The bridge is quiet after Tasha's question. It's Lacci that breaks the silence by asking, "Do you think they're a pre-sapient species?" in a somewhat dazed tone.
"I suspect the opposite," Yue replies.
Tasha remains silent for a second or two after, but then her head begins to move in a slow nod which quickly picks up pace. "Uh, y-yeah," she admits, lifting a hand and waggling it towards the screen. "I think ... I think I agree with Yue. Something bad happened here; is still happening."
"No signs of tech down there," Gabriel says. "Aside from the planet itself. It doesn't have a moon, but its axis of rotation is perpendicular to the orbital plane. No precession, no seasons, constant temperate climate. Barely any wind or clouds - that algae or whatever is keeping evaporation to a minimum. No telling if there are any animals in the ocean, but I'm guessing there aren't. The hardest thing those.. creatures.. have to work with is their own bones."
"They have the hands of tool users though," Dr. Sen points out. "So either this is a situation similar to that of the Jotoki or.. something worse."
"Maybe they're cattle," Hakeber suggests. Even Katie gives the scholar a startled look at how calmly she says it.
"I think it must be worse." That itchy feeling returns to Tasha, the sense that she's picked up a piece of a mystery, a scent on the breeze, just enough to begin to get a clue of what's going on and to begin to feel that nagging gut instinct that something is very wrong. And more so, that it's not going to get better from here. She glances at Hakeber for a moment, frowns, but does nod as well. "Could be." Her tone is dubious, but not entirely without concesion. It well could be these creatures are cattle, but if so, why go through the trouble of having cattle made from what appear to be sentient tool users, when this species can clearly do much better? "You don't think the first two planets are covered in those ... Those ... " It's too hard for her to say people, with all the implications that carries.
"We can go find out," Gabriel says. "I'd rather look into the other worlds before coming back to this one."
"Um. Yes. Lets ... Lets do that," the hybrid agrees, though she finds her gaze again returning to the awful black line, looking. Considering. Afraid.
"You heard the boss, Mr. Kaa," Gabriel says. "Bring us to the inner bodies, and keep in their shadow. We still don't know what's arrayed around the star."
The dive alarm sounds, and horrible images from the one habitable planet vanish as the Dark Horse heads inward.
As the ship departs, Tasha scootches closer to Yue and lowers her voice. "It's going to be bad, isn't it." It's not really a question. "This place, it's so old. There's no reason for these people to use tool users for cattle. There's no sign they're androids or service robots, either."
"It could be a lifeboat world," Yue whispers. "Deliberate return to an animal state to avoid detection, I mean. We've seen the products of high technology here, but none of the technology itself."
"To avoid the Sifra or something else. Yes, that makes a lot of sense, if they didn't think they could win any other way." Tasha sits down in the nearby unoccupied console seat, rotating it Yue-ward. "It's a lot better than my idea, which I'd rather not say until we know for sure. This system does feel like it's sleeping, at least, it's just the kind of sleeping ... " She trails off, knowing that Yue is probably thinking along the same lines and there's no need to speak of it. Not yet.
Given the compact nature of the star system, it doesn't take long at all before the periscopes are raised near the second inner body. It still shows a black featureless surface. "Running resonance scans," Yue announces, as she and Moka go through the quantum spectrum to identify the materials that make up the small planet.
While this goes on, Katie comes over to lean against the bulkhead next to Tasha's station. "Hake and Lacci look like they're in shock," she notes to Tasha.
"That's because they've probably guessed at the same outcomes I have," Tasha whispers back, turning her frown up towards Katie. It says something that even Katherine's presence can't quite remove the sense of dread that's building in the young owner. "Yue thinks it might be a kind of emergency shelter system for civilizations, all dumbed down to avoid detection by someone likethe Sifra. But. Um. It could also ... Also not be."
"No metals or cognizance," Yue reports. "Could we get a single-ping active scan to look at the structure?"
"No machine life, is what 'no cognizance' means," Tasha informs Katherine, then she turns her chair such that she can leans her head back against the other woman. The close contact helps. "Machine intelligence usually generates a lot of complex EM signatures that can be studied and matched by, uh, algorithims. Or, at least that's how I read one system works."
"One ping and then we dive, Mr. Kaa. On Moka's signal," Gabriel replies. Nothing really signals the event other than the dive alarm going off just before the ping.
A picture forms in the imaging space. The planetoid is rocky and full of holes - the core itself has been mined away. The rest of the mass is a black sea several kilometers deep at the surface. "Graphenes, Fullerenes and silicone in a homogenous suspension," Yue reports. "Low viscosity, high temperature lubricant, basically."
"More industrial storage." Tasha works her muzzle, twisting it this way and that for a moment. "Nothing that suggests completed equipment, military or otherwise." She thinks a moment, then says, "So we have planet after planet of storage, one giant mobile factory filled with metals, and one planet that, um, seems to store, uh, organics. But nothing else so far. It's like one big 'build your own civilization' kit."
"There's one piece that doesn't fit," Katie points out. "The next to last one. It's just a mined out rock, right? Why isn't it covered in an ocean of lube like the first two?"
"Maybe it's future storage? If you're going to make something, make a lot of something, even people, it'd be good to have somewhere for them to set up a base for a while. Otherwise they'd have to stay on the factory or on ships, which may take some time." It's just a guess, though, and Tasha isn't entirely confident about it. "We should have a look at it, however."
Less than an hour later, after a survey of the mined out world, Yue reports the results. "There are some blobs of lube still in the nooks and crannies," the human says. "So it might have started out like the first two, but the supply was used up."
"Past storage, then. Well." Tasha leans forward, head resting on her Karnor hand as she stares at the system display and thinks on it all. "It's all storage and construction, but the question is for who, why, and are they coming back?" There's a fourth question, but the hybrid woman leaves it alone for now. "We have our survey data, but we don't know if this system constitutes a salvageable space, someone else's property, or ... Or something else."
"The gravity mines suggest someone did not want visitors," Gabriel says. "There's the stuff around the star, but also the world that's got moving parts. If anything needed a trillion tons of lube, it might be a world-sized machine."
"All that's left is to take a look at the sun -- if we want to risk that -- and to question the only visible authority in the system: That planet-machine. If we want to risk that, either. Opinions?" Tasha sits up, ears perked, looking between the senior staff and experts on the topic.
"I vote for the machine," Yue says. "I suspect the objects around the star are spacecraft of some kind. All this materiel has to moved around somehow and the star's activity would mask any artificial power sources."
"I think we can outrun a planet easier too," Hakeber offers.
Tasha hopes that's true. While a planet has so much mass that moving it in normal space at any any astrologically significant speed would require tremendous energy and g-force risks, she's much less confident as to how quickly (in relative terms) a planet sized factory-ship could move using its FTL drive. There's been some suggestion through speculation that one or more of the system's ships have been departing and returning, which supposes a FTL system of some sort and either a way to disable or avoid the mines. Avoiding the mines, in turn, suggests an FTL system that does not intersect with normal dimensional gravitation, nor brush upon it using any proximal dimension or reality. She knows of at least one such drive, but has seen too much to believe it's the only possible one.
"Then lets get ourselves ready to get out of here, then prepare to send a signal. I'll say "hello," unless someone else feels a personal or professional urge to do it themselves?" The young lady perks her ears again, looking around to everyone this time.
"I'd like to do a passive close-up scan first," Gabriel says. "We haven't been detected yet, after all."
"Alright," goes Tasha, after a split second of hesitation. "It may not even be running on more than minimal power."
The thermal imaging does show an internal heat source, but there's nothing on the neutrino detector. The surface is rocky and eroded looking, with no atmosphere, but motion is visible in the deeper canyons and crevasses. "Found the lube," Yue reports. "Thermals show a lot of complexity, but the PTUs in those big rings make deeper scanning an issue. They could be blocking the emissions from power sources too. Anything this old can't still be using fusion or fission for heat, so it must be coming from somewhere. It also looks like.. hmmm."
Tasha quirks her brow. "It looks hmm? What's hmm, Yue?" For her part, the owner then turns to study the display in the hopes she might make some sense of it herself.
Schematics are still generating from the various passive sources, but there are very big gears - some a kilometer across, but then progressively smaller and smaller components, all repeating in an almost fractal pattern that presumably extends deeper and deeper. It's as if someone took Harmonia's screen-saver and built it.
"I don't understand," Lacci says, as she looks at the display. "It's.. mechanical pieces? For what?"
"It's a super-computer," Katie suggests with a grin.
This causes Tasha to wrinkle her muzzle in surprise. It does resemble a copy of Harmonia's internal design, albiet magnitudes larger. "Um, well, mechanical pieces can rely on kinetic energy, can't they? But they won't generate the kind of machine-intelligence signals anyone building a shelter system would want to produce. So, um, they made a mechanical version?" Her head shakes; one big pocket watch!
"A clockwork one, yes," Yue agrees. "No Galactic would recognize something like this, but old Terra had clockwork, analog computers long before the digital age. You're right, Tasha, this thing is undetectable as a computer by any Library-based civilization."
"Well, it's brilliant," the hybrid admits, eyes wide for being correct as well as having just discovered a world-sized mechanical computer. "I mean, a world sized mechanical computer. They weren't just copying high technology, they obviously knew and respected the basics, too. I don't think this was a Library-using civilization, or if it was they weren't afraid to vary their technology or use something primitive in a pinch." She taps her chair with a talon, then turns to Yue. "So, how do we talk to it? It's obvious whoever made this didn't want to be discovered, but may have been prepared for it, and I think these people were smart enough to have plans in case that happened. Plans that maybe don't include attack and more attack."
"I don't see anything like an antenna, but at these scales it could be anything," Yue notes. "I don't know if we can talk to it directly. We may want to see what is arrayed around the star first."
"Alright. Well, if we do talk to it, we should consider maybe plan mathmaticals or else use a non-Library language. This system may be hostile to any Library-based one, or, well, to some others we're aware of." Tasha turns and nods to Gabriel, signaling him to follow through with Yue's suggestion.
"If this is a honeypot trap, it's an awfully expensive one," Lacci says.
Tasha glances at Lacci, brows raising. "Wouldn't it be better to have some kind of signal for a honeypot? If you can't smell the, uh, honey then why visit the pot? For a Library-based civilization, something like that. This place is a death wall hiding a near-silent treasure trove of real materials and an actual working mechnical computer. If this is a weapon, it's a weapon on a tremendous scale of resources, like you said. Hopefully too large of a scale to sacrifice for one ship."
The approach to the primary is taken with greater caution. The star is small and cool, but there's still turbulence in the Maelstrom up close. Kaa doesn't want to get any closer than 10,000 kilometers, but that's still close enough to get resonance on the orbital structures. The telescope shows five and six-pointed star shaped objects that might be linked together by fine wires. "Shadows.. either PTU or stasis," Yue reports. "If it's stasis, could be hiding neutronium or antimatter. Can you give us an orbit, Kaa? We need to see the overall structure."
With no insight or immediate questions to ask, Tasha turns instead to Katie and whispers, "Good job on seeing the computer. It reminded me a great deal of Harmonia, but we use gears and clockwork on Sinai, too. Even the airships have some."
"I built an artillery computer during training," Katie whispers back. "But there's still something missing here. You're an advanced civilization trying to skip past an extinction event. You build a massive mechanical computer to.. preserve your culture and knowledge, I assume. At some point in the future, a set condition will activate the process of rebuilding everything, right? But we haven't seen it. There should be ready-to-go cities or something, but it's just stuff to keep the computer going, and a super-stable environment to prevent the species from evolving or mutating. And a lot of fuel, but for what?"
"Maybe something is supposed to arrive here? Like a fuel depot, exception with knowledge and organics in case whatever's been traveling has lost that along the way?" But Tasha shrugs; she ultimately does know. Her head tilts before she inclines it. "But you're right. Maybe the computer is the one doing the count-down? Or maybe it's been hoping someone would get past the mines? Orrr ... " And then she's frowning again. "Maybe they didn't leave the mines? Someone else did, after finding the system, or maybe their enemies? So it would never wake up, and even if it did they couldn't leave."
"Huh, hadn't considered another party could be involved," Katie notes, and chews on her lip. "Why mines though? If they were enemies, they could have used that mass to destroy everything."
The display slowly builds, showing a web of devices around the star - lots of them, already in the hundreds of thousands and the count keeps going up.
The overall shape isn't a perfect sphere around the star though, but more of a bulging cylinder open at the top and bottom relative to the planetary plane.
"Well, maybe destruction wasn't the intent? Why else would you lock someone away?" Tasha lifts her taloned hand and begins counting off with the other. "To protect it, to protect others from it, to punish it, or to save it for later. I think we can write off the last one since this place is pretty much ready to go and doesn't have a sentient civilization to exploit or enslave, it's all mainly resources. The other three could work, though?" She then turns away, caught by the new data on screen. She reads, then opens her mouth, pauses, frowns deeper, and then asks, "Uh, why cover only half a sun? Orrr, wait, that's not a configuration used exclusively for power is it?"
"No," Gabriel says, rubbing his chin. "I think.. everything in this system is backwards. It isn't for getting power from the star. I think it's an engine. That star is super stable, but if you added water and antimatter, generated a magnetic bottle around the whole thing.."
"Ah, an interstellar ramjet, using the star as the fusion reactor," Jonas finishes. "The first Terran slowboats used it."
"So this whole star system, mines and planets and everything, is the spaceship?" Hakeber asks.
"That's what I thought, too." Tasha has seen magnetic bottle diagrams for reactors before, but not having a tremendous background in engineering nor the sciences, didn't feel confident enough to take the guess as a engine -- or weapon. "So, now the whole system is a ship. A ship with fuel, a ship materials, a ship with organics, with a brain, and with a defense field. So now that question is, why isn't it going anywhere? It's a ship that's still in port, burning down its stores."
"Well.. if the destination is a system with the infrastructure and technology of their civilization in cold storage, then.." Katie muses, tapping her chin. "The launch conditions haven't been met, maybe. The danger they're hiding from is still out there."
"I can think of at least two dangers that are still out there. I wish we could ask it what it's hiding from. Maybe we should. I should," says the hybrid, who turns to Gabriel. "This is a good chance. It might be willing to help, considering."
"This is stellar engineering," Gabriel says quietly. "Remember where we picked up the Horse, Tasha?"
"How can I forget?" Tasha answers, ears up. "You're thinking of some reason it won't answer me, then?"
"I'm wondering if these were the people that built that ring," Gabriel says. "If not, they were just as ambitious. I'd like to know what they're watching for, if their system even works anymore."
"There's no way that stellar drive is run on clockwork," Yue claims.
"They'd have been Old or First Ones at least," Tasha agrees, then she lifts a hand and points at the screen, to where that great machine is displayed on the system map. "Well, lets go try and say 'hello'."
With that said, Tasha then turns to Yue and nods. "I think the startup might be in the material itself, or maybe it's activated remotely by another system that arrives to start it up? After all, once the situation is clear then there'd be no need to hide, except this system would still not have the means to start the drive unless it could built it locally -- which seems less likely now."
"This doesn't make any sense," Lacci claims. "There are data storage methods that are stable for hundreds of millions of years. There's no reason to maintain a living population in a feral state! You could store all of the genetic variation, and manufacture new bodies later! And if you could store the minds, and run them on that wind-up monster machine, why even bother with bodies at all? This is all too much effort. Unless there's some religious reason for it, it just doesn't seem practical."
"We can't exlude religious or cultural reasons," Tasha notes, hunching over and folding her arms as she leans in. "The Silent-Ones are a good example. They'd probably seem incomprehensible to a foreign civilization, why use optics when something else would work better? Why These designs, and so much artistry? Mechanical power? Or Terrans, why not use the Library?" But then she shrugs her shoulders. "But you're not wrong, it's definitely a question to think about." She bites her lip a moment, glances around furitively, then admits, "There are threats out there that can detect living minds. The living. Not every threat comes from inside our universe. The reason for all this may be more, uh arcane. The bodies may be ... Be, well, sacrifices."
"Bait," Hakeber says. "This could all be a test, or a trap." She looks at Tasha and nods, saying, "Maybe not for us or anyone like us though."
"If I had to guess, I'd say Bersekers for the materials, the D-things for the minds, and the attempt to hide all signals of sentient life for the Big S-es," Tasha tells Hakeber, nodding back to her. "At that scale, any precaution wouldn't seem like too much."
"If it's a trap for.. other entities," Gabriel says, "Then the stellar engine could be a ruse. Those units could have neutronium, antimatter or antineutronium in stasis, ready to drop into the star and blow the whole thing up. The rosette world could be a bomb. The computer a giant prayer wheel."
"A prayer wheel?" Tasha asks, blinking at Gabriel. It's not a phrase she'd heard of, but the idea prayers could somehow be mechanized in to a weapon is intriguing in itself. "A ... prayer bomb?"
"This would take a civilization thousands of years to build.. and you think it's just to kill something?" Lacci asks in disbelief.
"It's the population.. it doesn't make sense," Gabriel points out to the young Vartan. "They've got stasis. Feral forms in stasis should be fine, it's just sapient minds that are the target. Yue, can you get us some numbers on how old this system might be, assuming at least some of it is natural?"
"I've yet to find any limit to scale," Tasha says, turning to face Lacci dead on. "You've seen or at least heard of civilizations that existed before modern Galactics, right? Well, there are things older than they were, and they were far older than out civilization is today. And above the things that were bigger than they are, more things."
"If the star hasn't been tinkered with too much," Yue says, and sets up resonance scans for helium isotopes.
"The Dark Horse itself is possibly a billion years old," Gabriel notes.
"I like antiques," admits Tsha with a lopsided grin. Gabriel has a kiss blown at him.
"So.. so you're saying that the most sensible explanation is that this is all a fishing lure to kill god or something?" Lacci asks in a mix of exasperation and terror.
And then Tasha blinks. "Oh. Right." She spreads her hands in a wide shrug at even level with her head. "Surprise, this ship is older than it seems. In case you're all wondering, yes I and many others on board know a lot more than they're letting on. You can complain to the management." Her hands fall, she leans back, then focuses on Lacci specifically. "Sure, why not? There are a lot of gods, and they're usually very hard to kill. Some of them are really unfriendly."
"Well.. this isn't helpful.." Yue says after running the isotope analysis. "This star doesn't match the local environment. You can tell which stars were born in the same nursery, and this one isn't local. I can't find a match for it, so it could be from a completely different part of the galaxy, one of the Megellanic clouds or a different galaxy altogether. The planets don't all match the star either."
Tasha considers this for a moment, then offers, "Maybe they were trying to hide their origins? If the trap is made from materials someone could identify, they could use that knowledge to guess where the trap builders came from."
"There should be genetic markers to tell if the humanoids are engineered or not," Jonas says. "But.. uh.. I wouldn't want to go down and get a sample. It probably wouldn't tell us anything anyway, given how the rest of this system is put together."
"So.. it could be built to look like a lifeboat, but actually be something else entirely," Hakeber says, rubbing her head. "I'm not hearing any weird voices in my head. But I wouldn't bet against there being weird scary symbols on all the gears in that giant clockwork nightmare planet."
"Then the rest is just revieiwng data and speculation if we're not going to try and say 'hello'. Votes please, should we go? I think we should, and earmark the system as a dormant trap created by an earlier, more advanced civilization for some other advanced civilization and that it should be left alone." Tasha sweeps her gaze across the others. "What do you think?"
"This is only one of the Acheron Ash Zone systems," Moka speaks up. "An outlier. It could just be a distraction from what is further in. I vote we move on to Acheron B. The data we have may not be believed though, so could be a bust financially."
Tasha's muzzle twitches at the thought of all this risk and worry without financial gain. "More reason to keep going, then. Is there anything we can take from this system to make it believable?"
"We have the map of the minefield," Katie notes. "That's something that can be confirmed by others from a safe distance."
"I say we declare this an Ancients system," Yue offers. "That's usually enough to scare sane people off."
Tasha nods to this. "And I don't recommend souvineers, even if I would like a mountain of PTU for ourselves and for sale." She chews on her lip, then turns to those who haven't spoken. "Anyone else?"
"I want to see how this fits in with the rest of the systems," Hakeber says. "It might make more sense seen in a larger context."
"This place is boring!" Kaa announces. "I vote we move on."
Tasha snorts a laugh at that. She sits up and folds her arms. "Me, too, Hake. Well, Kaa is bored, the ancient death trap doesn't have any treasure. Gabriel? Take us out of here, please."
"I do not think we can learn more here without great risk," Shojo says, breaking his own silence. "It is always possible that the nature of our vessel may trigger something." Which almost makes sense, since the Horse is at least part dark energy. So far they haven't done more than expose the periscopes.
And so Shojo gets a nod as well. "Yeah, lets not be confused for a god any more than we have to be. It sounds great, but it's a lot of sacrifice and work." Her grin is wry -- and knowing.
"Kaa, take us out on a northern bearing, along the system rotational axis," Gabriel says. "Less likely to be mined, and I want to confirm something once we're outside hyper-perihelion."
"Aye-aye! Batten the hatches! Yarr!" the Phin pilot replies, and the Dark Horse swims upwards out of the orbital plane.
And so Tasha sits back, getting comfortable in her chair and wishing she had her own chair to sit in. She'll have to discuss that with Gabriel and the Niss. While she waits for departure, or at least something to delay or prevent departure, she waves Lacci and Hakeber over. "How are you two holding up?" She asks.
"I don't understand how you're all so.." Lacci starts to say, as she looks around at the crew. "You don't even seem surprised by all this?!"
"At least there weren't any ruins," Hakeber says. "Ruins would have been tempting."
"I'm going to make some coffee," Aaron announces, and leaves with Jonas. Liza and Shojo remain in the aft section of the bridge, sitting at the meeting table.
"Yeah, ruins would have been tempting. And worrisome, because, well, you saw the death trap system. I prefer my death traps to at least have the decency to be in the ruins or otherwise be exciting." Her tone is droll, and it's a droll look she turns towards Lacci. "You didn't believe me when I said I was young, did you? Welll, now you know why I'm like I am. See, Lacci, this is sort of what I do. We all do, really. On the scale of one to, uh, really bad, this is pretty mild. It's old, the threats are known to us, and it's not here to attack us, apparently. Though, I was disturbed by that cannibal planet. That was new."
"I'd take that over facing rotbiters though," Katie says, still sort of lounging against a bulkhead.
"Besides, we can't show panic in front of the Lapis," Hakeber whispers to Lacci. "We'd lose their respect."
"Ugh, rotbiters," groans Tasha, who reflexively rubs the arm that shielded her from being skewered by one. Hakeber gets a look that's even more droll, which is very droll indeed. "When have I had that? I thought it was pity."
"So.. you're either all insane or I have no idea what the universe is really like," Lacci says. "And I'm the only real Galactic here."
"You're going to hurt Jonas, Kaa and Moka's feelings," Tasha chides Lacci before sliding up and out of her chair. "Come on, I'll help you relax. Shojo!" She turns towards him, now. "I bet you really want to help me clean my Titan, right?"
"I can barely contain myself, Tasha," Shojo monotones.
"Wait.. did you say this ship was a billion years old?" Lacci mutters.
"I'll get my Titan-washing bikini!" Katie offers.
"That's the spirit. Monolithic! Steadfast, like the mountains! Really old mountains, on really old worlds. You can come too, Hake, but you don't have to clean anything." Lacci finds her arm being taken and so she and Shojo are hered towards the aft. "Ha, yes, a billion! WEll, maybe more or less. Maybe I'm a billion years old! No, I'm lying ... Or am I."
Katie wasn't kidding about the bikini. She's also covered in grease - the Galactic equivalent - as she digs into a panel on the side of the Grunt, with various tools spread out on a sheet and diagrams stuck to the side.
It's really a team effort. Lacci, Shojo and Tasha working to clean the Melchior with Katie and Hakeber working on the Grunt. Hakeber is doing what she does best, which is read and explain.
"Make sure to polish the beak! No one wants a dull beak!" Tasha calls up at Lacci.
Melchior is not in the most dignified of positions, but kneeling forward on 'all fours' is the only way to fit him between the shuttles in the hangar. "I've never seen a Gryphon like this," the Vartan girl notes, while Shojo changes out the cleaning solution in the sprayer.
"He's one-of-a-kind, or at least we think so. Custom built for a specific mission, a dueling Titan, but he's actually the product of a long-gone religious cult dedicated to searching the Primus System. The Melchior is in the style of an old Vartan God. He uses a direct neural interface system and features a fully sentient AI." Tasha does in fact help clean, though she sticks to the easier, floor-bound areas, partially because she can and partially because she knows hard work and direct physical action help calm the nerves which leaves Shojo and Lacci with the heavy work. "There were two others, but I had to destroy one and the otehr is unrecoverable. Mel helped me out a lot, back when I was just starting all of this. Helped me have a place to rest that was mine."
"So.. it's alive?" Lacci asks. Apparently Galactic Vartans still have similar concepts of machines being alive if they have personality. "What's the AI like?"
"Very much so. We even did the tests and confirmed it." Tasha scratches her nose, though mainly in thought as she considers Mel's personality. "He's understanding, kind but not too kind, logical, helpful and analytic, and maybe just a bit possessive and self-concious. He'll push me away when he thinks I need a push, listen when he thinks I need someone to listen, and offer advice when he thinks I need it. In some ways he's like my shadow, because he was created to directly serve his pilot and be their other half, but in many ways we're also different."
"So like a big brother?" Lacci asks, looking into Melchior's optics. "Is he asleep now?"
"Brother's a bit, um, weird to say ... Although I do have a sister I ... Uh." Suddenly and extremely self-concious, Tasha clears her throat, stands taller to emphasize her 'bossness', then jumps on Lacci's question like a drowning woman to a life preserver. "Yes. I mean, yes! Yes. He usually sleeps when I'm not connected, I don't think any time passes for him when I'm not on board. There's also a, uh, other AI. A support AI. Sometimes he's awake, or not. It's complicated, but his role is different."
"An AI with it's own AI assistant?" Lacci asks, and nearly slips off of the Titan's head. "We don't use sentient AIs in the fleet," she explains. "Just dedicated function ones. The Elders worry that they'd be more obedient to the Khattans than to us."
"That's understandable," Tasha admits as she sidesteps over and over until she's in postion to catch Lacci, should she fall. "I wondered the same thing when I found Mel, that maybe the Khattans or some other agency was in control of him, and therefore could be in control of me. My neuro-studs extend all through my mind, right? So that's a real risk. The, um, 'AI assistant' is kind of, um, my assistant. Or. Well. He's related to Mel's old job, and my job, which is the same job sort-of. I have to, um, shepard the AI and make sure it does what it was supposed to do, but that's complicated too."
"It sounds broken," Lacci admits, and tries not to slide down while leaning over to polish the beak. "Or old. I heard they can go a bit odd if they've run for a very long time."
"It a memory thing," the Galactic explains. "The older they get, the more memories accumulate, but because they remember everything perfectly, it causes problems with recollection."
"I know an AI that gained sentience by running a long time, so it's not always bad. But yes, he is old. And foreign, I mean, the AI system isn't Galactic or even pre-Galactic, uh, software. It's an artifact-system given to me by an, uh, older system for safekeeping and because we both want the same thing. All three of us do, but we disagree about how to do it." Tasha pauses a moment to consider what Lacci had said, then nods slowly. "Maybe it's lucky then that this one has forgotten so much. It's a chance to grow again, and without being held back by the past."
"That sounds weird," Lacci notes. "Everything is some ancient alien thing with you, it seems. With our AI, it's more that.. well, when something triggers your memory, you know it's a memory. You only recall some relevant bit. But for the machines, a recollection is the same as living it, so the more familiar things become for them, the more the memory is triggered, but they can't tell a memory from something that's actually happening."
"Uh, well, the truth is Lacci, I kind of work for at least one ancient entity. I mostly work for myself, and for my home, and I do have an actual rank and title back home, but, um, yeah. I do a lot of work for a lot of people, because I'm bad at sticking to things I guess? And I like to talk to gods, even if they are a pain." When Lacci isn't looking, Tasha, very gently, gives the Melchior's hand a kick. "But, wow, that sounds awful. They can't get around that? Not even by figuring out how we know the difference?"
"Oh, I think it's because of emotions or.. something?" Lacci says. "It's why AIs can be creative or do complicated tasks, so long as they don't have to make important decisions. You can't make quick decisions using just logical computation, because the permutations of outcomes could be infinite. And if there's an ethical choice, it could deadlock if there's no solution that won't violate safeguards."
"I think I know what that feels like." Tasha reaches up and taps the side of her head. "And I think I envy they don't have to do them. Not that I would stop, but, you know, complaining now and then makes things better, I guess?" She shrugs, then starts making a slow circle under Lacci's position, seeing how good a job she and and Shojo are doing. "The AI is different, so maybe its struggles are different. Mel relies on me for judgements like that, so in that sense he is what I can't be and I am what he can't be."
"Combat AI," Lacci comments. "I'm not sure of the details, but I know it needs a Vartan brain to work properly. I don't know if we have any in the fleet though. That sort of information would be above my clearance." She then slides down onto Mel's shoulder, and from there to the deck.
Tasha is there to help, though it ends up not being needed. Still, she makes sure that she's there. "That sounds like my Mel, he is a combat AI, after all. Well, you did a good job, Lacci. You can take some time off to rest and relax, unless you have questions or something else in mind..?" Her ears go up.
"Where did this ship come from?" the girl immediately asks. "It doesn't look old. Well, I mean it does except for the medical bay. But I noticed an off-limits section that we passed to get to the hangar.. and there doesn't seem to be an engineering area.."
"Welll, uhhhhh," Tasha scratches the back of her head, looking around at nothing in particular. "I kind of won it from the Titanians for doing some work for them. They had this god, right? And they couldn't reach him, so they sent me alone to deal with it, and I did so they had to give me the ship they promised. Except they didn't think I could get it to work, but we showed them. I can't say where, because then Titanians would come along and flatten my head, and they kind of scare me. It's, um, it kind of is different from most ships?"
"Does it use fuel at least?" Lacci asks. "I don't know a lot about drive systems, but I've never heard of Maelstrom Drive or being able to do the stuff this ship does."
"It kind of runs on ... Oh, come on. I'll show you. May as well get it over with, but just remember every secret ties you more to me! You'll be mine forever at this rate. Like Hake!" Tasha turns and begins walking, passing Hakeber and asking, "Right Hake?"
"You haven't shown me yet," Hakeber says. "I thought it was just running on magic or demons."
"Kind of," Tasha hedges yet again. "Speaking of demons, I should bring Kaa and Moka. Shojo, you can come too." She waves them all along, heading to the fore and deeper in to the ship.
Soon they're in the aft elevator. "My private elevator," Tasha explains, and going up. But not far.
The door opens onto a small platform. The familiar bulkheads of the ship looks featureless from this side, with alien looking textures showing in the gaps. Shafts of glowing crystal extend out from a semi-solid looking sphere that seems to be deeper inside that the actual circumference. Something like a plasma ball is at the center of it, dark instead of bright and made of thousands of wiggling, arcing tendrils.
"What are we looking at?" Lacci asks. "I'm not a tech."
To this Tasha walks, extending her hand outward, unafraid of the alien sphere and its ominous, dark contents. She lays a hand on the crystalline surface and smiles. "Hi, Horse. I'm back again. I'm sorry I was gone so long, but I'll be around a lot now. I promise."
After that's been said, Tasha turns but doesn't remove her hand. "Meet the Horse. This ship is a Tnuctipin prototype vessel powered by a Dark Space being, a kind of higher dimensional entity. We don't think it's sentient, but we're never really sure. I can tell you honestly, though, that it is aware of at least me, and I think it's capable of being fond of people."
"That's a creature?" Lacci asks to be certain. "And it pulls the ship around? How is that.. uh.. Tucked-napkins? Is there anything around here that I will be able to understand, Tasha?"
"It is a captive demon, as Hakeber surmised," Shojo says. "You are to be sacrificed to it, Lacci." After a moment, he adds, "That was a joke. I do not think it requires sacrifices."
Tasha barks a laugh at that, hands spreading. "No!" She laughs again, her hands falling back to the side and she smiles, returning her hand to the sphere. "I mean, maybe? That's why we're out here, after all, to discover and learn. Well, that and to do other things, but the learning is important. The Tnuctipins were Old Ones, very smart even for Old Ones. Fantastically so, even the Titanians don't understand what they made. And the Horse is from D-Space, the same D-Space Confederate travel through, but closer to our reality than actual D-Space. A kind of litoral space, which is what the Maelstrom is."
Tasha tehn turns to shake her free hand's finger at Shojo and Hakeber. "Just because they're spooky and have unsettling eating habits doesn't mean we should call them demons. I love my Horse, demon or otherwise. And don't scare Lacci -- that's my job."
Lacci punches Shojo in the shoulder for that, then has to rub her knuckles. "Vartans made of stone.." she mutters. "Demons from dark dimensions. Lost worlds full of magic and rabbits and monsters. Sexy Titans. Bikini-wolves. Five-legged composite whatsis with pets. I am the most boring person here!"
"Some day you'll appreciate that," Tasha confides in a heartfelt and excessively commiserating tone of voice, somewhere between teasing and sarcasim and honest truth and sympathy. "And maybe the bikini-wolves? I appreciate that. So, you think my Titan is sexy?"
"It's made to be sexy, isn't it? It doesn't look like a machine," Lacci says, then eyes Shojo, and reaches out to touch him again as if to make sure he isn't a machine. The man doesn't comment or react to this though. "When I get back.. if I get back, they'll think I'm crazy if I mention any of this. I'll have to make up a boring cover story about.. about.. donut delivery or something.."
"But, do you want to go back?" Tasha inquires, hopping up to sit on the railing, body balanced by her hand on the sphere. "Is that what you want to do? Where do you think your life is going, Lacci?You signed up with us for a reason. You were on that station for an adventure. You were really mad about being considered nothing but a pretty face -- and it is pretty." The young woman bats her eyelashes with faceicious coyness. "Is everything you've seen nothing to you? It doesn't move you at all?"
"It scares me," Lacci says. "It drives home how unprepared I am.. but.. there's no way to prepare for stuff like this, is there? So.. I don't know. Everything is crazy for me right now and I don't have anything familiar to fall back on except for my armor. The rest of you don't get flustered by anything!"
"I saw airships blow up a mountain top," Shojo says. "On a world where the technology I grew up with would not work."
"That's not true." And so Tasha lets the mask slip a bit, shifting her hands to her lap and balancing on the edge. No smile now. The lines of her face seem deeper in the strange light, her eyes distant and farther-seeing. It makes her seem somehow older in an instant. "See, the truth is we're all a bit scared. Some of us more than others, but we all are. Instead of letting it show, where we might bring everyone else down, or letting it get to us, we've all learned ways of coping with it. I have to lead, so I do. I can't break down, and if I'm upset, then maybe everyone else will look at me and they'll start feeling it too. Gabriel lost his ship once, it still haunts him. Hake's got her own problems, and so does Shojo. The difference between you and us isn't fear, it's learning to manage your fear."
"And my frustration, and anger.." Lacci admits, looking down. "I still can't believe I let that guy get to me like that. So.. it's alright if I fall apart a little, so that I get better at putting the pieces back together? Is that why Hakeber clings to that.. to Aaron? Does everyone here have a secret crutch?"
"Everyone here is my crutch. Hake-bear, Shojo, the ship itself, my Titan, Gabriel of course, and Katie too! Everyone. I didn't pick the people I chose just for their expertise. That was part of it with some, but not for everyone. I chose them because I thought they could handle things, or learn to anyway, and more than anything I believed they would support everyone else. Kaa's funny, Moka is steadfast and reliably peaceful. Hakeber is cute and ethusiastic, but a bit flawed so that you never feel like you have to be perfect -- and that's important around people like Katie and Gabriel who are the very best at what they do. Everyone belongs, even Jonas. I think he'd been looking for a place to be, why else would he risk joining an alien, Titanian-supported ship? He was looking for something. We all are, and that's why we belong her and to each other." And so Tasha dips her head in a nod, satisfied with her words. "That man got to you for a reason, but it'd help to know it, and maybe even more,
know him, too. Know why he attacked you, understand him."
"I guess I do need this," Lacci says, and clicks her beak. "To be outside of my Clan, where.. everything was orderly and everyone was the same. Life was planned out. I got angry with that man because he challenged my very existence. Because if I didn't believe that was the best way to live, then.. how could I put up with it? So everything is different from what I thought. Everything! The whole universe and people and.." She stops, blinks, and looks at Tasha. "Titanians. You said it a few times but it just got through I think. Titanians. You got this ship for helping them with a god? I.. think I want to lie down or get drunk. At least before we get to the next piece of brain-clenching cosmic weirdness."
"Lucky for you, I thought we'd have a lot of these such moments -- which is why we have a wet bar and a lounge! I'll ask Katie to sing and see if the others would like to stop by. Or if you want, it can be just the four of us. Less pressure, that way." Tasha slides off the railing, turns to wiggle her fingers good-bye to the Horse, then walks to the elevator and opens the lift. "We'll go down to the hangar and circle around to the main lift. You should know the route anyway, since you'll probably be visiting a lot. We hope to make the lounge better over time, we're even thinking of ... "