079: Darkness, Peering – One
When everything had been tallied, the total time it took them all to get suited up, have the Storlayacas dematted outside, V'tala and Pryseia to pass out and come dangerously close to death, Viatrix to inadvertently link them up together in some kind of liminal space where they interacted with figures with their pasts who guided them through how to save their friends, actually get around to saving said friends, and then to get out only to discover that Viatrix was offline and in some kind of dreaming state that should have been impossible for an artificial entity, all of that took less than a half hour.
Rhea had rushed them all into the medbay after that, and aside from some higher than normal levels of stress hormones in everyone's systems, she detected nothing out of the ordinary in any of them. As for V'tala and Pryseia, no trace of the disastrous psychic bond lingered in either of their system, just matching headaches that a mild analgesic was able to make short work of.
After that, Nevara had tried to steer them out of the system, to recoup at the closest Kith outpost, and that's when they discovered that not only was Viatrix, for lack of a better word, comatose, but the Pelekys itself was in some type of emergency standby mode, and Malakh had no explanation as to why.
"It shouldn't be because Viatrix is offline," Malakh said as she paced behind the couches in the rec room, all of them having gathered there after trying to make sense of the situations they'd both been in and come into, "She's woven into the Pelekys' systems, sure, but not in a way that would have resulted in either of them going down if the other one's systems were knocked for a loop. She's the digital equivalent of a passenger, same as us."
"Well nothing about that situation was exactly normal," Elytra pointed out from where she was hunkered down in one of the armchairs, nodding over at Pryseia and V'tala, "The… tool or whatever it actually was we used to save the pair of you, Nevara flew it straight into the heart of that golden sun."
"And if the symbolism of that place was as blatant as it seems to have been, then that sun was Viatrix, and so the tool is… fixing her too?" Nevara frowned, leaning over the back of one of the couches, too wired to sit down after everything.
Seated on the couch to the side of her, Rhea's leg was bouncing as she sat there with her arms crossed, eyes darting as she went over everything internally as she said, "And those two white suns, that was for sure the Hyttan, right? Like a representation of them? And they - it? - summoned deceased people who had some tie to the thing they needed to show us to act as interpreters cuz they can't communicate with us directly?"
"I must admit, I do feel some jealousy in regards to that," Pryseia said quietly, head resting in her hands as she sat on the couch opposite Rhea, "A chance to say goodbye to the dearly departed."
The others fell silent at that, memories of their own times with the dead bittersweet with their brief reunions so fresh in their minds.
It was a few moments before, impossibly still and sitting ramrod straight next to Pryseia, V'tala said, "I saw your mothers."
Pryseia jerked up sharply, staring at her intently as V'tala clarified, "Or, the memory of them. Your childhood - snippets - leading up to your capture and encounter with Zaanlaa. You have your golden haired mother's colouring, but you look more like your copper haired mother physically."
"And you were raised as a weapon even before your birth," Pryseia told her, voice thick, "They grew you in an artificial incubator."
V'tala made a thoughtful hum in the back of her throat. "I was unaware. I was led to believe that I had been born as any other."
"That whole fucking dregil thing was such bullshit," Rhea's voice pitched low in fury, the bounce of her leg getting worse, "I hope everyone involved in coming up with it had really painful an horrific deaths."
She was met with muttered curses of agreement before they lapsed into silence once more.
"So what are we going to do now?" Elytra asked not long after, glancing around at everyone in the room.
Nevara sighed as she refolded her arms over the back of the couch. "For the moment, we're more or less stuck. We have life support, internal power, and sublight thrusters, but both our FTL and subspace engines are offline. We also have no weapons, no shields, and our electronic stealth systems are down. We're still able to link up to the interstellar network and so our communications remain online, and the Kith broadcasting equipment seems to be unaffected as well. There is the option of calling for assistance from the Kith themselves, to have someone at the very least tow us to a safer location. The Pelekys was built with layers of physical shielding, but with our electronic shielding systems all nonfunctioning, I don't know how travelling at faster than light speeds or passing through subspace would affect either Viatrix or us."
"It's my opinion as an engineer that we don't risk either without the additional protection of electronic shields. Nasty stuff all around," Malakh said as she completed another lap, her tail lashing out behind her, "With all the unknown variables of our current situation, I'd recommend holding out for the time being."
"We got topped up on fuel and supplies at Salaparas Station, so we'll be good for a while, especially if we're just sitting around." Rhea said, kicking her legs out in order to cross them at the ankle and stop her leg from bouncing, "But speaking of the Kith, we really should have a talk about that, about what we're going to do in regards to the whole storyline of it all now that we've completed the Storlayacas set, and if you want to be a part of it."
She'd directed that last part at V'tala, who glanced up with a mild expression of shock, still not used to people asking her for her opinion.
She was silent for a few moments more, deep in thought, before she said, "The concept… appeals to me. Acting, however, was not a skill I was taught."
"It was not something I foresaw myself doing either," Nevara told her, "But it's something I've taken a liking to."
"You can perform as much or as little as you want," Elytra said, "And we'd be more than happy to help you figure anything out. We're in this together, after all, behind as well as before the camera. So what would you like to do?"
V'tala gave her a searching look, before eventually saying, "Everything about the Kith of the Void is something my former… associates would find galling, and so I would like to participate in whatever way I can. I would like to acquire a replacement sidearm, as the threats in the modern age appear to be as numerous as they were in the time I left behind. I would also… like to try mint."
That got an exclamation of disgust out of Malakh at the same time it got a laugh of delight out of Rhea, the human telling her, "Absolutely! After everything that's gone on today, I could go for a tea."
Malakh refused to accompany them to the mess hall, instead heading off to engineering in order to see if she could dig a little deeper and try to figure out just what, exactly, was going on with both Viatrix and the Pelekys, while Nevara remained behind on the bridge in order to keep an eye out for anything untoward that might try to sneak up on them in their semi-disabled state.
And so it was just Rhea, Elytra, and Pryseia who joined V'tala around the dining table for a spot of afternoon tea.
"Cheers, dears." Rhea said, raising her mug before taking a sip of her tea, the other three doing so a moment later.
"So, thoughts?" Elytra asked.
V'tala gave only the slightest of frowns before saying, "The flavour is bolder than I expected. Cold despite the temperature of the beverage. I like it."
Rhea's triumphant little chuckle cut itself off when she gasped and groaned, "Oh that made me think of chocolate chip mint ice cream, and now I want that!"
"We'll have to make do with the fabricators for the time being," Pryseia sighed in sympathy, "Though I am inclined more and more every day to make good on your request for a vacation. Perhaps we can find a location that will serve your dessert of choice."
Rhea groaned harder at that, saying, "Please. I know none of us have had a break since we were thrown in captivity, and I bet V'tala's piece of shit fucking asshole boss never let her take time off either. We gotta have a beach day or something!"
"The closest I came to a beach was a settlement they had me obliterate with Enaruli." V'tala said, already halfway through her tea.
Pryseia made a displeased noise at that, saying, "That simply will not do. I will see to it that we have a day of relaxation as soon as we are able, even if we have to work it into some plot that our Kith personas shall undertake."
"Speaking of, we should probably brainstorm what kind of persona you'd like to portray," Elytra said, bringing up some information on one of the data pads she had in front of her, "So far, the only things our audience has seen of you is your emergence from stasis, your execution of the raider captain responsible for stealing from us and nearly killing Chancellor Bathory, and you swearing your fealty to Queen Kaizoku. With all of that, the state of the ship we found you in, and the sarcophagus-like appearance of your stasis pod, the audience has taken to calling you the Knight of the Tomb."
"Knight," V'tala said thoughtfully, "An elite soldier sworn to the service of their liege. The dregil caste's ethos pulled heavily from the knightly orders of my people. We were trained to the point where action was instinct. I believe I could play the role of a knight."
"A knight with a will of her own," Pryseia insisted, "I've as little interest in subjugating you in fiction as I do in reality."
"That might be something we can work with," Rhea said as she opened up a note taking program on her own data pad, "Everyone knows that the Kith plots are fictional for the most part, so we've been playing up the idea that Elytra's masked character, Madame Augury, is actually Hyttan, and that's kinda how she's able to get these prophetic visions that are actually just us foreshadowing what we plan on having happen later down the line. We obviously can't pass you off as Hyttan, but with how you've obviously been in stasis for a long ass time, we could maybe imply that you were in contact with them or something? Like maybe abducted from your homeworld in antiquity in order to be their chosen champion of the Storlayacas?"
Starting up her own note taking program on her other data pad, Elytra added, "Yeah, as brief as your appearance was, you brought a gaggle of raiders to their knees with very little effort, so you're clearly a woman of exceptional skill. So skilful that the Hyttan chose you to assess any who should try to claim the Storlayacas as their own and see if they were worthy enough to pilot them perhaps? Or maybe if we go with the idea that we were all chosen by destiny to pilot these things, you could have been put in stasis in order to train us or something? So even though you've technically sworn yourself to Kaizoku's cause, you're really only going along with her because you know she's got what it takes to lead us to victory against the Leviathan? You don't have to say yes to any of that, we've got time to try and figure out other ideas."
"The concept of a knight who is here to judge their liege more than serve them does appeal," V'tala said quietly, "For spite if nothing else."
"Oh honey, I am all for doing things outta spite!" Rhea laughed, "We've done a mix of live broadcasts as well as prerecorded segments, the former's more improv while the latter tends to be scripted. If you don't feel like putting on a big performance with your appearances, we can have you be the quiet, cryptic type?"
Chuckling fondly, Pryseia added, "Nevara's character of General Grim is a laconic woman herself, so would not be alone if you choose to be a woman of few words while the cameras are on."
V'tala nodded to that, a faint smile ticking up the corner of her lips.
"Speaking of scripts, we should probably come up with something," Elytra said as she flipped through a document on one of her data pads, "Those flashback shorts we put out to explain some of our character's backstories tided our audiences over for a little bit, but they are eager to learn more about our newest addition to the crew. If you're up for it?"
Finishing her tea and placing the mug delicately down in front of her, V'tala said, "I am."
Now that they'd had more than a little experience under their belt, Rhea and Elytra were able to bang out a script in a relatively short amount of time, working in the suggestions that they'd encouraged V'tala to provide. As soon as the fabricators finished with the props that they didn't have on hand, they'd be able to start the shoot, and so V'tala was taking the time to go over her lines.
Or, at least, that had been her intent.
But as she'd sat on her bed, data pad in hand, her thoughts kept drifting back to what Pryseia had said earlier.
They grew you in an artificial incubator.
The revelation lingered, a lie revealed, and she found that she didn't know what to do with it.
She wouldn't allow for such a distraction, and so she was up and out of her room a moment later, hitting the call button next to Pryseia's door.
It slid open a moment later, the woman herself curled comfortably on the small couch she had tucked away in a corner of her room, her own data pad in hand, her eyebrows rising in surprise when she saw who had come calling.
"I need to speak with you." V'tala said, and Pryseia sat up, motioning for V'tala to join her as she placed her data pad on her side table.
Once they were sat there together, Pryseia turned towards her to give V'tala her full attention, the usgaisjan suddenly found herself at a loss for words. Or, more accurately, an abundance of them. Questions choked her, a life's worth that had been held back by the noose of her dlegh, and now that she was no longer bound by it, she found herself overwhelmed by the freedom of it all.
But she also now had the time to ask every question she could possibly have. All of her old curiosities could be answered in due course, so for now she would limit herself to the mystery at the forefront of her mind.
"You said you saw me grown in an incubator. What else did you see there?"
"Many incubators," Pryseia frowned, "Perhaps a hundred or more. There were attendants, but they behaved more like workers at a garden centre than caretakers for children. To further that analogy, they were treating you all like potted plants instead of people. In artificial utero though you were, you were lauded for the potential of your physical capabilities, and thus deemed a prize worthy of possession. One of your neighbours, however, was deemed to be too flawed to warrant the effort of corrective surgery, and so they were… pruned."
V'tala couldn't stop the quiet huff that escaped her. "And what was the costly flaw?"
"Nearsightedness," was the bitter reply, "A child was denied the chance to live because they would one day develop nearsightedness."
It was several moments before V'tala replied, motionless except for how her hands had clenched into fists where they lay on her knees, "With the life of a dregil before them, perhaps being denied the chance to live as such was a blessing."
"A wretched sentiment I share," Pryseia said quietly, "Regardless, after you were deemed exceptional, you were then packaged up to be sent to another place for training. Karnon, I believe?"
V'tala made a noise of agreement, saying, "It was where I was trained before I swore my dlegh."
"I did see some of that. Your skills at such a young age had you advancing through lessons swiftly, and then your binding to that woman, the discovery of the Hyttan ship and Enaruli, and your withering as they brought you in and out of stasis to be a weapon of mass destruction." Pryseia finished up.
"I can barely differentiate those years in my memory," V'tala told her, "In stasis, out of it. Some of the more striking locations I was sent to destroy stand out, but the rest has blurred together. And I find I don't care."
She turned enough to look at Pryseia head on as she said, "My life, until I emerged from stasis in the here and now, was not my own. To them, I was a thing, not a person. The people responsible are all generations dead, and so I will treat the memory of them with the same apathy they showed me. Stasis has made me a blank slate, my past wiped clean, my future laid bare. As you keep insisting, I will allow no one but me to fill those pages."
"And what do you wish to fill them with?" Pryseia asked her.
A thoughtful hum escaped V'tala as she looked away, a galaxy of possibility now open before her. Spoiled for choice as she was to be granted answers to any question she had now, her recent experience brought one to the forefront, and so she asked, "Will you tell me about your mothers?"
A bittersweet smile on her face as her eyes went soft at the thought of them, Pryseia replied, "Of course."