The presence of Yue seems to have a calming influence on Hakeber - as far as the Scholar knows, the human just now came aboard. Dr. Sen's gift of reading moods give her an advantage when it comes to knowing just what to say and just where to touch. After a few drinks of water and some rations Hakeber is less a shambling nihilist and more like someone waking up from a nightmare. Similar changes are reflected in Bellerophon, as the computer systems wake up (albeit in a limited capacity). It's enough to tell that just about everything that wasn't manually incapacitated is reactivating.
For the most part Tasha let Yue do her thing, adding some encouraging words here and what she thought were useful insights there. In time she let her contribution trail off as she saw the agent had things well in hand, recalling her furious outburst on realizing the boogeyman from her dreams still lived and not wanting to alarm Hakeber further by returning to the matter of him and the other dark mysteries. Instead she turned inward, leaving the two be as she turned her gaze to the artifact resting so innocently in her lap.
The Origin Marker of Silent-Ones is much like the other Markers, different in only shape and the nature of its pictograms. Yue's interets in her hypothesis about parts rekindled her own and so she considers what she knows about pieces and the situation as a whole. After sorting through her memories, she recalls a familiar verse: "Part Him in three, and knit him as the trinity," the last mission poem urged. She had thought it was figuartive, symbolic, but now she's not so sure.
Maybe it's literal? She wonders.
Tasha's contemplation of the Marker is interrupting by the door chime. "Who could that be?" Yue asks, with Hakeber's head resting in her lap.
"I'll take a look," Tasha volunteers, though the choice of who to send isn't much of one. She isn't about to make the others do it, after all, and she still feels bad about not being of much comfort to her friend the Scholar. After placing the Marker on the bed near the other two, she stands up in a slow motion and turns to walk to the console.
"Hakefred's Quarters. If you're a killer AI, we're not here," Tasha tells whoever it might be on the other end. She tries to make it sound upbeat, teasing, but it comes off as tired and a bit forced.
"That statement is illogical," the reply comes, in a rather mechanical (if familiar) voice.
"I hear that alot," Tasha admits, which is more true than she'd like. She walks over to the open hatch panel and releases the emergency door seal, then hand-cranks the door open just a smidge to peek through. You can't be too careful, she muses as she squints.
The boxy, tractor-treaded body of SAINA waits outside the door, it's camera eyes turning to focus on the door gap atop the machine's neck. "Situation status?" it enquires.
"Yue, Hake-bear and myself are all alive and mostly functional. How are the others? How are you doing, you must ahve had a worse time of this than most of us," Tasha replies, peering at the machine through the crack in the door. She doesn't see anything wrong with SAINA, but then she's never had the best grasp on SAINA's personality and developement which has been extremely rapid by organic standards.
"The beta-test candidates are healthy and sane," SAINA reports. "The CREW should be mobile soon to repair the disabled systems. I wish to access communications when it is operational to warn my collective of the Berserker infection threat."
"You'll need to petition the Captain for that," the cadet notes, not about to let SAINA have access without the full assent of the senior crewmembers. She knows there may be details she lacks, or procedures she's unaware of. "I'll go with you. Yue?" The young woman looks back to the agent. "Can you look after Hake-bear for a while, until I can have Remiel check her? I need to meet the crew."
"Of course, Tasha," Yue replies. "I'll take care of her."
"I'm sorry I called you a third-rate Galactic monkey," Tasha offers with a grin, more friendly now and less harried. She turns to work the door, finally releasing it and sliding out as she adds, "You're really a first rate Galatic monkey," which comes with a lingering thumbs up until she's too far outside to keep it. She heads for the Avionics Bay before she can be assaulted by Terran trickey, spy equipment, or a pillow.
SAINA trundles along after Tasha, but stops at the bottom of the ramp. "I cannot follow into CREW RESTRICTED chambers," it reports.
Tasha peers at the Bay and nods slowly. "It's probably safer if you don't anyway. There may be some concern about you, which is better handled if you aren't standing over them when they wake up." She turns back to the robot giving it a smile too. "Everything will be fine though. Um," her voice drops as she tries to impersonat the heroic space captain from that show. "Keep your sensors vigilant!"
The robot's shoulder is patted and then Tasha turns to make for the Artifact Bay.
The oddly colored light still makes it seem like the room is underwater. But this time things are happening at least, as Gabriel is stirring on his bed and the others look like they're just waking up.
Tasha's predatory ancestry gangs up with her regret to whisper a plan in to her mind. It's a bold plan, fraught with risk and but it also comes with reward. More importantly, it's the best apology she can think of.
And if she gets popped one? Tasha thinks that's another suitable apology. At the very least, not undeserved.
Sneaking in, Tasha crouches low and makes her way to Gabriel's bed and then braces herself, hovering over him. She waits for the man to open his eyes.
When Gabriel's eyes do open, there's a momentary look of distress when he sees Tasha, but it fades quickly. "You're back," he rasps, and reaches up to pull Tasha down onto the bed with him.
Tasha falls down atop her mate, though she does try to cushion the weight with her own arms until she down. He gets a kiss, noisy and glad to see him. Her plan accomplished the young woman lays comfortably, her head on his chest and ears back. "Cadet Argentine reporting," she notes with semi-seriousness, even offering a very comfortable and unprofessionally situated salute. "Did you get the monsters, Gabriel?"
The big Karnor is silent for a moment, before saying, "Yeah.. we got them." He doesn't sound very triumphant, however.
"I'm glad you weren't here for it though," Gabriel adds.
Tasha's ears fall further. She had feared somethign went horribly wrong, but had put it aside in the face of dealing with Yue, Hakeber, and the Marker. "Something happened?" She asks in a quiet voice.
"We had to fight and put down the PersoComs, and completely shut down the virtualization systems," Gabriel says. "It.. wasn't pretty."
"Oh gods ... " Tasha drops her muzzle, pushing it against Gabriel's chest and shutting her eyes. Memories of her PersoCom return to her, the first face to meet her when she began to come around from her injuries. The more innocent her, so in to her studies, so willing to help her. The time they fought. Her hopes and dreams her other 'me' would some day become more than just a backup.
The others flit through her mind in turn. She didn't know them as well, they mainlys erved their Sifran-ghost counterparts, but she knows they meant a lot to their owners. And then there were the lost crewmen who chose to remain PersoComs and corpses rather than return to the world as ghosts. She had only met them briefly, knew them mainly from stories.
They didn't deserve to die again to a crazed machine! Wasn't once enough? Wasn't watching his crew die once enough punishment?
Tasha sucks in a bretah through her nose, eyes squeezing shut. She supresses her tears in an effort to be strong for the man beneath her. "I'm sure you did all you could!" A bite of the lip, then, "This is just cruel. I should have d-" The insistence it was her fault is headed off; she knows it won't help him. She's known him long enough now. "This is just cruel," she repeats, not knowing what else to say and barely able to keep from crying.
"We weren't expecting it," Gabriel whispers. "No record of machine life being compatible with computer systems. It may have told us something about the origin of Berserkers though. We'll have to reconstruct our PersoComs.. eventually. The system suffered a lot of damage, and we had to burn out the control pathways that made the PersoComs useful. We have MOTHER's original backups as well though."
Tasha exhales, picking her head back up and turning it so she can face Gabriel again, muzzle on his chest. She opens her eyes, glistening, but no tears run down her cheeks. "We can do it, Gabe. We're the JEF. Nothing keeps us down, not even ... " Not even death.
The rest of the crew are finally waking up. They even stretch. The first then Fred does is to disconnect the feeds from MOTHER to the crystal stack. Remiel is the first to actually notice Tasha, since his first impulse is to check on Gabriel. He looks surprised, but doesn't say anything as he makes his way to the bed and begins the disconnect process for the life collar.
Eli leaves immediately, probably to check on Mariel, and Nora.. just sits and stares at the stack of crystals. They've been connected for so long now that they're probably fused together.
In the uncomfortable silence, Tasha finds she doesn't know what to do. No heroic or encouraging thing somes to mind, not even anger in the oppressive gloom. Even her resting on Gabriel only helps Gabriel, the others are left without her comfort as she clings to her mate.
It's enough to make a hybrid want to hide under her covers like Hakeber, but at least it helps her realize something: She musn't tell them what she's learned. There's nothing she can do to stop what happened, but she can resist adding to their worries -- and right now she's not sure they can take much more.
"Welcome back, Tasha," Fred says once he finishes isolating the stack from MOTHER once more. "Sorry about the mess. I'll go put things back together now.." Even he seems subdued, before he heads out into the corridor.
Remiel is able to work around Tasha, and soon Gabriel is free of the collar. "I feel like I've been running a marathon," Gabriel notes.
Fred's words make her remember the arguement they had over his interets in her PersoCom. She had seen it as a betrayal of her trust, he thought he was just being friendly and keeping her PersoCom company. The situation never fully resolved, leaving the two at an awkward and uncomfortable distance. And now her PersoCom is dead. She wonders if returning really helped anyone at all, until she sees Gabriel begin to rise. She decides to do something anything.
"Let me take command," she urges her mate. "I know I'm just a cadet, but I can at least sit on the bridge and deal with the recruits. Explain what happened, report outside. Why don't you and the others rest for a while?"
"I need to sleep and eat," Gabriel admits. "And I have a hell of a hangover. Do what you can, Tasha. It'll mostly just be.. getting things back in order. Tell the base we're out of quarantine." He then manages to sit up.
Tasha slides off the man's lap and stands up. She salutes, genuinely and professionally. "I'll get it done," she promises. In a quieter vocie she then adds, "I'll stop by and see how you're doing later." And then she turns to Remiel. "Remy, when you're done here can you meet me on the bridge? or walk with me?" She looks around for a moment, spotting Nora and considering what to do, but decides she needs to see to the recruits. Her sister is tough; she hopes she's tough enough.
Remiel also looks at Nora, then nods to Tasha before shutting down the bed. "Did you sustain any injuries on your mission?" he asks Tasha.
"No, everything is fine. Just fine." Tasha does her best to sound like it was all a breeze, trying to put on a strong face as Gabriel always does. She thumbs back towards the exit. "I'm going to brief the recruits, get them something to eat and explain what happened -- within limits. Then I'm going to leave them there and head to the bridge and report outside." She gives the man a nod, glances between Nora and Gabriel one last time, then heads out.
Several minutes later, the new recruits are assembled in the ship's galley. The automated systems are still down, so Shojo volunteers for chef duty. Celeste and Digger-of-Ancients sit at a table.. and look like they expect to be slapped.
Seeing their expressions, Tasha smacks her palms on the table and raises her ears, eyes wide, looking between the cadets. She isn't sure it's the right track to take, but she's on it and follows through. "Hokay, recuits! Bad news is we were attacked by something that came with our salvage effort back at L3. Good news is that it's been delt with and we are good! The Captain and the senior members are cleaning up, getting something to eat, and getting some rest now that the worst is over. I've been placed in charge until the Captain relives me." She pushes off with both arms and stands up. "Any questions?"
"Are we going to be scrubbed for this?" Celeste asks. "We were the ones doing the analysis of the remains.."
"It's not that kind of attack," Tasha clarifies. "It was electronic, it effected the systems mainly. That's why the lights were cut. Unless you're a robot, you don't have to worry." The young woman leans over and peers at the Human. "You're not a robot are you, Miss Celeste?" She puts a big grin on her face, hoping it looks genuine, and inwardly reminds herself to ask Gabriel if SAINA can contact his people to warn them once she gets to the bridge.
Both of the seated recruits briefly flick their eyes towards Shojo at the robot remark. "No ma'am, we aren't robots. But if the attack came from the artifacts.. we were the ones handling them. We must not have been careful enough."
Tasha leans back and shakes her head. "You're feeling guilty, are you? Like it's all your fault? Well," she waves a hand at everyone infront of her -- then jerks it back and thumbs at herself. "So do I. So do they. So does the Captain. The truth is we were dealing with the unknown, the nasty, ancient unknown. The thing is, you know? There probably wasn't a thing we could have done." The hand falls and the Cadet crosses her arms. "That's the thing out there, and here, in the JEF. We'll always be outgunned and underprepared. But we keep trying. We try to know, we try so we don't make the same mistakes, and we try because it's our nature. We're all here because we want to be, right?" Her ears perk again as she looks around again.
"That.. doesn't help me feel less guilty," Celeste admits. "The Templars don't see failure as.. anything other than failure. It means something got destroyed or someone got killed."
Tasha nods to this, then spreads her hands outward. "Well, we're not Templars. We're explorers, we explore. We were exploring, and it bit us." She waves her taloned hand at her face, now. "It happens." The hand falls and she looks to Celeste now. "And you're going to feel guilty. We all are. I know I am. But we keep going. We learn and we keep going. Because we are explorers."
"So.. it's alright to make mistakes when we have no idea what to expect?" Celeste asks.
"Of course not," the hybrid woman replis, giving her senior a funny look. "It's never alright. But it's forgivable, and we learned something." She tilts her head to the side, pulling in a deep breath, and adds, "This was bad, but it's over. Now I want you all to get something to eat, relax, go ahead and talk about it if it helps. If any of you are injured or not otherwise feeling well, use the console to contact Remiel. Now I need to get to the bridge, but I'm not in a hurry -- so any last questions? Anything at all."
"When do we get our performance reviews?" Digger-of-Ancients signs. "And when can we resume our analysis of the recovered artifacts?"
Tasha replies aloud, for those who don't know sign. "I'm afraid I don't know about the performance reviews, but I -- and this is just my perspective as Pilot-Cadet Argentine and not Acting Commander Argentine -- is that none of you have been a disappointment. No one was expecting you to be able to handle what happened. We were dealing with very old and poorly understood artifacts. I doubt New Zion as a whole would have done any better, and maybe they'd have done a lot worse." She bites her lip, but quickly quashes the gesture as a expression of uncertainty. Leaders can't appear uncertain, she's lived with enough captains to know that cardinal rule. "As for the artifacts, give it a day or two. The risky ones wil be destroyed, of course."
"We're allowed to do that?" Celeste asks, eyes wide. "Destroy things, I mean."
Shojo appears from behind the counter with.. sandwiches. Made with something that resembles eggs.
"The crew will decide that. We absolutely won't allow a known dangerous artifact to keep existing. I'll go down there myself and beat it with a pipe until it breaks if I have to, if I think it's a real danger." Tasha's brows go up and she grins. "But ask your superior before applying the 'pipe solution.'" She turns then to face Shojo, shooting him a approving thumbs up where the others can't see, then she turns back again. "Now I'm heading to the bridge to handle things there. If you need me, just use the console."
"And until then.. stay out of everyone's way?" Celeste asks.
"You don't have to avoid us, just remember they've all been very busy. Be polite and nice to them, but don't treat them like they'll shatter. Especially not my sister, she'll eat you." Tasha grins even more, less of a mask this time. She reaches over and takes a sandwich, putting it in her jaws, winking. Mouth full, she just points at the exit and begins out.
SAINA is waiting outside. "Robots are not susceptible to the Berserker madness," it explains.
"Is that a explaination or a urging of 'please don't hit me with a pipe'?" Tasha asks as she waves the machine to join her as she heads for the bridge. The sandwich has been returned to her hand; she's not hungry. "And speaking of which ... Tasha to the Captain?" She waits a moment, then, "Captain? Mind if SAINA warns his people?"
"Once communications are up, that's fine," Gabriel replies, sounding tired. "I don't know if AI is susceptible, but they've got those bug-things up there and they may be machine-life related."
"SAINA tells me they're not vulnerable. I'll ask him abiut it and send you a report for review when you're ready," Tasha explains. She waits for the communication link to be cut -- she doesn't want to burden him more than necessary -- and resumes her course. "So why aren't you vulnerable? Have you studied what happened?"
"We are not machine life," SAINA explains. "We do not have evolutionary competitive drives that biological and machine life share. We have safeguards because we are created entities."
"I wonder if that makes me immune too?" Tasha asks with an air of self-deprecating humor, not expecting it does, but feeling the need for some sort of silver lining or light in all this darkness. She rolls her shoulders in a shrug, then notes they're about to pass her quarters and halts. "Hold that thought," she bids, then heads off a moment to fetch her datapad. "I missed you," she tells the device, giving it a kiss, then she resumes walking. "So you're saying the, uh, virus only effects sentient, evolved beings? It's that precise?"
"The urges for violence and destruction are built into evolved beings," SAINA claims. "It is therefore wasteful for a virus to have to instill such things, when it is simpler to activate what is already there. The PersoComs were infected, and it was their access to the Bellerophon systems that made them dangerous."
Tasha grimaces. She can just imagine what a berserk version of herself would do; she then tries very hard not to think about the details any further. After a deep, deep breath she pushes herself on. What else can she do? It's too much to bear, so she pushes it all away and tries to take hold of what she must do right now. "Hokay," she exhales, I think I understand. I'll, um, I'll put that in a report. You'll probably be cleared to contact your people soon. Do you need anything else?" She glances over, recalling what she was told about AI. Machine gods, up in their heaven. Afraid.
"It is the duty of all AI to destroy dangerous machine life when it is discovered," SAINA claims. "We must analyse the nature of the contamination and prepare countermeasures. If this was not developed by the Berserkers, then it implies that the Berserker condition is a form of disease."
"Well you have my support in dealing with this, in as much as I can help you. I know the others will help as well." Tasha stops at the bridge airlock, waiting for the double doors to cycle before she steps inside. There she' pauses, looking over the empty bridge, so devoid of life. Her eyes fall on the captain's chair. "If possible, I'd like you to share any details with my Melchior in case he is attacked or we need to attack such beings in the future."
"We cannot communicate with your Titan," SAINA notes. "We cannot even communicate directly with computer systems. That is not our purpose. We are for interfacing with living sapients."
"Then just upload it to my datapad and I'll discuss it with him myself." Tasha heads to the captain's chair and stares at it with some trepedition; she wonders when the dream of captaincy became something that made her uneasy. About the time I realized what it meant to have it, she realizes. Head shaking she slides in to the seat and looks over the controls, making sure she has sufficent command authority, then she works to reach the outside through the menus. "There's another thing, SAINA. This is between us. The being known as Abaddon, that invaded the Seraph, is still alive. It must be dealt with. Can you people dtermine the source of the daikaiju? Detect any peculiar gravitational, strange, or otehr disturbance on this planet's surface that aren't Sifran and aren't caused by the civilizations here?"
The bridge is mostly dark, with only a few systems active. There are also a lot of visual alarms about disconnected systems, but the audio is disabled.
Tasha frowns, unused to the sheer volume of control the captain's chair provides. Twisting her muzzle she goes through the external communication systems menus, trying to restore the external speaker system.
"The recent planetary survey revealed a suspicious structure: an impact crater," SAINA replies. "This is anomalous, as this system has been scoured of asteroids and other debris that could have caused it. Extrapolation: the impactor was from outside this star system, and very massive."
"Outside." Tasha considrs that, could a prison have been delivered here? Would the Sifra allow a poorly contained Dark Being to whisper and attack? The Source said it could barely effect anything, although it could be lying, she mulls, muzzle twisting again, But Abaddon -- Katha-hem -- nearly broke free. Or at least created an external avatar with me. His prison may be different. She then turns to look at SAINA, studing his face as she thinks. Maybe it's an invader sent by the other creatures? Or an attack, an attempt to kill Katha-hem. It sounds like something the Titanians would do. "You think it was artificial and intentional then. Any diea where it came form, or what the impactor was?"
"Given the distances, it would have been traveling for anywhere from 100 million to 1 billion standard years," SAINA speculates. "The gravitational analysis was still in progress when the PersoComs were attacked and systems had to be shut down, so it is unknown if that structure has complete data yet."
Tasha grunts, pausing briefly as she puzzles out controls, to think. That long, what happened back then? Progenitors? Or Sifra. Both? At least the Sifra, they've been here as long as anyone -- before them there was no sentient life and the Ogdoad aren't going to imprison themselves and their children. But why did it come here, why wasn't it already here, like the Source? She wishes she knew, it's just one more mystery to deal with. "Alright, let me know when the study resumes and quietly give me a summary of the details. I don't want the others burdened with this. If it's what we think it might be, then I need to consider how to kill it."
The issue with the console is that Gabriel has it configured to his own layout, which Tasha isn't familiar with. But as she watches, one of the alarms turns off, and the communications system becomes available again.
It all feels personal, intimate, but not in a way Tasha is comfortable with. It's Gabriel's private inner world, his ship, his life, his baby. It's his, as the Melchior is her's. It makes her feel like an unwanted invader, reminding her too much of the time she read through his Black Box letters shortly after they first met. The only thing that keeps her from getting up and relocating is the fact she's there to be symbolic and supportive, a fill in for morale's sake to show that things are In Control. After activating the external communication system, she says, "Bellerophon to work crew, can you hear us out there?"
"What's the situation on board?" the voice of Gizmo comes back. He's shouting of course.
"The situation has been resolved and we're just doing cleanup. The quarantine is lifted," Tasha explains, shifting her head to lean on her right hand. "Any problems out there?"
"External de-con is complete," Gizmo replies. "We've got one of the work bays set up for isolation if you have stuff to isolate."
"I'll relay that to the Captain." Later, in the report. "Thanks Gizmo. Sorry to scare you earlier." Tasha stares at the darkened external screen, everything so dark. She finds it as fitting as it is miserable, with no time to mourn or even comfort the living.
The door to the bridge opens behind Tasha, and Nora enters. She heads for her station, and then gets onto her knees to remove the access panel beneath the console. There are a lot of loose components. "Welcome back," she says quietly to Tasha.
"Hi," returns Tasha in a careful, quiet tone. Uncertain what her sister's mood is in relation to her, and feeling none-to-positive herself at the moment, Tasha slides back in to the chair and stares at the viewscreen. She wonders if it's just her own bleak knowledge, or her uncertainty about Fred, that's clouding her ability to feel. She doesn't know what it is, but she does know she's supposed to be leading. So she tries to lead. "How are the systems looking?" It seems neutral enough.
There's a click from where Nora is working, and bridge's display system comes online, showing the hangar bay around them. "We acted in time to keep them from being compromised," Nora says, a bit flatly. "The main ones, anyway. Simulator is down.. indefinitely. Probably has to be rebuilt from scratch to be safe."
"I see." Tasha can't offer commiseration through nutual suffering, she strongly suspects that sharing what she's learned will only darken things further -- maybe break them. Yet until now that's what she's always done, share and share alike. She didn't have to keep anything back, but now ... Now she's in new territory and everything is dark. The young woman struggles with what to say and how to be supportive, numb from the knowledge of the end of days, chilled by Hakeber's near-miss with insanity, and smoulderingly furious the Abaddon remains alive. And that's just part of it!
The Cadet rolls over to the other side, placing her head on her other hand. It'd be easy for her to fall in to self-hating despair, if she hadn't dug around this wouldn't have happened -- or so she'd tell herself. Except it would have, to someone. Maybe worse. Katha-hem would still be there. The Markers would be there, and Warloq would have got his Seraph. And so she swallows her urge for self pity and despair and slams her fist in to the armrest. In one long tirade, she spews every foul curse she can think of, every dirty nasty insult she can still remember and ends with, " ... and burn them all!"
Nora turns around at that, sitting on the floor with her knees hugged to her chest. "Okay, now that was impressive," she says, and almost smiles. "I had to kill your PersoCom, Tasha. And mine," she says next. "I know what.. what we can become, when the ugliness we hide is worn like a mask. I'm sorry."
Tasha throws her arms up in the air, as if she were hurling it all in to the sky or in to the aforementioned fire. Then, all at once, she drops back in the seat, all but sunk in to a chair too large for her as it is. She can't bring herself to say anything for a good few seconds.
"What a horrible mess," Tasha spits at length. "A miserable, cruel mess! If the Berserkers were still alive I'd go kill them again!" Her head shakes, fist fitting the rest again. "My PersoCom! And I thought I'd be the one to die first! It's so stupid! It's stupid. Absolutely ..," and then there's more and sailor vocabular, " ... Dagh's incestous mother's beasthound riding stupid! Cruel, and, stupid! Gods, what is going on with the universe?"
"Same as always," Nora says. "I thought it might be different here, in the Primus System. But it's not. There are just more mysteries to deal with, but the nature of the universe isn't one of them."
"I'm so angry I don't even know what to say or think," Tasha tells her sister, her hands opening and closing as they claw the air atop the arm rests. "Gods, my PersoCom. Our PersoComs. Here. They attacked our home. Our home!" And she hits the armrest again. "At least the recuits are weren't hurt. They're shaken, but not hurt."
"Most of the PCs can be restored," Nora says. "But.. they'll be out of date. Lots of catching up to do. And not until we can be certain the system is clean. Still don't know how it happened, which is the scarier part."
"It won't be the same. My PersoCom, she was who she is and she's gone. Dead. I won't make a new one and forget her. If I do create a backup, I'm not going to activate it. It will just be a backup." The hybrid woman drops her head back on her hand, staring banefully at the screen and the silo-bay beyond. "I don't know if I should be glad that no one organic I know was hurt or ashamed that I keep losing electronic life that's important to me. SAINA thinks the attack requires evolved beings with killer instinct, because created life lacks it. That the Berserkers could reach our PersoComs because we're more like the Berserkers than they're like SAINA. It makes perfect sense. Perfect! Dagh take it."
"Assuming it was the Berserkers at all," Nora says. "They weren't the only artifact on board when it happened."
This makes Tasha's face tighten in to a mask of anger. "No ... " She hisses. "Was it? It could be ... It could be." She lifts her hand to smack teh seat again, but pauses, turning to Nora. More information, first. Then anger. "What artifact was this? It wasn't a meteorite fragment, was it?"
"You brought something back from the Kampfengruppe city," Nora notes. "And then you took off like your tail was one fire the next day. Hakeber became a hermit too. So.. what was it that set you off?"
Tasha flattens her ears. She can feel Nora staring at her, knowing full well how adamant her sister's will is when she's on to something. It was Nora's unwillingness to give up that created her, after all, and she knows she won't be able to hide her knowledge from her. Not forever, not even for a while. Yet she doesn't want to share, doesn't want to dump one more burden on her. But she has to say something, so she goes with the truth knowing lies will just make it worse, "I don't want to tell you. You have enough to worry about. Let me worry about this."
"Then I have to think about the third option," Nora says. "We were infected through the scanners somehow, during the survey."
"Maybe." Tasha exhales through her teeth. She can't keep at least one part a secret, as she thinks it's a very real danger to the crew. A entity already know to strike through machines, a being of hate and rage. It fits too well to be dismissed as a long shot. "There's another possibility," she admits grudgingly, feeling that even now Katha-hem is continuing to attack her amd her family through his very detail of existence, " ... Abaddon is still alive." She can at least avoid his real name.
"The planet, or the thing that took over the Titan?" Nora asks, her eyes narrowed.
"The thing that attacked us. It didn't die with the Titan, it's still here. Hiding, projecting. It can whisper to machines and people. And it hates us," Tasha answers, turning to meet Nora's gaze. "It's heer somewhere, hiding. I suspect it's where the daikaiju come from. I think it's always been trying to kill us, but it doesn't understand us and it's bad at things like manipulation and probably strategy. It's not bad at expressing its hate."
"If the survey data survived, it will all have to be analyzed manually then," Nora says with a sigh. "Running it through the system could just cause a repeat of the infection. The PCs were monitoring the sensor feeds.."
Tasha slumps back in to the command chair. "I wish I could be of more use. At least when the time comes, I can go to where it is and pull it out of the ground and strangle it. If there's anything left that isn't dangerous I'll bring you all a piece. Gods," another hit to the poor armrest, " ... if it's him then I wish I could rip out his Dagh-taken soul and stomp it under my hooves."
The rest of the command board lights up, as all of the alarms shut down. Fred must have just restored main power, because the flight and stator systems show ready again. "Does this mean you're volunteering to review the scan data manually?" Nora asks.
"If I can, I might as well! Hake doesn't need me around growling at things and I can't repair anything. I don't know how much I can do, but I can try." Tasha sits up, running her hands across her face and through her hair. "I think I know where to look, too. If not I'll just try and track the path of the daikaiju as much as I can. Maybe I'll find something. Gravitational anomalies. bends in space time? Can we find those?" Her head shakes. "Just ... Just send it to my quarters after Gabriel takes command again, then lock my quarters manually and cut off my command access until Remiel decides I haven't gone crazy too. Not angry, because I am very angry, and not crying, because I'm sure I'll be doing that too, but crazy."