055: A Demanded End – Three
On the galactic scale, the territory of the Usgaisjan Union was only a hop, skip, and a jump away from the Necupole Plutocracy, which meant that the Pelekys was able to make the journey through subspace to the world where Viatrix tracked the signal of their next Storlayacas in no time at all.
With everyone assembled on the bridge, they watched the pastel swirl of subspace be overcome by the star strewn expanse of an uninhabited system.
"That's a habitable world, isn't it?" Elytra asked, even as she brought up the information on the world's composition on the console before her, "Nominal gravity, breathable air, biomatter that usgaisjans could consume without genetic modification, this would make an ideal colony world."
"I believe it was, at one point," Nevara said as she typed up something on her own console, which caused the name of the world - Lichhaemleas - to pop up on screen, as well as highlight several areas where artificial structures were located, "But it's clearly been abandoned. Proximity to Necupole territory does it no favours."
"I'd heard it had something to do with a civil war they went through ages ago," Malakh said from her own seat across the room, her tail swaying thoughtfully behind her, "When they had sublight space travel, but hadn't discovered subspace yet, or the other races in the galaxy. One faction had set up shop here, and their opponents got rid of them via orbital bombardment."
Humming thoughtfully as she leaned back in her seat, Rhea mused, "Wonder if they stumbled across the Storlayacas while they were there, and were unable to get it up and running like everyone else aside from us."
From the console she liked to display herself on on the bridge, Viatrix's floral avatar was twitching with agitation. "Now that we're here, I'm not sure that it's a Storlayacas after all."
"What has led you to that conclusion?" Pryseia asked, frowning slightly.
"Normally, the closer I get to a unit, the stronger the signal becomes. But even though we're definitely nearing the planet the signal is coming from, it feels as distant as if it were still systems away." Viatrix explained, "That's not what happened with any of the others."
"Hm, most peculiar," Pryseia hummed, her tail tapping against her shin, "Any theories as to why?"
"It might be behind some kind of shielding, natural or artificial," Viatrix threw out, "It doesn't feel like it's like this because of damage, so maybe it's either a smaller unit in and of itself, or it has a smaller transmitter? Going down there and finding out what's up is going to be the only way to know for certain, however."
Turning to Nevara, Pryseia asked, "Do you feel and sense of connection to something on the world below?"
"I can't say that I do." Nevara told her with a shrug.
"How do the exploration of ruins fare in terms of Kith broadcasts?" Pryseia asked Elytra.
Elytra typed away at her console for a moment, bringing up information to scan through before she said, "Decently well enough. If there's some kind of mystery or danger, that trends higher than if it's just poking around. Well, except when it comes to Hyttan ruins, but that's to be expected, mysterious as the Hyttan are and all."
"What are you thinking?" Rhea asked as she spun her chair to face Pryseia.
"In comparison to thefts from under the noses of the Zymeth and Necupole both, and while it will make things easy for us, it would be something of a letdown to our audience if we were able to simply pluck a Storlayacas from an abandoned world," Pryseia explained as she slouched in her seat, steepling her fingers, "So what if we were to inject a little mystery of our own? An odd signal is an excellent place to start, but what if we were to find further mysteries?"
"Well, if we're doing a broadcast, then we aren't going to be able to pull a Shareholder and have one of us dress up as someone else, unless we want to split the team up," Rhea said as she twisted in her chair so she could throw one leg over an armrest as she brainstormed, "We could put out a posting of our own over Avvisi, but the Sudoxe was waiting months before anyone got back to them, and I don't know about you, but I don't feel like waiting around that long when our target is literally in grabbing distance, and has no defences around it."
"Oh!" Malakh shot up in her seat, "We have drones! Their outer casings are built simple to swap out in case of damage, so we could always fabricate some kind of unique shell for either one or a bunch!"
"And I have a whole library of voices and filters I can toy around with if this is going to be a speaking part, or I can just make menacing electronic noises!" Viatrix added on excitedly.
A slow grin creeping across her face, Pryseia asked, "You made a small prop for use in the Chancellor's storyline, but would you be able to make a drone shell that resembles Hyttan construction?"
"Easily." Malakh confirmed with a grin, "And with the stealth tech I got the drones all installed with, it'll be as inscrutable as actual Hyttan tech!"
"Okay okay okay, we're cooking with something here!" Rhea said as she reached over to grab the data pad she'd left on her console, "If we go with some kind of Hyttan drone, we can water that 'Augury is hyttan' theory that the audience is going nuts about, like maybe have her command it or something?"
"Oh I have all kinds of samples of Hyttan electronic noise we can use to simulate something like a conversation," Viatrix chirped, "Elytra, I can download that to your Longan if you'd like?"
"Please," Elytra said excitedly, pulling her Unit from a pocket on her jacket, "Do you need me to plug it into anything?"
"Already uploading it." Viatrix told her.
"I can start drafting up a design for a drone shell," Malakh said as she stood, heading for the door, "I might have something workable tonight, but I can for sure have something ready by tomorrow."
"Take whatever time that you require," Pryseia told her, "Our quarry shows no signs of fleeing, thus we are not beholden to the schedules of others."
Standing from her own seat, Rhea motioned to Elytra, saying, "And while Malakh's doing that, we can come up with some rough beats we can improvise off of once we get our boots on the ground."
Nodding, Elytra stood and followed Rhea out of the bridge.
"I'll bring us in close enough to get more detailed scans." Nevara said, hands already on the controls.
"Please do. Perhaps we shall be able to shed some light on the oddities of this signal while the others are elsewise occupied." Pryseia said, grinning as Lichhaemleas grew closer.
The bridge of the Pelekys, the normally dim, harsh lighting of the ornate space was broken by the fiery colours of atmospheric entry filling the main view screen. Soon enough, this tapered away to show a blue-green grassland stretching out before them, dotted with sporadic, ruined compounds, and the more plentiful pockmarks left behind by whatever weapons fire had levelled the area so long ago.
Seated at the helm, General Grim brought the ship in for a graceful landing, touching down so smoothly that the impact was little more than a slight tremor.
From her seat on her throne, Queen Kaizoku barked out, "Program, report."
"I am picking up the signal of a Storlayacas unit, in one of the buildings before you," came its glitched reply, "But the frequency is… odd."
"How so?" The Queen demanded.
The axe avatar popped up on the console nearest to Kaizoku as the Program said, "Proximity to the source has not increased the clarity of the signal. It is coming through as strongly as when I picked it up lightyears from here, but I can guarantee that it is within walking distance of the ship."
Kaizoku hummed noncommittally, glare drifting from the console to the view screen.
"Assemble the others," she said as she stood, "This warrants a deeper investigation."
The starboard personnel ramp at the front of the Pelekys swung down, and all but Augury blinked at the sudden onslaught of sunlight.
"Well, that's one way to get my colouring back." Chancellor Bathory drawled, a pale hand raised to shade her eyes, the brown just starting to bleed back into the blue.
The Queen's Red Left Hand scoffed at that as she stepped forward to descend the ramp, her vicious looking Longan unit blinking to life as it scanned the area before them.
"As the Program reported, the signal seems to be coming from just over there," she said, pointing at one of the nearer buildings, "Unless it's hidden underground, I'm not sure that there is a Storlayacas here for us to find."
"We shall have to discover that for ourselves, unless your visions have deigned to participate in this expedition?" Kaizoku asked as she turned to Madame Augury.
Twitching minutely for a moment, Augury shook her head, "I apologize, my Queen… I see naught of future at this time…"
General Grim brushed past her with a sneer as she said, "No matter, our actual eyes will be of more use in this place."
With the Hand in the lead, the group made their way into the ruins.
Half grown over with soft pink moss and deep red vines, it was difficult to make out much of the remaining architecture. Whatever decorative elements the buildings had were lost to time, only the hardier frameworks remained, metal and concrete walls and ceilings that hadn't been blasted apart by whatever had attacked the place. Whenever this destruction had happened, it had been far enough in the past that most of the flooring was covered by a layer of dirt and plants, blown in over the years.
"From my readings, this was of Usgaisjan make," the Hand said, her eyes darting across the ruins before them, "Both the buildings and the weapons that destroyed them."
"Their loss is sure to be our gain, when we find whatever it is we're looking for." Queen Kaizoku said as she stepped over a fallen beam, "How much further now?"
"Just through here." The Hand said, motioning over to the remains of a doorway, and the room beyond it.
Once again, the others fell into step behind her, lights on their Longan units switching on as they entered the darkened interior.
Inside, the room was more structurally intact than the others they had passed through, all except for one massive slab of ceiling that had fallen across the bulk of the area, shattered but not enough to have been worn away by time. Glancing up, they could see that the collapse of the floor above it had filled in the ceiling enough to prevent the elements from getting inside this space.
Stepping up to the edge of the nearest slab, the Hand frowned, saying, "The signal is coming from under there. We'll have to return to the ship to get something to move this out of our way."
"Why waste the time?" Chancellor Bathory said as she stepped up next to the Hand, folding her cape back off her shoulders to leave her arms unobstructed as she leaned down and grabbed hold of the nearest piece of the fallen ceiling. With shockingly little effort, she picked it up and tossed it off to the side before moving on to the next piece.
"I didn't expect you to be the type to get your hands dirty." The Hand said, mildly impressed.
The Chancellor shot her a grin as she easily moved another slab, saying, "A dangerous assumption you would do well to unlearn."
The Hand snorted out a single laugh at that.
The others stepped aside as Bathory began clearing out the space, her strange, human strength making short work of the obstruction.
As each piece was removed, more details were revealed - destroyed consoles, wrecked chairs, and bodies, the remnants of papery skin stretched tight over bone, partially mummified due thanks to the protection provided by ceiling that had killed them.
Bending down to get a closer look, Grim hummed thoughtfully before saying, "They were definitely Usgaisjan. I wonder what they were doing all the way out here?"
With one last scrape of concrete against concrete, Bathory cleared the remaining chunk of ceiling, and Queen Kaizoku nodded forward, saying, "No doubt something to do with that."
Covered in dust, but completely intact, sat a piece of what was clearly Hyttan technology. It very loosely resembled a briefcase, set up on a table between two consoles of Usgaisjan make. Wires and whatnot had been attached to it at one point, but time and the collapse of the ceiling had severed them.
Going over to the thing, the Hand announced, "This is what's transmitting the Storlayacas signal. The fact that it's of Hyttan make is the only reason it survived whatever happened to this place. See here? Where the table is broken beneath it? I'd wager that the ceiling collapse did crush it, and its self repair function popped it back into shape, the table below it breaking to accommodate."
Dusting her hands off from where she'd stacked the ceiling parts, Bathory smirked at her, saying, "Then grab it and we can study it back on the ship. I doubt this place has any more surprises for us."
And in direct defiance of that statement, the wall she was standing next to exploded.
Elytra gasped, her vision swimming, ears ringing as she forced herself upright. Her own thoughts were slow to return, but the emotions of others came much quicker.
The ice cold wrath of Pryseia, who she could dimly make out through the smoke and debris throwing a haze into the air, blaster out and firing on something she couldn't see.
The howling gale of Nevara's fury, next to Pryseia with her own gun drawn, providing covering fire.
The forge hot fear of Malakh, scrambling forward over the wreckage.
And the choking creep of pain and panic coming from Rhea, dwindling away with every beat of her heart.
Elytra was in motion before she could make the conscious choice to do so, rushing up to where Malakh was straining to shift one of the ceiling pieces that Rhea had been tossing around like they were nothing. Grabbing the edge of the piece closest to her, Elytra heaved with all her might, and between the two of them they managed drag the slab off Rhea, who shot them a weak smile before her eyes lost focus, and her head fell limply to one side.
Elytra couldn't move, caught staring down at her, at the vivid red blood pouring from the massive wound in her side, at the white of shattered bone visible thanks to the flesh and muscle that had been torn away.
This horrific sight was obscured when Malakh leaned across Rhea, one of her gauntlets reforming itself into an object Elytra couldn't recognize in her state. An instant later, a thick foam began shooting out of her gauntlet, filling in the gap where organs had once lay.
The gauntlet was shifting back into a hand shape as Malakh moved closer to Rhea's head, slipping her arms under her shoulders before turning to Elytra and shouting, "Grab her legs!"
Her own senses having abandoned her, Elytra bent to obey, hooking her arms under Rhea's knees and lifting in time with Malakh's next command.
"Cover us!" Malakh shouted before she began to run backwards towards the Pelekys, Elytra following with her as she shot one last glance to where Pryseia and Nevara stood shoulder to shoulder. Through the new gap in the wall, she could see people ducking behind cover as they tried to advance on foot, and behind them, hanging in the air…
The Briddbragnan.
Elytra didn't remember the race back to the ship. One instant they were rushing out of the ruins, and the next Malakh was shoving her arms into a beam of light as she said, "Here, get sterilized, I need your help."
After that, her memory was nothing but a patchwork.
Rhea laid out on one of the beds in the medbay, her shirt removed, her skin paler than it had been when she'd been freshly disguised as a necupole.
Malakh beside her, voice level and controlled, periodically asking to be handed this instrument or that. Elytra had no idea what any of the tools were called or meant for, something Malakh obviously knew, as she asked for everything by description instead of name.
"The long silver rod with the black handle."
"The red device that sort of looks like a hammer."
"The tube covered in buttons."
"The white puck with blue lines across it."
"This black slab, run it along both sides of her forearm and then secure that white cuff with the tubes coming out of it around her wrist."
She had no idea how long she did whatever Malakh asked of her, only patchily aware as the foam around Rhea's side was removed, Malakh running tools across the empty space, shapes blooming from the wreckage of Rhea's flesh, teased out by whatever it was that Malakh was doing.
Elytra blinked, and she suddenly found herself sitting, Malakh standing before her, hands on her shoulder, voice raw but steady.
"Elytra, listen to me. I need you to open your helmet."
She frowned at that. Helmet? Why would she be wearing a helmet in the medbay? She glanced behind Malakh's shoulder, at the bed where Rhea lay. The wound in her side was closed over, her chest rising and falling with each shallow breath.
"Open your helmet."
The instincts of the last however long had her obeying, a thought from her Longan having her face plate sliding forward. She was greeted by the heavy, cloying smell of antiseptic, undercut with the sharp, metallic tang of blood. Rhea was still breathing.
"Good. Now I need you to look at me."
Elytra dragged her eyes away, returning them to Malakh, the deorviran stone faced as she leaned over her.
"Your armour protected you from most of the damage, but you're still hurt. I need you to get out of that armour so I can tend to your wounds. There's a change of clothes off to the side."
Malakh had to physically swivel her chair to show her what she was talking about, and Elytra saw some medical scrubs thrown onto one of the unoccupied beds.
She stood, Malakh's hand on her elbow to help her, and then she went to the bed, shucking out of her armour without a second thought and slipping into the provided clothes. Malakh was by her side a moment later, saying, "Okay, now lay down on the bed, we'll get you patched up."
She did as she was bid, Malakh coming to stand near the head of the bed and press a button on the wall. Something slid out of it to cover over Elytra, and as soon as she was enveloped in darkness, a mechanical humming started, and lights began passing up and down her supine form.
The fog that had been choking her mind began to clear then, and Elytra took a deep, shuddering breath. She didn't know if she wanted to throw up or cry first.
It must have been loud enough to hear beyond the healing device, because Malakh's muffled voice came a moment later, saying, "You're okay, it'll just be a bit longer."
"R-right. Okay." Elytra replied, surprised at how rough her own voice sounded.
Malakh let out a shaky laugh at that. "Hey, welcome back! Can you tell me where you are?"
Swallowing around her own emotions before they overwhelmed her, Elytra said, "In the medbay, in one of the healing bed things."
"Good, good. You've been nonverbal since the attack. How are you feeling?"
"I'm-" Elytra swallowed again, trying to take stock of herself, "However I was hurt, it's fading. How- how's Rhea?"
Before Malakh could respond, the lights blinked out, and the cover over Elytra began to recede. Once it was back inside the wall, Malakh helped her to sit up, nodding over at Rhea as she said, "She's stable. We patched up her wounds, and she's in a medically induced coma at the moment to allow her body to fully recover."
Elytra gripped the hand that Malakh had against her arm.
The door to the medbay slid open then, and Pryseia stepped through, shoulders tense. They relaxed when she caught Elytra's eye.
"Good timing," Malakh said to Pryseia, giving Elytra a gentle nudge in the back to encourage her to stand, "She needs food and rest now that she's been tended to."
"Of course," Pryseia said, motioning out for Elytra to join her, "Any requests?"
Elytra couldn't name a food if she tried at the moment, so she shook her head, saying, "Dealer's choice."
Pryseia tucked Elytra against her side the moment she was close enough, turning out towards the hallway with a parting wave to Malakh.
The sight of her going to the bedside where Rhea lay alive and breathing was the last thing Elytra saw before the door to the medbay slid shut.