Galactic civilization defines eight Orders of life. Oxy-Life is the first and most familiar order: beings who exist as protoplasm and metabolize with oxygen, and by affinity this includes those that might use chlorine or fluorine. Their attributes are fast, vigorous and ambitious lives with a subjective-sequential approach to time and proliferative reproductive strategies.
The second order of life is Hydrogen-Life. These are beings from gas-giants who exist as membranous forms and metabolize hydrogen, methane or ammonia. Their chief attributes are a slow, quasi-sequential time sense and merge-division techniques of reproduction, generally heedless of individuality. There is debate on whether Star Seeds would fall within this order, since nobody has really been able to study the metabolisms of the creatures.
Machine-Intelligence makes up the Third Order. These are mechanical or electronic beings who exhibit digital cognizance. Their attributes include a random-access time sense, program-restrained reproductive mode and hierarchical social status. Silicon-based organisms may fall into this category as well, such as the 'bugs' of Abaddon's moon Sheol.
The Fourth Order is less about biology than lifestyle. Beings in the process of withdrawing from active involvement in the affairs of the known universe. They can come from any other order, but can considered Retired. The Retired order tends to turn inwards and focus on their own evolution, something seen as a transition towards the next order. In Tasha's experience, the Niss would certainly fit this order, and possibly the Progenitors.
That next order, the Fifth, would be Transcendent life. Beings whose physical traits vary, but share the attributes of reticence and mystery. Retired races are thought to 'transcend' to these virtually omniscient forms of existence. The Sifras are the only known Transcendent beings, assuming they still actually exist - but many Galactic religions claim the support of Transcendent First Ones, though no evidence of such has been found.
The Sixth Order is one of the strangest: the Memetic Order. Purely speculative, these are entities whose existence is primarily in the form of information, concepts or psionic manifestations. Parasitic or commensal, they cannot exist without a host organism, except in the weird (unverified) realm of E-Level Hyperspace, or on Sinai where they arise from mass belief to form deities.
The Seventh Order consists of Ergovores. These are beings who metabolize energy in its purest forms. There are no known examples, but there are tales and legends of sun-ghosts and dark entities called Ergobohems who skate just above the event horizon of a black hole. The legendary Outsiders that exist in the vacuum of deep space are supposed to be ergovores, sustained by thermoelectric currents within their own bodies.
There first seven orders are fairly well defined, and while not all of them have been proven in the current Galactic Age, nobody argues that they can't exist. The Eighth Order is different. It is considered the Quantum Order and includes beings that exist between or within the known levels of hyperspace. The Horse, and others of its ecology within the Maelstrom might qualify, as well as the Harrowers and other dark-energy based entities. Whether these beings have any sense of time or space as the First Order understands them is unlikely.
Tasha had absorbed this knowledge somewhere along the way, but it might be the terror of her current situation that brings it to her conscious mind. The entity she sees moving towards her is clearly not organic, since its skin glistens like metal. It can't have bones since its limbs stretch and deform as needed. And Nora already warned her about a digital cognizance signal, before communications became jammed with high-speed digital chatter. The four-limbed spindly thing must be a machine intelligence, a member of the Third Order.
The thing doesn't halt. One of it's limbs stretches out over Tasha's head to grab onto some superstructure behind her, and it pulls itself closer. There are bumps on the end of the cylindrical 'body' facing Tasha - sensors? It starts reaching a second limb towards the Gauss rifle.
As the information returns unbidden, Tasha considers it as best she can amidst her fear. Her communication with her ship has been intercepted; all she hears is the crackling static of what she belives must be machine language. Whether the message reached its destination or not she doesn't know, but so long as the communication channel is jammed with the strange machine's interference she can only know she won't be hearing their answer -- and so she knows she's effectively alone.
As she pulls the gauss rifle around, as the creature moves ever forward, and as she listens to the scratchy chaos that fills her ears she can only wonder at the motives of the being before her: Is it proceting its ship, a drone? An crewmember from another vessel? Could it be a survivor? A probe? An agent of the central mass?
A threat?
Her nerves scream threat and her heart races; it terrifies her. Alien and spider-like, moving unnaturally and bearing down on her vulnerable position. The old her would have shot it already, shot it over and over until it ceased to be. She may yet try it, but she knows she can't, and that's as bad as the fear -- she can't simply shoot something because it scares her. No matter how much it scares her. She must try to communicate, she knows the stakes in murdering life whose motives and connections are unknown.
The Order of Life repeats in her mind as everything seems to move in slow motion. The static crackles in her ear. She thinks the first step may have been done for her, if it isn't calling out for her to die. Static. Machine language. Now, I have to talk now!
"I-I Aldara Tasha Argentine of the JEF; we recognize your sentience and your attempt to coimmunicate! Please h-halt!" Tasha cries out in to her com, and she can only hope for an answer.
The thing doesn't halt. One of it's limbs stretches out over Tasha's head to grab onto some superstructure behind her, and it pulls itself closer. There are bumps on the end of the cylindrical 'body' facing Tasha - sensors? It starts reaching a second limb towards the Gauss rifle.
As the creature pulls closer, Tasha feels her choices narrowing to a single point: Either or, do or don't. One or zero. It'd feel appropriate if she had the time and mindset to consider such things but her mind is filled with the machine that fills her vision and the choice: Shoot it or lower her weapon. It hasn't hurt her, it's only gotten closer and she thinks it's scanning her. A quick thought tells her she can't expect an alien to understand her in a few pieces of dialogue; another thought tells her to: kill it kill it kill it.
A piercing whine erupts in her helmet, surpsiing the woman a split second before she realizes it's her's. With supreme effort she pushes her Guass rifle armed hand down, aiming the barrel away. It's as good a gesture of peace as she knows, and she can only hope that after the scan it will understand that -- understand her.
If not ... She tries not to think of the if not.
The creature still reaches for the weapon. It's 'face' is reconfiguring as well - the 'bumps' being pushed out by a larger dish shape.
The lowering arm halts; she's willing to make a gesture of peace but not throw her weapon away entirely. She sets her jaw, gritting her teeth; her posture shifts, legs pulling her closer to the deck as she prepares to evade. The question of when to abandon hope of peace and respond with absolute violence turns in her mind -- none of the classes, the seminars, the first contact reports are any help. In the end, it always seems to come down to what can only be known by being there. Even so, there's no guarantees and she knows it.
And so she waits, standoff, peace wavering the dark. She looks for a sign, some indicator of the path to take, while her heart feels fit to burst.
There are some loud bursts over the radio. At least there's no way for her suit to be taken over like that.. it's too stupid, essentially, so that it will work under more conditions. Thinning out further, the reaching limb makes a lunge for the rifle.
The balance tips; the choice becomes clear. Tasha pulls her weapon inward and away from the lunging spike as she shoves herself away from the desk, giving the command to release the gravity lock. She knows she can't manuver stuck to the ground, so she'll leaps in to the void and tries her luck there!
The leap.. might have been a bit too energetic. Tasha sails away from the wreck, but at least the radio jamming stops. "..sha? Come on and answer, I know you're still alive.. Ah, I'm getting suit telemetry.." Nora broadcasts.
Tasha doesn't have time to respond. Using her wings to shuift her mass and adjust her orientation, along with the limited manuvering fuel, she tries to rotate her suit around and bring her weapon to bear. With the creature illuminated by the albedo of the ship she just leapt off, and using the Guass rifle's own sensors, she knows it's as clear and safe a shot as she'll get.
Turn, turn, the motion feels too slow; everything feels too slow, too urgent. Her nerves are on fire, just a little more ...
"Tasha, the whole place is lighting up," Nora tells her over the com. "Every bit of tethered junk has a machine mind of some sort, including the central mass."
One enemy becomes countless legions in a heartbeat, the attempt to destroy the spider going beyond futile straight to outright dangerous. One she migth beat, but an army ... "I had to evade, I'm drifting in open space. Tell me what to do! Kill it, wait for the shuttle?!" Her voice is heated, nerve-wracked. The sinking feeling of hopelessness that came when she thought she would die to Abaddon is there at the edge of her conciousness, fraying what calm she can manage.
"Is it coming after you?" Nora asks. Since Tasha is still moving away, she has to use the telescopic features of her helmet to spot the alien machine. It's 'looking' up at her with its dish, and seems to be crouching. Is it getting ready to jump?
"I think it's considering it, I'm going to fire!" Tasha steadies her weapon, her attitude jets erupting in a brief burst of stabilizing energy. When she has the creature's center targeted, she pulls the trigger. "Shot away!"
There's no recoil, luckily, since that could send her tumbling. There's also no sound, which is disappointing. But the machine-thing does splatter in a burst of plasma from the impact. It might have been more fragile than it looked. "What's going on?" Yue calls over the private channel. "There isn't much air in here, but there's enough to know the ship just rung like a bell."
"We have activity out here -- Third Order life! On of them -- a drone? -- intercepted me. It didn't respond, I think they hostile!" Tasha consider halting her rapid ascent, but decides against it. The shuttle has greater manuverability and reaction mass than she does and she may yet need her speed and distance to keep herself from being jumped -- literally -- by another one of the creatures. "Evacuate to the shuttle! I'm going to try and destroy the tether from here, but I'll need a pick up!"
"I haven't found the data core yet," Yue complains. "Coming back out.."
"There's lots of motion out there," Nora reports. "Is your target still down?"
"Now Yue!" Tasha manuvers again, turning to align with the tether. She suspects it will take time to destroy, at the very least more than a single shot, and right now she's floating in open spacew ith who-knows-how much of the machine-life aware of her presence. Like an hourglass draining away, she feels their time begin to run out. "I have aligned to fire upon the tether; my target is debris. Yue is ... You should know Shojo is evacuating now ASAP!"
It's not possible to look at the both the shuttle and the tether. The rifle's targeting system is having trouble - the weapon is meant to be used against titans and tanks, after all, not finger-width cables nearly a kilometer away. "Don't shoot the cable," Nora suggests. "Shoot the anchor. It'll be a bigger target."
"Good idea, realigning!" Tasha rolls, twisting in space until the surface connection swings in to view. Sighting her weapon again, she pulls the trigger. "Firing!"
There's no sign of firing, save for the charging meter dropping to zero on the rifle before it begins to recharge. There's a spray of debris from the surface of the hull near the anchor though, which means the cable is likely disconnected. "Boarding the shuttle," Yue reports. "I need your beacon, Tasha." Of course, turning on the beacon will make her visible to everything else as well.
"I'm going to pulse my beacon," Tasha replies, slinging the recharing weapon back over her shoulder where it click-snaps against its meganetic holder. One by one she begins stowing anything she hasn't yet, reeling in her halitool last. All the while she continues speaking to the shuttle. "Let me know when you're away and heading in my direction!" With everything set for pickup, she arms her emegency transponder beacon and prepares to activate it. She hopes that by pulsing it -- turning it on and off -- she control how much she lights her own position up, trying to minimize the amount of time the machines can use it to destroy her.
"Tell me when I'm your line of sight," Yue replies. A minute later, Tasha can see the shuttle moving over the area where the machine and anchor were shot.
"In line of sight, triggering beacon!" Yue's sensors light up with the ping of Tasha's emergency transponder, her ID, vital details and the emegency indicator readily visible for a brief moment before the contact's status is listed as: SIGNAL LOST.
The signal shut down, Tasha drifts in the dark. She watches the tiny outline of the shuttle approach, thinking about machine life -- and what she'd do right now as a machine. If she were in the Melchior and tracking an escaping threat, she'd use the beacon to assess its position and then attack. One signal burst gives a point in space, if speed is known then the target's position is determined within an increasing sphere from the signal point. If general direction is logged, it's an expanding cone. Two signals and there's the promise of a linear path and maybe speed, three, and she'd know if speed and direction are consistent and so be able to hit with shot along the target's predicted path.
While waiting for the shuttle to ease its way over to her on RCS thrust, it occurs to Tasha that the spider machine didn't seem to be armed. It had a dish.. but that could a radar dish or similar. It could alter its shape to a degree though. Did it even see Tasha, or just the rifle - the only piece of 'advanced' technology she was carrying?
It takes a few course corrections, but the shuttle eventually matches Tasha's trajectory and the hatch opens for her.
Whatever the case was, Tasha doesn't know. If it didn't see her, then she doesn't know how to make it see her. She tried to respond, she lowered a weapon she thought it knew was a weapon -- then it lunged at it. Even if it assumed her rifle was somehow alive or important, a sudden movement closer is threatening to most life she's aware of. At the very least she decides, if a mistake has been made, that the creature -- or collective of them -- will be more cautious in the future. The adrenaline and fear make the thought of possibly having killed something naive and innocent dull -- a concern for safer times.
As the shuttle nears, Tasha latches on the the hull with a boot and uses it as an anchor to pull herself inside. She slams her first on the lock, shutting the hatch. Finally, she's inside!
"Thanks, Yue," she breathes inside her helmet, floating over to a seat and pushing herself in to it.
The seat next to Tasha doesn't hold Shojo, who sits up next to Yue, but a body bag of alien proportions. So Yue did snag a souvenir at least, if not the treasure of a data store. "This may feel awkward, as we're going to have to go silent running still," Yue notes. "What happened while we were inside?"
"A black spider-like machine life form approached me. It seemed to be scanning me and got close -- really close. I thought it was just curious, so I tried to keep an open mind. I lowered my weapon, I tried to talk to it. It's when it lunged after my weapon I decided to evade. It looked like it was going to leap after me, in to space, so I shot it," Tasha explains. She pulls the Guass rifle over and in to her hands, checking it over for signs of damage. "You ... You don't think it was just curious do you? I mena, I held off as long as I could. Didn't I? I did ... " She looks up now, eyes wide and ears askew beyond her visor. "Right, Yue?"
"Odd behavior," Yue says neutrally. "Did it try to communicate in any way?"
"I heard static over my com on the channel we talk to the Bellerophon on," Tasha replies, armored finger running along the length of her weaponas she looks down at it and frowns. "I tried responding on that channel but it didn't react. It didn't stop or change its course. It only reacted to my weapon, and if I had waited any longer it would have probably taken it and I'd have been unarmed."
"Your suit recorder should have it then," the human notes. "Mind playing some of it back for me?"
"Give me a second," Tasha murmurs. Playback isn't a function she's had to use before, so it takes her several seconds to find the control and several more to locate the audio and play it back. She sends it across their team's channel, as that's easiest for her.
"Lt. Kohler wants me to make some modifications to the relay device," Shojo notes, unstrapping from his seat to make his way back to where the satellite is stored.
Glancing towards Shojo, Tasha thinks to comment but her words are drowned out by the playback. Each teammember can clearly her the static.
After the odd signal stops, Yue says, "Okay, that might be Galactic Eleven. Which doesn't make sense. If it was trying to open communications it should have used Galactic One, a purely mathematical language. We never could fully decode Gal Eleven from the sources we had from old Spiral Dancers ruins."
"Why doesn't it make sense, and what's a Spiral Dancer?" Tasha inquires, turning her head back towards Yue. "Does this mean we can communicate with it? Should I have tried mathmatics?"
One of the displays at Tasha's station is showing the digital cognizance signals that Bellerophon is tracking. There seem to be a lot.. but it becomes clear that there is only one per piece of tethered wreckage. Those farther out from the central mass seem to travel inward on the tethers, only to stop when blocked by another of the signals closer in.
"Because it should have known you wouldn't understand it," Yue notes. "The Dancers were a First Ones machine race. We found them in an Ash zone - that is, a region where the planets were obviously sterilized. We assumed the machines decided to expand and were exterminated."
In the back, Shojo begins to perform surgery on the relay, guided by projected diagrams.
"Maybe it doesn't know I can't understand, or, maybe it assumed I'm a machine? Or would even modern machine life not understand that language?" Still pumped full of adrenaline, Tasha finds clearing her mind and focusing on matters of communuication and history difficult, her thoughts returing to concerns of safety, reviewing her attack, and considerations for future defense. She tries to return to being an explorer, rather than a creature fighting against death. "Should we attempt to communuicate again?"
"Ask Nora to look for electrical arc signals," Yue suggests, also looking at the same display of where the machines are.
"Yes ma'am," Tasha agrees, her voice quieter than normal. As the adrenaline begins to face the question of whether she did the right thing continues to resurface. She can't help but think that of everyone she's killed along her journey, two of them were people she knew and liked, and one was a machine that never did anything to her.
"Nora?" The young cadet pushes herself to focus, she might at least be able to make some manner of amends, "Um, I think it may have been trying to communicate using Galaxy Eleven. You should look for electrical arc signals and we should consider trying One and maybe other machine languages."
As Nora adds other scan data to the feed, the diagram updates with more information. Yue rewinds it to when the first signal appeared - Tasha's spider - then starts it running forward again. The signals spread out along the tether links, showing the new machines waking up like a ripple. Then the ones at the outermost layer of the web begin moving inwards, and the next ones move to block them. Arc events appear.. on the contested tethers.
"They're cutting them," Yue says, pointing to the arcs. "The inner layer of machines is cutting the tethers so the outer ones can't come in.."
"And now the inner ones are trying to move closer to the central mass.." she adds a moment later. "Holy comets.. that's why it wanted your gun, Tasha.. to kill its neighbor."
"They're fighting?" Tasha blurts out, ears shooting up. She's never seen machine life in conflict with its own kind before; her exposure to machine sentience has been one of orderly precision, calm advice, and rapid dialogue and assent -- she's never seen them openly at odds with its own kind. "Do you think it's ... " Her eyes widen, then. "Are they abandoning their own kind to do an emergency escape, from us? And they've been arguing about who gets to go?"
"Could be a grab for territory, resources.. or escape," Yue says. "We know that machine minds can still go crazy. I think it's a required condition for sapience, somehow. There could have been a mutiny, a memetic virus that required quarantine.. who knows. But they don't have weapons. A single rifle would have changed the entire power balance."
"And the rifle holder responded by killing the one who wantd the rifle," Tasha completes the thought, sinking back and flattening her ears. Her voice is deflated, nearly dispondent. "I'm not sure what to think about what happened, but I suppose I might have kept it from commiting mass murder. We don't know what side, if any, has a better moral position or even what their morals are."
"Either way, they know something happened, if not the specifics," Yue guesses. "They might not have seen us yet. If they did, they couldn't do anything because they'd have used up their ammo millennia ago. So, they might think one of them has a ranged weapon now, but not who. Everyone is a target. They'll try to get to the one really defensible position: the central mass. No tethers. Although the ones that've been cut free will certainly be jumping as soon as they get back to their wrecks and have something to push off. They'd have exhausted their reaction masses by now as well."
"It's going to turn in to a massacre ... " The young woman realizes, head shaking. "Just because I panicked, they're going to do the same and assume that every one of the others is a threat." Looking down again, Tasha stares at the rifle that helped begin this mess. She thinks on it, long and hard -- and then she comes to a conclusion. "Yue. Turn the shuttle towards the center mass. I'm going to fix this." She pushes herself up, then makes her way towards the hatch in preperation. "Nora? Can you find some way to communicate with them? I'm heading towards the center mass -- I'm going to show them who is responsible and I'm going to get them to listen."
"We can't signal them without giving away our position," Nora points out. "You can try it from the shuttle, but the plan here is to use the relay and a little nudge to drop the mess into hyperspace."
"Tasha, this situation was in place before we ever came here," Yue notes. "Maybe we triggered it, but it was waiting to be triggered. A random bit of junk hitting one of the wrecks would have had the same effect." She does turn the shuttle though.
"And what do we do with the ones who get left behind, let them die? We have an obligation to help stranded crews. This is my fault, I'm going to fix it." The hybrid woman turns her head and nods to Yue. "We'll do this with the shuttle then. I know what you're trying to say, this was all here before, it could have happened any time, it's just how it is. Well, I think it's my fault whether it would have happened or not, I did it. Beyond that they could ahve been here for ages. Wouldn't you want someone to hep you? Should we just sit and watch them kill each other, or abandon each other, just because they're not organic enough to care about?"
Turning her gaze back to the hatch and the space beyond, Tasha balls her fist and thumps it against the door. "There are machines that are my friends. And that doesn't even matter. Lets help them, or at least try to. Maybe we can help them go home together."
"Well, what to do you want to say to them?" Yue asks, removing her own personal computer from where it's stuck to her suit.
"Lets tell them this: I am the one who destroyed the other -- let them see it wasn't one of their own kind so they stop attacking each other. After that, tell them it was in error. Then, tell them I can help them enter hyperspace aand that I am offering assistance. Tell them I'm not their enemy," Tasha dictates. It's not as elegant as she'd like, but her mind is racing and she has a great deal to work out before she exits the ship. "I'll touch down on the center mass so they can see me."
"That's a lot.. Galactic One is not a speedy mode of communication, but the concepts are simple enough," Yue says, working out the translation. "We're about to become very visible," she notes, and transmits on a wide frequency spread.
"I'm going outside now." Tasha opens the airlock after making a quick check everyone is ready for her exit, then she steps outside on to the hull. From beneath the craft, she watches the central mass approach, ears perked and listening for a response.
The response is.. unintelligible to Tasha, and cacophonous. "Filtering," Yue notes over the com. "Everyone is talking.. uh.. hmm. Sending us coordinates I think. Oh.. firing solutions. For everyone but the sender. And several spots on the mass itself are designated targets.."
Tasha reaches to rub her face, but of course she can't so she just holds her head despite the lack of significant gravity. "Sorry, I should have seen that coming. I'm on edge. Lets see. Tell them I'm not going to help them kill each other and we'll help them depart together. Tell them .. tell them ... " It strikes the toung woman that what she has involved herself in is what Captain Frane would have described as a 'military quagmire' -- a war with no clear moral nor personally relevant side and no clear answer, except this war is also a war between aliens. Alien machines. She remembers him going on about the endless talks, the failed negotations, the battles ... And now she has to come up with a solution in a few sentences. At least machine minds are quick, she tries to comfort herself.
"Hokay, forget all that. Ask them this: Why are you fighting each other?" The cadet decides at length.
"You know they'll all tell a different story, right?" Yue asks, as she sends the message. A minute later, she says, "Alright, I've got some consensus I think. Not everyone responded. The central mass is still quiet, and Gal One sucks.. it seems like there was a religious schism.. uh.. and cannibalism. X blamed Y for being stranded, Z said it was necessary, Q wanted to go home.. Nobody was told the real reason for coming, it sounds like to me. Given that the Dancers were wiped out, if these are the survivors.. the reason is probably the same as the Expeditions: create a backup colony."
"I see. Well, that's something anyway." Tasha folds her arms, staring at the ground -- which in her present orientation is the underside of the shuttle. She thinsk on the new information for a long moment, then she slowly nods her head. "Ask them what they'll do after arriving at where they plan to go and their position on co-existing with other life and other forms of life."
"You're kidding right?" Yue asks. "I don't know if I CAN ask that in this basic a language. How about 'Do you want to leave?' first. We did not get a clear answer on that."
"Sorry, this is not easy for me either, you know?" Tasha taps her fingers against her folded arms. "See, if we just let them go and they return to expansion, what if they threaten who or whatever they arrive at? It'd be our fault for not stopping them here. I also want to know what the central mass thinks. Alright:" She looks up, peering across the void at the inky silhouette, as if she were staring at another person in a heated discussion. Like it or not, she involved herself and she's going to fix it somehow -- even if it means passing judgement on an entire people. It reminds her entirely too much of being in control of the Balthasar. And like that time, if not her, then who else has to deal with it?
"Ask them that, then demand the central area respond or I will assume what the outter groups say about them is correct and consider their destruction." Tasha doesn't like playing hardball, but she does need all the answers she can get. A lack of clear answer can lead to disaster, and she doesn't want to chase one failure with an even greater one.
There is a booming response that time. "Ah.. hmmm," Yue says as she works the translation. "The central mass is the ship. It doesn't want to leave. The ones on the outside are the crew, and they want to leave. But.. not with each other. They're all paranoid."
Tasha throws her arms up, but then has to wave them down again as she feels her magenetic attachment begin to give way. And then Tasha fell off the shuttle, she mutters to herself, trying hard not to imagine what sort of even more horrible report that would make from this already convoluted disaster. "Ask the ship why it doesn't want to leave. Tell it to be as detailed as it can be in brief. Tell the others to calm down and stop fighting or else nobody goes anywhere," she directs.
"Threats are hard," Yue says. It's several minutes before she comes back with, "The ship was built to come here. It was not built to come back. It can probably enter hyperspace, but not go anywhere. The crew does not believe this."
"Ask the ship if we can scan or otherwise inspect it to assess its capability. Tell them we will use the information to verify what it says and make a decision." It all feels like a tumult, like a rock rolling down hill, unstoppable. No turning back, just a destination -- can she direct the force before it crashes to destruction? "Tell the others we will assess the ship's claim." Another thought occurs to her, an alternative. If they can't leave, then they'll need somewhere to stay. She may just know where.
"Hold on.. still getting messages from the crew," Yue says.
"They're arguing that if the ship can't leave, it should let them.. I'm going to say 'lobotomize' although they say disable.. it's control nodes. Because what difference would it make, apparently," Yue explains a minute or so later.
"That's, um ..." Tasha murmurs, turning her gaze back towards the underside of the shuttle, currently her 'down.' She wonders what Gabriel is thinking about all this, if he agrees, or if he thinks she's making a terrible mistake. Is the whole of the JEF watching as she yells at an ancient machine race? "So they want to ... lobotomize it." It takes the young woman a moment to even recognize the word, at first she thinks she's never heard of it, but then she gets the sudden jolt of knowing she identifies with Nora's memories. "Tell them killing the ship isn't acceptable because I view it as sentient life that deserves recognition. Ask them if the ship is otherwise a threat to their existence if left alone."
Switching channels, Tasha finally decides it's time to talk to the Bellerophon. "Captain," she begins, trying not to sound shakey or anxious. "Can we reach SAINA? Sheol?"
"We can reach Sheol," Gabriel responds. "You want to talk to the Trinity I'm guessing?"
"That's right. These are their kind of people, after all. If they can't leave, then they need somewhere to stay -- and they need someone who can address their needs and understand them. The Trinity and its people are our best chance," Tasha confirms, and for the first time she begins to see a light of hope in this mess. The stars look a little brighter, she just has to keep going and reach out a little more -- the answer is almost in reach.
"It threatens to cut the tethers if the crew approaches the final links," Yue notes. "Clearly, the ship is generating the power that keeps the tethers rigid and maybe 'feeds' the crew. It doesn't want them dead, or it would have cut them off already. Ships generally don't want to kill their crews, because then I suppose they wouldn't be ships anymore. On the other hand, the crew at least is bonkers. They don't want to do whatever it is they were supposed to do, or can't. I'm betting on can't, given how Sifran areas can mess with technology. Hell, it may have messed with their brains all along. All the ultra-dense matter in the ship could be protecting it somehow."
"If that's the case then out only choice is to save the ship and destroy the crew," Tasha counters, her light of hope flickering like a candle in a tempest wind. "If we allow them to exit in to hyperspace, we'll be trapping them in a prison they may never be able to escape from. Eventually the ship will also fall, and all we'll have accomplished is sacrificing every single one of them for convience. Even if we can just save the one, then that's something." The young woman bites her lip, then tightens her teeth until it starts to hurt. She pushes herself onward: keep trying, don't let it overwhelm you. "Ask the ship if it has any way to protect the crew from the effects of the star system and if it belives any of the crew can be returned to sanity."
"Asking if the crew can be fixed will turn the crew against us you know," Yue says. "I would love to examine one of them though. They shouldn't exist. The First Ones all died out and we don't know how, so if these survived was it because they were here, or because they were dormant.. and is their current behavior related to the how? Did all of the First Ones just go insane and kill one another?"
"The Sifrans murdered them." Tasha doesn't elaborate, she has another genocide to worry about. "Yue. Do you believe the ship? Does your scan confirm what it's saying?"
"Nora, does the Bellerophon's scan confirm it won't be able to navigate and exit hyperspace?" Tasha then sends.
To the young woman, it's as if the world had become just as logical and robotic as the begins she's attempting to communicate -- except she's the one with the logic and they're the emotionally mad ones. Step by step, a series of decisions as she chokes down her emotions. Her, or someone else. She'll be the immovable wall if she must. She will.
"Not without going active, Tasha, and letting them all know where we are," Nora replies. Yue is freer to use active systems though. "It's got a thick shell of junk covering it, and.. I can't actually penetrate the hull with our equipment. We know it must be big from the neutrino shadow. But even if I had detailed blueprints I couldn't tell you whether alien sentient machine tech was working or not."
"Ah, more from the ship," Yue reports. "It won't let the crew back in because they killed off the rest of the crew before it could force them out."
"Is that right?" Tasha considers this new information for a long moment, then nods to herself as she decides a few things. "Ask it if it has maintained backups of the original crew and if it would be willing to work with another crew. I'm thinking I believe it, but I'm not completely certain yet." A pause, then. "Nora, put me in communication with the Trinity. I want them to hear this, and I want you to give them the details and ask if they're willing to support a few more immigrants."
"No need, Tasha, we just got their reply to our first message," Nora says. "The Celestials consider alien machine-intelligence to be the highest possible threat and request that we do what we to destroy them. These are not AIs, they evolved and have the same ugly instincts that we do."
"It didn't understand the question about backups," Yue reports after her attempts with the alien ship. "Still working on the replacement crew question. I don't think the ship is like the crew - it's an actual AI, or their equivalent of one."
"Great. Can nobody get along?" In a fit of irritation Tasha wonderds if she shouldn't just destroy everyone and be done with it, and then wonders if this is how the Progenitors and other observers must feel. She suddenly feels very sorry for deities and negotiators everywhere. She then reminds herself she can't give up, either -- she decided to fix this and whatever else happens she's going to make herself deal with it. "Fine, fine! Since no one is going to get along ... Then ... then ..!"
Lifting her weapon, Tasha takes aim at the first machine form she can see. "Since no one wants to compromise, and everyone wants to run off and die in hyperspace, then they can just die right now. Order the ship to sever all of the moarings. Its crew wants to be destroyed so why not just do it now, rather than make them suffer further? It's what they want. Tell them we understand their message. Then it can come with us. Tell it it must continue its people's culture and existence because what's left is a disaster. To the rest, tell them we understand their message of mutual annhilation and death. We will assist them with all the firepower of our fleet and star system."
"You will be destroyed if you cannot compromise, got it," Yue says. "Before I send it, Shojo says the relay can be used now to weaken the surface tension and send them.. well, maybe not into hyperspace, but into the maelstrom, which will probably destroy them."
"Wonderful, now we can destroy them in multiple ways!" Tasha tone is so annoyed the naked sarcasim combines so heavily with the disgust and irritation it's impossible to guage if she's distraught, angry, or simply fed up. Having half a mind to just start firing where she is, she glares down the barrel of her weapon -- but she still doesn't fire. Whatever fury has engulfed her, she can't find herself beyond that point. The more annoyed she gets, the farther away the breaking point stretches. At length she decides she doesn't want to fire at all -- she just wants an answer that works. And, if she must shoot a few of them to do it, only then will she fire. "I can't believe we've found mechanical life as rediculous as us."
"If we send the ultimatum, the crew will try to storm the ship," Yue notes. "Once they're on the central mass, we can flush them. These guys were wiped out for a reason, and all I can suggest is that you ask yourself: What would the Titanians do?"
"The Titanians don't understand compromise very well. They're engineers fulfilling a warrior's job. I am the right being to be here. Even they would agree with that." Tasha scans the surface of the vessel, then directs, "Tell the ship to prepare to eject its AI core and any space travel escape vessel available. We can at least try and save it. Shojo? Get ready to drop and deploy the beacon!"
Yue composes the message. "As expected, the crew is panicking and rushing the ship," she reports. "No response from the ship. I think. There's a lot of threats and offers of allegiance and.. uh.. I think I found it. The ship said no. That's all."
"Then we tried. If this is all they can do in the face of annhilation with every effort put out to try and work things out, then this is it. Shojo? Yue? Launch the beacon. Please transfer the activation sequence to me," Tasha replies, findinf her voice has become calm again, like water in the eye of a hurricane. It's unsettling to her, because she doesn't know why or where it's coming from. The words just keep coming, and she wonders ... where is it coming from? is she still really talking? "I'll activate it."
There's plenty of time to get things ready. The furthest crew are still falling in towards the central mass. The tethers are being released as well. The ship doesn't seem to be rejecting the crew, but that is likely because it is also obligated to protect them. And once inside that ancient hull, they'd probably be untouchable.. if it was just a matter of brute force.
"The last of them is on board," Yue says. "You've got the trigger, Tasha. If you don't want to deal with it though, I can do it."
The quiet sernity of mind stretches out in Tasha's head. What had been a raging storm is now calm, at least in part. She thinks of the hurricane metaphor she had considered, and decides it's apt. Somehow at the core of allt his mess and tragedy, thre's a calm inside of her. She wonders where it came from -- had it always been there? Or was it new?
As Yue broadcasts that the setup is ready, the cadet stirs from her thoughts and looks up. The massive entity sits like an eclipe before her vision, an end of the light. An end.
Tasha hears the offer, but it passes through her mind like it'd have never been. She's going to end this, that's all there is to it. Like Balthasar. The answer turned out to be clear after all, just as it was back then.
"May your suffering end here! I hope you find the place and the peace you were searching for!" Tasha lifts her right hand, holding it up. A wave. "Good bye, Spiral Dancers!" And then she speaks the activation code, a hand closing a book.
Nothing seems to happen at first, but then the outer layers of wreckage begin to drift apart, revealing the hollow space inside. There's still some visible distortion, but that settles quickly. "They might pop back into realspace somewhere, if they dump some of their hypermatter," Yue says.
"They'd better not, or else I'm going to have to kill them again and I'm going to be mad about it." And with that Tasha realizes that it's done. With an audible exhale, she kneels down, the grabs the underside of the shuttle so that she can have a seat. It's not much of a seat, and it's forced, but she needs to sit down and so she is going to sit down whether gravity likes it or not. Staring at the empty space where a race had been, she the calm drifts continuously -- and she wonders why she's smiling.
"The universe is full of little leftovers like that," Yue says. "Sometimes you learn great secrets, sometimes you bury them to avoid learning those great secrets. On the bright side, you still have a real chance at saving the Jotoki at least."
"Hey, Yue?" Tasha's quiet now; much of the iron has faded, and she sounds a worn out. Worn down. "I'm a little tired now. I'm going to stay out here a while, okay? Just for ... for a little while."
Out on the hull, Tasha cuts her audio. The hurricane is fading now. The clouds are moving on and moving in. As she sits bey herself, pulling her knees closer, she thinks it might be about to rain. That it's appropriate.
It should rain, when someone dies.