Ghostwriter

There's one question I still have, though perhaps it's outside our scope.

What's on the "other side" of the cardboard? What's sending things out into the world - including the current apocalypse? The vague answer is "one or more Gods", but surely there are more details to be learned.

Maybe our cast will start to wrestle with that question, once they get a little more settled and are able to concern themselves with matters beyond immediate survival.

I... apologize. I enjoy this question very much, but sometimes I can't help but feel it's almost a bit too late to be asking it. It's not that these characters have finished their story-- it's that they are ready to be plucked out of it, at least for our purposes. Of course, the process means they will remain in the nickel, safe and sound, to finish out the arc. And I think it'll be very exciting for them, and they'll have quite the time.

So of course it's an important question to ask-- but, again, I apologize if I seem a bit rushed in answering it, and if the fruits of its labor do not show up in our escapade together.

I think it would be quite interesting if the cardboard was, in of itself, linked to Refugia. Perhaps it's an inverse of some negative force on the planet, or it is stealing things actively from the people there-- but regardless of the exact rules of this engagement, there is great power at stake. It'd be very interesting for the cast if Dime's choice to break the original Box had some sort of a cascade effect, and perhaps leads to a more fulfilling wrap-up at the end.

It is a shame to see him so depressed over... what he did. I'm hesitant to say 'choice'. We were too far in control at that point.

I don't always like to have things end nicely-- feels old hat. But I am an empathetic person, I promise you. Sometimes people believe I am not an empathetic person because of my line of work, but if I weren't desperate to understand and relate to the experiences of other conscious beings, I would not have this job, and I would not enjoy this job so much. I like the small storylines to have basis in reality-- that is, they don't always go the way an unseen hand wants it to.

But for this adventure, it has been essential. Much of the dialogue and scenery I relay to you through prose was developed naturally, but there had to be pokes and prods, here and there. Consciousness, like any organism, needs support when it is young.

Now, these four strike me as rather developed on their own front. They don't need me anymore.

As my impatient parent used to say:

Let's get to the part where the ghosts dance.

As you said, it would be chaos.
The ship was already packed with more citizens than it could safely carry, and the sudden hole as the cardboard vessel breached the ship would throw the already unbalanced ship further off tilt.
The crew had enough trouble as it was keeping the ship on course, they would have no time to deal with the hole created.
The ship would still reach the station, but it would be a rough landing.

well of course they succeed, that's the grand catharsis. but now they're drifting through space, and that's where we shall leave them

Where we shall leave them, but they shall not leave us.

The ram is a success, but an ugly one. The metallic wall caves in with the force of the boat, and the boat caves forth with the force of the metallic wall; all things being equal, destruction is at its highest magnitude. With a handful of tripodal soldiers, Puffy and Dime storm into the entrance while water bursts forth, encountering a small gathering of half-transformed, terrified reptilians. With weak unison, they progress up ramps and stairs and passageways, threatening though not shooting groups of these lizards, one after another, one after another-- before reaching the top floor, where they take the final smattering hostage, and stand by the generator for the vessel's lifting mechanism.

Yaffenhash and Belfry work beyond their capabilities to hold the boat together and move its crew inside the vessel-- with Belfry expending more energy expanding and gripping the boat and metal together to prevent them from falling apart, to Yaffenhash grabbing two or three tripodals at a time and throwing them into the safety of the vessel before it completely takes off. The ship is lifting up like it's backwards-sinking, now, and the two reptilians do their best to make sure not a single soul is left behind-- as it snaps in half, and begins to descend into the icy, sapphire-colored water. Their efforts are not in vain, but it's a close one-- and dozens of tripodals are injured badly getting on.

The reptilians, besides Yaffenhash and Belfry, are taken hostage. They have few words to say that Yaffenhash couldn't already tell the tripodals, and the six dozen of them crowd together in a large holding cell near the bottom floor, right above flooded levels.

The large gash is sealed by a manual airlock system-- and once again, the immense vessel is closed up to the rest of the world. As the bottom finally lifts out of water, the couple-hundred refugees of a dying planet are safe... and elevating.

But even in this manufactured safety, it isn't over yet. The station has a stockpile to feed its normal capacity- a hundred reptilian souls- for a few weeks, on its way to their homeworld. But with so many new arrivals, and the existing crew, well...

On the station, there would be a steady trickle of lizard people boarding spacecraft to head home. The stations resources were already being strained to the limits from the refugees, and it was clear that it would take time for the lizard people homeworlds to send aid. Already high tension would begin to raise further, threatening to boil over at any time.

The trickle has stopped by now, sure. But as the ship lifts off, Yaffenhash realizes that they won't have a chance feeding so many people. There's some leniency in the food supplies-- but not enough to feel safe about. She orders the vessel stopped a dozen meters above the sea, and returns to the holding cell, where she's stared at as betrayer by so many of her kind.

"Listen," she says. "I know all of you can find another ship to take off. But these people can't. And worst case..."

A small hatch at the back of the cell slides open by Yaffenhash's command. "...you can survive in the sea."

There is protest. There is backlash. But she has dealt with worse, she has managed through worse-- and with threat of more imminent punishment, she manages to goad the lizards off the ship. They won't have great chances out in the world, directionless. For many, this ship was the only one they had any inclination about. But that isn't her problem.

It just can't be her problem, now.

It's difficult to say what the endgame should be.
From the scope of this story, the natural endpoint would be after our characters survive the apocalypse, and find a firm footing once more. The end of book one, as it were.

But were the story to instead continue into book two, there is plenty of room for a story of tension between the tripod refugees and the lizard people.
And of course the refugians arrival at the end of THIS story would make for a workable cliffhanger.
I suppose then it might be a matter of if we need our current characters to partake in book two.
With their survival handled, we could pluck them from the end of book one easily enough.
And if needed, could come back to the setting in the future. As a whole it seems stable enough that with a bit of care, it could produce ghosts for quite some time.

This is my thinking, as well.

Their interactions with the lizard people will not stop, of course. But for now, there is time to rest.

Bedding already existed in the ship, but now it is divvied up and spread out for the couple-hundred people who need it. Tripodals carve out niches in the corners of the ship, and with Yaffenhash's assurance that they'll make it with proper rationing, they take a collective breath of relief.

She sits next to Belfry, at last, sipping at some hot water. Dime and Puffy both rest on an opposite wall, exchanging a few words, largely positive. Yaffenhash says, "We'll be to the moon in a couple of days."

"Thing can't go any faster?" Puffy harrumphs.

"Starships are expensive-- this thing just pushes."

Belfry takes a long gulp, then sets her cup down. "What do we do when we get there, exactly?"

With a shrug, Dime replies. "We n-need to get them to f-fix Chiron. A-And... help the people trapped on i-it. It doesn't s-seem like they were planning on s-saving any tripodals. There's probably lots of p-people on the sea..."

"Boats are probably the only thing that survived," Yaffenhash concludes. "You know, there were a lot of boats around the island you two used to live on-- I'm guessing there were plenty of survivors."

Puffy the Solemn chuckles. "See, Dime, you're not a complete fuck-up."

Dime laughs weakly. Still a bit too early for him to joke about it, but... the hope's nice. The hope is a point of reassurance.

The ship is sailing off into sky. We've done some minor rewriting-- the destination is not in the clouds, but on the planet's glowing moon. Perhaps it acts as a relay for Refugia's power, tilting it to face the cardboard boxes and making them function... it's hard to exactly know, and perhaps it is part of the mystery they will discover in the second half of their adventure.

But I believe, for our purpose, they are ready.

As Belfry, Dime, Yaffenhash, and Puffy all drift off in tune with their typical solar rhythm, we take a moment to decide whether or not to extract these ghosts, here and now. As you all have had a large hand in their creation, I pass off the final verdict to you.

Yes?