” she agrees. “Pirates who saved you, but we don’t have the best resources.”

“Thank you,” Tech says. He’s already falling back asleep, even though he has more questions, even though he just spent a few days literally frozen in space. God, he survived being frozen in space. That’ll be something to put on his resume.

Pox smooths his hair back out of his face, and for a weird, vivid second, Tech feels like crying. “You’re welcome,” she says. She starts to say something else, but Tech is mostly asleep, so he doesn’t really bother listening.

5.

The next few times he wakes up are pretty similar. He meets Z, briefly, and Pox tells him a little bit about what the Xanadu does. Tech spends a lot of time sleeping, which both Pox and Z assure him is perfectly normal.

The fifth time he wakes up, he meets the ship’s captain, just for a second. Captain Rambo, he says, but as soon as Tech tries to call him that he says, “Just call me Dak.”

“Dak,” Tech repeats. “Captain Dak?”

Dak screws his whole face up in disgust. “What kinda outfit is the regime running these days? Just Dak, unless you’re mad at me, and then you can do what Max does and call me Captain Rambo.”

“Max,” Tech repeats. “I haven’t met Max.”

Dak’s face shutters off in an instant. “That-”

“He should,” Pox says suddenly.

Dak gives her a wary look. It’s strange to see on him; Tech gets the impression that he’s not wary very often. “You sure that’s a good idea?”

“I’ve done medical examinations on him,” Pox says, and Tech’s heart stops. Shit. Shit. “He’s got, ah- what’s the official term? Dermo… demo… demolition…”

“Dermocrinal phagiosis,” Tech says, over the sound of his heart pounding. “And it’s a pretty serious condition, so-”

Pox frowns. “Are you sure it’s not demolition derby?”

“Pox,” Dak says patiently. “Demolition derby is that thing Lil Marco hosts that we try and fuck up when we’re not busy. Dermocrinal phagiosis is that thing Max talks about.”

“Are you sure?”

“You think I don’t listen to my sister’s kid?”

“Who’s Max?” Tech says, but he’s already fading back into sleep, he can feel it. “It- is Max- does Max have-”

“Shhhh.” Pox reaches out and grabs his hand, and Dak immediately grabs both of their joined hands. It’s kind of nice, actually. “We’ll talk about it later. Your body needs rest.”

“M’brain’s tired of resting,” Tech murmurs.

Dak squeezes their joined hands. “Don’t worry about it, the bed’s all yours.”

Tech tries to smile back, but he can’t quite make the muscles work right. He ends up falling back asleep like that.

6.

The sixth time Tech wakes up, there’s a Dwarnian there.

He blinks a few times, but it doesn’t get any less clear. There’s a Dwarnian talking to Z, their heads bent towards each other. Except - Tech blinks again, just to be sure - this isn’t a normal Dwarnian. He hasn’t seen that many - he’s only seen his mom in pictures, and only met a few in person - but this one doesn’t look right. The purple of their skin is a little subdued, and their hair looks like human hair, not the weird fuzz that Dwarnians have. And they’re too short.

“Tech,” Pox says loudly. Loudly enough that Tech jumps, because he hadn’t realized she was in the room. But she’s perched on the other side of his bed, watching him. When he looks at her, she gives him an extremely significant look. “This is Max. Our navigator.”

Tech turns back to Max and Z. Z looks wary, but Max… doesn’t. Max is watching Tech with a level of careful scrutiny.

“Hi,” Tech says. “I, uh, I used to work for the Republic.”

“Yeah,” Max says. “I’ve heard.”

Tech nods. “I don’t think I want to anymore.”

“We haven’t even talked to you about this yet!” Pox’s hand settles on his shoulder. “Z, look, we converted him already!”

“Pox,” Z says. “He-”

“It’s okay,” Tech says. He can’t look away from Max. There aren’t enough human-Dwarnian babies for there to be an extensive body of research - and Tech has looked, pretty desperately, for that research - but there’s enough that he knows that there’s a lot of variation in phenotypes. He’s one of the luckier ones, maybe: he looks like he’s human. Max looks more like a Dwarnian, sure, but only to someone who’s never actually seen a Dwarnian before. And Max is looking at Tech like he understands. “I know we haven’t talked about it. But I’m tired of being somewhere that- that-”

“That’d take you and not me,” Max says, with a stunning amount of understanding. He sounds younger than Tech expected. “I get that.”

“Cool,” Tech says. “I think I’m going to pass out now. Nothing personal, it’s just-”

Pox claps a hand over his mouth. “Sleep,” she says, not like a threat. Like she’s worried.

Tech closes his eyes and lets himself sleep.