Transitioning from oxywater to actual air was worse than the reverse, since it involved emptying the lungs almost completely before being able to draw a full breath. The fluid went into the recycler-sterilizer, as Makanee explained how the water's special properties would prevent annoying things like pneumonia. "It k-k-k-cleans your lungs out," the Phin doctor noted, her voice sounding very different in the air (and seeing her 'speak' through a hole in her head instead of her mouth didn't help).
The blood samples were taken by a robotic arm, which didn't even try to be gentle - both Tasha and Neesa had to put there arms up to the elbow into a large clamp. And Makanee asked Tasha to do the test twice, so that she would have a sample from both arms. The cell samples were much simpler: scrape a plastic stick along the inside of a cheek and drop it into a tube.
"I am having a hard time resisting the urge to shake off the water," Neesa admits to Tasha while the Phin runs her tests. "But I don't want to appear to be uncivilized or something."
"Thank you for doing this, Nessa," Tasha offers. She's reach over to pat the woman's hand, but she's in her own restraints at the moment and shares the other woman's desire not to move, though she isn't as concerned with looking uncivilized. "How are you holding up?"
"Well.. this is all very strange," Neesa admits. "I mean.. I've met Titanians and Khatta and all the rest, even Hookahs - was trying to see if they dream or not - but this is the first time I've been in a completely alien environment."
"Just do what I do and don't volunteer any more information than you need to. You heard what they said about uplifts and clients -- you know what uplifts are don't you? Remy told you? I'd really just suggest not talking -- or even whispering -- about anything from your home until we are safely back aboard the the Dainty Mauler," Tasha suggests as she leans over, dropping her voice. She's seen Neesa make a few slips so far, and while she's hesitant to give the advice even in whisper, she's finally decided it's for the best; After all, this is her msision and her responsibility, as is protecting the Primus System from notice. What she doesn't mention is how far she is willing to go to do it, not wanting to scare the other woman -- at least not yet. It does make her wonder, though, if Remy really asked her to come and if he took the time to explain the dangers fully. Could Nessa be here to prove herself, perhaps to understand where her mate comes from, like she once did? The younger of the two winders
wonders as she watches her traveling companion.
There's a burst of bubbles from under the water, and Dr. Makanee's sleek grey head surfaces. "Neither of you are possible," the Phin claims.
Neesa.. keeps quiet, as requested, but looks to Tasha.
"Do you hear that, Nessa-Nessa? We can't exist," Tasha remarks aside to the woman on the bed next to her. "It must be terribly frusterating that we do." She then winks, smiling and trying to cheer the mage up a little. She wants her to be cautious, not afraid. Not unless she has to be, the younger woman then decides.
"Tch-ch-ch-ch," Makanee clicks. "Are you captives of the Titanians?" she asks. "The Captain has returned to his ship to prepare for visiting Encante. You are safe."
"Oh no, I'm really a half-Titanian," Tasha insists, leaning forward as much as the restraints will allow. "I just look like a Karnor as a disguise. I was created as an elaborate joke to scare the Khattans." And then, she wiggles her ears and smiles all the more.
"But no," Tasha adds a moment later, leaning back a bit, "We are not captives."
"You are half-Karnor and half-Vartan," Makanee claims. While the Neo-Dolphins can have a bit more facial expression, it's hard to tell if she found humor in Tasha's joke. "Your mother was definitely Vartan. And your Karnor companion is lacking certain germline revisions instituted in the fourth generation of Karnors, thousands of years ago."
"That's because I made her myself, because I was lonely," the hybrid insists. "My mother was a mercenary leader and my father a Terran officer."
The Phin whistles up a holographic display, showing.. well, rows and rows of thick and thin lines. Sections glow and display strings of letters and numbers that make no sense to either of the visitors. "You have no mitochondria," the doctor notes, as if that were clear from the display. "Only Vartans, Titanians and Silent-Ones have that sort of cellular metabolism. Everyone else has mitochondria.. which is a matter of some mystery. Mitochondria are intracellular symbiotic organelles, and so can only be inherited from the mother. Neesa's mitochondrial DNA is.. unregistered. But she is a Karnor! But not like any living Terran Karnor."
"Then clearly, she must be a dead one. One that I have brough back from the grave using my Titanian science skills," the half-Vartan notes, turning to grin at her companion. "I did a good job, didn't I? Look how life-like she is!" Tasha's expression sobers in an instant, then she turns back and asks, "Without mitochondria, something else would need to take up the burden of powering the cell, which I assume you are aware of?"
"The genes for dealing with ATP production reside in the nucleus of Titanian, Vartan and Silent-Ones cells. They are much more efficient as a result, since the genes are protected by the nuclear membrane and its self-repair mechanisms. Current thinking suggests it takes an incredibly long period of environmental stability to allow for the sort of symbiosis that resulted in mitochondria.. half a billion years! T-t-t-t! Convergent evolution theories cannot be tested, because there are only two known homeworlds, Terra and Zion. The other Galactics keep their origin worlds hidden, if they still exist. You can only come from one possible place.."
The Phin whistles a command, and a prompt appears on the floating display: Confirm Data and Sample Purge?
"Oh?" Tasha asks, leaning forward. She grins, but Nessa can scent her anxiety. The grin is fake, but the hybrid's interest real.
When the dialogue appears, Tasha glances at that as well. It's in Standard, are they showing faith or trying to convince me that they are? She wonders.
Another whistle is given, and the data vanishes, replaced by 'Purge Complete' before the display itself goes away. "My race is less than two-hundred years old. This information is too dangerous to keep. Even Karnors must endure another 4,000 years of Client status yet, before they will be safe from forced 'adoption' by another Patron line. I had hoped you were actually one of the near-mythical Titanian Clients that have been reported by the survivors of raids. That we could have weathered. Not this. If anyone asks, you were both born on Calafia. That colony was raided a decade ago by a Confederate faction. Records on who was captured and who was killed were incomplete."
"If your assumption is true or not -- whatever that may be. Regardless, I thank you for being candid with this matter, Doctor." While not completely relieved, Tasha is mostly relieved, and she decides that will have to be good enough. "I am sorry I can't be more straightforward, but it seems to me that you understand the value and need for caution -- and what comes of a lack of the same." The red woman then tilts her head, avian style, and asks, "Do you require anything else of us?"
"You have been on a Titanian ship," Makanee notes. "Have you seen any of their Clients?"
"I will not betray my hosts," Is Tasha's reply.
"So is that 'yes but I can't tell you' or 'no but I don't want to ruin the mystery for you'?" the Phin asks. It's probably just an artifact of the dolphin vocal apparatus, but it seems like the doctor is giving Tasha raspberries half the time.
In response, Tasha just smiles widely, tail wagging and ears wiggling.
"I like your neural implants, by the way," The red woman notes a second later.
This time there's no mistaking the raspberry for accidental. "Amplifiers, not interfaces. Minimal feedback," Makanee notes. "You need to open the locker behind your beds."
"Oh, is that it? They're still interesting." Tasha slips out of her restraints, then slides off the bed and turns to walk towards the locker. After inspecting it a moment, she reaches to open it. "You have such a nice ship here, too!"
"T-top of the line," Makanee says proudly. Inside the locker are helmets for humans, Karnors.. and something that must have a nearly-human shaped head. They aren't space helmet, since they attach with straps and have large, flat cylinders on the sides.
"Some sort of pressurized cylinder?" Tasha asks, picking both cylinders up, one in each hand as she tests their weight. "Ah, oxygen tanks? Or something better than regular air? And the helmets are obvious, of course." She then glances back and asks, "Are there versions of the amplifiers for Karnors and Vartans? Have you ever encountered any Vartans?"
"Rebreathers," Makanee explains. "No oxywater on Encante or in the longboat."
"I have never personally met a Vartan," the doctor notes. "As for the amplifiers.. I do not know. They will work with Karnors and Terrans, since we all share similar brain layouts. Started out as control mechanisms for prosthetics. Muscle-mapping to devices."
"I see," Tasha notes, handing the first pair off the Nessa as she comes closer, then she starts equipping her own. "We'll be leaving shortly, then? And Doctor," the hybrid walks closer as she fastens the latches, rolling her shoulders and flapping her wings until the straps get comfortable, "I hope you'll accept my apology. I'm a sailor, so of course I'm prone to making up fanciful stories -- but that doesn't mean I don't admire your curiosity." She then nods, stopping by the water as she finishes up with securing things. "I've heard from, um, the stars that I have Vartan brain mapping, but I've also heard that I have it the other way, that is, Karnor. How would you compare my own neural cybernetics to your own system?"
"You have invasive bi-directional pseudo-nerves in passive connection configuration, requiring a quantum-induction interface," Makanee notes. "I have a little device that amplifies the electrical activity of my motor cortex, rather than sinking electrodes directly into the brain. So quite a large difference."
Tasha's grin is wide. "Thank you, Doctor. As a person from a dark pla- ... As a person from Calafia, having endured a long life of isolation, experimentation, and capture by Titanians, I really do need the help of knowledgeable persons such as yourself." Hesitantly, tasha reaches over with a finger and tries to touch the Phin on the top of the head, curious. "Is there anything else a poor person such as myself ought to know? Or should we go?"
"Oh, there was one more thing: What are the Pan?" Tasha then asks as her finger closes.
It's like rubbing tight rubber. Makanee makes a laughing sound, and says, "Pans are Neo-Chimpanzees. Uplifted apes."
"I'm not familiar with apes," Tasha notes, leaning closer, fascinated by not only the texture, but to be in contact with a species from the homeworld -- the new Karnors, in some ways, so much like Gabriel and the other Elite. She had resisted the urge to stare before, but now that they're alone, and now that she suspects the Doctor knows her origin, Tasha sees little reason to hold back. After a moment, the young woman removes her hand and smiles. "Thank you for that. It's not often that we first meet our younger siblings, on a galactic scale; So much like the Karnor Elite of yesterday."
"The Karnor Elite?" Makanee asks. "Second Generation?"
"Early, at the very least," the young woman answers. "My heroes."
"Before my time," Makanee notes, with another high-pitched laugh. There's a chime that rings through the room at nearly the same time. "Ah, they are ready for you."
"It's been a pleasure to meet you, Doctor. I hope we meet again some day." Tasha inclines her head, quite seriously, then the somber face is gone and she's grinning again. "Or maybe we already have? You'll have to call some of your friends, I'm afraid captivity in air has made me hopeless at swimming. And, a little crazy?" She then winks.
The rebreathers take some getting used to, but there's plenty of time as they two women are taken towards the forward end of the ship. There they find a mini-hangar of sorts, with various smaller vessels suspended on arms in front of their own launch tubes. There they see Captain Rushfighter floating next to another Titanian - an older woman. Both of them have their hammers and toolbelts. The ship they're next too is the biggest one in the hangar, torpedo-sleek like the Phins themselves. Panels in the sides of the longboat suggest that there are pods that can extend out from the hull. A familiar Phin is swimming around the space-wolves: Lucky Kaa.
"Ooo," goes Tasha, her vocie reverberating in the water for Nessa to hear. "Look at it! A Phin shuttlecraft! I've heard about smaller vessels capable of making short flights, but I've never actually seen one. They were used - and largely destroyed -- during the evacuation during planetfall back home, some times after Calafia."
Swimming forward, Tasha actually pauses beside the ship first rather than approach the waiting party, She reaches out to touch it, trying to get a sense of it as she does with all ships, an instinct she had supressed for a while fearing ti made her seem primitive to the Abaddonaians and to Gabriel.
"I wonder what these pods do? Is it interplanetary? It's so exciting!" Goes Tasha, making it the tenth time she's said "so exciting" since they came on board.
The feel of the ship is.. familiar. There's no exotic matter or shiny alien technology: it feels like the skin of Bellerophon, although its been darkened for stealth. "Hey hey, not stroking the boat with stroking the pilot first," Kaa whistles and zooms past Tasha, the vortex actually dragging her along for a bit.
Tasha tumbles in the water, reaching out to grab Lucky Kaa on her second rotation and trying to grab his dorsal fin!
This gets Tasha a ride around the hangar, until Rushfighter starts to get impatient. "Play in ocean!" he calls.
Tasha lets go as they near Rushfighter, the momentum carrying her until she gently bounces off his side, tumbling back until she manages to right herself. "Rusty and Fudgy reporting for junk and treasure, Sir," she notes, saluting. "Is that your sister?"
"My mom, Bumper," Rushfighter says. "Bumber, this Rustpuppy and Fudgy."
The Titanian woman looks the Karnor and hybrid over and gives her son a 'you could do better' look. "Silly Phin ready? No get us blown up?" she asks Kaa.
"No worries, ma'am!" Kaa replies. "I'm the best pilot in the universe after all!" He does a bow of sorts, and then swims into the longboat's hatch. "Come on, come in, off we go!"
"Hi mom!" Goes Tasha, who turns to grin at the woman. "I always though Titanians built new Titanians from leftover parts of old Titanians, and, maybe, junk." She then blinks at the look, planting a hand on her hip that causes her to slowly turn in the water. "I think we've been found lacking," she asides to the silent Nessa. "Oh well! Off we go!" And then she's swimming for the hatch.
"I have no problem with not being deemed suitable for dating her son," Neesa notes. It takes some time to unfold and secure humanoid seats, while Kaa straps into his own pilots harness, which also involves a dome that goes over his blowhole and is connected to the life support system. There are hoses to feed air directly to the rebreather masks as well. The pilot 'plugs in' with his neural patch, and begins to whistle up various computer displays. No attempt is made to empty the cabin of water though.
"I do," Tasha insists, "A friend of mine once said I'm practically a Titanian, so of course now I have my pseudo-Titanian ego to worry about." The young woman takes her seat as far front as possible, wanting to get a look at the controls as the space fairing vessel prepares for launch. "It's a mix of augmented motor cortex input and standard visual displays," she mutters, making it unclear if she's talking to herself or Nessa.
Kaa whistles and clicks commands at a rapid rate. It isn't clear how much is being done through vocal commands and how much via the interface cable. After finishing the checklist and startup procedures, there's a flick of a fluke and the longboat is loaded into its launching tube. "Hang on, try not to vomit," Kaa reports to the others. "We have to do some rock hopping to keep in radar shadows, the water will reduce the inertia you feel though."
"Does the ship have any other systems aside from low visibility paint and flight manuvers to mask its presence?" Tasha inquires, leaning forward. Not just a shuttlecraft, but a convert ops shuttlecraft! She narrowly resists the urge to exclaim how exciting it is again.
"It has me!" Kaa says, and laughs. "Other stuff make it easier to detect." The water pressure has been rising, so Tasha can really feel the weight of it now. "Prepare for launch!"
Neesa grips the arms of her crash seat as the shields close on the windows, and the ship begins to vibrate.
"I .. see ... " Tasha maanges through the sudden presure increase. She settles back in, deciding she might be able to manage a question or two after they launch. For now, she braces herself for the usual launch.
There's no countdown or other warning beyond the lighting changing to red. Then the ship launches, probably propelled by a mass driver in the launch tube. There's tremendous pressure, more than Tasha ever felt in Melchior outside of emergency 'super acceleration' mode. But here there aren't any high-tech volumetric force fields or inertial stasis - just incompressible fluid and muscle and bone. Tasha can almost taste the extra oxygen coming through the line as a precaution against black-outs.
It's all Tasha can do to weather through it, unused to such a high level of pressure without a stator or other precautions to buffer it. She digs her hands in to her seat and rides the wave.
There's an odd sound.. but it's just a burp as heard through the dense water. "Pardon," Rushfighter says. The acceleration ends.. for the moment. "Five minutes until evasion tactics," Kaa warns.
"I'm so glad that I threw up in the medical bay already," Neesa notes to Tasha.
Tasha pulls in air, easing herself back up and flexing her limbs one by one. "It's not the first time, but I'm definitely not used to that," she admits to Nessa before turning to Lucky Kaa. "There are listening posts on the surface and Fleet assets monitoring it? Terran and Free Encate Fleet elements, anyone else? What's the Terran opinion of plundering ruins and trading them away? And can you tell me more about thr uins and the species they belong to?"
"Terran ships, definitely.. might be some Galactics hiding around too," Kaa says, his attention mostly focused on his screens. "We are the Free Encante Fleet. I don't know much about ruins other than that they are trouble. Could be dangerous, so best to get the dangerous stuff away, yes? Less then for others to fight over. Not much known about the Feshessi. I don't know where the name came from either. Encante is way out of their known territory. Could be anything."
"Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you weren't FEF, it's more that I wondered ifthere were competing internal elements or factional issues that might be a problem," Tasha notes. Her eyes turn towards the planet, looming on the horizon as it is. "Do the Feshessi have any other names?"
"We're it. Ningyo is the entirety of the fleet," Kaa notes. "No factions or anything silly like that. For a water world, Encante looks.. not exactly blue. It's very shiny though at this angle.. which Kaa apparently doesn't like, as he plots courses. "Other names? I just call them the Fishy-fishies. Maybe they were fish?"
"Maybe they tasted good," Rushfighter offers, which earns him a poke in the side from his mother.
"Thanks," goes Tasha, who watches the world approach, ears perked and eyes wide. I'll be stepping on new planet, so far from home. It may not be much, and I know the Elite have visited many others, but ... She can hardly contain her excitement; This is one of the main reasons she became an explorer, new places, new things! "It's so exciting," she murmurs, then she nods. "So another aquatic species? Ah, I can't wait!"
"Hold on to your livers," Kaa warns, and the longboat begins a serious of acrobatic maneuvers meant to foil any targeting systems. The pilot's body seems to indicate what's about to happen, as the there's some 'leakage' into his own muscles before the ship responds.
Tasha's gaze shifts between the pilot and the view as she tries to anticipate, and thus buffer, sudden changes in the ship's movement with her own posture. Seeing how busy the Phin is -- not to mention knowing how dangerous detection may be -- the young woman decides to save her questions for after landing.
The longboat zips around from cover to cover. Like Sinai, there's a debris ring around Encante, and Kaa is using it to get around to where he wants on the dark side of the planet. Then things calm down, as the longboat matches orbit with a chunk of rock nearly the same size. From then on, it's just maneuvering thrusts. "Ha, now to nudge the clam. Prepare for descent."
"Good 'luck,'" goes Tasha, grinning. For a moment she wonders if she's this full of herself when she pilots.
There's a brief push from a thruster.. which bangs the nose of the longboat right into the rock its been shadowing, knocking it out of orbit. Kaa keeps the ship following it, using the thrusters and gyroscopes. He whistles to himself.
"Oh ... Very clever," notes the hybrid, who leans forward again. I'll have to remember this technique, she decides.
"What.. what is happening that is clever?" Neesa asks, as the longboat falls behind the meteoroid. With a belt this close, meteors must be pretty common on Encante.
"We're making planetfall in the shadow of the meteroid," Tasha explains, gesturing at the large piece of debris pushed infront the bow of the shuttlecraft. "By falling in its shadow, we appear to be just another meteoroid. The heat build up of the meteoroid will mask our thermal signature, while the meteroid itself will block or interfere with radar and other sensory methods, especially if it's of the right composition. In addition, the meteroid takes the brunt of the re-entry friction and channels the atmosphere around us."
"So.. a meteor," Neesa says. "Isn't that what killed Tesla?"
"Something like that. But you know, I could have eventually," the hybrid replies, smiling.
"So.. what happens when it hits the planet? And we're on top of it?" Neesa asks, sounding a bit concerned.
"Oh we'll pull away befoe that happens. The meteroid will probably break up after a while anyway, and it's not big enough or fast enough to cause extensive damage. I assume Pilot Kaa chose this particular object for properties other than stealth, so it's probably heading for a safe trajectory or likely to shatter in the atmosphere. If it did impact, it'd likely hit the water, so cratering would be unlikely at any serious depth," the half-Vartan elaborates.
Neesa doesn't look particularly reassured. Especially when they begin to encounter the atmosphere. The meteor begins to tumble, and Kaa's skill as a pilot is put to the real test of keeping in line with the unstable mass of rock and metal. Drifting too far would put them in the turbulent reentry wake.
"He really is an excellent pilot," Tasha informs Nessa, gesturing at the viewport. "He's keeping us in the perfect spot, between the wake and ramming our nose in to the meteorite."
The 'flames' and rattling begin soon enough, as the atmosphere thickens. Bits of the meteor are breaking off and hitting the hull, like superheated hail. The view outside is completely obscured by the reentry plasma, except for a small spot directly ahead. Kaa moves them closer to the meteor so he can better watch it.
"Big fun," Rushfighter notes, grinning in his bubble-mask.
As the flames envelope the window, Tasha jerks suddenly as a memory returns unbidden: A cockpit enveloped by flames, the scent of smoldering fur, and the pain of-
The hybrid exhales roughly as she looks away, reaching to touch the Vartan side of her helmet, then shake her helmet violent. She sucks in a breath, forcing herself to look back up a second later.
"Arming weapons," Kaa announces between command whistles and clicks. "Don't worry about the big explosion.."
"Oh, going to detonate it early?" Tasha forces herself to say, pushing a smile to her lips. "What are we armed with?"
The Titanians lean forward to get try and get a better view. Tasha is practically looking over Kaa's shoulder, so can't really avoid it. A glance at one of the displays shows the altimeter and airspeed.
Ther young woman risks a glance at the readouts, not wanting to miss the explosion -- and not wanting to risk allowing herslef to cower either. Not here. Not again.// She insists to herself.
"Cannon," Kaa says, as he watches the instrument display. They've already dropped below 10,000 feet and haven't even tried to decelerate.
"Are we going straight in to the ocean?" Tasha guesses, eying the meters again.
At 5,000 feet, the both the cannon and the engines fire. After the blast and shockwave from the exploding meteor, there's a moment of clear view. The light from the explosion illuminates some wave crests directly ahead in the darkness. "Oh yeah, where else?" Kaa finally answers. Guiding the ship with muscle, sonar and whistles, Kaa takes them straight down, with the momentary glow of a field flaring up a moment before impact. Then the deceleration starts, underwater.
Tasha cringes against the deceleration, once again gripping her seat. She may be the pilot of the Melchior, but deceleration like this is soemthing she's only experienced twice before meeting the Phin. Compared to Lucky Kaa, she realizes, she's probably less than a novice pilot. I should see if I can talk lessons out of him later, she decides as she strains, giving her something to focus on.
Things slow to the point where gravity can be felt.. although barely. They've leveled off and are racing at a good clip through the dark water, now more literally a 'boat' than a spaceship. The cabin water begins cycling.. the oxywater being replaced with actual seawater and the pressure reducing noticeably. At least it's still warm. The ship vibrates as those mystery panels must be sliding open and the aquatic drive systems extending.
Kaa makes a raspberry sound (which may be a dolphin's version of sighing). "Always come down hard after the fun is done," he tells the others. "You should get some sleep if you can, we've got a few hours yet. Won't hit the dig site until dawn."
"A boat and a ship ... " Tasha murmurs, finding such craft to be increasingly fascinating after her encountering not one, but several of the uncommon vessels. There wee probably some with the Expedition Fleet, but they would have been abandoned, used for escape pods, or left on the water world, she decides.
"Sleep, huh? Well, why not?" Not unused to taking naps where ever possible on a ship -- though not one flooded with water -- Tasha eases back and pulls her wings and her arms around herself, trying to geth comfortable. "Wake me if anything interesting happens," she asks, closing her eyes.
"I'll be half asleep myself," Kaa notes. This is not something that instills relaxation in Neesa, though, until Kaa explains, "Dolphins never fall fully asleep. We only sleep with one half of our brain at a time."
"But then do you dream?" Neesa asks, latching on to the aspect that she's familiar with.
"Oh sure!" Kaa says. "Mostly about food and sex!"
"That sounds like a joke," murmurs the not-quite-asleep half-Vartan. "My people absorb sunlight when we sleep, and dream of the gods."
"I thought only cats did that.." Kaa says, but then Rushfighter starts snoring, setting the cadence for everyone else.
Tasha has never swum in the sea. The closest would have been playing in the surf on the shore of Abu Dhabi. Her main experience with deep water was on the Lake of Languor during her first visit to Amazonia. There the water was deep and dark, even cloudy.
The sea of Encante is disturbingly clear. Even almost a hundred feet down it was like the water wasn't there. Kaa gives a basic safety lecture about going deeper or rising to the surface - always move slower than your bubbles! Of course, this is an issue with the bubble-less rebreathers, but Kaa assures there will always be a Phin watching out for the swimmers.
"We're going to be working in an area of coralite reef," the Phin notes. "Do not touch it if you can avoid it. It looks pretty but is made of metal and can be very sharp. There is a lot of metal in the biosphere here, but almost none in the water. Once we get to the dig base you'll be able to take off your helmets and eat something."
Tasha listens attentively, her ears perked in her helmet. 'Don't touch the shinies,' being rather more serious advice for her than for other species, and one she's glad for because she isn't at all sure she wouldn't have otherwise. "How long until we reach base camp? How many people are here?"
"They should be on skeleton crew right now," Kaa says. "Brookida's miners and Tkaat's intern. Once the security team gets to us, we can go.. it's not that long of a swim for a Phin."
"In the event of a situation, I'm ready to assist if you need me. I'd prefer if Nessa is protected but there's no need for the same for me, except that I am new to this environment and these technologies," the younger of the two strangers notes, her hands sprading in the water. "This isn't my first dangerous ruin."
"First one underwater?" Kaa asks, grinning slightly more than his natural expression.
Tasha smiles right back. "I'm afraid so," she admits.
"I'll keep close watch on both of you, don't worry," Kaa pledges, and then there's a pounding on the outer hatch. "Ah, must be our escorts! Or tangle-weed ghosts come to suffocate us." He goes to open the hatch either way.
"I'm not new to monsters in the dark, either," Tasha remarks as she follows after the Phin.
There are indeed three Phins outside, each wearing a tube-like thing that wraps around them and covers their blowholes, along with the usual tech harness - with long tubes mounted to them that are most likely weapons. Even though it's daylight, it's dim where the hatch opens, since the longboat is parked under the overhang of a coralite mound, which resembles a giant multi-stemmed mushroom a few hundred feet across. "What'd you bring us, Kaa?" the lead Phin asks, and Tasha feels the tingle of sonar probing her insides again.
"I saw them first, Wattaceti," Kaa warns. "Think you can give the Titanians a ride?"
Tasha'a Karnor eye squints a little under the sonic pulse, a lopsided grin crossing her face. "Oh, you don't want a sewn-together thing like me, right?" She asks as she hops outside the hatch and in to the open water, stretching her wings now that she can.
"You got big fins," Wattaceti comments. Is he flirting? Rushfighter and Bumper come out.. and Bumper immediately swims to the coralite and hits it with a hammer.
The entire structure rings like a gong. The Phins look ill from it.
Tasha looks a bit ill, too. She turns and eyes the structure, then frowns as she realizes something. "It's harmonic, and resonate with itself. Artificial?" She asks as her wings retract from their cringing.
"No, it's made from the shells of tiny communal animals," Kaa explains. "We should get going before they try to break a piece off. Which of you ladies would like a ride from the best pilot in the universe?"
"I'll take that," Tasha replies, stepping forward. She likes Kaa, she really does, but she also does it to save Nessa from the experience. "I assume we'll be first to arrive..?"
"We'll all go together," Kaa says. "Not safe to split off."
"Not so reckless after all," observes Tasha, who grabs the Phin's fin.
"What are the dangers?" The younger of the two apparently Karnor -- or Karnor-like -- women asks.
"Stray current smashing you into the coralite, tangleweed, echo-ghosts. No big predators," Kaa claims. "But we don't what else might turn up. It's a big planet."
Tasha nods against the currennt, smiling. "Well, never hurts to be cautious, doesn't it? You don't want to end up half- ... whatever they'd put you back together with, like I did."
"Ready when you are," the hybrid notes.
Gold, silver and copper seem to be the predominant colors as they speed over the glittery seafloor. Even the 'fish' flash and shine with metallic scales. It's like a reverse Abaddon: water instead of desert. Would the islands have all the monsters on them then?
"I like the colors," notes the red woman, gesturing to the fish. "Can you eat any?"
"They taste terrible, but they're edible," Kaa notes. "We have to go through metal chelation though to make sure nothing nasty stays behind in our systems. Brookida jokes that he's sure we'll find something that uses mercury for blood eventually."
"Well, better than nothing, right?" Tasha takes a moment to look around, once again being hut by a sense of disbelief at where she's ended up. No matter how far I go, or what i see, the feeling never fades as long as there's a new horizon, she considers as teh fish glitter and the waves caress her body. Being under the sea is, after all, a strange place for a bird. "Ever pilot a Titan?"
"Titans? No, I don't go to a lot of museums," Kaa laughs as they fly through the water. The Phins have an economy of motion that belies the power they exert, even pulling their guests.
Tasha frowns at the response. Come and gone already, I suppose that makes sense given how hostilities appear to have increased since Gabriel's Terra. "You fly like a bird in the sky," she notes of the Phin as he sails along. "They don't make large humanoid pilotable vehicles anymore?"
"What for? The kitties do it, I suppose. And I'm sure there are some specialty ones for heavy world work," Kaa notes. "Too big and slow for a Phin though. Closest we have are walkers, and nobody likes those."
"Show me when we get back?" Tasha asks, turning her attention now to what's head of them. "I must seem ancient to you, really backwards, don't I?"
"You guys are okay for wolves," Kaa notes. "Not all stuck up and proper and having to play the senior sibling, put on a good face and all that like the other Karnors. Poor bastards! But we Phins have been making fun of humans for millennia before Uplift. Can't breed out certain things, after all!"
"I've never been to Terra. I've never met one of the Terran Karnor, at least not one that isn't an ... Old leftover. I may have seemed condescending to your Doctor, though. It's just that this is my first encounter with the Phin, so it's special." Tasha then tilts her head, asking, "The Karnor are really that bad? From what I've gathered, they seem extremely loyal to Terra, and reserved -- painfully so if what I've been hearing is right. Of course, I'm just parts of a Karnor, so my connection to them is only so strong."
"I admit I feel an impulse to look out for you, that is, the Phin. That might be my Vartan side, however. But it seems more likely you'll be looking out for me!" the woman explains.
"It's the damned Galactics fault," the Phin says. "Snakes and cats and bats, saying 'you have to do it this way! This is the Patron-Client compact... because if you don't do it our way, then our Clients will start getting ideas.' Never mind that our species have had preexisting relationships long before there was any of this Patron-Client crap.."
"How do the other Galactics treat their clients? I heard concern over allowing the Celestials to conqueror the planet and its defense Fleet," inquires the hybrid.
"Different," Kaa says. "We Terrans are like family, after all. But the others found or made or conquered their Clients and then brought them up. There's a price for civilization though: 10,000 years of indenture to the Patron. And as soon as they get through that.. they'll all want Clients of their own. Not many candidate species out there. Vartans are the next up to come looking for pre-sapients. I've met a few, and some of the Eeee. Seem decent enough, liked my jokes and bought plenty of drinks. Vartans are big on family and clan and stuff."
"I think the Khattans are afraid of their Vartans cozying up to Terrans as soon as their contract is up." Kaa adds with a laugh.
"We are," Tasha agrees as she begins to relax, enjoying the trip through the depths. "I'm sad to hear that discovering new sentients has become about prestige, though. I'm not certain what to think about uplifting; It depends how and why it's done I think." The young woman then smiles, offering, "Well, Terra is where I'd go, but then I'm partial." She laughs at her own joke, wondering if the translation and the years will let it be understood.
"That's because Terrans are awesome!" Kaa claims.. and does a barrel-roll. "Why shouldn't the Vartans hook up with us? I know what I'd do with them."
"I know what you'd do with them too. You may be more advanced than I am, but I know your type, some things don't change no matter how far you travel." Tasha smiles, deciding she really does like Kaa. His insistence on sex can be obnoxious for her, but she's settled on it just being the price to know him, and that she thinks it's a bit endearing. "I wonder what the Khattans are hiding," Tasha mumrurs in a lower voice, despite their relative isolation. "They fear an allaince between the Vartans and the Titanians, based on historical ties, but I think there's more than that. Something I haven't figured out yet."
"Hah! That's not what I meant," the dolphin laughs. "What I'd do.. is I'd give the Vartans our gorillas to uplift. That'll tie us all together, and they'd be a good match. Gorillas are the strongest hominids there are... stronger than Titanians I bet. We've been itching to Uplift them ourselves.. but the big Galactics are really against us humans having four Clients at once. And the Celestials and Khattans can squash us, no matter what anyone says otherwise."
"So Terra is the lesser power? That hasn't changed from the record then," Tasha notes, suddenly getting the urge to pat the Phin, then doing so. "I like your plan, though. By the way, is anyone still living on Fafnir?"
"Yeah, there's a human-only colony there," Kaa says. "Keep to themselves, thankfully. Xenophobes. Hey, I hear things in spacer bars.. you've ridden with the Titanians. Have you seen any.. little Titanians? I mean, not Titanians, but small critters that are really good with machines?"
"So they're still there ... " Tasha murmurs, head tilting. Fafnir may have answers, but how in the universe would I even get there? Or survive, once I did? "Are you spaking of the legendary Titanian uplifts? Not children?"
"Though if you are, I should tell you I won't reveal anything about them or their ship," the young woman notes. "I am loyal to my hosts."
"Don't know if they'd be uplifts.. but Clients, certainly, unless they're all hallucinations," Kaa says. "Small enough to get into ventilations systems, spread through a ship like that and cripple it without every exposing themselves. Must be alive, because Titanians never automate anything so wouldn't have robots."
"You're speaking of ... gremlins?" Tasha asks, incredulous.
"Well, I don't know of anyone calling them that, but I get the reference," Kaa says and laughs. "If gremlins smell musky and steal things too."
"I've never been subject to, or observed, a Titanian attack. I can't comment on whether I've seen these being or not, though." She past the Phin again, apologetically. "You'll find I have nothing to say if you ask about my hosts or my past. I hope you'll take that as reasurance I won't betray Encante, either."
"Not unless my obligations require it, anyway," Tasha notes, revealing some of her traditional Vartan bluntness. "But I don't forsee that."
"You're a puzzle then," Kaa says, and clicks happily. "Phins love puzzles.. oh.. here we are.."
"I'm a puzzle with pieces from different puzzles, too." tasha lifts her head up, peering in to the dark.
The group arrives at the edge of a downward slope. This becomes a bowl.. which in turn becomes a crater half a mile across. There's a cluster of artificial structures at the bottom: a dome and some cylindrical structures on their sides. There's also something suspended above them. It looks like a net or a blanket, and it covers and shades the entire center of the crater.
Tasha treds water as she eyes the alien structures, her keen vision inhibited greatly by the water and shadows. In particular, she examines the architecture to see if it's anything she has seen before, or ever heard of. "How does it 'feel' to you, Nessa?" The hybrid asks as the other woman arrives.
"I feel like I've been in a bath too long," Neesa says, and shakes her head slightly to indicate that she isn't sensing any magic.
"That's the base camp," Kaa notes. "It's all inflatable buildings. The stuff overhead is just to block it from satellite view."
Tasha watches the woman, then nods. No active Sifran elements, at least. No this far out, anyway. "I see. It's hard for me to make out down here, my eyes don't adjust well to water. The majority of the alien structure is underground, then?"
"It's all underground from what I've been told," Kaa notes. "Would have stayed that way if there hadn't have been a recent meteor strike and Brookida was determined to find some vanadium. Ready to go down? I'm sure you're tired of being wet by now."
"I don't know, as a avian I rarely get to fly underwater. It's a nice change of pace." Tasha secures her grip on Lucky Kaa, leaning against him. "So you do get meteor strikes that can damage the seabed. I wasn't sure the impact could effect this depth, but what does a bird know about the ocean?"
"The one we came in on is more typical, but there still some big ones up there," Kaa says, and the group heads down. There's still sunlight, but it's dimmer. Light isn't an issue for the Phins though, who can hear their way through the water with more accuracy than they could see with their eyes. A few minutes later and they're in one of they cylinders, coming up through a opening underneath. It's another half-flooded deal, but there also elevated catwalks. The first thing the Phins do on entering is shed their uncomfortable breathing apparatuses.
Tasha does much the same, pulling herself out on to the platform and yanking her helmet off. "Ahh," she goes, wings stretches out and flapping -- regardless of what anyone thinks of it. "I'm going to be grounded for a while, at this rate! Doesn't matter though: Here we are." She stretches, resisting the urge to simply fall back on the ground and splay out. "Do we need to check in with an authority?"
"Follow me," Wattaceti says, his voice sounding very different in the enclosed space. He heads for the far end of the chamber, where there are open hatchways leading into the station hub.
"Following," notes Tasha as she walks along. "Are you okay back there, Nessa-Nessa?"
"I can't lift my tail, but that's not really an issue," Neesa notes, hurrying along while the long-legged Titanians seem to be strolling casually. After the hub and another intervening cylinder set up as a laboratory, they arrive at the dome. It's flooded to just three feet, which is enough for the Phins. An irregular, asymmetrical structure rises up from the center, with an odd bronze-like color to it. "You must be the specialists Hakukka promised me," a Phin greets. He's big.. and very old, from the look of his skin. He also has one clouded eye. "I am Brookida, chief metallurgist here. Tkaat is on his way. Xenoarchaeology is his specialty."
"Aldara Tasha, explorer and researcher. This is my associate, Nessa, whose specialization lacks a sufficent translation," Tasha greets the Phin, holding her hand out in greeting. "I assume the Titanians are here about the metal, of course."
Brookida gently takes Tasha's hand in his mouth.. which gives Tasha her first up-close look at a dolphin's conical teeth. Bumper and Rushfighter don't bother with introductions, but head straight for the artefact. It's nearly ten feet across, and sticks several feet out of the water. Rushfighter circles it with one hand on the metal and the other clutching his hammer, while Bumper actually takes out a device that looks very familiar to Tasha, since it's the same sort that Blammo used on the trip to Sheol - some sort of force field generator.
Another Phin swims in. "Did I miss introductions?" he asks. "I am Tkaat, archae- what are they doing to my artefact?" he squeaks at the sight of the Titanians.
Tasha shakes the head, grinning. Once she's done, she says, "I'll have a look too, though I'm uncertain how useful Nessa and I will be. I thank you for letting us visit this dig site, however." She inclines her head, then turns towards theobject. "If you don't mind, I'll have a look too," she notes, smiling to the irate archaeologist as she nears the object and walking over to stand near him as she examines it.
"You were waiting on the neutrino-scope results, Tkaat," Brookida prompts his colleague.
The distracted archaeologist turns away from the alien invaders and tells Brookida, "Yes.. you were correct in your assumption. It is nuclear bonded iron."
Seeing the preturbed Phin isn't up for conversation, Tasha steps forward to join the Titanians. "Any ideas?" She asks, not exactly sure what to look for and hoping they may have a direction to follow. As she gets closer, she leans forward, letting her eyes get a closer look as their magnification fixes on something so close.
The surface is very, very smooth.. enough so that Tasha can see her own reflection, but at least it's a normal reflection. "It old," Rushfighter tells her. "Bumper, got any words yet?"
"How old? Old Ones old? First Ones..?" Tasha asks in a lower voice.
"Still looking for the groove," the older Titanian notes.
Not sure what else to do, Tasha then glances to Rushfighter's mother. "Ah, so you do have some ideas. You've encountered something like this before?"
"First Ones, probably," Rushfighter confirms. "Nuclear bonding.. new races don't do that yet."
"Looking for.. resonance track," Bumper says. "Like groove in record. Just gots to get the needle in. No electrons in this nuclear lattice, so any we find there on purpose."
Brookida is floating near Bumper. "Hand-held quantum resonance scanner.. I am jealous. And I don't even have hands."
"There could be a message embedded in the material itself then?" Tkaat asks. "Amazing! No writing or other documents have been found in ruins before.. maybe nobody was looking in the right way!"
"Hm, pre-Progenitor then? Or late generation? Too soon to tell?" The red woman inquires, turning back to examime the relic. "Need me to look for something? My eyes might- oh, it's acostic then? Ah, even more complex." Not sure what else she can provide, the young woman turns back to the relic and leans in a little more. "Nothing I can help with, I imagine?"
"Be ready for anything," Rushfighter suggests.
"As ready as I can be," Tasha promises. "Would it alright if I touched it?"
Bumper continues her scan. "Hmmm, see something," she reports. "Galactic Seven looks like. Not good sign."
"In what sense?" The hybrid asks, glancing over to the Titanians again.
"First Ones use that language for tombs mostly," Rushfighter says.
"What? What is Galactic Seven? A language?" Tkaat asks.
"Yeah, real old," Rushfighter answers, and finally, gently, taps his hammer to the metal. "I feel stasis."
"So, a burial ground. Or a singular tomb. I admit, that makes it all the more interesting for my line of research," the hybrid observes, looking back to the artifact. "You're thinking they have automated defenses to prevent intrusion?"
"Defense? No.. tomb to seal something away," Rushfighter says.
"Stasis?" Tasha's eyes widen. "We may be dealing with something preserved in a time-locked area? But what's producing the field?"
"Ah, a prison," Tasha notes, giving the object dubious glance. "A cultural reason, perhaps? Like mercy? Or something they couldn't destroy?"
"Dunno yet," Rushfighter admits, and looks across to Bumper.
"Yeah, something like that.." the older Titanian notes. "It a sealed god. Maybe older than Corn God was."
"What do you mean by 'god' exactly?" Tkaat asks, 'sighing' rudely.. or nervously.
"Old Ones god? One of theirs? Or ... younger but still old?" The hybrid asks, ears shooting up.
"Probably not Sifran though," Tasha notes, still eying the artifact.
Rushfighter pauses, then looks at Tasha. He swings his hammer around until the head is near her face. "Hmmm. God like you've met. Hole-in-the-ground sort of god. Fuzzy at the edges."
"A gopher?" Brookida asks.
"Sure, this be Gopher God then," Bumper says. "Gots to open it up and kill it."
"Ahh..? You ... You know about that, do you ... ?" Tasha asks, eyes widening as she stares at the hammer infront of her. "So ... So, extrauniversal then. Progenitor or another ..?"
"Older than Progenitors," Rushfighter says. "Garbage. Leftovers. Gots to be cleaned up.."
"You can't just let out.. whatever it is.. here," Brookida says. Tkaat seems more curious though. "A being from the age of the First Ones.." he notes with a long whistle.
"Ah, so, one of those. The ... garbage you mentioned. I remember. One of the things that should not be encountered. Well, then." Taking a deep breath, the young hybrid eyes the material her tail going up and expression narrowing in to a mask of focus. "I'll help if I can, for whatever that's worth -- provided it's dangerous."
Turning to the Phin, she explains, "By fuzzy he means fuzzy to our universe -- something that uses laws from outside of this world, partially or wholly."
"We promise not to drop moon on this one," Rushfighter pledges. "Corn God was ornery. Maybe Gopher God not as tough."
"Maybe it can be reasoned with?" Tasha suggests, looking back. "Are they always hostile? My experience was otherwise."
"Hostile? No matter," Rushfighter says. "Dangerous all that matter. If peaceful, ask it to kill itself. If not, hit it."
"That seems a bit violent," Tasha notes, realizing the irony behind the words being, as they do, coming from her. "Are you saying they're dangerous to our universe on some level, or just that they're potentially dangerous?"
"Dangerous enough to be locked up in stasis and exotic matter," Bumper points out.
"That depends on point of view. It could have just been dangerous to a particular political viewpoint, someone's personal rival, a wanderer that just in their way or who-knows-what -- unless you're saying the First Ones always had comprehensible reasons for locking such things away that we would always agree with?" The half-Vartan asks.
"We'll try to talk before opening it up," Rushfighter says. "Maybe it die in Purge with First Ones. Even stasis not protect it from that."
"Not even.. stasis?" Tasha asks in wonder, eyes widening. What could kill a being that's nearly imperious to the flow on space-time? She hasn't a clue, but the concept makes her brain hurt with possibilities she can't even begin to slightly comprehend, let alone understand. "Well ... Well, don't let me stand in your way then. I'll just be observing unless you need me. Lets hope for the best."