Susanna

"Susanna Patrya Haltmann".

Her name was special to her, for it was a precious gift when she disliked her old name.

Just "Susie" for short, it had all the mischief and charm that she did. An only child to a single father, she was spoiled rotten from the start, and clung to her father's side like glue.

Together they roamed the galaxy, looking for forgotten knowledge and leftover stories from ancient civilizations: there were so many secrets to be found. Maybe those secrets could even be used for good, to create inventions of old to help people of the new age.


Susie still remembers where the story came to turn. The scatter of notes on her father's desk, the sketches of gigantic figures.

"What are they?" she asked, and her father's mustache twitched with a smile.

"The creations of the ancients," he explained proudly, holding up one of the sketches. It was golden and spherical, with the crest of a shooting star along its side. "They're huge machines, able to grant wishes if you ask them nicely. I want to learn all about them... and maybe, I can even rebuild one."

Wishes didn't just come true, did they?
She stared up at her father with blue eyes full of thought, trying to understand how a machine could do that.

But people made wishes every day, for miracles and better lives, and Susie thought being able to answer those wishes would be a wonderful idea.



"Its name is Hoshi no Yume, or Star Dream."

Haltmann turned to look back at his daughter, gesturing with a single hand up at the computer. It was massive, dwarfing them both, and stared at them with a single golden eye.

"It's so big... it's like it's alive," Susie pondered aloud, keeping her distance and watching from the far side of the room.

"Are we gonna turn it on and try to make a wish?"

"For now, we're just going to perform some basic operations.
Wishes are big things for clockwork stars, they need a lot of power for that! Later, perhaps."

He turned, starting up the visual apparatus he had put together for the computer. It lit up with complicated glyphs and information readings, with a momentary caution for power and stability: it was much more advanced than he expected, but he understood enough to proceed.


--> INITATING DIMENSIONAL RIFT TEST. . .
--> . . .TEST IN PROGRESS.


The center in the room lit up bright before a hole tore through it.
Like a window to another realm, a star-shaped space manifested, a beacon of light.

A crackle of energy surged at its edges; the notes on the wall flew free and were sucked in.

No, this was far too much too soon, these tests needed to be run in a much more secure environment!


A shrill scream rang out as Haltmann glanced up.

Susie clung to the table's leg, trying not to get pulled in by the rift.
He turned and made a wild pass to try and catch her--


She couldn't hold on long enough.

In a moment, she was gone, a distant scream as her only trace.


The table fell astray, taking wires and plugs with it.
Electricity danced and sparked, and with a flashing explosion, the rift was gone and the whole system shut down. Star Dream's circuitry went dark as it returned to sleep mode.

Silence.


A quaking sob.

The crash of a fist against the computer's hull.


"Bring... bring her back.. please, please..."


--->

Even now, she doesn't remember how long she was there.
Time passes strangely in other dimensions, where the sky twists and tears and nothing's quite right.


At first, Susie was terrified.

Being truly alone for the first time in her life was a jarring experience, for no one looking out for her safety or needs was simply unheard of. At the age of seven, she didn't yet know this independence.
Terrible winged creatures called the shifting, shimmering terrain their domain, and though they were harmless if not bothered or defending something, they were just one of the many threats that lived here.

But it only took her a few hours to get her bearings. There wasn't anything left to do but wipe her tears, stand up, and remember all the advice her father had given her for emergencies.
Food, water, shelter, she just needed those basic things.. easy enough. She could do it.



Days, weeks, then months.

Susie began to think that maybe she wouldn't ever see her father again-- that, maybe, it wasn't so easy to just go back home. She'd thought that, perhaps, her father would use Star Dream to try and get her back the same way she'd come here, and it was just a matter of watching for holes in the sky...


What began as months became seven long years.

Living in an ever-changing, highly-magical place like this had made Susie crafty and quick, adapting to the peculiar world around her as it shifted.

She'd lost her sense of fear long ago, and focused intensely on studying the phenomena of this dimension to bide her time; she needed something on her thoughts besides just survival and the distant memory of her father.
There was an almost predictable tide and turn to the occasional portals that linked this dimension and her home, and chasing those secrets, plotting them out on little hand-drawn graphs, helped her reason with the galaxy's indifference to her.


When the time finally came, a rift opening just close enough for her to reasonably reach, she didn't give into all that elaborate marvel and scientific thought.
She took nothing with her, knowing any hesitation could steal this chance forever: that original fire, lit in her heart, rose into a blazing bonfire.

I will find you again. Nothing in the universe is going to stop me.


The world flashed to life as she left the other side of the rift.

A sandy, desert planet with the binary suns beating down overhead-- far from fun, but she would make do. Her demands of life were simple: to just not die until she could find her father.


One year and a scavenged, functional spaceship later, and she found herself on the doorstep of an incredible superpower.

A massive company that roamed the galaxy, looking for valuable resources and energy for it to collect like a dragon as it went.
It knew no opposition, leaving its cruel trace wherever it wandered, taking as it pleased and giving only as it saw fit. With ease, it crafted mechanical marvels and changed entire planets, bringing technology to the people...


The Haltmann Works Company.


<--- | --->

"So let me get this right.

You want a job with us because, despite us having absolutely no record of you as a person in any place we've visited, you claim you're qualified.

What can you do for us that we can't just.. automate?"

It wasn't the last sentence that got her frowning, but the "absolutely no record of you as a person" part.
How was that even possible? What could have happened in the last seven years that would cause him to forget her completely?

That moment of hesitation became a spark of resolve.

"I-- I can act as public relations, if you need it! Or as your assistant to help keep everything organized for you! Please, I promise I have the credentials--" (she didn't) "-- and, so, I...

So, if you could give me any job that you think a living person could handle, I'll take it!"

And then the office was silent again. Susie stood unwavering, eyes shining as she refused to step aside.


He looked almost the same as he always did. Glossy purple hair and mustache, expensive taste in clothes, bright blue eyes (just like hers): it was as though it hadn't even been a month. A golden headset over his ears matched the golden pocketwatch in his chest pocket, and every time Susie noticed the watch, her breath hesitated.

He'd kept it. It was her gift to him on Father's day, a long ten years ago.
But if his memories of her were completely gone, then why...?


"Fine. From here on out, you will be my secretary. You will answer to my call and do as I say, no exceptions."
Haltmann turned, making a quick wave at a wall-mounted apparatus, and a printer rapidly spat out documents.

"Here are the fine details involving your pay, accommodations, and expectations. Do not disappoint me."

She blinked, did a double-take: what had made him decide on accepting her? This had all been an act of desperation, an attempt to ask her many, many questions, and now, when there really wasn't any good reason for her to be taken in...

Susie took the documents quickly, not even caring to look over them immediately. All that mattered was that she was here, she had been accepted, and now.. she could start figuring out the important things.

Namely, why her father no longer remembered her... and how this huge technological empire had created itself.
There was no way something this big could spin itself into existence in a mere seven years, even if her father was an ambitious and talented inventor in his own right.


"Th-thank you so much, sir, president Haltmann," Susie answered quickly, realizing her thoughts were getting ahead of her now. She tucked the document to her side, then turned to leave.

"I'll be absolutely sure to deliver! Please let me know if there's anything I can do for you!"

She knew perfectly well that she was getting in way over her head.

It was no simple undertaking: getting an assistantship at a company this huge and powerful, to the CEO himself, was astronomically larger than she could picture it. Reaching out had been easy enough, but being invited in to the company's main ship, which was easily the size of a small moon... it was incredible.


But it didn't matter to her. This was just a change of plans now that she'd finally achieved her goal, right?

Now that she'd found her father again, it was just a matter of sticking around long enough and performing well enough that, maybe, he'd remember her for who she was. Or, if nothing else, she could learn what had caused him to forget her.


Either way, she was home again. It would be okay.

As Susie left, the door sliding shut, a single golden eye watched her.


<--- | --->

It didn't take Susie long to start putting the pieces together.

Though kept incredibly busy with all the errands she ran and all the paperwork she filed, her new life gave her a surprising amount of clearance into the company her father had created.


At the center of it all was the same machine: the incredible supercomputer Star Dream, able to open portals in space and transmute matter with advanced magitechnology.

For the longest time, Susie remembered it only as a ghost of the past, the cause of her troubles, but Haltmann had continued his work on it until it could do almost anything. As long as it had the raw resources, it could do whatever its master possibly wanted it to.
Susie didn't truly understand why her father had gone so big with the company, why he turned it into a roaming corporate power that sought resources to create the technology it wanted... he was ambitious, but this was on a scale she had never imagined. It was practically a kingdom all its own, fed by money and energy and enthusiastic creation.

She had a shadow of doubt at the very beginning, about all of it.

Where did all of this come from?
Did it have anything to do with her father's memory loss?


Something in her was so happy to have all her needs met without question-- to be able to enjoy the finer pursuits of life rather than the struggle she had lived for years. Having some calling beyond just survival had been a pipe dream for so long... and now here it was, entwined with the possibility that she could get her father to remember her.
She couldn't let this chance go to waste.

And so Susie let this become her new life.

With a cheery grin and polished tact, she had no trouble going from secretary to executive assistant of the CEO, fulfilling errands and spearheading projects.

Any interactions with outsiders, whether potential customers or possible threats to their encroach, were often handled by Susie; her charm and smooth words made her excellent at public relations. It was far easier to sell weapons and robots and futuristic technology when there was an enthusiastic, pretty representative there to shill it all, after all.


The years began to pass in a blur.

Unimpeded, the Haltmann Works Company wandered the galaxy, reaching to and fro with its gilded glove. Some planets were only worth exploring for inspiration and old technologies, while others were rich in natural resources ready to be harvested.
To Susie, it was a lot of her old life all over again, the wandering and the research, but now all those inventors' dreams could come true. It only took blueprints and raw materials, and Star Dream could bring it to life, whether it was automobiles or laser guns or little propeller-jets that you could fly around with.

And though it was hard to connect on a personal level, Susie found at least some common ground with who her father had become.

Technology offered a way to keep up with a highly magical universe, and Haltmann had found his niche in a powerful, one-person mech that dominated the battlefield. Not wanting to be left out and wanting so dearly to connect somehow, Susie had a mech of her own commissioned-- a pink and golden powerhouse called the Business Suit, a playful reference to her father's Executive Suit. Against threats that you had to handle yourself, it was quite the threat with its crushing arms and array of missiles!


It was those little things that kept her motivated for the long game.

Some days, Susie felt as though it all meant nothing: while her rapport with her father had grown strong again, and there was the blossom of pride in her heart when she got praise... it didn't change that he didn't remember her as a daughter.

Was she just lying to herself?


With microphone in hand, she whirled along the silken rug, magenta hair swirling around her.
"Noble Haltmann, noble Haltmann!
Every day we wish him glory!" she called out in song, met by cheers and applause from the crowd.


(Maybe she was, but she had nothing else.)

"Oh, how we adore him!"


Those wishes and that normalcy, though, were soon to change.
Everything changed forever when the Haltmann Works Company came to the planet Popstar.


<--- | --->

It was a beautiful planet, all things considered.

Golden and starlike in shape, it was full of natural beauty and incredible amounts of resources from oil to ore to lumber. It was unfortunately also rather populated, which meant one of two things: either enthusiastic greetings or hostile resistance. But neither result really mattered, for the company had power to overwhelm nearly any foe.


The invasion only took a day. The massive home base of the company descended from the sky, the circular Access Ark landing and taking up residence. Any dissent was immediately crushed by laser cannons and robotic security, with the more talented rebels being recruited for the company's own use.

At the front of it all, Susie played the song and dance her father composed.
The Mechanization Occupation Project, as he called it: transform surrounding land for the company's use, recruit the locals now that their attempts to fight back had been quashed, and prosper.

With the power she commanded, it really wasn't difficult: Star Dream's creations and large-scale transformations really made it easy. "Oh, you can do something nice for yourself, whatever you want," Haltmann had told his daughter, and in a selfish moment, Susie had an entire ice cream factory crafted simply because she could. She'd always loved ice cream, and if she was going to lean so much into chasing the past, why not have fun with it?


Something, however, made her hesitate just a bit.

One of the locals, a brave pink creature named Kirby, seemed so badly to cause a ruckus. Just a child, they knew little fear and incredible power: and in her time supervising the waterfront development, Susie had a chance to meet them.

It was incredibly annoying to see resistance, but it was to be expected, wasn't it? This meant, of course, that she had to crush this challenge to the company's advance-- and yet when she donned her visor and crashed into combat with the Business Suit, Susie was left with the bitter sting of defeat soon after.

What business could a mere child possibly have, fighting her until her mech had no energy left to fight?
What did they believe in?


Susie watched as Kirby left the waterfront and moved on, traveling across the planet to destroy the company's strongholds. Ever so often, they even managed to rewire some of the company's machinery, using it to their own advantage! How impossibly ridiculous, truly, and yet Haltmann brushed it all off when informed.

"If they wreck anything too valuable, we'll just rebuild it. Do all you can to destroy them-- you can do that, can't you, Susie?" he said with a shrug, spinning in his chair and turning back to the holographic graphs, tracking progress of various developments.

Far easier said than done, Susie soon discovered. She had two faces that dear Kirby likely recognized: the highly-improved, cyborg Mecha Knight, and the ruthless clones of the local king. Those would suffice more than enough to crush opposition, right?

(Not right, because she watched with disgust as both of these attempts failed. The clones dissolved to goo upon defeat, and Mecha Knight... well, he got far but was quickly recovered, given a fresh coat of paint, hopefully improved for the better.)


So much effort put into quashing a single threat.. it was wasteful and frustrating beyond belief.
Susie watched from afar as Kirby finally approached the Access Ark, looking to fight the invasion at its very source. This was what mattered, now: if, somehow, Haltmann was defeated and Star Dream got into the wrong hands, it could be disastrous.


She would make certain that wouldn't happen.



<--- | --->

It didn't take long.

Susie bid her time and waited, watching the intruder crash through the outer workings and areas of the HWC base without trouble. Kirby didn't seem too focused on destruction, not this time: instead they seemed to be looking for the center of operations...


"This is the Haltmann Works Company's head office. This is the heart of the company," she sighed, looking over her guest. Remote in hand, she made the now-retooled Mecha Knight approach, wings spread.

"And here you are, as if it was your own living room...
You really need to be taught manners!"

Sparks flew as the battle ignited, but once again her attempts ended in defeat. Mecha Knight shook himself, staggering a few meters away before finally shaking off the mind-control and swiftly taking wing.
She'd really been hoping that her upgrades had been enough, but no! Why couldn't this just go her way?

"Impossible-- how could Star Dream's creations fail twice?! Fine! I'll just take these matters into my own hands--"

"There's no need for that, Susie."


She paused as Haltmann, having watched the entire showdown, finally intervened. Susie held her tongue, stepping back.
What was going to happen if he failed to drive Kirby off? There wasn't just any giving up and surrendering here and now, was there?

With a frown, she stepped back as her father took charge, hopping into his own mech and... putting up a really impressive fight, really. She wanted to be able to handle her mech with that much bravado and aerial grace, that was for certain.


Perhaps predictably, this was for naught. Susie cringed just a bit as even the Executive Suit broke down, its gem-encrusted hull smoking as its energy ran dry--

"You're all wild savages! Your insolence must be punished!" Haltmann shouted, rising from the mech's exhausted shell. In a hand was a meticulously-crafted helmet: the one that Susie recognized as being the way to command Star Dream.

"Watch me activate Star Dream, the most powerful machine in existence. And you filthy natives will be... eradicated!"

That was Susie's chance: she darted close, hitting Haltmann hard on the back of the head before he could initiate control. He dropped to the carpet, unconscious.

She had seen how irrational he could get when upset these days, and besides... he needed to be taught that he couldn't do this all himself. (Would that be enough to shock him to his senses?)

"Star Dream is all mine now, Mr. Haltmann," Susie said softly, taking the helmet in hand. She turned back to Kirby, giving them a cheeky smile as they watched, confused.

"What, did you really think I was going to let him just do that?
Oh, no. I can hardly trust him when he's angry.. and I could get quite rich selling Star Dream to a startup company, couldn't I?"

She giggled, shifting her headset to fit the helmet on her head instead.


Across the room, Star Dream's gaze shifted to focus on Susie.

Had anyone asked it what it thought of all this?
They most certainly had not.

In furious dissent, the supercomputer blasted Susie with a burst of electricity, and she collapsed, the world going black.



<--- | --->

Hazily, weakly, she came to.

All she could hear was a voice-- her father's voice, but different, wrong:

"... witness the end of history," it harked, in deep autotune.


Struggling to get her bearings, Susie rose and glanced around.
The room was incredibly still, with only her and Kirby left standing-- where was--

She looked up to see Star Dream, its arched wings spread.
Sitting in its chassis was Haltmann, the helmet on his head and his eyes bright golden.

His head lay bent at a slant, his breath stilted.


"A new age shall begin--an age of infinite prosperity."

Her stomach dropped; she felt faint, and she gasped for breath.
Haltmann wasn't controlling Star Dream this time-- not anymore.

"Enjoy your destruction."

The office quaked as it began to break apart at the seams. The broad window shattered and the segmented floor began to unfold as Star Dream broke from its restraints: with a tremendous wingflap, it burst loose and rose into the sky.


Susie's hands hung limp at her sides.

All she wanted to do was make him realize-- make him remember.

Now, because of her... was he just a puppet? A corpse on strings, manipulated by this monster?
Her thoughts ran wild and she had to fight the tears, her own hastening breath, the growing anxiety--

No. It didn't matter anymore. Nothing mattered anymore.


In that absence, though, there was that burning feeling again.
She wasn't going to just accept this.

"Look at this mess... I'm not going to stand here and be destroyed by some crazy machine!” Susie snarled, lifting her head and turning to Kirby. They did not speak, but bright determination sparkled in their eyes.

"There's an extra mech armor there--" she gestured to a fallen security drone, partially destroyed in the wreckage. "-- I know you know how to use them, I've watched you come all this way, so..."


She glanced down at the floor, fighting back tears.

"Get in, pinky.
Please, stop him. I know you can."

They stared back for a second, lingering on the struggle in her expression, before nodding once.
Then, they turned, rushing over to the drone-- climbing into its cockpit, starting it up without fear, and flying it out through the window.

Susie could only watch, wordless, as Kirby left. They met up with an old friend in the sky, fusing the drone's form with new help, and rose to meet Star Dream's challenge far above.



She felt empty, even with the fire in her heart burning.

Her grand plan, her hopes, the possibility of being a happy family again...
Was it all doomed to perish like this?


Winged shapes twisted and danced in a vicious dogfight overhead, the massive Star Dream dwarfing its brave challenger. Yet it seemed to slow with the damage it accumulated.

The whole Access Ark shook as Star Dream rapidly descended, fit into a slot in the very top of the dome. Susie had to push herself to run, descending from the wreckage of the office to the cliffs below.

She watched in awe, in horror and aching heart, as the Access Ark slowly ascended, firing its cannons upon the starship waiting for it.


Maybe it was inevitable.

Had the father she'd known been beyond reach all this time?
Had she just been lying to herself to feel better?

This wasn't what he ever would have wanted.


The Access Ark's outer shell cracked open, and from within came the howl of a mechanical god.
In the very depths of its cry, another voice ached deeply in pain.


Softly, Susie's voice answered it in a quaking sob.

I never got to tell you goodbye.


The godling began a countdown to annihilation; a burst of light and the starship that challenged it was struck down, falling to earth in a burst of flame. From the wreckage, a figure rose one last time, charging at the transcended Star Dream, crashing through the shields it manifested and rising to attack from above--


Maybe you forgot me, but...

I'll never, never forget you.


The sky erupted in brilliant supernova, and Star Dream screamed out one last time.

It died, collapsing into fragmenting light,
and with it, too, Haltmann was no more.



<--- | --->

In the end, Susie had little reason to stay.

Her hopes and ambitions lay in ruin, and very few of the company's assets still remained. Much of it had been completely wiped out with Star Dream's defeat, its cataclysmic death taking nearly all of the machinery on the planet down with it.

Besides, what point was there to staying on a planet that hated you?

Maybe Kirby could look back at her with a smile, because they knew her true nature now-- but what of the others? Of the people she had hurt directly, of everyone who would look at her and think of the invasion?

After all, there was no one else left to take the blame.


For some time, Susie lived quietly on neighboring planets, putting ideas together. Though the miracle machine behind so much of HWC's technology was gone, some of its resources and blueprints had escaped the destruction.

Things like prosthetics, mobility aids, cybernetic eye implants...
Many of them were already drafted out, easily produced for anyone who could have wanted them.

She could really help people with this sort of tech, couldn't she?

There were probably countless out there who needed that kind of help. Maybe she could bring a broken family together again, or save a life or two. She could make the difference that she'd always hoped for.


Maybe the old era of the Haltmann Works Company was over now, but that didn't mean its legacy had to end.

The future was waiting, and all she had to do was start looking to it.




Credits
Character, some profile assets & original story by Nintendo & HAL Labs.
Pet, profile, story interpretation, and overlay by Marine.
Thanks for reading! <3


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