Katie didn't have time to go too crazy with outfits before it was time to leave Ymir. So Tasha ended up a mood-jumpsuit that changes colors depending on the temperature of her body parts, a peek-a-boo version that could display different patterns and shapes on an otherwise transparent material, and ruffle outfit with a top and skirt connected by netting. All of them were backless to deal with her wings. Katie was disappointed that she couldn't find roller-skates that would work with Tasha's feet however.
Shojo's squad was still stowing their gear when the Dark Horse launched, and set course for Caltrop. Mr. Invention had signaled Tasha that Batty would be heading to Daltoona by other means. The Kai remote was moved to Thoth's room and Tia stayed with Yue and Hakeber until she could use the tactical display again.
And so Tasha finds herself on the bridge in a ruffly skirt connected by netting, which is the most comfortable of her new outfits she can wear without scandalizing the crew or making her look too frivolous. She thinks the skirt and top make her look just frivolous enough. She's at her usual station, Navigation, though navigation on the Dark Horse is just a matter of selecting the destination and letting the Niss, the ship, and Kaa handle the rest.
"Off we go everyone." She settles back and blows Gabriel a kiss.
Gabriel likewise can relax through liftoff, although he does it in his Captain's uniform all the same. Katie talks to ground control, and then the space station until they're past Ymir's control area and heading 'north' out of the system to get to the point where it's safe to enter hyperspace (although technically they don't need to wait, but keeping up their disguise is important). That doesn't mean they have to go slowly though, and Kaa is taking that best possible and least suspicious speed.
"Farewell, Ymir," Katie says.
"What a strange, oddly difficult vacation that was," Tasha adds, hands going behind her head as she gets comfortable. "I hope everyone remembered their things. We'll be a bit in transit, then back and forth between Caltrop and the Base. I expect there'll be a lot or practice runs, drills, and gearing up to do."
"And intel to go over," Katie says, spinning her seat. "Otherwise, Caltrop seems as far removed from Ymir as one can get," she says. "Although you're probably going to see if the Titanian's are there. How big is that old mining station of Jonah's anyway?"
"Big enough for both ships, with a lot of unused, empty infrastructure. There's also the mining tunnels, some of which can be pressurized. I didn't check if any equipment was left behind, but possibly. A lot of it was automated, so crew compliment wasn't tremendous, but raw or is raw ore and space is still space, so a lot of storage room and the docks are big." Tasha spreads her hands. "We can use the tunnels for tactical training in and out of atmo, maybe some of the old mining machines for expansion of quarters in to the tunnels."
"Ah, right, the alien's ship will be there.. somehow," Katie. "Keeping that as a surprise for Shojo's boys I take it? They haven't faced Sam yet."
"We can keep it cloaked in the hangar. Unless they start jumping around the hangar bar there shouldn't be an issue. We'll just say maintenance is proprietary and need-to-know, which should keep them out of the hangar." Tasha turns and thumbs back towards the aft of the ship. "If we rig an umbilical there won't need to be entry from the ship to hangar, we can have everyone exit directly in to the station proper."
"We may need to search the junkyard on Caltrop for one then," Gabriel says. "Our simulated docking ring isn't that good. We can probably drop Tia off at the base on the way to Caltrop though."
"Probably. Anyone who thinks they can do more there can stay as well. We'll need to check with the markets, white, gray, and black for equipment we might need. I'll handle negotiations with the Titanians; I might be able to use them as another market contact. I'd also like some people working on the old Library system, it may contain ideas as to what the Khattans may know, as there is a suspicion they are using ancient records to restrain Ogdru'hem, and they may have other quantities we're better off knowing about beforehand," Tasha recites, ticking off on her left hand, and also using her tail. "So it sounds like we'll have task groups."
"I think the only one likely to get anything out of that ancient library block is the Niss," Gabriel notes. "They'd already hacked into the Caltrop branch unit before."
"Then that will give them something to do while we work on the rest. I'm sure they realize how dangerous it may be," Tasha agrees, nodding. "We'll have the Niss hand off any useful information to Hakeber, Yue, and Tia; anyone who wants to work on that project. Mr. I and Miss N. can help with equipment and any other supplies, and you'll want to work on the umbilical as well, I'm sure? I'll be trying to reach the Titanians, I'm a bit too conspicuous for black market deals when not surrounded by dangerous persons. Anything else? So that's Tia on the Tia's Ship Repair Task, Niss, Hake, Yue, and Tia on the Library Research Task, you and Mr. I and Miss N. for supplies, and the security can either be assigned to us or performing further drills. We'll meet up later to participate in any drills we each individually need."
"I'm hoping Mrs. Teatime has everything ready for us," Gabriel says. "I there anything shipboard we need to deal with? And we should probably see about creating some sort of habitat for the Jotoki on the asteroid as well. They do fine in freefall, and probably need something more stimulating than the ship by now."
"I agree, we musn't neglect them. We may even need to return them to their home before we proceed too much further. We can return if we find anything on their home world." Tasha turns her chair, leans forward, head on hands, arms on knees. "I feel bad we couldn't do more, but we're under duress and this is a dangerous place to be. I'll have to finish my letter to Mariel as well, I made up my mind they just can't be here until we have a bigger ship and much better security."
"Bigger like a commercial cargo hauler?" Gabriel asks. "There are a few gas tankers in the Caltrop nebula, but they aren't FTL capable that I'm aware of."
"We may need a mothership, a mobile base. For that I'd want to find the Tnuctipin base we speculate exists somewhere in the restricted zones where we located Urgo-hem. There was a lot of effort there, there may be a support fleet or manufacturing facility in the neighboring systems that will recognize this vessel. It was a prototype, after all, and an important one. Mr. Chaos's base was nearby, after all." Tasha holds up a hand, vertical, indicating a ship. "We the mother ship can stay hidden in the depths of space and we can launch smaller vessels from it. It'll give us room to create recreation, water and land based, construction, docking, expand personnel and house artifacts. A fortress for us among the stars, a place where people can work."
"Hmm, the mobility part is the most complicated," Gabriel says. "Really big structures aren't easily moved, and would be too flimsy for or too massive for conventional drives. The Confederate colony ships would be big enough, but they're slow."
"We'll need to figure that out, then. There are plenty of ultra-large vessels out there; I'll ask the Titanians what they recommend. Maybe they have a spare." Tasha then shrugs with her hands, leaning back; you never know what the Titanians might have. "It will give us a project to work on after we deal with Daltoona. It may be necessary for us to disappear for a while, and where better than the depths of space, or forbidden zones?"
"Depends on whom we ware disappearing from," Katie notes.
A chime indicates that someone is at the doors to the bridge - which are closed off during normal flight, now that there are people to keep secrets from aboard.
"That is so, but if things go badly, it would be 'disappearing from Galactic Society'. There's also the potential of other, hidden powe--" Tasha pauses, looking down and bringing up the bridge access Cameras. "Yes?"
Tia is outside, wearing Hakeber's bathrobe. She looks around until she spots the camera. "Yes what? I hadn't asked a question yet."
"I am aware of your 'zany' difficulty with interpersonal interactions, there's no need to remind me." Tasha settles back and arches a brow. "Yes: what do you need?"
"I need to finish my brown dwarf survey," Tia claims.
"I suppose you can come on to the Bridge." Tasha glances at Gabriel for his confirmation, however.
"Brown dwarfs?" Katie asks Gabriel and Tasha. Gabriel just nods. "She can't mess with anything anyway," he agrees.
"She's unlikely to be a real danger, but her family is known to cause chaos just by existing." Tasha pokes the 'admit' command button and the doors slide open. Tia's terminal lights up, also unlocked by Tasha's hand. "There we go."
Tia doesn't leave the rear section where the tactical table is. She's quickly got holographic star maps up and cycling.
"Brown Dwarfs are stars that didn't make it," Gabriel explains. "Just below the mass needed to ignite internal fusion reactions."
With nothing else to do, Tasha puts her command chair back in to its locked-to-the-deck position and climbs up, heading to the tactical map in the C&C part of the Bridge. "I see. I think I remember that. Any luck with them, Tia?"
"I'm looking for expected abnormalities," Tia notes as she waves through sections of space, zooming in and out occasionally or calling up orbital displays.
"Expected in what way? Signs of Ogdru-hem activity, civilized macro-engineering, expected stellar distributions..?" Tasha frowns at the stars, but she can make no sense out of what Tia is looking for.
"Your civilizations make no sense," Tia explains. "Given the sparcity of galactic civilization during their developmental periods, and the availability of the needed technology, they should have emigrated to a digital existence rather than risk conflict and danger in space."
"That is rather strange," Tasha agrees, having wondered about that at one time or another. "I'm not sure if digital existences have souls of the type the Ogdoad want, so that may be a factor. Beings like Mr. Chaos may also want to avoid digital existences, plus a lack of conflict really isn't their style or diet. The Library may guide species away from digitization."
"That would likely be the case," Tia agrees, as she looks at stellar orbits and failed stars. "Brown dwarfs are ideal for converting into computational matter, like the Niss but much larger. There are usually certain signs to look for."
"Then that type of civilization is much more 'common' than a highly developed space-fairing civilization using individual bodies, in other universes?" Tasha frowns more at the stars. "If that were the case then if we do succeed in shielding this universe and ousting the Shadow-influence, civilization would move that way after a time."
"Not necessarily," Tia says. "It comes down to a variety of factors. Once interstellar travel is possible, the likelihood tends to go down." She pauses to look at a spot in the chart, the moves on to another sector. "These maps are from the Library. If you wanted to hide your existence, you would remove it from the maps."
"Easy to hide your existence when you control the intelligence, I suppose." Tasha spreads her hands out through the virtual sea of stars. "We can talk to the Titanians, they'll have maps from sources other than the Library. The Terragens likely also have their own maps, as may the Confederacy."
"That is why I am focusing on brown dwarfs," Tia explains. "They don't emit light, so are not easily detected except by gravity, which is subtle. They do have a statistical distribution however, and are important to know the location of when hyperdrive is in use. I will need to study the hyperspace maps next to correlate them with the astronomical ones. When I have time."
"You busy with something else?" Tasha looks up from the maps and arches her eyebrows. "Another project, or have you heard from my mentor?"
"I'm just curious about it on my own," Tia claims. "The revalation that Thotep and the Ogdoad are both a presence in this reality lends credence to my findings and your assumptions on why they might influence things in a specific direction."
"And I like to have multiple sources of information when possible," she adds.
"It would be good to know the answer to that. It's something civilization as a whole should know about, not just us. It impacts this universe's growth and the direction of all life within." Tasha holds up a hand, indicatively. "Supposedly the Sifra were created by the Ogdoad to tend to this 'garden' but rebelled, which included burning the garden down to a certain threshold. The Vril'ya stopped the Sifra, so now there's a stalemate between powers. Galactic civilization hasn't neared the culling limit set by the Sifra, nor that of the Ogdoad, but maybe they'll accelerate that now that this garden has become a problem. You could also liken it to animal husbandry, if the farmers were cruel."
"Cruelty is relative when you need to eat," Tia claims. "How long is this flight going to be? There are a lot of people on this ship, and I need to know how long I need to avoid them for."
"A few days. It would be faster but we need to maintain our disguise. You can hide in Thoth's room if you really need to, we can route the information you need to his display." Tasha steps back and spreads her arms. "The ship is a bit cramped, isn't it? I'll see what I can do about that in time."
"Cramped?" Tia asks. "It doesn't feel that way. I just need to limit my personal interactions as much as possible."
"Have you been working with Yue to better approximate being Human?" The red woman nods back towards the aft. "I'm sure she'd be willing to help you out. Maybe even with the other problems I know you're dealing with. It might help to talk to someone who isn't me. I'm not even sure how I feel about her."
"I can use the personality in Kai if I really need to, and it isn't about passing as human, really," Tia explains. She looks at Tasha and says, "How often are you reminded of your worst day, whatever it might have been?"
"Quite a lot actually," Tasha admits, reaching up and scratching at her head in an old habit. "I know I've had worse days, but I had the worst part removed. But it was still bad; you were there, so you should remember. Even dying wans't quite that bad. Compared to the last year nothing feels remotely as difficult, though the shame and frustration I felt early in life was relatively strong, it wasn't a day."
"Now imagine that you have perfect recall, such that when you remembered something, you would literally be reliving it in every detail," Tia says. "And if you lived long enough, you would have a lot of those. Friends that you've lost, pain, or worse. Eventually you would want to avoid anything that might spark one of those memories."
"It seems like you've reached a growth limit due to excessive capacity to retain difficult memories. Mortals handle this through erosion and forgetfulness. I suppose a compromise would be a mix of both systems, storing the memories to an external memory unit, or eroding compromising memories until they are bearable. AIs will purge memories if they compromise the system." Tasha holds her hands out, waggling her fingers, ears flicking. Her tail does a loop. "Eventually building memories will become catastrophic and result in a system failure. This can be considered the end of the system's endurance, or else change is required to permit new growth. Perhaps better systems will become available later, but letting a system become compromised endlessly reduces its effectiveness and builds towards failure."
"I was young when I created this body, and forgetting things would defeat the purpose of my existence," Tia claims. "I keep moving around, seeking new things so that there is little chance of being reminded of something painful. But you're wolves and cheetahs and humans and bats and.. the birds are different. Vartans are safe."
"But my decision making may indeed be compromised by recent situations," she admits.
"You have a lot of experience with our kind, then? Or are we somewhere between safe and not?" And then she nods. "It'd be hard to imagine recent events wouldn't compromise your decision making. It compromised mine, not that I was constructed in the same way you were, or with the same abilities. It did impress upon me, in what may be the strongest way possible, mortal and immortal limitations and the need to recognize when you've exceeded them. When too much is too much."
"Too much can be very scary," Tia says quietly, and turns off the star map display. "For now, I will stay with Yue, and keep Kai separate from the others too. I can manage a few days, I'm certain. I'll be more useful eventually."
Tasha smiles at that. "I have no doubt. You just need time to rest and adjust. We're both worried about people and how they're doing, but they're greater beings than ourselves, so all we can do is have faith in them and their ability and recognize we can't help them now, so we should do what we can do."
Tia pauses and looks at Tasha. "What can I do though?" she asks.
Tasha tilts her head, arms folded, thinking. She raises a finger. "Your star map research has been very helpful. You can repair your vessel so we have another ship for the fleet. You can train me in the uses of the item, and share your knowledge of what has worked and not worked against the Shadow. You have real experience of a catastrophic battle, that could be useful for the archives. You may know of additional allies, as you've traveled far and wide. There are likely positions you could fill, or even entire roles only you could fill."
"I suppose I am more mobile than the Niss," Tia concedes. "I will look at this asteroid base of yours as well. I've worked with asteroids in the past, even the non-chewy ones. With some work, they can all be made chewy though."
"Chewy in the Charon sense?" Tasha asks with a hint of a laugh.
"That may not be the correct term," Tia admits. "Malleable. That is the proper term."
"I think Charon would have meant chewy," Tasha insists, but then she nods. "Yes, upgrading the asteroid would be nice. It's very bear bo-- Very basic, and has largely been stripped of its equipment except machinery too big and heavy to be worth the cost of moving them."
"How easily can it be melted?" Tia asks, sounding serious. Which means she probably expects Tasha to actually know the answer to her question.
"You'll have to ask Jonas or consult the records. I don't usually assist with engineering tasks directly. I order tasks, and someone does them. Limitations." And so Tasha shrugs; what can you do. "I mostly specialize in leadership, negotiations with alien powers, and direct combat against the Shadow. Oh!" She holds up a finger. "There was something that might help a lot: can you manufacture remotes?"
"That depends on your definition of manufacture," Tia says cagily. "If you mean one like Kai, then no. She is more complex and durable than I am. If you mean making zombies, then I might be able to."
"I was thinking combat drones, robots, bio-mechanical machines, anything I could pilot indirectly. I've piloted a starship from a neural link and it was able to produce bodies from ProgMat. Recent events have impressed upon me how fragile and breakable I am, and it may help to fight by proxy. That, or manufacture a larger combat vessel with additional proxies." Tasha taps the side of her head. "With what I have now I may be more effective like that."
"I can make drones with my ship," Tia says, "But not combat ones. I won't make weapons."
"A personal choice?" Tasha's head tilts and ears go up. "It will be difficult to defend yourself without weapons. No war is won through purely defensive measures, unless by negotiation."
"Wars can be one is surprising ways, especially if the enemy doesn't realize their is a war," Tia offers. "I can help with disabling adversaries, but not killing them, if such a term is applicable to them."
"What if they're not alive?" Tasha's head tilts the other way.
"Then it wouldn't be killing," Tia points out. "A weapon is used against a living being. Otherwise it is only a tool."
"That's acceptable. Most of our real enemies are not alive in any sense I'm aware of. They are sentient, but not alive. We can handle the alive ones ourselves, if it comes down to that." Tasha's head rocks back and forth now. Her tail stands on end, as if to make a point. "Would you be against our arming of drones against living targets? Purely defensive mind you, we're not assassins unless we need to be. But as you probably noticed, Galactic society isn't comfortable with facing these horrors and can get in our way, become dangerous. We try to avoid them but that may not last forever."
"I would not be comfortable with having anything I provide turned into a weapon," Tia admits. "The method of controlling them is very personal after all. There is feedback. I can provide true defensive options however."
"Additional defenses would be welcome. If they can't hurt us they're not a threat and don't need to be dealt with." And so Tasha's head goes back up again. "An enemy who can't attack sufficiently is an enemy in name only."
"Hmm," Tia replies. "Running away is also effective. You have a ship that can essentially vanish. That should cover situations of space combat, at least. I don't know who your allies are, or what they might provide."
"The Titanians are giant 'space wolves', but they're not actually wolves. They're hyper-capable in areas of engineering but lack overall cultural development and live nomadic lifestyles on large vessels. They were created by the vril'ya to essentially clean up the universe of leftover artifacts, Shadow-taint, Shadow-artifacts, and to build infrastructure and vessels. Vartans were the soldiers, and the Cill were the leadership species. The Cill are missing; Vartans were released from their duties. Come to think of it, do you know of a 'place' called the Void? It's some sort of storage dimension cut off from this one by keys."
"There are lots of places like that," Tia notes. "Pockets of hyperspace, both artificial and natural, and regions of unformed potential that places like faerie and the Dreamlands can be carved out of if one is careful. Even pieces of timestone can be considered such."
"I assume there's no life in the timestones, then? Are they made from Shadow-beings?" Tasha asks it casually, but is aware this might be a delicate question.
"They're made from spacetime," Tia says. "If there's matter in them, it would be less useful. I suppose shadow beings could be imprisoned in such a manner, however. If they were pure, and not hybrid constructs."
"That might be useful." Tasha taps her chin, frowning. "Thoth had been working on something like that as well. A shame he's not here; I hope he's alright."
Tia doesn't add her own offering of hope to Tasha's, but looks concerned. "You said that the Ogdoad were imprisoned, so something like timestone is likely to be involved."
"I think they're using a facet of the universe for it, or both. They are imprisoned on a planet within the event horizon of the black hole at the core of this galaxy. It is a trap of Sifran design, so advanced, and likely to use elements both from within and without this universe. I've seen it in the dreams of one of the Shadow beings: a desolate, rocky world dotted with monoliths. In fact we could head there at any time; Persephone gave me the means to call down the Null upon the world. There is the matter of their defenders and agents, as well as what happens when the Null arrives, and how to get inside a black hole without being spegettified or spat out in to another universe." Tasha spreads her hands. "I've been wondering if I should just 'go for it'. This could all be over by now, it just feels too easy. And dangerous. The Ogdoad know me and aren't limited to temporality. I'm uncertain if rushing to the goal is wise, yet."
"Galactic black holes have navigable ergospheres," Tia says. "It's where you can find naturally occurring timestone and degenerate matter."
"Is that where it shows up? I thought it was artificial." Tasha taps her chin some more. "Do you think it's possible, then? That we could just end this swiftly? It would be nice to move on with my life, go back to exploring, reduce the danger."
"The Ogdru-hem would still be around, as would Thotep," Tia notes. "If he had wanted it to end so simply, he could have made it happen himself. There could be other consequences we don't know about as well."
"Like the Sifra no longer having their opposition, and rising up again. They're down but I don't think they're out, and they were more advanced than the Tnuctipin. More so now, possibly." Tasha wrinkles her muzzle. "It's a nice idea. I'd like them to be dealt with. But we need to know the consequences and have a better defense to it happening again. There are too many players and we don't know what their game is."
"We can guess that is a long game, however," Tia notes. "You'd do better trying to divine the long-term plans of a mountain."
"Then how can we know what the consequences are?" Tasha's ears go up. "If we can't know the goal of the opposition?"
"The consequences of sawing off the branch that you are perched on do not require knowing the plans of the tree," Tia claims. "Consequences can be discerned given time and careful experimentation. And having a safety harness would be good as well."
"That will take some doing, but I'll put it before the others for investigation. It can be one of our main areas of operations: discerning the consequences of defeating the enemy and what, if anything, we can do about what comes after." Tasha nods. She pulls out her datapad and adds that to the next council session's minutes along with reviewing the prison itself and making it known they could move on it at any time. "There. I suspect the Ogdru'hem might give up without their masters. Tatha-hem did."
"They can be varied," Tia warns. "The ones I encountered had lain dormant for a billion years or more, but awoke and rampaged as soon as they heard the call from their masters. And those were creatures whose very existence was one of constant suffering, yet they were eager to obey."
"That does sound like them. None of them seem happy. I'd tried in the past to seduce them away from their masters, but they seem to be intrinsically linked them in a way that can't be undone without undoing them, which defeats the point." Tasha spreads her hands in another shrug, muzzle grimacing. "And they're definitely varied. Our Tatah-hem is all about movement. We met and destroyed one which has a horn-like wave that could scramble complex machine life and machine-like life. Another could twist world lines, which was a weird few days let me tell you. So far they haven't been very clever, and I'm dreading the one whose specialization is cleverness. I've wondered if Lord Khomen is that one."
"A clever Ogdru-hem would be very dangerous," Tia agrees. Then looks suddenly uncomfortable just before the klaxon plays on the intercom system. The dive alert, as the Dark Horse is about to enter the Maelstrom.
"We should beware." Tasha taps over each eye in turn, then over the middle of her forehead. "Vigilance." She then reaches over to pat Tia on the shoulder. "Come talk to me if you wnat to talk about your mother some more, but I need to get ready and arrange a meeting with the Titanians. I should bring Bumper and the crew something for their lienency and for worrying about us."
A few hours after Dark Horse has entered the Maelstrom, Tasha gets a request from Tia for her and Hakeber to meet her for psionic defense training, but left it up to Tasha to decide where to do it.
Tasha, who had been doing actual work at her desk, look sup. Having reached a good stopping point she switches mental tracks and tries to decide on where she might host such a thing as mental defense. Probably not near the Bridle, and not near the Niss. Away from Sam too, though that's harder, and not near the Tadpole either who might be able to participate. Thus she decides on the rear of the Hangar and sets a ship-wide warning that the Hangar will be off limits to restricted personnel in ten minutes. And with that she slips out of her bathrobe and decides she probably needed to put something on.
Hakeber ends up waiting outside of Tasha's door, wearing the same clothes she had one when they left Ymir: knee-length shorts and a bandeau top, both neon green. Also some pink sandals, but at least she doesn't have sunglasses perched atop her head anymore.
Tasha decides to go with the outfit Katie got her, the ruffled skirt and connected web top. It makes her look witchily, a look she thinks is appropriate for the occasion. She adds some booties and sets her armbands to match the color of the outfit. As Hake has seen her dress a hundred times, she doens't even stop when she sees Hakeber outside the door. "Any information in your super brain about mental defense, Hake?"
"Before, my sure fire strategy was to get too drunk for anything to penetrate my mind," Hakeber says. "So I don't have a working Plan B yet."
"That was my strategy too, and my lack of a B /really/ hurt/. Even if this is bad, it's a lot better than the alternative." Once dressed Tasha snatches Hakeber's hand, suspecting she may need encouragement, and heads for the elevator
The hangar is indeed uninhabited, until they get to the rear. Tia is there, sitting on one of the lower winglets of the antique shuttlecraft, and swinging her legs. She's wearing her shorts and halter top, having returned the bathrobe. "Have either of you eaten recently?"
"A few hours ago, I've been working." Tasha shoots them both a look, as if daring them to suggest she doesn't actually do any real work.
"Well, I stopped eating an hour ago," Hakeber offers, tail wagging and not making a dig at Tasha. For all Tia knows, Tasha is a workaholic desk-jockey.
Tasha decides to not shatter such illusions. "As ready as we'll get I suppose." She's found she doesn't need to eat quite as much as she used to, or want to. It seems to her less portions are enough to fulfill the same hunger, the same desire to snack.
"So, Tasha can be the control group," Tia says, and then.. Tasha is looking up at the hangar 'doors' from the floor, with no idea how she got down there.
"I feel like I failed something," remarks Tasha, who lasy where she is knowing, through hard experience, to try not to move after a suspected injury.
"Deja vu," Hakeber says, also on the floor next to Tasha. "But no hangover."
"You shouldn't be injured," Tia claims. "You were both asleep when you fell, so your muscles were loose. You were only unconscious for a minute or so."
"Well that was easy." Tasha sits up and looks herself over. "Is that what you expected to happen?"
"Mostly," Tia says. "With just two of you it wasn't a big strain, and your brains are similar enough that your off switches weren't that different."
"We also have similar 'on' switches," Tasha remarks with a laugh. Rather than stand up she stays where she is and crosses her legs, hands in her lap. "And that was a mild, but precise, intrusion, right?"
"It's about the extent of what I'm capable of," Tia explains, as Hakeber gets into a sitting position like Tasha. "I've gone through what the Niss showed me, and Psionic Technology doesn't seem capable of stunning people. Likely due to the differences in brain structure and nature of psionic feedback. But Ogdru-hem can do much worse than what I can do."
"Yeah I noticed that," Tasha says with more than a hint of sardonic distaste. "Your mother tried to show me how bad it was, and succeeded. Spectacularly."
"And then you showed me the parts that had been extracted from you," Tia points out. "But it does bring up the case that there are beings you would not be able to even approach due to the psychic radiation they put out. So, we are going to try and fix that."
"Isn't that why they kicked us all out? Due to the extreme risk of psionic radiation?" Tasha distinctly remembers being told she had to go, and if not for Mel's surprisingly fleshy new existence telling her she should, she might have argued more. It's the first time he's chosen something on his own over her potential wishes, so she couldn't bring herself to quash what freedom he might have attained.
"Yes, brain melting was probably not a metaphor," Tia agrees. "So I'm going to have you work on encasing your brains in ice."
Tasha's ears flick. "I assume that's also metaphorical," she remarks, head then cocking to the side.
Tia takes a disturbingly long moment to reply. "Yee-esss," she finally says. "Because you already have skulls."
"So.. do we get metal plates put in then?" Hakeber asks. That's probably something that happens a lot on Abaddon afterall.
"Maybe I should warn Sick Bay," Tasha tells Hakeber, turning to look at her. "I'm sure Jonas wouldn't even bat a non-existant eyelash at this sort of thing now."
"I would not recommend metal plates," Tia says. "You will have to make your own protective layer." She turns to Tasha, and says, "Hold out your hand with the blue marker in it."
Tasha holds out her hand palm down, then quickly rotates it up and there the Marker rests. "I can see how I might do it, but what about Hake? She doesn't have a connection to Blue."
"She will be harder, probably," Tia says. "Now produce it in your other hand as well."
This is trickier. Tasha has only even managed to manifest either Marker as a complete entity. She pictures the energies splitting, roiling out from her to both hands as she holds out her let hand, palm up. "No promises."
The version in her left hand is a bit smaller than the first one. "Alright," Tia says. "No make them go away, and bring them both back at the same time."
Tasha turns her hands over, but also closes her eyes for the added boost to concentration. She pauses for just a moment, then twists her palms back upright and snaps her eyes open, looking down and furrowing.
Both smaller this time. Tia asks, "What are you concentrating on?"
"Making them both appear at the same time, evenly," Tasha admits, frowning down at the smaller Marker. "I figured the energy available was limited. Is that not so? Am I causing the seize by self-imposed limitations?"
"You are thinking of them as if they were real, and separate," Tia says. "They aren't real. They aren't separate. It can be a single instance in two different places. Don't think about it. The goal is do this reflexively. Like breathing."
"Oh, like certain beings can be in multiple places." That makes things a lot easier on Tasha, who just images two rather large, but light, Markers in both hands. Pizza-sized.
There's way to do sleight-of-hand to make them seem like they were hidden in her palm that way, so they just appear, like small shields.
And since they don't exist, Tasha begins to juggle them. She pictures them spinning and going from hand to hand, their lengths rotating around the other so they never collide. She even moves her hands up and down to give the impression she has to use muscle effort to do it.
"You're making me dizzy," Hakeber complains.
"Better," Tia says, nodding. "Now make a third one, in your head, the same shape as your skull."
"See I can attack the mind too," Tasha insists, then she wills the Markers to shrink and return to her hand. But that's boring, so she pictures the Markers elongating like snakes and coiling around her like a stole, because now that she can, she will.
After doing that for a bit, Tasha lets the Markers rest around her body while she takes a moment to feel her skull for size and, pressing against her head, tries to use her hands to guide the formation.
Tia's head tilts to the side as she watches this.
"Iiiii can't tell if it succeeded or not because it's in my head." To aid in her detection, and to see if it hurts, Tasha tries making a horn pop out of her forehead, and two more cul from behind, then back around, her ears.
"It's more of a metaphorical skull," Tia says.
"Metaphorical anatomy?" Hakeber asks.
"You should be more clear." Tasha lets the horns vanish, but keeps the Blue stole because she thinks it looks nice. So instead she just wills a bubble of Blue around her brain.
"Are you ready?" Tia asks.
"I think so," Tasha replies, looking up and arching her brows. "I am reinforcing the shape even now, just in case."
Tasha's head suddenly rings like a struck bell.
"Ow," goes Tasha, who frowns and glares. "I felt something certainly. Like an impact. Or is that just what it feels like?"
"You didn't pass out though," Tia points out. "You may need to add more layers. And maintain it at all times."
"That will take practice. Also, when you say layers, since it's not physical, is there a spatial limit to the amount of layers in a space, or can I just define the space, like, how about this," and then Tasha holds up a hand and the stoles vanish. In her hand she tries to project a dimensional construct that cannot exist in her reality, something she picked up from, she thinks, He-Who-Moves.
It's very hard to manifest, possibly due to the odd nature of the blue marker to begin with. It simply be too difficult to represent as more than a rotating thing of constantly shifting (and self-intersecting) geometry. It gives her a bit of a headache, unless that's from the bell ringing.
"It doesn't take up space," Tia reminds. "It's in your head. But you can make it stronger by imagining stacking more layers on it, or a similar analogy. But not by just imagining it to be thicker."
"Sooo, in my head." And then Tasha just imagines herself in a Tasha-sized cube of Blue energy, and hardens it mentally.
"You can't depend on having to maintain focus," Tia reminds her. "So gradually building it up over time is probably best. Maintain the first one until you don't have to think about it. Then add another, until you don't have to think about that, and so on. I will randomly attack to check."
Tasha goes through different shapes, eventually she has two spheres circle her head even as she has the skull-shield manifest. "Random attack, got it."
"I don't think that will work for me," Hakeber says.
"The kind of things Hake imagines in her will not shield her from this unfortunately," Tasha remarks with a perfectly straight face while Blue models of pizza, drum sticks, and other les mentionable things circle around her head.
"Yes, a shield is not practical for you," Tia notes, staring at Hakeber now. "But you're hungry. Hunger is helpful."
"Eh?" the Karnor queries, looking back and forth between Tasha and Tia. "Being hungry helps how?"
"Maybe you can eat the attack." Tasha's circle-of-things blurs together, and now she simply has a halo. "You do have some of an Ogdru-hem in you."
"Precisely," Tia says. "You need to use that bit of you as a lightning rod."
"But.." Hakeber says, eyes narrowing. "So, the attack is grounded.. and my feet go to sleep instead?"
Tasha nods slowly as if she knew she was correct all along. "Come to think of it, wouldn't that work for me, too?"
"It would not work for you, Tasha," Tia claims. "It isn't something so.. distinct in you. But in Hakeber it is foreign, and twisty. Only a little bit is anchored in her, and most of it is not."
"So you redirect it to the owner then, who is a gigantic sink for psionic energies being as it is, in fact, partly made of them and prone to eating them," Tasha reasons. She leaves her halo as-is, as it's easier to maintain and helps her focus. A complete circle, unbroken.
"So there's a toilet in my brain that flushes psychic energy into the sewer of eternal angst," Hakeber summarizes.
"More like a drain, with your mind circling it a lot," Tia offers with a smile.
"You're making Katha-hem work for the work he burdened you with," Tasha suggests.
Hakeber just goes "nnnnnngggggg" for a bit.
Tasha reaches over and pats Hakeber; her halo remains even with the artificial horizon of the ship. "You get used to remarks like this. Beings I associate with love them."
"The trick is in bringing that part to the fore without the rest of your mind completely turning off," Tia says. "Has it ever taken over?"
"Sort of, once," Hakeber admits. "When Urgo-hem showed up in the lounge."
"A few times she's run out and started spewing mystical words, then things happened. Usually good things." Tasha reaches over and taps Hakeber's head. "Urgo-hem was about to mind blast Lacci and I when Hakeber just showed up and got rid of his avatar."
"But not in response to being directly attacked herself?" Tia asks, leaning back a bit. "If it's just the threat of an Ogdru-hem, then maybe that is enough. Nothing else is likely to try this sort of attack."
"Hakeber is a booby trap, then?" Tia suggests.
"I'm all kinds of different traps," Hakeber claims, crossing her arms.
"She's some sort of hedge to ensure success, though I'm not sure she'll be able to do what she does beyond the success of the upcoming mission to Baltoona Station," Tasha notes.
"If she's to be on the front line, so to speak, there may need to be something else to shield her afterwards, unless 'afterward' the threat is gone," Tia says. "I think that should be enough for the first session. Do either of you have any questions?"
"Was I supposed to puke?" Hakeber asks, "I've trained myself not to."
"Can either of us engage in offensive uses of psionics," Tasha asks, head tilting. "We both have some element of Ogdru-hem in us."
"Your element is not Ogdru-hem, but something different," Tia notes to Tasha. Then she pauses before saying. "I don't know. What do you mean by offensive?"
"What is my element then?" Tasha then cocks her head to the side. "Making people fall asleep, attacking minds, entering dreams, you know, things that aren't defensive. Attack can be as important for me as offense given I'm usually the main thrust of our attacks."
"Your element smells more like lloigor," Tia says. "A bound servitor. Why would you want to enter a dream? I thought you would ask about psychic invisibility."
"Oh that works too, I could really do with being less conspicuous." Tasha then tilts her head to the other side, as she is won't to do. "Is that what the Source is, then? A lloigor? Also, Gabriel would have made a joke about smelling like a bound servitor."
"Because you aren't much of a servitor?" Tia guesses.
Hakeber snurks.
"Naw it's innuendo. Oh, and yeah, probably also because I don't listens. I'd be one of those obnoxious genies that show up and grant wishes, but they get you." Tasha then blinks. "So what can a lloigor do? Can I teleport a planet? Go invisible?"
"No-ooo, I don't think so," Tia says. "It's a tiny little thing, and a proper lloigor is a multi-dimensional entity that size doesn't really apply too."
"You can eat lots of ice cream until you develop your own gravitational field," Hakeber suggests with a grin.
"But if size doesn't apply then how can it be tiny?" Tasha flops her head back the other way. A Blue question mark appears over her head, like a HUD icon brought to life, except not really.
"Because size does apply to yours," Tia claims.
"It's inside your head, after all," she points out.
"Tempting but I need to maintain my svelte figure," Tasha counters after a moment of thought.
As for size applying, she nods. "That was the problem with where it came form, too. The Sifra found some way of making a lloigor physical. It was not happy about the fact."
"Size tends to have an effect in many areas," Tia explains. "For instance, Charon is much larger than I am. So, I can do far less than Charon."
"He'd be very proud of that fact and tell us how large he is, if he heard that," Tasha agrees, nodding. She taps her muzzle and thinks, then says, "Well without my Titan I can't be larger than I am without some really major changes to my person, so I guess we'll just have to use the old way of being bigger: Have lots of other people do things for you."
"You do seem to have a lot of large people around you," Tia notes. "Psychic abilities tend to be focused on doing a specific thing very well, or doing a general thing less effectively. Having watched your group, I noticed the odd Skrii.. Eeee.. woman that had what can be thought of as psychic invisibility. The Eeee also engineered the species that the Tadpole belongs to. But there is only so much you can do with a normal sized brain, and psionics are weird. You have machines that can project moods, but can't read minds, or that require a living mind in order to operate, like your hyperspace navigational aid. Psionics depend to some degree on higher-dimensional operation."
"I see. Maybe it's an area we just can't utilize very well, then, unless you think we can manage something specific like invisibility," Tasha says, as seriously as it is soberly.
"I'm not certain," Tia says. "It would be like learning to use a Phin's sonar, without having a resonating cavity to generate sounds and a big mass of muscular fat to focus it with."
"Well, what do you think I would be good at?" Tasha arches a brow. "Maybe we should focus on strengths."
"Can you sing?" Tia asks.
Tasha waggles her hand; a bit.
"Learning to sing would be good," Tia says. "Even with just one voice."
"Why?" Hakeber asks.
"Because reality is a song," Tia says, with a perfectly straight face.
"Because singing effects mood which can induce a mass resonance in the minds of other beings and effect psionics through networked intention?" At the time time, Tasha twirls her hair around the finger of her left.
"No, because reality is a song," Tia repeats, then gestures around. "The inside of your ship.. the walls, floor, wiring and even the electrons moving through them.. are a song. Artificial vibrations, generated by its 'vocal chords' machine."
"Oh, the wave of quantum physics?" Tasha guesses.
"Close," Tia says. "Music can resonate into higher dimensions as well. So singing can help you get a little closer to perceiving things properly. Sound, music and vibrations in quantum fields are all mathematics."
"Those 'strange words' that Hakeber recites to frighten off Ogdru-hem are also a sort of song," Tia explains.
"Enochian and other magical languages must have an element of musical, mathmatical resonance, then?" Tasha perks her ears, having heard of these things form many different sources, but not seen them put together quite like this.
"It isn't just sound either," Tia says. "There is a mental song as well. The 'magic' of the fey is the ability to conjure form from the Unformed, to open a little doorway for it to flow through and take shape. They don't sing with their voices to do so, but they are singing. Music has a very high informational density."
"I guess that's why it can impact the mood so easily." Tasha nods slowly. "Well, I suppose I could learn to sing. I had been taking choir lessons, back when I was a Cadet."
"A good start. You should take lessons from Katherine and Moka as well," Tia suggests. "I wouldn't be of much use training you, as I sing very differently."
"That shouldn't be hard to arrange. I'll talk to them both and add it to my schedule," the red woman agrees.
"I've sung in bars," Hakeber says. "I'm good and loud."
"If you're part wolf, you can sing," Tia claims.
"And singing together will overcome your limitation of only having one voice each," she adds.
"Maybe even bad singing works. We can drive back the darkness by making it not want to listen to use anymore," Tasha tells Hakeber, tail wagging.
"So I was partly right in that multiple singers can increase the effect," Tasha notes, pointing at Tia.
Tia nods. "The darkness does prefer silence."
"Is darkness akin to stasis then? I noted that Shadows can be aligned towards chaos or order. Probably neutrality or balance, as well?" Tasha glances at Hakeber, as maybe she'd know.
"If the darkness were noisy it wouldn't be dark anymore," Tia says. "Think like a Phin. Silence is darkness."
"I'm choatic AND orderly," Hakeber claims. "I don't know if those alignments apply to.. us."
"Oh, noise, motion, photons, that sort of thing." Tasha nods, then she leans back and stretches. "Well I guess we did what we came to do then, learn to defend ourselves. I assume you'll be trying to knock us out from now on, so that will be fun. But I need to finish up what I was working on and arrange lessons."
"I won't always be trying to knock you out," Tia says. "That's the most extreme thing I can do. I can probably make you itch, or affect your mood. I'll have to experiment."
"As long as it doesn't influence important matters I don't mind. Try to avoid disrupting inter-personal matters too much, decision making, that sort of thing." And so Tasha rises, and her halo remains. "Back to work for me. Then food. Then work. Then more food."
"I will be putting you through remote operations as well," Tia tells Tasha.
"I want to relax," Hakeber says. "And digest."
"I did get some practice with the remote. We can work on that now, or next time," Tasha tells Tia, then she looks to Hakeber and holds up a hand. "You don't have to stay for this if we move on to remote control-ing."
"Will it be embarrassing?" Hakeber asks.
"It'll probably be dull?" Tasha looks to Tia for confirmation. "I'll be using remotes, with my mind. Which means sitting, with my butt."
"Not quite," Tia says. "This isn't going to be driving or using it as a puppet. You will fully inhabit it."
"But I'll still be controlling it form this body, right?" Tasha's brows go up in a 'right, right?' sort of way.
"You will mostly be using its brain, not yours," Tia explains. "Yours will be mostly asleep. You can't maintain two bodies at that level."
"I noticed that when I tried to pilot your Human remote. I had to focus fully on her to do anything useful," Tasha confirms. She then spreads her hands and turns to Hakeber. "It might be embarrassing, then."
"So I can do things to her actual body and she won't notice?" Hakeber asks.
"I don't think you will find a bowl of warm water to put her hand in," Tia says. "But she will not be easily woken."
"I am still an important figure on ship," Tasha also notes, holding up a finger in warning. "And I can get you without you being asleep."
"But you won't know if I've done anything," Hakeber claims, wagging her tail. "You banned everyone from coming back here."
"And that is why I am going to my bedroom to lay down, and put a security lock on my door. I can connect to remotes remotely." And so Tasha looks to Tia for confirmation.
"It isn't in the hangar anyway," Tia notes. "So may as well get comfortable."
"Oh very well," Tasha huffs, and so she walks over to Hakeber, sits down again, and then just lays her head in Hakeber's lap. If she's going to mess with her, she might as well also provide a pillow. Her hands are rested on her belly, one atop the other sleeping princess style and her eyes close. "I am ready."
There's no warning or ease-in: Tasha is suddenly in a different room. Thoth's room. And she's human-but-not-quite again. This body feels older, if not exactly matronly. And it seems to be able maintain its own balance as well. She doesn't feel anything at all from her real body at this point.
Here we go again, Tasha thinks. Another day, another strange body. So she does what she usually does with a new body, she tries to lift a hand in front of her face to see what she's got to work with.
It's a hand. Just like her own when she was human before. It's got fingerprints and everything, with the most jarring thing being the lack of her own nose in her field of vision.
Tasha never did like the whole inability to see her nose thing; she found herself wondering if it was still really there, and had to check now and then. Also, she kept holding food in front of her face where a muzzle would bite it but a Human mouth could not, ending up with bites of hair and sore teeth.
No use fussing though, Tasha thinks. She decides to try and stand, to see if she can still manage a Human well enough, and look for a mirror. Her brain is still visually oriented, even if this body isn't.
Standing and moving is easy. But Thoth doesn't keep a mirror in his rather bare-bones chamber. But there's one in Tasha's own room.
Tasha looks down to make sure she's not naked, either. Being naked as a Human always unsettled her, and not just because she's a Human; there's something more fundamentally worrying about it when you're Human.
She's still wearing the dress that she picked out back on Tia's ship. It feels odd still. Technically she never wore any clothes when she was human before.
It reminds Tasha of a lesser version of being a Phin, but far less robust. She tries not to think about how sensitive and fragile she is and so makes her way out of the room and towards the elevator.
So far she hasn't encountered anyone directly at least.
There's not a lot of people in the upper deck, but she can't use the express elevator because the ship doesn't register her as Tasha. So instead she takes the main elevator, deciding she'll just have to deal with whomever she runs in to along the way.
The lounge is empty as well so far. She can't smell anyone. But now that she tries, her sense of smell seems more acute than she had previously as a human.
Tasha is at least comforted by Tia's remotes being several steps beyond a basic Human, and so easier to adjust to. She decides against visiting her quarters because she wouldn't be able to get past the access restrictions anyway. Instead she enters the elevator and presses the button for Deck 2, which connects to the length of the ship, and resolves to just look at her reflection in the shiny elevator interior.
Of course, Tasha has seen the Kai remote before, but it wasn't her at that time. It doesn't look any different in the reflection, other than it now being her reflection, so she sees her own expression. Something she didn't get much chance to do the previous time either.
Tasha makes faces at the reflection. She had piloted the remote briefly in brining it to Thoth's room, and a few people saw it, but she didn't linger in it as she didn't want to risk any trouble by messing around with it more than necessary. This time it seems she's going to get more practice.
When the elevator opens she heads immediately aft, hoping the Hangar doors will actually open for her.
Except she didn't rescind the restriction on people entering the hangar before transferring. So the final door is still shut. Although the Niss should have been monitoring everything said in the hangar. It should recognize her. But she hasn't tried talking yet.
And so Tasha tries talking. She talked a bit last time, but it has been a while. She tries, "Niss, it's me, Tasha, I am controlling this body. Please open the Hangar for me so I can go inside."
The voice sounds different. Human and Karnor voices don't have the same qualities after all. There's a slight accent as well. If anything it sounds closest to Riddle Smith's voice. "What is the secret password," the Niss reply.
"I saved you from being sucked in to a black hole," red haired Human Tasha replies.
"That is not the password," the Niss claim.
Tasha decides to instead bring up the anisble control interface and attempt to retake control of her body, thinking this may be a test.
For whatever reason, the control menu doesn't come up. The ansible in the remote is different than one in Tasha's head apparently. But Tia should be monitoring things as well, if she made the connection in the first place.
So Tasha tries to use the anisble to contact Tia.
"Are you having difficulties?" Tia asks over the link.
"The lockout is still in effect, I can't get in. Normally I'd just switch back to my body, give the order to let this remote in, and switch back," Tasha explains, "But I can't switch back for some reason."
"You haven't started practicing yet," Tia notes. "Why would you want to come into the hangar? The Kai remote is for infiltration without risking yourself. You should infiltrate with it."
"Oh it's that kind of test, well let me think then." And so Tasha leaves the Hangar door and instead moves to lean against a nearby wall in the shadow of a hallway support. There, she gives the matter some thought.