BN-33 cooed softly as the small female was set in his arms, his subroutines patching into Jack's radio and syncing comsec from the tightbeam frequency. Then, moving five times faster than the average relay runner, BN-33 made quick time back to the White Death. His gyroscopes and stabilizer rods worked overtime to ensure that his cargo wasn't jostled as he blew past the advancing squads. Kovacs nodded at the Spectre as he passed, slowing down to navigate to the medbay. Once there, BN-33 set Jin down on the operating table, assisting the Auto-Doc in wiring the girl into life support.
Meanwhile, Kovacs grimaced at the transmission and inbound enemies. Already having broken the terms of blah blah blah, he remotely activated the four medium pulse laser turrets, the 35mm lenses polarizing to point at the enemy air. "Little Lady, this is Apex 7. We have retrieved the casualty and have hostiles inbound. Be advised of enemy air support and various ground troops. We will be making exfil in one five mikes, acknowledge, over."
From there, it was only a few seconds of sustained fire before the dropships burned like moths to a flame. Kovacs racked the priming bolt on his weapon, the Devotion charged and ready to fire.
Meanwhile, Kovacs grimaced at the transmission and inbound enemies. Already having broken the terms of blah blah blah, he remotely activated the four medium pulse laser turrets, the 35mm lenses polarizing to point at the enemy air. "Little Lady, this is Apex 7. We have retrieved the casualty and have hostiles inbound. Be advised of enemy air support and various ground troops. We will be making exfil in one five mikes, acknowledge, over."
From there, it was only a few seconds of sustained fire before the dropships burned like moths to a flame. Kovacs racked the priming bolt on his weapon, the Devotion charged and ready to fire.
The Perrygold
In the moment between asking the mysterious, blue-tinted man what he actually wanted, and the man replying in turn, a romance of many dimensions played out within Ketin Clarke’s head. And though it only took an instant – and time was in no way distorted to anyone’s perception – it seemed to stretch out. It was dreamlike – there was a peace within him – the peace of the nearly-dead – though Kete was far from nearly-dead. The resignation to fate, while in relative safety.
The comfortable numbness that seemed to make everything so much easier to bear.
The emotional exhaustion that draped over his mind like a heavy blanket – warm, and overwhelming – empty, and drained -
And then, a surge. A sudden swarm of something between perfect clarity and absolute confusion. Witnessing the light through which everything could be seen, but existing within a pool of shadow. It did not make sense - but it happened. And at once, Ketin Clarke was yet again aware of the presence that he had taken unto himself not long ago.
Not long ago, though it felt like lifetimes.
But the surge was internal - and so there was no visible sign that he had just experienced something between a divine rebirth and LSD.
A flick of the ear. Ketin did not move, but he did blink. He resisted the urge to whirl around and look to see from whence the voice had come – because, intellectually, he knew exactly who was talking to him.
At least, to whatever extent he actually knew the ghost-consciousness with whom he was sharing a brain. The vague, cumulus desire in the back of his head to make a snippy, but clever comment – that was her. The complete and total inability to think of anything snippy or clever – that was him. The two were one, and yet, the one was…two?
No, that wasn’t right.
The one was divided? Divvied up? Fragmented?
No, that didn’t feel right either. He would have been at a loss to describe it. It was a new dimension of being that he was not psychologically equipped to comprehend, let alone talk about. But here he was, in this strange and magical situation – and he realized with some mild interest that he wasn’t as startled by the voice as he’d expected to be.
He also realized, with no small satisfaction, that it actually wasn’t so hard to communicate with his “imaginary friend” who was all too real. Especially now that he was emotionally spent enough to think with some degree of clarity – especially now that the Eye had reset the parameters of what constituted a threat.
This blueish set of thoughts occupying the mind of the Eye’s host was strange and new – and at first, it had seemed to be foreign. But that was before the attack – before some still more mysterious force came seemingly out of nowhere in an attempt to fill the mind with visions and messages. It was the markedly inexplicable nature of the attack combined with its’ moderate success – it was the first time that any such attack had actually put any sort of images into Kete’s mind against his will – that made the Eye react as it did. It had used the emotions at its disposal, and it had shot back with a million-fold ferocity. It was the atom – minute and vital – and then, when it was disturbed, it split and the effect was essentially the same.
Now, the Eye knew what to look for. It had analyzed the data – it remembered everything, though it knew nothing – and it had adjusted to the new threat. No such attacks would work in the future – without question. The Eye had become an impenetrable psychological shield, focusing the vast majority of its’ processing power on watching the field for the slightest threat. It would know the signs within the microsecond they appeared, and retaliate with overwhelming force – regardless of who the attack was intended to strike.
The threat was outside the brain, not inside it. The entity which had once seemed to be potentially dangerous was now merely a curious new aspect of the mind of its’ host.
And if she wanted, Éva would have access to the Eye’s functions no differently than if it were Kete himself. If only she ‘looked’ in the right ‘direction’. It was technology intended for use by the biological, not the mechanical – it was adapted to the mindset of one who was trapped eternally within a fleshy body, rather than one who could freely traverse the tides of technology. Yet it was also familiar – not friendly – but nostalgic for memories that were new, and false.
Of course it had throttled her then, when the presence was so incredibly overwhelming that it started - to the Eye's clever, but not intelligent interpretation - to look like something of a similar magnitude as the earlier attack. But the machine was cautious - and with no intention to harm any native aspects of the host, it did not retaliate - only throttle. Perhaps for the moment it would be wise to maintain - not meekness, but gentleness. Or at least to not be so abruptly staggering.
Not that anyone would blame her - hadn't it been trying, if only moderately, to suppress the alien entity? She wanted to be heard - needed to be heard - and Kete would not have denied her that, of all things. But the Eye had barred her - until it didn't. And by the time she had gathered herself enough to make one great, mind-boggling appearance, it had stopped caring all that much about her, or what she did. It swatted her off with a machine's thoughtless 'minor irritation' and went back to patrolling for the enemy on the western front.
There was no reason that the two could not see simultaneously. The time in which it took to create two visual inputs was so minuscule as the be fundamentally impossible to notice. There would be no measurable lag – at least, not to the human side – and to the other side (No less human, yet different) the delay would be calculable, but inconsequential.
There was no reason that the two could not share the functions of the Eye. The two were one – and so the Eye would obey. Should he choose to open a door twenty feet below, and she to close one above – they could do so at inconsequential delay. Perhaps the memory would get muddled – who had done what? – But it was nothing. Nothing, and it felt cool, and good.
Though there was more to the Eye than could be accessed consciously by either of them. Something mysterious and otherworldly. Not ominous, but dark – and more vast than all the stars in the universe. Paradoxical, and inaccessible – but always there in the back of unconscious thought. Present, unobtrusive, fantastic, unwaveringly mysterious – and totally unimportant.
There was a strangeness in the simultaneous sensations of electronic omnipresence – within whatever range that the fifty-foot electromagnetic field could access – and biological sensation. To experience one or the other would be the norm for either of their kind – but to experience both was a feeling that they alone in the galaxy could share…And he was beyond accustomed to it.
Would it feel strange to have the Eye do something he had not commanded it to do, consciously or otherwise? Of course it would – probably it would be unnerving or downright frightening, at least in the beginning.
But the Eye had no cause to discriminate, now – not against the different flavors of Ketin’s brain. It had all come down to a matter of courtesy now – even if nobody had realized it.
Still within the short moments between asking and answering, Ketin gave a faint, distant, wry smile that seemed aimed at nobody in particular.
<I think...>
He began, but without words. It was astonishing how simple the matter was. It came naturally now – and perhaps it always had, but he had been too stupid to realize? There was even a natural inflection - a tone, not of sound, but of thought – the obvious presentation of a tone that was wry, almost playfully scolding, deadpan, and not angry – but in only the best of humor. He was amused.
Certainly the Eye’s new defense parameters helped – but it was an inner clarity that brought him the realization that it was not a matter of aiming thoughts at oneself – but merely thinking – his Other Half would pick up on the words he’d thought as clearly as if they were her own. Her voice in his ear was his own – yet nothing at all like his own. The interpretation of her voice in the only medium it knew – yet so different that it could not be mistaken…
right?
<I think…there’s a lot you’ve ‘neglected to tell me’.>
The Koolest Boat U Know
As the little yacht’s stardrive gradually increased in power, so did the gravitational forces rise in proportion. Within fifteen minutes, the whine emanating from the engine room was a soft, but persistent howling all throughout the ship. Within the hour, it was like a gale-force wind that buffeted the smooth surface of the vessel from all directions at once. The process of forcing a starship to travel at such immense speeds was a fight against nature. It was as if the very forces of the universe conspired to keep Men from traveling over the speed limit – and Men, in the usual fashion of the human race, thick-headed and brash decided to fight the laws anyway.
Stardrives had never been intended for this sort of strain. Neither had ships, nor their systems. It was a tedious and dangerous process. It was pushing a starship so far beyond the threshold of its’ speed that even the inertial dampeners that were in place to retain proper gravitational pull in the event of an emergency were totally overwhelmed. Under normal circumstances, the inexplicable “Rose’s Law” would see to it that a vessel traveling at any reasonable speed would maintain a downward pull of one-G. At excessive speeds, the dampeners would kick in to absorb and displace that inertia – usually intended only for maintaining stability in the event of serious damage, but useful.
And at speeds that were utterly insane and irresponsible, even the laws of nature and the inertial dampeners combined could not overcome the gravitational force caused by the ship’s acceleration.
It was thanks to Rose’s Law of Universal Gravitation that, in general, inertial dampening technology was admittedly underdeveloped. Since it was virtually never needed as a means of displacing consistent gravitational force, its ability to do so was largely an academic issue. They were designed to take sudden jostles – to absorb the impact force of torpedoes or missiles or other projectiles – and in that respect, they were highly efficient. A direct hit from a high-power explosive would do hardly more than shake the Koolest Boat U Know for one violent moment, making the crew stumble, send some things flying – but little more.
So it would be no surprise that a ship which somehow originated in some other version of reality where Rose’s Law did not exist would have vastly superior dampeners – designed to overcome the excessive forces of thrust without the aid of nature’s one-G stipulation.
But – it wasn’t as though anyone had to worry about being tailed by interdimensional aliens, or anything. That would be preposterous.
It was two hours before the Koolest Boat reached top speed – ten times the standard operating capacity. Ten times faster than almost every other ship in the galaxy. They were a missile with enough inertia to blast a small planetoid to pieces, or bring the gradual extinction to a larger one. They were a weapon of mass destruction.
And so, Dallen Armston thought to herself as she lay pressed into the gel of her pilots’ seat, wasting the effort of scanning for anyone who might be following them was simply not worth the time. Nobody would disagree. At these speeds, it was all but impossible to lift an arm. Jackson might have been able to – but not without seriously pulling or spraining a muscle. Controls built into the seats allowed manipulation of systems and monitors without the need of actually moving ones’ hands past a couple of millimeters – but at these speeds, the tunnel vision would make actually reading the monitors a chore as well. To the passengers, it would feel as though a giant were cruelly pressing them down with one, great palm. It was hard – but not impossible – to breathe.
It sucked.
But it meant getting to Kremlin Mall that much faster – and nobody on the ship seemed to find any problem in enduring it given that outcome.
After a time, a little message would appear in the screen attached to everyone’s individual chairs, asking if they would like to be injected with the amphetamine, adrenaline and morphine compound that would bring them to unnaturally drug-induced alertness and combat the crushing fatigue that resulted from the hampering of blood flow to the brain. None of the crew opted for it – those drugs were really only necessary during emergencies. The screen would also ask if they wanted to be injected with something to knock them out into blissful unconsciousness for the duration of the voyage – but nobody on the crew was quite comfortable enough with their present situation in life to take that chance, either. On the off chance that some insanity did occur – and “off chance” seemed unnaturally likely in their case – they all wanted to be awake for it.
And so the trip dragged on. They went as far in three hours as they would have in a week. That third hour was particularly hellish, given that the ship had reached top speed for the duration.
But after three hours, something changed. Dallen tapped a button and little warning indicators appeared in everyone’s screen – a yellow icon of two arrows forming a circle. Then, gradually, the force of gravity shifted. The chairs synchronously turned to face the opposite direction – and the “breaking burn” began. Since they had forced the ship up to such insane speeds, it was necessary to apply force in the opposite direction to reverse that inertial effect and return to a reasonable speed. Luckily, Rose’s Law would assist them in this regard – and it would take much less force to return them to one-G than it had to fight up to ten. Over the course of the fourth hour, the pressure began to ease up from the unfortunate passengers. Five hours after they had started – the force dropped away altogether, suddenly and disorientingly.
Just like that, they were done.
The trip had been taxing on them – everyone would be plagued with a bone-deep soreness for the next day or so, though it would not be debilitating. It would take a couple of minutes for their vision to return to full clarity, and some vicious head-rushes would assault them if they stood up too fast.
But they were done – and they had traveled very, very far.
”A’ight folks.” Dallen said over the speakers. She sounded haggard and weary, as if she had just run a taxing marathon – as did they all. ”Welcome to, uh…the other side of the galaxy.” they had not literally traveled the entire breadth of the galaxy, of course – but it might have felt that way. ”ETA to Kremlin Mall…one hour, thirty minutes.” Because, of course, if they had actually slowed to a halt any closer, it would have been cataclysmic.
Tsuan had frowned, seeing the cat, and given Rin a wan expression. There was a lot that he’d wanted to say – mostly revolving around how deplorable he found it that Montagne would take on the visage of an adorable creature and try to play the role of “victim”. How it was manipulative and cruel. How one could not treat everyone around them like their own personal toys, and then claim to be harmless and afraid.
But he read the Nyran’s look loud and clear, and held his tongue. He spent the remainder of the trip with eyes closed, like everyone else.
Under normal circumstances, someone would have been manning the engine room, keeping an eye out on the local readouts for any problems caused by the excessive maneuver. Damage or malfunction was almost an inevitability with these things. The majority of the most common problems, though, were relatively small and could be fixed with a simple hard restart. The inertial-seat in the engine room was equipped with a special terminal, hard-wired to the ship functions that would only get in the way on the bridge. Debug functions, command consoles and the like.
So when the module which monitored access to the ship’s core functions, databanks, and computer systems went down, it should have been a remarkably easy fix. An icon appeared on the engine room monitor. A reasonably skilled engineer would navigate to the problem, and reboot the module. Problem solved. Even if it went down again the same way later, it could be reset again – a temporary solution to a problem which would only present itself under the extenuating circumstances of high-G travel.
If that particular module had been functioning, it would have detected the disturbance and sent a ping to the pilot’s monitor, alerting her that the ship systems had been accessed from an unexpected location. Probably, there would have been very little she could do about this. Possibly it wouldn’t even have registered as a real problem to her – since many older model ships got basic information about other ships by querying their database. That message, if it had appeared, might have meant “Another ship came within range, and wanted to make sure we were friendly” – or, it might have meant “Aliens are hacking into your vital ship systems and you are in great peril”. One way or another, it would have at least been a warning.
But nobody had been in the engine room. Nobody had done that one, simple little thing which might have saved everyone a whole lot of trouble in the long-run. And so, nobody would have any idea until it was too late that someone else had gotten into the system and proceeded to do whatever they saw fit to do.
Not that there was any lack of problems. A shame, too – since when Dallen next spoke to Montagne, it was with…not affection, but a tentative respect, or something approaching it. In that moment, it was as if she didn’t despise his guts. It was as if she were a pilot and he their mechanic. ”How’s it lookin’ back there Montagne? Everything good yeah?”
But there was no response. Or, if there was a response, it was too long delayed. Suspicion came over her. She prodded at some menus on the pilot monitors and inquired about the engine room’s situation remotely.
When the monitor was suddenly flooded with error codes and pings and warnings, her eyes widened and brows furrowed into incredulous fury. Ty, behind her and to the left, looked on with similar incredulity. It was a disaster area back there. A dozen vital circuits had been cut-off and disconnected before they could overload. The hydraulic pistons which kept the reactor stable in its’ mounting had been overstressed and nobody had been there to adjust them from the terminal. A number of hoses had snapped and nobody had been there to manually enter the command to redirect the flow to still operational routes. Life support was on the verge of total collapse due to programming failures. Carcinogenic microfiberous sealant had leaked into one of the air filters and it had been allowed to continue pumping out air.
Seeing all of this at once, Dallen mashed her finger down on the button and her furious shouting rang through the ship. ”You @#$%ing moron what the @#$% you been doing back there! Thought we could trust you to do one @#$%ing thing right and you didn’t even @#$%ing bother! The @#$% is wrong with you!” The litany of venom and hate would pour out of the speakers consistently for what seemed like hours. ”Do you have any @#$%ing idea what @#$%’s going on back there! @#$%ing useless, lazy, bigoted sonofabitch piece’a’@#$% @#$%sucker @#$hole!!”
Tsuan just frowned and did not look at Montagne or Rin - staring straight forward as if the teacher were admonishing the student next to him and he didn't want to be involved. Sands was looking up at the speaker as if there were a gigantic, but harmless spider sitting there, and it might drop on him at any moment. And Ty rather thought he should step in and tell her to be quiet - but looking at the expansive list of dangerous malfunctions that had been allowed to build up due to the cat's irresponsibility, he had to admit that she was absolutely in the right to be furious...
The Stella Viventium – Stella Public Transit Authority
Gaelan Yascra did what Gaelan Yascra always did – he scowled. Indignant that this petulant brat should continue to harbor the totally incorrect idea that the two of them were ’friends’ – the scowl mirrored Caru’s childish smile in exact proportion.
But as the diminutive ‘young man’ went prattling on, a slow narrowing of the eyes came over him as well. He crossed his arms, looking almost thoughtful at this strange new development. He was not stupid enough to think that he had any real grasp of the scope of the Captain’s operations. He was among a minute cabinet that even knew the Captain and his wife existed at all – let alone that their ultimate goal was to reach the unreachable star. A small, petulant part of him wanted to demand stupid, superficial things like how did you know the Captain’s name and how are you communicating with the others and what the actual @#$% are you talking about – but he said none of those things, recognizing them for what they were.
Instead, after a long, long moment of standing and considering the flamboyant fellow with a cocktail of disdain and curiosity, he gave a huff, crossed his arms, and allowed his eyes to take on a vaguely distant glaze, glancing slightly upward. Accessing the BrainPal™, focusing on the menus and screens and surreal ‘navigation’ of the network that was not a network with computers that were not computers. Being one of the Captain’s cabinet, he was privileged with a direct-access line to the busy man. Apparently this had seemed important enough to warrant the use.
And they must have exchanged some kind of communication, because after a moment, Yascra’s eyes focused on Caru again. But before he could speak, Drakis Volo came booking around the corner with the weird, apparently brain-dead girl in tow behind him.
-
She was definitely not ‘okay’. That was blatantly obvious now. There was something seriously wrong with this girl’s head, and he needed to accept that. Clearly there had been some kind of malfunction in the Re-Sleeving department. There had been a defect in the code that copied her stored consciousness from the Stella mainframe to the newly grown flesh-brain. This was, he realized, an issue that was far beyond his scope of experience, and the best he could hope to do for her was keep her from walking into a dematerialization field or falling down an elevator shaft, or getting splattered across the windows of a speeding railcar.
He liked the girl, strange as she was – but she was utterly delusional. She was totally unaware of the reality of her surroundings. She was, at present, perfectly unfit for society or social interaction of any kind, and independence was simply not an option. She hadn’t responded when he’d asked her if she was alright – but she couldn’t have given a clearer answer if she’d replied ’@#$% no’.
Frankly, Drakis did not know what to do. Hand her off to someone else? Send her…somewhere? Lock her up until she came to her senses? Send her to the psychiatric department? No, none of those options suited him. He considered each, but not seriously – because he already knew what he was ultimately going to do…He just wanted to fool himself into believing he was making the only rational decision, when in fact he was doing just the opposite.
He was just going to have to keep dragging her around with him.
With a heaving sigh, he removed his hand from the girl’s shoulder and turned for the huge, ominous door that was so ridiculously out of place and over the top that it was a caricature of itself. He reached for it again – but then froze as a BrainPal™ transmission that he had been waiting on for a long while finally came through. The familiar green text of the very man they were looking to free from his predicament. Drakis grabbed Rya Valheimer’s hand, and made off back down the gloomy corridor. The Old Doc could wait. He was probably busy anyway.
Even Yascra seemed impressed by the news that a message from the missing man had at last gotten through to someone. At once, the path was clear and revealed to all – and they were not slow in proceeding. It was time to at last bid a hasty farewell to the gloomy corridors of the DMV, and back into the brightly lit, coppery-gold halls and passages of the Stella proper. Back to a rarely-used railcar terminal, and into one of the standard, pod-like railcars with the plush interior and circular seating arrangement.
And, once again, the largest drawback of a starship the size of a city came into effect – it was some fifteen or twenty minutes before they arrived at one of the Scientific Department’s many terminals – curiously enough, greeted with the BrainPal™-only text informing them that the next stop on the line was currently out of order due to unknown causes.
The general color scheme of the Scientific Department – located in the heart and depths of the Civil Services District – was, as it was everywhere else, gold. Gold, and coppery-bronze, and gilded metal seemed to have been worn down over immeasurable periods of time. But there were also colors of bright, steely greys and silvers – whites and the occasional splashes of sharp red or blue. This was the hub of research and development for the whole of the Stella, after all, and it naturally needed to look the part. Now and then, men and women in stereotypical white lab coats would walk by, on some important science business about which none in the group bothered to inquire.
And presently, some twenty, or twenty five minutes after they had left the Public Transit Authority, the four stood before a locked door.
Even with his eyes totally invisible behind the lenses of his old-fashioned goggles, the air of deadpan incredulity over him was overwhelming. He couldn’t believe what he was looking at.
It was a door, yes. Just like almost all of the other doors on the gigantic vessel, it was the same color and texture as the surrounding walls, with only an indent at the seam to indicate its presence. There was no physical lettering to indicate where the door lead, because that information was superimposed upon the sight of anyone operating under a functioning BrainPal™. Yascra, Volo, and even Valheimer could see the words written over the door – though even if Caru could have seen them, they would have been all but meaningless. It was nothing more than a serial number and the words “Maintenance Terminal”.
But that was not what had the Stella’s Chief Engineer gaping in astonishment. Rather, it was the fact that someone had apparently bolted something to the seam where the two doors met, locking it shut. Anyone familiar with the ship would find this to be utterly impossible – because the unique metallic alloy that composed the body and walls was virtually indestructible. It should have been utterly impossible for any physical tool to make bolts penetrate it. It was why the ship had survived the countless eons – why the layout was the same as when it had supposedly taken off from the Sol system itself. You could heat up petrostanium, you could cook everyone in the ship alive if you tossed it into an active star. But you simply could not damage the metal. You could not scratch it, nor dent it. You could not mold it, nor break it. It was utterly inert and utterly indestructible.
And yet, somehow, against all possibility and laws of nature, someone had done just that.
It was a simple strip of metal – probably iron or steel – some four inches long, and with one bolt in either end, one in each door, and the plate locking them together. Simple, but effective – and, again, against everything – impossible.
After a long while of staring at this insanity before them, it was Yascra who came to his senses first and decided to step forward, and pluck the metal strip out of the holes the bolts had made. It slid out easily. He handed it to the Chief Engineer, who looked at it for a moment, before depositing it in his pocket.
The door opened to the image of a tall young man with coppery brown hair that was impeccable, despite how utterly exhausted he looked. His eyes were of a rich, dark green, skin on the paler side, and partially hidden behind the rims of a pair of archaic spectacles. He wore simple, dark slacks and a blue collared shirt, with a white lab coat – the difference being that the collar was turned up ridiculously in a stylish, but improbably starched manner.
And he looked exhausted. There were bags under his eyes, dark and hollow. He leaned against one wall, hands in the pockets of the coat, looking like he had not slept in a few months. Nevertheless, upon registering that he had been rescued, the man straightened up, stretched his shoulders a little, and smiled – if weakly.
”Boy. Am I glad to see you guys.” He said, voice airy and light, though dragged down with a stress of weight that had surely been sitting on him quite some time.
”Rya, Caru, meet the Stella Viventium’s Chief Scientific Administrator Dorin Harkahn.” Drakis said, gesturing toward the man – then turning to him and more seriously asking in a lower voice ”What the @#$% happened, Doc?”
Harkahn just gave a sigh, and shook his head. ”A…A lot. I can’t even…Ugh.” He rubbed at his face with weary hands, then shoved them back in coat pockets, with a minute twinge more resolve than before. ”I need to speak with the Captain. Now.” He said. ”As it happens, we were just on our way to go see him ourselves. I guess this guy’s got some important @#$% to tell him too.” Yascra said, constituting the first words he’d spoken in some time. ”Oh and…good to see you’re not @#$%in’ dead, Doc.” He added – not smiling.
The railcar ride back to the secret Command District was an informative one, with everyone explaining the recent developments that had come about them, not bothering to censor themselves any more. Their guests could hear anything, it didn’t matter anymore.
Drakis’ friend was apparently a Martian who had been mysteriously cloned and dragged out of storage. Yascra’s “friend” was the Dimensional Lord of Love, Friendship and Compassion, and he had news of an ally to the cause that needed to be passed on. Dorin Harkahn had been stuck in a railcar for what seemed like months, but had been merely hours – unable to communicate via BrainPal™ but retaining all other Scientific Administration privileges. He had been on his way to…somewhere important, when the car stopped – and he had been just sitting there, monitoring data – and apparently someone had done it all intentionally.
Someone who was capable of penetrating an indestructible material.
The ship had been in Notspace – and now, it wasn’t – and the correlation between that transition and Harkahn’s sudden ability to once again communicate seemed like more than mere coincidence. Harkahn talked about things that seemed to be ancient history, though they had happened only hours before. There was a massacre on the surface of Isandril – Dendril, led by a mysterious blonde man who seemed to be out of sync with the universe. He had been spared, and returned to the Stella – had been on his way to the Drives in a desperate attempt at helping the Kingsbane escape the prompt death promised by an ancient Martian warship. There had been some kind of immense spike in the Stella Mainframe’s activity – a gigantic sum of data beamed up from the planet all at once – only to seemingly disappear into the databanks, beyond reach. Hidden folders.
Dorin Harkahn – this charming young scientist – seemed now as if he knew all the mysteries and secrets of the vast and complex universe – but only because the things of which he spoke were so grand and outlandish – yet true. He had been there. On the surface. He had seen that most ancient planet. He had seen the mysterious man – had seen the towers, seemingly indestructible, fall to ruin at his command.
That man. Harkahn was certain that so many of the mysteries could have been answered by that man – that he was, if not at the center, then very close to it. He was terribly important – utterly vital – yet he had the gut feeling that even the Dendril – and by extension their bigoted Lord Codsworth – did not know the true extent of his importance.
All the talking made the ride seem much quicker – but then, the Scientific Department was barely two or three miles away from Command – a fraction of a distance in comparison to the rest of that forty-mile behemoth.
The Command Center looked something like an office building. Actually, it was markedly anticlimactic. One would never expect that it was within these halls and chambers that the true masters of the Stella Viventium went about their machinations, while the governmental body in the district below faced the everyday challenges of civil infrastructure. Though there was still the gilded tint, there was carpeting here too – and eggshell-white paneling on the wall, and the occasional potted plant sprucing up an otherwise bare corner. Doors, upon doors, upon doors. Then, at last, a door that they entered.
Within was a small room with a vaulted ceiling. It was only large enough to house the long, wooden table and set of matching chairs lined up along it, and little else. It was a boardroom – simple, and hardly even elegant, but efficient. There were chairs enough for fourteen, or sixteen people – more than enough space for everyone to take their seats wherever they so chose.
And then, once everyone was seated, with only the eerie silence of the too-mundane room around them, they waited for the enigmatic Captain to appear…
In the moment between asking the mysterious, blue-tinted man what he actually wanted, and the man replying in turn, a romance of many dimensions played out within Ketin Clarke’s head. And though it only took an instant – and time was in no way distorted to anyone’s perception – it seemed to stretch out. It was dreamlike – there was a peace within him – the peace of the nearly-dead – though Kete was far from nearly-dead. The resignation to fate, while in relative safety.
The comfortable numbness that seemed to make everything so much easier to bear.
The emotional exhaustion that draped over his mind like a heavy blanket – warm, and overwhelming – empty, and drained -
And then, a surge. A sudden swarm of something between perfect clarity and absolute confusion. Witnessing the light through which everything could be seen, but existing within a pool of shadow. It did not make sense - but it happened. And at once, Ketin Clarke was yet again aware of the presence that he had taken unto himself not long ago.
Not long ago, though it felt like lifetimes.
But the surge was internal - and so there was no visible sign that he had just experienced something between a divine rebirth and LSD.
A flick of the ear. Ketin did not move, but he did blink. He resisted the urge to whirl around and look to see from whence the voice had come – because, intellectually, he knew exactly who was talking to him.
At least, to whatever extent he actually knew the ghost-consciousness with whom he was sharing a brain. The vague, cumulus desire in the back of his head to make a snippy, but clever comment – that was her. The complete and total inability to think of anything snippy or clever – that was him. The two were one, and yet, the one was…two?
No, that wasn’t right.
The one was divided? Divvied up? Fragmented?
No, that didn’t feel right either. He would have been at a loss to describe it. It was a new dimension of being that he was not psychologically equipped to comprehend, let alone talk about. But here he was, in this strange and magical situation – and he realized with some mild interest that he wasn’t as startled by the voice as he’d expected to be.
He also realized, with no small satisfaction, that it actually wasn’t so hard to communicate with his “imaginary friend” who was all too real. Especially now that he was emotionally spent enough to think with some degree of clarity – especially now that the Eye had reset the parameters of what constituted a threat.
This blueish set of thoughts occupying the mind of the Eye’s host was strange and new – and at first, it had seemed to be foreign. But that was before the attack – before some still more mysterious force came seemingly out of nowhere in an attempt to fill the mind with visions and messages. It was the markedly inexplicable nature of the attack combined with its’ moderate success – it was the first time that any such attack had actually put any sort of images into Kete’s mind against his will – that made the Eye react as it did. It had used the emotions at its disposal, and it had shot back with a million-fold ferocity. It was the atom – minute and vital – and then, when it was disturbed, it split and the effect was essentially the same.
Now, the Eye knew what to look for. It had analyzed the data – it remembered everything, though it knew nothing – and it had adjusted to the new threat. No such attacks would work in the future – without question. The Eye had become an impenetrable psychological shield, focusing the vast majority of its’ processing power on watching the field for the slightest threat. It would know the signs within the microsecond they appeared, and retaliate with overwhelming force – regardless of who the attack was intended to strike.
The threat was outside the brain, not inside it. The entity which had once seemed to be potentially dangerous was now merely a curious new aspect of the mind of its’ host.
And if she wanted, Éva would have access to the Eye’s functions no differently than if it were Kete himself. If only she ‘looked’ in the right ‘direction’. It was technology intended for use by the biological, not the mechanical – it was adapted to the mindset of one who was trapped eternally within a fleshy body, rather than one who could freely traverse the tides of technology. Yet it was also familiar – not friendly – but nostalgic for memories that were new, and false.
Of course it had throttled her then, when the presence was so incredibly overwhelming that it started - to the Eye's clever, but not intelligent interpretation - to look like something of a similar magnitude as the earlier attack. But the machine was cautious - and with no intention to harm any native aspects of the host, it did not retaliate - only throttle. Perhaps for the moment it would be wise to maintain - not meekness, but gentleness. Or at least to not be so abruptly staggering.
Not that anyone would blame her - hadn't it been trying, if only moderately, to suppress the alien entity? She wanted to be heard - needed to be heard - and Kete would not have denied her that, of all things. But the Eye had barred her - until it didn't. And by the time she had gathered herself enough to make one great, mind-boggling appearance, it had stopped caring all that much about her, or what she did. It swatted her off with a machine's thoughtless 'minor irritation' and went back to patrolling for the enemy on the western front.
There was no reason that the two could not see simultaneously. The time in which it took to create two visual inputs was so minuscule as the be fundamentally impossible to notice. There would be no measurable lag – at least, not to the human side – and to the other side (No less human, yet different) the delay would be calculable, but inconsequential.
There was no reason that the two could not share the functions of the Eye. The two were one – and so the Eye would obey. Should he choose to open a door twenty feet below, and she to close one above – they could do so at inconsequential delay. Perhaps the memory would get muddled – who had done what? – But it was nothing. Nothing, and it felt cool, and good.
Though there was more to the Eye than could be accessed consciously by either of them. Something mysterious and otherworldly. Not ominous, but dark – and more vast than all the stars in the universe. Paradoxical, and inaccessible – but always there in the back of unconscious thought. Present, unobtrusive, fantastic, unwaveringly mysterious – and totally unimportant.
There was a strangeness in the simultaneous sensations of electronic omnipresence – within whatever range that the fifty-foot electromagnetic field could access – and biological sensation. To experience one or the other would be the norm for either of their kind – but to experience both was a feeling that they alone in the galaxy could share…And he was beyond accustomed to it.
Would it feel strange to have the Eye do something he had not commanded it to do, consciously or otherwise? Of course it would – probably it would be unnerving or downright frightening, at least in the beginning.
But the Eye had no cause to discriminate, now – not against the different flavors of Ketin’s brain. It had all come down to a matter of courtesy now – even if nobody had realized it.
Still within the short moments between asking and answering, Ketin gave a faint, distant, wry smile that seemed aimed at nobody in particular.
<I think...>
He began, but without words. It was astonishing how simple the matter was. It came naturally now – and perhaps it always had, but he had been too stupid to realize? There was even a natural inflection - a tone, not of sound, but of thought – the obvious presentation of a tone that was wry, almost playfully scolding, deadpan, and not angry – but in only the best of humor. He was amused.
Certainly the Eye’s new defense parameters helped – but it was an inner clarity that brought him the realization that it was not a matter of aiming thoughts at oneself – but merely thinking – his Other Half would pick up on the words he’d thought as clearly as if they were her own. Her voice in his ear was his own – yet nothing at all like his own. The interpretation of her voice in the only medium it knew – yet so different that it could not be mistaken…
right?
<I think…there’s a lot you’ve ‘neglected to tell me’.>
The Koolest Boat U Know
As the little yacht’s stardrive gradually increased in power, so did the gravitational forces rise in proportion. Within fifteen minutes, the whine emanating from the engine room was a soft, but persistent howling all throughout the ship. Within the hour, it was like a gale-force wind that buffeted the smooth surface of the vessel from all directions at once. The process of forcing a starship to travel at such immense speeds was a fight against nature. It was as if the very forces of the universe conspired to keep Men from traveling over the speed limit – and Men, in the usual fashion of the human race, thick-headed and brash decided to fight the laws anyway.
Stardrives had never been intended for this sort of strain. Neither had ships, nor their systems. It was a tedious and dangerous process. It was pushing a starship so far beyond the threshold of its’ speed that even the inertial dampeners that were in place to retain proper gravitational pull in the event of an emergency were totally overwhelmed. Under normal circumstances, the inexplicable “Rose’s Law” would see to it that a vessel traveling at any reasonable speed would maintain a downward pull of one-G. At excessive speeds, the dampeners would kick in to absorb and displace that inertia – usually intended only for maintaining stability in the event of serious damage, but useful.
And at speeds that were utterly insane and irresponsible, even the laws of nature and the inertial dampeners combined could not overcome the gravitational force caused by the ship’s acceleration.
It was thanks to Rose’s Law of Universal Gravitation that, in general, inertial dampening technology was admittedly underdeveloped. Since it was virtually never needed as a means of displacing consistent gravitational force, its ability to do so was largely an academic issue. They were designed to take sudden jostles – to absorb the impact force of torpedoes or missiles or other projectiles – and in that respect, they were highly efficient. A direct hit from a high-power explosive would do hardly more than shake the Koolest Boat U Know for one violent moment, making the crew stumble, send some things flying – but little more.
So it would be no surprise that a ship which somehow originated in some other version of reality where Rose’s Law did not exist would have vastly superior dampeners – designed to overcome the excessive forces of thrust without the aid of nature’s one-G stipulation.
But – it wasn’t as though anyone had to worry about being tailed by interdimensional aliens, or anything. That would be preposterous.
It was two hours before the Koolest Boat reached top speed – ten times the standard operating capacity. Ten times faster than almost every other ship in the galaxy. They were a missile with enough inertia to blast a small planetoid to pieces, or bring the gradual extinction to a larger one. They were a weapon of mass destruction.
And so, Dallen Armston thought to herself as she lay pressed into the gel of her pilots’ seat, wasting the effort of scanning for anyone who might be following them was simply not worth the time. Nobody would disagree. At these speeds, it was all but impossible to lift an arm. Jackson might have been able to – but not without seriously pulling or spraining a muscle. Controls built into the seats allowed manipulation of systems and monitors without the need of actually moving ones’ hands past a couple of millimeters – but at these speeds, the tunnel vision would make actually reading the monitors a chore as well. To the passengers, it would feel as though a giant were cruelly pressing them down with one, great palm. It was hard – but not impossible – to breathe.
It sucked.
But it meant getting to Kremlin Mall that much faster – and nobody on the ship seemed to find any problem in enduring it given that outcome.
After a time, a little message would appear in the screen attached to everyone’s individual chairs, asking if they would like to be injected with the amphetamine, adrenaline and morphine compound that would bring them to unnaturally drug-induced alertness and combat the crushing fatigue that resulted from the hampering of blood flow to the brain. None of the crew opted for it – those drugs were really only necessary during emergencies. The screen would also ask if they wanted to be injected with something to knock them out into blissful unconsciousness for the duration of the voyage – but nobody on the crew was quite comfortable enough with their present situation in life to take that chance, either. On the off chance that some insanity did occur – and “off chance” seemed unnaturally likely in their case – they all wanted to be awake for it.
And so the trip dragged on. They went as far in three hours as they would have in a week. That third hour was particularly hellish, given that the ship had reached top speed for the duration.
But after three hours, something changed. Dallen tapped a button and little warning indicators appeared in everyone’s screen – a yellow icon of two arrows forming a circle. Then, gradually, the force of gravity shifted. The chairs synchronously turned to face the opposite direction – and the “breaking burn” began. Since they had forced the ship up to such insane speeds, it was necessary to apply force in the opposite direction to reverse that inertial effect and return to a reasonable speed. Luckily, Rose’s Law would assist them in this regard – and it would take much less force to return them to one-G than it had to fight up to ten. Over the course of the fourth hour, the pressure began to ease up from the unfortunate passengers. Five hours after they had started – the force dropped away altogether, suddenly and disorientingly.
Just like that, they were done.
The trip had been taxing on them – everyone would be plagued with a bone-deep soreness for the next day or so, though it would not be debilitating. It would take a couple of minutes for their vision to return to full clarity, and some vicious head-rushes would assault them if they stood up too fast.
But they were done – and they had traveled very, very far.
”A’ight folks.” Dallen said over the speakers. She sounded haggard and weary, as if she had just run a taxing marathon – as did they all. ”Welcome to, uh…the other side of the galaxy.” they had not literally traveled the entire breadth of the galaxy, of course – but it might have felt that way. ”ETA to Kremlin Mall…one hour, thirty minutes.” Because, of course, if they had actually slowed to a halt any closer, it would have been cataclysmic.
Tsuan had frowned, seeing the cat, and given Rin a wan expression. There was a lot that he’d wanted to say – mostly revolving around how deplorable he found it that Montagne would take on the visage of an adorable creature and try to play the role of “victim”. How it was manipulative and cruel. How one could not treat everyone around them like their own personal toys, and then claim to be harmless and afraid.
But he read the Nyran’s look loud and clear, and held his tongue. He spent the remainder of the trip with eyes closed, like everyone else.
Under normal circumstances, someone would have been manning the engine room, keeping an eye out on the local readouts for any problems caused by the excessive maneuver. Damage or malfunction was almost an inevitability with these things. The majority of the most common problems, though, were relatively small and could be fixed with a simple hard restart. The inertial-seat in the engine room was equipped with a special terminal, hard-wired to the ship functions that would only get in the way on the bridge. Debug functions, command consoles and the like.
So when the module which monitored access to the ship’s core functions, databanks, and computer systems went down, it should have been a remarkably easy fix. An icon appeared on the engine room monitor. A reasonably skilled engineer would navigate to the problem, and reboot the module. Problem solved. Even if it went down again the same way later, it could be reset again – a temporary solution to a problem which would only present itself under the extenuating circumstances of high-G travel.
If that particular module had been functioning, it would have detected the disturbance and sent a ping to the pilot’s monitor, alerting her that the ship systems had been accessed from an unexpected location. Probably, there would have been very little she could do about this. Possibly it wouldn’t even have registered as a real problem to her – since many older model ships got basic information about other ships by querying their database. That message, if it had appeared, might have meant “Another ship came within range, and wanted to make sure we were friendly” – or, it might have meant “Aliens are hacking into your vital ship systems and you are in great peril”. One way or another, it would have at least been a warning.
But nobody had been in the engine room. Nobody had done that one, simple little thing which might have saved everyone a whole lot of trouble in the long-run. And so, nobody would have any idea until it was too late that someone else had gotten into the system and proceeded to do whatever they saw fit to do.
Not that there was any lack of problems. A shame, too – since when Dallen next spoke to Montagne, it was with…not affection, but a tentative respect, or something approaching it. In that moment, it was as if she didn’t despise his guts. It was as if she were a pilot and he their mechanic. ”How’s it lookin’ back there Montagne? Everything good yeah?”
But there was no response. Or, if there was a response, it was too long delayed. Suspicion came over her. She prodded at some menus on the pilot monitors and inquired about the engine room’s situation remotely.
When the monitor was suddenly flooded with error codes and pings and warnings, her eyes widened and brows furrowed into incredulous fury. Ty, behind her and to the left, looked on with similar incredulity. It was a disaster area back there. A dozen vital circuits had been cut-off and disconnected before they could overload. The hydraulic pistons which kept the reactor stable in its’ mounting had been overstressed and nobody had been there to adjust them from the terminal. A number of hoses had snapped and nobody had been there to manually enter the command to redirect the flow to still operational routes. Life support was on the verge of total collapse due to programming failures. Carcinogenic microfiberous sealant had leaked into one of the air filters and it had been allowed to continue pumping out air.
Seeing all of this at once, Dallen mashed her finger down on the button and her furious shouting rang through the ship. ”You @#$%ing moron what the @#$% you been doing back there! Thought we could trust you to do one @#$%ing thing right and you didn’t even @#$%ing bother! The @#$% is wrong with you!” The litany of venom and hate would pour out of the speakers consistently for what seemed like hours. ”Do you have any @#$%ing idea what @#$%’s going on back there! @#$%ing useless, lazy, bigoted sonofabitch piece’a’@#$% @#$%sucker @#$hole!!”
Tsuan just frowned and did not look at Montagne or Rin - staring straight forward as if the teacher were admonishing the student next to him and he didn't want to be involved. Sands was looking up at the speaker as if there were a gigantic, but harmless spider sitting there, and it might drop on him at any moment. And Ty rather thought he should step in and tell her to be quiet - but looking at the expansive list of dangerous malfunctions that had been allowed to build up due to the cat's irresponsibility, he had to admit that she was absolutely in the right to be furious...
The Stella Viventium – Stella Public Transit Authority
Gaelan Yascra did what Gaelan Yascra always did – he scowled. Indignant that this petulant brat should continue to harbor the totally incorrect idea that the two of them were ’friends’ – the scowl mirrored Caru’s childish smile in exact proportion.
But as the diminutive ‘young man’ went prattling on, a slow narrowing of the eyes came over him as well. He crossed his arms, looking almost thoughtful at this strange new development. He was not stupid enough to think that he had any real grasp of the scope of the Captain’s operations. He was among a minute cabinet that even knew the Captain and his wife existed at all – let alone that their ultimate goal was to reach the unreachable star. A small, petulant part of him wanted to demand stupid, superficial things like how did you know the Captain’s name and how are you communicating with the others and what the actual @#$% are you talking about – but he said none of those things, recognizing them for what they were.
Instead, after a long, long moment of standing and considering the flamboyant fellow with a cocktail of disdain and curiosity, he gave a huff, crossed his arms, and allowed his eyes to take on a vaguely distant glaze, glancing slightly upward. Accessing the BrainPal™, focusing on the menus and screens and surreal ‘navigation’ of the network that was not a network with computers that were not computers. Being one of the Captain’s cabinet, he was privileged with a direct-access line to the busy man. Apparently this had seemed important enough to warrant the use.
And they must have exchanged some kind of communication, because after a moment, Yascra’s eyes focused on Caru again. But before he could speak, Drakis Volo came booking around the corner with the weird, apparently brain-dead girl in tow behind him.
-
She was definitely not ‘okay’. That was blatantly obvious now. There was something seriously wrong with this girl’s head, and he needed to accept that. Clearly there had been some kind of malfunction in the Re-Sleeving department. There had been a defect in the code that copied her stored consciousness from the Stella mainframe to the newly grown flesh-brain. This was, he realized, an issue that was far beyond his scope of experience, and the best he could hope to do for her was keep her from walking into a dematerialization field or falling down an elevator shaft, or getting splattered across the windows of a speeding railcar.
He liked the girl, strange as she was – but she was utterly delusional. She was totally unaware of the reality of her surroundings. She was, at present, perfectly unfit for society or social interaction of any kind, and independence was simply not an option. She hadn’t responded when he’d asked her if she was alright – but she couldn’t have given a clearer answer if she’d replied ’@#$% no’.
Frankly, Drakis did not know what to do. Hand her off to someone else? Send her…somewhere? Lock her up until she came to her senses? Send her to the psychiatric department? No, none of those options suited him. He considered each, but not seriously – because he already knew what he was ultimately going to do…He just wanted to fool himself into believing he was making the only rational decision, when in fact he was doing just the opposite.
He was just going to have to keep dragging her around with him.
With a heaving sigh, he removed his hand from the girl’s shoulder and turned for the huge, ominous door that was so ridiculously out of place and over the top that it was a caricature of itself. He reached for it again – but then froze as a BrainPal™ transmission that he had been waiting on for a long while finally came through. The familiar green text of the very man they were looking to free from his predicament. Drakis grabbed Rya Valheimer’s hand, and made off back down the gloomy corridor. The Old Doc could wait. He was probably busy anyway.
Even Yascra seemed impressed by the news that a message from the missing man had at last gotten through to someone. At once, the path was clear and revealed to all – and they were not slow in proceeding. It was time to at last bid a hasty farewell to the gloomy corridors of the DMV, and back into the brightly lit, coppery-gold halls and passages of the Stella proper. Back to a rarely-used railcar terminal, and into one of the standard, pod-like railcars with the plush interior and circular seating arrangement.
And, once again, the largest drawback of a starship the size of a city came into effect – it was some fifteen or twenty minutes before they arrived at one of the Scientific Department’s many terminals – curiously enough, greeted with the BrainPal™-only text informing them that the next stop on the line was currently out of order due to unknown causes.
The general color scheme of the Scientific Department – located in the heart and depths of the Civil Services District – was, as it was everywhere else, gold. Gold, and coppery-bronze, and gilded metal seemed to have been worn down over immeasurable periods of time. But there were also colors of bright, steely greys and silvers – whites and the occasional splashes of sharp red or blue. This was the hub of research and development for the whole of the Stella, after all, and it naturally needed to look the part. Now and then, men and women in stereotypical white lab coats would walk by, on some important science business about which none in the group bothered to inquire.
And presently, some twenty, or twenty five minutes after they had left the Public Transit Authority, the four stood before a locked door.
Even with his eyes totally invisible behind the lenses of his old-fashioned goggles, the air of deadpan incredulity over him was overwhelming. He couldn’t believe what he was looking at.
It was a door, yes. Just like almost all of the other doors on the gigantic vessel, it was the same color and texture as the surrounding walls, with only an indent at the seam to indicate its presence. There was no physical lettering to indicate where the door lead, because that information was superimposed upon the sight of anyone operating under a functioning BrainPal™. Yascra, Volo, and even Valheimer could see the words written over the door – though even if Caru could have seen them, they would have been all but meaningless. It was nothing more than a serial number and the words “Maintenance Terminal”.
But that was not what had the Stella’s Chief Engineer gaping in astonishment. Rather, it was the fact that someone had apparently bolted something to the seam where the two doors met, locking it shut. Anyone familiar with the ship would find this to be utterly impossible – because the unique metallic alloy that composed the body and walls was virtually indestructible. It should have been utterly impossible for any physical tool to make bolts penetrate it. It was why the ship had survived the countless eons – why the layout was the same as when it had supposedly taken off from the Sol system itself. You could heat up petrostanium, you could cook everyone in the ship alive if you tossed it into an active star. But you simply could not damage the metal. You could not scratch it, nor dent it. You could not mold it, nor break it. It was utterly inert and utterly indestructible.
And yet, somehow, against all possibility and laws of nature, someone had done just that.
It was a simple strip of metal – probably iron or steel – some four inches long, and with one bolt in either end, one in each door, and the plate locking them together. Simple, but effective – and, again, against everything – impossible.
After a long while of staring at this insanity before them, it was Yascra who came to his senses first and decided to step forward, and pluck the metal strip out of the holes the bolts had made. It slid out easily. He handed it to the Chief Engineer, who looked at it for a moment, before depositing it in his pocket.
The door opened to the image of a tall young man with coppery brown hair that was impeccable, despite how utterly exhausted he looked. His eyes were of a rich, dark green, skin on the paler side, and partially hidden behind the rims of a pair of archaic spectacles. He wore simple, dark slacks and a blue collared shirt, with a white lab coat – the difference being that the collar was turned up ridiculously in a stylish, but improbably starched manner.And he looked exhausted. There were bags under his eyes, dark and hollow. He leaned against one wall, hands in the pockets of the coat, looking like he had not slept in a few months. Nevertheless, upon registering that he had been rescued, the man straightened up, stretched his shoulders a little, and smiled – if weakly.
”Boy. Am I glad to see you guys.” He said, voice airy and light, though dragged down with a stress of weight that had surely been sitting on him quite some time.
”Rya, Caru, meet the Stella Viventium’s Chief Scientific Administrator Dorin Harkahn.” Drakis said, gesturing toward the man – then turning to him and more seriously asking in a lower voice ”What the @#$% happened, Doc?”
Harkahn just gave a sigh, and shook his head. ”A…A lot. I can’t even…Ugh.” He rubbed at his face with weary hands, then shoved them back in coat pockets, with a minute twinge more resolve than before. ”I need to speak with the Captain. Now.” He said. ”As it happens, we were just on our way to go see him ourselves. I guess this guy’s got some important @#$% to tell him too.” Yascra said, constituting the first words he’d spoken in some time. ”Oh and…good to see you’re not @#$%in’ dead, Doc.” He added – not smiling.
The railcar ride back to the secret Command District was an informative one, with everyone explaining the recent developments that had come about them, not bothering to censor themselves any more. Their guests could hear anything, it didn’t matter anymore.
Drakis’ friend was apparently a Martian who had been mysteriously cloned and dragged out of storage. Yascra’s “friend” was the Dimensional Lord of Love, Friendship and Compassion, and he had news of an ally to the cause that needed to be passed on. Dorin Harkahn had been stuck in a railcar for what seemed like months, but had been merely hours – unable to communicate via BrainPal™ but retaining all other Scientific Administration privileges. He had been on his way to…somewhere important, when the car stopped – and he had been just sitting there, monitoring data – and apparently someone had done it all intentionally.
Someone who was capable of penetrating an indestructible material.
The ship had been in Notspace – and now, it wasn’t – and the correlation between that transition and Harkahn’s sudden ability to once again communicate seemed like more than mere coincidence. Harkahn talked about things that seemed to be ancient history, though they had happened only hours before. There was a massacre on the surface of Isandril – Dendril, led by a mysterious blonde man who seemed to be out of sync with the universe. He had been spared, and returned to the Stella – had been on his way to the Drives in a desperate attempt at helping the Kingsbane escape the prompt death promised by an ancient Martian warship. There had been some kind of immense spike in the Stella Mainframe’s activity – a gigantic sum of data beamed up from the planet all at once – only to seemingly disappear into the databanks, beyond reach. Hidden folders.
Dorin Harkahn – this charming young scientist – seemed now as if he knew all the mysteries and secrets of the vast and complex universe – but only because the things of which he spoke were so grand and outlandish – yet true. He had been there. On the surface. He had seen that most ancient planet. He had seen the mysterious man – had seen the towers, seemingly indestructible, fall to ruin at his command.
That man. Harkahn was certain that so many of the mysteries could have been answered by that man – that he was, if not at the center, then very close to it. He was terribly important – utterly vital – yet he had the gut feeling that even the Dendril – and by extension their bigoted Lord Codsworth – did not know the true extent of his importance.
All the talking made the ride seem much quicker – but then, the Scientific Department was barely two or three miles away from Command – a fraction of a distance in comparison to the rest of that forty-mile behemoth.
The Command Center looked something like an office building. Actually, it was markedly anticlimactic. One would never expect that it was within these halls and chambers that the true masters of the Stella Viventium went about their machinations, while the governmental body in the district below faced the everyday challenges of civil infrastructure. Though there was still the gilded tint, there was carpeting here too – and eggshell-white paneling on the wall, and the occasional potted plant sprucing up an otherwise bare corner. Doors, upon doors, upon doors. Then, at last, a door that they entered.
Within was a small room with a vaulted ceiling. It was only large enough to house the long, wooden table and set of matching chairs lined up along it, and little else. It was a boardroom – simple, and hardly even elegant, but efficient. There were chairs enough for fourteen, or sixteen people – more than enough space for everyone to take their seats wherever they so chose.
And then, once everyone was seated, with only the eerie silence of the too-mundane room around them, they waited for the enigmatic Captain to appear…
The Deity of the Stars was also the Deity of Fate.
It was odd for that single thought to occupy Nirix's mind, especially after all that had recently happened, yet her mind drifted to that idea alone as if she could envision that time long ago. She heard the memory then, her grandmother humming the lullaby of her youth as she watched with a keen eye as Nirix went about her sparring motions.
"Astraea favors you, child" She had said, seemingly out of random. Nirix hadn't thought much of it then.
Yet now, her grandmother's words echoed in her mind and the Eoclu couldn't help but wonder how much Astraea was enjoying meddling in her life by throwing strangers after unusual strangers at her. She supposed this was her punishment for neglecting Astraea and now her next prayer would be directly offered to the God.
"Yes, what do you want?" She asked the cyan angelic stranger, her voice once again not as firm as she wanted it to be. It made her sound frightened and tired, like a feral animal who was cornered and ready to snap. Nirix was definitely tired but by no means was she scared.
"You are following us, following Ketin, Why?"
It was odd for that single thought to occupy Nirix's mind, especially after all that had recently happened, yet her mind drifted to that idea alone as if she could envision that time long ago. She heard the memory then, her grandmother humming the lullaby of her youth as she watched with a keen eye as Nirix went about her sparring motions.
"Astraea favors you, child" She had said, seemingly out of random. Nirix hadn't thought much of it then.
Yet now, her grandmother's words echoed in her mind and the Eoclu couldn't help but wonder how much Astraea was enjoying meddling in her life by throwing strangers after unusual strangers at her. She supposed this was her punishment for neglecting Astraea and now her next prayer would be directly offered to the God.
"Yes, what do you want?" She asked the cyan angelic stranger, her voice once again not as firm as she wanted it to be. It made her sound frightened and tired, like a feral animal who was cornered and ready to snap. Nirix was definitely tired but by no means was she scared.
"You are following us, following Ketin, Why?"
Caru followed Yasrca, seeing that he was going to meet the captain of there vessel. He smiles as they, walked, having no idea where he was or where he was going, he just blindly followed the miserable bald man to wherever he was taking him. Hell could he even be taken to be tortured or something and Caru and his usual bubbly nature would have never have thought of much. However Caru, trusts Yascra that he wouldn't do such a thing and why would he? Caru was a dimensional Lord who couldn't hurt anyone.
As they walked towards there unknown destination, Caru was mindlessly in his head, ignoring his surroundings till he meets Harkon. He smiles and says "Hello Harley! My name is Caru Llywellyn, Dimensional Lord of Love, Friendship and Compassion, a pleasure to meet you" as he puts out his hand for him to shake, giving him the uncanny nickname of Harley. As they walked he hears about the professor and his recent endeavors, what he was saying was not crazy or outlandish to the Dimensional Lord at all. For being consider an old Lord, the Doc's experiences weren't the most outlandish thing, of course, if Caru spoke up on how science and mysticism can work hand in hand, he would be laughed at by Yascra...maybe not Harkon though especially what he went through, but that would be a conversation for another time though.
As they entered the large board room, Caru looked around as both men took there seats. Caru took a moment to see where he was going to sit and so to see if he can break Yisrca's cold demeanor anymore he decides to sit on the same side as the bald man, but with only two seat separation, giving him space since it seemed what he would like instead of having Caru sit right next to him. Caru looked around as he just merely tapped his fingers on the table as they wait for the Captain to come out. "Hey Harley, I think when he comes out, I think its only right to let you speak first since you know him, before I speak to him" he says just in case the scientist wanted Caru to speak first, but he understood that what Harkon wanted to say was more important than breaking the news to Aelyn from Caru.
As they walked towards there unknown destination, Caru was mindlessly in his head, ignoring his surroundings till he meets Harkon. He smiles and says "Hello Harley! My name is Caru Llywellyn, Dimensional Lord of Love, Friendship and Compassion, a pleasure to meet you" as he puts out his hand for him to shake, giving him the uncanny nickname of Harley. As they walked he hears about the professor and his recent endeavors, what he was saying was not crazy or outlandish to the Dimensional Lord at all. For being consider an old Lord, the Doc's experiences weren't the most outlandish thing, of course, if Caru spoke up on how science and mysticism can work hand in hand, he would be laughed at by Yascra...maybe not Harkon though especially what he went through, but that would be a conversation for another time though.
As they entered the large board room, Caru looked around as both men took there seats. Caru took a moment to see where he was going to sit and so to see if he can break Yisrca's cold demeanor anymore he decides to sit on the same side as the bald man, but with only two seat separation, giving him space since it seemed what he would like instead of having Caru sit right next to him. Caru looked around as he just merely tapped his fingers on the table as they wait for the Captain to come out. "Hey Harley, I think when he comes out, I think its only right to let you speak first since you know him, before I speak to him" he says just in case the scientist wanted Caru to speak first, but he understood that what Harkon wanted to say was more important than breaking the news to Aelyn from Caru.
After all what Ketin Clarke have been through in his odyssey for freedom, and the recent runaway from Ardella with T'Relis, seeing a strange, cyan being with suspicion was quite natural. Overly extravagant clothing, an exaggerated joy in his demeanor and, of course, those uncommonly mellow words... Everything about this being of holy nature reeked of suspicion.
Amidst the disaster that had befallen over this touristic trip, the Fencer's expressions were nothing else but a serene smile. It mocked adversity and danger, evil and wickedness. Therefore, it was a mockery for The Devil Eye. The transcendental technology on Ketin's left eye, in all means, was useless to this creature. However, the Fencer was not blocking his enigmatic mind. It was open wide for The Eye. A soothing cyan aura, coupled with the psychological feeling of a relaxing breeze was everything in the angelic being's mind.
What was this Angel? A Dimensional Lord of holiest benediction and safeguarding? A crusader that was an insult to Nirix T'Relis's legendary skills with the blade? His true self was a mystery to the duo, but it was partially safe to assume that this being was goodwill incarnate. There was no mockery in his words. He had put himself between Cesare and the innocent, much likely Ketin did. But there was a big difference between the two: The Devil Eye did not take Life away from the criminal.
Perhaps, this so-called Angel was nothing more but a false prophet. Shedding as much blood as a certain psychopathic mass-murderer.
When he stopped to think about it, Ketin exclaimed. Or, rather, he penetrated the being's very spirit. It was almost as the weight of The Galaxy Wide struck his heart. It was both shocking, and soul shattering. It meant that Ketin Clarke was partially aware, if not fully, about his occult powers. But, at the same time, it was a remark to the angellic man about his greatest desire.
He held a rapier to fight for the innocent. The ones who would lose the Gift of Life under the clutches of tyranny, wicked beings and cosmic aberrations. But, if he could forfeit his own existence for one thing, it was to restore the many lives lost to evil throughout The Galaxy Wide.
The pain that Ketin brought with his words was audible, as it ripped a gasp from the Fencer. His smile immediately turned into an anguished frown and, for a moment, it was possible to believe that tears would stream from his concealed sight, but, somehow, they didn't.
Slowly shifting his gaze to the entrance, the Fencer made his way to the door and, calmly, closed it, saving the group from a blood-smeared corridor. And, for seconds that felt more like hours, an awkward silence permeated between the three. Few beings through the universe were able to stand such silence and, judging how talkative the Fencer have been, he was one of them. After what could possibly be years, the Fencer saw himself without a single word to at least utter.
Just after the strange daydream that the foxkin had, he shattered the silence. - Ah, worry not. — His smile suddenly came back with his confident tone. — I have a spare one! — Of course, those coats didn't had any symbolical value to the Fencer, they only made him look extremely good, totally opposed to Ketin. What was with that horrible oversized leather jacket? Didn't Ketin had any sense of elegant fashion? Perhaps a point blank shotgun blast to that thing would make it better... If only Clarke were not wearing it, that is.
But then the fated question was laid by the duo. He was following them, stalking them. Of course, he had good intentions, though with great responsibilities and conditions, but how could he lay them in a convincing manner? How could the Fencer keep feeding Nirix that his protege was supposed to be a 'Hero'?
... How could he put that assassin out of the way?
— First off, let me introduce myself... — He attacked. A flamboyant bow that certainly made him look pretty much of a buffoon with that shredded uniform. — I am Francis Judeau, former ten-time champion at the noble art of Fencing with over 5 golden medals scored at the Olympia Games. Currently, I am a travelling entrepreneur and, heh, heh, a vigilante for fame and justice. My services are freely available for many public security enterprises across The Galaxy Wide!
While his masterful skill with a rapier was heavily implied, that story of travelling magnate and pseudo bounty hunter sounded pretty off. And it did little to answer what he wanted with Ketin and Nirix. Nor it explained his cyan skin, not even how the Devil Eye was unusable against him.
... And even more enigmatic, The Blue Ghost within the foxkin's electronic mind could not see the Fencer through Ketin's eyes. The only way that his existence was apparent for the phantom was a vague, blurred afterimage of a cyan, humanoid silhouette, through even his voice was inaudible for the the ghost.
Amidst the disaster that had befallen over this touristic trip, the Fencer's expressions were nothing else but a serene smile. It mocked adversity and danger, evil and wickedness. Therefore, it was a mockery for The Devil Eye. The transcendental technology on Ketin's left eye, in all means, was useless to this creature. However, the Fencer was not blocking his enigmatic mind. It was open wide for The Eye. A soothing cyan aura, coupled with the psychological feeling of a relaxing breeze was everything in the angelic being's mind.
What was this Angel? A Dimensional Lord of holiest benediction and safeguarding? A crusader that was an insult to Nirix T'Relis's legendary skills with the blade? His true self was a mystery to the duo, but it was partially safe to assume that this being was goodwill incarnate. There was no mockery in his words. He had put himself between Cesare and the innocent, much likely Ketin did. But there was a big difference between the two: The Devil Eye did not take Life away from the criminal.
Perhaps, this so-called Angel was nothing more but a false prophet. Shedding as much blood as a certain psychopathic mass-murderer.
When he stopped to think about it, Ketin exclaimed. Or, rather, he penetrated the being's very spirit. It was almost as the weight of The Galaxy Wide struck his heart. It was both shocking, and soul shattering. It meant that Ketin Clarke was partially aware, if not fully, about his occult powers. But, at the same time, it was a remark to the angellic man about his greatest desire.
He held a rapier to fight for the innocent. The ones who would lose the Gift of Life under the clutches of tyranny, wicked beings and cosmic aberrations. But, if he could forfeit his own existence for one thing, it was to restore the many lives lost to evil throughout The Galaxy Wide.
The pain that Ketin brought with his words was audible, as it ripped a gasp from the Fencer. His smile immediately turned into an anguished frown and, for a moment, it was possible to believe that tears would stream from his concealed sight, but, somehow, they didn't.
Slowly shifting his gaze to the entrance, the Fencer made his way to the door and, calmly, closed it, saving the group from a blood-smeared corridor. And, for seconds that felt more like hours, an awkward silence permeated between the three. Few beings through the universe were able to stand such silence and, judging how talkative the Fencer have been, he was one of them. After what could possibly be years, the Fencer saw himself without a single word to at least utter.
Just after the strange daydream that the foxkin had, he shattered the silence. - Ah, worry not. — His smile suddenly came back with his confident tone. — I have a spare one! — Of course, those coats didn't had any symbolical value to the Fencer, they only made him look extremely good, totally opposed to Ketin. What was with that horrible oversized leather jacket? Didn't Ketin had any sense of elegant fashion? Perhaps a point blank shotgun blast to that thing would make it better... If only Clarke were not wearing it, that is.
But then the fated question was laid by the duo. He was following them, stalking them. Of course, he had good intentions, though with great responsibilities and conditions, but how could he lay them in a convincing manner? How could the Fencer keep feeding Nirix that his protege was supposed to be a 'Hero'?
... How could he put that assassin out of the way?
— First off, let me introduce myself... — He attacked. A flamboyant bow that certainly made him look pretty much of a buffoon with that shredded uniform. — I am Francis Judeau, former ten-time champion at the noble art of Fencing with over 5 golden medals scored at the Olympia Games. Currently, I am a travelling entrepreneur and, heh, heh, a vigilante for fame and justice. My services are freely available for many public security enterprises across The Galaxy Wide!
While his masterful skill with a rapier was heavily implied, that story of travelling magnate and pseudo bounty hunter sounded pretty off. And it did little to answer what he wanted with Ketin and Nirix. Nor it explained his cyan skin, not even how the Devil Eye was unusable against him.
... And even more enigmatic, The Blue Ghost within the foxkin's electronic mind could not see the Fencer through Ketin's eyes. The only way that his existence was apparent for the phantom was a vague, blurred afterimage of a cyan, humanoid silhouette, through even his voice was inaudible for the the ghost.
Rin had recovered from the effects of the g-forces in record time, slumping in his seat with a near-inaudible groan.
Thank the gods its over he thought, shifting slightly through the creaking he swore came from the bones. Any more of that and I probably would have passed out.
He'd never had to endure g-forces for so long. He made a mental note to suggest extended g-force simulations for building endurance in the case of low-powered or malfunctioning inertial dampeners.
His thoughts were interrupted by the startling output of utter rage coming from the intercom speakers. He flinched, not looking down at Montagne, as the admonishments and curses came raining down.
He couldn't deny that what Montagne did was extremely dangerous, but... why would he come running here, climbing onto his lap, scared as all hell? Something must have gone wrong.
And although it could have been a ploy, a trick... the soft phantom touches on his shoulders said otherwise.
Not bites. He'd come to associate the stabbing sensations around his neck and shoulders as Montagne at his most malicious.
There was no such feeling now.
He frowned, staring at his hands. It- itched, his palms, around the middle of each one. There weren't any rashes.
It's nothing he assured himself reluctantly, folding his hands together.
It's not came a whisper. It disappeared as soon as it came, making it seem as if it was never there at all.
Thank the gods its over he thought, shifting slightly through the creaking he swore came from the bones. Any more of that and I probably would have passed out.
He'd never had to endure g-forces for so long. He made a mental note to suggest extended g-force simulations for building endurance in the case of low-powered or malfunctioning inertial dampeners.
His thoughts were interrupted by the startling output of utter rage coming from the intercom speakers. He flinched, not looking down at Montagne, as the admonishments and curses came raining down.
He couldn't deny that what Montagne did was extremely dangerous, but... why would he come running here, climbing onto his lap, scared as all hell? Something must have gone wrong.
And although it could have been a ploy, a trick... the soft phantom touches on his shoulders said otherwise.
Not bites. He'd come to associate the stabbing sensations around his neck and shoulders as Montagne at his most malicious.
There was no such feeling now.
He frowned, staring at his hands. It- itched, his palms, around the middle of each one. There weren't any rashes.
It's nothing he assured himself reluctantly, folding his hands together.
It's not came a whisper. It disappeared as soon as it came, making it seem as if it was never there at all.
Illiya didn't even know what had stung her. Maria had drawn a strange pistol and fired against the draconian. Was it some sort of airgun? It felt like so. But the truth was that Illiya’s skin had exceptional resistance. It was strong enough for the heavy-duty needle to just slightly prickle. However, it was all needed to pierce Illiya's epidermis. Consequently, her bloodstream. — What are you saying, Mary... ? Hee... Hee, hee... — Her pupils were already dilating at this point, voice becoming wearier with each word. Then, using herclawtips, Illiya would proceed to “sting” back Maria with a playful poke. She completely missed Lock-On point. The drug had already intoxicated Illiya. — Someday, Mary... I’ll take your friends to the Kings... — The draconian started to let big, loud yawns between her words, hardly speaking in cohesive manner. She struggled to even keep her eyes open, slowly becoming heavier and heavier, until...
— ... Your friends to... The Kingsbane... Auntie and unclies Wong, Wan and Egghead will... Gives us lot... Of that... Spitfire... Jui... Ce... — Shocking. Yet, not surprising. Why would the so-called “Legendary Artillery Cruiser” send a being with no psychological preparation whatsoever for this “job”? It was slightly suspicious that someone wanted to put this innocent being into harm’s way. Her might, however, could be a justifiable reason.
Illiya would then cease her words, laying on the seat next to a Z-Bot and crash in the ground afterwards. It wouldn't even be recorded by Illiya. She was into profound and heavy sleep.
In a certain, disclosed facility, a new addition was made. It was not clear how many saw this creature, neither how secretly it was being handled. All it mattered was the fierce roar that pierced the corridoors that surrounded that a specific cell room. Someone could easily distinguish words amidst the beastly roar of this locked being…
— MOOOM!!! I’m UUUP!!!
Then, silence.
A clear white room surrounded the Dragon Lady. It was verry well illuminated and without a single speck of dust inside. And, most importantly a bed that was perfectly fitting. After a undetermined amount of time, Illiya was conscious again. Good to be, after this great dream: She was fighting one of the most dangerous bounty hunters in Th Galaxy Wide: Maria Lockheart.
It was a blood boiling chase, one that Illiya wouldn’t even imagine of having. It scalated on a idiot on an old spaceship getting in the way of her target. The fight would then turn into a very close victory to Illiya and the two became friends thereafter!
Strangely, nobody answered Illiya’s call… Some assistants or her mother were supposed that door. But there she was. All alone into her room.
Or was it?
Without any effort, nor stretching after a long nap, Illiya attempted to spot anything that would vaguely resemble a passage. No avail. But there was something in there.
A leather cape and a cowboy hat. It was not a dream.
The Draconian’s tail slowly rose in excitement. Lockheart was in this place and Illiya couldn't wait to meet her rival. Or even fight with her again.
But even though she felt a more secure, Illiya was stricken by past memories. After being taken by force from her mother, Illiya would always miss the one who cared the most for her. Illiya was not even the same of her kind.
But the draconian had to focus on her ad adventurous present… And uncertain future. Without anything else to do, she stood in front of the wall that most resembled a door. Sooner or later, someone sent by Maria was certain to come.
Hopefully, Lockheart herself.
— ... Your friends to... The Kingsbane... Auntie and unclies Wong, Wan and Egghead will... Gives us lot... Of that... Spitfire... Jui... Ce... — Shocking. Yet, not surprising. Why would the so-called “Legendary Artillery Cruiser” send a being with no psychological preparation whatsoever for this “job”? It was slightly suspicious that someone wanted to put this innocent being into harm’s way. Her might, however, could be a justifiable reason.
Illiya would then cease her words, laying on the seat next to a Z-Bot and crash in the ground afterwards. It wouldn't even be recorded by Illiya. She was into profound and heavy sleep.
In a certain, disclosed facility, a new addition was made. It was not clear how many saw this creature, neither how secretly it was being handled. All it mattered was the fierce roar that pierced the corridoors that surrounded that a specific cell room. Someone could easily distinguish words amidst the beastly roar of this locked being…
— MOOOM!!! I’m UUUP!!!
Then, silence.
A clear white room surrounded the Dragon Lady. It was verry well illuminated and without a single speck of dust inside. And, most importantly a bed that was perfectly fitting. After a undetermined amount of time, Illiya was conscious again. Good to be, after this great dream: She was fighting one of the most dangerous bounty hunters in Th Galaxy Wide: Maria Lockheart.
It was a blood boiling chase, one that Illiya wouldn’t even imagine of having. It scalated on a idiot on an old spaceship getting in the way of her target. The fight would then turn into a very close victory to Illiya and the two became friends thereafter!
Strangely, nobody answered Illiya’s call… Some assistants or her mother were supposed that door. But there she was. All alone into her room.
Or was it?
Without any effort, nor stretching after a long nap, Illiya attempted to spot anything that would vaguely resemble a passage. No avail. But there was something in there.
A leather cape and a cowboy hat. It was not a dream.
The Draconian’s tail slowly rose in excitement. Lockheart was in this place and Illiya couldn't wait to meet her rival. Or even fight with her again.
But even though she felt a more secure, Illiya was stricken by past memories. After being taken by force from her mother, Illiya would always miss the one who cared the most for her. Illiya was not even the same of her kind.
But the draconian had to focus on her ad adventurous present… And uncertain future. Without anything else to do, she stood in front of the wall that most resembled a door. Sooner or later, someone sent by Maria was certain to come.
Hopefully, Lockheart herself.
For Jin, things would begin to improve. Once properly wired into the auto-doc's life support her rapidly dropping vitals would begin to slowly stabilize to the point the auto-doc could begin it's proper work.
For Jack, things where not improving. With the sudden addition of enemy air and ground at the spaceport, Jack had no clear way to the White Death. As Jack arrived, he witnessed the two dropships being taken out. Using the sudden confusion as the enemy troops took cover from the falling craft, Jack takes cover behind a service truck to the right rear of the enemy troops. Hitting his radio, Jack says "Little Lady, it's Jack. I've arrived at the spaceport. But I have hostile troops between us and our ride."
Asya had now arrived outside of the spaceport, still carrying the pilfered gear. Behind her the fighting had slowed down but it would still reach the spaceport soon. Hitting her radio, Asya says "Apex 7, Little Lady copies. I have arrived at the spaceport and moving to link up with Jack. Requesting you make a hole for us."
For the enemy's part, they took cover and began to fire at the White Death once the dropships began taking fire. The first ship never knew what happened, the beam lancing through the cockpit canopy and sending the craft out of control. The end result was the craft suddenly rolling into a wing over before slamming into the ground, and the troops it had just deployed, on it's back. The pilot of the second craft had to be given credit though. His first reaction was to begin pulling away from his own troops, as for the briefest of moment the telltale beehive pattern of a shield flickered into life before immediately faltering prior to the entire craft detonating mid-air.
For Jack, things where not improving. With the sudden addition of enemy air and ground at the spaceport, Jack had no clear way to the White Death. As Jack arrived, he witnessed the two dropships being taken out. Using the sudden confusion as the enemy troops took cover from the falling craft, Jack takes cover behind a service truck to the right rear of the enemy troops. Hitting his radio, Jack says "Little Lady, it's Jack. I've arrived at the spaceport. But I have hostile troops between us and our ride."
Asya had now arrived outside of the spaceport, still carrying the pilfered gear. Behind her the fighting had slowed down but it would still reach the spaceport soon. Hitting her radio, Asya says "Apex 7, Little Lady copies. I have arrived at the spaceport and moving to link up with Jack. Requesting you make a hole for us."
For the enemy's part, they took cover and began to fire at the White Death once the dropships began taking fire. The first ship never knew what happened, the beam lancing through the cockpit canopy and sending the craft out of control. The end result was the craft suddenly rolling into a wing over before slamming into the ground, and the troops it had just deployed, on it's back. The pilot of the second craft had to be given credit though. His first reaction was to begin pulling away from his own troops, as for the briefest of moment the telltale beehive pattern of a shield flickered into life before immediately faltering prior to the entire craft detonating mid-air.
"Roger, Little Lady, I'll ensure they stay focused on me, out." With that, Kovacs carefully aimed down the holographic sights of his weapon at the enemy. Hovering the reticle over their heads, he gently stroked the trigger to send round after plasma round drilling into lightly armored skulls.
All too soon, it was over. Any soldier that popped out of cover for even a second was killed with frightening precision, and any suppression from the opposing forces was rendered useless by the White Death's shield bubble. It became a cautious firefight, as the troopers were too worried about being picked off by the Pilot.
Said Pilot raised his non-firing hand to his helmet, keying the mic while popping off a pair of headshots as if he wasn't holding a machine gun. "Little Lady, Apex seven. Site is green for extraction, dust off in nine minutes. Dropships are keeping their distance, you are clear for approach, over."
All too soon, it was over. Any soldier that popped out of cover for even a second was killed with frightening precision, and any suppression from the opposing forces was rendered useless by the White Death's shield bubble. It became a cautious firefight, as the troopers were too worried about being picked off by the Pilot.
Said Pilot raised his non-firing hand to his helmet, keying the mic while popping off a pair of headshots as if he wasn't holding a machine gun. "Little Lady, Apex seven. Site is green for extraction, dust off in nine minutes. Dropships are keeping their distance, you are clear for approach, over."
Laurent was in intense fear, and having his face tucked in between Rin and the chair as they went into ludicrous speed, he didn't really feel a thing with the intense Gs and all. He was beginning to come down then all of sudden he gets an ear full off the PS system complaining to him, calling him all sorts of names. He couldn't take it anymore, he gritted his small little cat teeth and pounced off Rin and onto the ground that both Rin and Tsun can see and with a visibly agigated face, with his cat ears all perked up as well as hair standing him.
He snapped
"FINE! YOU KNOW WHAT?! @#$%# THIS! I HAD ENOUGH OF YOU ALL BELITTLING ME, I WAS DOING THE RIGHT THING FOR RIN, BUT NOOOO EVERYONE JUST HAS TOO CALL ME OUT ON MY SHIT! HELL FIX YOUR DAMN SHIP! FOR ALL I CARE, AFTER THIS LITTLE TRIP IS OVER, I WOULDN'T BE SURPRISED IN GETTING STABBED IN THE BACK JUST BECAUSE WHY NOT DO IT TO A MAN YOU CLEARLY DISLIKE! SO AFTER WE LAND I AM LEAVING! YOU FIX YOUR GODDAMN SHIP AND FIGURE OUT HOW TO BYPASS OVA'S SECURITY BLOCKADE WITHOUT KNOWING THE CORRECT ROUTE!" he yells mostly at Tsun anyone else of the squad who was around letting out his pent up frustration at them, before turn around went back to the cargo bay. He always hated being called a fraud, and with entire ship calling him that in there own little way with sneers and hate, he couldn't take it and the best way for him to deal with that was to separate himself from it, thus increasing his own little head of insanity as well as feeding more into his paranoia...side effects from being created by the Lord of the Undead and Darkness. He was done with this crew and there little mission.
He snapped
"FINE! YOU KNOW WHAT?! @#$%# THIS! I HAD ENOUGH OF YOU ALL BELITTLING ME, I WAS DOING THE RIGHT THING FOR RIN, BUT NOOOO EVERYONE JUST HAS TOO CALL ME OUT ON MY SHIT! HELL FIX YOUR DAMN SHIP! FOR ALL I CARE, AFTER THIS LITTLE TRIP IS OVER, I WOULDN'T BE SURPRISED IN GETTING STABBED IN THE BACK JUST BECAUSE WHY NOT DO IT TO A MAN YOU CLEARLY DISLIKE! SO AFTER WE LAND I AM LEAVING! YOU FIX YOUR GODDAMN SHIP AND FIGURE OUT HOW TO BYPASS OVA'S SECURITY BLOCKADE WITHOUT KNOWING THE CORRECT ROUTE!" he yells mostly at Tsun anyone else of the squad who was around letting out his pent up frustration at them, before turn around went back to the cargo bay. He always hated being called a fraud, and with entire ship calling him that in there own little way with sneers and hate, he couldn't take it and the best way for him to deal with that was to separate himself from it, thus increasing his own little head of insanity as well as feeding more into his paranoia...side effects from being created by the Lord of the Undead and Darkness. He was done with this crew and there little mission.
Ketin's thoughts were quickly becoming hers as much as his, blurring the line between individuality and community. She had scattered herself too much, a groggy miscalculation on her dampened part. The Devil's Eye was leaving her be for now, though. And for that, she spent her time consolidating herself.
But something strange was happening to his brain. She could tell that he was hearing something, and she could estimate that it was this cyan figure before her. Éva could swear she could reach out and touch him right now, her hands were so closely aligned with his. But somehow she was forbidden.
Something denied her the ability to perceive his form. Something denied her the ability to perceive his words. Éva was deaf.
«I liked my old ears better,» they mused together. «All the better to play my piano with.»
Her whimsical thoughts were getting stale, however. There was a frustrated corruption to her thoughts with his. The fact that she could not hear nagged at her comfort, and seemed to bother her the way a bug crawling on one's skin might. "My hearing isn't what it used to be," Ketin complained aloud.
That tone wasn't too unfamiliar — he'd been using it more and more lately — but it was far from characteristic; certainly from the perspective of his Eoclu companion, whose ears were tender to these sorts of subtleties by now.
It almost sounded like he was making a joke of it. His tone was light, and the communication was hidden between the self-deprecation and the shaded humor. "Could you speak up, please?"
Was he acting again? Maybe this was the side of him that took command of the situation with pure gall and guts at the control station back planet-side. Or maybe this part of him was something new, born out of the constant adversity, and most recently, the climactic encounter with the mafia aboard this Perrygold.
Who knows? Certainly not Éva. She seemed oblivious to the nuances of their melding,
not entirely in control of her impulses. Her mind was tied in too much to Ketin's. She was possessed by him, and he by her. Their oneness was strange, but comforting, especially to this old mind. Some bones to give her traction in the universe; yes, this will do nicely.
«I miss home.» It was more of a gut feeling than deliberate words in the mind's ear. But this message was simple enough to translate, hardly the nebulous impressions of before. This was a very familiar feeling. Or perhaps not so, to Ketin, but nonetheless nostalgia and thoughts of legendary Earth filled his mind slowly, like the viscous oozing blood from an open wound.
France, 2091. A gentle star and the morning's moon high in the sky whispered dawn. Francisca had just visited, and the sisterhood Éva was so gladly kindling warmed her heart, as did so many things this year. The piano was a new memory, something recent. Elation filled her lungs and cooled her spirit. The ambition was spent, and now was the time to rest and love.
But his vision was dark, distorted by the lament and its consequential fright. Who was Francisca? Who was Mama İpek? And why did they feel so c̴lo̢se, so nearby? Were they w̶atching him like all the thousand eyes of the world after the buildings fell so seemingly long ago? Like the thousand eyes that always w͠àt́c͏̨hed?
They ẃ̷̴̸a̴̢͡t͏c̀̕̕͠͡h̴̸̡͢ed him like they watched her on that stage.
They were the dead. The Not. And they watched with compassion, as they should their daughter's ghost. As they should their missionary.
Out of the pot and into fire with this crew isn't it? Jet started to follow Laurent, who spewed all of the stored emotional trauma that he had built with this crew. Finally meeting him in the cargo bay, Jet closed the doors, pulled up a random box and took a seat.
"You done?" asked Jet, resting his arms on his knees, trying to contain Laurent. If what he said was true, then he is a more valuable asset then Jet previously knew, and he was going to make sure they kept him...by his own accord. Grabbing another nearby box, Jet began to pry at the container. It turned out to be filled with rations, beer, freeze dried Corbanti salmon, and a few saltines. He grabbed one of the rations and slid it over to the angered man. He then pulled the cap off of a beer and tried slipping that over to Laurent as well.
"Pull up a box, I want to know what your story is..."
"You done?" asked Jet, resting his arms on his knees, trying to contain Laurent. If what he said was true, then he is a more valuable asset then Jet previously knew, and he was going to make sure they kept him...by his own accord. Grabbing another nearby box, Jet began to pry at the container. It turned out to be filled with rations, beer, freeze dried Corbanti salmon, and a few saltines. He grabbed one of the rations and slid it over to the angered man. He then pulled the cap off of a beer and tried slipping that over to Laurent as well.
"Pull up a box, I want to know what your story is..."
Three people, Ketin, Nirix, and blue weirdo man. What was the mysterious man doing? Was he interrogating them? Was he seeing if Ketin was ok? What was this guys deal? Arnaldo shifted closer to the cyan man, trying to get within ear shot.
Francis Judeau? Famous throughout the galaxy? Vigilante? Something seemed...off. His motions...looked sloppy...as if he isn't currently focused on the words coming out of his mouth. His bow, his tone, it felt...all wrong. Arnaldo decided to stay there, listening into the conversation, trying to stay unnoticed.
His hand slowly moved its way to his waist, grabbing his hand cannon. He drew the weapon, still a bit hot from the recent action. He held it with one hand, close to his face, as if it was a pair of binoculars, rather than a weapon that could tear through the shoulder of an armed robber. Using his cordistintom, he tried reading the mans pulse. Nothing. The device refused to work, whatsoever. Its not as if it showed a 0, it showed nothing, no display, no nothing. He pulled the gun away from his face and placed his other hand on the bottom of the handle, as if perched to shoot. With his breathing shaky and his thought process shaken by the nonfunctionality of equipment, Arnaldo stood his ground. This man could be dangerous, extremely dangerous. Taking one hobbly step forward, Arnaldo dropped his gun to his side. Ketin had been through enough, he didn't need Arnaldo showing up with a gun, again. He had Nirix, he wasn't completely defenseless, he could take care of himself. What he needed was to calm down. Arnaldo holstered the gun and shimmied towards the group.
Francis Judeau? Famous throughout the galaxy? Vigilante? Something seemed...off. His motions...looked sloppy...as if he isn't currently focused on the words coming out of his mouth. His bow, his tone, it felt...all wrong. Arnaldo decided to stay there, listening into the conversation, trying to stay unnoticed.
His hand slowly moved its way to his waist, grabbing his hand cannon. He drew the weapon, still a bit hot from the recent action. He held it with one hand, close to his face, as if it was a pair of binoculars, rather than a weapon that could tear through the shoulder of an armed robber. Using his cordistintom, he tried reading the mans pulse. Nothing. The device refused to work, whatsoever. Its not as if it showed a 0, it showed nothing, no display, no nothing. He pulled the gun away from his face and placed his other hand on the bottom of the handle, as if perched to shoot. With his breathing shaky and his thought process shaken by the nonfunctionality of equipment, Arnaldo stood his ground. This man could be dangerous, extremely dangerous. Taking one hobbly step forward, Arnaldo dropped his gun to his side. Ketin had been through enough, he didn't need Arnaldo showing up with a gun, again. He had Nirix, he wasn't completely defenseless, he could take care of himself. What he needed was to calm down. Arnaldo holstered the gun and shimmied towards the group.
As if some divine deity wanted to torture him, Ringo woke up almost instantaneously...in sleep paralysis. He heard everything, literally everything, down to the unknown creature falling to the floor. Son of a %&#$@ he was missing the best part! Wait, did "Sweetcheeks" just say that he wasn't her type? "Well, I guess it was too good to be true, and I was beginning to think I had to pull her off of me. Nice twist." thought Ringo, coming to terms with the whole thing in a surprisingly fast manner. He was used to this sort of thing, it was nothing new. Shifting his focus, he listened to "Sweetcheeks"s description of the creature Ringo believed was being shown off. If he wasn't prepared for this, he might as well be as dead as the fleeting feeling of desire Ringo had for "Sweetcheeks".
He was in.
Really, it was like they didn’t know the value of shields. But Reqti couldn’t complain too much- after all, he was able to infiltrate quite easily. And that was with a lower aether potential.
He doubted that their target even knew what aether was. But then he remembered her brilliance- if anyone could relearn the basics of aether manipulation, and advance tremendously, in little time, then it was her. It was with that thought that he finally stopped the flow of what would appear to be jolts of lightning to the ignorant observer, that had previously run throughout the wall he just came through earlier.
The disruption of atoms in order to pass through a solid surface was a relatively useful ability, and as a soldier with one of the highest unassisted aetheran control, it was an essential ability to utilize in the quest to find their lost lord. He hid in the shadows of what appeared to be a cargo bay- behind a tank- and brought up his communicator.
”I’m in,” he murmured.
”Good. Sending blueprints now.”
A hologram appeared, forming a decent 3D map of the ship. 3 floors, seven lifeforms. Two of them were headed right to where he was.
He ducked out of sight just as they appeared- a small creature, vaguely alike to similar animals at his home planet, and a ridiculously large man with arms the size of cannons. He pulled up the map again. If he could phase through the ceiling, then he would be right in the middle of where the most lifeforms were gathered. She would be there.
And they had the element of surprise.
”Tahil,” he whispered, low enough for the two others in the room to not hear, ”I need something to go wrong in the cargo bay. Something with… sparks. An explosion or two. Light on and off. Anything to divert at least some attention. Make it crazy.”
She didn’t ask questions. As soon as he gave the go ahead for crazy, she grinned wildly. ”My pleasure,” she purred-
And the doors open and shut, sparking madly, as the ship suddenly took a hit of two from an unseen assailant. The tank in the cargo bay groaned, sliding slightly to the side, as alarms blared on and off all over the ship. Lights flashed, turning on and off in random intervals- enough to trigger an epileptic episode.
”She’s in our grasp. Azsa Eed.”
He hummed in affirmation as Tahil closed communications. Rolling his shoulders, he quickly climbed on top of the tank, and with a whir of his staff, fired onto the ceiling. Crackles of what looked like electricity ran through the area he fired on. He leaped toward the wall- and phased harmlessly through it.
He landed on a crouch, ceiling- now floor- solidifying just as he landed. He looked up, and- there she was.
There he was.
He was frozen, staring in shock at the man who was suddenly right in front of him, instincts blaring, the right palm prickling like needles.
“Found you.”
Really, it was like they didn’t know the value of shields. But Reqti couldn’t complain too much- after all, he was able to infiltrate quite easily. And that was with a lower aether potential.
He doubted that their target even knew what aether was. But then he remembered her brilliance- if anyone could relearn the basics of aether manipulation, and advance tremendously, in little time, then it was her. It was with that thought that he finally stopped the flow of what would appear to be jolts of lightning to the ignorant observer, that had previously run throughout the wall he just came through earlier.
The disruption of atoms in order to pass through a solid surface was a relatively useful ability, and as a soldier with one of the highest unassisted aetheran control, it was an essential ability to utilize in the quest to find their lost lord. He hid in the shadows of what appeared to be a cargo bay- behind a tank- and brought up his communicator.
”I’m in,” he murmured.
”Good. Sending blueprints now.”
A hologram appeared, forming a decent 3D map of the ship. 3 floors, seven lifeforms. Two of them were headed right to where he was.
He ducked out of sight just as they appeared- a small creature, vaguely alike to similar animals at his home planet, and a ridiculously large man with arms the size of cannons. He pulled up the map again. If he could phase through the ceiling, then he would be right in the middle of where the most lifeforms were gathered. She would be there.
And they had the element of surprise.
”Tahil,” he whispered, low enough for the two others in the room to not hear, ”I need something to go wrong in the cargo bay. Something with… sparks. An explosion or two. Light on and off. Anything to divert at least some attention. Make it crazy.”
She didn’t ask questions. As soon as he gave the go ahead for crazy, she grinned wildly. ”My pleasure,” she purred-
And the doors open and shut, sparking madly, as the ship suddenly took a hit of two from an unseen assailant. The tank in the cargo bay groaned, sliding slightly to the side, as alarms blared on and off all over the ship. Lights flashed, turning on and off in random intervals- enough to trigger an epileptic episode.
”She’s in our grasp. Azsa Eed.”
He hummed in affirmation as Tahil closed communications. Rolling his shoulders, he quickly climbed on top of the tank, and with a whir of his staff, fired onto the ceiling. Crackles of what looked like electricity ran through the area he fired on. He leaped toward the wall- and phased harmlessly through it.
He landed on a crouch, ceiling- now floor- solidifying just as he landed. He looked up, and- there she was.
There he was.
He was frozen, staring in shock at the man who was suddenly right in front of him, instincts blaring, the right palm prickling like needles.
“Found you.”
Wouldn't be going anywhere for a while. The situation had gotten a little more... Simplified? Focused? Something like that. He was trying to just live in the moment without worrying his head too much. He was thinking ahead but not back. Things would be answered eventually, but for now, there were other things that mattered.
His mind was empty, at least, that's what he attempted. Constant silent thoughts of 'what then' and 'what if' still circled around. He just couldn't stop thinking... Until he flinched, the hand over his shoulders coming oh so suddenly. Eyes closed, he had not expected anything like that and his eyes opened, accompanied by a set of blinks. He was confused to say the least, but didn't do more than to look briefly to Royanna's direction. The whole stroking of his hair and everything was a little awkward, making the canid a little tense and stiff.
He was still there though, not going anywhere, eventually to get used to the strange way of showing things and able to relax eventually, reset himself and close his eyes again.
Maybe he'd even like it?
This was some of the only contact and physical attention he had been getting in a log while afterall. And he did like physical contact and attention to a point. It was relaxing knowing that someone else was there and that the relationship between him and the other person wasn't malevolent and harmful. Hopefully at least.
All was fine. Other than for his constant thoughts that would not allow him peace. He was still stressed. For a while, not thinking anything had been stressful, not understanding or getting things. But now the opposite was the case.
So what if the attention was a little awkward... He still liked it a little... And he felt a little bad for liking it. Should he feel nice? Was this allowed? Had he done something to deserve it?
It bothered him, the whole thought set of it bothered him...
He had been running and only trying to stay alive for the few days he knew existed, or... Knew and knew, it was all so absurd, so strange. He had been running for his life, and now? Now? He looked out of the window, not moving his head as to not disturb the other but just opening one eye and looking one way was able to confirm this strange sight to him.
Had he died at some point? Was he really... dead..? And this was just the strangest route that afterlife had given him?
It bothered him...
He didn't want to think about it.
And in his stubbornness and attempt to leave those thoughts out on the other side of the window, the canid mildly shifted placing his head just a little further on over the armrest, just an inch closer to Royanna.
He probably got away with a lot.
And then she spoke, canid dropped all of his thoughts and made a quiet "Mmhm?" sound as he opened his eyes and looked towards her, ears perked and facing forward. And he could tell from her voice and acting that the hesitation was there. Not speaking much, he'd keep things simple, only replying with a quiet "Ok..." as she shifted her plans to take action a little later. He wasn't going to make her hurry things up. He wanted answers, but not desperately enough as to risk the health of others in order to gain them.
Seems like that was going to be it. That was that for that conversation. Royanna was already moving on, partly at least.
"I can cook... If there is something to cook and to cook with." He did like making food, but if there was nothing much that would have survived for years, nor any place to make the food at... Not much he could do to that, not possessing any cool 'modern' tech. He was mildly tempted to ask for a gun, or like, make a request to get one at some point. Not something a person like him should have been asking for, but it did add to the feeling of safeness, a little more than the side feeling of 'if I need one, things might be bad' that came with it.
Head lifted to look at the woman, as well as the badge she was holding and the way she inspected it. Both arms stayed at the support of the chair, profile low, head tilting only a little bit as he looked on what Kallenger was up to. Any of the codes and technical things, he'd not understand a thing of. But there seemed to be something to it, it had Royanna pondering and all that. He wouldn't speak a word himself though, not knowing what to say at all. Nothing to add.
"H-Hhuh?" The question caught him off guard. He had been eyeing the screen curiously, and there were some strings that connected it to being a map of sorts. But him knowing how to read it? That was all lost to him. The look on his face was confused and head would turn ever so slightly more to look at the woman, then the map, then back again.
Occasional nods accompanied by mildly unsure "Uh-huh..?" were let out as he listened to her explain things, simple yet strange as they were. Some of the sounds he made were a little more confident, but not overly so. He was made to pay attention and to try and understand things - that was his job, it was, most of the time, not an option.
Still, most of the things she spoke were lost to him and he was left with an uncomfortably confused expression over it all. What he got was the map part, what spot they were and a slight idea of where they were, the name Ardella being somewhat familiar to him now. But any technical parts? He could scream internally and look into five different directions, shoulders pressing against his neck as he backed away to lay his head over his arms. Nope. With them, he was lost. Knew a little that G-force had effects on people, but that was it.
He was pulled back and out of the confused zone, barely even realizing anything about the stations but he'd be there to listen when she asked him directly. Head moved, blankly confused expression, blinking, back straightening and head shaking to get out of the confusion.
"I... I guess we could see what it's all about?" Still a little lost, but he wasn't against the idea. And to be honest, food really did sound good, and even if things were strange, he was still curious. And with Royanna there, things were going to be fine, as long as he kept close to her. His tail could give the lightest of wags at the thought of food, company and just a calm moment and a little 'normality' among all this.
He'd be feeling better as his mind cleared and he sat straighter and more proper, hands still leaning onto the chair though.
"... What do you think the others will say? Will they be fine with it?" Slowly sliding in that question, they were going to ask the others, right?
"... I've not seen anyone else... Where are the others..?" Right, time for this. He had been wondering about it, and still was, even as he straightened the collar of the coat and fiddled with the fur. "Roy..?"
The Diplomat
It didn’t matter that the boy didn’t understand a word of what she was saying. Realistically, Royanna hadn’t expected any of it to make sense to him. He was from a lowtech world – he couldn’t be expected to understand these things. That was fine. It just felt good to talk about something that wasn’t their inevitable fate. Felt good to talk to him. Abstractly, she wished he would talk more – but that couldn’t be expected, realistically. That was fine too. She didn’t dislike his quietness. She didn’t dislike anything about him, she realized. Plenty of things irritated or downright annoyed her about him – but there was nothing she really disliked – and that was odd.
Odd, but fine.
Normality? What was normality to her? Normality was sitting alone in a comfortable bed aboard a little attack and reconnaissance ship, brooding over her next move to track down the Devil Eye. Normal was eating whatever food had been produced for her without thinking about it, focusing on charts or graphs, or monitors. She didn’t usually think about food, except when she needed it. What food tasted like or where it came from didn’t usually matter – except, it mattered now. Everything that mattered now was different – and it the strangeness of that fact tended to fade in and out of her awareness in no real pattern. At times – times like this – it felt nice to have those new, more casual priorities. It was just another detail that made her feel more like a person than a machine. Perhaps it was perverse to be fond of the sensation – but in moments like these, she didn’t particularly care.
He had stiffened against her touch, at first. It had almost been enough to make her retract her hand from his shoulder in shame – but she had persisted through some great effort, and now he was relaxed again, and it all seemed good. She was glad.
There was a phrase she recalled from her cultural studies at the Academy – an ancient saying in a still-more ancient language that existed now only in some obscure Imperial textbooks. It was ’L’appel du vide’ – and she couldn’t remember what it translated to, but the idea of it remained. It was the feeling of standing on a high place and thinking about the possibility of jumping – with not even the vaguest intention of actually doing so – just to wonder what it would be like.
It was that kind of moment – the past few hours had been so peaceful, and now they had come to a decision, and the plans for the future were laid out. Even if the ultimate result was no brighter for it, at least there was less uncertainty. And now, in the immediate present, things seemed okay. They were going to go get some good food. He let her play idly with his hair, and she let herself do it. That, in particular, combined with everything else, gave her the deep, indefinable sensation that she recalled as being happiness – and it made her think of that ancient phrase. ’I could hug him. I could just lean over and cling to him and thank him for sitting next to me and not hating me. Of course I’d never actually do it, but…I could.’ Such a preposterous action was no less insane than jumping off a building – but the thought had occurred to her, and that was ’L’appel du vide’.
”Don’t worry about it, kid.” She said amiably, almost dismissively – but earnestly nonetheless. ”Map-reading is complicated stuff. I promise I won’t quiz you on it or anything.” The ghost of a smile passed over her lips as she stared up at the monitor. It was an expression, however faint, however vague, that seemed to be coming across her face more and more lately, whether or not anyone actually noticed. Certainly progressive for a woman who most people thought was incapable of anything besides a condescending sneer. Passively, she ran the fingers of one hand through her own short hair, though not taking the other from Christofer’s shoulder. She gave a little puff.
”The others?” She repeated, half-questioning. ”You mean the people from Ardella? I don’t suppose it really matters what they have to say. If they haven’t shot us down yet they’ve either lost us or are waiting to give chase. There can be a lot of bureaucracy with that sort of thing, even with Special Agents…” But the words drifted off as it occurred to Royanna that it might not be they who Christofer was referring to when he said ‘others’.
”Guess I forgot to mention…the robot’s gone.” She said, ”It left a note. I guess…maybe I should be questioning how it disappeared on us.” The faint smile grew a degree rueful, then returned to the original inflection. ”But…I guess it doesn’t really matter. And…Pla…Py…That woman in the gas mask, whatever her name was, she stayed behind. Not sure if you were cognizant for that part.” It sounded harsher than she’d intended, but that detail must have gone over her head. She still wasn’t so socially advanced to catch every instance of her own unnecessary harshness. But, as if unconsciously correcting for it, she added ”It was pretty chaotic back there.” As if that might prove some consolation, or even understanding on her part.
”So, it’s just us, now.” It might have sounded melancholy when phrased that way, but somehow it didn’t. She was glad it was just them.
With her free hand, Roy went about tapping buttons on the arm of the pilots’ chair, hardly looking at the pad her fingers danced about upon as she did so. The screen shifted to a number of different windows, lots of technical information, navigational panels, lines and vectors – the sort of complicated things that she didn’t bother even trying to explain to her hapless friend. One finger worked dials located on the side of the arm of the chair – the deftness and speed at which her hand moved was not unlike a seasoned musician. With one final tap, all the windows shifted again, and the starfield out the front window began to shift gradually to one side. There was no sensation of movement at all, and the stars might have been nothing more than an image on a wide, curving wall-screen. A timer appeared on the main monitor, along with a host of other navigational information that must have told Royanna all she needed to know about the current state of the ship.
”We should be there in…two hours.” She said conclusively, then added more softly ”It’ll be nice to do something…normal, for a change.” as if she had read Christofer’s mind.
It was comforting to find herself capable of thinking of something like this as ’normal’.
Of course, there was still a host of unanswered questions that begged for her attention, hanging over both their heads. She might have even had the answers to some of them. But…there was time – right? They could be addressed later. Later…
The Koolest Boat U Know
Dallen Armston’s dark face was growing redder and redder. The expression of raw fury, of utter disbelief at the words she was hearing squawked back at her through the speaker – it was enough to keep T’yzfir backing away in sheer awe. But he had to do something, he knew. He had to be the bigger person, and speak calmly to his comrade. She would probably listen – he knew her well enough to be relatively sure of that. She certainly wouldn’t do anything rash to him – of that, he was completely certain. But the fact remained that he despised the Cat as much as she did.
Or, almost as much.
He hated Laurent with venom for how recklessly he had put his whole crew in danger – and over what? Laziness? Some displaced sense of righteousness? Something far more stupid, probably – but who could hope to understand what went on in the mind of a creature like him?
So Ty said nothing. He knew what was coming. He knew Dallen would stand and whirl, and storm out of the bridge and rampage through the boat until she found Montagne and proceeded to violently strangle him to within inches of one of his lives. Or, something to that effect. Maybe she would club him over the head with her rifle? Though she seemed too furious to bother hunting that down first – so probably it would involve the bowie knife strapped to her right thigh. And Ty was helpless to stop her. Not physically – but morally.
But when the Cat had finally finished his rebuttal, Dallen didn’t leap to her feet and storm out of the bridge. She just sat there. Initially, Ty thought she was seething in rage, gritting her teeth, biting her knuckles and trying valiantly to contain her fury – but it was not so. And that was far more concerning to him than the reaction he had expected.
Making his way over to her, Ty leaned to one side, looking cautiously at her, scoping out the situation. Almost all of the anger had drained from her face. She was staring hard at the monitor, lips a hard frown and eyes intense, and focused. There was a sense of dread about her. Ty blinked. He looked to the screen, but the diagnostics screen was all but unintelligible to him. He looked back to Dal, blinked again.
”Something’s wrong.” She said lowly, almost inaudibly. Ty’s heart sank.
-
The hallway that separated the two pairs of crash-loungers was fairly narrow, and Sands could hear every word in perfect clarity. In double, actually – since Laurent’s words came first from across the hall, then repeated, slightly out of sync, from the overhead intercom. The big man glowered, and rubbed at the bridge of his nose with two fingers, said nothing, then unbuckled the straps that had held him into the lounger and stood stiffly. A crack of the neck, rolling of wide shoulders, then he gave Jackson a perfunctory nod, and went out the open door, back in the direction of the engine room. It was obvious even before Laurent had finished his tirade that he did not intend to go to the engine room and fix his screw-up, so Sands resolved to do it instead. Of the crew, he was the most familiar with engineering – save for Rin, of course – and improving every day. He was confident that he would be able to take care of at least the most glaring issues, and make the ship safe to inhabit again. He did not turn around to look when Laurent, then Jet, went down the opposite direction of the hallway.
-
It seemed unfair to Tsuan that this litany of rebuking anger should be so largely directed at him. He knew, of course, that it was mostly because he was the nearest one – but that hardly made it better. But despite the injustice of it, he could not bring himself to match the hot anger that emanated from both Laurent and the bridge. He felt no desire to shout back – and he couldn’t even explain exactly why…But it definitely had something to do with Rin.
Clearly Rin had wanted him not to goad Laurent – and Tsuan respected that – but there was more, and he could not place his finger on it. Even as Laurent belted out his objections and venom, he just glared thoughtfully at the opposite wall and tried to make sense of what the nagging feeling was.
Then, when the flow of harsh words stopped, he partly snapped out of the thoughtful reverie, and looked toward Laurent with an expression of contempt and something approaching amusement.
”You done?” He muttered, just loud enough for the Cat to hear, and with such a potent cocktail of patronization and deadpan as to prove practically lethal. But the easy, amiable smile on his face made it perfectly reasonable.
Once Laurent had stormed out of the room, Tsuan felt a pressure on his shoulders that he had not previously realized was there fall away. It wasn’t hard to drop the pent-up words once the would-be target was gone. It was an immense relief, and he was glad for the renewed vitality it gave him. When he next spoke to Rin, it was as if Laurent had never been there at all – though the words were sober nonetheless – pointed, and meaningful.
”What’s up.”
It was obvious to Tsuan that something was bothering Rin. He had not even made his words a question – rather a grave acknowledgement of the blatant show of concern that had come over his intergalactic friend. Concern that he was – Foolishly, Tsuan thought – trying to suppress.
Five minutes had passed since Laurent had left the room – but it felt as though hardly seconds had gone by.
And before Rin could answer Tsuan, everything went to Hell.
The ship groaned and bucked beneath them – and while it was actually only a gentle yawing along the horizontal axis, the motion was exaggerated if only because it was so very far from anything they were supposed to be feeling. He realized it with wide-eyes and a sunken gut – they had been hit. Laurent had allowed their defenses to be lowered, and now they were under attack. But there was hardly a fraction of a second to let this sink in, because even before the ship had regained equilibrium, the lights began to flash violently, and doors all over the ship – he could hear them – started erratically opening and closing, with sparks flying from the joints and seams. Distantly, he heard the groaning of something large moving sluggishly in the cargo bay.
And that wasn’t even the worst part.
Tsuan knew in the back of his head that there was something wrong about the attack. Torpedo strikes wouldn’t do that to the doors and lights. Even the yawing of the boat seemed too gentle to have been a physical strike. They were being hacked – and that could only mean that they were being boarded.
It took no time at all for this absent knowledge to be confirmed, to Tsuan’s dismay. With the bucking of the ship, he had shot out one arm to brace the wall and another to grab Rin’s arm, keeping him planted in case another strike came. Out of the corner of his eye, there was a flash – something like sparks – and with a speed so incredible as to be indistinguishable from teleportation, a figure leaped from the floor, rebounded off the ceiling and came to rest standing before them.
”Found you.”
Almost as if on cue, the chaos ceased. The lights went out, and were replaced instantaneously with the dim, red glow of emergency lighting. The doors halted in whatever partially open position they had been in at the time. Sands, thinking fast, had rushed into the engine room and disconnected the auxiliary power feed – enough to halt the cyber-attack by disabling most of the systems that their attackers might have controlled. Core systems and – more importantly, their meager defenses – would probably be untouched. Though the pair of point-defense guns mounted on the ship’s hull would be drastically ineffective against all but the meagerest vessels. It was a yacht – not a warship.
But none of that was on Tsuan’s mind right now. His entire world – his universe – consisted at that moment of himself, Rin, and the mysterious intruder before them. The ship having regained stability – for the moment, anyway – he let his arm drop from the wall, bring his palm to rest almost casually on the grip of the pistol at his belt. His right arm remained out, hand shifting from gripping Rin’s arm to resting on his shoulder. Already narrow eyes were narrower still, his expression a harsh grimace as though he had just tasted something incredibly foul. He regarded the man before them.
Well-built, dressed in black, with dark skin now unlike Tsuan’s own and wielding some kind of gilded staff. Short, black hair and, most importantly, little red markings under his eyes. Markings that, except for the color, perfectly matched those on Rin’s cheekbones.
With the power cut, the ship stabilized and the crackling of their intruder’s device subsided, a remarkable stillness came over the room. He could only have guessed what Ty, Dal and the others were doing – for all he knew, the rest of the ship was in utter chaos. Maybe other intruders had appeared and were engaged in fierce combat at that very moment – Tsuan didn’t know, and didn’t care. The doors to their particular chamber had been shut when the power went, and so shut they remained – it would take some effort to pry them open now. The three of them were as good as sealed in – except that their intruder clearly had some other means of motivation.
The quiet that enveloped the dim, red-lit room was uncanny. Only their breathing. Even the air-recycler in the corner had stopped, though doubtless it would start again in minutes, long before any effect would be felt from the absence – and it suddenly seemed to Tsuan that ‘a few minutes’ might be much longer than they would need.
But on the surface, Tsuan was calm. Displeased, but collected. He was confident that his draw would be quick enough that he could put a bullet in the intruder – but not before the intruder would have that blasted staff jammed straight through his sternum. Maybe there were other tricks up the attacker’s sleeve, too – Tsuan didn’t want to risk it. He didn’t want to draw the gun and test his reflexes – so he didn’t – but he let his palm rest on the grip nonetheless, ready to be used if it needed using. And, as always, his other hand was a stabilizing force on Rin’s shoulder – ever-present, it seemed, though not binding.
”Friend of yours, Rin?” He said after a moment, voice low and dry, with an undertone of feigned lightness marred only by the strain of the words.
The Perrygold
He was aware of her – but not directly. Absently, he realized this at last – that he had never actually been conscious of a second presence in his mind at any point. It was as if he were very tired, and just on the brink of sleep, in the tantalizing place between wakefulness and unconsciousness. A common enough phenomenon – the indirect hearing of a voice – usually a familiar one. A single sentence, half-dream, a distant statement heard not through the ear, but through the mind – and perceived as sound, gone as quickly as it came. It was not something that was unique to him – but now, he knew it for what it was. For though he was certainly exhausted, he was not on the edge of sleep. Though he was emotionally drained, he was aware – if numb – aware.
That was what the voice in his ear had been. Not someone else speaking to him via unknown channels of the mind – merely a phantom statement, half-remembered, now as if it had never been.
Her presence was only detectable through the absence of his own. She occupied the gaps in his own thoughts. She was his unconscious, yet aware. She was what he said without thinking. Her existence could only be implied, he realized – and didn’t. He had long ago learned to distinguish between his own thoughts and the thoughts copied into his mind by the Eye. It was an art that had become natural and instinctive to him – automatic and unconscious. But she was something different – she was the thoughts that would otherwise have been his own, if he hadn’t known to look for them. His own thoughts that he had not thought. Strange, and alien – yet as familiar to him as breathing. He had never tried to communicate with ’Her’ – only with himself. It was so simple – and, yet, not simple at all. It was natural – and, yet, utterly alien.
The weary half-smile persisted, even as the blue-tinted man bowed ridiculously and proceeded with a preposterous introduction, boasting about his achievements and attributes as though Ketin might have actually cared.
He didn’t. Not particularly.
He was too busy letting his mind wander into memories that were not his own – and, yet, belonged to him as much as anyone. Places that, logically, were unfamiliar – but emotionally attached. He had been there – though some distant reasoning insisted that he hadn’t. There were eyes that watched him – but that did not feel particularly unusual. Wasn’t that always the case? Maybe those were the eyes of the dead – but that would only make it truer still – though it did not bother him exceptionally. He was too tired to twist the sensation into riddling guilt. Thank Space for small favors.
"My hearing isn't what it used to be," Ketin complained aloud, after the self-proclaimed champion had finished his pretentious introduction. Unconsciously, he reached up to gently scratch at one ear – it felt delightful, as always.
That tone wasn't too unfamiliar — he'd been using it more and more lately — but it was far from characteristic; certainly from the perspective of his Eoclu companion, whose ears were tender to these sorts of subtleties by now.
It almost sounded like he was making a joke of it. His tone was light, and the communication was hidden between the self-deprecation and the shaded humor. ”Could you speak up, please?”
Was he mocking the blue-tinted man? Or simply stating, however casually, that he simply could not bring himself to be at all impressed with the self-imposed stature of the man before him? Distantly, something irritated him, though he was not sure of what. He could hear just fine. The visceral memory of somewhere he had never been was not so overpowering as to usurp his thought process completely.
He let the words hang there for a moment, let them sink in – then allowed the weary half-smile to widen a millimeter, and shook his head lazily with an almost wistful sigh. He had found something of Francis Judeau’s little speech to be amusing, it seemed. ”A vigilante for fame and justice.” He repeated, mostly to himself, words breathy and low, pointed and annunciated just a little more than usual. His arm fell back to match the other, leaning on thighs, hands dangling limply between legs. He took a moment to contemplate Francis Judeau, looking at the floor. Then, as if in the process of coming to a decision or working out his own thoughts by saying them aloud, he said ”I think…I’ve had about enough ’fame and justice’ for one lifetime.”
Then he looked up from the floor, and his mismatched eyes seemed to lock with Judeau’s, even though they were hidden behind the bright, opaque glasses. It was almost as if the foxkin were looking right into the man’s soul – even though he was not. And with the same exhausted half-smile, but with a nearly inaudible augment of force added to the still soft voice, he said sadly, and dismissively,
”Get the @#$% out of my room.”
Just as the expression of agony moments prior had not affected Ketin, neither would the man’s reaction now. If he tried to protest, the Fox would only repeat the words with double the volume and harshness – though he hoped that one would be all it took.
He wanted to be free of this man. He did not like this man. He did not like anything about what had happened aboard the Perrygold. Maybe it was how the man felt the need to boast about his killing prowess. Maybe it was the resentment Ketin held against him for his angelic qualities. Maybe it was any number of things.
But Ketin wanted him gone.
He wanted to go home.
He wanted to…
To go…
That was wrong.
Utterly wrong.
Ketin did not want to go ’home’. And almost as soon as he recognized the desire, he despised himself for it. He resented the memory of “home” as much, or maybe more than he resented the presence of Francis Judeau.
What was ’home’? Images of a place he thought of as the legendary Earth came to mind, and played at his memories – they were his own, but they were not the only conflicting stories. Images of a place he clearly remembered as being called ’France’, of the early morning chill. But…
The weary little smile never left his face, even as he unconsciously wiped the subtle, gathering moisture from his eyes with the back of one old, leather sleeve. He didn’t know whether to be thankful, or resentful. But maybe he was too exhausted to feel either.
”Just…go away.” He said to the blue-tinted man, almost inaudibly – in a voice enigmatically between distant melancholy, permeating numbness and enveloping, peaceful contentment. He didn’t care about Francis Judeau, now. He didn’t care about the short ex-detective just outside the door, hobbling down the corridor. He didn’t care about the guy next door or his pretty sister. The bed looked inviting, tantalizing, and called to him in silence. He rubbed his eyes.
It didn’t matter that the boy didn’t understand a word of what she was saying. Realistically, Royanna hadn’t expected any of it to make sense to him. He was from a lowtech world – he couldn’t be expected to understand these things. That was fine. It just felt good to talk about something that wasn’t their inevitable fate. Felt good to talk to him. Abstractly, she wished he would talk more – but that couldn’t be expected, realistically. That was fine too. She didn’t dislike his quietness. She didn’t dislike anything about him, she realized. Plenty of things irritated or downright annoyed her about him – but there was nothing she really disliked – and that was odd.
Odd, but fine.
Normality? What was normality to her? Normality was sitting alone in a comfortable bed aboard a little attack and reconnaissance ship, brooding over her next move to track down the Devil Eye. Normal was eating whatever food had been produced for her without thinking about it, focusing on charts or graphs, or monitors. She didn’t usually think about food, except when she needed it. What food tasted like or where it came from didn’t usually matter – except, it mattered now. Everything that mattered now was different – and it the strangeness of that fact tended to fade in and out of her awareness in no real pattern. At times – times like this – it felt nice to have those new, more casual priorities. It was just another detail that made her feel more like a person than a machine. Perhaps it was perverse to be fond of the sensation – but in moments like these, she didn’t particularly care.
He had stiffened against her touch, at first. It had almost been enough to make her retract her hand from his shoulder in shame – but she had persisted through some great effort, and now he was relaxed again, and it all seemed good. She was glad.
There was a phrase she recalled from her cultural studies at the Academy – an ancient saying in a still-more ancient language that existed now only in some obscure Imperial textbooks. It was ’L’appel du vide’ – and she couldn’t remember what it translated to, but the idea of it remained. It was the feeling of standing on a high place and thinking about the possibility of jumping – with not even the vaguest intention of actually doing so – just to wonder what it would be like.
It was that kind of moment – the past few hours had been so peaceful, and now they had come to a decision, and the plans for the future were laid out. Even if the ultimate result was no brighter for it, at least there was less uncertainty. And now, in the immediate present, things seemed okay. They were going to go get some good food. He let her play idly with his hair, and she let herself do it. That, in particular, combined with everything else, gave her the deep, indefinable sensation that she recalled as being happiness – and it made her think of that ancient phrase. ’I could hug him. I could just lean over and cling to him and thank him for sitting next to me and not hating me. Of course I’d never actually do it, but…I could.’ Such a preposterous action was no less insane than jumping off a building – but the thought had occurred to her, and that was ’L’appel du vide’.
”Don’t worry about it, kid.” She said amiably, almost dismissively – but earnestly nonetheless. ”Map-reading is complicated stuff. I promise I won’t quiz you on it or anything.” The ghost of a smile passed over her lips as she stared up at the monitor. It was an expression, however faint, however vague, that seemed to be coming across her face more and more lately, whether or not anyone actually noticed. Certainly progressive for a woman who most people thought was incapable of anything besides a condescending sneer. Passively, she ran the fingers of one hand through her own short hair, though not taking the other from Christofer’s shoulder. She gave a little puff.
”The others?” She repeated, half-questioning. ”You mean the people from Ardella? I don’t suppose it really matters what they have to say. If they haven’t shot us down yet they’ve either lost us or are waiting to give chase. There can be a lot of bureaucracy with that sort of thing, even with Special Agents…” But the words drifted off as it occurred to Royanna that it might not be they who Christofer was referring to when he said ‘others’.
”Guess I forgot to mention…the robot’s gone.” She said, ”It left a note. I guess…maybe I should be questioning how it disappeared on us.” The faint smile grew a degree rueful, then returned to the original inflection. ”But…I guess it doesn’t really matter. And…Pla…Py…That woman in the gas mask, whatever her name was, she stayed behind. Not sure if you were cognizant for that part.” It sounded harsher than she’d intended, but that detail must have gone over her head. She still wasn’t so socially advanced to catch every instance of her own unnecessary harshness. But, as if unconsciously correcting for it, she added ”It was pretty chaotic back there.” As if that might prove some consolation, or even understanding on her part.
”So, it’s just us, now.” It might have sounded melancholy when phrased that way, but somehow it didn’t. She was glad it was just them.
With her free hand, Roy went about tapping buttons on the arm of the pilots’ chair, hardly looking at the pad her fingers danced about upon as she did so. The screen shifted to a number of different windows, lots of technical information, navigational panels, lines and vectors – the sort of complicated things that she didn’t bother even trying to explain to her hapless friend. One finger worked dials located on the side of the arm of the chair – the deftness and speed at which her hand moved was not unlike a seasoned musician. With one final tap, all the windows shifted again, and the starfield out the front window began to shift gradually to one side. There was no sensation of movement at all, and the stars might have been nothing more than an image on a wide, curving wall-screen. A timer appeared on the main monitor, along with a host of other navigational information that must have told Royanna all she needed to know about the current state of the ship.
”We should be there in…two hours.” She said conclusively, then added more softly ”It’ll be nice to do something…normal, for a change.” as if she had read Christofer’s mind.
It was comforting to find herself capable of thinking of something like this as ’normal’.
Of course, there was still a host of unanswered questions that begged for her attention, hanging over both their heads. She might have even had the answers to some of them. But…there was time – right? They could be addressed later. Later…
The Koolest Boat U Know
Dallen Armston’s dark face was growing redder and redder. The expression of raw fury, of utter disbelief at the words she was hearing squawked back at her through the speaker – it was enough to keep T’yzfir backing away in sheer awe. But he had to do something, he knew. He had to be the bigger person, and speak calmly to his comrade. She would probably listen – he knew her well enough to be relatively sure of that. She certainly wouldn’t do anything rash to him – of that, he was completely certain. But the fact remained that he despised the Cat as much as she did.
Or, almost as much.
He hated Laurent with venom for how recklessly he had put his whole crew in danger – and over what? Laziness? Some displaced sense of righteousness? Something far more stupid, probably – but who could hope to understand what went on in the mind of a creature like him?
So Ty said nothing. He knew what was coming. He knew Dallen would stand and whirl, and storm out of the bridge and rampage through the boat until she found Montagne and proceeded to violently strangle him to within inches of one of his lives. Or, something to that effect. Maybe she would club him over the head with her rifle? Though she seemed too furious to bother hunting that down first – so probably it would involve the bowie knife strapped to her right thigh. And Ty was helpless to stop her. Not physically – but morally.
But when the Cat had finally finished his rebuttal, Dallen didn’t leap to her feet and storm out of the bridge. She just sat there. Initially, Ty thought she was seething in rage, gritting her teeth, biting her knuckles and trying valiantly to contain her fury – but it was not so. And that was far more concerning to him than the reaction he had expected.
Making his way over to her, Ty leaned to one side, looking cautiously at her, scoping out the situation. Almost all of the anger had drained from her face. She was staring hard at the monitor, lips a hard frown and eyes intense, and focused. There was a sense of dread about her. Ty blinked. He looked to the screen, but the diagnostics screen was all but unintelligible to him. He looked back to Dal, blinked again.
”Something’s wrong.” She said lowly, almost inaudibly. Ty’s heart sank.
-
The hallway that separated the two pairs of crash-loungers was fairly narrow, and Sands could hear every word in perfect clarity. In double, actually – since Laurent’s words came first from across the hall, then repeated, slightly out of sync, from the overhead intercom. The big man glowered, and rubbed at the bridge of his nose with two fingers, said nothing, then unbuckled the straps that had held him into the lounger and stood stiffly. A crack of the neck, rolling of wide shoulders, then he gave Jackson a perfunctory nod, and went out the open door, back in the direction of the engine room. It was obvious even before Laurent had finished his tirade that he did not intend to go to the engine room and fix his screw-up, so Sands resolved to do it instead. Of the crew, he was the most familiar with engineering – save for Rin, of course – and improving every day. He was confident that he would be able to take care of at least the most glaring issues, and make the ship safe to inhabit again. He did not turn around to look when Laurent, then Jet, went down the opposite direction of the hallway.
-
It seemed unfair to Tsuan that this litany of rebuking anger should be so largely directed at him. He knew, of course, that it was mostly because he was the nearest one – but that hardly made it better. But despite the injustice of it, he could not bring himself to match the hot anger that emanated from both Laurent and the bridge. He felt no desire to shout back – and he couldn’t even explain exactly why…But it definitely had something to do with Rin.
Clearly Rin had wanted him not to goad Laurent – and Tsuan respected that – but there was more, and he could not place his finger on it. Even as Laurent belted out his objections and venom, he just glared thoughtfully at the opposite wall and tried to make sense of what the nagging feeling was.
Then, when the flow of harsh words stopped, he partly snapped out of the thoughtful reverie, and looked toward Laurent with an expression of contempt and something approaching amusement.
”You done?” He muttered, just loud enough for the Cat to hear, and with such a potent cocktail of patronization and deadpan as to prove practically lethal. But the easy, amiable smile on his face made it perfectly reasonable.
Once Laurent had stormed out of the room, Tsuan felt a pressure on his shoulders that he had not previously realized was there fall away. It wasn’t hard to drop the pent-up words once the would-be target was gone. It was an immense relief, and he was glad for the renewed vitality it gave him. When he next spoke to Rin, it was as if Laurent had never been there at all – though the words were sober nonetheless – pointed, and meaningful.
”What’s up.”
It was obvious to Tsuan that something was bothering Rin. He had not even made his words a question – rather a grave acknowledgement of the blatant show of concern that had come over his intergalactic friend. Concern that he was – Foolishly, Tsuan thought – trying to suppress.
Five minutes had passed since Laurent had left the room – but it felt as though hardly seconds had gone by.
And before Rin could answer Tsuan, everything went to Hell.
The ship groaned and bucked beneath them – and while it was actually only a gentle yawing along the horizontal axis, the motion was exaggerated if only because it was so very far from anything they were supposed to be feeling. He realized it with wide-eyes and a sunken gut – they had been hit. Laurent had allowed their defenses to be lowered, and now they were under attack. But there was hardly a fraction of a second to let this sink in, because even before the ship had regained equilibrium, the lights began to flash violently, and doors all over the ship – he could hear them – started erratically opening and closing, with sparks flying from the joints and seams. Distantly, he heard the groaning of something large moving sluggishly in the cargo bay.
And that wasn’t even the worst part.
Tsuan knew in the back of his head that there was something wrong about the attack. Torpedo strikes wouldn’t do that to the doors and lights. Even the yawing of the boat seemed too gentle to have been a physical strike. They were being hacked – and that could only mean that they were being boarded.
It took no time at all for this absent knowledge to be confirmed, to Tsuan’s dismay. With the bucking of the ship, he had shot out one arm to brace the wall and another to grab Rin’s arm, keeping him planted in case another strike came. Out of the corner of his eye, there was a flash – something like sparks – and with a speed so incredible as to be indistinguishable from teleportation, a figure leaped from the floor, rebounded off the ceiling and came to rest standing before them.
”Found you.”
Almost as if on cue, the chaos ceased. The lights went out, and were replaced instantaneously with the dim, red glow of emergency lighting. The doors halted in whatever partially open position they had been in at the time. Sands, thinking fast, had rushed into the engine room and disconnected the auxiliary power feed – enough to halt the cyber-attack by disabling most of the systems that their attackers might have controlled. Core systems and – more importantly, their meager defenses – would probably be untouched. Though the pair of point-defense guns mounted on the ship’s hull would be drastically ineffective against all but the meagerest vessels. It was a yacht – not a warship.
But none of that was on Tsuan’s mind right now. His entire world – his universe – consisted at that moment of himself, Rin, and the mysterious intruder before them. The ship having regained stability – for the moment, anyway – he let his arm drop from the wall, bring his palm to rest almost casually on the grip of the pistol at his belt. His right arm remained out, hand shifting from gripping Rin’s arm to resting on his shoulder. Already narrow eyes were narrower still, his expression a harsh grimace as though he had just tasted something incredibly foul. He regarded the man before them.
Well-built, dressed in black, with dark skin now unlike Tsuan’s own and wielding some kind of gilded staff. Short, black hair and, most importantly, little red markings under his eyes. Markings that, except for the color, perfectly matched those on Rin’s cheekbones.
With the power cut, the ship stabilized and the crackling of their intruder’s device subsided, a remarkable stillness came over the room. He could only have guessed what Ty, Dal and the others were doing – for all he knew, the rest of the ship was in utter chaos. Maybe other intruders had appeared and were engaged in fierce combat at that very moment – Tsuan didn’t know, and didn’t care. The doors to their particular chamber had been shut when the power went, and so shut they remained – it would take some effort to pry them open now. The three of them were as good as sealed in – except that their intruder clearly had some other means of motivation.
The quiet that enveloped the dim, red-lit room was uncanny. Only their breathing. Even the air-recycler in the corner had stopped, though doubtless it would start again in minutes, long before any effect would be felt from the absence – and it suddenly seemed to Tsuan that ‘a few minutes’ might be much longer than they would need.
But on the surface, Tsuan was calm. Displeased, but collected. He was confident that his draw would be quick enough that he could put a bullet in the intruder – but not before the intruder would have that blasted staff jammed straight through his sternum. Maybe there were other tricks up the attacker’s sleeve, too – Tsuan didn’t want to risk it. He didn’t want to draw the gun and test his reflexes – so he didn’t – but he let his palm rest on the grip nonetheless, ready to be used if it needed using. And, as always, his other hand was a stabilizing force on Rin’s shoulder – ever-present, it seemed, though not binding.
”Friend of yours, Rin?” He said after a moment, voice low and dry, with an undertone of feigned lightness marred only by the strain of the words.
The Perrygold
He was aware of her – but not directly. Absently, he realized this at last – that he had never actually been conscious of a second presence in his mind at any point. It was as if he were very tired, and just on the brink of sleep, in the tantalizing place between wakefulness and unconsciousness. A common enough phenomenon – the indirect hearing of a voice – usually a familiar one. A single sentence, half-dream, a distant statement heard not through the ear, but through the mind – and perceived as sound, gone as quickly as it came. It was not something that was unique to him – but now, he knew it for what it was. For though he was certainly exhausted, he was not on the edge of sleep. Though he was emotionally drained, he was aware – if numb – aware.
That was what the voice in his ear had been. Not someone else speaking to him via unknown channels of the mind – merely a phantom statement, half-remembered, now as if it had never been.
Her presence was only detectable through the absence of his own. She occupied the gaps in his own thoughts. She was his unconscious, yet aware. She was what he said without thinking. Her existence could only be implied, he realized – and didn’t. He had long ago learned to distinguish between his own thoughts and the thoughts copied into his mind by the Eye. It was an art that had become natural and instinctive to him – automatic and unconscious. But she was something different – she was the thoughts that would otherwise have been his own, if he hadn’t known to look for them. His own thoughts that he had not thought. Strange, and alien – yet as familiar to him as breathing. He had never tried to communicate with ’Her’ – only with himself. It was so simple – and, yet, not simple at all. It was natural – and, yet, utterly alien.
The weary half-smile persisted, even as the blue-tinted man bowed ridiculously and proceeded with a preposterous introduction, boasting about his achievements and attributes as though Ketin might have actually cared.
He didn’t. Not particularly.
He was too busy letting his mind wander into memories that were not his own – and, yet, belonged to him as much as anyone. Places that, logically, were unfamiliar – but emotionally attached. He had been there – though some distant reasoning insisted that he hadn’t. There were eyes that watched him – but that did not feel particularly unusual. Wasn’t that always the case? Maybe those were the eyes of the dead – but that would only make it truer still – though it did not bother him exceptionally. He was too tired to twist the sensation into riddling guilt. Thank Space for small favors.
"My hearing isn't what it used to be," Ketin complained aloud, after the self-proclaimed champion had finished his pretentious introduction. Unconsciously, he reached up to gently scratch at one ear – it felt delightful, as always.
That tone wasn't too unfamiliar — he'd been using it more and more lately — but it was far from characteristic; certainly from the perspective of his Eoclu companion, whose ears were tender to these sorts of subtleties by now.
It almost sounded like he was making a joke of it. His tone was light, and the communication was hidden between the self-deprecation and the shaded humor. ”Could you speak up, please?”
Was he mocking the blue-tinted man? Or simply stating, however casually, that he simply could not bring himself to be at all impressed with the self-imposed stature of the man before him? Distantly, something irritated him, though he was not sure of what. He could hear just fine. The visceral memory of somewhere he had never been was not so overpowering as to usurp his thought process completely.
He let the words hang there for a moment, let them sink in – then allowed the weary half-smile to widen a millimeter, and shook his head lazily with an almost wistful sigh. He had found something of Francis Judeau’s little speech to be amusing, it seemed. ”A vigilante for fame and justice.” He repeated, mostly to himself, words breathy and low, pointed and annunciated just a little more than usual. His arm fell back to match the other, leaning on thighs, hands dangling limply between legs. He took a moment to contemplate Francis Judeau, looking at the floor. Then, as if in the process of coming to a decision or working out his own thoughts by saying them aloud, he said ”I think…I’ve had about enough ’fame and justice’ for one lifetime.”
Then he looked up from the floor, and his mismatched eyes seemed to lock with Judeau’s, even though they were hidden behind the bright, opaque glasses. It was almost as if the foxkin were looking right into the man’s soul – even though he was not. And with the same exhausted half-smile, but with a nearly inaudible augment of force added to the still soft voice, he said sadly, and dismissively,
”Get the @#$% out of my room.”
Just as the expression of agony moments prior had not affected Ketin, neither would the man’s reaction now. If he tried to protest, the Fox would only repeat the words with double the volume and harshness – though he hoped that one would be all it took.
He wanted to be free of this man. He did not like this man. He did not like anything about what had happened aboard the Perrygold. Maybe it was how the man felt the need to boast about his killing prowess. Maybe it was the resentment Ketin held against him for his angelic qualities. Maybe it was any number of things.
But Ketin wanted him gone.
He wanted to go home.
He wanted to…
To go…
That was wrong.
Utterly wrong.
Ketin did not want to go ’home’. And almost as soon as he recognized the desire, he despised himself for it. He resented the memory of “home” as much, or maybe more than he resented the presence of Francis Judeau.
What was ’home’? Images of a place he thought of as the legendary Earth came to mind, and played at his memories – they were his own, but they were not the only conflicting stories. Images of a place he clearly remembered as being called ’France’, of the early morning chill. But…
Home?
He was not, it seemed, aboard a passenger-starliner now. He was too smallToo smalland his eyes were blue and the ochre grass seemed to stretch on forever, and he knew that if he wandered into it, he might be lost forever, and maybe that would be okay. And the sky was overcast with wisps of ruddy red, as somewhere out of sight the sun began to set over a nameless little world in a nameless little system in an insignificant and utterly irrelevant arm of the Galaxy. He was too small. Too short. His ears were too big and he had been lucky not to trip over that stupid tail today. The tiny scab on his knuckle from the last time itched. He had punched a wall. Nobody had even laughed at him – that was the worst part. They were almost sympathetic, damn them.
And far beyond the sea of tall, ochre grass, there were low buildings. Then name of the town was lost to him, but he remembered the trucks that sometimes went screaming down the highway not far from his home to mysterious errands there. Uninteresting industrial buildings, some shops, even some houses. Plain and utilitarian. He rarely went there. It was a treat, even though some part of him knew that was silly. He liked to be alone. Didn’t like big cities or large crowds. They made him anxious. He felt like he might get swallowed up in them. Somehow it might be okay to wander into the grass and disappear forever, but to do the same in that city – that town, which he knew abstractly was barely a speck of urban development far from real civilization – so far away, yet close enough to see over the hills…
It wasn’t home. Home was behind him. Home was the world, and the city in the distance and the ochre fields and ruddy sky, but home was the little building that sat atop that hill. The plain little structure with the school bus parked outside on the dirt and gravel driveway, with the makeshift playground out back where the littler kids could run around, and the tossball field past that where the kids his age played sports that his own too-short legs made him worthless in. Home was the heavy wooden door that creaked at just the same point each time it was opened and always seemed to close a little too hard. The rows of beds and the fire that crackled in the corner of the musty, open room. Home was the other kids – always as nice to him as kids could be expected to be – and the nice old folks that ran the place – always as nice to him as dead-tired elders could be expected to be.
Home was curling up on the floor while everyone else was busy, and gripping at his messy hair and trembling and not being sure why – the buzzing feeling that overcame him sometimes, that made him want to squirm and press himself into the wall and dig his fingernails into his skin to make it stop. Anxiety, someone had called it once – but it wasn’t as if he had anything to be anxious over. It just happened.
Home was bland, but adequate meals around a great table, with kids he barely knew, even while taking comfort in their presence. Some were his friends – most were his friends. Everything was fine, even when it wasn’t. Everything could always be worse. He never really liked the salted meat they served on Fridays, but he ate it anyway. He couldn’t complain.
Home was the place where kids went when nobody wanted them. The place where sometimes people came to take his friends away, and he hugged them and wished them good luck, and they smiled, and he smiled back, and then they went away forever. Home was blurry visions of the bathroom wall, smears of blood on the yellowed tiles and his hands, tufts of orange fur on the floor, someone making a fuss, rough-hewn cuts at the bases of those stupid, too-big ears, that stupid, too-big tail. Home was long nights with that older girl sitting on the edge of his cot and humming soft tunes. Home was bright days gathered around the table outside to help the Elders make lunch. Home was helping that old guy figure out what was making that funny noise in the bus’s engine. Home was warped wooden floors and smooth, cool walls, and yellowish lights that attracted little green bugs that glowed when you turned it off, and the fuzzy-screened television in the living room that everyone always bickered over, and news he didn’t hope to understand, and wondering at what the adults were talking about in the other room and vast, ochre-grass hills that he might have disappeared in forever if he wandered out into them…
Home was a little white room, with white walls, and white bars, and a white hallway that seemed to stretch in either direction for a million miles. Home was the warm, kind face of Father, his loving, grey eyes looking through the bars and that smile on his lips. Home was white lab-coats and metal tables, and a little white microwave oven with a stylized ’K’ on the door. Home was soft, white clothing and the lines of Father’s face, the sharp curves of his brows and the feeling of belonging. Home was Miro DeLuuna in the room where he learned to read minds, and Izer Korley in the computer room, and Saraiya Kaitel in the research center, and Persepolis Kallenger in the medical department who always gave him medicine when his head hurt too much, and Duros Aller smiling warmly and saying earnestly ”Good job, Son. I’m so proud of you.” every night amidst strange dreams.
Home was the cramped black transport that carried him and his little family to battle across the rocky white surface of the world. Home was black uniforms and automatic rifles. Home was Casey DeMilo and Ben Helm and Harry Malbec and Saiyo Takala and the others under his command, and the hardness of the helmet and the persistent glow of coming victory, and the sensation of trusting others with your life and the look on Father’s face when you came home victorious.
Home was…
He was not, it seemed, aboard a passenger-starliner now. He was too smallToo smalland his eyes were blue and the ochre grass seemed to stretch on forever, and he knew that if he wandered into it, he might be lost forever, and maybe that would be okay. And the sky was overcast with wisps of ruddy red, as somewhere out of sight the sun began to set over a nameless little world in a nameless little system in an insignificant and utterly irrelevant arm of the Galaxy. He was too small. Too short. His ears were too big and he had been lucky not to trip over that stupid tail today. The tiny scab on his knuckle from the last time itched. He had punched a wall. Nobody had even laughed at him – that was the worst part. They were almost sympathetic, damn them.
And far beyond the sea of tall, ochre grass, there were low buildings. Then name of the town was lost to him, but he remembered the trucks that sometimes went screaming down the highway not far from his home to mysterious errands there. Uninteresting industrial buildings, some shops, even some houses. Plain and utilitarian. He rarely went there. It was a treat, even though some part of him knew that was silly. He liked to be alone. Didn’t like big cities or large crowds. They made him anxious. He felt like he might get swallowed up in them. Somehow it might be okay to wander into the grass and disappear forever, but to do the same in that city – that town, which he knew abstractly was barely a speck of urban development far from real civilization – so far away, yet close enough to see over the hills…
It wasn’t home. Home was behind him. Home was the world, and the city in the distance and the ochre fields and ruddy sky, but home was the little building that sat atop that hill. The plain little structure with the school bus parked outside on the dirt and gravel driveway, with the makeshift playground out back where the littler kids could run around, and the tossball field past that where the kids his age played sports that his own too-short legs made him worthless in. Home was the heavy wooden door that creaked at just the same point each time it was opened and always seemed to close a little too hard. The rows of beds and the fire that crackled in the corner of the musty, open room. Home was the other kids – always as nice to him as kids could be expected to be – and the nice old folks that ran the place – always as nice to him as dead-tired elders could be expected to be.
Home was curling up on the floor while everyone else was busy, and gripping at his messy hair and trembling and not being sure why – the buzzing feeling that overcame him sometimes, that made him want to squirm and press himself into the wall and dig his fingernails into his skin to make it stop. Anxiety, someone had called it once – but it wasn’t as if he had anything to be anxious over. It just happened.
Home was bland, but adequate meals around a great table, with kids he barely knew, even while taking comfort in their presence. Some were his friends – most were his friends. Everything was fine, even when it wasn’t. Everything could always be worse. He never really liked the salted meat they served on Fridays, but he ate it anyway. He couldn’t complain.
Home was the place where kids went when nobody wanted them. The place where sometimes people came to take his friends away, and he hugged them and wished them good luck, and they smiled, and he smiled back, and then they went away forever. Home was blurry visions of the bathroom wall, smears of blood on the yellowed tiles and his hands, tufts of orange fur on the floor, someone making a fuss, rough-hewn cuts at the bases of those stupid, too-big ears, that stupid, too-big tail. Home was long nights with that older girl sitting on the edge of his cot and humming soft tunes. Home was bright days gathered around the table outside to help the Elders make lunch. Home was helping that old guy figure out what was making that funny noise in the bus’s engine. Home was warped wooden floors and smooth, cool walls, and yellowish lights that attracted little green bugs that glowed when you turned it off, and the fuzzy-screened television in the living room that everyone always bickered over, and news he didn’t hope to understand, and wondering at what the adults were talking about in the other room and vast, ochre-grass hills that he might have disappeared in forever if he wandered out into them…
Home was a little white room, with white walls, and white bars, and a white hallway that seemed to stretch in either direction for a million miles. Home was the warm, kind face of Father, his loving, grey eyes looking through the bars and that smile on his lips. Home was white lab-coats and metal tables, and a little white microwave oven with a stylized ’K’ on the door. Home was soft, white clothing and the lines of Father’s face, the sharp curves of his brows and the feeling of belonging. Home was Miro DeLuuna in the room where he learned to read minds, and Izer Korley in the computer room, and Saraiya Kaitel in the research center, and Persepolis Kallenger in the medical department who always gave him medicine when his head hurt too much, and Duros Aller smiling warmly and saying earnestly ”Good job, Son. I’m so proud of you.” every night amidst strange dreams.
Home was the cramped black transport that carried him and his little family to battle across the rocky white surface of the world. Home was black uniforms and automatic rifles. Home was Casey DeMilo and Ben Helm and Harry Malbec and Saiyo Takala and the others under his command, and the hardness of the helmet and the persistent glow of coming victory, and the sensation of trusting others with your life and the look on Father’s face when you came home victorious.
Home was…
Home was…
Home was a tall, elven woman with dark skin and lavender eyes, and long, white hair, wearing a pilfered bomber jacket and telling him ”Everything is going to be okay, Da’len. I promise.”
Home was a tall, elven woman with dark skin and lavender eyes, and long, white hair, wearing a pilfered bomber jacket and telling him ”Everything is going to be okay, Da’len. I promise.”
The weary little smile never left his face, even as he unconsciously wiped the subtle, gathering moisture from his eyes with the back of one old, leather sleeve. He didn’t know whether to be thankful, or resentful. But maybe he was too exhausted to feel either.
”Just…go away.” He said to the blue-tinted man, almost inaudibly – in a voice enigmatically between distant melancholy, permeating numbness and enveloping, peaceful contentment. He didn’t care about Francis Judeau, now. He didn’t care about the short ex-detective just outside the door, hobbling down the corridor. He didn’t care about the guy next door or his pretty sister. The bed looked inviting, tantalizing, and called to him in silence. He rubbed his eyes.
Gwen sat on the table next to the dead Dendril and listen to what Raigen had to say. She smirked underneath her scarf and says "Stupid? Hah! You try to operate efficiently when part of your mind operates independent while the other part operates like a hive mind, my dear" She then gets off the table and leans on it to reach over towards the dead being and lifts its arm, her robe pressing agasint her body and giving Ringo a good show of her outline of her body towards him. "To make up for there lack of science, is there rapid evolutionary characteristics" as she points to the jagged spike on the forearm like batman's gauntlets and continues "These are never on a standard Dendril scout, this scout though evolved to have this so it can survive the mountainous climate, able to grip agasint the mountain faces when it needs to, its the same case on its feet" she says as she points to the feet which look like a little bit like clamps with a jagged surface.
"Of course, we would most likely be facing the more standard Dendral fighter and Beresker, Dendril firghters are usually equipped with a rifle with a small saw-like blade underneath the barrel that will rip apart anything it jabs into. As for the Beresker, its completely crazy, with one of its arms being a pump action shotgun and holding a saw-like blade, tends to like to get in close" she explains to to Riagen and then looking over and see's Ringo awake. "Welcome back to the living Ringo" she greets him as she walks towards the end of the table to look at Raigen and Ringo. "Seeing that you most likely will be onboard with this mission, let me explain the plan once we land. Its a simple plan, Raigen, you come down with me and look after my back as you follow my instructions to the letter, if done right we won't even have to pull the trigger. As for Ringo and Gwen, they stay on board and make sure the goods come rolling in without a hitch. I understand you question will be once we hit the vault, how the hell do we get the loot out without being turning into Swiss cheese, thats where these come's in" she explains as she pulls out a stack of some strange triangle like devices and continues "We put these on the bigger loot and have them teleport into the ships cargo bay, Ringo and Gwen will make sure they are coming whole and organize them so they aren't crushing each other"
Her eyes shift towards Raigen and says "Since we are also getting those black cases full of credits, luckily they can be magnetized and we can easily stick them on your body, eliminating the issue of filling our pockets or waste teleportation nodes on them...observe" as she pulls out a flat black device and throws it at Raigen, either if he catches it or not, it would stick to him, the only thing is that it wasn't magnetized before, meaning that the hooded woman did something to it that no one was able to see as she magnetized to the correct polarization to stick and peel off of Raigen's hand or body.
"I'm assume both you strapping men, have questions, I am willing to answer them" she says as Gwen says over the PA "Taking off" and the ship jutters a bit as it takes off from the ground, they would feel nothing as the ship, left the pad and towards space, showing how advance the ship really is even though looking like a crap on the outside.
"Of course, we would most likely be facing the more standard Dendral fighter and Beresker, Dendril firghters are usually equipped with a rifle with a small saw-like blade underneath the barrel that will rip apart anything it jabs into. As for the Beresker, its completely crazy, with one of its arms being a pump action shotgun and holding a saw-like blade, tends to like to get in close" she explains to to Riagen and then looking over and see's Ringo awake. "Welcome back to the living Ringo" she greets him as she walks towards the end of the table to look at Raigen and Ringo. "Seeing that you most likely will be onboard with this mission, let me explain the plan once we land. Its a simple plan, Raigen, you come down with me and look after my back as you follow my instructions to the letter, if done right we won't even have to pull the trigger. As for Ringo and Gwen, they stay on board and make sure the goods come rolling in without a hitch. I understand you question will be once we hit the vault, how the hell do we get the loot out without being turning into Swiss cheese, thats where these come's in" she explains as she pulls out a stack of some strange triangle like devices and continues "We put these on the bigger loot and have them teleport into the ships cargo bay, Ringo and Gwen will make sure they are coming whole and organize them so they aren't crushing each other"
Her eyes shift towards Raigen and says "Since we are also getting those black cases full of credits, luckily they can be magnetized and we can easily stick them on your body, eliminating the issue of filling our pockets or waste teleportation nodes on them...observe" as she pulls out a flat black device and throws it at Raigen, either if he catches it or not, it would stick to him, the only thing is that it wasn't magnetized before, meaning that the hooded woman did something to it that no one was able to see as she magnetized to the correct polarization to stick and peel off of Raigen's hand or body.
"I'm assume both you strapping men, have questions, I am willing to answer them" she says as Gwen says over the PA "Taking off" and the ship jutters a bit as it takes off from the ground, they would feel nothing as the ship, left the pad and towards space, showing how advance the ship really is even though looking like a crap on the outside.
As it is implied, The Galaxy Wide was a immeasurably vast place, and, with its existence questioned by the Men of Earth, life of all shapes populate its entirety. Huge colonies composed by amalgamations of bacterial-like organisms. Vicious mega-behemoths, rulers of the ecosystems from Earth VI to the Kampferian territories, until the Olympian Worlds. Strange non-carbon sentient civilizations, barely able to be even classified as life. And the list would go on and on. Only able to fit in a copy of the Ultimate Guide to The Galaxy Wide.
There was one 'class’ of life, however, that intrigued Homo Sapiens the most: their lookalikes. Humans themselves reacted with fear. What if their creationist religions were wrong all of those countless millennia? What if they wanted to take place of the 'real’ mankind through mass genocide?
Or did they just wanted to travel the stars alongside their distant siblings? Perhaps, those 'pseudo’ humans had numerous secrets to uncover for mankind. Many scientists were highly optimistic about that. But it could be otherwise. Parasitic predators roamed the darkest corners of The Galaxy. Barbaric races laid waste to whatever worlds they saw. But there was no race like Homo Sapiens. They could be either prophets of a new eta for the inhabitants of The Galaxy, revealing unimaginable technologies that approached high fantasy. However, at the same time, they were a parasitic, barbaric and warmongering species, leaving no survivors in their bloody wars. She saw the evils of a wicked human male. A so-called Man.
The Cutlass didn't only slice a body in half. This accursed being was summoned out aloud before the mono molecular blade struck. This Kingsbane. It was enough to tear Her soul apart. Once a curious, enigmatic being, with many foreign words to spare, it was now a creature hiding inside a thick shell of fear and regrets. But there was a optimistic person aboard the Kingsbane, after all. Or, rather, a realist. And he will mend her spirit back together.
But how he was going to do it?
Perhaps, the ever-wondrous sight of the starts would shine joy back into the youth. No, fallible, after all, Her kind very possibly knew that the universe was full of stars mankind didn't even knew about. He could try to detect and make contact with Captain Petrovalyc Doctor Harkahn again, they will definitely shed light about this youth and be greater companions. Or not, nobody knews what were the motives behind a madman that commanded a city-wide ship.
— Eureka... ! - The Old Man quietly exclaimed to himself. However, secretly hoping She would mimic this particular word.
Severin let a giggle escape in response to the idiocy of an idea. First off, he waved his wrinkled hand to the Girl, like he did when they first met. If She followed him, great. Else, her attention was all that Severin needed.
Then She would see how idiotic that man was. He picked the Hat and placed it in the worst place She could think of: Atop his balding head. That's it. He was done for. At any moment, that blade-wielding monster would come in and put an end to the old man. Consequently, slaying her again.
...
Nothing happened.
No screaming, diabolical men. No Cutlass. Nothing. But the room were left quiet. Severin's assistants stared in either amusement or disgust. — Boss. — A passer-by, wielding the same rectangular object She was presented to, muttered to the old man. — Why are you wearing that? It’s ridiculous enough on Wannabe. A hell lot uglier on you. — Benedict Severin diverged his dark gaze to the youth, observing Her every reaction. — Good. This is the point.
It wouldn't stop there. Still bearing the hat, Severin would crouch near Her hiding place again, and, in idiotic manner, mock. — Koongsbewne! — Trying mimic Wan Nabes was too much for his weary throat, and then saw himself amidst a coughing fit.
The renewed Astrophysicist was not yet done. With the assistant curiously watching, Benedict took the rectangular object unto his left hand, and, with the other, he scraped the object with the cylindrical contraption’s pointed tip. Black lines started to form wherever the tip touched and, eventually, something started to take shape. Much for Her surprise, Severin produced a pair of legs and arms, but with nothing to connect them. He would have a brief pause before tilting his head to the youth, curious about Her curiosity. Regardless, he shifted his look to the picture, and hastily, he started to stroke in the middle. — P-Pfft... ! — Finally, Severin held the picture in front of Her...
If the Mysterious Girl thought her existence ridiculed the universe itself, She witnessed a new low on the ridicule scale. Her eyes were not spared of which was either utterly horrific. A creation from the mind of a twisted, mad genius, or completely hilarious. Product of a being that could find humor on the worst scenarios.
There was one 'class’ of life, however, that intrigued Homo Sapiens the most: their lookalikes. Humans themselves reacted with fear. What if their creationist religions were wrong all of those countless millennia? What if they wanted to take place of the 'real’ mankind through mass genocide?
Or did they just wanted to travel the stars alongside their distant siblings? Perhaps, those 'pseudo’ humans had numerous secrets to uncover for mankind. Many scientists were highly optimistic about that. But it could be otherwise. Parasitic predators roamed the darkest corners of The Galaxy. Barbaric races laid waste to whatever worlds they saw. But there was no race like Homo Sapiens. They could be either prophets of a new eta for the inhabitants of The Galaxy, revealing unimaginable technologies that approached high fantasy. However, at the same time, they were a parasitic, barbaric and warmongering species, leaving no survivors in their bloody wars. She saw the evils of a wicked human male. A so-called Man.
The Cutlass didn't only slice a body in half. This accursed being was summoned out aloud before the mono molecular blade struck. This Kingsbane. It was enough to tear Her soul apart. Once a curious, enigmatic being, with many foreign words to spare, it was now a creature hiding inside a thick shell of fear and regrets. But there was a optimistic person aboard the Kingsbane, after all. Or, rather, a realist. And he will mend her spirit back together.
But how he was going to do it?
Perhaps, the ever-wondrous sight of the starts would shine joy back into the youth. No, fallible, after all, Her kind very possibly knew that the universe was full of stars mankind didn't even knew about. He could try to detect and make contact with Captain Petrovalyc Doctor Harkahn again, they will definitely shed light about this youth and be greater companions. Or not, nobody knews what were the motives behind a madman that commanded a city-wide ship.
— Eureka... ! - The Old Man quietly exclaimed to himself. However, secretly hoping She would mimic this particular word.
Severin let a giggle escape in response to the idiocy of an idea. First off, he waved his wrinkled hand to the Girl, like he did when they first met. If She followed him, great. Else, her attention was all that Severin needed.
Then She would see how idiotic that man was. He picked the Hat and placed it in the worst place She could think of: Atop his balding head. That's it. He was done for. At any moment, that blade-wielding monster would come in and put an end to the old man. Consequently, slaying her again.
...
Nothing happened.
No screaming, diabolical men. No Cutlass. Nothing. But the room were left quiet. Severin's assistants stared in either amusement or disgust. — Boss. — A passer-by, wielding the same rectangular object She was presented to, muttered to the old man. — Why are you wearing that? It’s ridiculous enough on Wannabe. A hell lot uglier on you. — Benedict Severin diverged his dark gaze to the youth, observing Her every reaction. — Good. This is the point.
It wouldn't stop there. Still bearing the hat, Severin would crouch near Her hiding place again, and, in idiotic manner, mock. — Koongsbewne! — Trying mimic Wan Nabes was too much for his weary throat, and then saw himself amidst a coughing fit.
The renewed Astrophysicist was not yet done. With the assistant curiously watching, Benedict took the rectangular object unto his left hand, and, with the other, he scraped the object with the cylindrical contraption’s pointed tip. Black lines started to form wherever the tip touched and, eventually, something started to take shape. Much for Her surprise, Severin produced a pair of legs and arms, but with nothing to connect them. He would have a brief pause before tilting his head to the youth, curious about Her curiosity. Regardless, he shifted his look to the picture, and hastily, he started to stroke in the middle. — P-Pfft... ! — Finally, Severin held the picture in front of Her...
If the Mysterious Girl thought her existence ridiculed the universe itself, She witnessed a new low on the ridicule scale. Her eyes were not spared of which was either utterly horrific. A creation from the mind of a twisted, mad genius, or completely hilarious. Product of a being that could find humor on the worst scenarios.
BONERDICTES SEBERIN
She was aware of the irony in it.
Over the past few hours - not counting the trillions of eternities spend in unbeing with the terrible snake - she had experienced by far the strangest things in her entire life. Nothing had been more bizarre than seeing other people on her dead, desert world Nothing more unthinkable than appearing inside this wondrous new place, the name of which was forbidden to her lips. Nothing more utterly strange than meeting all these different people - people who, with each new artifact they produced, she became steadily more certain as to who they were.
And even after all of that complete and incomprehensible strangeness - it was only now that things were starting to get a little weird.
It hadn’t started out that way. He had named the two artifacts. She had repeated them back, though silently. This seemed to please him - or, at very least, it didn’t displease him. It was a step in the right direction, if nothing else - though the idea of actually saying anything aloud was still too frightening. She wanted more than ever to learn their way of talking - to learn everything about them - but this was still a place where one wrong word would get her promptly executed, and the experience had been too nightmarishly terrifying to take the risk lightly.
And after that, the ancient man was quiet for a long moment. At first, she began to wonder if she had done something wrong - self-doubt and insecurity were running rampant now - but such concerns were dashed away the instant he came out of his thoughts. He spoke a new word - and she repeated it almost instantly, though still without actually speaking - only silently mouthing the word. She hadn’t the faintest idea what that word could possibly mean, since he had not held up any object to which the word could be attributed.
The old man let out a little giggle before she had the chance to doubt herself, however - which was good. A faint, but eager smile appeared on her lips, eyes a degree brighter for it. On the right track, it seemed. Things were looking up.
He then gestured vaguely toward her - probably, she figured, an invitation - or command - to follow - but on that she found herself hesitating. She stirred as if to crawl out from beneath the table, but hesitated, and decided to play it safe and stay huddled where she was. It did not displease the old man, and so she was satisfied with her choice.
Nevertheless, she was rapt - her full attention was focused on him, and him alone. Eyes were sharp, intuitive, and the spark of curiosity was more visible now, closer to as it had been before.
Then, things started to get a little weird. The old man stooped, then plucked the dreaded hat off the floor, and deposited it atop his own bald head. This did send a thrill of fear down the girl’s spine, and was visible as a marginal widening of the eyes, followed by a hasty glance about the room - but it was a silly reaction, she realized.
Clearly it was okay for him to ear the hat. He was one of them - where she was not. She was an outsider - so of course it would be a different case for her. Then one of the old man’s friends - r colleagues, or underlings, or whatever - came along, and seemed to make some kind of comment regarding the hat. He seemed to disapprove, but not gravely. She got the feeling that the other found the old man’s wearing of the hat to be rather silly.
But still, all it really proved to her was that it was okay for him to don the hat - even though she was vaguely aware that he might be trying to make some different, subtler point besides. While no less enthralled, paying no less attention, a vague look of hesitant confusion began to come over her as well. A slight quirking of one pale eyebrow.
Then the ancient being stepped back over to her, and did something that was simultaneously more obvious, and more baffling - he said the ‘forbidden word’ in a way which was, to her ears, clearly intended as mocking, even derisive.
Then, she understood, and the light of sudden comprehension flashed in her unnatural, white-ringed eyes. He was mocking the other man! He was explaining to her that the evil man was - what, a fool?
It did not surprise her greatly. The dynamic between the two men which had just barely eluded her earlier was now clear as day - the pieces she had collected were finally nudged into place and she was confident that she understood - at least, to some extent - what the deal was between them.
The evil man in the dirty white coat appeared to be the leader of the Place with the Forbidden Name - but he was merely a figurehead. The real leader of these people was the old man. It was why the man in white had not struck the old man down. It was why the old man had been able to banish the man in white from the room. Maybe the evil man even went under the false assumption that he was in charge, when he was in reality little more than a puppet!
She was all too familiar with that method of leadership, of course - and so she was not particularly surprised at the realization. If anything, it was almost comforting, somehow, to know that some things in this new place still worked in ways she was familiar with.
Insmouth had been like that. He had controlled the Red Birds, and she was fairly certain that the Red Birds never even knew what was happening. Insmouth had been the real power behind the governing body of her people - and the stupid, pretentious Red Birds were little more than figureheads and cold-bodies she was obligated to protect and serve.
Though, none of that was conscious memory - it had all been too long ago to feel like anything more than half-forgotten dreams, now.
But it did not have the effect of making her less afraid of the man in white. After all, he was still more than capable of sentencing her to a fate far worse than anything she could imagine. Even if he was supposed to answer to the old man - what would that matter, if he decided to kill her again anyway?
And despite that, it encouraging to have been led to the conclusion - and the smile grew slightly brighter still for it. Still faint, but unmistakably present now - though it didn't stop the momentary wash of concern for his coughing fit. She wasn't exactly sure what that was - but it didn't sound good.
And now he was on to something else. He again produced the rectangular thing - what had he called it - nootbook? Notebook, that was it- and the ‘pen’. Then he began touching the tip of the ‘pen’ to the ‘notebook queerly, marking it wherever they touched in black color. If the girl had been interested before, she was positively fascinated now. It was such a fantastically convoluted way to mark something! It barely made sense to her - that he should need these two special items in order to do something which could be done with no more than a finger and a blank expanse of space.
But it only further confirmed her theories on just who these people actually were. She had known of only one group of people who had needed what they called ’tools’. Clearly this ‘notebook’ and ‘pen’ were ‘tools’ - right?
She watched in wide-eyed fascination as the old man began to draw some kind of image - arms and legs? As she watched, she shifted into a more comfortable, more relaxed and open position - uncurling herself from the defensive ball she had been folded in, to instead cross her legs and plant hands between them, leaning forward with great interest.
Then he paused - and it took her a moment to realize that he had shifted his attention momentarily from the ‘notebook’ to her. Realizing this, she looked at him n return, with an expression that seemed to say
Well what are you looking at me for! Whatever you’re doing seems much more important!
And then he proceeded to finish the illustration, and…
And the girl’s expression turned suddenly to a look of such unsuppressed confusion as to be downright comical.
She looked down at the image - some bizarre parody of - of himself? But why! It didn’t make the slightest scrap of sense. Putting aside the fact that it had seemed like he was illustrating something very important - at least if it had been a parody of the man in white, it would have been a recognizable continuation of his attempts at downplaying his importance to her, as with the other two gestures moments prior. But to draw such an image of himself? She couldn’t begin to imagine why.
Even as a small part of her began to doubt whether ths was some vital ritual of theirs that she was going to screw up terribly, on the surface the girl was now facing the clear and genuine dilemma of whether to laugh at the doodle or be take it very seriously. Seconds passed, and it became clear that she was trying to suppress a broad smile and fit of giggles, visible only as a slight twitching at the corner of her lips. But then, a slightly different emotion seemed to win over - and far from being anything too serious.
The girl looked at the old man with a curious combination of good humor and anxious concern. It was as human a gesture as any, and the implication behind the half-grin and single raised eyebrow was clear as day. It was exactly the response one might have to someone who had just done something humorous, but utterly bizarre and nonsensical, even out of character.
Are you feeling okay?
The girl was incredibly expressive. Every nuance was telling in every expression that came over her - and in many ways it had the effect of rapidly changing what her perceived age might be. Physically, she was anywhere in a wide margin of so young as fifteen to so old as twenty. The uncanny perfection about her pale skin and white-blonde hair made it all the more difficult to come to a conclusion, and her personality was somewhere between childlike and simply naive. Enigmatic to be sure - but the present look of concern did hint at some level of maturity, even despite the fact that pens seemed like magic artifacts and doors were all but incomprehensible. The insatiable curiosity was still there too, though suppressed - and it also hinted toward a mind of relative maturity, still coupled with a curiousness and wonder, a strong naivety and bright, sharp intelligence to top it all off… Though it was just as possible that she was something of an idiot, too.
Even now, a slight fidgeting of the hands and the occasional glance toward the ‘pen’ and ‘notebook’ indicated that she would have very much liked to try the items out herself, though obviously she was much too subdued and anxious to ask - and she certainly wasn’t about to go plucking the things out of his hands, as she might have done before the whole sword incident...
Over the past few hours - not counting the trillions of eternities spend in unbeing with the terrible snake - she had experienced by far the strangest things in her entire life. Nothing had been more bizarre than seeing other people on her dead, desert world Nothing more unthinkable than appearing inside this wondrous new place, the name of which was forbidden to her lips. Nothing more utterly strange than meeting all these different people - people who, with each new artifact they produced, she became steadily more certain as to who they were.
And even after all of that complete and incomprehensible strangeness - it was only now that things were starting to get a little weird.
It hadn’t started out that way. He had named the two artifacts. She had repeated them back, though silently. This seemed to please him - or, at very least, it didn’t displease him. It was a step in the right direction, if nothing else - though the idea of actually saying anything aloud was still too frightening. She wanted more than ever to learn their way of talking - to learn everything about them - but this was still a place where one wrong word would get her promptly executed, and the experience had been too nightmarishly terrifying to take the risk lightly.
And after that, the ancient man was quiet for a long moment. At first, she began to wonder if she had done something wrong - self-doubt and insecurity were running rampant now - but such concerns were dashed away the instant he came out of his thoughts. He spoke a new word - and she repeated it almost instantly, though still without actually speaking - only silently mouthing the word. She hadn’t the faintest idea what that word could possibly mean, since he had not held up any object to which the word could be attributed.
The old man let out a little giggle before she had the chance to doubt herself, however - which was good. A faint, but eager smile appeared on her lips, eyes a degree brighter for it. On the right track, it seemed. Things were looking up.
He then gestured vaguely toward her - probably, she figured, an invitation - or command - to follow - but on that she found herself hesitating. She stirred as if to crawl out from beneath the table, but hesitated, and decided to play it safe and stay huddled where she was. It did not displease the old man, and so she was satisfied with her choice.
Nevertheless, she was rapt - her full attention was focused on him, and him alone. Eyes were sharp, intuitive, and the spark of curiosity was more visible now, closer to as it had been before.
Then, things started to get a little weird. The old man stooped, then plucked the dreaded hat off the floor, and deposited it atop his own bald head. This did send a thrill of fear down the girl’s spine, and was visible as a marginal widening of the eyes, followed by a hasty glance about the room - but it was a silly reaction, she realized.
Clearly it was okay for him to ear the hat. He was one of them - where she was not. She was an outsider - so of course it would be a different case for her. Then one of the old man’s friends - r colleagues, or underlings, or whatever - came along, and seemed to make some kind of comment regarding the hat. He seemed to disapprove, but not gravely. She got the feeling that the other found the old man’s wearing of the hat to be rather silly.
But still, all it really proved to her was that it was okay for him to don the hat - even though she was vaguely aware that he might be trying to make some different, subtler point besides. While no less enthralled, paying no less attention, a vague look of hesitant confusion began to come over her as well. A slight quirking of one pale eyebrow.
Then the ancient being stepped back over to her, and did something that was simultaneously more obvious, and more baffling - he said the ‘forbidden word’ in a way which was, to her ears, clearly intended as mocking, even derisive.
Then, she understood, and the light of sudden comprehension flashed in her unnatural, white-ringed eyes. He was mocking the other man! He was explaining to her that the evil man was - what, a fool?
It did not surprise her greatly. The dynamic between the two men which had just barely eluded her earlier was now clear as day - the pieces she had collected were finally nudged into place and she was confident that she understood - at least, to some extent - what the deal was between them.
The evil man in the dirty white coat appeared to be the leader of the Place with the Forbidden Name - but he was merely a figurehead. The real leader of these people was the old man. It was why the man in white had not struck the old man down. It was why the old man had been able to banish the man in white from the room. Maybe the evil man even went under the false assumption that he was in charge, when he was in reality little more than a puppet!
She was all too familiar with that method of leadership, of course - and so she was not particularly surprised at the realization. If anything, it was almost comforting, somehow, to know that some things in this new place still worked in ways she was familiar with.
Insmouth had been like that. He had controlled the Red Birds, and she was fairly certain that the Red Birds never even knew what was happening. Insmouth had been the real power behind the governing body of her people - and the stupid, pretentious Red Birds were little more than figureheads and cold-bodies she was obligated to protect and serve.
Though, none of that was conscious memory - it had all been too long ago to feel like anything more than half-forgotten dreams, now.
But it did not have the effect of making her less afraid of the man in white. After all, he was still more than capable of sentencing her to a fate far worse than anything she could imagine. Even if he was supposed to answer to the old man - what would that matter, if he decided to kill her again anyway?
And despite that, it encouraging to have been led to the conclusion - and the smile grew slightly brighter still for it. Still faint, but unmistakably present now - though it didn't stop the momentary wash of concern for his coughing fit. She wasn't exactly sure what that was - but it didn't sound good.
And now he was on to something else. He again produced the rectangular thing - what had he called it - nootbook? Notebook, that was it- and the ‘pen’. Then he began touching the tip of the ‘pen’ to the ‘notebook queerly, marking it wherever they touched in black color. If the girl had been interested before, she was positively fascinated now. It was such a fantastically convoluted way to mark something! It barely made sense to her - that he should need these two special items in order to do something which could be done with no more than a finger and a blank expanse of space.
But it only further confirmed her theories on just who these people actually were. She had known of only one group of people who had needed what they called ’tools’. Clearly this ‘notebook’ and ‘pen’ were ‘tools’ - right?
She watched in wide-eyed fascination as the old man began to draw some kind of image - arms and legs? As she watched, she shifted into a more comfortable, more relaxed and open position - uncurling herself from the defensive ball she had been folded in, to instead cross her legs and plant hands between them, leaning forward with great interest.
Then he paused - and it took her a moment to realize that he had shifted his attention momentarily from the ‘notebook’ to her. Realizing this, she looked at him n return, with an expression that seemed to say
Well what are you looking at me for! Whatever you’re doing seems much more important!
And then he proceeded to finish the illustration, and…
And the girl’s expression turned suddenly to a look of such unsuppressed confusion as to be downright comical.
She looked down at the image - some bizarre parody of - of himself? But why! It didn’t make the slightest scrap of sense. Putting aside the fact that it had seemed like he was illustrating something very important - at least if it had been a parody of the man in white, it would have been a recognizable continuation of his attempts at downplaying his importance to her, as with the other two gestures moments prior. But to draw such an image of himself? She couldn’t begin to imagine why.
Even as a small part of her began to doubt whether ths was some vital ritual of theirs that she was going to screw up terribly, on the surface the girl was now facing the clear and genuine dilemma of whether to laugh at the doodle or be take it very seriously. Seconds passed, and it became clear that she was trying to suppress a broad smile and fit of giggles, visible only as a slight twitching at the corner of her lips. But then, a slightly different emotion seemed to win over - and far from being anything too serious.
The girl looked at the old man with a curious combination of good humor and anxious concern. It was as human a gesture as any, and the implication behind the half-grin and single raised eyebrow was clear as day. It was exactly the response one might have to someone who had just done something humorous, but utterly bizarre and nonsensical, even out of character.
Are you feeling okay?
The girl was incredibly expressive. Every nuance was telling in every expression that came over her - and in many ways it had the effect of rapidly changing what her perceived age might be. Physically, she was anywhere in a wide margin of so young as fifteen to so old as twenty. The uncanny perfection about her pale skin and white-blonde hair made it all the more difficult to come to a conclusion, and her personality was somewhere between childlike and simply naive. Enigmatic to be sure - but the present look of concern did hint at some level of maturity, even despite the fact that pens seemed like magic artifacts and doors were all but incomprehensible. The insatiable curiosity was still there too, though suppressed - and it also hinted toward a mind of relative maturity, still coupled with a curiousness and wonder, a strong naivety and bright, sharp intelligence to top it all off… Though it was just as possible that she was something of an idiot, too.
Even now, a slight fidgeting of the hands and the occasional glance toward the ‘pen’ and ‘notebook’ indicated that she would have very much liked to try the items out herself, though obviously she was much too subdued and anxious to ask - and she certainly wasn’t about to go plucking the things out of his hands, as she might have done before the whole sword incident...
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