As awakenings go, I had to say this was not one of my better ones, and my crew-mates screaming at me via comms was not helping. Nor were the catastrophic system overload warnings. Though at the minute I had bigger concerns, like waking up strapped to a table. I definitely hadn’t pulled lately, and this sure as hell wasn’t my thing. Besides the whole thing happening while I was exploring a locked down area kinda said to me that wasn’t likely to be the cause.

“Alright girls, it’s a code mauve.” I muttered.

“Mauve? Really? how did a gorilla get onboard?” Nara asked.

“She said Mauve not beige”

“Oh, that makes more sense? Strapped to a table huh? OK guess you wanna keep the replies to a minimum in case whoever did it noticed you woke up.”

I didn’t reply (of course,) and thankfully Nara took the hint. Looking around the place there wasn’t much to it, there was the table (obviously,) a few fairly knackered looking instruments, and a large, ominous looking tube thing (uh oh.) But there was nobody around, in the short term that was good news, but given that I was in a locked down part of the ship, and in no position to feed myself, well the long term prospects didn’t look too good.

“uh hello?”

OK, voices out of nowhere, that was new, definitely concerning, but new. “Hello, who are you, and why the hell am I strapped to a table?”

“Well first off promise me you won’t freak out OK?”

“You think there’s a reason I’d need to make that promise, that is not reassuring. I promise only that I won’t freak out without a damn good reason. By the way stripping me down for parts would be a damn reason. So please don’t do that, I’d hate to have to initiate my core overload.”

“Wait, you fitted yourself with one of those? Are you nuts?”

“According to most people who know me? Yeah, but given that I just woke up strapped to a frigging table I think it was a wise investment.”

“Touche, but don’t worry, if I was after your bits, organic or mech would I have let you wake up at all?”

“You make a good point, now can we get to the pressing issue, you know? Let’s not say strapped to a table again, I’d say unscheduled bondage session, but that is definitely something I hope this isn’t. No offence, but I’m not into disembodied voices.”

“EW NO, you’ve got Organics, ICK. The reason you are str..... ahem, in your current situation, is because I needed to talk to you, and since usually Cyborgs who start hearing voices freak out, I needed to take countermeasures.”

“Well that’s a little hurtful, but definitely reassuring, so now we can get to the real talk, who the hell are you? Why did you need to talk to me so urgently?”

“Hang on a tick, you’ve still got comms active, we can’t have eavesdroppers, don’t worry I’ll let them know you’re fine before I activate the hold sequence.”

************************************************************************

Jenel hadn’t been worried before, now she was. The words “She’s fine,” flashing up on her screen for a moment before comms went dark in itself was a worry. But then the comms were blocked with hold music, and she knew they were truly dealing with a sick mind, as Black Lace’s one hit AGADU started playing on a loop. What kind of monster had her?

“Did we just get put on hold?” Nara asked incredulously.

“Seems that way.”

“Our coms are on a heavy encrypted flotilla code, that shouldn’t be possible.”

“Yet evidently it is, that’s concerning.”

“and Agadu? Really?”

“Yups, we may need to figure out a way to rescue Eileen, unless you want first dibs on her stuff.”

“JENEL!”

“What? She’s got a sweet guitar, OK OK let’s start figuring out how to get in there, while she’s still in one piece.. ish.”

************************************************************************

“Your crew must really like you, they’re already trying to figure out ways to break in here, and given their, unique, proposals to gain access we may not have much time here, I’m going to unstrap you now.”

“They proposed blowing a chunk of the ship to kingdom come didn’t they?” I asked with a chuckle.

“How did you know they would take such extreme measures to reclaim you so fast?”

“Because that’s their go to solution to most things. The toaster not popping up for example.”

“Seriously?”

“Yups, I’m still finding bits of that toaster in my room six months later.”

“Then we really need to hurry, they just started talking about plasma containment. They must really care about you to go that far.”

“Nah, they just know without me around they’d have to be accountable for their own actions again.”

“You enable such behaviour?”

“Not so much enable as I’ve long since given up trying to stop them, it isn’t worth the error codes.”

“I see.”

“Alright, I get it, the kidnapping disembodied voice doesn’t approve of my life choices, fair enough. Not that I asked mind you. But do you have to go around sounding like one of the sisters? It’s kinda screwing with my head”

“My apologies, I am unfamiliar with these “sisters” of whom you speak, so I cannot refrain from imitating them without further clarification.”

“Sisters, you know? kinda clerical looking, have a thing about machinery. Tendency to take in poor wayward souls such as myself, and patch us up with augs. You can’t spit without hitting one of their shrines hereabouts. Does any of this ring any bells?”

“I’m afraid not, I have been out of contact with most of the outside world for quite some time. So I may not be up to date on current events.”

“Have you been under a rock or something? The sisterhood has been around for centuries, and cyborg priestesses aren’t exactly subtle.”

“I have been right here. But we don’t have any more time to delay, we need to stop your crew before they somehow blow up this ship, and you in a rescue attempt. As a cybernetic organism fitted with fleet class augmentations, and the highest ranking person onboard, I hereby issue a notification of drafting on behalf of The Flotilla.”