063: Trust In Skill – Five
They killed the cameras once they were safely away, all of their nerves too rattled to stay in character now that the adrenaline was wearing off.
"I'm so fucking glad that the Hyttan discovered a way to have their ships never run out of fuel. And just a suggestion, but let's never go back there again." Rhea said from where she was slumped over in the gunner's seat, ashen and visibly trembling.
"I raise my hand in favour of that," Elytra said as she fully wrestled herself out of her helmet, "That was more than enough of the Bernetigan for me."
Her tail flicking in agitation, Pryseia let out a humourless laugh. "Agreed. Nevara, everything satisfactory on your end?"
"In terms of our escape, yes," came her reply over the comms, "But being this close to my Storlayacas and unable to go to it is torturous."
Malakh's laughter came through then. "You just need to hold out until we get to Meleten space. I want a buffer between us and the Thalatte, because I'm pretty sure that the Bernetigan were on our asses so fast because this ship isn't shielded from scans, and with the way the Thalatte are always on the hunt for Odazaen, they're sure to be on us even quicker."
"And those fuckers are the last thing we need." Rhea groaned, "I don't know about the rest of you, but now that we've got all our Storlayacas, I want a vacation!"
"Beach adventures do well with audiences." Elytra said with a tired laugh.
"See," Rhea grinned, pointing at her, "An excuse to take one!"
"We can discuss our plans for the future when we're out of subspace," Pryseia told them with a fond smile, "For now, let's just catch our breath and give thanks for our continued survival."
"I'm really glad I didn't have to trigger the broadcast equipment," Viatrix said, already back in her floral avatar, "I haven't been alive that long, and I'd hate to cut it short."
"You and me both. That's why we've gotta have a beach day." Rhea joked, "But for now, I need a fucking nap."
A short eternity later, the two vessels emerged back into the black of normal space, tucked away in an uninhabited Meleten system as close to the galactic core as they could get. With the conflict between the Thalatte happening on the opposite side of Meleten territory, they figured they'd be safe enough here for the time being.
They'd opted for a live broadcast of Grim claiming their mech, and so after a break long enough to freshen up and grab a bite to eat, they all gathered in the cargo bay of the Hyttan vessel.
Another countdown in their Longan, and the cameras began to roll.
The cool white lighting of the Hyttan cargo ship cast the two dozen Odazaen in sharp relief against the dark shadows they cast against the walls of their berths. They stood like sentinels as the crew of the Pelekys made their way to the very last berth in the hold, to where the Storlayacas waited.
The Hand's Longan Unit was flashing as she walked, her eyes scanning across the area before her. When the others reached the base of the walkway that lead up to the cockpit access, she darted around it, going to the far wall.
"I see the controls for the exit, so we can get this thing back to the Pelekys." She called over her shoulder as she jogged away.
"Then it is high time you claimed your prize." Kaizoku said, motioning for Grim to proceed.
The General nodded, stoic as ever, though the faint twitch of her mandibles gave some indication to the depth of her feelings.
As she ascended the walkway, the cockpit to the Storlayacas groaned open, and without a moment's hesitation Grim took her place within it. The lights in its eyes flared to life the moment the cockpit snapped shut, and the Storlayacas moved for the first time in longer than any of their races had existed.
"Let us return to our vessel," Grim's voice boomed from the Storlayacas' communication system, "There is much for us to discuss."
"Malra." Nevara repeated the name of her Storlayacas again, her voice as thick with wonder even though she'd been randomly repeating the name for the last hour.
Smiling fondly at her, Pryseia tipped over enough to lean into Nevara's side, looping an arm around her shoulders as they sat side by side on one of the couches in the rec room, and giving her a little shake as she said, "Apologies, again, for the wait you had to endure to get here."
Nevara laughed outright at that, her mandibles flaring in a grin as she leaned into the embrace. "As glad as I am to have it, I am even gladder to be rid of the compulsion that was setting my blood to boil. The journey through subspace was agony."
"Speaking of that, the compulsion and everything," Elytra said from where she was leaning with her head in her hands in one of the armchairs, "I don't know about the rest of you, but I can still feel it."
"Yeah," Rhea said quietly, the hand that wasn't looped around Malakh on the couch next to her moving to press over her heart, "It's still there, demanding something. I'd hoped that once we had them all the feeling would… I don't know, go away? Or sharpen into something beyond just a vague sense that these things wanted us to do something. It's still the same tug to move forward, and just as without direction as always."
"Maybe the thing that the Briddbragnan took will have answers for us?" Viatrix suggested from where her avatar was displayed on the low table between their seating arrangements, "I've had my scanners going the entire time, but I've yet to pick up a trace of them."
"Not even in subspace while we were in it?" Elytra asked.
"Would that it were that easy," Malakh grumbled, drumming on her knees with her thumbs, "Subspace doesn't really work the same as regular space does. Time, light, distance, it's all arranged differently, scattering and bouncing signals around to the point where it just becomes so much noise. Ship to ship communication in subspace is only possible when they're close enough, otherwise it gets garbled as well. I've no idea how the Kith managed to overcome this, but I'm also thankful that they guard that secret so tightly. The last thing we need is for any of the Enlightened to make a monopoly of it and subjugate everyone more than they already do."
"Well, I'll keep on scanning, but I would also like to connect up to Malra. Maybe that will shed some light on the compulsion?" Viatrix suggested.
"I would be happy to facilitate that, now that we have a moment to ourselves," Nevara said, "But I'm unsure how long this moment will be. The Hyttan ship is the reason for that, lacking in stealth capabilities as it is, so what is our plan for that vessel and all that it carries?"
"We could always keep it, but it's an unwieldy thing," Malakh mused, "Plus, its cargo hold isn't in folded space, meaning that wherever we bring it, anyone's going to be able to scan and see that we've got a lot of Odazaen on our hands, none of which we'd be able to use due to the fact that we've already got mechs we're more likely to be in when armoured combat lands on our doorstep."
"I was telling them before," Rhea said, pointing at Elytra and Pryseia, "That the Kith have standing bounties for any Hyttan tech we could cash in on. Hell, so do most of the races in the galaxy for that matter. We could sell them all to the highest bidder."
"That would probably be the Thalatte, and I'd rather not do anything to improve their war efforts." Nevara said darkly, and Rhea couldn't help but hum in agreement with that.
"I'd much rather these things end up in the hands of the Kith, as is, if the rest of you are amenable?" Pryseia asked.
This was met with unanimous agreement.
"I would like to have a poke around and see if I can glean more about what that device in the ship actually does," Malakh added, "Maybe that could help us to track down where the Briddbragnan ended up."
"Of course," Pryseia said, "We can turn in our salvage to the Kith once we've had a through look over all they have to offer us."
"And I will keep my scanners up and alert," Viatrix added, "The last thing we need are anymore unexpected visitors."
After this many times, linking up Viatrix to Malra took very little effort, though the results were somewhat mixed.
"It's definitely filled in blanks," she told Malakh over her Longan as the deorviran tinkered with the device on the Hyttan vessel, "I feel… fuller. But with everything Hyttan, I can't understand the details of it all. I can just recognize that the shape of it within me is almost completely coloured in."
"Then we've gotta be missing something. Another Storlayacas?" Malakh asked.
Viatrix took a moment to reply. "I think it might be? It feels different, though. It's like… hm… a puzzle, perhaps? Like a physical puzzle, all the pieces arranged into place, and I know the shape of the last piece missing because of the hole it has yet to fill, but until I find that piece, I have no idea as to what the image is going to be once it's all arranged. So not like a physical puzzle at all. I'm sorry, it's difficult to translate this feeling into words."
Malakh couldn't help the bitter laugh that bubbled out of her at that. "Really wish that some kind of instruction manual for the nuances of how Hyttan tech worked could have survived the ravages of time. Or they'd left behind a translation key in a language the rest of us could understand. Anything to make any of this easier."
She backhanded the device half assedly at that.
"No luck with that thing?" Viatrix asked.
"Yes and no? From what I can get out of it, it's definitely a remote device, and I believe it allows a ship to be summoned to and from subspace." Malakh said as she frowned down at the device in question.
"If it can get a signal through subspace, then would it be possible to use it to develop something like what the Kith have for their broadcasts?"
Shaking her head sadly, Malakh explained, "It just does it through quantum entanglement, and from what I can gather, it's not really any more advanced than what we already know how to do with QECDs."
"Well that's too bad." Viatrix would have frowned if she could.
Malakh sighed as she leaned against the console the device sat on. "Yeah, because it doesn't give us much in the way of insight as to how we could use it to track down the Briddbragnan. It's only quantum entangled with a particle here on this ship, and due to the nature of entanglement, a network of them isn't really feasible. So on the one hand, unless the device is very different on the inside, then the one that the Briddbragnan has should also be able to summon a ship. And on the other, this thing won't be any help when it comes to actually tracking them down."
The cargo hold of the Pelekys, five Storlayacas now standing shoulder to shoulder. As Queen Kaizoku stood on the walkway observing them, it was even clearer now that their colours were changing. The blue of Zaanlaa and the lavender of Lianshae were far more pronounced now, and the red of Castore was about to crest out of a pastel shade. Next to the still white Malra, Yarula was taking on a distinctly gold tint, meaning it was only a matter of time before Malra began to turn teal.
"What secrets do you yet hide?" Kaizoku said aloud as she leaned against the railing, taking them all in, "What plans do you have in store for us?"
As to be expected, the Storlayacas were motionless.
Kaizoku stared at them for a few seconds more, but when no answers were forthcoming, she turned and made her way off the walkway.
The Storlayacas remained, a silent reminder of a bygone people, and all the mysteries they left in their wake.
Fearing detection, they'd made the jump to subspace to head to Lacertus territory, Viatrix able to remotely pilot the Hyttan ship after them thanks to a jury-rigged remote access Malakh had managed to set up between the two ships. They still wanted to comb over the Hyttan ship before they handed it over to the Kith, after all.
Unfortunately, as was the standard for anything Hyttan, answers were in short supply.
"I've got no idea if it's due to age or salvage, but aside from the mechs in the hold, and the perpetual fuel source that all Hyttan tech is powered by, this ship is empty." Malakh sighed, crossing her arms as she leaned against the bulkhead of the hallway they were standing in.
Pryseia mimicked her pose against the opposite wall, letting out a hum of annoyance as she glared down the hallway. To one end of it lay the long cargo hold and engine room beyond, while down the other were the much shorter living quarters and bridge. The six of them had spent the better part of the day combing through the ship (Viatrix scouring the outside with every single one of her drones working in tandem), but they'd found nothing that their initial sojourn into the vessel hadn't already revealed.
At this point, Pryseia wasn't even sure what she'd hoped to find.
"Would that we could understand their language." She sighed, "Perhaps we could have discovered something like a ship's log so that we could at least discover what became of this ship's crew."
"And what they were doing hiding away in an asteroid." Malakh added, "Or planetoid, or planet, wherever the hell that hunk of rock we found the hangar bay in used to be a part of. With how choked that system was with debris, it's leading me to believe that at least one - though probably more - planets were obliterated there, and we were lucky enough that our target survived whatever happened to that system."
"And was this destruction caused in the day of the Hyttan themselves, perhaps in conjunction with whatever cataclysm that resulted in their erasure from history, or was it something completely unrelated, the Bernetigan perhaps experimenting with whatever horrific means they have to convert others into their own kind?" Pryseia theorized.
Malakh groaned at that. "Just another mystery to add to the Hyttan pile. Let's get out of here, this fruitless search has me starving."
Dinner ended up being a quieter affair than usual, a sense of rudderlessness permeating the air so thickly that Elytra was sure that everyone else could feel each other's unease as keenly as she could.
"With the knowledge that we have taken all that we require from that Hyttan vessel, I propose that we make for the Quanvengier in order to turn it over for the bounty at our earliest convenience." Pryseia announced to the group.
"Not keeping any of the Odazaen?" Rhea asked in a manner more like she was checking that they had everything in order, rather than a genuine desire to actually keep any.
"It'd be redundant, given our Storlayacas," Nevara said, "And we're not planning on hiring others to join our crew in order to pilot them."
Rhea hummed in agreement. "Very true. Since we gutted the original crew cabin to make our hydroponics bay, we don't exactly have the room for anyone new either."
"Bounty it is, then." Elytra said, leaning back in her chair. "We're also going to have to figure out what our next mission is going to be, since we've got no idea how long it's going to take for the Briddbragnan to come out of hiding."
"I was leaning towards another Leviathan hunt, now that we are all equipped with Storlayacas," Pryseia suggested, "We should begin training with them now that Rhea's well on her way to a full recovery."
"My mobility's close to normal, and I've just gotta build up my strength back to where it used to be," Rhea said as she patted where the hole had been blown in her side, "But since the Storlayacas and training sims both use neural controls rather than physical, I'm fit enough to use them without fear of hindering my recuperation."
"I can have a browse through Avvisi to see what contracts on Leviathan there are at the moment, and have a list to choose from by the time we make it to the Kith fleet." Viatrix offered.
"That's much appreciated," Malakh said as she stood from the table, "We should probably get out of this system soon. All that time in Bernetigan space has me paranoid, especially with the lack of stealth capabilities that Hyttan ship has."
"Indeed, let us make all haste." Pryseia agreed as she stood and began to gather up empty plates.
Nevara had barely gotten a chance to properly get herself in the pilot's seat when Viatrix suddenly exclaimed, "The Briddbragnan! I'm picking them up!"
"Where?" Pryseia demanded, not even bothering to sit down.
Viatrix brought up a map on the main view screen, their location in Lacertus space relative to a system several lightyears away from them, a blip appearing near the outermost planet in that distant system.
"It's close, Usgaisjan space, an uninhabited system on their border." Viatrix told them, "At this range, we can be there in minutes."
"Bringing that ship to the Kith will have to wait," Pryseia said, staring at their new destination on the view screen, "For now's the time we take back what is ours."