Sacrifice or Loss

We finally got a win. A real and proper win. A hard fought, and barely accomplished win, but still a win. The Vault was a trap, of sorts. The Void are more pervasive than I could have ever guessed. I still don't understand how they could have lured me there with information they had no way to being certain I would even find, but they did. I just happened to catch the data thread without Weazel noticing, but it was all they needed. I was hooked. I brought my crew and my ship right into their clutches.
 
This is setting aside entirely that we now also have bounty hunters after us. We were ambushed as soon as we entered the system. We were wholly overwhelmed. In order to survive my only option was to give myself up. I was prepared to jump out into space, with no guarantees, when we were saved by an unexpected interceptor. It turned out to be the Void. They destroyed our assailants and then invited us to the complex. It was nothing like what I imagined. Rather than a modern research facility it was a bizarre and ancient complex, not unlike the nightmare places Soren keeps pointing us toward.
 
The Vault, it turns out, is some sort of game. It requires two teams to enter. The teams are broadcast to some unknown holonet for a cluster of unknown patrons. I have so many questions that have no answers, that I may not be able to answer ever, but I mean to try. The most important being, who are these people watching? No less important, though, is how often does this occur, and where is the armory supplied from? At the moment it doesn't matter. We won. The Void team was not just better prepared, they were prepared at all. They had every advantage. They knew it was timed and a race, giving them a head start. We flagged and were thoroughly thrashed in just the first stage. It was brutal but we made it through, just barely, whole. The second stage was more or less straightforward and we made up much of the time we'd lost. The only stage that actually mattered was the third, however. A literal deathtrap designed to test us and strip us bare. It stole Silhara's eyes and forced me to give us my own arm. What I did not expect, and what test me the most, was the obligation to sacrifice one of my crew. I chose Soren. It was the most practical choice. Kid was not an option, he is vital to the function of the ship, and almost any mission we might ever take. Soren is just a pretty face and nice body. I will admit that he occasionally has useful information, but nothing vital to our survival. Even with no eyes Silhara is still one of the most dangerous things in the room.
 
Silhara had other ideas. Whatever processes she uses in place of reason told her to sacrifice herself. It was noble, and while it would be a detriment to the crew it would be hypocritical of me to deny it of her after already having attempted it myself on two separate occasions. Honestly, for all I know there is nothing it could do to her that would actually kill her. I completed the process while Kid and Soren waxed poetic about how this was wrong. I was of mixed feelings. I was losing our muscle and our pilot, but I was also getting rid of an extremely annoying thorn. Our relationship has been volatile at best, swaying from bad extreme to different bad extreme with only occasional dips into a quazi-normal situation. It was the right choice. While we were decisive, turning our backs on our crew without complaint, the Void went on a murderous rampage. It seems they failed to prepare quite as well as they thought. As the last Void stood victorious, over the corpses of his team, the room took its final sacrifice, vaporizing everyone in the room and granting us entry to the final prize.
 
The final prize was Silhara granted the bounty, my bounty. Thankfully she is not bright, and also was blind and unable to see what she was surrounded by. Weapons and armor galore. Most importantly, my armor. She would never have given it up if she could see it. Everything was locked to her. But she released the locks and I claimed what was mine. This is the first step in finally ridding myself of the Burning Stars. The next step came shortly after when we tried to break into the Void ship, not that they would need it. We failed to gain access, but Kid managed to pull communications from the logs pointing to a meeting with my pirate nemesis on a remote planet in a month's time. Plenty of time to prepare.