Abandon the [i]Firetree?![/i]

It's…

Is it weird that she doesn't want to abandon the ship? 

It's not that it's become home in a startlingly short amount of time, really. Not the friendships that she dares to think are maybe real, and not foxgirl machinations to manipulate her.

It's….

It's an imperial class. 

Look, you probably don't get that, not if you haven't read all the books she has, but. Imperial era warships don't need the slipgates, right? They can go anywhere they want, anywhere they please, with naught but ritual to guide them and--

They're families, right? A crew, all united and pulling together. Shanties, echoing down the hall. Smiling faces, passed and waved at and embraced when the time is right. An Imperial ship is the face of freedom.

Well, not always. Occasionally it's the face of the abrupt surprise villain, but mostly, right? Mostly the face of spunky young heroes exploring the cosmos in an episodic go-anywhere strike-anywhere ship.

But after too long spent thinking, it's the only thing she can think of. A ship can be replaced, right?

Potentially, for someone else, because where else is she going to sign onto one of these, but the ship itself is available somewhere else.

And the Pix aren't.  

Unless she succeeds, in which case she'll have unleashed a horde of backstabbing foxgirls on the galaxy, which seems like it should take mental pride of place, but that's not what we're doing right now. Right [i]now,[/i] we're trying to convince the Pix that they could more efficiently bamboozle folks by showing up one at a time, right?

Which is also happening one at a time, mostly. Trust is a rare coin among the pix--did you know in their language it translates to someone you haven't stabbed today?--and so she's not sure which of her friends is actually a friend, and which views her as an easy mark, and which thinks they can manipulate her into acting on their behalf.

(Which, come on, all you have to do is ask, she is not exactly a closed book here. Get her excited about something and that's your in, you've got what you're implying already.)

But one at a time, a few at a time, she's doing all she can to make them realize that the ship is really an impediment. If you blow a hole in someone's atmosphere every time, rain fire down on a mountain, people come to expect you, right? You can't con them in that kind of environment.

Hell, is it actually a con at all? You're just demanding something under the threat of violence, like a brigand. 

See, and here's the thing, if you go in one at a time, you can ingratiate yourself into the population, right? They don't know to expect the Pix, economic superstars and quasi-ceronians. Hell, they might actually see you as actual Ceronians, if it's been long enough since the last raid.

And talk about coverage! Right now, you're pretty much limited to one ship, right? Can only affect one planet at a time, can only rob one planet at a time. Think what you could achieve if you split off, twos and threes, and held up small settlements! You're still basically Ceronians, you can still band together and take over planets, the power is in [i]you,[/i] not your ship!

Avoid the biomancers. Avoid the captain. Steal badges as needed and as possible to get away with.

She's hoping. She's hoping like hell that she can appeal to that base instinct, that base need to get away with it, to hoodwink someone, enough that they'll give up the power to just blow someone out of the sky, which is much less satisfying for everyone involved.

And maybe that will be enough.