Session export: Solyiat Surrounded - Hot Girl Summer (Sunrider)
Within the ship, a paparazzi droid hovered several feet away, an array of cool toned lights surrounding where she stood in the shape of an artificial halo. The ringlights caught each detail of smooth rose hued skin, and the shimmering waves of pale pink and silver hair that fell over the Zeltron’s shoulders in a cascade. Syrena instinctively angled herself towards the cameras, swiped on a coat of black lip gloss, and blew a kiss towards her current HoloNet livestream.
“Hi, followers!” She chimed brightly. “Today’s HoloNet broadcast is sponsored by Antares Armourers. They just have so many options to choose from, and can accommodate almost any custom style you want.” Syrena stepped back from the cameras and performed a slow turn, allowing the lens to intentionally focus on the way that her shining formfitting white armor hugged each of her curves. “And don’t forget to use the code SyrenaPink for an exclusive twenty percent off!” She quickly added with a wink.
Finally Syrena sat down, carefully smoothing her hair into place as the paparazzi droid hovered lower and focused in on her. “Now, as many of you know, I’ve had to put my tour on pause temporarily… Because there are just some things in this galaxy that matter more. Like the awful crimes being committed by the Vatali. And I’m here to help shed some light on what’s really happening. I urge all of you to help us cancel the Vatali, once and for all.” At this, Syrena willed her expression to intentionally soften and dramatically placed one hand over her heart. With the other, she rubbed delicately beneath one eye, deliberately smudging her mascara until it was enough to give the impression of recent tears. “And please… Take a moment to like, share, follow, and subscribe for more content.”
Syrena quietly counted a pause to herself in her head, for emotional effect, before continuing. “You all might remember one of my older songs, Quermian Rhapsody, from way back in my early Odan Urr days,” Her full lips slowly formed into a half smile. “Well, guess who’s back? Back again… To none other than Solyiat!” Syrena finally announced as she swept one hand towards the view port. The paparazzi droid obediently shifted towards the windows for several seconds, before refocusing back on her.
She rose and strut through the ship, tossing her pale hair over one shoulder. “Today I’m joined by…” Syrena glanced toward the Mirialan female seated nearby, realizing only now that she had never actually asked her name. “Well, she has this sick ship, for starters!” She finally said to the cameras with more enthusiasm. “Today, we’re getting ready to head out to the front lines for an exclusive look, and an inside scoop, on the ongoing Vatali conflicts.”
Syrena turned fully toward the striking Mirialan, presenting her with the same radiant smile that she normally reserved for various galactic fashion events. The paparazzi droid immediately pivoted with her, hovering just over her shoulder. “What’s your name?” Syrena asked brightly. “Please, share a little bit about yourself. And most importantly, for all my followers out there back on Zeltros…” Her smile widened. “What is currently your favorite club to attend?”
“Well, I had my first date with my girlfriend—the two-meter tall princess, not the other two—at the Amaranthine Veil in Avar Quor, so I’ve gotta go with that one.” Vez did not get to flex any of that at other Odanites nearly enough. “And I’d like to not get banned from it, so, y'know…”
The Mirialan gestured at, well, most of their surroundings. “Most of this is, like, super illegal. Especially the stealth drive, and the sensor jammer, and the inverter, the slicing computer… basically everything we’re gonna use to illegally run the blockade, assuming the mouth-breathing Vatali slicers don’t catch our location from your socials, so please tell me this isn’t going out live.”
The Duke, specifically the Hulking Murderbot chassis as opposed to the Rolling War Crime version, burbled out something in thickly accented Binary.
“Nah,” Vez responded. “You can’t kill the little guy, it’ll make Orse sad.”
“Amaranthine Veil in Avar Quor…” Syrena repeated slowly, as though committing the name to memory. “I’ve no plans of getting you banned from the place you had your first date with the two meter tall princess… That’d just be cruel.”
Her expression abruptly froze. Slowly, Syrena’s silver gaze drifted toward the paparazzi droid still hovering nearby, its brilliant ring of lights focus directly on the two of them. “Oh.”
She immediately turned toward the camera with a beaming smile, waving one hand dismissively toward her viewers. “We are so, like, totally not going to do any computer slicing or slicer jamming. Or blockade running. Or anything else that anyone might have just heard completely out of context.” Her smile broadened. “But unfortunately, I’m going to have to cut today’s livestream short.”
Already, Syrena could see an incoming message flashing across her datapad. Syrena, we require you to livestream at least two hours of content per day for promotional purposes, and you have at least one additional sponsored advertisement you are contractually obligated to—
Syrena stopped reading, trying to will her expression to continue to hold it’s usual radiance. Her gaze returned to the camera, as another dazzling smile spread across her features, though this one was noticeably more strained. “Thanks for watching today’s stream! And for all your love and support. Don’t forget to drop a like below. Until next time!”
She blew an exaggerated kiss toward the audience, without another word. The moment Syrena ordered the paparazzi droid to end the recording, the vibrant lights flashed off as soon as the livestream cut out, along with her smile. The Zeltron’s expression shifted into a scowl as she ran a hand through her platinum hair, an irritated sigh escaping her lips. She slid into one of the ship’s passenger seats, crossed one leg over the other, and withdrew a small flask from her pocket. After tossing back a quick shot, Syrena grimaced faintly.
“It ain’t the best, but it gives me that extra kick before battle, if ya get what I mean.” She began to say. Syrena next reached into her pocket and produced a small datachip. She held it delicately between two fingers, before extending it toward Vez with a smirk.
“I present to you my unreleased single.” A pause followed her words. “It is complete trash. Utter bantha poodoo. My Holostar management agency decided I apparently needed some soulless, algorithm friendly sellout garbage for my next release.” Her smile sharpened. “So…” Syrena wiggled the chip between her fingers. “Think you can hack into their system and make it play on a repetitive loop over and over again on their internal comms?”
“Oh,” Vez smiled, slowly, with malicious delight. “Oh, yes I can, and I can do one better.” She plucked the datachip from the Zeltron’s fingers and turned towards the control console. On the way, she casually slapped a button on the bulkhead, causing a shelf to rotate down and reveal a small but respectable bar. “Help yourself,” Vez said.
Settling down in front of the customized slicing computer, Vez inserted the datachip, then patted a small, plastic convor on the head before talking through her work. “I stole the entire Vatali navy code base a few cycles back. I don’t remember why. But their security is a joke and I can push live updates to their systems. I can’t break or disable anything—the droidbrain reviewing the code isn’t that stupid—but some basic interface changes should get through without any trouble. But first let me make the volume on this file 600% louder.”
“Let’s see… red alert noise, changed to zizzlepop.aud. Yellow alert noise, changed to zizzlepop.aud. Sensor ping is definitely zizzlepop.aud. Flag officer on deck chime, incoming announcement ding, generic alert claxon, all zizzlepop.aud. Aaaaaand the text display color on all terminals should be bright pink. Now we just push that out to anything with the VRN transponder code and we’re good to ruin some days.”
Vez cracked her knuckles and stood up from the console. “Tell your viewers not to do spice, because spice is bad, but if they do do spice, they should spend a two-week glitterstim bender hyperfocused on starship automation systems because that shit never gets old.”
Syrena looked at Vez differently this time, her silver eyes lighting up as an enthusiastic grin spread across her face. She gave an excited little squeal and lightly jumped, clapping her hands together. “Yesss! Slicing queen!” she cheered, throwing both hands into the air. “See, this is exactly the kind of energy I need in my life.”
Her excitement lasted another moment before curiosity crept across her features instead. Syrena stilled, tilting her head slightly to one side. “Spice?” she repeated. “I… Well.” Her glossed lips pursed for a moment as she considered how best to phrase it. “I’m going to be honest, it’s been at, like, a lot of the parties I’ve attended.” Syrena leaned closer against the edge of the console, voice lowering to a whisper.
“You’ve heard of Valiya Catrisse, right? The stunning Lonto model? I did a holoshoot with her recently where we were wearing basically nothing but flowers over our…” Her already rose hued complexion deepened several shades as she gave a hurried, dismissive flutter of her hand. “Well. You get the idea.”
“Anyway,” Syrena continued quickly, “Valiya is, like, really into spice. And a lot of my friends do it too. I’ve never actually tried any myself.” The next recommendation seemed to register, as she found herself considering it to herself. “Glitterstim, though?” Syrena’s eyebrows rose with renewed interest. “I’ve always wanted to try glitterstim.” A mischievous smile tugged at the corner of her full lips. “I’ll have to remember that recommendation for later… After we finish dealing with this whole Vatali blockade thingy.”
“Ah, yeah, shit,” Vez mumbled as the Duke went off, shouting in that weird burble-binary he spoke in this chassis. “Cool your servos, Duke.”
She shuffled over to the bulkhead and banged the bottom of a closed fist against it. A minibar dutifully unfurled itself, revealing some thin metal drinking vessels and a collection of bottles secured to the shelving unit. “He is reminding me—again—that the last time I tried to run a blockade, it didn’t go so well.”
Vez selected a bottle with some brown liquid and a packet of dried mixer, pouring both into a cup. “As in, I relied on a similar cloaking device to the one that’s going to make us invisible to the Vatali Navy.” She gestured for the Zeltron to help herself and took her drink over to the pilot’s chair.
“Except I’d sold it, to get more spice. And I didn’t realize that until we were under fire from the Swokes Swokes, because I was crashed out on the floor.” She fished a cigarra out from a jacket pocket. “I don’t remember any of this, but apparently I was going to shoot myself, except Duke shot me first. He used a stun bolt. I wasn’t going to.”
Vez took a long pull from her drink, then lit the cigarra and took a long pull from that, too. “That’s why I’m clean and sober now. Bit of a sore subject for tall, dark, and lethal over there, but I can’t hold it against him.”
Syrena’s expression faltered at the tale, her head tilting slightly to one side. If nothing else, it served as an inevitable warning to proceed with caution… and perhaps never go anywhere near the substance known as spice. “Duke seems like a good friend,” she began, with a wide gesture towards the ship. “I know some people like to think droids are just hunks of metal… and I suppose they technically are, but there’s a certain beauty in their company. Half the time it seems like they understand us better than people do, sometimes.”
The paparazzi zoomed closer, its lens swiveling between the two of them as though in answer. Syrena instinctively turned towards it, folding her arms over her chest and lightly tapping the heel of her boot. “No. We are so not catching this moment on camera for someone else to read about somewhere,” She stated with a roll of her eyes to the droid. The droid hovered a moment longer, flashing lights on it slowly dimming.
“Sorry,” Syrena added as she turned back toward Vez. “The HoloNews headlines have been off the charts lately.” She tossed her long waves strawberry pink hair over one shoulder, the heels of her boots clicking lightly against the deck as she crossed toward the space to fix herself a drink once. With glass in hand, she slid back into the passenger seat, crossing one leg over the other before tossing back a generous sip with a relaxed sigh.
“They say I party too much, that I spend my time with far too many men… and women, in clubs…” Syrena lifted her glass, adopting a mockingly scandalized expression. “‘The disgraced Governor of Kaal City turned Holostar at it again,‘” She sighed with the roll of her eyes, though a soft laugh followed her words.
“You know, it’s refreshing not being in the presence of a Jedi for once here in the Clan.” Her eyes drifted toward Vez, studying her for another moment. “Unless…” A faint smile tugged at her glossy pink lips. “Well, at least, you don’t seem like a Jedi,” Syrena finally concluded with a shrug, as her silver eyes shifted back towards the view port expectantly. Syrena tilted her head back, swallowing the last of her alcohol with a soft sigh, setting the empty glass down beside her. “Time to light this shit up?”
“Screw the Jedi,” Vez grunted. “Let’s ruin somebody’s day.”
Bridge
VRN Darsayi
Solyiat
“Commodore,” a voice called out from the ops console.
“Yes?” the Commodore marched over with a precision that belied his boredom. Interdiction duty wasn’t glamorous, but it was a lot more interesting if there were other vessels to interdict. So far, this part of the blockade had been quiet.
The ops officer tapped at her display. “There was a very brief contact, sir, but it vanished. Probably an anomaly, but…”
“But what?”
“A communications channel opened. I can’t tell with whom or why but—”
Software components updated. New processes launched. The internal audio systems engaged. The Sephi screamed to the deafening galactic premier of Syrena’s latest—and dumbest—single.
SUCKIN ON MY ZIZZLEPOP
LOOKIN SO SO SIZZLE HOT
DRIPPIN ON MY BRAND NEW TOP
RIZZ EM WITH MY ZIZZLEPOP
The Commodore shouted orders, not that anybody could hear them. The comms officer’s console lit up with urgent hails from every nearby vessel, one after the other.