This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/daecrist on 2025-12-10 21:03:45+00:00.
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"Okay. The probe should be right here in the connection,” Arvie said.”
"I looked at the visual representation of the probe hovering in front of me in the computer simulation. I reached out and touched it, and immediately my senses changed. Instead of being split two ways in between the computer simulation and the real world, I was split three ways, and I could see the probe looking at me as I was looking at the probe. Which was a head trip and a half.
"That's an interesting view of the world," I said. And I could hear myself saying it inside my head even as I could also hear myself saying it from the probe.
Okay. That was going to take some getting used to.
"Monitoring your brain function," Arvie said. "I'm not seeing anything particularly dangerous yet."
"Good," I said. "I don't feel woozy or anything."
"That is good to know, William," he said.
"So how do I take control of this thing anyway?" I asked.
"It might be better if you have something that is similar to the cockpit that you were switching back and forth through rather than trying to take direct control with your mind,” Arvie said. “It looks like direct control is requiring more of your concentration than the baseline I got from the simulated cockpit you used to control those fighters.”
"Then why didn’t you offer me the direct control in the first place?"
"Mostly a matter of curiosity," Arvie said. "I wanted to know if it was possible for you to take direct control of something without suffering from enough of an overload that it adversely affected your ability to load balance."
"Great to know," I said. "I feel like I'm suddenly the protagonist in a cheesy anime or something."
"There are worse things that you could be," Arvie said.
"Depends entirely on what kind of cheesy anime we're talking about," I said.
"That is entirely true," he said. "I doubt you would want to be in one that featured those creatures with the tentacles that..."
"That's enough of that, Arvie,” I said. “And we need to seriously have a talk about the dark corners of the galactic net you've been surfing when all of this is said and done."
"Whatever you say, William," he said with a sniff.
Suddenly I was back in the small room with Arvie next to me and all the screens up against one wall. There was a small cockpit similar to the one I'd used to take control of the ships, though the controls inside this cockpit seemed far less elaborate than in the ship simulator I'd been in.
"Now, that's interesting," I said.
I walked over and had a seat. I felt at the controls. There was a joystick, the same as before, as well as other controls that seemed familiar from the fighter craft. There were even weapons controls.
"Eventually, I think you will be able to take direct control of this sort of thing with your mind," Arvie said. "But for now, I think we need to start slowly and make sure we don't do anything that will potentially overwhelm your mind like we did the last time with the fighter craft."
"Yeah, I've definitely learned my lesson on that score," I said.
"Have you truly learned your lesson, considering what we're about to do here?" Arvie asked.
I looked up at him and flipped him the bird.
"There isn't any need to be rude, William," he said.
"There isn't any need to be rude, no, but I think the situation certainly calls for it considering what a smart-ass you're being."
"I did learn from the best," he said.
"I can't deny that," I said as I grabbed the controls and moved the probe down in a lazy spiral until I was floating in front of the alien guards. I also made sure to look down at them from my split attention up above.
"Hello there, boys," I said.
Nothing happened. I glanced up to Arvie.
"Apologies," Arvie said. "You should be able to talk to them now."
"Thank you very much," I said, grinning.
"Hello there, boys," I said.
All of them jumped. They looked around like they were wondering how I managed to get the drop on them. Then they looked up to where I still balanced up on a bit of support structure that stuck out from the wall up above.
"How are you doing that?" one of them asked.
"Never you mind," I said. "Just know that I'm down here to have a chat with you, because it sounded like you wanted me to come down and have a chat with you."
"We wanted you to come down here so we didn't have to worry about you falling and breaking your neck."
"I'm not in any danger of that," I said.
Honestly, I was feeling pretty good about everything right about now. I could see the computer room with Arvie standing next to me in his digital avatar representation of his person. I could see the view of myself balancing on that bit of support structure sticking out, and I could see the probe in front of me as well.
"Well, if you break your neck then it's going to be our necks when we eventually get back to the boss," one of them said."So you need to get down here. Now.”
"Do you maybe want to think about rephrasing that?" I asked.
He took a deep breath like he was rethinking everything he'd just said. Then he let it out in a long and slow sigh as he turned an angry glare on the probe.
"No, I don't want to rethink how I phrased that," he finally said. "You've been a thorn in our side and a pain in our ass, and maybe you can come down here and try to kill me, but at this point, I think I’d rather you just come down here and take my head off. At least then I'm not going to be in constant anticipation of the moment when somebody comes along and tries to take my head off. It will be totally worth it."
I stared at the dude. I had to admire his chutzpah, even if it was annoying that the guards were starting to get unruly. I was about to try a little bit of target practice with the plasma blaster on the probe when a voice rang out.
"What in the name of the empress is going on here?"
I blinked, and then I turned the probe around to see none other than Tmors coming up the ramp. He looked a little worse for the wear. There were bits of soot and singed spots on him, but he wasn’t dead.
It didn't look like he'd taken a direct plasma blast. No, it looked more like he'd endured a couple of close calls. He also wore an expression that said he was so over all this shit and done with humans.
He looked at the probe, then he looked at the two guards. Finally, he turned to take in Varis and Jeraj and Yana.
"Does somebody want to tell me what's going on here? What happened to the human?" Tmors asked.
"He's inside the probe," the guard who'd just been ranting about having his head taken off said.
"Inside the probe?" Tmors asked, looking at the guard like he'd lost his mind.
"Ask him. EH’s in the godsdamned probe," the guard said, throwing his hands up in frustration. "And you can be upset with me about that all you want. You can take my head off. Gods know there are plenty of people who have been lining up for that privilege lately. Maybe if you do it, it won't hurt as much as if the Spider does it."
Tmors stared at the guard, then he looked at the probe. His eyes narrowed, and he seemed suspicious all of a sudden.
"Are you really in there?" he asked.
"What would give you that idea?" I said.
"Well, because your voice is coming out of the probe, and because you're the only human I know who could frustrate somebody to the point they were begging you to take their head off."
I stared at Tmors, he stared back at me, or rather, he stared back at the probe. Either way, he was hitting me with a big old stink eye.
“I’ve decided I’m going to not take that as an insult," I finally said.
"Oh, you should totally take it as an insult," he said, shaking his head as he put his hands on his hips. He took a deep breath and let it out in a long-suffering sigh. "Because I totally meant it as an insult. I've had more trouble since I had to start dealing with all of this Terran bullshit than I have since I first came down to the Undercity after..."
He paused for a moment, trailing off. He turned and looked off into the distance. I knew he couldn't see the twinkling lights off in that direction from the other side of the canyon, but I knew they were out there from the view I got from my body. I wondered if he could see them in his mind, or if he was seeing something else. Because he suddenly seemed to be far away from here.
Finally, he sighed again and turned back to me. He put his fingers up to the bridge of his nose and started rubbing at them.
"Look, we need to get you over to the Spider. She's going to try and manipulate the situation to make sure she gets some sort of advantage to use in her constant sparring with the imperials. She pretends she's some sort of great resistance fighter because she nips at their supply routes and takes the occasional shipment of stuff that they don't even care about, when in reality, none of that is going to do anything against the empress and she’s just making herself wealthy in her own little fiefdom like a miniature empress.”
Interesting. Tmors seemed fed up with the Spider’s bullshit. Then again, a freedom fighter turning into the same thing they were fighting once they got ...
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