S1E24 - [I Recently Developed] Some Shit to Work Through

There is, unfortunately, no escaping physics bound by the speed of light. Even information must take its time to get birds going. And as we move farther into the void, that time grows until the distance becomes unspeakable.

Hi. Crystal. I guess it's nice to meet you. I hope that Grimathian flu didn't have any lasting effects. I've heard that that one can do some nasty things if you've got bad luck. Anyway, I guess it's a good thing you reached out when you did. Otherwise I wouldn't really have anyone to talk to about this except my mom. And yeah, this isn't really something I want to talk about with her. Strap in, I guess. I've recently developed some shit to work through. Um you asked me a bunch of questions last time about death and battle and what it felt like and sounded like and smelled like. You were awful poetic even without the flu. I'll just be straight about this. Battle is not poetry. Anybody who makes poetry out of violence like that is twisted one way or the other. There's not some supernatural force whispering in your ears. There's no siren song. There's no reaper tapping you on the shoulder. There's just people, other people, yelling and swearing and grunting and screaming and sweating and leaking and crying and doing anything they can to keep themselves alive and keep anyone wearing the same color jacket they are alive. It's not beautiful or special or anything. It's just shit. It's just hell wrapped in a flag. Hakeem's. Dead. Wu made it out alive, but got hurt bad enough to get shipped back to a hospital in the core. A seven got fried. They had a hot backup that they lifted into a new chassis on board, but they haven't been the same since. I guess I haven't either, but it's different with them. They basically died and then woke up the next morning in a shiny new body. I don't know about you, but that fucked me right the hell up. I know you're going to ask, so I'll just tell you now instead of making us both await for the next one of these. I don't know what it was. I don't even know what we were fighting. It came out of nowhere. We weren't even groundbound. Just it just showed up out of the black right in front of us. Like it was hunting. I didn't think anything lived in space. I didn't even know something could. It didn't seem like it'd be that difficult to manage either. It was barely the size of a cricket. You could have stood wool on my shoulders and we'd have been taller than it was. But the way it came for us, I've never seen anything like it. I don't think Command had either. They sure as hell didn't expect it to be that fast or that smart. I don't think it was an animal. That's what everybody kind of thinks, and the brass aren't saying otherwise, so yeah, I guess. Maybe we just got our asses kicked by an alien that lives in space and eats spaceships for breakfast or something. I don't know, though. It seemed to know what to expect from us before we finally gotten enough of a hit to make it run off. It was predicting us. It knew our tactics, knew how we'd fly or when we'd take a shot with the ship's Azimovs and I don't know, it was shaped like us. Two legs, two arms. Other bits, too, sure, but the basics were all there. Human, at least, shaped that way. I don't know what it was. I just know that it killed Akeem and almost got everybody else, too, including me. I got out with some fractures and a new eyeball, so I guess I'm one of the lucky ones. Back before space, when wars were terrestrial, I think they might have just put up some kind of marker, something in the ground to tell people to respect the dead. There's nowhere to drop a sign in the black. Hakeem will never get a memorial. Just a message from the brass back home through this busted fucking pldn system that might get there before everybody he ever knew. Forgets about him. My memories of him. That's the only memorial he'll ever have. At least that I'll ever see. Yeah. So that's where I'm at right now. Behavioral Health Specialist Chrysalis I'll talk to you when I talk to you again, I guess. Bye.

Unspeakable Distance is an actual play podcast of communication Delay by Audio Quinn a link to the game's itch IO page and credits for our players are available in the show notes linked to this episode. This podcast has been a production of the Library of Cursed Knowledge podcast network.