Long live the King

"**Long live the King**" (1x18) is the eighteenth episode of Memory=Null, in which allies once lost are found again.

## Synopsis

Tina maneuvers Adus around to the opposite side of the Magnus Faction ship away from the vox ship. Ninla scans the ship and reports that it is a frigate named The Marlin. Sensors detect several life forms inside, plasma beams and flak emitter batteries as well as hardened polymer plating, a basic spike drive, and a drop ship. Ninla attempts to scan the planet while they wait for the Marlin to pass by. She finds some areas with higher population densities, but cannot be sure that is where the main node is. As they wait out the frigate, Thicc suddenly feels a ripple in the weave. He jumps into the navigator’s chair and begins to observe the weave, and watches as the single black thread extending out from the space station snaps.

Thicc has Ninla scan the station again and finds the single life form still there. They decide they should investigate the station, but must wait until the Marlin gets out of range. About twenty minutes into their waiting, the Merlin suddenly stops next to an asteroid. Unfortunately, they’re far enough away that Ninla can’t scan them without alerting them to their presence. Another fifteen minutes pass before the Merlin begins moving away again. Ninla scans the asteroid, revealing that a huge chunk of it is now missing.

With the Merlin now gone, Tina slowly maneuvers Adus over to the station and docks with it. Thicc, Janus and Hellhound all suit up and board the station. Onboard, they find the station intentionally cleared out. Occasional emergency lights are on, but everything else is powered down. About fifteen minutes later, they reach the outside of the room containing the vox. Thicc transfers control of the systems over to Tina, who is able to gain access to the internal cameras. Inside is a single individual in the corner of the room convulsing in pain.

The three of them head inside and clear the room, surrounding the individual. Thicc asks them, in a terrible German accent, what their name is as a terrified Tina comes on comms. A video pops up on Thicc’s HUD as the Monarch’s Fortune jumps into the system near them. As Thicc watches, the individual slowly turns towards him and says “I am Cain.”

Cain tells Thicc that the vox have everything they need to do the calculations to pilot the Monarch’s Fortune. He also says that he fought to maintain himself within the vox mind, that he severed himself from the others, and that there is no way to get the vox out of him, because it is him. Thicc takes a moment to view the weave, and finds that Cain’s thread, which was originally black, is beginning to change color. Thicc asks Sank how quickly she could make a containment unit for Cain. She has Ninla run a scan and manages to find a suitable unit onboard the station. However, it’s on the opposite side of the station.

Janus and Hellhound head off to retrieve the containment unit while Thicc stays with Cain and tries to guide him through learning how to control a living body. About thirty minutes pass before Janus and Hellhound make it back. Before they load Cain into the pod, he asks them to carry him over to a panel on the wall. Hellhound cautiously obliges, and a deep blue liquid sprays out of Cain’s mouth and is absorbed into the panel. Hellhound then carries him back over and seals him inside the pod.

Over the next half hour they slowly make their way back to Adus. Sank escorts them to the hangar with her massive gun where they hook up Cain’s pod. With no further business in the system, Tina decouples them from the station and begins to slowly drift away from the station as Cain requests a moment to attempt something. Suddenly, the lights onboard the station begin to turn on, and the Monarch begins to turn to face it. The station’s thrusters immediately activate at full power as the Monarch fires a huge swarm of silver particles which begin to lash out at the station. As the station continues barreling towards the Monarch, they attempt to jump out of the system, but are unable to as the station crashes into it. After a series of explosions, the Monarch suddenly shrinks, and then ruptures outwards in a massive explosion. Thicc grabs the thread of a location in sector 403 as Tina jumps Adus out of the sector before the explosion reaches them.

Now out of immediate danger, Tina takes a moment to talk to Thicc, telling him that, even though he may feel some kinship with Cain, he cannot be trusted- not only because he is now part vox, but also because his code was derived from remnants of Draco. Afterwards, everyone meets up in the hangar around Cain. Ninla is visibly uncomfortable around the containment unit, while Cain works through his first experience of pain as a result of the station crash. After a brief discussion, Adus offers to keep an eye on Cain, who is now silent and staring off into the void, as everyone heads off to consider current events. Thicc gets something to drink and goes to sit next to Cain.

As he sits there, Adus appears and talks to him for a while about the weave. As they talk, the blue goo of the vox emerges from Cain’s body and covers it as he begins to shape it into humanoid form and tries different features from different species. Adus and Thicc continue their discussion, eventually leading to the scream and plans for when this war is over. Adus eventually leaves Thicc in silence to consider what the future holds.

They soon arrive back at Gunnison 4, where work continues on the jump gate. Thicc calls Pippin, gives him a quick rundown of events, and asks for a science team to check out and contain Cain. Pippin designates a crappy ship named Karen to house Cain, in case anything goes wrong. Pippin informs Thicc that Hanna somehow hasn’t killed her mother yet and they are managing to get things done. He also informs him that, while it appears they will be able to get the jump gate operational, their research indicates that it normally requires six gold rank psychics to operate. Since Hanna is a platinum rank, they think they can pull it off with Adus’ help and an experimental drug to boost her capabilities, but it will be a strain and could possibly result in her knocking out and/or killing everyone in the sector. She would have to maintain the gate for fifteen minutes to get everyone through.

In addition, since Thicc and company were unable to get an exact location on the main vox node, they would probably have to nuke the planet to destroy it. Unfortunately, planet buster technology is highly illegal, so either someone would have to take the fall for it, or they would have to go through the bureaucracy of The Exchange to get approval. The call ends with Thicc inviting Pippin down to the hangar for some of Sank’s cake.

Now docked at the station, they disembark to find Hanna sitting in the middle of the bay. Thicc tries to cheer her up with new projects to work on when she refuses an offer of cake. As he begins telling her about Cain, Cain’s eyes snap open and look across all of them as he says “I know where the main node is. I can show you.”

## Stat Guesses

Because Thicc had a deep scan performed on himself, all stats are now known and are no longer able to be guessed.