After three days of travel, the adrenaline of the escape from the cosmic graveyard has worn off for the crew, letting the malaise of flat space begin to encroach on the psyches of the Dark Horse crew and passengers. Those most susceptible to the effect tend towards bouts of solitude, while those with partners spend more time together, even if in silence. The Lapi, Eeee, Jotoki are least effected among the mortals, while the cats are a lot more affectionate with people.. and also creeping people out by staring intently at some spot or corner before hissing and bolting off at random.
Samael is more 'lurky' than usual, keeping to shadowy areas. If he can be said to be 'anxious' at all this might be it. Dr. Amuntaten, otherwise known as the demi-god Thoth, is his usual stand-offish self.
And Tasha, back-from-the-grave, allies-with-gods-and-demon-also-gods, has had more to deal with than most in this trip.
And it's not over.
And so she, like the others most effected, has taken to keeping to the Owner's Deck where she remade her room only to generally hide in it. Or as she insists, reflect and plan. Planning, as it happens, requires a great deal of pillows and a larger, softer bed, now a four poster with hanging drapes with the walls depecting the sky at dusk with steady rainfall. She decided at some point she missed rain. Here is also one of the cats, the cream-colored one appropriately named Creamsicle, whom she's been entertaining (and entertaining herself) by trying to wrestle it with her tail. The rest of her is half buried, her gaze at the false sky.
"You gots fancy digs now, fancy new bod too," Blackwings notes, where she leans against one of the bedposts. "Worth it? Gots me now of course. Alll the time, on demand!"
"Gah!" Goes Tasha, who momentarily dives beneath her pillowy cover before slowly removing the pillow that hides from her face. She sniffs, then very deliberately takes a moment to get backt o just how she was, and therefore comfortable, before deigning to respond. "I remembered that Persephone said that I'd keep you with me. An advisor." She aches a brow in a meaningful way. "And yes it was worth it. It'd have been worth it if all I did was save Charon."
"Hah, yeah! Advisor!" Blackwings cackles. "Sooo.. gonna ask for advice, or just want to listen to what I think you need to hear?"
"Oh this should be entertaining," Tasha remarks, scootching around to face Blackwings more directly, legs swaying off the bed, cat still trying to kick her tail in to oblivion.
"You been tryin' hard to use that smudge-mark on your forehead," Blackwings says, and taps her own forehead. "But.. it mostly works subconsciously. So that's me, you know? I seen some things you not picked up on."
"You're the manifestation of my demonic side. That's appropriate." Tasha reaches over to idly try and tickle her cat's belly, wincing at the expected claw trap that comes next. "And it's actually some sort of demon-seed. the mark is just its manifestation. Probably like how Samael always has hooves no matter what he looks like. The Shadow-beings are prone to accidental or intentional symbolic manifestation."
Creamsicle doesn't bring out her claws, but it's Blackwings she hisses at before running off and hiding somewhere in the room. "Maybe, don't know, because this eye doesn't see what it shouldn't, I guess. But.. I see other stuff. Really subtle, blink and you miss it. But I'm a Vartan, and we're good and catching small movements, eh? Nah, this thing I telling you about is from outside."
"There are a lot of outsides, you'll have to be specific," Tasha notes. She glances at where her cat had run off to, frowns, and decides she'll need something else to fidget with and cuddle and so scoops up a pillow to hug while her fingers play with the tassles.
"Specific? Ah, gotta ask the hard questions," Blackwings grumbles. Then she stares at the tassles for a moment. "You tore the universe a new arse hole, and flushed a lot of stuff down it. But.. butt.. like a wound. Heal up quick, but not before some infection stuff get through, aye? Germs and such, they live on your skin, all happy and peaceful and then you get a cut and they turn into little monsters that want to gobble your guts if they can get in.."
Tasha nods to this; beings from outside the universe trying to get in and eat everyone is one of the core reasons she's doing all these dangerous things. "You're talking about something like the Ogdoad? Outter Gods? Or something different?" Sheisn't surprised there may be more out there, in fact she'd be surprised by the opposite, but having to worry about a battle with gods on more than one front would be decidedly unsettling.
"Smaller," Blackwings says. "Germs, yah? But, good news! There aren't a lot, probably not gonna survive long since they small, and this universe is not made for them. Bad news? Most are chasing after us. Maybe they want to eat horse, or hide in it or something. Weird critters are weird, after all. Maybe infect us with bad poetry, or nightmares, or tummy aches."
"But the flat places are where they can survive longest," the specter notes.
"Welllll," begins Tasha, who rolls over and stretches like the cat who just ran off before flopping her head down and frowning some more, "I can't say I'm exactly surprised the soul-burning horror of a superweapon came with some downsides. Poking holes in the universe and annhilating souls are things that'd normally get very powerful beings to pay attention, except lucky for me they already know and mostly approve. I guess I'm not surprised there are countless little beings on the outside just as there are big, scary gods. Can they catch up?"
"Don't know! Because you don't know how fast we actually go in this Maelstrom thing. But you probably gotta come up sometime and rest, eh? Dolphins can sleep with just half a brain at a time, though, but still gotta eat and crap."
"And then they'll board us?" Tasha doesn't sit up, but she does tense a little. She'd been hoping to rest for a while, but the fact of life that ships' problems come before all has been burnt in to her brain since childhood.
"Maybe, or they just need a guide, or chase because.. they gotta pounce the wagging tail," Blackwings replies. "No idea what they do. You got a pet demon, maybe he can eat them or something. Animals scared of things bigger looking or meaner looking. You used to know how to be puffed up and scary."
"That's because I don't /need/ to project power. Yelling and boasting and beating everyone up just emphasized how /small/ I was. People and beings with real power don't need to /prove/ it/ Their power is proof enough, and not needing to /focus/ on it shows confidence and even /dismissal/. Of course," and here Tasha rolls over and puts a finger to her muzzle, " ... it only works when another being /realizes/ your power. Sometimes, then, it's better to appear powerless and harmless. I've learned that, too. You can conceal power and reduce fear by seeming harmless. Lure beings in, make them assume wrong about you, /that/ sort of thing."
"Well, what you gonna do if they catch up and don't just want to play with the kitties?" Blackwings asks.
"Negotiate, threaten, fight and destroy," Tasha sing-songs, spreading her hands in a shrug. "The same as with all the other exciting new enemies we've made. Maybe subjugate? I'm still not sure if slavery is better than death."
"And what if they don't understand any of that?" Blackwings prompts. "Not like you and a cat. Common evolutionary heritage, and whatnot. Animals. These things might be more like bugs. Maybe less intelligent. Maybe super-intelligent. May not be aware of us, or physical matter, just other things like themselves."
"Then we study them and we test things and we find a way to talk or fight." Tasha squints, ears rotating forward. "Is this where you have a suggestion or some insight in to my special magic eyeball?"
"Eh, no, just that what it does pick up is very quiet, so you don't notice it consciously," Blackwings notes, and shrugs. "Maybe you have to train it, or something. I don't know what it is anymore than you do. Just the stuff you pick up that you aren't aware of."
This causes Tasha to crack a grin. "So you're like my subconcious secretary or maid." She looks entirely too happy about the fact, her tail even wags.
"Hey, your subconscious can still mess with you," Blackwings growls in warning.
"My actual secretary and maid does that too, which really just reinforces the position!" Tasha clings to her pillow, grinning like a madwoman, though she'd already been accused of that long before she had her current face.
"Hmmph, that mean I get to pick out your clothes too?" Blackwings asks with a lecherous grin.
Tasha's ears shoot up. She opens her mouth, closes it, then seems to think on it a moment and gives a little two-finger 'go ahead' gesture with the fingers of her right hand. "Suggest something and I'll consider it." It's surprisingly haughty, not to mention dainty, but her body at least supports the latter. Blackwings knows Tasha well enough to know that she might consider the suggestions, making it more than just dismissive.
"Sure, once you get some better stuff," Blackwings says. "And try not to think that I'm watching everything you do with your bed-buddies. And judging. Maybe. I not a judgmental person after all!"
"You always prefered the execution part over being judge and jury. But watch all you want, I've gotten used to thinking beings are observing me. Because they are." And so Tasha reaches over with her left hand and fumbles around, searching for the Yellow or Blue Marker. They're always nearby. Somehow.
While her back is turned, Blackwings goes away apparently. Now that she's trying to find them, the damned things are being elusive. Until Creamsicle hops back up on the bed holding the Yellow one in her mouth. Maybe they can only be gotten one at a time?
Tasha supposes cats are close enough to manifestations of insanity that Creamsicle having the Yellow one makes sense. She takes the Marker (with some tugging), then holds it up to the faux sky and turns it over. Hastur, and Hastur's obsession: Yellow. She's long wondered what Yellow actually is. A memetic concept, surely, but memetics not only from her reality but from other realities across the multiverse. Can she comprehend Yellow? Or is it composed of concepts she can never understand? Does everyone see it as the color yellow, or do they see culturally or personally appropriate colors? And why could it destroy Luk'thu-hem? Why doesn't it destroy Hastur?
These things keep Tasha up at night, but she thinks she's made progress, on Yellow more than Blue if just ebcause of the longer exposure and greater representation and use.
In the middle of the marker floats the sign. It's just a symbol, but still seems draw in one's focus if looked at for too long. The sort of thing that would leave an afterimage if stared at for any length of time. Except maybe more of a mental afterimage than an optical one. It doesn't seem very responsive otherwise. If destroying the graveyard meant anything to Hastur, he's not giving any hints about it. There's also that nagging sense of something behind the symbol. That if she looks hard enough she could glimpse it..
The symbol always felt like some sort of trap, and she's sure someone told her as much. Except, it's a trap for people outside her situation, the uninvolved, the easily snared, the useful and the convienient. A weapon or trick of some sort, but not for her, as she's already of service. Snaring her would only trip her up, make her less useful, or so she supposes. Like the Dagger, it's supposed to be a thing to point outward. So when she starts to scrutizes it she has this in mind, hoping perhaps to discover some mystery of its workings or of Yellow.
Doubts begin to crawl around the edges of her mind, just as the edges of the symbol seem to crawl slightly. If she was remade, including having her soul restructured, is she still under contract to Hastur? She died.. but then used the marker as a human, so maybe that renewed it. But then she was remade. She still has the marker though. At what point is her association with Hastur dissolved? Or does it supercede mortality itself, and her offspring will be part of it too..
The same old frown returns, as it has when she's considered this question before. She had assumed her duty discharged when she finished Hastur's request: Put a question to the Waymaker, did it favor Chaos or Order? The answer was more complex, for it seems that Waybuilders favor Life itself, composed of both Chaos and Order. To complicate matters further, Waybuilders appear to all be individuals and their leanings seem to vary. Charon and Persephone seemed friendly and neutral, but what of their terrifying aunt, who holds logic dear? is she solidly of Order, then? And ruthlessly so.
But Tasha finds her thoughts digrees. She had believed she did her duty. Hastur then revived her to some degree later, but it was a lesser favor to the first as she judges these things. Important, but less so than all their lives. Shouldn't she owe the one favor, then? With Sedu-hem destroyed, won't that be it?
When is a god ever satisfied? It's an odd thought, and Tasha's pretty certain it wasn't her's, or even one that formed in her head. The only being in the room with her is Creamsicle, which is needing at her stomach with her paws.
"Just like cats, huh? And me," Tasha tells her cat, looking down. She picks the feline up and nuzzles it, face-to-face. Occassionally one or both of the cats will greet her by jumping on her and raming their face in to her's; she's not sure why this is, and Silent-Ones, Khattas, Kattahs, and all the sentient felines she's met don't do it either, but from this tiny four legged version, it's very endearing. "Maybe that's why we all get along?"
Keep feeding me, is the sense that Tasha gets. But.. is it the cat? Do cats have gods? But a god could also need to be fed. Hastur could be a hungry sort of god, after all. Cats sometimes poop in your shoes, even when you give them everything they could want.
"Hmm, and what do I get? I'm not satisfied easily either, you know." At some point Tasha had stopped wondering who and what the voice was and had simply gone with it, something she's aware of, but her long experience with the odd, uncanny, unnatural and flat out abominable have inured her to such a degree such an event seems, if not common place, at least a commonly unusual. "I found peace and contentment and there I died. What should I feel about that? Am I incompatible with paradise? Was it worried about me? Am I hungry, too?"
You've gotten everything you wanted, but you are still hungry, the not-voice notes while Creamsicle purrs. Hunger never goes away in life, it only changes focus. Gods are always hungry. Maybe it is Hastur. Neither Sam nor Thoth have shown any sort of telepathic proclivities. If Yue was hiding the ability, it would have been a lot more useful in the past than to play a prank with.
"Then gods are always alive? Or is hunger the nature of a god? Or is change the nature of a god? Influence, and control, or just change. Force, and flow. Movement. Destruction, or hope. Chaos. Perfect Order is death, so even Orderly gods must cause change, yet unless they're complete chaos then a Chaotic god must have some sort of order. One is the other, and the change is hunger, I think. Don't you think, kitty?" Tasha switches to rubbing feline ears, which all felines seem to appreciate, as do all Karnors. "Is Yellow that way, too? What Thoth said gave me an idea, and so have ... you. Madness or extreme sanity. Maybe they're the same things, because the one who knows all, is also dreaming in its own fantasy. If you control all, isn't everything your fantasy? And then everything is madness, because isn't madness knowing what's reality and what isn't?"
Yellow doesn't change, it is, the voice doesn't say, but Creamsicle looks into Tasha's eyes with ones that are nearly the same color. Gods do not change, though they can cause change. They are not alive, but they are hungry. The universe is hungry. Every part tries to consume other parts. In doing so there is creation, but that which is consumed does not benefit from it. Except for the parasites. Gods usually are above being consumed, but not always.
"Come to eat me then, or are you aiming higher?" Tasha asks the voice. She hasn't changed demeanor, her expression is still the same one of teenage contemplation mixed with an excess of comfort, but she meets the cat's eyes and her tone has becomemore even. "And I agree about the consumed part."
Are you certain you haven't already been eaten? is the odd reply. Creamsicle mews, since Tasha is talking at her.
Tasha has tried meowing, it doesn't sound right and it makes people look at her like she's seems more crazy than usual. Instead she nose-bumps the cat. "How would I know?"
Ask the being that ate you, is the answer to that one.
"And who is that? Do you mean Persephone? Or the little drone?" Tasha inquires, freeing a hand so she can prop her head up and regard the cat more clearly.
The voice doesn't answer that one. And Creamsicle suddenly hisses and bolts again for no reason (or maybe it's just a thing that cats do to keep people on their toes). It does happen just before the door chimes, however.
Tasha's hand hovers in the air where her cat had been. It says something as to her state of mind that the sudden hissing caused her to hold where she is, outwardly unphased, as if time had momentarily paused while her cat went about its buisness and only now decided to resume. "Yes?"
"It's Liza," the door intercom claims. "I've brought you lunch."
"Thanks, Liza." Tasha flops back down on to her bed. Who ate me, huh. And just who are you this time, voice in my head. Some pillows are pushed aside with languid energy, forming a little nest where food can presumably be placed.
Taking that as invitation, Liza opens the door and brings in a plate and a bottle of something. Glasses are for liquor, cups for coffee, and opaque bottles for lesser liquids. She also barely dodges the cat, who bolts once the door is opened. "You missed breakfast, so you must be hungry," the Lapi notes, setting down the dish which bears something vaguely sandwich-like, in that it is square and has layers of things. There isn't a napkin.. something that Liza always brings Tasha. Not many foods can be eaten with a wolf muzzle without leaving crumbs, so this must be something that cannot leave crumbs.
"I'm always hungry," Tasha remarks, almost feeling like she's on cue. As if, perhaps, she's reading a line from a holovid. The sensation is a little surreal, like stepping outside oneself to see the inevitability of time. It passes quickly enough. "What's on the menu today Miss Soon-to-be-Lightfoot?"
"A high protein handmeal, and a protein drink," Liza claims. Not a sandwich, but a handmeal. It sounds like and probably is something manufactured. "Real food is being reserved for all-hands meals now."
"I feel the dark and sinister hand of forced socialization," the not-hybrid murmurs, reaching out and picking up a handmeal and making a point of unwrapping it in very deliberate, excessively joyful manner. "Well I am very grateful for this meal and I will enjoy both of these. Thank you, Liza."
The Lapi watches Tasha impassively. "I'm not leaving until I see you eat it," she notes. "All of the carnivores are neglecting their health already. Next will come hygiene. I won't have you moping about in a smelly bathrobe and slippers somehow looking like you need a shave."
Tasha nods solemly to this. "The Hakeber look. I know it well." She pops the bar in to her muzzle and chews, reaching for the drink next.
It tastes like.. things. Tasha is certain they are things she's tasted before, in some context that wasn't the texture of a bar of soap. But it doesn't leave crumbs, and melted in your mouth after you gave up on chewing it. The drink is milk with some sort of flavor as well. Maybe vanilla, or chocolate.. or a mix, that would best be called 'beige' flavored. If this is meant to force people to be social, with the alternative being starvation, it might work. It all comes down to if Liza can convince Aaron and Shojo to water down the coffee as well.
"I always knew your kind are evil," Tasha remarks, peering down in to the drink with distaste. "But this is a new step and it's so very heavy handed. When did I start lecturing you on subtly? Clearly, things have gone horribly wrong here." She tosses the bar back in the plate and stands, brushing her hands off. "We'll say I adopted a position of leadership and decided to go down and eat among the people."
"You can help defend the galley then," Liza notes. "And I remember what you all were like on the journey out, before all the horrors and peace and then more horrors. You need a heavy hand right now. And Gabriel didn't complain about it when I explained it to him. Of course, he'd been on pilot duty for several hours at that point, so he might not have been paying close attention."
"He's paying attention." Tasha says it with all confidence. A captain like Gabriel is always paying attention. It's a trick the best captains seem to learn, how to run a ship without ever seeming to push at all. "But he does suffer from fears of failure, of--" Tasha pauses, lip bitten, then she blinks and changes tracks immediately, "Anyway, lets go to the galley."
The trip through the lounge and corridors is devoid of contact with others, until they reach the galley. "Halt! Who goes there?" a somewhat high Lapi voice demands as Aaron blocks the doorway. The Jotoki are behind him, either by accident or to provide more muscle.
"A terrifying demonic presence!" Tasha replies, clutching her hands above her heart, tilting her head, and then bouncing on her hooves like some flouncing forest spirit. "And also me, Tasha."
"Let me smell your breath," Aaron demands. He does have a good sense of smell, after all.
puff Tasha blows her breath like she might blow a heart, except without the giving of sentiment gesture. "What, I can't be dainty and fey? Hake said I was fey."
"Not sure what that means," Aaron says, "But you've eaten your lunch. It's made from plant pro-tee-ans you know. So anyone can eat them. Which means nobody likes them. Come in," he explains, and steps aside.
"Proooooooooooooo-teeeeeeeans," sings Tasha, entirely to annoy Aaron, because she knows what plant proteins are. "Have you been raided yet? Any spirits? Psyyyyyychic whispers?"
"Nobody has gotten desperate enough to try and make their own food," Aaron claims, while Rock and Rainbow scutter around. "The Eeee have their own spices they put on things. I think they don't mind the handmeals at all."
There is one other person in the galley already: Modo. He's leaning back with a data pad held up in his toes, and is eating a handmeal and holding a bottle in his hands.
Tasha considers Modo. He's very grumpy, but also very interetsing for engineering tasks. Whateve he may be he's also not food in the immediate sense, and therefore less interesting than food. "Shojo, many foods please!" She calls out as she heads for the counter.
"You've already eaten," Shojo notes. "I heard Aaron say so. Modo beat him at arm wrestling to get a second helping."
"I was told if I came down here there'd be real food," Tasha notes, her lighthearted, perhapseven fae, tone dropping a notch to fae but perhaps slightly menacing if long legged, weird canine sprites can be considered menacing. It doesn't help she looks younger now, either.
"There is real food, but it is not for eating alone," Shojo claims. "If you want a proper meal, you must gather others to the table to join you."
"I could say that if you refuse me I won't teach Lacci any new fun things to try," Tasha warns, leaning in, " ... but that wouldn't be me showing leadership." And so she pushes back form the counter, straightens, and clears her throat. "Ship, Tasha, shipwide broadcast. Attention lurkers, dwellers, avoidants, hermits, retirees, escapists, isolationists and the antisocial: If you want real food, come to the galley. If you want to hear my beautiful singing voice, do not come to the galley. I will begin on a list of songs randomly generated by popular Galactic culture in five minutes."
I takes more than five minutes for people to show up, except for Hakeber and Professor Stanislav. "How do you know Lacci doesn't have a lovely singing voice?" Hakeber asks.
She's even wearing real clothes and not just her bathrobe.
Lacci shows up in a bathrobe however.
"I don't, but it's me you'd be listening to," Tasha insists, skipping with exagerated energy over to the nearby galley table and sliding down in to a chair. "And I know how that is."
"You have new vocal chords now," Katie notes, shuffling in and looking sleepy. Coffee rationing may be hitting her hardest.
Tasha pats the chair beside her. "Then it's possible all of you have fallen for my food trap without verifying the threat first," she notes amicably, smiling. That weird wiry tail of her's wags, which isn't at all like a Karnor wag, being a little cat-like.
"I demand a song with dinner.. breakfast.. food," Katie says, taking the offered seat. Gabriel and Belters still look professional when they arrive, although the Belters are probably cheating by having very little hair.. and probably being bred to live in their suits for weeks at a time. The Eeee also show up, with Yue being the last one to arrive. Amuntaten and Shiftless may not be making an appearance at this rate, nor is Sam. The Phins appear via display screens only.
"What sort of song?" Tasha glances over her shoulder with no small amount of expectation, as if now that people are in fact here she should be fed immediately. Which, as it happens, is exactly what she's thinking. "Upbeat? Dire and somber? A Kaboom single?"
"A proper chanteuse song, wearing a slinky gown and lying on a piano," Katie clarifies.
"Can we get all that except for the singing?" Hakeber asks.
"I wasn't expecting everyone to show up," Shojo admits. "So I will prepare an omelet. We've got these 'moa eggs' that are very large."
"We'd have to move up to the Lounge for that," Tasha notes, glancing towards the door. "And hope my gown still fits." The no-longer-hybrid reaches over and ruffles up Hakeber's head for her contribution. "Well I don't mind laying around, Katie's a much better singer than I am."
"As long as somebody sings that isn't me," Katie says.
"What is an omelet?" Dr. Soshelle asks. Eeee are primarily insectivores after all.
"I don't know if I'm up for singing," Tash admits after a moment of thought. In a lower voice, she further admits, "I think I'm still a little out of it from what happened. And, a conversation I had before I came down here. I need to announce something soon, so we should try and relax while we can." She gives the woman an apologetic shrug; not her fault.
"Are you trying to spoil our appetites before dinner?" Gabriel asks, and pats Tasha on the head. "An omelet is a dish made from the eggs of birds with various other foods mixed in. It can be very fluffy."
Loud, Tasha explains, "An omlet's like a ... "Or tries to, until her explainations of leg all strike her as weird and off-outting. Explainations like, "unused person kit," and, "baby pre-mix." She decides to never give food excessive thought again. " ... like a meal ... rock?" She turns to wave Shojo to cook faster.
"Can we have cheese in it?" Hakeber asks. "And peanut butter?"
Tasha's tail predictably wags when Gabriel pats her, she even leans up in to his hand before he moves on. "Any Karnor or Karnor-like being who has their meal spoiled by more eating needs to work on how Karnor they are," she insists.
"Nice hotels usually have make-your-own omelet stations, where you select what you wane mixed in and the chef prepares it to order on the spot," Yue suggests.
"We are a mediocre hotel," Tasha adds to Yue's comment.
"You will all get the same omelet," Shojo says, revealing his para-military upbringing. "You will enjoy because of the presence of your comrades. I will take any suggestions afterwards."
"It sounds difficult to eat," Lacci notes. Eating things that you don't tear bits off of can be a challenge for those with beaks.
"Since this is a breakfast, coffee will be served," Aaron offers up, to quell any misgivings about the meal.
As Shojo talks, Tasha pantomimes him making hardliner chopping gestures and exagerated gestures to fellow people before making a hanging gesture and lolling her tongue. "Uuuuse your beeeeak Laaacciii," she suggests, head still lolling in an 'I'm dead' pose.
"But.. is this a fork food, a knife food or a spoon food?" Lacci asks, despite the display. "It isn't like those hard eggs you can peal and just swallow whole?"
"It will be an adventure," Dr. Knight says. "It should not disagree with anyone's digestion, not even the Lapis. Although I have no idea what these eggs are like. Don't they weigh three or four kilos each?"
"Try folding the omlet like a taco and eating it that way?" Tasha resumes the pose of being normal and alive, which might also come off as exagerated. "You can also try and ball it up and then eating it. I saw Blackwings do that with breaded omlets."
"They are laid by three-meter tall birds that were once known for killing humans with a single blow of their beaks or talons," Gabriel explains. "So of course they were hunted to extinction in self defense."
"Or have it on toast!" Hakeber says, getting her dreaming-about-food look. "Do we have toast?"
"Can't anything kill a human with a single blow from its beak or talons?" As a Human, Tasha often thought that way. Scratchy plants, rocky ground, and more or less everything seemed capable of defeating her with minimal effort.
"I haven't made any bread yet," Shojo claims.
"Ancient humans were more like.. uh.. well, not Modo, but maybe Aaron," Gabriel notes. "They made it to the top of the food chain before they had civilization or agriculture."
"We are savage brutes," Yue claims.
"It's mostly just the military types that are that robust now though," Jonas claims.
"I hurt my foot on a small rock. My clothes were heavy. I have real Human experience now! You're basically made of fragile easily broken things," Tasha insists. "Of course you made tools. I made tools when I was Human. You basically have to make tools."
"If you'd walked around naked as a human for a few months, you'd be hard as rock, have soles that could handle worse than rocks, and probably killed one of us to use as a fur coat," Aaron claims.
"I've, uh, dealt with feral humans before," the buck claims a bit more reservedly.
Yue nods. "Sounds about right."
Tasha looks very dubious about this. "I'd like to note that Humans fought nonsentient animals. Karnors are Humans, but much less fragile. It's why Humans made them." It's all said very matter-of-factly, even if many present know that's not at all what she thinks and that she's probably just stirring the pot.
"Did you get one of those moa birds for eating?" is what Lacci gets from all of this.
"I wasn't about to try and hunt one of them," Shojo claims, now working at stirring things in a very large bowl.
"I'd feel bad about killing anything back there. All was Charon," Tasha notes, planting her head on her left hand. "I'm a little sad I didn't get to meet the rest of him. I miss my tiny dragon, even if he's so much more."
"We have cats," Yue points out. "They're just fluffier and don't chew on things as hard."
"Tadpole is a like a little dragon," Karaktinio claims. "She also does not chew on things."
"And they're probably not that multitudinous avatar of a lightspeed conciousness." Tasha's brows furrow together. "Probably." She did seem to be talking to one of them earlier. This presents a question she's sure asking aloud won't reveal anything, because it's such a non sequitur. "Gabriel, if you said anyone 'ate' my first, who do you think it'd be? Not Charon ... Not Persephone, either. And probably not the two gods? Being eaten means changed, so, who was the first one? There's been so many."
"I liked the chewing on things part," Tasha adds a second later, in after though. She does so mainly because it's true.
"I'm not sure," Gabriel says, a bit surprised by the question.
"I know," Aaron says. "First was Calligenia. Second was yourself. Third was Nora."
"Was there anyone before?" Tasha frowns, twirling her hair with her free, oddly Human-like hand. "Really? Calli? Nora. I'd have guessed Nora, now that I think about it. Why would she be important? Calli, I mean."
"She ate your old life," Aaron claims.
"I thought I just followed her because ... Uh." Tasha dips her head, hiding behind her hair. "She seemed very interesting, and things. I guess I wanted a change."
"This is the Lapi that ended up on those billboards for Bunny Chow?" Katie asks.
"I think so," Tasha replies, glancing over. "Calli and I got along alright, but I and the other Lapis split ways when I decided to stick with Gabriel and the other Karnors."
"Then you ate yourself, or Tisiphone did, which was you anyway or something," Aaron continues. "That changed you even more. And then Nora changed you again. Probably Gabriel too. How many steps do you have to go back before you're were you started?"
"To the very first. That's the one I'm looking for." Tasha gives another little shrug. "It's just something someone told me might be important. I've been wondering what it meant."
"I'm not sure being eaten can be equated with having a personal paradigm shift," Liza offers.
"It does if your old life seems like crap now," Aaron claims.
Hakeber actually barks out at that.
"Sometimes the people I talk to are a little vague," Tasha notes, biting her lip for a moment after. She then turns to regard Hakeber, brows narrowing in curiosity. "It wasn't that bad, was it Hake?"
"That was a terrible joke," Hakeber claims.
Tasha blinks at this, having completly missed it. She goes over what was said again, her muzzle scrunches, and she nods slowly and a bit absently. "It was a bad joke."
"He does have redeeming qualities," Liza claims.
"Oh, I get it now," Gabriel says. "It.. isn't a carnivore way of thinking is all."
"Oh I know that better than anyone, but sometimes they're hard to spot behind all the problems." And so Tasha sticks her tongue out at Aaron before leaning back. She spreads her hands. "So now I'm thinking maybe I should warn you all before eating because, in hindsight, I'm not sure how close they are. I am very sorry either way."
"How close what are?" multiple people ask all at once.
"So you see," Tasha begins, leaning forward again quickly enough to make her chair thump loudly back against the deck. She spreads her hands wider and wiggles them, " ... when I ripped a hole in the universe using that, um, questionable device, I ripped a hole in the universe. And like all holes, you can fit something through them. New and exciting voices in my head that seem to be handling, uh, subsystems we'll say, made me aware of the fact they are pursuing us." Her hands fall only for her to walk them across the table in an anthropomorphic fashion. "They're some kind of tiny outsider, like Shadow-beings just much more minimal. What they want is unknown. They could be a problem and will probably catch up when we pause to rest in real space."
There's silence, except for the sound of Shojo at the grill station. "Minimal in what sense?" Professor Stan asks. "These aren't like the big dead ones?"
"They're very small, maybe like animals. It's hard to directly compare outter beings to anything in this universe but, well, if Samael's a regular old demon, and Luk'thu-hem's a demon demi-god, and I'm like a ... " She distinctly does not say hybrid, " ... demon-ish, they're like demon animals. Or bugs. Maybe imps, at best."
"But there's a lot of them," Tasha then adds, shrugging her shoulders and ears going askew.
"Gremlins," Aaron names them, using the Titanian name for.. whatever it is Titanians blame when things break or blow up at the wrong time.
"They ain't getting my stuff!" Modo claims.
"Or gremlins," Tasha agrees. She wiggles her fingers again. "We're not sure what they want. They may be after us because we're the last bit of their-world material nearby, or because we're the only thing around, or to try and eat us, or who-knows-what."
Sensing the silent, Tasha also blurts out, "Annnd I probably still work for a demon-god so there's also that." She exhales, leaning back once again, reaching back to wave Shojo on. "Where is my omlet pleeeease?"
"I don't know how they could even interact with us," Hera claims. "They aren't those hybrids, but 'pure' shadow things, right? Like dark matter?"
"Almost done. Grab a plate and form a line," Shojo instructs.
"Oh probably. They may just be a threat to beings of their own universe matter," answers Tasha absnetly as she slides down her chair and hauls herself up to get in line.
"Yue, you'd know if something was trying to get into our heads, right?" Gabriel asks, grabbing a plate. Hakeber was the first in line, having placed her self strategically closer to the dishes.
"Probably?" Yue replies. "If they have enough of a psychic presence. I have to say that I don't pick up on animals though. Not the cats, at least."
Tasha was nearby, and so a close fourth delayed mainly by the distraction of delivering dire news. She wonders at the fact no one questions her voices these days, neither what she knows nor how she knows. She suspects she might have become oracular, or at least inscrutibly informative. "Some of may see them. Samael should, and maybe I can too. Less likely is Hake, which is a shame because I might have gotten my omlet faster."
"Maybe we can eat them," Hakeber suggests, getting a big serving, even if there isn't any toast or sausage (or stake or pancakes or..) to go with it.
Aaron and Liza begin filling the coffee mugs as well.
"The voice did saf I should feed it," Tasha remarks conversationally, hoping her say-weird-things-casually cloak of social consequence invisibility holds. "Maybe I'll do that? Like an omlet."
"Wait, which voice was this?" Gabriel turns to ask as his plate is filled. "You weren't just talking to your stomach were you?"
"Um, you know, a new one. There was Blackwings, then I started to think about Mr. Yellow, and then there was this other one that had a lot to say about gods and other things. It said feed me, and it mentioned the one who ate me first." There's another classic teenage shrug as Tasha fills her plate and doesn't look back, "So I thought maybe it's connected, the invaders, the voice, and what Hake just said."
"So, a completely unidentified voice?" Gabriel asks, but does move so that Dr. Stan can get his omelet before Tasha has her turn.
Tasha completes her plate stuffing and heads back towards her chair, apparently deeply caught up in inspecting her food. "A new one. Not sure what or whom is speaking this time. I thought it might be Mr. Yellow, but I'm not so sure now. It sort of seemed like Creamsicle was talking but that's probably coincidence. When you get the voices like I do, you sometimes look for a face to match." She settles herself down and grabs a fork, oushing the omlet in to even sized chunks and lining them up. "It was a little strange," she adds, needlessly.
"Did it sound like anyone?" Gabriel pries, but at least doesn't poke Tasha with his fork. "Like.. yourself?"
"It could be me," Tasha agrees. "But it didn't sound like me." She pokes her segmented omlet with her fork, stuffing the food in her face. It then occurs to her she really is hungry and not worry-eating, and so she stuffs even after afterwards.
"So, it didn't sound like a voice?" Gabriel asks, eating a bit more slowly.. but really enjoying his coffee.
"It sounded like something new, but I'm not sure what. Usally the voices are a bit more definitive. It showed up after I picked up a Marker and Blackwings wandered off in to my head." She pauses to stuff more in her face. Clearly, becoming more dainty has not come with matching manners in the face of real hunger, though it may also be nerves. "It spoke about gods never being satisfied, about how parasites can eat them, it was hungry. It almost seemed against Mr. Y. Against them all."
"So.. something that wants to eat them?" Gabriel asks. "Maybe it was your stomach."
"It does sound like my stomach," Tasha agrees, before shoveling more food in to feed the dark god that rests in her belly. "I wosh vage bhut shorta sphufifuc."
"Vaguely specific," Hakeber interrupts. "That sounds familiar. Like.. half of the stuff I've ever researched. But did it seem like something Charon or Persephone would say? They've both messed around with your brain."
"Iunno," goes Tasha before she swallows and washes it all down with coffee, "Charon's not very big on sage advice and misdirection and Persephone never bothered to evade my questions, either. They always spoke to me directly, even if I knew they were condescending because they needed to, they never bothered with riddles. That's part of why I trust them. I don't know. I don't think it's Creamsicle, either. Maybe it's my eyeball talking?" She taps her forehead with her coffee mug.
"Which came from a servitor like Sam, right?" Hakeber asks. "Something more.. uh.. benign.. than an Ogdru-hem?"
"You know, I'm really not sure?" Tasha pauses from eating to think a moment, head cocking to the side. "He's been trapped since forever, but he never mentioned a goal, or task, or any masters. He said he was flattened somehow, which I think means he's a demon that's entirely ... four dimensional? Without the Shadow-substance?" She taps the mark on her forehead. "I've had the spore ever since I got the Origin Marker of Vartans."
"He's sort of my buddy," Tasha adds, in afterthough. She considers that a moment too, then nods slowly. "My first alien."
"What about the one we were just next to?" Hakeber asks next. "Did it try talking to you?"
"You mean Luk'thu-hem? Or the Kam the Superweapon?" Tasha realizes she does really associate with a great many demons these days, a strange addendum to a life she mostly considers to be going well.
"The superweapon one," Hakeber says, gesturing with her fork, but not close enough that Tasha might snatch the omelet chunk off of it.
Tasha does track it for a moment, but the target moves out of range. "No, that one was quiet. I'm not sure it was even awake, or sentient. Not all of them are exactly concious."
Hakeber eats for a bit, chewing thoughtfully. "So.. does that leave, maybe, Taco-hem? The Horse?"
"Or the Tadpole," Gabriel offers.
"Taco-hem sounds very different. She's very quiet and distant, not at all aware of us or herself. I can barely hear her even at the best of times," Tasha explains, twirling her fork around, "And the Tadpole has never spoken to me directly before, even when I was wedged in the leviathan's brain." She pauses again, tail wagging. "That was fun, scary battle aside."
"She's maturing, and you've seen her mother," Gabriel notes, and looks to the Eeee at the other end of the table. "She's also been exposed to a lot of stuff lately, including Charon and Persephone."
"They do seem like they'd be jam-packed with uneful information a living spacecraft would benefit from. I'd been wondering what the Tadpole would pick up, but then Charon was very adorable and I was fighting, then I died, so I forgot about it." Tasha rolls her shoulders, the tips her plate back so the remaining omlet pieces slowly slide in to her waiting maw. "It'd be," chomp, " ... really weird ... " bite, " .. if she suddenly started giving ... " nosh, " ... advice about gods, though." Plate down, coffee in.
"And getting from any other source would be normal?" Hakeber asks.
"Well she's just a tiny little adorable ship, she should grow up and, I don't know, do growing up ship things before giving advice about gods," Tasha insists, then more coffee. Then even more, because anxiety and coffee seem to go together. "But maybe it is her. I can ask later. If she doesn't answer, we can probably assume it wasn't. It's not like I have a can-talk-to-living-ships-now eye, it only detects subtle things, or so said Blackwings. She's like my ... special eye secretary now."
"It did take you some time to figure out subtlety, Tasha," Aaron points out. He can't be hit though, because he's got the coffee pot. "Refill?"
"HA HA." Tasha waggles her cup at the buck. "Fill my cup manservant." She puts it veru deliberately infront of him, then feigns ignoring him as she leans her head on her hands. "So now I have new voices and a new eyeball. I don't know about all of you, but assuming the gremlins don't get us I think we could all use some time somewhere nice to relax."
"How nice?" Gabriel asks. "Or rather, what sort of relaxing activities are you thinking of?"
"I need new clothes, and a new hardsuit. Otherwise I'm very open. After everything, I think I'm having trouble thinking straight?" Tasha shrugs with her hands. "Maybe somewhere with real water for the Phins, and ocean maybe? And a city? Rain? Modern Galactic shopping and entertainment?"
"Rain, hmm. Pretty sure you can still get that," Gabriel notes. "I'm a bit unfamiliar with current resort spots."
"If only I had a constant voice that provided me with topics and regions of interest to me. Something that helped me with my clothes and schedual," the fey-looking being muses, twiling her her with the finger of a hand currently propping her head up. "One that takes my meals hostage and interupts my chat with mystery voices."
"I will search for resorts with shopping, oceans and rain," Liza notes.
"It's like magic," Tasha continues to muse, as if it were indeed a voice in her head.
The rear part of the bridge that serves as the tactical and wardroom has been taken over by Hera and Soshelle, with some help from Modo as they deploy and connect all of their equipment for detecting exotic matter and spatial oddities in an attempt to locate the mysterious creatures that may be following them. "Netherbeasts" is the term that Yue has given them, so that they don't get confused with Void Demons or other ominous sounding things. Of course, it's also something Blackwings would sometimes use to describe the genitals of certain people, but the others don't need to know that.
While the work is very technical and jargon-heavy, it's at least something to focus on other then the intrusive malaise and creeping paranoia of Flat Space. Both of the scientists even tried tuning their devices using Samael as a target. Karaktinio is down with the Tadpole, to see if she senses anything with her own esoteric abilities. Eventually, even Amuntaten arrives to see what the fuss is about, having missed out on the revelations over omelets.
Not terribly usefulin a technical situation outside of navigation, Tasha sits backwards in one of the wall-mounted console chairs, head on her arms and mysteriously neither Karnor-nor-Vartan-like tail hovering over her like another detection device. She's been as morose as the others, perhaps even more so given the self-doubt that's been creeping in every since the unknown voice asked her if she was still herself, still Tasha, or if like Nora and other beings before her existence, she simply believes she's the continuation of a dead woman. With so many powerful personalities nearby, she's struggled to figure out who she is in absence of their influence. Is she really Tasha, or is she going along with the belief out of a kind of existential and existence-nitch momentum? Her Human self had asked similiar questions.
It doesn't take long before Katie grabs the end of that snaky tail. "Why can't you just wag?" she mock-complains. "I'm going to tie a bow on this thing. Or a bell. We don't have either on board though. Dr. Gruesome has arrived."
"Don'y you like my tail?" Tasha asks, attempting to sound mock-hurt and realizing she may have just sounded actually hurt given the previous content of her thoughts. She quickly adds, "It's a lot more useful than the last one, it just doesn't wag very well." Turning to follow the woman's gaze, Tasha lifts a paw from the back of the chair in a low-energy wave. "Hi, Thoth."
"Nobody has ever greeted me that way," the odd bird-headed man claims. "What is going on? Did you give them permission to dissect the demon?"
"It's always 'murder the demon' with you." Tasha drops her head back down, her tail resuming its vaguely hypnotic wave-like motion. "No, my special eyeball's special dead lover secretary told me we're being followed by void creatures from outside this reality. They came through the tear when I broke space. They're following us."
"Ah, that," Thoth notes. "And they're trying to detect them, I gather?"
"'The gods are clever,'" Tasha replies, spreading her hands. Her head lays back down and she rests her hands, lock-fingered, over her head.
"Sometimes, but they tend to lack imagination," Thoth claims. "It is very easy to fall into habits over time. Reflexive thinking, you might call it."
"Mmmhmm," goes Tasha, who seems to have run out of energy to lift her head high enough to agree in a manner that requires more than grunting.
"Are you already succumbing to the effects of this region of space?" Thoth asks. "Shouldn't you be more excited at the prospect of dealing with strange ghostly entities?"
"I'm already dealing with strange ghostly entities, you strange ghostly entity." At least he got her head up again. "It wasn't you whispering in my head, was it? About gods?"
"I do not have a good whispering voice," Thoth says, and his eyes whirrr as they look into Tasha's silent ones. "Did it sound like me?"
"You do tend to sound a little sardonic, and the no-confidence vote about Outter Gods -- and inner ones -- sounds like something you'd say. Sam's opinion of the gods is different, and I don't know anyone else who would know these things besides the three of us. Someone said it might be the Tadpole, but wouldn't she have identified herself?" Tasha shrugs and her tail flicks at the same time.
"How did the voice answer when you asked who it was?" Thoth asks. It's probably a reasonable question.
"It didn't," Tasha answers. She already shrugged, so finds herself without the option now when it'd be more approproate. So instad she looks mildly lost, tail tip bouning left and right in a undecided fashion.
"You did ask, didn't you?" the wise, ancient and personality-challenged being asks.
"YES THOTH. You sound more like your father all the time," Tasha replies. She then huffs, head dropping and tail curling around her wings. "It wasn't Blackwings. It came after, when I was thinking about the Yellow Marker. About how to deal with my obligations, and how maybe I'm being used and that certain beings won't let me go. It said gods are never satisfied, and, well, asked me if my contracts still ... apply." She certain Thoth knows enough to understand her other doubts through that comment.
"Contracts with the likes of Thotep and Hastur aren't easily ended," Thoth notes. "One has you saddled with a demon. The other with.. what was it that Hastur still wanted you to do?"
"Kill Sadu-hem," Tasha says, as if it were a lothesome chore she'd rather sleep through.
"Weren't you going to do that anyway?" Thoth asks.
"It's strange isn't it," Tasha agrees, her tail doing a loop circle that presumably means things are strange. "Why push me to do what I was going to do? They're not usually so timeline intensive. Of course," and here Tasha looks at the others, especially the guests, but decides at this point she's too burdened to bother hiding anything now, " ... once we do that there goes the supply of Khattan-made stator units. House Khomen's going to lose their tail about that, especially if it gets out they used an entrapped outsider."
The eyes on Thoth whirr again. "Sadu-hem is one of the more important Ogdru-hem," he notes. "I imagine Hastur has a more particular reason for wanting it out of the way other than that it is an Ogdru-hem."
"I know its blood is used for stators. Their loss would cause some level of damage to House Khomen." Tasha frowns a moment, sitting up fully now. "It's possible House Khomen and Lord Khomen have connections in the same manner that I do. I can't be the only exotic mortal to have the ear of outside powers. Foiling their production may be a move in the game between powers."
"Possibly," Thoth admits. "If you aren't sure of motivations, it is best to simply ask Hastur next time."
"I'll be sure to let the boss know I'd like a meeting," tasha agrees, reaching up to tap the side of her head. "He sometimes comes by to check up on me."
"Micromanagers are the worst," Katie says.
"This region likely makes it easier for him to reach out," Thoth offers, and actually rubs the bottom of his beak as it were a chin. "Thin places."
"He did give me a pick-me-up when I gave it my all during the battle against Monster Mom. Ad-hoc space leviathans are tricky to pilot." And down Tasha's head goes. She kicks at the floor, which causes her to begin spinning around in circle. "But he definitely comes by to check on me. At least he's easier to talk to than some of them. Sometimes I wonder what's in his eyes."
"Madness," Thoth answers. Then Aaron and Liza arrive. Aaron is bringing coffee, so they must all be behaving properly. Liza has her datapad in hand as well.
"Madness is always in him," Tasha replies, but that seems to be the end of it as she stops spinning and sits up, her tail looping around the console to arrest her rotation.
"Why are you spinning around?" Aaron has to ask Tasha as he looks for a place to set the coffee supply down. Liza just waits for Tasha to stop before coming closer.
Tasha shifts to sit in her chair the proper way, lest Liza start giving her the eyeball, and curls her tail in to her lap which she promptly plays with. "Why not? There's not much for me to do right now. The experts are being experts."
Liza steps up to Tasha and silently hands her the datapad.
"Do I have to fight it," Tasha asks of the datapad, her tail clasped in her hands.
An image is displayed on it. It looks like a strange mountain rising up out of an ocean, with out offshoots covered in forests with glittery things in them. There are clouds covering parts of it, and it takes an odd twist of perception to realize the mountain is a tree. A tree the size of a mountain, very broad at the base.
"This is a very big tree," Tasha observes, noddingly slowly. She looks up. "Is this what you've found for a resort option?"
Liza nods, reaches over to zoom the picture. And zoom some more. Eventually one of the branches reveals a city nestled in the foliage. "Yggdrasil, one of the five continent-trees on Ymir," she explains.
"Did someone makes this exciting, giant tree?" Tasha inquires, leaning in and more curious now. She's never heard of continent-sized trees before, but then she has seen floating planetoid -- asteroids? -- sized trees, so she supposes terrestrial ones shouldn't surprise her. "And people live here? It's not just a tourist attraction?"
"It is a unique world," Liza explains. "There is no apparent dry land, only these great trees which serve the same purpose. They are thought to be artificial - artifacts of the First Ones. Each of the trees supports a different ecosystem, with several biomes apiece. Yggdrasil is the Terran one. Hakk'ri'ril is the Vartan one, and Skree-chi-char is the Confederate one. There is a Khattan orbital station and a floating city, but they don't have facilities on the trees."
Tasha considers this strange world of trees and ocean. "And there's rain?" She isn't sure why, but she has suddenly taken to missing the rain. She has learned, in death, that many things suddenly become important, while others seem frivilous.
A bit of panning on the image shows branches blanketed in clouds. "Cloud forests. A type of rainforest. It rains a lot there," she explains.
Tasha nods again. She taps the screen, looks around a moment more, and then nods a final time. "Lets go with this, then. Everyone's been together a long time now and I think we've all worn on each other a little, so how about we set everyone up in seperate accomidations unless they request otherwise. We can even have each species-group lodge at their respective Galactic world trees." And this all may come as a surprise, since she hadn't discuss seperate accomidations with anyone until just now.
"I will let the Captain know then," Liza says. Then something starts beeping amid the collection of equipment littering the area. "Which one is that?" Hera asks, searching. "Hyperwave sonar," Soshelle says, as the two women descend on the detector.
Tasha leans back in what's decidedly a 'here we go' pose of a reaction. She folds her arms, tail returning to lurking over her head like a reverse pendallum.
"It's definitely detecting something," Soshelle claims, sounding triumphant.
"Which direction?" Hera asks breathlessly. "Is it relayed in the beep, or some higher frequency that only Eeee can interpret?"
"No, it just beeps. Direction is difficult to determine in the Maelstrom. But.. it's certainly something that has entered the range of the device."
Tasha looks aft, brows narrowing, trying to see if she can detect anything beyond the vessel in the strange churn of the Maelstrom. It's a long shot, but it's the only sensor she's obstentesibly an expert in.
"And that range is?" Hera asks, making a 'gimme more' motion with her hands.
"Well, distance is hard to determine.." Soshelle starts to explain, when something else beeps and they're both off to check that bit of equipment. Tasha can't sense anything.. but that could partly be due to Samael being right there in the room. It'd be like trying to spot a candle in the woods while standing next to a bonfire.
Tasha wonders, for a moment, if this blinding darkness is intentional, but dismisses it as being round-a-bout even for outsider gods. "Maybe we should surface in case there's a problem? If they're going to catch up, we should try and be arranged so we're ready to deal with a potential disaster." She says it so casually, too. It surprises her, in hindsight.
"We'd be safer near a gravity well," Soshelle notes. "Are there any rogue planets nearby?"
"It's a long shot but maybe we're lucky?" Tasha kicks off, spinning around to her console and using her override to bring up navigation and local graviattional mapping.
The maps are.. blank. This is unmapped, flat space after all. "We need to boost the range of the mass detector," Soshelle offers. "It's a psionic tech, so.. maybe if more people watch it it will work better? We can't the Tadpole to watch it."
Tasha's tongue comes out at the idea of staring at the psionic orb of headaches and nausea again, but she does rise. "Everyone not staring at a sensor to the Bridge, please." And off she goes.
This brings just about everyone to the main bridge, where Gabriel is doing flight duty while Kaa rests. "Why are you all crowding in here?" he asks. "Is this a mutiny?"
"I already own the ship, I don't need to mutiny," Tasha insists, she then walks towards the Bridge railing and points at the sphereical device. "We have Netherbeasts in the detection volume and I've suggested we surface to meet them in a safe location where we can deal with disasters outside of the Maelstrom. Soshelle suggested we find a rogue planet and use its gravity well as a defense. We're trying to find one."
"Well.. I suppose it's worth a try," Gabriel says. "I'm starting to get brain fatigue already."
"I hate the headache orb," Tasha agrees, tail doing a little shirl in what Gabriel recognizes a 'whoop-de-doo' level of enthusiasim over the attempt. "Alright, lets all stare at it and find safety. Whoever finds one can have someof teh last chocolate, or something else if you're a Karnor."
Everyone tries to crowd in around Tasha to stare at the headache-inducer. Someone even pats her butt! "I bet I last the longest," Hakeber claims. "I operate just fine with a hangover."
Tasha does her part, even if she's being smothered by life realities and flat space. Doing what needs doing on board ship may as well be burned in to her, it's not something which a mere identity crisis can compete with. "I am disappointed in the ancients that this orb is the best they could come up with." It doesn't stop her from complaining, however.
It remains blank for several minutes, then there's the faintest of flickers at the far edge. But it's enough to give a direction.
"You see it Gabe?" Tasha waves behind her to the left, and her tail points that way, too. "I think we have a bite."
After a few more course changes, the flicker becomes a bit more steady. It's still a good hour before it's bright enough for a single person to navigate by. That person being Kaa, who has returned to his station by then.
"Leeeetle fishy, here I come," the Greatest Pilot in the Universe clicks.
By this point Tasha has resumed slumping, except now she's in the navigation arm boom station staring at the display for when it shows more than nothing at all. "So what shall we name the planet? Flat Space Sucks? Aaagh, Monsters?"
"It's probably a frozen rock," Yue points out.
"One vote for "It's Probably A Frozen Rock"," Tasha notes, reaching up to rub her left ear.
"Stormport," Hakeber suggests. "As in 'Any Port in a Storm'."
"It's under power," Kaa notes.
"The ... planetoid is under power?" Tasha asks, actually looking up, eyes wide. It's so out of the blue it catches her offguard, cutting through her malise, and visibly so.
"Bigger than a planetoid," Moka chimes in. "Two times more massive than Terra. And yes, accelerating, if slowly, away from the galaxy."
"Waaaaait, is it a Starseed?" Tasha wiggles until she can sit up properly and not be in her slowly-sliding-down-the-chair position. "Or something else? An old interstellar vessel?"
"A worldship," Thoth says. "Extremely old. Supposedly entire civilizations.. or groups of civilizations.. decided to flee the galaxy in fear of some dire threat. And they did it through relativistic space, since.. civilizations are large things, after all."
Tasha considers this, resting a hand on her chin and frowning. "Should we interfere? We have no idea who or what is on board, or if they've even survived this long. They might appreciate knowing the state of the Galaxy, and one ship shouldn't be able to threaten the power balance, if it returns. To let them keep going when the thing they fled from may be gone would be cruel, and they may know of some threat we don't."
"Most likely they're all dead, like the rest of the First Ones," Professor Stanislav laments. "But.. it would certainly be a sight, and even better: it does not involve strange gods and terrible weapons. It is something we could legitimately publish our findings on!"
"Do you think we could even turn it around? Using the Dark Horse?" Tasha asks, turning to look between Samael, Gabriel, and Thoth. "An entire world ship would put us in the Galactic News. It'd be a tremendous asset, even if decide to keep it concealed."
"It's going an appreciable percentage of light speed," Moka notes. "If it has been accelerating all this time, it is likely to require just as much time to decelerate."
"Why are planets and ships so hard to capture. The Titanians don't have this problem. Blackwings didn't have this problem." Tasha huffs, but then tosses her hands up. "Fine, lets take cover near it anyway. We still have to defend ourselves after all. Then, we can consider boarding it. We should contact them before approach, just in case their ancient, not dead anti-collision system decides we're a collision waiting to happen," says Tasha.
"We'll need to c-catch up to it," Kaa notes. "There will be time-dilation effects. Run up might let gremlins catch up."
"Well unless we have another massive object, it's this or we stop and ready ourselves," Tasha notes as she drops back in her chair and folds her hands behind her head. "Maybe we can remind them I just helped kill a demi-god a lot bigger than they are?"
"They probably didn't see that part," Samael offers. "It wasn't until after the black-hole-bomb went off.. oh, wait. There was also that dimensional bomb you used on Lukthu-hem. Things could gotten through that time as well."
"I hope the universe is understanding of these little necessities," the no-longer-hybrid woman remarks, concerned. "I'd hate tot hink I'm fighting Dark beings off just to keep letting more in, and destroying the universe."
"The universe is pretty resilient," Thoth assures. "But we should perhaps get as close as possible to the worldship before surfacing."
"Gremlins or a planet covered in guns. Well, at least we understand guns," Tasha notes, nodding slowly. "Mystery world it is, then. Gabe, take us in please?"
"You may want to strap down for this ride," Gabriel notes. "Do your thing, Mr. Kaa." Tasha can feel Tatha-hem 'chomping at the bit' to go full gallop, so that is probably sound advice.
Tasha reaches over and pulls her straps on, then punches in the command for adjusting her seat to secure her. She rests her hands on the controls and settles in, sitting properly once more. A dance of fingers across her keyboard and local space is ready to be plotted.
Shojo ushers people around. There aren't enough seats to secure everyone on the bridge, after all, so most of the non-crew are sent to med-bay. Alarms and klaxons sound for each stage of preparation, and then the blackness of normal space appears, followed by the odd sensation of the ship accelerating. It makes sense that something the size of a planet would need milder acceleration, especially if it's mostly made of actual planet. Something far lower than its own surface gravity, certainly.
Find the planet-ship is easy enough for Tasha, it's the only thing within real space sensory range besides themselves. The display is so overwhelmingly empty it feels like she's looking at the training simulations from early in her navigational education. Even though it's largely needless, Tasha punches in the ark ship as their destination. "I think they may have used an actual planet. Do you think they brought their home world with them?"
"It makes sense to me," Katie says. "But it's awfully big. They'd want to be deep down inside, protected from radiation and impacts. Not detecting a magnetic field or atmosphere at this range."
"Take the atmosphere and surface resources with them and dig deep? By this point in Galactic civilization, their technology base may have exceeded the current Galactic level. Reworking an an entire planet may have been well within their reach. But, then, it'd be surprising to find only one." Tasha shakes her head, wondering if the Sifra really could have reached this far. And if they could, how far would be far enough for them? The galaxy? Nearby galaxies? The entire universe?
"There are likely thousands of them, but space is big," Gabriel explains. "It wouldn't take magic technology to accomplish this. Some sort of gravity drive, probably. And sacrificing a few other large planets in the original solar system to slingshot the main world free.."
"Planets get ejected from solar systems all the time," Yue notes. "Well, when the solar systems are younger at least, and the big gas giants wonder inward."
"Well, so much for what I know," Tasha laments, resisting the urge to sink back in her chair. "We can hope they're using older-style defences, too. They'll have trouble with the Horse using anything slower than light speed."
The target world is very dark, with nothing to illuminate it out here but the faint light of the galactic disk itself. Even in infrared it's dark. What they mostly see are distorted deep-radar and lidar images. The world had oceans it looks like, given the massive deep plains and continental shelves. But there's no sign of water or atmosphere anymore. There are several clearly artificial - and extremely large - structures on the surface though, which are giving off faint traces of heat.
"Heat sinks?" Tasha asks, brows raising. "Do you see how they're accelerating the planet, yet?" She scans the image again. "They must have detected us the same time we detected them."
"We're pretty small," Gabriel says. "They could be the engines."
"Not detecting any gas or plasma emissions, so it's probably some form of reactionless drive," Katie reports.
"Hiiiigh-tech," Tasha sing-songs. Her tail does wag, except it does so in a completely vertical manner. "It's not making a lot of heat for a reaction-less drive that can move a planet."
"It would need a massive power source," Moka says. "We'll know in another hour or so."
"Scanning for broadcasts, trying known Galactic languages," Katie says.
A few minutes in, and.. "No signals or reply."
"Would planetary tectonics be enough?" Tasha has no idea if it would, but it's the only massive power she can attribute to a planet. At the news of no reply, she lets out a sigh. "I was hoping we'd be able to help out. I wasn't able to do anything for the Thennenin, either."
"That things being flying for a million years or more now," Yue says. "Even with time dilation, that's still a long time. Unless they all went into stasis and hoped for the best.."
"Find us a hiding spot-t!" Kaa requests. "There are large underground spaces on deep-radar, looking for passages," Moka snaps back.
"Well, wouldn't they have expected that? Anyone who could build this could do the basic math on travel times. I can't imagine they built this as a quick response." Tasha does as she's requested, scanning throught the various surface formations, of which the planet has no shortage. She doesn't want to get near the large artificial structures nor remain within line-of-sight of them, just in case, so she opts for a location at the maximum distance between two of them in a deep gorge that probably once severed as a deep ocean fissure. It's relatively straight, so there's some room to manuver. "I have a possible site locked. Will it work?"
"Nice and deep, lots of mass around us!" Kaa says, and drives the Dark Horse towards it. "Sea monsters all d-dead by now, no water left!"
"I did promise to take you to a place with an ocean the next time we stopped by a planet," new-Tasha notes. She continues to scan the massive structure, which presents a considerable challenge as she tries to keep track of all the possible dangers a ship greater than the size of Terra could possibly possess. She suspects even the computer, and beyond the computer the Niss, are having difficulty.
The searchlights from the Dark Horse are probably the brightest thing this world has seen in millennia, even they only illuminate shiny black stone as the ship descends into the dry abyss. But there's mass and gravity here, which should put off the gremlins (or Netherbeasts) for a while yet.
"So we managed to find a deep pit in the middle of the universal equivilent of nowhere," Tasha observes, looking around at, well, the black pit. "I think that deserves a souvineer. We should deploy drones and take some samples while we're here. If the Nethergremlins leave us alone, we can try inspecting the surface facilities. Maybe there's a way inside?" Her ears flick. "Maybe we should bring gifts?"