In the sea without lees standeth the Bird of Hermes
The infinite white plane goes on until it blends in with the slightly off-white sky. The only spot of color in the place is Tasha herself, appearing into the blankness all alone as usual. Horus is never there to greet her.
It strikes the young woman she has always had a plan before coming in here to speak to Horus. A strategy, a system. When she looks back at all the other god-like figures she's met, the aliens, the outsiders, she never created a plan until after the fact. Sometimes, not even then. The discrepancy stands out in her mind and she decides it requires further reflection later, but for now she needs to speak to Horus.
Horus, God of Vartans. Horus, Vril-ya uplifter who saw potential in the animals that predated half her kind. Horus, prodigal son of Atum, the only one to even dissent. Horus, the prisoner she has been charged to see complete his duties. She wonders if there were ever a being her feelings were more mixed about. Coming here is never comfortable, though sometimes staying or leaving is. Sometimes.
Today she opts fpr casual, too tired and frazzled after the multiple scares in the outter world. "Hi, I'm back," she tries, as if she'd just returned from grabbing a coffee, perhaps to inquire if Horus might like a donut. "So, we've left the system. We're in an 'Ash Zone' doing some, uh, surveys." Looting, destroying, being terrified ... "Found a really interesting system we think's a Ogdru-hem trap, and then we found an Ogdru-hem."
Horus appears, but not in his usual form. This time he's showing up as a normal Vartan, although one with the same colors as his Titan shell. "That is interesting," he notes. "Can you describe the trap system?"
Tasha can't quite manage to conceal her surprise, brows raising and wings splaying out slightly, the feathers poofing. An earlier joke about a similiar reaction she made at Lacci's expense springs to mind unbidden. A moment later and she looks chargrined. "Um," she hesitates, looking everywhere and nowhere for a moment, then she nods and stares off at this distance, half thinking and half embarassed in a way that feels unique to being embarassed around Horus. "Well, it looked like a depot or civilization repair kit. There were a few worlds covered in lubricants, orbitting artificials made of antimatter and rare metals like the stuff the Thennenin shells are made of, a half-empty fluids world and one planet sized mechanical computer, which I thought was neat. I have a model of it on my bedroom wall, now. Uh. The next system over had the Ogdru-hem, who was like a sun-bottle, and had been fighting Berserkers for who-know-how-long."
"Berserkers are the machine people?" Horus asks for clarification. "Did either system have organic life? Do you know which Ogdru-hem you discovered?"
"The Berserkers are machine people that seem to have evolved like organic people, not AIs that freed themselves. Yue suggested they may have been organic once, or else were machines that evolved like organics, somehow." Tasha folds her hands behind her back, looking down to inspect her hooves. "The Ogdru-hem is Urgo-hem. That makes three that I know of, Sedu-hem is held by House Khomen, Katha-hem is on Abaddon and Urgo-hem is losing a war with the machines, or so it said. It had a lot to say about the ship, too."
"What did it say about the ship? Was it one of the Ogdru-hem presences that I felt here?" Horus asks.
"Maybe. Hake-bear is touched by Katha-hem somehow, it seems to have given her knowledge and purpose, but we're still trying to find out what that is." Tasha reaches up and scratches at her muzzle, feeling suddenly self-concious about it for reasons she suspects are obvious but she doesn't want to deal with right now. "But Urgo-hem also attacked us. Or, I guess, tortured us for fun before saying 'hi'? It knows you are here. The Niss, too. It did something to Liza and Shojo before I talked to it. Uh, kind of yelled at it really. Um. Then Hake-bare showed up and did magic at it, and its projection vanished. Hake-bear is like some sort of mage now. A, um, Dark Mage, I guess?"
"What did it claim to know about this ship then?" Horus prompts.
"Uh? Oh: It said the Tnuctipin built it to kill it. That the metal isn't important, but the core is. And, that is destroyed both the Tnuctipin crew and the Tnuctipin people using, I think, its mind games to turn them against each other. As smart as they were, I guess trust wasn't something they were good at." Tasha rolls her arms in a shrug; she suspects Urgo-hem is right about what the Tnuctipin would have done to her and her crew, and so is only vaguely sorry they're gone. She'd have like to ahve seen or spoken to one at least once, though. "They planned to fly the ship through Orgo-hem and in to the sun, or at least just through it. The core was also active physically when I went to check on it after the Trumpet attack -- the TRumpet seems to be its main weapon and it disrupts machine intelligence. Since the Niss are similiar to a machine intelligence, and they're basically engineering and computer control combined, we're working out ways to get around needing them if we decide to get close ag
ain. The Titanians suggested some ideas and we have others, but either way we're working to destroy the system."
Horus nods and narrows his eyes slightly - the first emotional expression he's had, since his face was sculpted before. "The third system of this group should contain a neutron star," he says. "The Piper's Citadel will be found there. And presumably the Piper, unless someone has freed him since I went dormant. The Piper has many names, but is presumed to be a being from the Outer Dark, like the Ogdoad themselves, but of a different nature. It was likely the one who captured and tamed the Ogdru-hem that powers this vessel."
Tasha looks up at that, brows and ears up. That Horus is frowning makes her twitch, but the information is too interesting and surprise beats concern and self-conciousness. "That's useful," she blurts out, not quite able to keep the rest out of her reaction. She clears her throat and continues, steadier. "So there's an Ogdru-hem in the ship. And, something like the Ogdoad themselves in the next system. The Piper. In its Citadel." She chews on hr lip a long moment, weighing the possibilities, then nods slowly. "Can this Piper help us? Is it dangerous? It or the Citadel? Did the Tnuctipin make it?"
"The legends of the Piper are many and often contradictory," Horus explains. "Sometimes it is helpful, but usually for reasons unknown. It may reveal dangerous truths, or withhold vital information. Overall, it seems to be an agent of chaos, but may merely have goals that are inscrutable. It has been worshipped as a god and a devil, and it's relationship to the Ogdoad and Ogdru-hem is also unknown."
Tasha gives Horus a look. "I'm familiar with those typs of legends," she notes, the irony of Horus -- a Vril-ya -- talking about incomprehensible and contradictory tales of mysterious, possibly fictional godlike beings is not lost on her. Her head shakes and for a moment she wonders how she got here. "Well, it won't be the first, anyway. We should probably go say 'hi' and see what it has to say about all this, then maybe reconsider our attack strategy."
"If the Piper had a part in the construction of this ship, it should know how it is meant to be used," Horus reasons. "But it likely will not offer anything for free."
"Well at least that's comprehensible. It's a lot more confusing when my enemies tell me how to kill them and don't actually want anything and aren't manipulating me." After rubbing her nose a moment, Tasha nods. "We'll go see the Piper, then. What's one more demon-god, right? Anything else, Horus?"
"Try to find out more about the structure of the containment vessel holding the ship's Ogdru-hem, and what kind of Ogdru-hem it is," Horus suggests. "After all, there are Ogdru-hem that do not have physical forms. The exist as spirits the air or water - or perhaps of space, gravity or radiation."
Tasha nods to this, understanding. "I'd heard the same thing from others, that they're not all physical beings like Katha-hem or Urgo-hem. Um, visually it looks like a tentacle-ball, but I'm not sure how big it actually is. The inside of the prison could be as big as it seems, or a lot larger on the inside like the Source's prison." And so a question occurs to her. "If they exist as spirits, are they like the Vril-ya, then? They are what they know? Or maybe know what they are? There are things called elementals on Sinai that mages use, manifestations of fire or ice or what-ever."
"The Outer Dark and the Vril may be similar on the surface," Horus says, and then tilts his head to one side. "But very different in practice. The Outer Dark may give rise to individual beings, while the Vril is itself a single entity that can produce temporary extensions of itself."
"To say that there is some commonality between the Ogdru-hem and the Archons, however, is not false," the god-ghost notes.
"It seems like beings of the Dark consume while the Vril copy. Or, maybe embody? When I think of Atum, now I think he must be trying to learn all he can without risking himself too much. Isolated in the ocrridor, he can reach everywhere but not be easily reached. By touching everywhere, he can grow, becoming what he knows from a million different universes." And so tasha spreads her arms, indicatingly. "He can grow without destroying. The Vril-ya didn't come here to eat us, or enslave us, but to help us grow. The Ogdoad help us grow so they can eat us. They're all more sinister and dangerous than your kind, in the way they act and the feeling they give me. They seem like predators, but your kind reminds me of ... Of Hake-bear, I guess. Learning without having to eat the books."
"That we are not destructive is not a sign of a higher morality," Horus notes. "We ignore good and evil equally. The knowledge from observing or interacting with a species that hunts and destroys other civilizations is no different to us than the knowledge gained from their victims. It is rare that we choose to intervene."
Tasha's ears lay back at that and she can feel some part of her disappear, a little bit of naivette, and a lot more faith and hope. She swallows and nods, turning to gaze at the endless grey flooring, unable to speak for several seconds. At length she manages, "So why did you?" Her voice sounds small, even to herself.
"We remembered what had come before," Horus says. "And we were witness to its sudden passing. Individual beings cling to life and fight against death. We had not expected it to be true of an entire universe. It was.. an affront to our sensibilities. We fought against the killers, and lost some of ourselves in the battle. That may be the real reason: we sacrificed. Therefore, we could not let the sacrifice be for nothing. It has happened in other realities and other times, but given the scope of what is accessible via the Way, it is exceedingly rare from a statistical standpoint."
"So you lost something and it became personal." It's surprisingly petty to Tasha, but at least it's a pettiness she can understand. How many times did a remark at her expense get answered with a fist? When it was her stuff, her family, her friends, it always meant more. The understanding doesn't make her feel any better, it really just makes her think they're both lacking, but at least the commonality is reassuring. "So you do have morality. And maybe mortality. The Vril are a universe. You can lose pieces of yourself or change, but all of it? Did Vril see its own death in our universe, and think, "Not you," because it was really thinking, "Not me?""
"We are more fragile than you may think," Horus says. "Just look at the Archons, and what caring led to. It was something we were not prepared for, something we did not know we were capable of. Some of us kept our detachment, and some of us discarded it completely. We were changed by those we tried to mentor."
"And all of that gets back to Atum." Tasha scrunches her muzzle up, and then just decides she'd like to sit down in the face of it all. And so she does, lowering herself to the floor in a cross-legged pose and propping her head on her hands, looking up at Horus. That the pose reminds her of Atum is a coincidence as she can't exactly kneel with a jack legged stance, but it does help to reinforce the idea of Atum in her mind. Atum, from Atum's perspective. "Does what Atum knows return to Vril? I thought maybe you were all exiles."
"Eventually Atum will return, and a new Atum will be created to continue the exploration," Horus claims. "There is so much to explore."
"That is so true." And so Tasha stares out at the grey and more grey landscape, likely thinking about the same thing as Horus. The horizon is endless, just like this place. "Do you think I can ever visit Vril? Or travel down the Way, to other realities and times?"
"If you and I are successful in my task, and I am allowed to return, then I may be able to bring your soul or facsimile with me," Horus offers.
Tasha scratches her head, looking up and over at Horus. "That sounds ... okay?" Her ears flick. "I kind of meant me in a space suit or something, but that's ... okay?"
"You have barely begun to explore your home reality," Horus points out.
"You know we age and keel over, right?" Tasha thumbs at herself. "I'm not immortal, I have to run around and sip everything because if I drink it I won't have time for the rest." And then her ears splay and she gets a very contemplative look, muzzle scrunched. "Wait, could I have asked for immortality?"
"You can ask for anything you wish," Horus points out. "That does not mean it can be granted. You cannot be immortal and still be yourself, however."
"Are we ever ourselves for long?" It feels like wisdom, and a got'cha. Tasha leans in, brow arched in an "ah-ha" gesture. She's spent the last few years being reminded about how she's young, how she changes, to the point she's quite possibly referred to in a prophecy as specifically a mercurial being. The one who changes. What are you going to say to that, Horus?
"I mean that your basic view of existence is incompatible with immortality," Horus explains. "Your brain, your body, everything that makes you you. Mortals that become immortal cannot quite shake off that mortal nature. They become unbalanced. Such as the Sifras. To safely exist as an immortal you must have been created as one. To mortals, most immortals seem very cold and detached and passionless. Far removed from familiar concepts of existence."
And so Tasha folds her arms. "Are you saying in all of infinity no one has ever pulled that off and been okay with it? Is being unbalanced really that bad?" She isn't entirely sure what she's getting at, but she finds it really hard to accept the impossibility of it all. And it's not as if immortals have seemed totally together in her eyes, either. She'd only need to glance at her notes to see how countless immortals have made mortal-style mistakes.
"How many loved ones have you lost in your life already, Tasha?" Horus asks.
Tasha holds up a finger: One. "You're going to say, "You'll have to watch them all die over and over infront of you, and that will ruin you." But, iy's not any better the other way. How many times have you died, Horus? When Nora died, all she could think of is, "I want to live," and when she was gone everyone missed her. I didn't understand how she felt at the time, so I asked the Sifran artifact on the Bellerophon to show me what death was like, and do you know what it was? It was that. 'I don't wnat to die, it hurts, I miss my family.' And what happens when I die? I'm not exactly a Vartan or a Karnor, where's my afterlife?" And so she points up at the god, so much like her right now. "It's hard either way. You're Vril, you should know. If dying is so great, why did it get to you when you felt loss? I'd rather try and keep going."
"It is more than losing your loved ones, it is losing the ability to even form bonds with normal people," Horus points out. "You will then forget them. You will forget everything in time, everything you have learned. Your memory is not infinite. Eternal loneliness. Eternal suffering. Nothing will bring you joy, because joy is a mortal thing to make life worth living. You may have eternal life, but it will be meaningless."
"I tell you this from experience," Horus notes.
Tasha sucks in a breath, dropping back against the flat grey landscape and turning her gaze towards the endless nothingness. A grey sky, infinite. A grey land, infinite. It all like a metaphor for Horus's own words. At first it hurts, it really hurts. It makes not only life seem short and inevitably awful, but immortality to, and in turn everything else. But then pain turns to anger and her mind rejects it and she exhales, raggedly. "Then I'll make something to remind me life is worth living," she insists, thumping a fist to the ground. "Or I'll find some other way. Maybe I can do it and still remember the rest, maybe I'll live through others, or, I don't know. I'll figure it out. There's this bird, it sings a lot and it blows itself up. We use it for our organization. It dies and it comes back. Maybe that's it."
"But it must die first," Horus points out. "We were taught suffering by our children. And now we suffer. So many of the Archons chose to end their existence because of it. I chose to withdraw from existence, until I could be rescued. My hope was that returning to the Vril would wipe away the pain along with my identity. But I am denied that, so I must suffer until I can earn my way back. I am in Hell, and you are my devil, Tasha."
Tasha's muzzle splits in to a wide grin before she can even register the motion. Even after she isn't entirely sure why she's grinning, and certainly not why so much. Perhaps it's the absurdity of it all, a half-Vartan who spent her whole life trying to find acceptance, who tried to help as best she could and was rewarded by being made the demon to torment her species' creator. It could be that here she, nineteen, is arguing with a millions-year old being about the pros and cons of life, death, and immortality. There's also having her life sit there before her eyes, suddenly in detail, the parts that are the living and dead Nora, the Eeee woman who just wanted to keep going, and the god who wants to die. In the end it may just be all of it, so much she just has to laugh. But she doesn't think so.
"Wow," she says after a long moment of soul searching. "I'm your devil. Thank you Atum, that's exactly what I needed to feel good about myself. Do you know how hard it is being in between? I hated everything until like a year ago, I was always angry. But you know what? It felt like Vartans were always there for me. Except, not anymore and I was worried about that? And what do I get? I'm our god's demon. Our god just called me his devil."
So Tasha spreads herself out along the ground, hands wide. "God f--" The series of explitives, mostly incorporating various attachments of 'god' to colorful sexual acts, curses, and promises of damnation fills the void until she just can't keep yelling them anymore, at which point she lays there heaving like she'd run a mile.
"At least you are living up to your potential?" Horus offers. "I am glad you do not have a whip, though. I am sure you would find cause to use it on me."
"I had a whip." And so Tasha sits up, pushing herself to her feet and eyeing Horus for a long moment. She then wills herself forward, marching her somewhat shorter self right over to him. "A big one. Do you know what my sister used to do? She was some kind of vengance god, or her ghost was, anyway. I am still living in Nora's shadow! But at least Nora knew how to not give up and not be whiny about it." And then the young woman looks down, scrunches her face up and promptly kicks Horus right in the shin.
Horus doesn't react, but a moment later says, "Ouch. I am sure I deserved that."
"Let that be a lesson." The words are taken right out of a police vid she'd watched the other night, all about a some sort of intergalactic detective in pursuit of a crim no one seemed to care about except him, full of suspense and drama. She didn't understand most of it, but she liked the lines and the parts where he seemed to tell everyone off so he could get things done. She then pokes a finger in to Horu's chest, and keep poking him. "I'm a demon? Fine. Fine. I can work with that. So, you know what I don't like about you? You're our god, but you're also kind of whiny. Living is hard, mortals are confusing, uuuuugh, I want to go home. No. No. Our god is not going to be whiny. This is what's wrong with Vartans too. We all huddle and are nice, but can't deal with anything else, but at least we do fight. So fight, Horus. Fight me. Fight anything. But don't tell me about giving up. Eve gave up. Marduk gave up. You're not giving up."
"Marduk only allegedly gave up," Horus points out. "And I do not have the option anyway. But for what it is worth, I do not want you to die. That would be very bad for me. Perhaps the Piper will be a more considerate god?"
"Are you trying to pawn me off on another god? Tasha plants a hand on her hip and regards Horus, chewing her lip a long moment. "So much for embracing. Fine, yeah, sure, maybe." Her head shakes, she shifts ehr weight to her other hip, and replants her hands. "Or maybe Vulcan. I make a great Titanian. I have the armor and everything."
"Do you like to hit things?" Horus asks. "That may also be a Vartan trait though. Vulcan is an interesting Archon. He was once very determined to get drunk. He did not succeed."
"I'm sure I can help -- and I like to hit things." To demonstrate, Tasha kicks Horus in the shin again. She decides she could get used to that; after all, how many people can actually kick god when life gets them down? Not many, she's sure. Maybe she should kick Nora later. "Alright. Well. I need to go tell my crew about the Piper before something else happens. You think about what I said, and, uh, cool your heels. In the slammer." She thumbs back behind herself. "I'm out."
Liza is awake and hunched over a cup of coffee in the galley, with Aaron sitting next to her and Shojo and Hakeber across the table with their own mugs. There is a lot of activity forward in the strategy room section of the bridge, involving Gabriel, Katherine and Moka from the sound of it. There's no sign of Yue, but Jonas is doing something in the med bay.
Tasha decides checking on her people is job one, so angles her way over to Liza and the others. She can't stay long, she needs to get the new information about the Piper to Gabriel and the rest of those planning their next move, but she should at least check in. "Hi, I'm a terrible Vartan," she greets the people in the galley, pulling out a chair and turning it around so she can lean on the top of the back rest. "How are you all doing?"
Liza mumbles something about sleep, while Shojo says, "I am recovered." Hakeber looks.. hungover? "Aaron wouldn't juice up my coffee," she complains. "I just wanted a little bit of bourbon in it."
"It doesn't make sense to mix a stimulant with a depressant," Aaron points out.
"Well as long as you're not dead and your brains aren't melted." Tasha reaches out and ruffles the heads of both Liza and Hakeber and grins a bit manically. "So you four just have a great time, I need to go tell the others about a whole new godlike terror!"
"Be sure to hit it with the fist that has the ring on it," Aaron reminds Tasha.
"I'll attach it to my boot." Tasha pushes up, sliding her chair back in, then makes her way over to the others.
"Hi. I yelled at god for a while. I think I just quit being a Vartan, or Horus quit being my god. Either way I'm a demon now. Thanks Atum. Uh ... Oh. The next system has something called the Piper's Citadel in it, and in it's the Piper. Horus thinks it made the Horse. Do you have any coffee?" It comes out just a bit manic.
Gabriel looks up, and then clutches his own mug to his chest. "Aaron made some in the galley," he notes. "And... which next system? Did you get any other details about it?"
"The closest one. The Piper is from the Outer Dark, like the Ogdoad, but it's different somehow. Maybe as powerful, though." Tasha eyes Gabriel's coffee a moment, then considers asking Liza for some but decides she needs her rest. There is someone who does not need his rest, however.
"Aaron! I need some coffee! Chop chop."
Tasha doesn't know what 'chop chop' actually means or implies, or even what language it's from, but they say it in Terran vids now and then and it sounds good to her. She feels like chopping things. Back to Gabriel and the others, she then elaborates, "It's some sort of wish granting super thing, anyway, locked up by someone in its Citadel unless someone let it out. It can control and tame Ogdru-hem -- did you know there's an Ogdru-hem in the ship's core? there is -- but it's described as a being of chaos, and won't help for free. Probably. I want to say 'hi.'"
"Of course you do," Gabriel says, and brings up the star chart of the Acheron zone over the table. "So.. is it the one with the neutron star and no planets?" he asks.
Tasha points at that one indicatingly. "I remember, it had a neutron star. That's in. Horus said neutron star."
"Alright, we'll have to search for a structure somewhere when we arrive," Gabriel says. "Now what's this about making the Horse?"
Aaron shows up and holds out a mug of coffee and a large kitchen cleaver.
Tasha snatches the coffee without appearing to notice the clever. She just argued about eternity and her god quit. She has given up caring about being a Vartan. Everything is all up in the air and free in her mind, being stabbed is somewhere down below that and she does not care. "It helped make the Horse. The Tnuctipin probably made the shell, and the engineering, and whatever computers it uses, but they needed a Ogdru-hem as the core for some reason and for that they must have asked the Piper." It takes her several seconds to realize Aaron brough it because of the chopping remark. She glances over, then takes the knife as well, turning it to look at her reflection as she sips her new beverage.
The feathers haven't come back around her more Vartan looking eye yet.
"So.. it isn't fond of the Ogdru-hem?" Gabriel asks. "Or will it maybe know how this ship is supposed to be used?"
"I look amazing," Tasha insists. She does not actually thinks so, but she's feeling defiant right now. "Maybe I should get horns. And a firey halo. And fire. And a whip." She scratches her nose for a moment, contemplatively, then looks up. "Oh, sure, it will probably know how it's used. What it's fond of or not, no one knows."
"Well.. that shouldn't be any different than what we're used to," Gabriel says, and sends the new destination to Kaa's pilot station. "Whenever you're ready Kaa," he calls out. "Neutron star, so mind the tides and bring is out at the edge. Need to look for something artificial."
"My faith and dreams?" The remark is made lightly, but it kind of hurts after the fact. Tasha works her muzzle a moment, then takes a long sip of coffee and drops back in her chair. "So how is everyone else doing?"
"Lacci's reading through Hakeber's notes," Katie says. "It probably won't drive her insane. Hard to tell with Vartans," she notes and winks at Tasha. "We've been a bit concerned about what happened though. And how that thing was even able to find us. Moka thinks that 'Trumpet' is also how the creature senses things, like sonar."
"Why is the being you seek called the Piper?" Moka asks.
Tasha gives Katie a thumbs up and a wry smile when she makes the remark about Vartans and insanity. She doesn't correct about being Vartan, either, but internally she knows the score. "Well it has access to outsider magic, too, so it may be using methods that don't follow local rules." She takes another sip, then turns towards Moka. "I don't know, maybe it sounds like pipe music?" It makes me think of Urgo-hem and the Piper having some sort of band, which she admits to herself would be amazing.
"The Trumpet is.. strange," Moka points out. "But it may be that the Piper likes pipes and plumbing and it is not related to music. If it does like music though, perhaps I should come with you?" The Phin then sings like a flute.
"I don't mind," Tasha replies, head tilted from having considered and weighed the risks. "Just be sure you know we're going to talk to something that may be on the same level as an Ogdoad, which are above the Trumpet-lover in the last system. I don't even know what to expect this time, except maybe more Dark-space issues which I do not understand." Another sip and then she shrugs, leaning forward and elbows going on the table. "Many a name he hath full sure. Its been around a long time and probably has as many names as titles as being who have come to see it. It probably won't offer anything for free, and you can expect what it asks for will be either incomprehensible or so convoluted you might not see what it was doing for a long time, if ever. God stuff."
"Our gods are easy to understand," Moka claims.
"Are you done with the cleaver?" Aaron asks Tasha.
"I talked to your dreamy god, she made me feel bad about not being peaceful enough. But I still like her." Tasha flicks her wrist so the clever is pointed at Aaron, then uncoils several fingers so he can pull it from her hand. "This one's probably not going to be like Nuktapai. At all."
After taking the cleaver, Aaron notes, "You should be more specific when asking for things. Or you might get something chopped off by accident. Something to keep in mind when talking to weird gods too."
"So now everyone is an expert on gods," Tasha declares, not at Aaron so much as in general as she leans back. "Maybe I'll retire and you can talk to them."
"They probably don't know any good jokes," Aaron counters. "Besides, I've got you to talk to. Also, I'm sleeping with Liza tonight." After a moment he revises that to, "As in, in her room. She doesn't want to be alone. You know how Lapis can be about being close for comfort."
"I slept in the big Lapi-pile, I know." Tasha taps her nose, knowingly. She then fidgets for a moment in her chair before sitting right back up again. "I should probably tell everyone what we're doing out here, shouldn't I. I mean, really. People are starting to get hurt and are risking themselves without knowing."
"I didn't hear anyone complaining about what happened," Aaron notes, and flips the cleaver a few times. "Anyone else need more coffee?"
Katie waggles her mug, so the Lapi takes it and heads back towards the Galley.
And so Tasha turns to Katie, leaving revelation for some later time. "How are you? Glad you came? Eager for more scary brain melting and incomprehensibles?"
"I thought I'd get to shoot things," Katie says. "I miss shooting things. Only ever got to practice at the training range. And we should find a nice planet to visit soon too. It isn't right having to smell the same things all the time."
"We've found lots of planets, they're just covered in machines and lubri--" Tasha chews her lip, but doesn't finish. Instead she changes subjects, offering, "I was thinking of making Lacci pilot he Grunt, but if you think you can handle it I can let you try. We could also see about getting you an armored suit of your own, like Gabriel's. Most of our personal weaponry is short ranged, so I'd suggest thinking about longer range firepower."
"Like rifles?" Katie asks.
"Hmm, could probably make some in the shop," Gabriel notes. "Slug throwers are pretty simple, yet effective."
"Swords would be nice as well," Katie says with a grin. "I can use a saber. Tasha's got a sword after all."
"Like rifles," Tasha confirms. "Or missiles. Or rifles and missiles. We can't have everyone crammed on the front lines, sometimes we need support from farther away. Having someone armed with something like the gauss rifle could help a lot when we have a lot of distance to cover and we're spread out. Mel's not really equipped to carry distance weapons unless they rely on my skills, but I was thinking of getting a few anyway."
"My sword is special. It marks me as a big disappointment to a long line of Vartans," Tasha insists, tipping her chin up.
"It can still cut things through, can't it?" Katie asks.
"I haven't tried. It's kind of a valuable antique. That's what my halitool is for." Tasha cocks her head to the side, then the other and back. "I could probably build on my armor, too. The Vartan one is good for piloting, but it's complicated and hard to repair. And old. The hard part would be making it interface right with Mel. But, I can help make weapons and suits with some assistance from the ship's systems and libraries. We could have make guns! And armor. And missiles. It'll be fun!"