There was a big turnout for the Bellerophon landing. This was the first time she'd be landing where people could actually see it: at the Winged Citadel. Gabriel also made sure to come in on a vector that took them relatively low over Expedition City as well. When the ship touched down on the airfield, the crowd roared, only to be drowned out by the Templar Marching Band.. and kept at bay by several Lawbringers. One of the big flatbed Titan transport trucks was rolled out as well, in preparation for the unloading of the Themis-Skoll remains.

Inside the bridge, the usual landing shut-down procedures were put on hold, since the ship still had to be moved into the big hangar of the ancient Silent-Ones starship that made up the Winged Citadel. Engines were shut down, but the stators spun to idle and one reactor is kept awake. "Much easier when you don't have to come straight down," Gabriel notes.

"I know I hate when Mel and I come straigth down. Once was enough for me!" Tasha replies from behind the navigation chair where Nora has taken the lead. The young woman had insisted she'd be late to the bridge due to "Progenitor issues," but in reality had simply wanted Nora to take the forefront with the return of the Themis-Skoll and the Bellerophon's triumphic return to the public spotlight. Having passed beyond the Well of Souls, the hybrid had found glory and satisfaction enough. It was time to step aside.

Fred has the cargo bay doors opened, and the crane is already extending with the hulk of Themis-Skull, so that it can be lowered to the flatbed. A pair of Lawbringers stand near to assist. "Anyone need to leave before we transfer to the hangar?" Gabriel asks.

"I just hope there are pictures being taken of all this," Nora comments. Of course, there are probably movie cameras in use out there. The public has only ever seen a few stills of the spaceship before.

Tasha turns to Gabriel and lifts her hand. "I should," she notes, then glances around at the assembled bridge crew and cadets, wondering how to word her reason in a moment of self-conciosuness. "I have, uh, someone -- people, really -- I need to ... To talk to. I can ferry any special messages and handle ground coordinate too?" The last tacked on for that extra touch of the official.

"You'll have to get through the crowd, unless you ride in with the Themis-Skoll," Gabriel notes. "So I hope you're looking for Katie, because she'll be on hand either way."

"Is it that obvious?" Tasha asks before she can quite think not to. She gives a nervous laugh, then thunbs towards the exit. "Well I better get on the Skoll if I expect to avoid being mobbed by the press." The press -- the news -- being a novel concept to the offworlder, glad to note her awareness of local custom. She backpeddles, making for the hatch before she has to answer suspicious looks or uncomfortable questions.

Hakeber has her head sticking out into the hallways, and asks the hurrying Tasha, "Is it safe to leave yet?"

"Not unless you want to be on the front page of every newspaper!" Tasha calls as she hurries past. "I have to get on the Skoll! We'll talk later!" Knowing there's little time left job becomes run, and run becomes sprint!

There are obstacles of course: closed doors. Tasha has to get through the Titan Bay, then open the cargo bay door.. then try to not run over Fred as the Themis-Skoll is being lowered onto the truck.

It's tricky going, and more than a little painful from glancing blows with structure or object, but eventually Tasha manges to get on the Themis-Skoll itself. She tries to avoid being seen, sticking to moving in shadow or using parts of the bed and the Titan to shield her from being noticed, eventually dropping down to hide between what's left of the legs and hunkering down. In hindsight she almost wishes she brough to her powered armor as she could have used the magnet feet to hige nearly anywhere with a metal surface, but decides it would have been awkward. As it is she's dressed in her JEF uniform complete with organization iconography (the phoenix symbol of the JEF), rank pips (such as it is), name and area of expertise (pilot).

The crowds are kept at a decent distance. A vehicle with a giant fan on it circling Bellerophon as part of whatever decontamination requirements the Knights use. Or else it's just to distract people into thinking that it's dangerous to approach too close to a just-landed spaceship. The crane cables are released, and the truck rumbles to life as it begins to haul its cargo towards the Citadel.

Within minutes, the sky vanishes as the carrier enters the main Titan maintenance bay, near the hangar that will house Bellerophon. The ceiling is covered in mobile crane structures on tracks that seem to let it go just about anywhere. The cables from one of these are dropped and technicians begin to attach them to the hardpoints on Themis-Skoll. "You should probably move, ma'am," one of the Karnor mechanics tells Tasha.

With the trip underway Tasha drops to her knees and scoots herself to just under the knee, laying flat to get a good look at the crowd and hopefully avoid any return attention. When the truck finally rolls in and she hears herself spotted at last, she pushes off and rises. "Sorry! Thanks!" She calls out before bolting for the edge of the truck bed and vaulting over the safety and tie-down rail. It's a short glide to the ground and she lands in to a turn, rotating to watch the truck as she backs several steps and looses momentum. Whew, finally back on the ground. Finally, she's home again.

The crane hauls the Titan up by it's hips and shoulders, then sets it into a mostly upright standing position before moving Themis-Skoll into an unused gantry.

"Get the power feeds connected first," the crew chief calls out. He's a big Vartan - but then a lot of positions that require shouting seem to fall to Vartans here. "I want the batteries yanked and taken to the test bunker ASAP. Not gonna try to recharge them in here!"

It was only months ago when I first saw the Skoll, but it feels like forever ... Tasha considers, a little voice reminding her that in one sense of the reckoning of time it may well have been forever. The Way exists outside time, connected to many times and realities. She was determined to have traveled through time, but how far, how long, or even if a total time can even be be truly applied to her again remains uncertain. It felt like hours, but she knows that felt time is relative, too.

Upon hearing Vartan yelling Tasha angles off towards what she assumes is the crew chief -- or at least some sort of chief. Engineers, she's found, use their own sort of noble titles. "Hi, need any help?" She greets the man. "Pilot-Cadet Argentine, not to be confused with Commander Argentine."

The Vartan looks Tasha over, noting the uniform. "You can help by telling me how this machine got so beat up," he finally says. "And if there is any fuel or other volatiles that pose a threat."

"All volatiles were exhausted. Main batteries are exhausted; auxillary batteries are nearly depleted. We disconnected the main batteries and most of aux. The Titan ... " The Cadet pauses, considering hwo to word the situation considering the last encounter she had with an intact Themis-Skoll involved it trying to kill them. "The Titan was remotely activated and ascended through a mountain side in to orbit. While the influence that caused the, uh, calamity is probably gone, there may be some residual risk involved in any data containing structure. We didn't encounter problems with the auxillary diagnostic systems, shutdown, and wing control systems but be cautious with any other data or control systems that can be written to. Better safe than sorry, right?"

"So.. unplug brain, force it into simulation mode and do everything else manually," the Vartan says, and actually writes it down on his big clipboard.

"More or less," the Cadet confirms. She thumbs back towards the massive double doors the truck entered through and adds, "Chief Engineer Fred Kholer will help you coordinate everything once the Bellerophon is in place. I'm just here to, um, answer immediate questions and be on hand." On hand, the young woman decides, is the best way to be seen without being mobbed --and she knows her presence will filter through the Citadel rapidly. Especially through the students! She is 'Winged-Gift,' star of comic adventures, Angel of the Star, or so the comis would have a reader believe. Except now, she isn't exactly sure that she's not some sort of angel.

"Watch out for the forklifts," the Vartan tells her, and then goes to more closely supervise the removal of the old Titan batteries, leaving Tasha alone. The sounds of Titans outside grows louder though.

Tasha decides to make herself visible but scarce and approaches it the avian way: By going higher. She flits in to the air and lands on a stack of large crates which she suspects have been sitting there for some time and are probably a safe place to perch. There she sits herself down cross-legged and settles in to watch the show.

From higher up, she can see better. The Lawbringers are escorting the Bellerophon, which hovering with its landing skids only a foot above the ground as it slowly slides into the big hangar space. The maintenance bay is just separated from the rest of the hanger by the Titan gantries, rather than a wall. It's the first time Tasha has seen the ship move on the ground.

While Tasha has become accustomed to feats of modern, ancient, ultramodern and beyond-reckoning levels of technology some things never quite cease to amaze and unsettle her -- the hovering of massive starships being one such example. As bird her mind is wired for lift. Airflow, angle of attack, ground effect and so much else related to lift based flight in an atmosphere is as natural to her as walking, yet here is a tremendously heavy building-sized object floating with no regard to any of these things. The strangeness makes her heart flutter at just how impressive it really is, while part of her mind complains at the wrongness.

At least it isn't silent. Aside from the sounds of the Lawbringers, there's the odd thrum-whine cycling of the maneuvering stators. It also occurs to her that nobody thought to cover the massive linear cannons jutting from the wingpods.

The young woman considers that -- airship bag as tarp? A covered gantry box? The more she thinks it over the harder it seems and more obvious the weapons become. She decides that leaving them out may have been the only real choice, all others only serving to draw curiosity and suspicion. The public will know about us sooner or latr. Really know about us, weapons and all. Better like this, where we can be seen for what we are: Explorers, back from what we do, and not at the tail end of a battle. It's something she hopes to gain for herself as well. Winged-Gift is a nice story, but the reality of endless fighting has shown itself to be too sad for the young woman. To be an angel, too, is to be unapproachable.

The cannons weren't particularly secret - the death of Tesla was visible from Expedition City. It was only the specifics that were withheld. But now that Bellerophon isn't housed at a secret military research base anymore, there isn't a lot of reason to hide the 'Anti-Kaiju' cannons. Then again, Tasha has already seen cannons nearly as big mounted at other sites. They don't fire hypervelocity javelins, but the public doesn't need that level of detail.

"Came out to watch?" comes Katie's familiar voice. She's coming in from the hangar door, walking right beneath Tasha. She points to the only Titan currently in the bay, and asks, "Is that the Karnor Space Superiority Titan?"

Tasha can only hope the presence of weapons and assumption of the power and will behind them doesn't lead the JEF and herself being dragged in to politics, or worse, in to war as it did for her phantom counterpart: The Empress. Yet she has traveled farther than the Empress, grown more, put aside the alure of rulership and power and gone beyond the door. She is different now, different from the other Tashas she has seen, different from Nora, different from Tisiphone. Different, too, to herself. She had focused so long on the goal and never considered greatly what lay beyond it save that it was an extension of the goal, even less considering who and what she might be after. Life has become a strange twilight of 'after,' of beyond. She's still trying to figure out what that means.

And she migth think on it more had Katherine Vesuviius not arrived. The avian woman scoots to the edge of the cargo container and peers down, smiling and tilting her head. "I came for something, watching is just a bonus," she insists, the waggles her hoof towards Katie. "Right now it's really more of a mountain superiority fighter. The mountain didn't stand a chance."

"It should really have arms though," Katie says. "And fresh paint. A full makeover, as Mr. Invention would say." She then smiles up at Tasha and asks, "So.. when can I sit in the cockpit?"

"Well the arms sort of ... Fell off. It's really tough, though, to surivive flying through a mountain. I don't think Mel and I would have faired any better." Tasha then lifts her head and arches her brows, head cocking the other way. "You ... You want to see the cockpit Katie?"

"Are you really Tasha?" Katie asks, narrowing her eyes. "Because real Tasha would not ask that question of me. She would be bringing me into the cockpit and telling me stories about it..."

This causes Tasha a hackle-raising moment of doubt where in which she wonders if she really is herself and that someone else didn't leave the Hall of Souls. It doesn't help that she had just been considering who she was, only a moment later. The internal battle is reflected in an external widening of the eyes, a canting of the ears, and a slight recoiling. "Of course I'm me," Tasha insist a little too loudly and squeakily. "I've just been through a lo--" She trails off as she sees she might be drawing attention and so lowers her voice, clearing her throat. "I'm me. I can get you in the cockpit! It just might not be safe right now."

"It's locked into a gantry and it looks like all the power cells are being removed," Katie points out. "At worst, we'd need a flashlight, right? Or can the cockpit actually open up, like on a Lawbringer? And your expression just now was very worrying, Tasha. You almost looked afraid. You know I was just joking, right?"

And so Tasha's ears go to the side and her eyes aren't quite so wide. They're still wide, though. And distant. "Oh, um, well, if course I knew," she insists and she did, but the implications ... "I was just, um, overeacting? Well ... " A brief look ariund, then the young woman slides off the crate to the ground, standing up and putting a hand to her head. "We could probably go take a look now. We can just say we're doing a quick inspection of the cockpit. Some of the displays maye have come loose and we should recover the helmets?"

The Vartan crew-chief is not particularly impressed by celebrity, it turns out. But he does allow the women to climb to a specific point on the gantry, where they can see the entire cockpit module being removed after the chest armor is slid back - something Tasha didn't even know was possible. Given that the cockpit was on gimbals though, it shouldn't be a huge surprise. Technicians swarm over it to disconnect the power and computer feeds so the unit can be set down to be worked on by itself.

"I didn't know the cockpit could be removed," Tasha confirms from where she's seated beside Katherine, currently resisting the urge to lean on her or put her arm around her waist. "Titan pilots were expected to fight to the end. No ejection, no easy escape. Mel's like that too, but he doesn't use gimbles or the MI helmets. The cockpit turns and reshapes itself." To give her arm something to do and avoid a moment distraction leading to impropriety, the Cadte points at the Titan. "The Themis-Skoll was the first Titan I ever tried to pilot. My terrible scores are still in there. It's mostly a ranged attacker using onboard energy and expendable weapons to fight relatively short ranged battles in space, mainly duels. It's also a symbol, the first Titan even made for Karnors and Karnors alone, though the main pilots included a monitor appointed by the Humans."

"Is it going to be restored to full function?" Katie asks. She hasn't noticed Tasha's discomfort yet - the Themis-Skoll is just too big of a shiny for the technophile. "Or.. it just going to end up in the Museum, with the other Terran Titans?"

Tasha scrunches her muzzle up in thought at that, saying a moment later, "The current hope is that it'll be restored. That's Nora's vote anyway, and mine too. I'm sure Fred will also agree and Eli amd Remiel usually go along with the rest of us. Gabriel's still thinking on it, but I think he'll decide on restoration too. We have the parts," and so the hybrid points upward with the pointing hand, " ... on the moon. Lots of them. We just have to get them, or fabricate them ourselves if we decide to refit the Titan using what we have here. Honestly," and now a roll of rthe eyes, " ... if we put it in a museum my sister will probably murder us all."

"It would be nice to have one of our own that works.. and flies," Katie mutters. She's been staring at the exposed cockpit, which is mostly the two big seats and all the display systems that surround them. "It looks.. normal. Normal for a Terran, I mean. No fancy magic interfaces, or pseudo-primitive artsy biomechanics. It's got switches and buttons and joysticks. It's our technological heritage."

Tasha nods tot his, having thought much the same thing after becoming familiar with Expedition Era technology. "It's really a 'product of its time,' as Remiel would have put it. It uses technology that isn't impossible to fabricate here on Abaddon, except for the stators. We might be able to replace the stators using the topogroic crystals that we have -- I had a dream about that once." A bad dream. "You know, upgrade it some. I thought about upgrading Mel, too, but uhhhhh ... That's complicated." Especially now, with Horus living in the great machine.

"What.. did you say you have whores living in Melchior?" Katie asks, jerking her attention away from the Titan to blink at Tasha.

"H-how did y-you--!" If Tasha appeared scared before the wide-eyed, ears up expression is far more one of pure disbelief. The Cadet had known Katherine Vesuvius was a spy -- had a spy network -- but to know so ... much ... Wait ... I know that word! And she does. It hasn't come up before, not that exact word, but she does know that piece of Expedition Standard: It's a synonym for prostitues! prostitutes, call girls, joy boys, credeetes, there are more than twenty words from Nora' memory for the profession, some rcahic even in her time, others limited to fringe space or subcultures. None of that matters, though; she's been teased and in misunderstand may have just let out a tremendous secret entirely too early. Tasha stares at Katherine in stunned silence, much as if her own mental computer had just locked up.

Slowl, very slowly, Tasha's ears slide in to the distinctly askew arrangement that Katherine knows all too well.

"I know I was caught up with the Titan," Katie says, looking a bit offended, "but you didn't have to trick me like that. I mean.. I know that some airships on Sinai... well, I mean there's a rumor.. that they have a ship's tail position.."

"What?" Goes Tasha, whose ears settle firmly in to a very confused cant. She blinks at the other woman and wonders if they're even having the same conversation anymore. "You were teasing me. Weren't you?"

Katie blinks again, and says, "You said that updating Melchior was complicated because there were whores living in him."

"Oh!" And so the Cadet twitches, blinking off the anxiety. She chuckles -- nervously. "I thought you meant something else!"

"Uhhh ... does it really matter?" Tasha tries as she leans back, ears following suit. She tries giving her best winning smile, but it comes off as forced and a bit of a rictus grin.

"I could," tries the Cadet, but she realizes the battle has already been fought and lost. She won't be beating Katherine Vesuvius, starlet and spy, in a game of manipulation, evasion, and information gathering. As a Vartan and more so as herself, Tasha knows she's considerably better off with the truth. And so the young woman heaves a sigh. She had hoped to enter this conversation well prepared, with her speech pre-written, her notes on hand, and the familiar environment of the Bellerophon's ward room to deliver the 'here's how it will be' recruitment pitch. As it stands Katherine will be getting her's early.

The hybrid leans in, cognizant of the potential presence of Eeee and listening equipment. "Don't react," she warns, knowing the bomb she's about to drop all too well, " ... but you're going to hear this early. I was going to save this for my big recruitment speech after my stay-or-go, here's-the-line, last chance warning, but ... " Lifting a hand, Tasha reaches out and points towards the Bellerophon. "I did it. I made it beyond -- and Horus has returned with me. The Progenitor of Vartans is here."

"On the ship?" Katie asks quietly, then also raises her brows. "Oh.. Horus.. not.. what I thought I heard."

"No not those! Liza used to do it but not anymore -- don't be mad at her, I almost did it too! Now ... " Tasha waggles her finger at the ship. "He's in Mel. He replaced old Ser Heraphel. We've been, um, talking. We're working together -- partners really. I, um, I sort of have his job now. I met Atum."

"/Well, I wnet beyond the /gate/. The Hall of Souls. Time travel. I met /Atum/, he's a Vril-ya. One of the Vril who left their /reality/. They're beings of soul-fire, of a kind of /energy/. That's where Titanians get their name, what Titans are /named/ after. Titans are modeled aftet the Vril-ya who ahve taken shells to enter our and other realities -- like Horus. Like /Atum/. Beings of fire and light in stone bodies. I work for them now! It's complicated, but I asked to help, help with the problem of the war between the Ogdoad and reality, between the Sifra and all sentient life -- and so Atum said I would shepard Horus to do his job. To face the Ogdoad! To remove or destroy them to save our /reality/ from their /hunger/."

"But Horus is only an ember and the Weapon can't be used! It uses souls, it would be the end of every Vartan! Horus would never agree and I don't either! But we still have to succeed; for us, for Atum and for the future we must. And that was his job. Now it's my job."

"Sooo.. the Progenitors aren't going to actually help you with anything, and we all have to figure out how to handle it ourselves," Katie tries to summarize, "which is what we were already trying to do?"

"You make it sound really depressing," Tasha admits, voice raised if only out of grief. Her ears flatten to the side and her head ducks, looking down at her hands, eyes wide again. "Did I really make it so far just to be suckered in to doing it all for them, and liking it? I traveled through time, I nearly died to meet Atum! When you put it like that ... "

"Well, they didn't tell you 'Sorry, there's nothing you can do, bye!' at least," Katie points out. "But Horus is useful, right? He's got information we don't have? Locations of.. useful stuff? Stuff that works against the enemy?"

Tasha makes an iffy hand-waggle with her Karnor hand. "He's diminished," she admits, sounding morose. "He'snot what he was, but I think I convinced him not to give up, anyway. That he could be more, do something, even if he's only a shadow he's still here. The Progenitors are gone only when they're all really gone. Until then he can still do something. That's what I told him." But her head shakes. "He does know some things, but not what he did. He does seem like he has a plan for the Dark Horse. Maybe a plan for me, he's up to something. He wants me to complete my contract with the Source and return to him."

"Remind me who the Source is again?" Katie asks. "I haven't been writing this stuff down, for.. privacy reasons. But I haven't seen you in almost eight weeks now, and you're probably about to vanish again it sounds like.."

"The Source is a dark being, one that was trapped by the Sifra on Sinai. It was the first truly alien alien I ever met, the one who gave me the Marker ine xchange for knowledge of the Vril. Now I have it. The Source is a Ogdru-hem, a kind of angel of the Ogdoad. Unlike the Vril-ya they're usually slaves, but like them they're adapted for exist in this world. The Ogdoad can't exist here." Tasha reaches up and taps ehr nec where the Source had marked her. "Now I need to return and complete my pact." She looks up, meeting Katherine's eyes. "You must be getting really sick of me vanishing for months and months without warning. I'll understand if you want to find someone else. But I have to, you know that don't you? And I would even if I didn't. It's how I am. Horus said there's no top, no pinnacle. You can keep rising until you can't handle it. I'm going to keep going."

"But if that's not too much, if you want to come with me, now the time. Once I get back we'll be leaving for the Horse, and then we'll be trying to accomplish ours goals in Galactic space. There's a place for you on the ship if you want it. Do you want it?" The young woman leans in, ears up again, and forward. "Katie?"

"Maybe," Tasha answers, not wanting to pad the truth. "But also maybe not. When you go past the door, you can't always return. I can always go home to Sinai, but I can never really stay there. Poor Hake-bear crossed that line just recently. And even if you can manage it, even if it doesn't effect you, we still might not ever be able to return if something happens. What I mean is, I can't promise anything. We'll try, but you know what we're up against and the powers we're working for. Godlike powers, species so advanced the Sifra didn't stand much of a chance, entities that can bend time and realities. I don't want anyone signing on who isn't dedicated to the mission, or at least the parts they know. If you stay here you'll probably be safe and well-loved by everyone, even if it's all for the act. If you come with me you may die -- or you may earn things so you can't come back and live a 'normal' life. Forever can be hard to stare in to, Katie. I'll do the worst parts, but I can't protec

"I'll have to think about it," Katie admits. "But you can still communicate to here, right? That would make a big difference."

"The hyperspace relay works, but communication may not always be possible. There's also another Progenitor working to deal with the Sifra, so the state of these worlds may change in time. This is a serious situation. I know you called it a vacation but what we're doing, what we'll be doing, will involve whole worlds -- the galaxy, maybe even the universe as a whole." Somewhere in it all Tasha realizes she'd stopped sulking, stopped the anxious reaction and stopped the hesitation. Somewhere, she'd switched from nervous recounts and submissive displays to lecturing Katherine Vensuvius on the severity of the duty before her and her resolve to see it done, no matter what she happens to be up against. Gods or men, this reality or another. Somewhere in it all, Tasha realized how strong she's truly become. She lifts her head and sits straight. "I may not be a god, but I have the job of one. You used to sing about angels, Katie. Can you walk with one?"

"I'm not sure you're an angel.. I think there are certain purity requirements and such," Katie says with a grin. "But.. maybe. I still have to have a good excuse for it, after all. Maybe I can say I'm taking time to write a novel. I could actually write one too. I do want to know what the immediate mission objectives would be though. I know whenever you go off, you always end up doing something else on the side, and I need to know what that will be. You'll have to trust me."

"Purity!" Tasha repeats with a snort. "Have you met them? They're nothing like the songs or the stories! Horus is the most Vartanly being I have ever met, stubborn and full of pride, protective of family, a smarta--" And then the young woman blinks. "Oh you're teasing me again! Well, it true. Angels reflect their gods, and their gods are as many and varied as stars in the sky. Most civilizations make angels out to be self-serving reflections of whatever they happen to wnat to believe or whatever serves their purpose at the time. Or their dreams." And so she taps her head, knowingly. Katherine knows Tasha has met several of them and a number of the gods as well -- or at least beings billed as gods.

"But okay. Take your time, you have until we leave. No more, no less! And don't look at me like that, those side-things are vital. You have to adapt! Once we're settled I'm going straight to the Source. I'll have to skip returning to Rephidim, I've made the Horse wait too long as it is. I may start losing crew -- or the ship. After returning I'm going to grab all the volunteers and give them a much better version of the 'make your choice, come with me or turn back now' speech. Half of it is for security, the rest is to scare everyone and see their mettle and to reinforce loyalties. If someone messes up now, sells a secret, it'd be bad. If they do it out there I might have to kill them."

"Mostly crews work for money," Katie reminds Tasha. "And what about secrets? Why would you need to keep any of this a secret out there?"

"Because House Khomen and others may be against us. The Ogdoad may neither know nor care about us -- we're probably beneath them if they even are aware as we know it -- but this knowledge comes with a lot of, uh, temporal power. There's a reason Old Yama would have destroyed me if he thought I'd misuse meeting Atum. The power to destroy the Ogdoad could also be the power to ruin the other Galactics, just like how Beller's linear cannon can be used to protect the world or conqueor it. Warloq knew this, and he knew if he made the right choices he could have all the power a mortal could dream of," explains the Cadet, who leans back. "I had my test. Maybe I'm gullible or reach too far, but I know I'm not a conqueror and I know how to manage the power I'm given. Others, maybe not. And maybe beings like Atum don't understand the difference between us -- and maybe the technology doesn't either."

"As long as it's power we can understand, that's fine," Katie says. "I know you depend on a lot of alien technology, but if I go out with you keep in mind that I will always be suspicious of it. Maybe that's just a Terran thing, or an Abaddonian thing - since of course we make sure to booby-trap everything that might get captured in battle. I expect everyone will still be doing that out in Galactic Space too. So if you want me with you - know that I'll be challenging you on some things."

"That's fine," Tasha notes with a smile. "I expect my crew to help me and sometimes helping me means questioning me. Gabriel does it, Remy does it, Nora does it a lot, Mel does it, and Horus now does it too. I might be stubborn but I listen, I've learned to, and I know what I'm good at and what I'm not. Dealing with aliens, gods and angels, going out there, dealing with the big things is what I do but I don't understand how ships work, or artifact may work, or even how people always work. Just remember though: I'll do what I have to. And I am the boss, even if I don't push it very often -- or act like it." And so she smiles a little more.

"So... you need me because Nora can't go, is that it?" Katie asks with a coy grin.

This causes Tasha to roll her eyes. "Nora is Nora. She won't want to be taken away from ehr precious Themis-Skoll and she's kind of a ghost at the moment, so she'll need to go in the tank and get a new probably adorable body I'll tease her over and she'll hate me for," the Cadet explains. She heaves a sigh and shakes her head, grinning. "Besides while you're both alike you're not the same. Nora really isn't a people person, she doesn't charm and sing so much as try to strange the universe in to submission. She's stubborn and resilient beyond all reason and will never give up. She's a much better command officer than a intelligence or public relations officer. I need you to charm people, to get information, and to do all the other sneaky Katie things I can't. I'm too, uh, usually honest and my head is stuck up in god town."

"Does that mean I don't intimidate you anymore?" Katie asks, and then leans in towards Tasha.

Tasha responds by leaning in until their noses nearly touch. "You did for a little while, but then you reminded me I'm supposed to replace a god and then I got full of myself again," she insists. "When I get going I'm invincible -- or so I tell myself. Because I have to be!"

"We Vartans are a stubborn people. We don't like to change if we can stay the same and plow through things. Horus is the same way, but it works." Tasha leans back and hopes no one saw that little staring contest, tapping her heart. "The difference is, I've really tried to polish it. I've tried hard to be what's needed and to do right by people. By gods, by angels too. The old me was a fiction, empty pride I didn't believe and strength I didn't really have. Maybe you think that's the same as what I said, maybe it is, but I think the difference is that I know the difference and I chose to do it. The old me wanted to be a god to fill her empty heart and low self esteem, if for no other reason than hate, fear, doubt and fear of rejection. I want the same, but I do it not for those reasons -- I no longer feel crippled by them -- but to improve myself and to rise up to the challenge."

"Atum said he's not a god, but he also said a mortal can be closer to a god than I think. It's a contradiction but it's also a hint. Horus said Eve tried to be a god and failed, because she couldn't create life. But Humans created life, and they don't call themselves gods or are even as advanced as the Vril. If Eve succeeded, would she be a god? Do you know what the answer is?" Here Tasha leans a little closer again.

"It's all meaingless. It's just a word. God. God's in the heart and the head, one person's god is another's alien is another's demon. Atum is godlike, but Atum is not a god to itself. You can rise up until you can't handle it anymore. 'A god believes their own hype.' But maybe only a god can call themselves oen, because they chose to believe they are. The trick is, is that belief accurate or not. And why. The why is the most important part of all."

Katie raises up a finger. "There's something you might be overlooking here, Tasha," she says. "They failed. Being godlike didn't work. Maybe it can't work to solve these problems. Maybe you were given this task precisely because you aren't godlike, and won't think the same way or overlook entirely mortal solutions. There's no point in you being an angel, or anything else, because we already know that doesn't work. You need to be a mortal."

But Tasha raises her own finger. "Why do gods have to be perfect? The Satr is said to be perfect, but seems to also be perfectly useless to its followers. An ideal, but the Silent-Ones were beat up by circumstances and could have very easily been the TerraGen's first Clients if Terra hadn't agreed -- and they held the power -- to leave them alone. And what's perfect, anyway? I'm not even sure we'd percieve a god that was so perfect as to never make a mistake, never be detected." The finger lowers and reaches to rub Tasha's nose. "Anyway, whatever I call myself or think I'm still just me. I can call myself a spaceship or a moon and maybe I'd believe it, and it'd change me, but I'd still be mostly me. Probably. Well, maybe not. But you're not seeing I'm being facetious about godhood and just factual about angelhood. To me, an angel works for a higher being and does their tasks. They're not worshippers, but are empowered somehow. I was given very little, so that's why I never said it with ce

rtainty. And that's it! And why is important? because I need to understand gods and angels. It's just easier to walk their walk and give them catagories."

And then Tasha shrugs. "And even if I were some kind of god, there's always bigger gods. I've been thinking the word god is pretty useless. It doesn't describe much of anything, but keeps feeling like it should."

"Technically, a mortal being doing the work of a God is a Prophet," Katie claims, but winks. "But honestly, I think you should drop the religious jargon altogether. You know the real names after all. Vril-ya, Ogdoad, Sifra. Those don't give any special connotation, not like god or Progenitor does. And they aren't higher beings either, just different. Alien. Are humans higher beings than Karnors? No, even though they created us. The Vril-ya are energy beings. So.. nothing at all like us, to the point that they need artificial bodies just to interact at all. But my standards for a higher being are pretty high, I suppose. To me, a truly higher being wouldn't notice us at all, anymore than you notice the bacteria living on your fur."

"So by my scale, even the Ogdoad aren't higher beings, because they want to eat us," the Karnor says.

Tasha considers this, then nods slowly and with increasing rate. "Yes, yes I should, shouldn't I? I guess I kept it out of habit, or just because that's how things are where I come from. The gods of Temple, the gods of Babel, the gods of this place and that place. Gods are everywhere and they used to have a understandable relationship to me and my small little mortal life. But then, I also thought Sinai was the whole of reality, the Procession asteroids were souls going to the afterlife and if you flew far enough West or East you'd vanish or be eaten by monsters. Or worse!" And so the younger woman drops her hands, defeated. "Hokay, no more gods and angels. I work for glowing aliens -- really amazingly glowing aliens. I will disagree about the Ogdoad only because eating things is divine, because Bromthen Heaven is a place wher you can eat, and it's the best. But there is one thing:"

"Atum specifically mentioned souls. I thought gods and souls and the rest all went together, but I can't let go of soul because they're not just a poor word for something else. Horus talked about them too, and the Source. The Ogdoad eat them."

"I don't suppose they told you what they were then too?" Katie asks, pupils dilated a bit in interest.

The hybrid cocks her head to the side and think. "Souls are the essence of a being through time and space, made of gravity and other things. Even Bumper had a hard time explaining the details, but a soul seems to be tangible if just to more advanced beings. A soul seems to carry a lot of energy, maybe more tha anything else known because Horus told me specifically that to power the Weapon souls are the only source of enough power. You can summon a Ogdru-hem in to reality -- a Harrower too -- by using souls and special rituals. There is a machine in the Titanic on Sinai that smoothes out souls, flattening space-time."

"Sounds like.. time," Katie says, brows furrowed. "Or a groove in a record. Flatten the grooves out, and there's no record anymore."

"That's what it sounds like to me, too," Tasha notes with a little nod. "It's our existence through time, recorded in the past. For beings that can exist outside time, they can probably see it as a whole. I just don't know what happens when a soul is used up and the possibilities scare me. If it's time -- space-time -- then wouldn't that part of time and space just- just not exist anymore? Or ever have existed?" The younger woman lays her ears back, biting her lip. "But it's not just any space or any time. It has to be sentient too. A soul isn't anywhere, they're linked to sentinet beings. Maybe even just living ones. He-Who-Moves mentioned psychic flesning. Maybe it's just the part of space-time that's sentinet?"

"I'm not sure I understand," the Cadet admits. "Why is observing so important?"

"Because it changes what's observed, somehow," Katie says. "It's a higher physics thing. But if you couldn't observe yourself, how would you know you existed?"

"Someone would come along and have one of these in-depth you're-full-of-yourself-Tasha talks with me probably," Tasha says with a grin, though it doesn't last. "Okay. Observing is important. If nothing observed the universe it wouldn't exist? And, the universe is made of matter and energy, which are really the same thing. If the universe forgets it exists, where does the energy go? And, if you control observers, does that mean you can make the universe believe it's whatever you want it to believe?"

"Maybe that's how the Sifra do it," Katie says. "Maybe.. well, we have measures for time, and space, and energy and matter. We know pretty much what they are. So maybe souls are.. packets of existence. For beings that come from a world without light or energy or matter or.. anything.. maybe existence is like an addictive drug or something?"

"Or maybe if you consume enough souls, you become more real in our universe," the Karnor adds.

"Or become the universe, if you eat even more," Tasha puts in, brows raising. "For the Ogdoad that could be how they grow. Eat a universe and be a universe, but the universe becomes what they're about. Our universe would become Ogdoad, by their will through the souls they contain."

"Is that how the Vril-ya came to be?" Katie asks. "Do they come from a universe like ours, with matter and stars and planets?"

"The Vril are their universe," Tasha answers, holding up a finger in the scholarly way she's seen Eli do when he has a point to make and thinks it's a really good one. "Vril and their universe are the same thing. The universe of the Vril is Vril. Vril-ya are parts of it who left. Archons are part of Atum who have left Atum. If they're like to Ogdoad they must have either always been a big universe of collective observers or became that sort of universe through technology or some other means. Maybe like the Niss. They used -- or found -- the Way. The Way is how they got here, too. The Way of the Waybuilders, a tunnel outside of reality connecting to many others. That is where Atum really is -- and where I went. I might even still be there."

"You mean you might have a separate, tiny soul left behind from your visit?" Katie asks.

"Wellllll, see, it's outside of time. So even though I was there for a few hours to my perspective I wasn't gone at all here. A total stasis field means outside time passes infinitely. To the other side I might be in finite stasis -- or not -- or maybe it doesn't matter. I'm still thinking about that." And then Tasha blinks. "Did I really just say that? I have come a long way. Um. But maybe! The Way has its own rules and I was there, so maybe part of me is there and always will be. The entry was called the Hall of Souls, now that I think on it maybe that's not just being dramatic. Maybe it's literal. A hall only souls can traverse. A hall for Vril-ya, a hall for souls arriving. A kind of machine to let souls pass through realities."

"Sounds chilly," Katie says, and glances down towards the cockpit, where her expression changes. "I see something..."

"I want to return, some day. The Hall's an explorers dream -- a door in to other realities, other times. Maybe everywhere and every when. Maybe I'd--" The Cadet watches Katherine turn, scooting closer and peering downward. "Did my sister somehow will reality in to letting her reach the cockpit?"

Down by the cockpit, looking up at the women in the gantry, is Gabriel. He perks his ears when both of them are looking down at him.

This is when Tasha sticks her tongue out. She does, however, salute a half second later.

"I'm guessing neither of you had a treehouse as little girls," Gabriel calls up. "We have a dinner date with the Viceroy, Tasha. In the Crab Shack."

"The Viceroy!" Tasha squeals. She makes the alarming manuver of actually sliding off the gantry, plummeting a good twenty feet before her wings mantle and she manages the glide down, looking as if nothing particularly odd just happened and landing steps away from Gabriel. "I wasn't sure I'd see him again! I guess I won't get a statue now. What's a Crab Shack?"

"Ohhh," goes Tasha, nods solemly and walks over to the gantry, holding her arms out for Katherine to jump. "Well, I am hungry. How's the ship, sir?"

"Fred is doing the hull inspection, but we didn't get any holes during the flight," Gabriel notes.

Katherine's insistence makes Tasha giggle for several seconds before she turns back to Gabriel. "Well, lets not keep the Viceroy waiting! He's so much fun, you know? I think I look up to him. Do you think he'd give me a job if you or Mr. Adam didn't need me anymore?"

"You mean going into canals and caves and crevices and getting biological samples?" Gabriel asks. "I'm sure he'll always need more people to do that."

"I was mostly thinking about testing Titans and looking heroic," the Cadet insists as they walk along. "By the way, I'll need to head back to Sinai soon to talk to Mr. S atop the mountain and give him the interesting news. Mr. H. insisted."

"How long will you be gone this time?" Gabriel asks. "I really think I'm going to have to ask the Viceroy about getting wings myself."

"Maybe I can ask Mr. H. about those amazing wings of his, I bet they beat flying everywhere. I'm a little tired of flying everywhere! I spend more time traveling than I do with the people I loved." But Tasha shakes her head, pulling out her datapad and checking it. "It takes me a day and a half to fly to the mountain. Once I'm there I'll need a an hour, maybe more, and I'll also need to rest and sleep. So at minimum, that's about four or five days."

"I don't think we can get into too much trouble in that time," Gabriel says. "I suppose you're leaving Liza behind then, unless you're going to carry her?"

Tasha shakes her head at this. "It's hard enough just with myself. It's only a fun trip in the sense that I enjoy getting out and spreading my wings. Seeing the scenery. It's exhausting otherwise. For you it'd be like running from the Pit to the Tower. If I had more time and took more time to rest I could do it, but I'd like to get on with my work and not keep Mr. H and the Horse waiting. I need to prepare recruitment speeches and plan my trip!" Tasha insists. "Besides I'm not exactly out to look good on these quick flights."

"Mmm, you'll be all sweaty and breathing heavy," Gabriel says with a glint in his eye, until Katie joins them.

Gabriel is treated to a rather large smile and suggestive smile along with a slow wag of the tail, with Tasha about to say something before being cut off by Katherine's arrival. This forces her to glance off at nothing particular, but the familiar and inviting smile remains. Seconds later she clears her throat and says, "Well, to the Carb Shack then?"

Winged Citadel, East Titan Bay
One of the smaller Titan Bays has been cleared out to make room for a odd, if rather large cage. Power cables are connected to modified radar systems mounted at the corners which aim inwards, and sealed crates covered in hazard warnings are stacked nearby.

The crab isn't floating.. it's on the floor the cage now. There are cables and lights and other things connected to it, along with some very heavy-duty, massive machinery aimed at it. An Eeee in a lab suit is actually standing on top of the thing, trying to get a sensor to stick to one of the spikes of toporgic.

"I'm starting to regret bringing ti back you know. This kind of science isn't something I really enjoy watching," Tasha admits in a lowered voice. "I still feel guilty about my pteras. Do you think we'll unerstand the topogoric enough to use it to replace our stators?"

"Eventually," Gabriel says, watching the scientists work. "But.. I suspect the mages will be more successful. I'm just not sure our technology will be able to really get the most out of this stuff."

"No energy shields, no glowing organge wings for the Themis-Skoll? Nora is going to be very disappointed," the Cadet notes. She begins forward with Gabriel again, whispering as they go. "Maybe I can ask Mr. H. if he can share any technology. I'm working for them directly, after all."

"Ah, there you are!" comes the voice of the Viceroy, once he takes his own helmet off. He hands it off to a technician, and waves with one hand to the crab as he comes over. "We've hit a snag," he explains. "Can't say for sure if the creature is dead, hibernating or just turned off. Going to see if it responds to different energies."

"Hi, Mr. V.!" Tasha greets the businesman, hurrying over to join him. It's not that she's eager to see the tests -- she's not -- but she does like the Eeee. He's quite unlike anyone she's ever known. That and an interest in the results if not the method carry her forward.

"I know you've been gone for quite some time, but things have been moving so quickly here it is hard for me to keep track!" Vasterlion notes, patting Tasha on the shoulder. "I think we've discovered biology based on fractal tessellation! Now that the critter is inert, we've been able to apply microscopes to the surface near the toporgic formations. May have found pores that it extrudes from."

"Pores. So it's not something they just appropriated from where-ever they came from. That's interesting," the young woman remarks as she focuses her sharp eyes at the base of one of the topogoric chunks. "What's fractal tessellation?"

"It's a mathematical description of crystal faceting in multiple dimensions," Vasterlion tosses out. "If facets and interstices can be used for computation, it allows for exponential processing. A bit like how our brains back in more surface area by being wrinkly."

"Oh. Of course." Tasha knows about brains; Remiel showed her her own and she was subject to many and varied lesson on biology while her own was poked, prodded, put back together and tested. "So more, um, paths allow for more processing of logic which allows for more math which is superior to our other, lesser paths in our own machines."

"Well, there are some anomalies we haven't quite fit into known theory," the Eeee notes. "Yet! I wouldn't have recognized the significance of the tessellation without some extra research and obtaining a very expensive book from Sinai. But it was all worth it!"

"A book from Sinai helped you understand it?" Tasha acts in surprise. Usually her world is viewed as much more backward; certainly the general state of education is vastly inferior to Abaddon to say nothing of the Galactic worlds. There are very few sources which might provide insight in to something like this on her homeworld that she knows of, which narrows the possibilities down considerably. That it's a book even more so. "Are you talking about a magic book, or is this from the Temple of Rephidim?"

"Well, it's a book that used magic as a scientific tool to examine an Exile with a brain made mostly of plastic," Vasterlion says. "Biomechanics that really straddle the line between organo-silicate biology and.. uh.. magic biology, for wont of a better term." He gestures to the crab. "Something between us and that."

Tasha nods to this. She's long understood the value of bridging the gap; that she possess some element of a dark creature has allowed her more understanding of dark beings and also allowed her to communicate where it might otherwise be impossible. She's suspected that should she ever gain some element from outside reality and integrated with it enough to percieve through it, she might be able to 'translate' and also understand that reality where her basic physical nature constrained to this universe could not. A bridge, a translation intermediate. "So you used a bridge. Do you think the creature is even from our reality, then, or is it using some exotic laws?"

"It's certainly not from a reality with quite the same physical laws as ours, or else from a hypothetical degenerate-matter universe," Vasterlion says, getting his thick gloves off. "That is, a universe entering its senescent stage of existence, dominated by dim stars, black holes and exotic matter."

"I remember those." More interesting is the appearance of a being from another reality. That beings from anotehr reality probably arrived through Forbidden Zones is mostly common knowledge to anyone growing up around Rephidim -- it is where so-called Exiles are sent and the explaination for them had filtered in to common knowledges ages before. To the old Tasha, rumor was enough. To today's Tasha she couldn't be sure, not until it was tested somehow. And here it is. "This also shows that the Sifra are capable of breaching in to other realities, or at least the collapse of their technology can. That's a little alarming."

"Well.. we won't be zapping the crab until tomorrow," Vasterlion notes with a grin. "So.. I imagine you're ready for some real food after being on space rations or whatever for so long! Just follow me through decontamination and we can welcome you home properly!"

"Yay," goes Tasha, who finds herself very much in need of both food and a proper welcoming after all she's been through. Time travel, meeting with beings from other realities, going to other realities, and now she's accepted the task of opposing the Ogdoad right beside her species very own creator-uplifter. And never since she's returned from teh Hall of Souls has she really taken a moment relax and prop her feet up. She has never quite returned home. Returned to neutral, rested, relaxed, entirely. The second Mr. Vasterlion mentioned the chance, it's all she can think to want.