The Acheron-B system is shrouded in literal darkness - the gas and dust of a planetary nebula, but one with an anomaly.
"There should be a white-dwarf stellar remnant to go with the nebula," Moka explains to those on the bridge. "But there's no neutrino or thermonuclear flux.. or light. Mass detector shows it should be there, but it's completely dark."
"No wonder this system is nicknamed The Abyss," Gabriel notes, and looks to Tasha. "Anything could be in there, and we'd probably need to use active sensing to see any of it."
"If it's a defense of some kind, it's an interesting one. I guess this time we're dealing with stealth instead of what seemed like the more direct, defensive approach, but it could also be a trap just the same." The ancients have never ceased to amaze Tasha. Traps the size of star systems, rings that can surround a sun, planet-sized mechanical computers, and so on. All just left lying around, like toys a child no longer had an interest in, drawfing all her own people have done so far. Except she knows 'abandoned' is rarely the right word: Placed, lost, or with no one left alive to care. Those are more common, especially the last. And to prevent that dire fate, a civilization might go to any lengths within its reach.
"Well, we didn't come to stare at the darkness, whatever Gabriel's old Terran sayings say about that. Besides, the darkness is getting a better view right now. Ready to head in?" the young woman asks.
"Taking us in from above," Kaa replies, not wanting to risk another minefield issue. "Nebula should be thinnest that way." The view of space is replaced by the pseudo-liquid flow of the Maelstrom, which doesn't give them anything to look at aside from the mass detector. The jaunt is short, as Kaa stops and goes to periscope depth at one light-hour out.
Meanwhile Tasha walks over and leans against the railing as she's taken to doing. It makes her feel in charge, observing and overseein. Even if she might not be qualified to the latter, she can still do the former better than most. "Any guesses? Think they have the sun bottled up?" She asks no one in particular.
The passive telescopic view builds slowly. The only thing really in focus is the star.. which is a black sphere covered in gigantic, ever-changing geometric patterns glowing in different colors.
"Funky looking bottle," Gabriel comments.
"That's a fanc-" ... -y looking bottle. Tasha chews her lip, staring with her head propped up on her hands. "Well, it's letting some wavelengths of light out. Spectrographics? Can we tell if the sun is penetrating that barrier, or if the light is from the barrier itself? Anything outside of visible light?"
"I don't detect the shell," Yue notes. "Nothing on resonance. The light is made of pure colors though, most likely laser-based."
"So, lasers from a shell around the sun? Probably powered by the sun, using focal systems." But, why? Tasha considers for a moment, knowing lasers are often used for communication, targeting and data transfer. Light like a electronic signal, all measures of wavelengths and data encoded in the dips and rises of waves and pseudo-waves. "If it's a communication effort, it'd be omnidirectional, which means it'd be talking to the nebulas and everything else around here for some reason? Or is it running some sort of trageting sweep for anything that's gotten inside? But that seems unlikely. Um. Pure light. I've neevr heard of stellar farms, but there could be that. Or it's art."
"Or a ritual circle," Hakeber whispers next to Tasha, looking at the display with a somewhat worried expression.
"Should be able to use it to see into the nebula though," Yue notes. "Just have to get in closer."
"Allllright," goes Tasha, drawing out the word as Hakeber's suggestion runs through her mind. She glances over at the shorter woman, scootching closer and tilting her head in. "Do you see something, Hake? A gut feeling, or one of the other kinds of feelings you get now?"
"I don't know," Hakeber replies quietly. "Maybe there'll be something else to explain it.."
The view goes away as the ship submerges and makes it way into the nebula. "Lots of mass, scattered around," Moka reports. "Planetary debris, asteroids.." Before she can finish, Kaa brings them to a stop again. "Sharp spikes," he reports. "Neutronium." The periscopes go back up, and Yue immediately says, "Digital Cognizance readings. Sub-sapient, but spread out.."
"Hrrm," goes Tasha, not liking it one bit. Compared to the workings of the ancients, the workings of the outsiders or anything to do with them can range from torturously bizarre to the merely incomprehensible. Their rules are different, and so must be any work that includes them. They make mere local aliens seem tame by comparison. Not safe, but at least like distant cousins or neighboring families.
When the ship surfaces again, Tasha perks ehr ears. "Some kind of, uh, diffuse artificial intelligence? Or a sensor net?"
"They're matching up with neutronium sites, which are asteroids.." Yue says, and starts putting up a map of the area around the ship. "Nanomachines," the woman concludes. "Nanomachines manufacturing neutronium from the asteroids. That's Berserker-tech."
"What about stellar enclosures?" Gabriel asks.
Tasha's grunt of acknowledgement sounds a little like she'd been punched in the gut. "My favorites," she remarks, sarcasim dripping from her voice. She'll never forget her foray in to genocide, and all the reasons that lead up to that decision. The Berserkers are bad news, emotional scars or no. "Are we looking at a active Berserker system?"
"Uh, not that I'm aware of. If they're making neutronium in the system, it usually means they're trying to destroy it," Yue says. "So they're definitely active. Which.. doesn't make sense. All of the planets look to have been pulverized already. There's no life for them to be attacking.."
"They have to be using it for something though," Gabriel points out. "Scan for antimatter. There's no solar flux for them to get power from, so they should be using antimatter. Find them."
"Maybe they can't win and so just keep on making neutronium? They fling it at the sun, and nothing happens, and then they try again because what can survive an endless neutronium bombardment?" Tasha reaches up and scratches her nose in thought, then nods. "Maybe they just didn't construct a good enough weapon, or expect they'd fail, and te natives hid in their Rainbow Fortress."
"Berserkers don't fall into the keep-throwing-rocks-until-it-breaks sort of thinking loops," Yue says. "This system is old. They could have been doing this for a billion years now, if something is fighting back." With the dangerous concentrations of mass mapped out, Kaa begins to take them deeper. And Hakeber's grip on Tasha's arm gets tighter.
Hakeber can feel Tasha's closest wing settle over her shoulder. She also lays the arm that had been helping to scratching her nose to settle over the small Karnor's shoulders. The message is clear, I'm here, don't worry Hake-bear. "They don't? Well. That's ... That's interesting." And ominous, though she supposes she ought to have expected the Berserkers to be both immensely clever and capable of evolving their plans. "All that's left is that sun and it's bottle, so it must have something to do with it."
"Big mass found," Kaa reports, as they surface the periscopes again. This time there's light for the telescopes to work with, and strong quantum resonances. The problem is the light is coming from explosions. The strobe effect makes it hard to make out the object they seem to surround, but it is big and long.
"It's a sword," Katie says. The display stabilizes things, using different images to build a composite. And it does look like a giant sword in space.
"A neutronium laced sword about 6,000 kilometers long, and heavy as a planet," Yue adds as the data comes in.
"A sword." Tasha repeats it with a kind of droll, flat tone that bespeaks of surprise and disbelief in equal measure. "I guess we can't attach it to the ship? I bet Mel would be thrilled." Or Atum. Or a giant the sized of a star system. She reaches to rub her nose, but her hand is busy comforting Hakeber, so she rubs Hakeber's nose instead. "So they're attacking it? Is it some kind of generation ship? Or a actual weapon? Or ... A competing artificial intelligence lifeform?"
"I want to know what they're fighting around it," Gabriel says. "There are probably other weapons in the system as well."
Yue and Moka try to track things with the telescopes. Finally they get an image of a machine shaped like a squid, which latches onto something black that appears to have a similar shape.. and then everything goes white as one of them explodes.
"It looks like they're fighting each other," Tasha notes, chewing on her lip. "Berserkers have minds that can be influenced or fail just like we do, don't they? Do you think the system's defenses compromised the attackers and part of the Berserker force switched sides?"
"There's never been a record of Berserkers fighting one another," Yue claims. "But.. everyone who would be able to witness it would have already been dead."
"Something's happening with the sun," Katie calls out, and the star fills part of the display zone again. The colors are starting to merge, all of them becoming red as the symbols begin to link up.
Tasha snorts a laugh, which sounds bitter to those that know her. "I've seen them fight each other. If you leave them alone long enough, make them desperate enough, they can go mad like anyone ellllseee--" Her remark trails off in to one steady tone as she sweeps her gaze towards the sun, and her eyes widen. //That doesn't look good. "I, um, hope it's about to say, "hi.""
"Dive, Mr. Kaa," Gabriel says, just before the symbols seem to glow brighter. The displays go away, replaced by the Maelstrom - and then the air vibrates with the sound of an incredibly loud trumpet, followed by buffeting and a return to normal space.
Tasha clings to the railing through the noise, and to Hakeber. Her ears flatten along with her body, which instinctively hunkers down, legs spreading out, fighting against a sudden roll of a ship she's no longer on. When she sees they're back in normal space, she slowly uncoils and asks, "Kaa, did you return us to normal space?"
"No!" Kaa chirps. "I've lost con-t-trol! No response!" This is followed by an alarmed whistle.
"No link to the external sensors," Yue reports next. "We're blind to anything we can't see out of the window."
Great. But Tasha straightens, standing as tall as she might, and nods. "Well, these things happen," she notes, trying to sound like it's all happened a thousand times before. "AI, how are you holding up? Ship's status, do you know what's going on?"
There's no reply from the Niss to Tasha's request. Jonas, Shojo and Aaron hurry onto the bridge though, with both the human and Vartan carrying medical kits. "Is everyone okay?" Dr. Knight asks. "What happened?"
"The sun's rainbow bottle trumpeted my ship unconcious," Tasha replies to Jonas, but she's already pushing off and untangling herself from Hakeber. She turns and begins heading aft at an increasingly rapid pace. "Gabriel, do what you can here. I'd like anyone who ins't needed the second the ship can move again or else is involved figuring out what's going on and needs to be on the bridge to spread out and search the ship for any damage. Teams of two, please. Hakeber, come with me. I'm heading to the core, and then to the Owner's Deck."
Hakeber is a bit shaky, but doesn't argue. Katie grabs Shojo, and Gabriel also gets up. "I'm going to the hangar, come with me Jonas?" he says. "I want the shuttles prepped. Tasha, everyone, check for the Jotoki and Liza. The Jotoki should be in the dolphin's quarters."
"We'll check there and the barracks for Lacci," Katie tells Tasha.
"Yes, sir." Tasha slows down when she sees Hakeber isn't following as fast as she'd like, then she simply picks Hakeber up before returnning to a fast clip. "I'd recommend space suits, something with manuvering jets in case the walls disappear. We don't want to be left floating with nothing to push off of." She pauses by the exit, considers if there's anything else, and says, "I may be busy dealing with the core or with something up on my deck. If you're not busy with your task, report to Gabriel for more orders. Grab Blaze and Creamsicle if you see them, please." She pauses once more, reviews her mental list, then adds, "If you have to abandon ship and there's no time, don't wait for us."
"Abandon ship.. that's funny.." Yue says as everyone else with legs leaves the bridge except for Aaron. Tasha outpaces everyone else, even if Gabriel and Jonas are right behind her. They may all be heading to the hangar, but Tasha is only passing through to get to the elevator to the core. "Tasha, I'm okay.." Hakeber says several times.
"Of course you are, Hake-bear," Tasha replies, sounding distracted. The short Karnor gets a kiss on the forehead, but does not get put down. The half-Vartan has places to go and who-knows-how-much time to get there. And though she knows abandoning ship is unlikely to be useful, at times like this she knows she needs to be direct and factual. A life spent aboard ships has taught her that it can be no other way and that disasters can happen quickly, expected or not. When she reaches the hangar she walks over and fumbles a small space suit out of a nearby locker, then punches the lift door, watching it with impatient focus.
Internal power is still working, and the lift doesn't take long to arrive.
"Well, that's good," Tasha says, mainly to herself. She steps inside and punches the button for the core. She really wasn't looking forward to trying to force open what is effectively fake matter, uncertain what happens when the mechnicals fail, and more so, if she could physically overpower any of it. The space suit in her hands is put in Hakeber's lap, and then the smaller woman put down. "Better put that on," she warns. "If we lose all power, I'll need you to move me."
"Move you?" Hakeber says, staying inside the lift after the door opens. The small platform is still there, and the horse is visible in its dimensional fishbowl. It doesn't look disturbed.
Tasha stalks forward, leaning in and reaching out. She's no expert in the health and happiness of dark animals, but she doesn't know anyone who is or is or any more knowledgable than she. She squints like a doctor checking a patient for signs of illness. "Are you okay?" The words are directed forward, not towards Hakeber.
The horse moves closer.. or gets bigger, it's really hard to tell. Then it seems to spin around, or at least the tendril-streamers do. It doesn't feel distressed.
"Well good, good. Good." Tasha's voice eases as she speaks, settling in to a kind of fondness laced with relief. She pats the sphere lovingly, then says, "If you're ever not, you tell me. Tell us. Kaa. I have go, the Niss may be in trouble. Then we're going to figure out what's wrong with the ship." She pats once more, then steps back and heads for the lift.
It's a bit tight since Hakeber is still trying to get into the spacesuit. It's only a moment before it opens on the VIP deck however, near Tasha's own room and office.
Tasha makes a beeline for the Artifact Bay, saying, "Hake? Grab my Titanian armor out of my quarters. Punch the storage release right of the entrance, the big wall panel. It's in there. I'm going to check on the Niss." She's repeating herself, she knows, but reinforcing what's going to happen with words, stating her emergency actions again and again, lends the situation a stability in her mind. It also vents her anxiety, which has become a steady pulse in her mind. She stops beside the Bay's hatch and punches in her code, then stalks inside and heads for the Niss Collective.
The brain-sized.. brain.. is sitting in its bowl. It doesn't look like it was knocked over or anything from the buffeting at least. But it looks darker than usual.
Tasha grimaces at the change in color. She's never known the Niss do do much physically except to slowly grow in size, or else to split apart when she wasn't looking. As ancient empires go, they've been extremely sedate. Sudden change is therefore a cause for alarm. She lays her hand stop the sphere and thinks intently, hoping it comes across as 'loud'. Niss. Are you alright?
What she gets is a huge amount of noise, as if lots of voices were talking over each other. The Niss are usually coherent, so something clearly disrupted that. Even if it only sounded like a trumpet.
Tasha bares her teeth in a rictus cringe. The Niss are, as much as she's known anything to be, highly resilient to the point she doubts an entire Galactic empire might not be enough to even disturb them greatly. To see them disoriented or possibly worse is a terror that hits her right in the gut. The weapons of gods and angels, turned towards each other ...
After sucking in a breath, mind racing, Tasha comes to a decision. It's about all she has, after all, how can she offer help to a civilization that dwarfs her own? And she, just one member? But it's what she'd do when a crewmember had lost it, lost their focus started blabbering. Maybe it will work. Maybe.
Hey, all of you! Something hit the ship, something encasing the sun! You need to focus. Concentrate on me, concentrate on anything, but focus. Get it together.
The Niss are, if anything, very fast, but it still takes time for them to sort things out. Hakeber has managed to haul out Tasha's armor before the voices begin to settle down from a throng, to a mob, to a crowd, to a single mostly coherent voice. "We have encountered a quantum disruption to our communication," the Niss explain. "It is likely to have a similar effect on machine intelligence."
The sun-- When Hakeber enters, Tasha begins speaking so not to seem like she'd locked up or otherwise broken her brain, and to give Hakeber a sense of being included in things which she suspects might help her nerves. She repeats her words in thought, echoing herself. " ... The sun is encased in something. You saw it. Hakeber thinks it's some sort of ritual circle, maybe D-space containment technology. Outsider-tech. It formed symbols, then shot us right through the Maelstrom. Can you think of a defense? It might try again. It may think we're hostile, or it may just be hostile."
The Niss uses the intercom at that point. "The attack was not likely a reaction to us, but an ongoing method of disrupting the Berserker minds and their nanotechnology tools."
Tasha looks up as the intercom sounds, but continues to think her communication as well as say it. "Then we need to get out of its line of fire. This explains why the Berserkers are going haywire, at least. The sun's system are constantly disrupting them, putting off their victory for who-knows-how-long." She chews on her lip again, then nods to herself; it sounds reasonable. "Do you know what that sword-looking object is?"
"It is a sword," the Niss reply without inflection. "There are likely to be several of them within the system, designed to penetrate the shell."
"I don't think it's a shell, Tasha," Hakeber says.
"The effect may be constrained to the nebula itself," the Niss note. "Kaa's original plan of staying above the orbital plane should be effective."
"A literal sword. Alright. A space sword. A dart." Tasha runs a hand through her hair at that. A space sword and a planet sized mechnical computer clock. At this rate she could start a collection of giant versions of things from home, like the universe's must tremendous museum. The thought briefly amuses her until the grim reality of their situation intrudes once again. "Hake-bear doesn't think it's a shell. The sun and what surrounds it may be alive in some way, maybe even containing a dark being. The Berserkers wouldn't bother if it wasn't alive or a threat somehow, they'd have stopped atatcking." She then switches focus, not thinking her next words. "Kaa! Can you hear me? Dive us and head back above the orbital plane!"
"Systems are still coming b-back," Kaa replies, but the subtly felt transition to the Maelstrom is felt. "But drive is working again."
"The attack we recieved probably wasn't aimed for us. It's what the sun-thing is using to disrupt the Berserkers and their weapons. It's a quantum disruption pulse fired by the sun's, uh, skin." Tasha drops her gaze to Hakeber, then asks, "Impression: Should we try to communicate with the sun? Or try to help the Berserkers win?"
Hakeber looks a bit blank at the question, standing there in her emergency spacesuit next to Tasha's armor. "I.. I think it's already been trying to talk to us," she says nervously.
"Then lets say hello." Tasha doesn't ask Hakeber how she knows, but instead looks down towards the Niss. "I guess this is where we figure out how to talk back. Make sure you're okay, then think about how it might have been trying to talk to us. It may be something you can't detect, so don't worry about it if you can't. It may be for the living." She pauses, wondering if they'd appreciate it, but then adds, "I'm glad you're all okay." Her hand lifts off and she turns to Hakeber. "Time to go back to the bridge. Do you have thoughts on the how of communication?"
"Are we supposed to check on Liza first?" Hakeber asks.
"The ship's not in danger and we didn't suffer any internal damage from the trumpet, so she's probably okay. We need to focus on reaching that sun before it decides to just assume we're a problem." It's all said matter-of-fact, from a mindset of damage control and assessment. A kind of ship problems triage. Deal with the big issue; if a big issue has become less big, drop it down the list. But ... "I'll send one of the others to find her, but you and I might be the only ones who can talk to that sun. We're going to the bridge."
An hour later, the Dark Horse it once more above the orbital plane of Acheron-B, above the north pole of the black sun. This ship is mostly back to normal, with the emergency passed. Gabriel, Katie, Yue and the dolphins man the bridge along with Tasha and Hakeber. Lacci hangs back in the rear conference area, looking hungover or just sleep-deprived.
"No pattern emerging yet," Yue reports on the mysteriously cycling shapes and symbols and colors of the blacked-out star.
"And we don't know what language that is." It's not a question, just a statement of mental review said flatly. Tasha bites her lip and leans over the railing as she studies the marks, trying to make any sense of them. As Hakeber hasn't spoken up about them, she assumes the other woman is just as stumped. "Well, giant black suns are probably at least as smart as we are, probably smarter, so lets let it figure us out. Katie? It likes talking in pure light, so lets try using that. Yue, we have some sort of pre-arranged language-and-symbols-and-what-ever package we can send, don't we? A 'hi, we're aliens, here's how we talk' package?"
"Uh, no.." Yue admits. "That's a very expensive package and only governments are allowed to buy it. First Contact isn't for civilians, officially. Also, that would mean fully exposing ourselves."
"I don't think that's a language at all," Gabriel says. "Maybe it's more of a display of internal status or mood. Or a countdown clock until the next trumpet fanfare. Do we know how that got through to us?"
"N-not yet, Captain," Moka replies.
"Hake-bear thinks it already knows we're here." Tasha pushes off and folds her arms, shifting her weight to one leg, hip out. "And the N- AI says it's some sort of quantum-level disruption. It probably couldn't not fire even if it wanted to avoid hitting us, since that appears to be what's keeping the Berserker machines from succeeding at their 'throw darts at the black sun' project. So unless it decides to talk to us first, then we'd better say hello, because it can probably hit us in the Maelstrom anyway. It's that or we just leave. I'd like to talk to it. Opinions?"
"What do we want to talk to it about?" Katie asks. "And how much do we tell it about ourselves? What language do the Berserker's use?"
"Base, um ... Number? Was it 4, Yue?" Tasha arches a brow, turning to Yue briefly before facing Katherine. "It's an old Galactic language, anyway. They're old Galactics. As for what to say, well, "To the solar body, we've entered your solar system and see you're under attack by sentient AI. Please identify yourself and explain the situation." It's a little rude, but there is a war going on, so I think our caution is understandable, unless someone has something better?"
"Galactic One for logic based systems," Yue notes. "Galactive Eleven is probably best for talking between different Orders of Life."
"I don't think we're a logic based system anyway," Tasha asides to Hakeber in a tone of mock-seriousness, clearly a joke. "Just look at what we're doing." She hip bumps the other woman -- hang in there -- and then addresses the ship in general. "Alright, Galactic Eleven, then. Write it up and send it off. Laser, um, don't use red."
Gabriel has mostly been scowling at the display so far. "Can we use Psi-Glyphs?" he asks Yue. "The Berserkers shouldn't be able to pick up on those. I think Gal Eleven allows for them though."
Tasha pauses, holding up a hand to indicate Katherine should wait a moment. "I was thinking we'd use a coherent beam laser-light signal. Anything except red, which seems to be 'grr, sun angry'. We have psi-glyphs?" She shakes her head, psionic letters.
"We can do laser," Yue replies. "And we need to be very very specific with this. I would recommend not mentioning having been in the system and seeing the Berserkers. Or asking for more than one answer to one question. I'd ask: Are you alive?"
"Hokay," Tasha breathes, slightly disheartened her approach has been found inadequate. She then turns to nod at Katherine. "Ask it if it's alive, Katie."
It takes time for Katherine to compose the message, since the language involved is very cautious and redundant in nature. "Sent," she says. "It'll be received in two hours."
Tasha nods. "Well, two hours out and maybe two hours back." The young woman resists the urge to tell everyone they have some free time, as that's Gabriel's call and she suspects she's been stepping on his command toes a little too much today. Instead she turns to Hakeber and asks, "Want to go upstairs and relax a bit? I'll have Liza make us something."
"I think Shojo is still up there," Katie notes.
"I could use something to help me relax," Hakeber admits.
"Lets go see what they're up to then." Tasha gives katie a smile, then puts an arm around Hakeber's shoulder and steers her back and towards the lift. When she spots Lacci, she waves ehr to follow along, as well. "You too. You look like Berserkers blew up your feathers! We're heading up."
"Will there be coffee?" Lacci asks as she follows along. When they get out of the lift, they first see Liza curled on the floor, and Shojo sitting on the couch staring at the deactivated wall display.
Tasha's gaze first goes to Liza, then Shojo, then back to Liza. "Shojo, what's going on here?" She asks, taking a hesitant step forward and andgetting that ice-down-the-spine sensation she gets when entering an unknown situation that has a potentially terrible answer. She tries to keep her voice calm, steady. From the looks of things, she might be the only one with even a semblance of real control.
"Tasha.." Hakeber seems to hiss before going quiet.
Shojo remains silent, but Lacci doesn't. "Who is that behind the bar?" she asks.
Tasha's expression dies. It goes perfectly blank, the woman pausing for only a moment before she makes a very delibrate turn to stare right at whatever is behind the bar. As she turns she martials up her will, calls on all her experience and resiliency in dealing with the unknown. She suspects she's about to need it.
"Ho, Puppy-bird," the big female Vartan behind the bar says, and raises a glass. "This booze too smooth. No bite or burn. Oh, maybe broke your pets. Didn't like what they saw, I guess."
She definitely needed it. Tasha's grimace is wide, but she manages to otherwise contain her expression. It wasn't who she expected, but then ... "You're not Blackwings." It's not a question, either, said in an accusing tone intended to challenge the illusion. Just saying it makes her hackles raise, to sya nothing of what she expects is infront of her. Or, worse, not actually infront of her.
"That's not a very imaginative name anyways," the bird squawks. "But yeah, not my name. Call me Urgo."
"Urgo-hem," Hakeber whispers and starts to shiver.
"I don't.. who are you talking to?" Lacci asks. "That hologram is blurry. Black and blurry with lights?"
"Urgo-he--" But Hakeber beats her to it. This at least Tasha understands, and she nods to the explaination as if it were a matter of course. "Urgo-hem. Ogdru-hem." The hybrid then reaches over and grabs Lacci by the shoulder, pushing her to turn around. "Lacci. Don't look at it. Don't think about it. Turn around and board the elevator and tell Gabriel 'one of the hem is talking to us, stay away.' Go. Now."
"Alright?" Lacci says in confusion, but heads to the elevator and leaves the deck.
Tasha visibly untenses once Lacci leaves. With as naive and fragile as the young hopeful is, she half suspects a real encounter with an Ogdru-hem would break her mind. She ins't certain it hasn't already broken Liza and Shojo. "Hake, do you want to deal with this? If you don't, grab Liza and take her to Jonas. I'll stay here and have a friendly talk with our new friend."
"Not much to pull from in that one," Urgo-hem notes. "Oh, but this one.. no, you can't send her away. I don't even have to use a mask for her. I can smell her fears.. I like it. She stays."
Hakeber pauses in mid-kneel towards Liza.
"If you're trying to come off as hostile, you're succeeding. And you don't get to tell me what to do with my crew." Very deliberately, Tasha turns and walks towards Liza, intending to pick her up and carry her to the elevator herself. "Hake, stop. Go tell Gabriel what it just said. Niss. A Ogdru-hem is on board and projecting directly in to our minds and it's aggressive."
"No intruder detected," the Niss reply.
"It's here. It may be contacting us through its own outsider means," the hybrid insists. "It's already disabled Shojo and Liza. It seems to enjoy fear." It's all stated matter-of-factly, Tasha doing her best to keep her voice even and self in control. She takes Hakeber's spot and reaches down to pick up Liza.
"Don't think the Niss can deal with me," Urgo-hem says. "You know I can scramble them. And Gabriel. How appropriate! Because of the Trumpet.. ah, but you wouldn't get the reference. You can put the Lapi in the lift though, I'll allow that. She locked up so quickly, it wasn't fun at all."
Tasha does it anyway, uncertain if the Ogdru-hem is showing a lack of control or is saying exactly what it means. With that done she hits the lift button from the outside, sending Liza down and Hakeber down. Next she turns, walking with a steady pace towards Shojo. "So you enjoy fear and think it's fun. That sounds like your kind. What do you want?"
"You're not being very hospitable," Urgo-hem notes, and sips from the glass. "The previous crew wasn't either. I did not expect to see the Dagger again. It's been a long time. I assumed it had been recycled by now."
"You've met this ship before, then." Tasha reaches over and shakes Shojo. First gently, then hard. "Hey, Shojo! Snap out of it! I know what it's doing: Creepy images, tentacles, eyeballs, colors and senses that don't make sense. Bit look at me. Look at me. I'm fine. You'll be fine, too. Now wake up." She keeps shaking, but risks a glance back over her shoulder. "You want hospitality? Or playthings? Or souls, I guess? Is this part of the Ogdru-hem's plan, or are you just bored and tugging on your leash?"
"You came to me," Urgo-hem notes. "And this 'ship' was made for me. Well.. with me in mind, I should say. The Tnuctipin were vicious little monsters, you know. They'd have eaten you. But they were so, so much simpler too. Not like you. Your crew has empathy, even the Niss. Even that little flicker of a god you carry around. So, really, I will be asking you what you're doing here?"
Shojo may as well be a statue. There's no telling what's going on behind his unfocused eyes.
Tasha bites her lip, giving up on waking the man. If she can't shake him out of it she'll just have to deal with the source of the problem. If she can deal with the source of the problem. She stands up, makes another deliberate turns, and then walks right towards the specter that may or may not be in her head. "That's fine. It's fair. We did come here." She wonders if there's something in it all, in being asked the question, in the fact it's not hammering on her mind. Or maybe it is, which would be interesting in itself. "We're exploring. You just happened to be here, that's all. Does that bother you? Are you afraid?"
"You ascribe feelings to me that I do not possess," Urgo-hem claims, but still looks amused. "It simply seems an astronomical coincidence," she continues. "Are you sure you aren't here to kill me? The machines have been trying for.. well.. a very long time now. They aren't as clever as the Tnuctipin were though. I'm not sure where you fall on the scale, however. You're all very different from the other two. I'm not familiar with your species. But.. you do have some particularly nasty little minds on your ship. I suspect they aren't part of the crew though."
Tasha stops a foot away from the figure.If it feeds on fear, then she isn't going to allow herself to show it. She forces herself to look it right in the eyes, fixing her gaze, thinking to herself it's not that different than staring down another thug on the street. Except she knows it is. The terror of the outsider-place is an old scar in her mind, and largely healed. She doesn't fera it as much for herself as for the others, but she also knows her fears by now, and does her best to clamp down on them Removing as many people from its presence as she could helped. Staring at it helps more, in a eyes-wide charging in to danger way. At least she isn't running away.
"Oh don't tell me you don't 'possess feelings.' I know your kind has something like them. You're enjoying yourself, for instance." She cocks her head to the side, studying the familiar face that isn't a familiar person. "Maybe I am and maybe I'm not here to kill you. You're definitely making me lean towards the idea of killing, but I assume you know you're provoking me and that amuses you too. And, what minds? You mean the Niss?"
"The Niss? Hardly," the not-Vartan says, and tilts her head slightly. "Hmmm. Slippery things.. ah.. kittens. Animals. I haven't encountered an animal mind in.. well, you're all animals, really. Some are just truer to themselves than others. And as for killing me, you'd need to be able to pilot the Dagger without the Niss. The Tnuctipin priests were all about doing things manually. So confident in themselves. Not so confident in one another, however. And that was all the leverage I needed. I've no intention of baring my throat to the knife."
"And the Berserkers have their own knives." Tasha nods. She isn't sure if Urgo-hem is telling the truth, although it sounds plausible. It gives her ideas, and then it also gives her a question. "So, why haven'y you tried to mess with my mind? You know who I am, you mentioned killing you, but you didn't have this conversation with Liza and Shojo, did you?"
"Their demons weren't so articulate," Urgo-hem claims. "They also aren't in charge. But your friend, she's been touched by one of us. She could be dangerous, even. And as for the Berserkers.. they recover a little faster each time after the Trumpet blows. Get a bit more work done before being distracted. They are patient. They'll finish their knives, and plunge them into my heart to destroy the star therein. And I suspect that means the places I could try to flee to are all traps of one sort or another. It's just a very dull waiting game."
Tasha suddenly smiles as something occurs to her. "And you can't kill us, either, can you?" It seems so obvious in hinsight, it nearly makes her laugh. She isn't quite sure she won, but it feels like the tip of it. The moment after putting down a game piece, waiting to see how the situation resolves. "The Berserkers will win. You're going to die. And if you kill us, you just die faster. Because, because, then they'll come searching for the Dark Horse. And they all have daggers. I could even call them, just like that. I bet the Niss knows Hammersong by now, and both I and the ship can sing. Soooo." She lifts a finger, then reaches out to try and poke the illusion in the chest. "You want something and you're afraid. You're acting strong, like dying doesn't worry you, but underneath you're all slaves afraid of what you can't stop."
"Actually, we might get the call tomorrow that the Seraphim have fallen, and free our creators to devour you all," Urgo-hem claims. "It could take the machines another million years to drop their knives, after all. Plenty of time for us to still win. And what's make you think I can't kill you? I killed the Tnuctipin. Do you even understand what your horse is, Tasha? What its origins really are?"
"It's made out of a special metal that can warp space. We always suspected it had a greater use, or that it was a prototype. If it's as special as you say, and I have it, doing what I do, then something has put it in my hands for a reason." It could well be, she decides. To be in possession of a weapon that can accomplish the task she and Horus have been asigned, out of countless ships and possibilities, is so obscenely coincidental as to be beyond possibility. And yet she knows beings that can see beyond possibility, beyond here and there and beyond. When she looks at it like that, she can feel the gears of the universe turn, tuned by gods at war. Perhaps even more than gods. "The Tnuctipin were getting close to rivaling the Seraphim, weren't they? And this ship ... Go ahead and tell me." The 'why' of why it would ever tell her has many answers, but she decides to see where to goes. How the gears turn.
"Oh, I don't mean the shell, I mean the engine," Urgo-hem says. "Where do you.." she starts to say, then stops and looks towards the lift.
Tasha ears are up as she listens, but she frowns when the being stops talking, turning to follow its gaze and frown in turn on whatever is disrupting their conversation. On whatever could disrupt a being like Urgo-hem's attention.
The door to the lift opens, and Hakeber steps out. She's clutching her right fist to the chest of her spacesuit, and chanting, "... Agoroth Hamma. Eth Emm-Ess Gall Athoth. Ett Uraa.."
Tasha's frown just continues to deepen, her gaze shifting from somewhere between concerned and annoyed to arch-brow perplexedness, then the other brow goes up and it's fascination. She doesn't say a word, but simply listens.
"Omunng Anng Gugoramm Ashra," Hakeber concludes, and then flings her right hand outwards towards Urgo-hem, releasing.. a bunch of splinters? When they impact the apparition, however, it vanishes. "We have to run, now," Hakeber tells Tasha before collapsing.
Tasha doesn't even think to argue. "Gabriel, dive us and move us away from this system at maximum speed. Now, please!"
"Niss! You know my signature, don't you? My resonance? See if you can come up with a way to send that, I want to make a call to the 'janitors.'"
With that out of the way, Tasha steps forward and kneels down beside Hakeber, hands out like she wants to hep her friend but isn't sure she can, or should. "So, you're looking and sounding a bit magical, Hake-bear. Are you alright?"
"Just need to rest," Hakeber says, as she ship begins to shake. There's the sound of a Trumpet, but it feels far away.
Tasha considers this for a long moment, tilting her head back as the Trumpet roils past, devoid of all its previous power. She lets the sound wash over her like a wave, exhaling, then dropping down on her butt and grinning lopsidedly. She leans over.
"My little Hake-bear has become scary to old nasty gods," her tone is teasing and full of warmth. "I'm so proud of you!" And then Tasha reaches over and mussies up the little Karnor's hair.