Warning: profane sailor language and alien parasites appear below. This chapter is my attempt at the "Shifting Perceptions" prompt from @totemstorms Prompt A Week Challenge 2026. ----------------

It was never a fair fight, Wayne thought grimly to himself. By peeling off the Bounteous' officers, NCOs, and security personnel, whoever they were fighting had crippled their defense from the start. Within minutes of the ship being breached, the resistors had gone from fighting to save their ship to struggling to save their skins.

He shook his head as he contemplated how close they had come to gaining access to the weapons in the ship's armory. Given the resources of the flagship it's likely the mutiny would still have been crushed, but at least they would have been able to make the bastards pay dearly for it. Instead, the Bounteous' crew did not even seem to be slowing the boarders down.

When the runner from the bridge had told them how close he had come to being captured by the boarders, it was clear that the ship would fall, despite the crew's hastily prepared defenses. Every place the mutineers concentrated their forces, they were repeatedly saturated with stun capsules and quickly felled. Panicked sailors had described how the bulk of the crew defending the portside airlocks were attacked from behind by space-suited marines who had flanked them using the undefended starboard airlocks.

And most concerning of all were the panicked and incoherent stories of defeated mutineers changing sides and betraying the rest of the crew. For a while, Wayne had assumed that the cause must be some sort of high-tech voice cloning and video projection, making an enemy look and sound like a friend. But when the Bounteous' own security team had joined the flagship's marines in attacking the ship, it seemed that something else was going on. The apparent near-instant flipping of the bridge crew was another piece of evidence that anyone who had come into the hands of the boarders could not be trusted, even if it was unclear why.

That mistrust made it nearly impossible for the mutineers to concentrate their forces. Unfortunately, they had little choice but to work with whomever they could find from the crew given their dwindling numbers. As lookouts kept watch, Wayne and 15 of the remaining mutineers gathered in the ship's galley and tried to take stock of their options.

"Look," Wayne said warily. "I'm not sure we can trust you stragglers. Until we know how they keep flipping the loyalty of captured crew members, I don't trust anyone who I haven't kept tabs on since before the breach."

"Same," said Glenn, one of the more recent arrivals. "I know you guys were working on the Armory, and I know we don't have weapons, so that makes it hard to trust that you weren't compromised."

Wayne shot Glenn a poisonous look and lurched toward him threateningly before being restrained by some of his team. "I would have like to have seen YOU cut through four inches of defense-grade Duritica alloy in under 30 minutes with only basic power tools, dumbass!"

Andy, the runner from the bridge, interjected placatingly, "Guys, guys! We're not going to get anywhere if we keep fighting each other. We need to figure out a plan and work together to save our ship. We can only win if we stay united!"

Wayne gave Glenn one last warning look, and then turned to the others and quietly said, "No."

Andy looked confused, then irritated as he turned to Wayne and rebuked him. "What do you mean 'no'? We can't save the Bounteous if we don't work together!"

Wayne sighed wearily and continued. "The ship is lost. I've been racking my brain and no matter what crazy scheme I can come up with, there is simply no way that this small of a group can possibly turn the tide at this point--even if we work together as a team. With weapons, it would be a stretch. Without them, the battle is lost."

Glenn muttered, "Well thank you Suzie Sunshine" and Wayne shot him another threatening look before continuing.

"As I said, the battle is lost. But maybe not the war. The Bounteous is theirs. But I don't think the fleet is theirs. Eric: Tell everyone what you saw when you tapped into the external cameras earlier."

Eric, who had been crouched over in despair, straightened his back and said, "There was debris floating everywhere amidships, and the communication array was just... gone!"

"That's right," Wayne said meaningfully. "Andy, you said the bridge team was trying to get a message through to the other ships in the fleet, right?" Andy nodded in response. "And then these assholes smashed the array to stop us from doing that. Don't you see what that means?"

Glenn looked confused, but then said thoughtfully, "It means that they really, really did not want that message getting through."

Wayne nodded. "That's right, and that tells us something important: Even though these fuckers are kicking our asses left and right, they're scared of the fleet finding out what they're doing. That tells me that our job is telling the fleet what they're doing!"

For the first time since they had come together in the galley, Wayne saw hope in the desperate sailors faces.

"Great!" Glenn said. "But how do we know the bridge crew didn't already succeed in getting their message through?"

Wayne shook his head ruefully. "I don't think they did or the troops currently stomping on us would probably be otherwise occupied. We know they took out the comm array, so that might have stopped the message from getting through."

Andy nodded and said, "Yes, I agree. When I left the bridge they still hadn't gotten the comm system boosted enough to punch through the damping field, and the big jolt from them taking down the array happened really soon after that. But without that array, how can we work together to get a message through to the fleet?"

Wayne again shook his head. "No offense, but we can't."

Glenn rolled his eyes in disgust as the rest of the sailors looked confused. Glenn barked, "Then what the FUCK was the point of all that? Jesus!"

Wayne put his hands out to quiet the sailors and continued calmly. "What I mean is that WE can't work together to do this because WE can't trust each other enough to develop a plan. Since we still don't know how these assholes are getting the crew to change sides, we can't risk having a plan that everyone knows because if any of us gets flipped somehow..."

Glenn finally seem mollified as he nodded his head and said, "Then the plan fails. Okay, so if we can't work together..."

"We work separately," Wayne finished. "We all know the goal now. So we break up into groups and all try to get a message out. Hopefully at least one of the groups will succeed, even if the others don't make it."

Glenn continued nodding, but Andy shook his head vigorously and protested, "But that's crazy! There's safety in numbers, and besides, not all of us have the technical skill to set up a transmitter. If we split up they'll just grab us one by one."

Wayne said glumly, "It's not ideal, I agree, but I've thought about this a lot and I think splitting up gives us the best chance of at least one group succeeding. So I propose we break up into three-person teams and then each group figures out their own strategy for contacting the fleet. Since I've been with Jim and Chen the entire time, we're going to be Team number one. The rest of you can figure out your own teams and your own strategies, but we're off." Wayne said, gesturing for Jim and Chen to follow him.

Andy and some of the other sailors began to protest, but Glenn interrupted loudly, "He may be an annoying asshole, but he's right. Pick your teams and get going. Who knows how much longer the boarding party will take to find us here. We don't have much time to argue. Rico and Kai, you're with me." Then he slipped a chef's knife into his belt and the three of them took off in the opposite direction as the first team.

Andy continued to protest loudly, but it was clear that the remaining crew members were buying into the plan. Eventually Andy and two of the other late arrivals were the only sailors remaining. "Well," Andy said glumly, "I guess we'll see how this works. Luke: why don't you grab us some of those cleavers. Hey Francis... didn't you say you were a mess cook? Do you guys have any propane cylinders or cook torches around here?"

Francis thought for a moment, then nodded enthusiastically and began rummaging under one of the food prep counters. Andy looked significantly at Luke and said quietly, "Do you want to do the honors?" Luke's eyes flashed bright blue as he nodded, smiled, and then carefully pulled up his shirt and peeled a long alien parasite off his belly.

"Guys, I found the torch bodies, but I can't seem to find th...WHAT THE FUCK!!" Francis yelled and lurched as Andy suddenly pulled up the back of his shirt and Luke smoothly placed the parasite on his spine. Francis struggled for a few seconds before becoming motionless. Then his eyes flashed bright blue and he calmly stood up and tucked his shirt in.

"Well, you could have saved us all a lot of grief if you'd done more of that earlier," Francis said blandly to Andy, as the latter sailor moved to the Comm panel.

Andy rolled his eyes as he dialed the bridge. As he waited for the connection, he untucked his shirt and began peeling more parasites off of his belly and chest and placing them on the counter.

"Report!" the voice from the bridge demanded.

"This is Andy. Have all available teams converge on the Mess Hall. I was able to infiltrate the remaining crew element as instructed. I have learned their plans, but failed to direct them to the ambush location."

The voice on the connection was silent for a second, then continued. "Well, were you able to turn any additional crew members?"

Andy responded, "Two: Francis and Luke are now ours, but unfortunately the other crew members are now operating separately in small teams."

The bridge voice gave an exasperated sigh, then continued "Well, what are the other crew planning?"

Andy gave an exasperated sigh of his own, then answered, "Trouble."