END GAME: THE COUNTDOWN STARTS

[sailmods]

[the prisoners wake up on cold, hard floors.

the lights are bright, glaring, a sterile cell with sterile bars facing a sterile hall. the prisoners with you, across from you, and no one else. no rocking of a ship in waves, nothing. just the prisoner and their prison.

time passes, one assumes. the rhythmic click of Friday’s heels down the hall. it’s almost like the ticking of a clock.]

Comments

[besixdouze]

[Up to this point Voyager's body has been very still. The glow that had always accompanied him even on better days aboard the ship is now entirely absent; as all cosmic objects become when bereft of the sun's reach, any part of him touched now is bitterly, bitterly cold. There are spots crimson and pooling as blood might, in the torso of his astronaut suit where the trident had pierced through, yet the amount is far less than it ought to be for a human wound. Instead, strangely, there's something dust-like and glimmering beginning to drift up in the air from his frame, thickest in quantity near the trident's points of contact. The amount is small enough to be negligible, right now, but as time goes on...

Well. Right now, at least--as the trident is removed, he does flinch and stir. Even if it's only his head that turns, just a bit. A soft, strained breath; eyelids flutter. There's voices overhead...he knows them. He still remembers. The person who charged with the trident, and...]

Fio? [Quiet, but audible. Though another short breath follows it promptly.] --Wow, this really hurts. Can't move. ...Thank goodness...thank goodness...

[It's whispered with a relief profound enough to crack in his voice.

The thorn is still there, after all, but now it's one of several other thorns--with no more power than the rest of them. This body is in catastrophic failure, he's pretty sure; no access to motion or function. All tools disabled. No more orders can be carried out like this. Thank goodness.

He finds there's something welling underneath his eyelids, damp and warm on his cheeks. He cannot lift so much as a finger to assess this. But that's alright...that's alright...]

...I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I must have failed the mission...to carry all those messages...

[sabigoe]

[ Trying to pull out the trident with one hand is a bit of a struggle. Fio fumbles, until Darcy manages to pull out the weapon entirely. She watches as they take off for the bridge, before dropping her gaze back down at the fallen astronaut. As she fixates on the wound and strange glimmering, something dark fills her heart, the same feeling as when she was openly condemning Malin a second ago. (Or perhaps this is something she's felt somewhere before, in many alternate branches of her life...)

Voyager opens his eyes and speaks. And suddenly, Fio's back to her usual, kind self. ]

Oh, Voyvoy! Thank goodness... [ A sob of relief. He's still alive. But he's still very hurt. Fio collapses onto the floor, sitting next to Voyager's weak form. She shakes her head. ] We didn't... know where the messages would go. And then, the wrong person found you. It's not your fault...

[ Very carefully, she closes a hand around his. Without looking up, she speaks to the others remaining on deck: ] Um... you guys can go on ahead. I'll catch up.

[configuration_birdwatcher]

[ Bastion wrenches themself out of the crater they smashed into the deck. A few pieces of their armour snap off or fall away as they do. Half the dented knee plate, the front cover plate from one of their shoulder joints, two of the upturned tips from their feet, some smaller scraps. Shreds of fabric from what was left of the unnecessary prison uniform. Everything hurts. Their vocal processor emits a pained whimper without their conscious direction.

They saw Voyager swap between human and machine forms at the moment of contact, heard the clatter of metal as he hit the deck. Bastion would rather stabilise him in his incapacitated state than let him finish dying, because after what happened to Yufei they don't know if anyone can count on a resurrection anymore, but they don't even have the capacity to fix themself right now. Malin saw to that. ]

[ They address the broken probe. ] // Malin coerced you, like the others. You couldn't stop her. You fulfilled your mission to the best of your ability.

[ It's the type of thing Bastion would want someone to say to them, if they were the one who'd been subverted through a backdoor in their code and forced to attack their friends until they physically couldn't anymore. ]

[prince_of_beasts]

We do not get to hold our morals only when they suit us. [ Is what Dimitri says to Darcy, and not the considerably pettier "Oh, so when you offer peace-and-rehabilitation to our captor it's fine, but when I try it on the mind-controlled child -- "

He casts Bastion a worried look, but there's nothing he can do -- for them, or for Voyager. Not physically, anyway. ]

You succeeded admirably. Your nature was turned against you, and even then you tried to fight it. You did all you could. And that woman will not get away with using you like this.

[mistertwister]

[ Okie breathes, as directed, and as soon as the adrenaline in him starts to drop, his desperate violence is replaced with desperate kindness. The sound in his ear and the burns up his arms will come later.

He brings himself up to a kneel, pulling off his shirt. ]

Hey, Fio, can you tell me if he's still running hot? A shirt ain't proper first aid but I still wanna wrap him up.

[sabigoe]

[ Setting aside the toy spaceship, that way she can grasp Voyager's hand in both of hers. She needs to find Sparkles, but she's reluctant to leave her other friend behind in his current state. Ava, Peter, and Darcy are up ahead on the bridge. If they find the shadow before she does, then hopefully they can pass the message that she's searching for it...

Obviously Voyager's not burning hot anymore if Fio's able to hold his hand like this, but...

Blinking a few tears out of her eyes, she shakes her head in response to Okie's question. Warmth from her small hands isn't going to be enough. ]

He's... he's freezing cold. [ She lifts her head to look up at Okie. ] Please help Voyvoy.

[besixdouze]

[The collective words drift over him gently, kindly. So very strangely kindly, after all that has transpired. The newly-shattered edges in his core still twist very painfully even in slight movements like breathing and speaking, yet the sentiments offered by the people surrounding him soothe something just a bit all the same. ...Voyager decides he does not like the concept of war much at all. The concept of death, the concept of bringing it to others. What a great burden it already feels like, even failing to properly kill anyone...the thought of how terribly sad it would be, if any single one of these voices could never speak again. If there were no chance he could talk to any of them, and learn more about them, again. In this moment, he thinks he finally almost understands the meaning behind those sounds he'd collected back home at that time--in the Coliseum, after Nzambi--the wave of human grief in the voices of the milling crowd searching for loved ones...

Still, everything aches. The world around him wavers in clarity. The camera must be the first thing shut off, to conserve power for the long journey ahead. Then, other instruments too, one at a time. Voyager closes his eyes.]

...They're all really beautiful messages, you know... [Mumbled softly, half a sigh.] Just, as beautiful, as the ones on my record. Some of them are so sad...but some of them are so hopeful, too...can't forget them, okay? Can't let them get stuck here...

[The Golden Record's gleaming round case is still affixed to the left hip of his astronaut suit--and with it, conceptually, the other newer record from the Serena Eterna sits too--but Voyager cannot indicate it in any way. ...Ah well. The hand between Fio's is entirely limp in her grasp, its biting chill permeating even through the glove.

He remembers the other words said by Darcy, before they left.]

You're all...going to the bridge? To free everyone. Right? [Isn't that what the big cat said?] Now I can't move, you can get past. ...You should get going. Help them first. I'll stay here. [Spoken at odds with the glimmering gold dust still slowly accumulating, perhaps, but there's little hesitation in it.]

[mistertwister]

[ Okie moves to Voyager's side, wrapping his shirt around the astronaut in an attempt to keep him from... bleeding? Leaking? Any extra chance this kid lives to the other side of all this is worth it. ]

If you die on me I'm reverse haunting you. I'm gonna head to the bridge with everyone, so I'm gonna trust you to hold on for yourself, yeah?

[besixdouze]

[Voyager couldn't say whether a shirt would help or not either, to be fair. Well, for that matter, he's actually not entirely aware of what the shirt's even intended to do...but being wrapped is a nice enough distraction from the pain, even if it's brief.]

Huh...reverse? That's--ehehe-- [Oh, laughing hurts quite a lot too, so it's a brief thing. But he smiles up at Okie all the same.] Okay...I'll hold on. Thank you, Mister Clouds. Take care of your weather...

[He still hasn't caught Okie's name, but that can be later too. Maybe...]

[sabigoe]

[ Messages—records from everyone. Kind of like the world of memories that Fio once came from. Maybe Voyager would like to hear about The Cage someday. Even if it was a place that held records of overwhelmingly sad stories, there were still some stories of hope. That conversation would have to be saved for later of course.

Fio watches quietly as Okie wraps Voyager up with the shirt. "Mister Clouds"... A small burst of laughter, smiling through her tears when she hears the name. She doesn't know him well enough to know the reasoning behind it, but she approves of the nickname! ]

Mister Clouds! That's a good one! I think I might use it too.

[ Though reluctant to leave the astronaut's side, she knows she must move on to the bridge for Voyager... and everyone else's sake. She can't be of any use lingering around in one place. ]

...We're gonna free everyone. You, too. And you're... gonna move again. Next time, no fighting. I'm gonna be your friend ambassador, just like what we talked about before. I'll introduce you to Sparkles. We'll have so much fun together. [ And she gives his hand one last gentle squeeze, despite how cold it is. ] So... we'll see you later, Voyvoy.