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wil-is-done · 1 year

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The Audacious Tales of the Lost Cipher and Her Daredevil Crew - Scenario 1: An Unfair Trial

Summary: The captain of the notorious Lost Cipher has been captured at last. Her trial will soon begin.

Word Count: 4.052

IMPORTANT NOTE: This is a repost.

This tale began with a trial.

The location, the Justice Ward of Morning Star, a colony station in the Tau Ceti system. Known for housing extensive Federation fortification, but otherwise unremarkable.

The time, one in the afternoon, Local Galactic Time. Lunch break had just ended, the perfect time for a nap.

The judge, one Tobias Roux-Ashta. A small man with a small heart, his fingers as long as they are greedy. Tobias wanted what any small man in a backwater system would want; a way out, and up. He’d been grinning ear to ear from the moment he woke up this morning, because this case, one rushed to his desk by a red-faced assistant only a week ago, was his ticket out.

The defendant, the captain of the notorious Lost Cipher, captured at last.

The court room was circular. Chrome, cold, and cruel, just like the Federation whose judgment it enforced. The right wall was glass, allowing a view of the rest of the Justice Ward below and the celestial sea above, both under the Federation’s grip. The gallery was filled, but this trial would not be graced by an audience of people. The only witnesses would be the guards in white and blue and the officers in their best uniforms; mindless dogs blindly loyal to the Federation. The jury stood at attention in their box, formless and faceless, clad in flowing silver robes and blank porcelain masks. The judge, one Tobias Roux-Ashta, stepped onto his seat, keeping his grin hidden underneath a scowl of stone.

The centerpiece of the room was, of course, the raised platform in the middle, lit by no less than three spotlights, where the accused would be judged.

The door opened with a hiss. A glimpse of blue locks was enough incentive for the guards to hover their hands closer to their pistols. The sound of heavy metal boots against polished steel, of feet against floor, echoed, the rhythm breaking the cold, deathly silence. Eyes brimming with fear, hate, intrigue, or a discordant mixture of the three, fell upon a most unlikely target. Entering the spotlight was the one, the only-

“Coraline Jones.”

Coraline looked up at the mention of her name. Much to the judge’s disappointment, even with her hands shackled in front of her and her feet weighed down by gravity boots, the ever-present smirk on her lips held true.

Nevertheless, the judge cleared his throat. The show must continue.

“A.K.A. Cerulean Flash, A.K.A. Angel of Iron, A.K.A. Witch Captain.”

The owner of the listed monikers cocked her head. “Heard you the first time.”

A small twitch of the eye betrayed the small man’s bafflement. This teenage girl must know she wouldn’t be leaving this building alive. In his eyes, a teenage girl should be panicking, crying, begging for mercy. His eyes have underestimated teenage girls, and would soon learn an important lesson: teenage girls are not to be underestimated.

“You have been charged for forty two accounts of damage and destruction of Federation property, thirty one accounts of assault against Federation personnel, treasonous plots against Federation government, and the theft of a top secret, experimental Federation ship.”

Coraline nodded along as the judge listed off each crime - each victory - smiling most serenely all the while. They were good times.

With this turn of events, the judge was most definitely not smiling, neither inside nor outside. “How do you plead?”

The accused captain had expected this. Prepared for this. She was ready to retaliate with the perfect response.

“Not guilty.”

A low murmur passed the room like a light breeze. Mostly restrained laughter and scoffs. Sneers were sent Coraline’s way, but some nasty eyes reserved themselves for the judge. A criminal - a teenager - was in shackles, being tried in a fortified courtroom, surrounded by Federation personnel, and yet she managed to get a word in against him. What kind of judge would let that happen? A small man in judge’s robes was still a small man, so he responded the only way a small man would - not well.

He slammed the gavel down; three, four, five, six times. The murmur settled, but the eyes were inescapable. A thin sheen of sweat now coated his wrinkled forehead as he quietly cleared his throat.

“There is concrete evidence placing you at the scene of each crime. If you attempt to challenge the judgement of this court, Miss Jones, you will fail.”

The judge had no idea that Coraline played him for a fool. She had planned for many outcomes, and the small man playing judge had just blundered into the best one. She would have broken out what could be scientifically identified as a shit-eating grin, if only she wasn’t pissed the fuck off.

“Fine,” she began, a brilliantly placed seed of false hope. “But if I’m considered guilty of those crimes, then the Federation should be considered guilty of continuously giving leeway to the elites while leaving the majority its own citizens drowning in poverty and debt.”

Shock. Surprise. Two words that could be used to describe the room as it fell silent. Then, an eruption of noise and outrage. The dogs have been disturbed by a threat to their master, and now they barked like they’ve contracted rabies. Too bad for them, the good captain wasn’t interested in a cure.

“If I’m guilty, then the Federation is guilty of blowing obscene amounts of budget on the military division and starting pointless wars against foreign powers for no good reason.”

Her voice was louder, but composed as ever, unlike the powder keg already set aflame behind her. Common wisdom stated one shouldn’t play near burning powder kegs, but the good captain was no common girl.

“If I’m guilty, then the Federation is guilty of blatantly rigging elections especially against minorities, suppressing voters’ rights, all the while maintaining the illusion of a ‘democracy’.”

Coraline Jones, a space pirate, an agent of chaos, maintained perfect composure while a courtroom of officers, keepers of order, shed their skin to reveal themselves as nothing more than dogs in uniform, devolving into anarchy. The irony was sweeter than Smile Dip.

One, two, three, four desperate bangs of the gavel brought some of the mutts to heel. The small man playing judge was sweating bullets. The porcelain masks of the jury bore holes into his chest. The teenaged devil on the podium had twisted this court against him, sent it spiraling into a black hole. He needed to save face, while he still had one.

“You are the one put on trial here, Miss Jones. Not our magnanimous government.” The judge stood from his seat, rising to his full height of not a lot of inches. Men can be so adorable when they try to act intimidating.

Coraline blew a stray lock of hair back into place. “That’s Captain Jones to you.”

“Well, captain,” the judge loomed, like a child on a stool lording over his dolls, “after you’ve been sentenced to hang and your head made to be a warning to all who dare oppose the Federation, I will make it my personal mission to hunt down the rest of your crew. Rest assured, there is no planet, no moon, no barren crevice where we cannot find them.”

Not the most colorful threat Coraline had heard, but it sure was comprehensive. The man seemed rather pleased with himself, as well. Coraline could almost pretend to feel bad, knowing what would come next. The biggest bubbles are the easiest to pop.

“Now, now. No need for any of that.”

Coraline looked up, stared the judge dead in the eye. She’d been counting the time, and the man’s timing was literal perfection. The clock should turn to one past ten right about… now.

“They’re already here.”

The room turned black, then red. Sirens blared. Everyone knew what it meant. The station’s perimeter had been breached. This Ward would be placed on lockdown. The courtroom looked amongst themselves. Tension, panic, fear, brewed and bubbled, a silent question hanging in the air: what was happening?

Only Coraline, and one motionless member of the jury, knew the answer.

It only took one guard to notice and belt out a scream for the other dogs to catch up. Through the glass wall, upon a backdrop of starlit darkness, was a glorious vision of mismatched black and white and deep purple. A vision that had made itself quite a notorious sight throughout the Federation.

The Lost Cipher. Experimental Federation ship, stolen and put to better use at the hands of the Mystery Kids. Has sped past most of the station’s defenses, has no intention of slowing down. Not when there was a lunatic at the helm.

“More! Power!” screamed Raz, non-ace pilot and aforementioned lunatic-at-the-helm.

His target, the glass wall of one particular courthouse.

“Any more and we’ll cut through the entire building!” Wybie’s voice screamed back through the intercom. “I am not killing my girlfriend, and neither should you!”

“Energy output is exactly where it should be, Raz.” Dipper minimized the energy usage window on his display. A double check never hurt. “You should focus your attention on not missing the target.”

Raz would have shot a look over his shoulder, but the brainiac’s got a point. Missing would be embarrassing. Not to mention, lethal.

Watching the courtroom fall apart around her was nothing short of a delight for Coraline. The judge, the jury, the guards, the audience; all made a mad scramble for the door once the ship’s intent became clear as crystal. It was almost like they forgot the room was in automatic lockdown.

Almost unnoticeable in the midst of the chaos, a lone member of the jury remained in their box. When they moved, it wasn’t to flee; it was to discard their robe with a flourish and slam the porcelain mask against the floor, cracking it in three. In their hands, kept hidden the entire time by their robes, was a pair of oxygen masks.

Lili Zanotto, weapons officer of the Lost Cipher, tossed one to her captain, before fitting another over her face. Coraline caught it in her shackled hands, barely glancing, and fitted the device over her face. The timing was impeccable.

Impact. The shattering of glass. The figurehead of the Lost Cipher now occupied the space between the podium and the judge’s bench. A circular opening was made on the window where the ship breached. A gap to the cold vacuum of space. Whether you’re a high-ranking colonel or a lowly guard no longer mattered. Space carried the reaper’s scythe, dragging the screaming souls through the gap the Lost Cipher made, indiscriminate, to be rendered into nothing but frozen stardust.

Coraline stood tall on the podium, unfazed, unflinching, as the dogs flew past her, screaming, sucked into the starlit darkness. She mouthed a thank you to one of the guards as he whizzed by to his death. After all, they were the ones who fitted these gravity boots on her.

Lili flew towards the gap, arms out, exactly as planned. Coraline raised her hands, and caught Lili’s in a firm grip. The weapons office gave her captain a blank look, then a once over.

“Prison orange looks terrible on you,” she said. A brilliant, blatant disrespect for the fashion sense of Federation prisoners.

Coraline shrugged. As if she had a wardrobe to choose from. “The sooner we get this done, the sooner I can slip into something more comfortable.”

Lili tried - oh, how she tried - to fight back the rising blush, but the vast universe simply has inevitabilities. One among them was her cheeks matching the red of her hair. The worst part, she had no idea if Coraline was doing it on purpose, and she couldn’t find out for herself. Times like these make her miss her psychic powers.

Lili shook her head. She couldn’t work with those thoughts bugging her. Nor could she work with the vacuum of space threatening to suck her out. She put a finger on her earpiece. “Send in the bubble bath.”

“Bubble bath, coming right up!” Neil replied, followed by a giggle. The young logistics officer and chef couldn’t help it. Not every day he got to be part of a spacewalk.

All suited up in a space suit, foam launcher in hand, a tether on the hip just in case, Neil exited the ship, along with three of his friends and fellow crew members. He made his way along the length of the Lost Cipher, his designated spot clearly marked on his display, as his three companions broke off to head towards theirs. No issues were encountered as he reached his spot. He held the foam launcher at the ready, aimed at the gap between the ship and the glass, and waited.

“Remember; painting motions, back and forth,” Winnie said, tired. Just her luck to be stuck with the three people on the ship with the least amount of spacewalk experience. At least one of them was Eggs. He’s cute. “We start together at the count of three.”

Eggs nodded. Still had no idea why he got chosen for this job, but he’s determined to do good by it. He twisted the nozzle. The launcher was cocked, and charging. “And a one, and a two, and a-!”

Foam spewed forth from the launchers. The spraying motion - back and forth, back and forth - made sure to cover the gap between what’s left of the window and the Lost Cipher with foam. The substance cooled, hardened, forming an airtight, if temporary, seal.

“Nice work, bubble boys and girls!” Raz clapped. “Back to the ship and back to your stations.”

“Rogerino, acting capitano,” Mabel replied. A press of a button on her belt, and she, along with the other three, were pulled back inside the ship.

With the gap sealed, the air in the courtroom stilled. No artificial gravity, but it’s hardly a problem for an ex-Federation special agent like Lili. She pulled out her plasma knife and got to work on the shackles binding Coraline’s wrists.

“Is all this really worth a stupid gift?” she asked. A genuine question she had ever since this scenario was set in motion.

“First, it’s not stupid, so shut up.” The plasma cut through the metal like butter. Coraline took a moment to shake her wrists. Felt good to be out. “Second, it’s worth the look on Wybie’s face.”

Lili paused. Gave her captain a pointed look, opened her mouth to speak, but deciding against it. She moved on to the boots instead. She hated hypocrites, and what she wanted to say would have made her into one.

Norman watched Lili start working on the boots through a nearby security camera that survived the impact, his breath bated, his teeth gritted. So much so that he jumped when a different notification popped on his display. A click, and a different feed from a different, distant security camera appeared. Jets of white and blue, single-seater, were dispatched from another Ward of the station. A squadron of them. Their affiliation: Federation police. Their target: the Lost Cipher.

“They’re scrambling the flying pigs.” Norman glanced to his right. “Dipper?”

Dipper smirked. Took a moment to crack his knuckles, just for show. “Don’t have to tell me twice.”

He opened his cyber warfare suite, and his fingers danced. Intercepting the dispatch’s signal to the jets took seconds. Scrambling the message and making a dummy copy of it was easier than taking candy from a sleeping baby. He’d spent more effort filling the junior crossword puzzle than he did feeding the gullible dogs the altered message. Not that it was ever going to particularly difficult to begin with. In these backwater stations, the security was, and always will be, absolute garbage. Nothing a graduate of the Hirsch-Terrace Institute couldn’t crack.

“The pigs are going for a dip in the wrong mud pit.” Two final taps of the keyboard, and Dipper leaned back, arms crossed, shooting a smirk at Raz. “On the other side of the station.”

Raz rolled his eyes, but nodded, and put a finger on his earpiece. “Lil, we got the five-o chasing a wild goose for now, but it’s not gonna last forever.”

Lili growled under her breath. Cutting the boots open with the knife didn’t work - the metal’s too tough - and hotwiring it was taking too much of her time and effort than she cared for. Ripping the damn thing apart with her mind would’ve been so easy. Instead, she was stuck with these cumbersome tools - a poor substitute for the most dangerous weapon known to man.

“Someone in here must’ve had the remote for the boots.”

“Someone out there, you mean.”

Another low growl. She knew there was something they overlooked. Never again will she wrap a briefing early. Her eyes drifted down to the platform below her. If it came to it, she could cut out the section of the podium Coraline was standing on and bring it with them. Which actually would be pretty funny.

Lili was halfway through the motion of plunging searing plasma into the podium when she caught movement in the corner of her eye.

The judge - small, shaking, and scared - survived by hiding in his box-shaped judge’s bench and holding on tight until his nails bled. But his woes weren’t over. He had to move fast, lest he let the lack of oxygen get him. That was why he darted out of his hiding spot, desperately hoping the two space pirates on the podium failed to notice him. A hope that was dashed when a plasma bolt whizzed by only a feet away from the tip of his crooked nose.

“You. Boomer.” Lili centered her pistol’s aim between the judge’s fishbowl eyes. “You have the remote. Hand it over.”

Outnumbered, outgunned, and slowly dying from lack of oxygen, the fool thought the most pertinent decision at the moment was to bare his fangs. “So typical for the Federation’s criminals to resort to using such a lowly slur against me,” he spat. Screw my own life, the delusional moron must have thought. The name of the great Federation must be defended! “You think there’s a version of this story where you come out on top? You think you will get a happy ending? The Federation is tireless. The Federation is endless. The Federation will bring all dissidents like you under its-!”

Whatever great, quote-worthy words he had left in the barrel was silenced by the roar of a pistol and the sizzle of plasma searing flesh. The pretend judge screamed and cried like a baby without a bottle, clutching the red stump where his left leg once was.

“That was a warning shot.” Lili’s pistol, smoking still, lit up, another shot charging and aimed. “You only get one.”

Coraline met the small man’s terrified eyes. A smirk and a shrug finally conveyed to the small man just how trivial his life was in this story. “We’ve got nothing against looting corpses.”

Shaking hands reached inside black robes to pull out a small remote. One hasty throw later, the remote was in Lili’s hands. A press of a button, a delightful double beep, and the boots were deactivated, leaving Coraline free to float in zero-G.

“God, I missed this,” the captain mused, wearing a deserved, satisfied smile. Another crime - another victory - to add to the rap sheet.

But dinner isn’t served until the food has left the kitchen, and both pirates knew that fact well. They swam through the air with ease, touching down on the Lost Cipher’s figurehead. The remote changed hands again - to Coraline’s this time. She activated the boots, securing her to the ship, and damn near nothing could break that bond. A contemplative smile crossed her lips as she looked down. With a tweak or two, such a feature could come in handy.

But there she went, getting ahead of herself again. One matter at a time, good captain.

Coraline turned to face the crying baby not even trying to play pretend judge anymore. The leading, dignified, victorious pirate captain stared down the small, sniveling, defeated man. She wanted, nay, needed to have the last word in. After all, a spectacular entrance required an equally spectacular exit.

“We might not get a happy ending,” she stated, a verse to be sung until the heat death of the universe, “but we’ll make sure you won’t get one either.”

Lili had joined Coraline, her eyes screaming murder, no psychic power necessary to convey it. She wrapped an arm around Coraline’s waist and put a finger against her ear. “Raz, we’re done here.”

The ship jolted. Lili’s command moved to Raz, then to Wybie. The thrusters were put on reverse. The hardened foam covering the gap between the ship and the window began to crack. The Lost Cipher would soon be leaving the station.

The crying man took notice of the cracks forming in the foam, his face paling even further than it already was. He scrambled, flailed, made an even bigger fool of himself in a desperate rush to reach the exit before the inevitable came. He reached the door, still had time to spare to input the code necessary to disable the lockdown, exited the courtroom, healed his wounds, replaced his missing leg, and proceeded to have a full and meaningful life.

Hah. He wished.

The Lost Cipher broke free. The merciless vacuum of space came rushing in.

The judge has found his way out.

He was long dead by the time his corpse froze over, his visage forever locked in an expression of horror, doomed to drift in the vast, dark, cold expanse of the astral sea for all eternity.

Or until a plasma shot shattered him into a million glittering pieces.

Coraline stared at her left, at the weapons officer with a smoking plasma pistol in her hand.

Lili stared at Coraline back. “Like you wouldn’t.”

Coraline laughed. She knew her so well.

The ship rotated, the thrusters accelerating to full speed, leaving the mostly unremarkable Morning Star station behind. All they needed next was a warp jump, and the Lost Cipher would truly be home free. But first things first.

Coraline fished out a small data disk from the inside of her trousers. The ultimate prize that made a week’s worth of jail time so, so worth it. Now that it’s outside of the Federation’s jamming range, transferring the data was as easy as opening the interface and hitting send. Lili rolled her eyes, seeing this, but dutifully put a spare earpiece in her captain’s open hand.

Coraline placed the earpiece on her ear. “Hey, babe,” she tried not to sound too pleased as she hit send, “got a present for ya.”

“Huh?” Wybie’s voice came through. Simply imagining the dumb look on his face gave her butterflies in her belly.

A ding as the file finished transferring. A beat of silence. Then, a high pitched squeal. Coraline grinned.

“Happy Valentine’s.”

There. I did it. Chapter one of many, many more.

But seriously, this is a lot of fun to write. If you noticed the style of this is different than how I usually write, then good eye! I practiced using omnipresent third person instead of my usual limited third person view, and I had a blast doing it.

If I’m being perfectly honest, I’ve been avoiding using omnipresent third person this whole time, because I’ve seen how it can easily lead to bland writing. But I’ve also read great stories using this POV, so I always wanted to at least experiment with it. A great advice I got when it comes to writing in this POV is to also give your narrator a personality, a voice, instead of leaving it just as a blank, passive observer. So, I just gave the narrator mine. Now, whenever the narrator speaks, you are reading the voice, the personality, of Wil.

Next chapter coming to you as soon as it is finished. Until then!

#mystery kids #coraline #psychonauts #gravity falls #paranorman #the boxtrolls #coraline jones #wybie lovat #razputin aquato #lili zanotto #dipper pines #mabel pines #norman babcock #neil downe #eggs #winnie portley rind #The Audacious Tales of the Lost Cipher

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