066: The Rock, Rolled – Three
Before the day was done, Rhea had ended up getting scans from everyone on the ship, as well as all of the Storlayacas. Thankfully, while it wouldn't deign to allow any of them to don the control devices used to pilot it, V'tala's mech allowed its cockpit to be opened, and so Rhea was able to complete her information gathering.
Viatrix, meanwhile, was chomping at the bit to be given access to the systems of their unexpected find. Being so close to completing her own equations, the compulsion was making her uncharacteristically antsy as she joined Rhea in her office in the medbay.
"I'm just saying, we could demat it outside, hook me up, and have it back into place before V'tala would even know!" She cajoled, knowing full well that Rhea was unlikely to cater to her demands.
For her part, Rhea just shot the console where Viatrix's avatar was idly spinning a chastising look.
"I know," Viatrix sighed in defeat, "I just want this mystery solved, especially with the last pieces of it so close I can taste them!"
"That's certainly an image." Rhea couldn't help at laugh.
"I can render a mockup, if you like?"
"I'm good without, thank you very much."
"Your loss," Viatrix trilled, "I've been experimenting with an ancient artistic medium, and I'm getting pretty good at it!"
That got Rhea to fully pull away from the data she was sifting through, blinking over at Viatrix as she asked, "Really?"
"Yeah! It turns out this style sprang up independently on a lot of different worlds, but the humans call it… the collage. You cut up a bunch of different art in order to make an entirely new piece, see?"
She brought up an image on the console she was appearing in, this one made up of a bunch of different action shots of General Grim from their assorted videos and broadcasts, the gritty textures and bold colouring reminding Rhea of the punk art movement from her own world centuries back.
"This is really good," she said as she scooted her chair over to get a better look, "Wait, I've seen this before? In the forums!"
"I… may have made myself a fan account in order to interact with our audience." Viatrix admitted.
"Sneaky," Rhea smirked, "But you should share these with the others, they'll love them!"
The way Viatrix's avatar gently spun somehow managed to convey embarrassment as she said, "I will, I've just been honing my craft is all. A lot of my early stuff was not good, and I didn't want to share until I had things I was actually proud of."
"Spoken like a true artist." Rhea told her kindly.
Clearing her picture away, Viatrix sighed, "Well, I guess I can go play around with practising some more, since-"
A quiet tone from the patient half of the medbay had Rhea scrambling out of her chair before Viatrix could finish her sentence, and she shifted her focus to follow where she was going, popping her avatar up on the closest console.
Rhea came to a stop close to where V'tala lay, schooling her expression into neutrality as her patient began to awaken.
Rather than groggily blinking her eyes and taking in her surroundings, V'tala's eyes snapped open, locking onto Rhea in an instant, her body tensing like she was about to strike. Jaw clenched, there was nothing even remotely close to fear in her expression as she stared the doctor down.
"Please don't get out of bed just yet," Rhea said calmly in the same Usgaisjan dialect she'd spoken to V'tala in before, raising her hands as a sign of nonaggression, "I've got you on fluids and supplements, but you were in dire straits, and your body hasn't had a chance to recover yet."
A quick flick of her eyes down to the cuff on her wrist was the only move V'tala made before she demanded, "How long was I out?"
Rhea sighed and shook her head at that. "Since you got out of stasis, a full day and a bit."
"And how long was I in stasis?"
"Around one thousand and five hundred of your years."
V'tala let out a harsh breath at that, staring at the ceiling intently with an expression Rhea couldn't decipher.
Eventually she asked, "What became of the Coalition?"
"I dug up the data, let me grab it for you," Rhea turned to leave, but stopped herself to add, "Please don't try to make a break for it, you're in no condition to do more than heal. There's controls along the left side of the bed if you want to sit up, and if you're feeling up to it after, we can get some proper food in you."
Ducking back into her office, Rhea downloaded the historic records Viatrix had managed to uncover onto a data pad, while the soft whir of the bed tilting to a sitting position sounded from the other room. When she came back, V'tala was still abed, staring at her with that unreadable expression again.
She took the proffered data pad and immediately began to read, and it was only a slight twitch of V'tala's brow that let Rhea know her patient was affected at all by what she was reading.
Having gone over it herself, Rhea wasn't sure how she'd react if this was the news she was getting after more than a thousand years in stasis. The Grafan Coalition, a handful of Usgaisjan colony worlds that had tried to break away from the leadership on their homeworld of Tymbos, had met with a modicum of success, driving Tymbos forces from their worlds through the diplomatic cunning of D’kini Churel and the martial prowess of G’elin Basty. They'd begun to spread their influence to colony worlds not part of their Coalition, the greater number of Tymbos forces nothing in the face of the ancient mech that the Coalition forces had managed to acquire, and the alien ship able to appear seemingly wherever Coalition leadership needed it to. Though it wasn't mentioned by name, Rhea knew this Great Machine could only be the Storlayacas, and the ship being the Hyttan vessel they'd discovered it in.
Desperate to put an end to this rebellion before it could become an even greater threat, a massive assault was launched on the world where Coalition leadership had set up shop - Lichhaemleas - which they'd bombed from orbit for days on end. Both Churel and Basty were confirmed killed in the attack, and the Grafan Coalition died along with them. No one was able to discover what became of the Great Machine or the ship that carried it, and within a decade this mystery was pushed to the wayside when the Usgaisjan Union made first contact with the Lacertus Commonwealth, opening them up to galactic society as a whole. After that, it was only amateur historians who attempted to discover what happened to these relics of their history, which they obviously had no luck in finding.
V'tala lowered the data pad to her lap once she was done reading, stone faced as she turned to Rhea and asked, "What has become of my dryhten?"
"I don't know what that term means," Rhea replied apologetically, "There were others - dregil and dlegh - that we haven't been able to find the context for yet, though our digital crew mate has been looking into it."
Rhea patted the console where Viatrix's avatar was waiting, and in the same Usgaisjan dialect Rhea was using, she said, "Hello, I'm Viatrix."
Eyes darting between the two aliens, one organic and the other AI, V'tala stated, "A machine intelligence."
"I am," Viatrix confirmed, "But don't worry, I'm not out to destroy all organic life or whatever else the pop culture from your world says my kind will do. I'm a part of this crew, the same as all my organic companions."
V'tala was silent for a moment after that announcement, before she said, "A dregil is one who serves, the dlegh is their vow to a dryhten, the one to whom they are bound."
"And that's all the information we've been able to dig up on it. Your people don't want the rest of the galaxy knowing that these words even exist, let alone what they actually mean to your civilization." Viatrix told her.
To that, V'tala once again said nothing.
Instead, she said, "I wish to speak to my dryhten."
"We can get her, but you won't be able to understand her," Rhea explained, "Those of us who live and work in space undergo a procedure to have an intrinsic understanding of all known languages psychically implanted into our minds, which was how we were able to understand you before."
"Yet you know my language." V'tala accused.
"When you're studying xenobiology, knowing the native language a medical journal is written in is vital when you're trying to read all the nuance in it."
"This psychic implanting, is it a procedure you are able to perform in these facilities?" V'tala asked.
"It is."
"Then I wish to undertake it." V'tala told her, "I'm useless if I cannot understand my dryhten."
That turn of phrase had Rhea frowning, but she nodded none the less, saying, "I'll have to put you under for the procedure, and it'll leave you with a headache for a bit."
"I don't care. Proceed." V'tala told her as she touched the controls on the side of her bed, returning it to its horizontal position.
Once she was settled, Rhea typed away at the console at the head of V'tala's bed, adding a general anesthetic to her intravenous mix, which dragged the usgaisjan back into unconsciousness a few moments later.
"Whatever those terms actually mean, I don't think I'm going to like what I find." Viatrix said grimly.
"You and me both." Rhea told her, setting things up for the implanting procedure, "Let's just hope we can find a way to fix whatever it is."
Though she'd only intended to have a quick nap, her body had other plans, so it was that Pryseia walked in to breakfast the next morning only having just woken up.
"Hey, how are you feeling?" Elytra had asked, the concern in her voice mirrored in the faces of everyone at the table.
"Better." Pryseia told her, because that was the truth. The grief that had sunk its claws into her was still there, the incessant gnawing of the compulsion still nipping at her nerves, but she was familiar with the shape of this new beast now, enough to know how to navigate around it without it striking her down as violently as it had yesterday.
"I'm glad to hear that," Rhea said in response, and Pryseia did not miss the subtle nod that Elytra had sent the doctor's way, "If you're up to it after you eat, V'tala wants to talk to you."
An unexpected swipe from the beast, fear laced need. Pryseia had to talk to the other woman, had to find out what had happened between them, but she dreaded it all the same. The unknown aspect to how everything had gone wrong had set its teeth into her, and she had no idea how to pry them out.
Breakfast ended up being a quiet affair after that, the others lingering behind to clean up while Rhea and Pryseia went to the medbay, the three of them as sombre as if they were sending them off to war.
The injustice of that had Pryseia's heart aching. V'tala was as bound by the Storlayacas as the rest of them were, they should be embracing her as one of their own, not treating her like a bomb laden Longan. They had to find a way to fix this.
V'tala was still abed when they entered the medbay, but sitting up, reading something on a data pad. Her eyes were on them before the door had a chance to open, stone faced and unreadable. Still rail thin from the deprivation she'd endured, but she was no longer as wan as she had been.
Before either of them had a chance to cross the threshold, she turned her stare onto Rhea and demanded, "Alone."
It was only because she was standing next to her that Pryseia could feel the tension that ratcheted through Rhea's frame at that, but for her part the only thing the doctor did was give V'tala a curt nod before stepping away, briefly laying a hand between Pryseia's shoulders as she went.
Pryseia entered the room alone, the door hissing shut behind her, before coming to a stop a respectful distance from where V'tala lay.
"You are able to understand me now?" She asked, Rhea having already let her know that the other woman had undergone the language implanting procedure.
"Yes." V'tala confirmed.
"I'm sure you must have a plethora of questions in that regard."
"You aren't usgaisjan." The non sequitur was more accusation than statement.
"No, my people are called deupazing."
"And you have no psychic capabilities." Another accusation.
"We do not."
V'tala let out a harsh breath at that, staring off into the distance for a moment as she gathered her thoughts. Her gaze locking back onto Pryseia, she demanded, "Have your people attempted to remedy this deficiency?"
"Numerous races have tried to induce psionic capabilities in those not born to them as the zymeth, koleopterans, and your own people are, but they have yet to crown themselves in victory." Pryseia told her.
A muscle ticked in V'tala's jaw before she said, "Then you need to find some other way to leash me."
That had not been what Pryseia had expected to hear, and she boggled at that, hissing out, "What?!"
Fully turning to face her, V'tala growled, "A dlegh is supposed to bind my will to yours, I should not be capable of this level of autonomy."
"What!?!" Fury had Pryseia pressed up against V'tala's bedside. She could recognize conditioning when she saw it, and the urge to reach back through time and destroy whoever it was that had instilled such a belief within V'tala was so strong that Pryseia felt drunk on it.
"I am a dregil, a weapon. Your weapon." V'tala told her, staring back at her with equal intensity, "Only a fool leaves their sword unsheathed when not in the throes of battle."
"You're a person, not some object!" Pryseia had snapped back, and as close as she was standing, she could see the flicker of surprise that flashed through V'tala's eyes, "I have spent decades working to free myself and my cohort from the shackles that bound us, I am not about to turn around and assist in the enslavement of another!"
Eyes darting between Pryseia's organic and artificial eyes, V'tala frowned. "Decades? Your race has a long lifespan?"
"No longer than your own." Pryseia told her, still seething, "Most spacefarers undergo a procedure to artificially extend their natural lifespan in order to account for the time it takes to traverse the vast distances of the galaxy."
V'tala looked away at that, lost in thought for a moment before she turned back and said, "I wish to undergo this procedure."
Nodding, Pryseia said, "This can be arranged. However, I request that you revoke your vow. Your… dlegh. I'll not have you as a subservient on this crew. You are to be our peer, our equal, caught up in the web of the Storlayacas as we all are."
That got more of a reaction out of V'tala than anything else, her eyes widening as she said, "You know its name?"
"They called out to us, compelled us to find them. Zaanlaa, Lianshae, Castore, Yarula, Malra." Pryseia recited.
"Enaruli." V'tala breathed, looking away as she dove back through her memories, "Outside of the commands of my last dryhten, its voice was the only thing I could hear."
Leaning forward to grip V'tala's hand with her own, Pryseia swore, "I've no intent of returning you to such a state. Please, tell me how to undo what has been done. It diminishes us both."
The full weight of V'tala's attention snapped back to Pryseia again, and in her eyes Pryseia could see the counterargument to her statement set to boil over, a lifetime of being trained for a singular purpose having the denial slotted automatically behind her teeth.
But surprisingly, to V'tala most of all, she held her tongue. Unlike Elytra, Pryseia had no idea what maelstrom of emotions was cascading through V'tala, but with her hand on hers, flesh to flesh, she could feel the tremor that wracked her frame with the force of what she was feeling.
This state didn't last more than a few seconds, V'tala quickly schooling herself back into marble stillness as she told her, "A dlegh is permanent, only through death may we be parted. Locked in stasis as I had been, unable to fulfill my vows, I was not dragged to the afterlife along with my previous dryhten when she chose her own death. But as we are, as incomplete as our dlegh is, if you die, I die. The reverse does not hold true, and so if you wish to be free of me, then you will have to end my life."
"On that I refuse." Tore out of Pryseia before V'tala could finish speaking, a vow of her own uttered with low vehemence, "Neither of us shall perish over this travesty. Any shackle has a lock, hinges. If I cannot find or forge the key for one, I will strike out the pin for the other."
"A dlegh is no physical object. You cannot brute force your way free of it, and it's folly to try." V'tala told her, voice devoid of any emotion.
"I don't care." Pryseia replied, her own voice choked with fervor, "A grave wrong has been levelled upon your person, and I will not rest until it had been rectified. If a way to sever this bond does not exist, I will create the knife to cut it myself."
V'tala stared at her, unreadable once again as she demanded, "Why?"
"Because you're part of my crew," Pryseia told her, "And I will not stand to have any of my crew in chains, literal or otherwise."