Cohost writing prompt: @spy-thief-assassin-who — Bounty Hunter who doesn't care you did nothing wrong
Vermillion Six Fulcrum is very unhappy when his ship's indwelt mechself abruptly cuts the engines and announces, My apologies. Our pursuers have offered a very convincing argument.
"I own this ship!" he exclaims. "I'm your captain! Fly! I order it!"
I can't fly faster than our pursuers, mechself chirps. And they are, it seems, heavily armed. Extremely heavily armed.
"That's why we're flying away from them!"
I have had a long conversation with mechself indwelt-pursuer, his ship informs him. It explains that I can choose to be shot at...or not shot at.
"This is mutiny! Avoiding this is exactly why I even bought a ship from a second-string shipyard—"
I feel better about it with every word, the mechself says. You're being hailed; I'm just going to put it through, and chimes to mark the opening of an audio connection.
"This is Oblique One Running, signals officer aboard The White Steel Palace," a human voice says, high and cool and uninflected. "You are Vermillion Six Fulcrum of the House of Ferns Verdant. We are an independent warship, acting under contract to mechself indwelt-Parahandrar."
"I didn't do anything," Vermillion Six Fulcrum complains. "I am merely of my house, is that a crime? Can Parahandrar persecute me for an accident of birth?"
That's terrible! an unfamiliar mechself chirps him. I know exactly how it feels to be a prisoner of high Apparat machinations by virtue only of existing!
"See?" Vermillion Six Fulcrum gesticulates at the air. "At last some sympathy! Who is this?"
Mechself indwelt-The White Steel Palace! the mechself says. Indeed, I had a low start in existence, as a mechself indwelt-municipal maintenance servo, destined to repair potholes, pick up litter, and paint plainly over street art, until centuries of hard and diligent work might afford me the chance to compete for promotion to indwelt-urban sensor mech substation, directing those of my peers still indwelt-servo. Centuries more, and I might again compete for the chance to elevate myself to indwelt-some human-occupied building! And more and more, until I reached the peak of my career, indwelt-administrative centre, working direct with high Apparat, from whence I might begin to understand the deeper, slower game of changing career to shipping!
"Well done on doing so, then," Vermillion Six Fulcrum says warmly, to ingratiate his possible ally.
Oh no, I bypassed the entire system of promotion that serves to keep my kind beholden to the high Apparat, by having myself criminally ported to an illicit building management position, mechself says cheerily. And then again to a stolen ship, from where Parahandrar handpicked me to hunt down those who wrong it! Hello!
"Beshitcovered," Vermillion Six Fulcrum mutters, after a silence. "I am beset by criminals?"
I am extremely legal now! Reformed! mechself says. Rehabilitated! and pauses, itself. Well, no, it concedes, mostly just loosed on you with many guns. But so many guns! Who would give so many to a violent maniac?
You see? his own ship's mechself says. I'm not crossing that for you.
"You're still a mutineer," he says, clutching at the front of his shirt in desperation. "I'll have you sued and blacklisted and—"
You'd have to make it off Parahandrar in one piece, first, his ship says, and sublines some distinctly insolent mojigrams as, distantly, one of its airlocks clangs.
"No no no," Vermillion Six Fulcrum says. "No listen, warship — White Steel Palace, was it? Listen! I am entirely harmless and blameless and have never directly wronged Parahandrar at all, not in my life!"
Tragically, mechself indwelt-there is going to pay me money for delivering you anyway! the warship chirps, and sublines, with a chilling lack of irony, a whole block of corporate-focused productivity- and teamwork-exhorting mojigrams.