Foreword: I've been especially active in the r/DestinyJournals subreddit as of late, and began writing a number of different shorts. I'm going to start re-posting them here.
The message was sent out on a broadwave transmission frequency. The voice spoke in the common human tongue, assured that the message would be understood by all who needed to receive it.
"To my Eliksni brothers and sisters out amongst the stars and here at home on Europa--We are the future of our kind, and we will destroy all who threaten us! Remember: Light only burns bright so long, but Darkness is forever!"
The crew looked at one another as the transmission ended. One of the older sucked in a breath, which gurgled in his throat, before grunting and clapping his hands together to set the crew back to work. "Engine isn't going to fix itself," he grunted. He fussed with the component in his hand, working the point of his knife into a seam to prise open a panel.
"Are we going to ignore the message?" The older crewman lifted his gaze to the one who spoke, one of the younger whelps, one who had grown tall, but lean and stretched in the limbs. The whelp gestured at the screen where the message had been broadcast. "Eramis Shipstealer grows strong. She calls for Eliksni to flock to her banner." The whelp turned his head, aware he had the attention of the crew in the room, and saw others poking their heads into the room as his voice carried. "We skulk and hide, trying to fix a ketch that will never fly again, with barely enough ether to get by--"
The elder jammed his knife into the worktable in front of him. "Check your tone, Ezziur."
Ezziur snarled, needle-sharp teeth flashing. "Check your tone, Hanka! Why do we keep cowering when we could--"
"--could crawl on our bellies beneath another doomed banner." This was not from Hanka. All present straightened up as their leader appeared in the hatch, removing a truncated captain's ether-mask and hanging it off his belt. Koroa narrowed his eyes at the stretched-out whelp as he strode forward. "You would have us bow to a Kell?"
"We are starving!" Ezziur snapped. "With the Dark Kell, we could survive--"
"--and for how long?" His voice was flat. "The Shipstealer is a Kell as we knew them." He slapped a hand against one of his lower stumps. "Docking for failure. Killing for pleasure. Fighting a war without end. Too proud to know when to stop."
"Your pride will kill us all," the whelp growled.
Koroa eyed him for a moment, then turned to Hanka. "Elder, tell the whelp of your first Kell."
The older Eliksni sat back, showing his teeth. "Gusar, Last Kell of House Waters." He paused, hearing the susurration from the other crew around him. "Lost much of House Waters' fleet in battle against Cabal on the Red Planet." He tapped his outer-left eye, which did not glow, its socket crusted with scar tissue. "Took my eye for looking at him when we retreated." Another gurgling breath. "I had spoken nothing against him. Served him loyally since I left the creche. And he took my eye anyway."
Koroa nodded, looking at Ezziur, then turned again, pointing up at another Eliksni half-way out of a vent. "Brazga. Tell the whelp of your last House."
"House Winter," the Eliksni replied, dropping to the floor. They pulled their tunic off, revealing a chest criss-crossed with scars. "When I didn't bow low enough to the Prime Servitor, Archon took their swords to me. Kell stayed their hand, but threw me off the ketch. Starved me of ether for a breadth of spans. Scars never healed." Brazga glared at Ezziur. "Winter Kell loved pain and all the ways they could cause it. Shed no sorrow when Lights killed him. Shed no sorrow when Winter Archon was claimed by the Taken Kell."
And so it went, around the engine room, Eliksni after Eliksni speaking of the cruelties of Kells and Archons. Of the madness that infected any who sat in a ketch's throne. Limbs docked for pointless reasons. Worthless waste of lives sent up against the Lights. The ruthless greed that drove them to steal even the paltriest of treasures that dregs and whelps managed to bring back. It came back to Hanka, who spoke of the last Kell he'd served, the Mad Wolf himself, who chopped off one of the elder's legs.
Hanka rose, the mechanical replacement of that limb unfolding with a ratcheting sound, the metal claw on the end scraping as he advanced on Ezziur, who looked as though he'd rather be anywhere than in this room, right now. "No good will come of flocking to the Dark Kell's banner," he told the whelp.
"No more Kells," Koroa spoke, his tone firm and grave. "No more Archons. No more banners. We would rather stand tall and starve, rather than bow and crawl to live," Koroa told him. He drew his sword from his back and held it high. "Godenboraa!"
The Eliksni in the room all drew their knives and held them up as well, echoing their rallying cry. "Godenboraa!"
Koroa looked at the whelp again. Ezziur stared back, and then reached back to trace a dactyl over the network of scars on his own spine. And finally he rose to his full height and nodded. "Godenboraa."
"Bannerless forever," Koroa agreed. "We will never bow again."
Their unity reaffirmed again, the crew-- joined now by their captain-- bent back to their work.
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