075: Drifted Dimension – Six
The clawing agony that had taken root in her chest was something V'tala was intimately familiar with, but not to this degree. Swearing her dlegh to R'aya Hantu had felt like something vital had been peeled out of the heart of her, but once the pact was sealed, her dryhten's control over her had numbed her to virtually everything. Then there was her incomplete dlegh to Pryseia, which had felt as though some foreign object had been wedged in between her ribs, ignorable for the most part, but a constant prick of pain with every breath.
But this affliction? It felt as though she'd been impaled, an incessant, throbbing ache that had her vision whiting out around the edges with every beat of her heart, the squeeze of her lungs drawing in air sending arcs of anguish coursing through her every nerve.
She could hardly think through the pain, which is why it took her a moment to realize that the distressed noises she was hearing weren't coming from her.
Her hand reached out blindly as she felt herself stumble, and mercifully it caught against something cool and metal. Blinking to try and get her vision to focus, she saw she was leaning against a bare bones cart that should not have been able to support her weight, an assortment of tools she couldn't even begin to guess the purpose of carefully laid out across the assortment of shelves running down its length. Wheeled as it was, it should have skittered out from under her grasp the moment she leaned against it, but somehow it was remaining stationary, as if she wasn't half collapsed onto it. How was that possible?
She pressed the hand that she wasn't using to hold herself up with to her chest, half expecting to feel a gaping wound, so intense was the hurt that rocketed through her, but her chest was unmarred beneath her shirt. Not the spacesuit that Malakh had fabricated for her, the last thing she'd been wearing before she ended up here, wherever this was. From the twin white suns she could make out through the window she was facing, this was clearly nowhere even close to the corner of space she and the others had taken their Storlayacas into.
Another cry rang out and V'tala turned to find a trio of deupazing, one leaning against a contraption that had her half sitting and half upright, the second standing next to her holding her hand tightly in one of her own, and the third kneeling down in front of the pair of them.
V'tala shoved herself upright, her training having her take a step forward at the next pained cry that came out of the seated woman, because she looked like her dryhten - like Pryseia - but as her vision swam back into focus she realized that she was mistaken. This woman's hair was copper to Pryseia's gold, her eyes ruby to Pryseia's amber, and while her skin was the same shade of navy blue, she lacked the golden freckles that adorned Pryseia's skin like stars. Her horns, too, were different, twin helices that curved backwards over her head, rather than Pryseia's banded horns that jutted forward.
The woman standing to her left, clutching her hand as she murmured to the sitting woman, had the same golden eyes, hair, and freckles, though her skin was a paler blue, almost edging into purple, her own horns canted forward instead of back. Of the third deupazing, V'tala couldn't make out any defining features beyond the pastel green outfit they were wearing, crouched before the two women.
The seated woman let loose with another cry, as if she were straining against something monumental, and then another noise rent the air - a high pitched wail.
V'tala had to suppress the urge to vomit as the scene before her unexpectedly lurched, the two women now huddled together on a bed, a bundled blanket cradled between them. There was something that made V'tala's heart ache in a manner so incredibly different from the hollowed out agony that had her barely able to breath, and she found herself stepping towards them involuntarily.
"Have you settled upon a name, my love?" The golden haired woman asked, her eyes never once leaving off the bundle in their arms.
"Yeah," the copper haired woman replied, her hand reaching up to move part of the blanket aside, "Pryseia."
Clutching the railing that ran along the side of the bed, V'tala stared down at the newborn infant asleep between them, gold freckles against its dark blue skin, a thin crown of wispy golden hair upon its head, horns nothing more than slight nubs on its brow.
The birth of the woman she'd incompletely pledged her life to. How could V'tala be here?
Before she had time to do more than formulate the question in her mind, a blinding white light filled the room, and it was only the sickening swoop of vertigo that let her know she was falling.
When the nausea abated, and her vision cleared, V'tala found herself in a crowd of people. Her heart kicked painfully against her ribs, a panic swelling within her due to the sheer amount of people around her. She'd never been in a group this size before.
Focusing on the pain still radiating in her chest, she pushed past the dread trying to sink its claws into her and fell back on her training.
Observe the scene. Identify threats. Find an exit.
She was surrounded by deupazing, the rainbow hues of their skin and hair partially obscured by the heavy coats and hats they were wearing. Sporadic flakes of snow were drifting down from the overcast sky, the shape of those two white suns she'd seen at Pryseia's birth visible through the clouds. Winter, then, though V'tala herself couldn't feel the cold, which was an oddity.
Bunched together along both sides of a wide avenue, buildings crowding in behind them, the crowd was awash with excited chatter. From a distance, she could hear music, and it was drawing closer. A celebration perhaps, a parade? The crowd was in high spirits, if nothing else.
And they did not seem to be able to see her. Were unable to touch her. A couple squeezed past in front of her, hand in hand as they laughed about something, they partially passed through her as if she were nothing more than a ghost. This was good. This meant that no one would be able to stop her from getting out of here.
This was bad. This meant that there was something beyond the flaring pain in her chest that was wrong with her.
A loud noise from around the corner of one of the buildings had V'tala reaching for her gun, and it was only when she had it drawn and pointed in the direction of the disturbance that she remembered that her gun was sitting in the armoury of the Pelekys, in a state of disrepair. Yet the one in her hand was the matte black sidearm she'd carried with her for the majority of her life, unbleached by the ravages of stasis. If it was as ghostly as she was, she doubted it would be able to provide her any kind of protection here.
Holstering her weapon, she was startled when the crowd around her gave a cheer. Following the wave of pointing hands that shot up throughout the crowd, V'tala saw that a procession was rounding the corner, a marching band leading the way, the sharp rap of drums setting the pace.
"Here they are, my impatient girl, the parade has finally wended its way to us."
The voice at V'tala's back had her turning in shock, copper and gold filling her vision as she saw she'd been all but standing in Pryseia's parents. Whatever this vision she was trapped in was, it was clearly years after Pryseia's birth, the girl in question perched on her copper haired mother's shoulders, hands around her mother's horns while her mother had her hands on Pryseia's knees. Bundled up tight against the cold, a hat was pulled over her head, two holes in it allowing her small horns to peek through. Framed by the golden hair curling out from under her hat, her face was alight with wonder as she stared down at the oncoming parade.
Pryseia's expression then morphed into one of awe, her eyes tracking upward to follow something taller than the people marching in the parade. V'tala turned in time to see a float with a pair of primitive looking mechs on it finish its turn around the corner. Boxy things, their unpainted metal gleaming in the harsh white light able to make its way through the cloud cover, V'tala doubted they would come up to a Storlayacas' knee.
"What are those?" The toddler Pryseia breathed, eyes alight with wonder.
"3R1N-Y35 class mechs," her copper haired mother told her, patting her on the leg, "Top of the line machines that the military is rolling out, they're gonna help protect our people from all the baddies in space."
"Really!?" Pryseia's excitement was palpable as she glanced over at her golden haired mother.
"Indeed. These vehicles, impressive as they are here on display, are meant to be among the stars. After this brief stop through our town, they shall be journeying to the starport, where they will ascend to the heavens to be amongst the rest of their ilk." The woman said, smiling up at her daughter fondly. "Even now, pilots are completing their training in order to master these marvellous machines."
Pryseia beamed at her, before here gaze was drawn to the mechs on parade as they passed by where their little family was standing. Her hands clenching around her mother's horns, she whispered, "I want to pilot them too."
The wonder in Pryseia's voice was the last thing V'tala heard before the ground opened up beneath her.
Fortuitously, the next location V'tala found herself thrust into had a chair nearby, and she collapsed into it, clutching her chest as the lancing pain within it grew somehow worse. Gasping as she tried to fight her way through it, she almost missed the door that swung wide to her left, the white light from the twin suns streaming in behind Pryseia.
Older now than the last scenario, she had the long and lanky look of an adolescent nearing the cusp into adulthood, her hair bound in a low ponytail flagging behind her as she rushed up to the counter that was on the other side of this small foyer they were in, waving a small rectangular object in her hand as she announced, "You've no legal recourse from stopping me now!"
Seated behind the counter, an older deupazing woman laughed, the silver streaks in her choppy black hair catching in the light, branched horns jutting out from above her temples, the ochre skin around her violet eyes crinkling in mirth.
"I had to keep you out for the sake of my business license!" The woman grinned at her, holding out a hand, "They'd shut this school down if they learned I was letting minors in, as I've told you a thousand times or more."
Coming to a stop before the counter, Pryseia handed over her item with a flourish, and the woman promptly slotted it into the console before her. It was a few seconds before a positive sounding beep rang out from the console.
"And so now that you're legally old enough to try out for your pilot's license," the woman said as she handed what must have been Pryseia's ID back, "How do you feel about taking one of the 3R1N-Y35's for a spin?"
"I'd be delighted." Pryseia told her, her excitement so poorly contained that V'tala was sure the girl's skeleton was about to burst from her own skin.
Her curiosity taking the edge off her pain, V'tala stood to watch the pair as the older woman led Pryseia through a door behind the counter.
A small hangar lay beyond, half a dozen 3R1N-Y35 mechs lined up along one wall. Unlike the ones that had been in the parade, these ones had been painted in an assortment of colours and patterns, though some of that paint was chipped and peeling. These mechs had clearly been involved in more than parades.
"Alright, hop in number three there and we can get you going through the course." The older woman said, motioning to the orange and blue mech in the centre of the lineup, and Pryseia was quick to scramble up the ladder built into the mech's side, slipping into the hatch on the machine's torso in seconds. With a hum the 3R1N-Y35 started up, the lights in the sensor array in its head blinking on, and Pryseia walked the mech forward.
The older woman had hopped onto some kind of scooter contraption, which hovered off the ground the moment she started it up. Waving to the mech, she headed for the far side of the hangar, the doors pulling wide at her approach. As Pryseia guided her mech outside, V'tala followed after her.
V'tala's own people - in her day, at least - had nothing comparable to a bipedal mech like this, but even she could tell that this machine was just a poor facsimile of the more plentiful Odazaen that'd she'd learned the other races had based their own mech designs on. And from what research she'd managed to do while abed, she knew that an Odazaen had nothing on the Storlayacas. But even still, as the adolescent Pryseia ran the 3R1N-Y35 through the obstacle course in the field beyond, blasting through the drills that the older woman set up for her, V'tala could tell that her mastery of the craft, even at this young age, was second to none. Under Pryseia's hand, the mech moved with a fluidity that should have been impossible, nimbly dodging obstacles with a grace that a machine that size should not have possessed. V'tala couldn't help but be impressed, and neither could the older woman.
Bringing the 3R1N-Y35 to a stop in front of where the woman had parked her scooter, Pryseia popped open the hatch and asked, "I take it that was sufficient?"
"You know damn well that it was!" The woman laughed, nodding her head back at the hangar, "Now get that thing put away before I get your license printed."
They were back inside the foyer not long after, V'tala once again sinking into one of the chairs as the woman handed what was presumably a mech pilot's license over as she said, "A word of advice? You're going to want to avoid bringing this up to any of the military recruiters that'll be prowling around your school come graduation time. A pilot of your skill? You'd go mad working for them. The bulk of your time would be spent in transit from posting to posting, not behind the controls of a mech, and they'd hook you up with zoastasis so you wouldn't even be able to get away to come back and see your folks without mummifying yourself in red tape. No, if you wanna do something with that license of yours, you want to aim for the civilian sector. You'll see action enough, and you won't have to worry about your home being barred to you."
"I appreciate the advice," Pryseia said, grinning down at the license in her hands, "I'd been looking into one such job posting as is."
Whatever wisdom the older woman had to impart was lost on V'tala as her vision swam, and she couldn't stop herself from tipping forward.
Instead of the floor she expected to smash head first into, she found herself slumping against a bar top, the pain in her chest making it difficult to breathe. Closing her eyes against the flare of agony, she tried to take stock of her surroundings through sound alone.
Some type of inoffensively bland music was playing, the chatter of multiple conversations happening at once a low drone that undercut everything. Below that, the hum of a ship's systems, so wherever this new vision was, it must be in space.
The rustle of fabric and the squeak of the stool to her right being sat on startled V'tala, but not as much as the voice that spoke next to her.
"I take it you're to be the pilot of the Keskason?"
Tilting her head against the bar top so she could open her eyes, V'tala saw Pryseia sitting next to her. No longer the gangling adolescent, she looked to be the same age as the woman she had first met, only without the prosthetics. Sitting beyond her was Nevara, just as V'tala remembered her, sliding a drink over to Pryseia as she replied, "And you are to be one of the pilots defending me."
The scene lurched again, like a video being run at ten times the speed, and V'tala found herself slumping down in a cockpit next to Pryseia before she knew it, the woman's voice frantic as she shouted, "I'll not leave you here to die! If I cannot escape with you, I will not escape!"
Again the vision jumped forward, only now Pryseia was strapped to a gurney, unconscious. Her long hair had been shorn close to her scalp, her horns sanded down to nubs, and a reptilian doctor was bolting a slim device to the side of her face. On the gurney next to her, Malakh was receiving the same treatment.
Another jump, Pryseia in the seat of a mech once more, but very different from the design of the 3R1N-Y35. Wedged into the cockpit next to her, V'tala could see out into a war torn landscape through the hole in the mech's side, those twin white suns hanging in the sky of this planet. Were they on Pryseia's homeworld? As for the woman herself, she was shouting commands as she steered her mech one handed, her left arm nothing more than a bloody stump.
V'tala collapsed to the floor with the next jump, the ever increasing pain burning within her wrenching a cry out from her against her will. Before her, Pryseia stood stiffly at attention, her arms - one flesh, one metal - clasped behind her back as what V'tala realized was a Thalatte officer bellowed in her face. Through the blood roaring through her ears, V'tala had no idea what the officer was shouting, but Pryseia remained unmoved by it, staring intently ahead as if she were the only person in the room. She only flinched when the officer lashed out with the knife they pulled from their belt, slashing Pryseia from scalp to cheek through her left eye, her now remaining one burning with hate.
Still on the floor as the vision changed again, V'tala watched as a short haired Rhea, purple blood up to her elbows, stitched up the unconscious Pryseia laid out on her operating table.
Another change, her vision growing dark around the edges as the pain became too much to bear, V'tala found herself slumped within the cockpit of a Storlayacas, Pryseia being motioned forward by an armed Thalatte guard. The moment she sat down, the hatch of the cockpit swung shut, restraints and the control apparatus snapping into place around Pryseia as the screens within the cockpit flickered to life.
Only instead of the interior of whatever hangar the Storlayacas was being stored in, the cockpit was washed out in blinding white light, and the last thing V'tala saw were those twin white suns, staring directly at her.