WITCH ASTEROID

Asher: Rusty / Tootsie Thompson. Scotty: Doc Marty. Nico: Bucky Andrew. Christian: Kanan "Carrion" O'Tool. Rob: Odi.  DAY 17 Waking from the Labyrinth. Darkness, illuminated by flashlights. A four-way intersection ahead; lit, with four cryopods operating in the center. All empty, except one. Inside is a young boy, around 12 years old, with long uncut hair. The crew awaken him. He hops out. Cryosick. A little feral. Seems like he can't speak many words. Odi. He's hungry. Carrion has SynthSteaks. Odi starts tearing into them as the crew read the nutritional facts. Their names, among others, are written before the ingredients. These steaks are made from people? Rusty sees his name written down. He remembers his old ship badge. When he would guide his crew while they were asleep in hyperspace. Why wasn't he asleep? He realizes that he was the ship's android. Rusty loses it. He cuts his arm open. White pseudo milk spills down his wrist and elbow. He peels his...

Asher: Rusty. Scotty: Doc Marty. Nico:  Bucky Andrew.  Christian: Kanan "Carrion" O'Tool. Left alone in the scrap-covered court room. Android corpses of Cherubim looted by Red Shuilong. Lewis, dead, against the wall. Bucky Andrew, a nerdy mechanic and soldier, is assigned to the team. She also fucked with Monarch and has to complete a contract. They enter the hallway. It leads to Fortifications. A blast door, with handprint scanner. Rusty scans his hand, and the door opens. It opens to the back of a stage, facing an auditorium. Hundreds of seats, a massive theater. Dead and dying androids strewn about. Some loot their fellows for parts. Missing jaws, brains, limbs, teeth, eyes. One rises from the seats and begs for help. A red alarm blares. A turret enters from under the ground and shreds the android with machine-gun fire. The divers duck against the wall on their side of the hallway. The turret lobs a grenade. Carrion kicks it back, and they close the blast door. BOOM. ...

Asher: Rusty. Nico: Dr. Abraham Lewis. Christian: Kanan "Carrion" O'Tool. Flashbanged with searing light from the scanning equipment. The sewer main. The divers crawl through another air vent and reach a dark expansive room. Gears and machinery churning, churning. Gears along the wall. Pillars of grinding and crushing gears as far as Rusty can see with his thermals. The divers return to the sewer main, and head down a pipe instead. Hands and knees. A layer of cold gray liquid coating their skin and soaking through their clothes.  Something blocking the path ahead. Stinking of shit and ammonia. A blob, like black shaving cream. Lewis takes a sample. It's light and fluffy and smells like shit. Rusty uses his blanket to push the mass out of the way and into the edges of the pipe, making minimal contact with it and the diver's bodies. A holographic blue face phases through Rusty's blanket as he pushes ahead. "Have you seen my mom?" A child, a ghost in t...