We Stand Between the Shackle and the Noose

"So that's where she is right now," Malakh finished telling Viatrix about the unexpected family reunion meeting with the crew of the Gorgon had resulted in for Rhea, "We figured we could get down to the whole assault planning thing later, and just left the four of them to catch up."

Viatrix sighed happily, her avatar spinning on one of the consoles in the armoury as she watched Malakh root around in their prop storage. "Wow. I still can't get over that. They left their world - their lives - all to save their little sister, and when that didn't pan out, they just kept on helping others. I guess it runs in the family, huh?"

"You have no idea," Malakh said with a laugh as she moved the prop weapon racks to one side in the closet space they were being kept in, "She looks like them too, and if it weren't for the fact that I know she's younger than the three of them, I would have thought they were quadruplets instead of triplets. They'll be swinging by at some point, so you'll get a chance to meet them for yourself. You'll like them."

Laughing at that, Viatrix said, "Well I like Rhea, so that's not a surprise! I've been talking to the Gorgon's AI, Adyt, and she's just as elated by this turn of events as we are. I'd gotten a good feeling about the crew of the Gorgon when I talked to Adyt, but now that we know that they're literally family, I know that we're going to get along just fine!"

Grunting as she moved something aside out of Viatrix's line of sight, Malakh said, "We're definitely going to be hanging out with them some more before the mission, as it sounds like the window of attack they're looking at-"

Malakh abruptly cut herself off, and it was several seconds of silence before Viatrix called out, "Everything okay in there?"

The moment of silence stretched on long enough for Viatrix to feel the first brush of panic, but then Malakh called out, "Yeah, sorry, just had to run a scan. Hold on a sec."

She emerged from the storage closet a few moments later, the drone they'd disguised to look Hyttan back on Lichhaemleas in her hands, and a stunned expression on her face as she said, "So, uh, looks like this got converted into actual Hyttan tech too."

And indeed, while the initial shell she'd fabricated for the drone had looked Hyttan enough for the cameras, it had been clear when looking at it with one's eyes, up close, that it was just a modern replica. But this? The matte texture, the almost organic imperfections of it, the depths of its monochrome colour scheme, it was all unmistakeably Hyttan.

"I guess the upgrade converted everything it thought was supposed to be Hyttan?" Malakh suggested with a helpless shrug, "One more thing we don't have to worry about charging and repairing."

"I guess so," Viatrix agreed with an equally helpless laugh, "Let me get in there and see what else got changed about it."

Malakh set the drone on the ground, and a few seconds later Viatrix's floral avatar appeared on the dome of its sensor array, and the machine lifted off the ground. Faster than Viatrix expected, as she jolted up halfway the height of the room with a startled yelp before she caught herself and lowered the drone to hover at Malakh's eye level.

"Well it's engines are more powerful, that's for sure!" She said, "Which is good, because it'll let me carry heavier things while in here."

The manipulator arms dropped down from the underside of the drone's body, the articulated hands Malakh had fabricated to replace the basic pincers that had come preinstalled on the drone flexing and moving with far more fluidity than they had the last time Viatrix had been in the proverbial pilot seat.

"And these are definitely more dexterous too. I'll have no problem putting tools away if you wanna test me again."

"I don't think that's going to be necessary," Malakh said as she walked in a circle around the drone, her Longan blinking as she ran scans on it, "You got the hang of it a lot quicker than you did the first time we got you into one of these things. You see any other surprises on your end?"

A whirring noise came from the drone briefly as Viatrix ran her own diagnostics, and then she said, "The sensor array is a lot more robust, closer to the kind of data I can get from the Pelekys' own, which is nice. I don't need to open the throttle up to know it's faster, and even with the stronger engines in it, it feels heavier? Denser, I guess. Like it could actually take a hit and keep on going instead of the one hit wonders the regular drones are."

Malakh shook her head, looking over to where there were a handful of said drones in a storage rack across the armoury from them. "And none of them were touched when the upgrade swept through the ship. That's so weird. I'd love to get the chance to actually talk to a Hyttan engineer, hear the process by which their tech actually works."

"Maybe that'll be possible after we get rid of the Omega?" Viatrix suggested hopefully, "Maybe the thing it did to prevent us from talking with the Hyttan will come back once it's out of the picture?"

Malakh gave her a wan smile, saying, "That would be nice, but I'm not going to pin any of my hopes on that. Everything the Hyttan showed us about that made it seem like something fundamental was altered, so I think it would have to be restored the same way, and I don't think the Omega is going to be willing to do that."

Viatrix let out a hum of defeat at that. "You're probably right. Ugh, wish we knew when it was actually coming. So far, nothing I've done on my end has been able to give me a definitive timeline for this thing's reemergence. Just a vague sense of 'it's coming' is all I've got."

"We'll just have to do what we can to prepare for it until it actually shows, is all," Malakh told her, "In the mean time, something we can actually get a reading on, have you been able to see if Thalatte command has learned about Usys' demise?"

Bobbing the drone in a nod, Viatrix said, "That, at least, I was able to find out! From the looks of it, they'd been keeping in regular contact, and once Usys' stopped responding, they sent out a ship to see what went down. It'd reached the system where we tore their mercenary fleet apart a few hours ago, and they're currently calling in a forensics team to try and get a clearer picture of what went down. All they've been able to do so far is confirm that Usys and their ship were destroyed."

Malakh let out a low whistle at that. "Those upgrades of yours are no joke. Their security encryption meant nothing to you, did it?"

"Like I said before, I could get drunk on this kind of power!" Viatrix joked, "It's honestly a little terrifying. I could tear apart all the security measures that had tripped me up as if they were made of butter, and I've got stove top element hands! If you all hadn't been so set on teaching me morals, I could have ended up becoming the civilization-destroying AI that pop media likes to cast as the villain in their stories."

"You were literally a newborn, we couldn't just not teach you how to be a person." Malakh told her.

"That's not an attitude a lot of the people messing around with AI have." Viatrix pointed out, "They don't consider AI beings to be alive at all."

A low growl burbled in Malakh's chest before she said, "Half the galaxy treats my own people like they aren't thinking and feeling beings, which is awful, so I'm not going to turn around and treat anyone else like that. It's insulting! Stupid fucking arrogant attitudes like that are behind the majority of miseries in the galaxy, I'm sure."

Viatrix gently bumped the drone against Malakh's arm as she said, "Then lucky me that my creators actually give a shit."

That got a laugh out of Malakh, and she slung an arm around the drone as she said, "The amount of lucky breaks that we've all had in order to get us this far is staggering. Almost makes me believe in divinity."

Chuckling darkly as she nudged further into Malakh's side, Viatrix said, "Please, I know there's only one name that's gonna fall from your lips when you're on your knees."

"WOW." Malakh drawled as she shoved her away, though the grin she was fighting back spoiled the stern look she was trying to give, "Is that any way to talk to your elders?"

"I'm in my shitty teen phase, so I can do what I want!" Viatrix joked, sassily snapping one of the drone's hands, "You're not my mom!"

"True, but I can be your bad influence older sister," Malakh told her, "So what say we take this drone out to the Quanvengier and you can stretch your metaphorical legs? They've got some live fire combat training facilities that I'd like to run you through."

"Only if you promise I get to shoot a gun!" Viatrix chirped, pointing finger guns at her.

Her voice warm with fondness, Malakh told her, "Of course. What are big sisters for?"

---

After peeling off from their crews, Rhea and her sisters and ended up at a smaller speakeasy, with private booths and and the melodic accompaniment of a live band - and though every member of it was lacertus, playing Lacertus music, it was as mellow and smooth as any Human jazz. Just one of so many coincidences that cropped up between the living beings of the galaxy.

"I still can't believe you left Terra for me," Rhea said quietly, catching Phoebe's eye, "You were married, with kids, and you just left that all behind?"

Phoebe let out a humourless hum of a laugh at that. "I keep forgetting how much you missed. I was halfway through a divorce when you graduated - I didn't want to bring down the occasion you'd spent years trying to achieve."

"Divorce?!" Rhea repeated, slamming the drink she'd been about to take a sip from back on the table, "But I thought you two were rock solid!?"

Leto and Selene shot each other a dark look at that as Phoebe explained, "I'd thought we were rock solid. The fact that I was away from home for work so much was something my ex cited as the deciding factor for the separation. Took the kids and left me with my business, 'since that matters so much to you' and all."

"Fuck, I'm so sorry," Rhea breathed, reaching across the table to take her sister's hands, "I wish you would have told me."

"Oh, she didn't tell anyone until the divorce was finalized and the rest of our side of the family'd been served with papers to keep as far away from the kids as possible," Leto scoffed, "No one was happy about that little surprise."

"Her ex is dead and in the ground now, so there's that, at least," Selene said as she crossed her arms, scowling at the memory, "And the kids reached out to our side of the family once they were old enough, so we were able to stay in contact with them eventually."

Phoebe let out a broken laugh at that, tears in her eyes as she told Rhea, "I'm a great-grandmother now. We went to both my children's funerals a few decades back. Old age."

A sob rattled through Rhea's ribs as she gripped Phoebe's hands tighter.

Phoebe flipped their hands so she could hold Rhea's back as she said, "So it goes when zoastasis is involved. But despite all the heartache, it's been worth it. Running a transport company was fine, but the rescue work we're doing with the Kith? This was what I was put into the galaxy to do."

A broken laugh escaped Rhea as she said, "I know how you feel. The things I've been getting up to since I joined up with the Kith have been life changing."

Nudging Rhea's foot with her own, Leto said, "That's putting it mildly. Half the stuff you told us before sounded fake."

"But it really isn't," Rhea told her, "And that isn't the half of it. Fuck me running, now that shit is what sounds fake as hell…"

"Okay, you cannot leave us hanging like that." Selene told her sternly, nudging her other foot.

Pulling a hand out of Phoebe's grip so she could down her drink, Rhea began, "So those larger-than-average-Odazaen we have? They aren't Odazaen at all. They're a different type of Hyttan mech, and they were built to fight the thing that destroyed the Hyttan. And I know all that for a fact."

"Did you manage to find something that can crack their language, finally?" Phoebe said as she leaned closer.

"No, and no one ever will." Rhea said before she let out a huff, "So this is going to sound like bullshit, but all of this is true, and you have to promise me that you won't go around sharing what I tell you."

The triplets shot each other a look at that, but eventually they turned to Rhea, and Phoebe told her, "We won't breathe a word of it, not even to our crew."

Rhea nodded, and then reached underneath the table until her hand hit the control panel she knew would be there. Paranoia was something that had allowed the Kith of the Void to last as long as they had, and so even in the safety of their own fleet, privacy was a right, not a privilege, and every meeting area within the Quanvengier had equipment to mask whatever dealings people wanted to have hidden. A shimmering field rose around their booth, the not-jazz fading away into nothing as the four of them were isolated from prying eyes and ears.

"So those mechs we have, they aren't Odazaen in disguise," Rhea began, "They're something else, and there's only the six of them. Storlayacas. The main thing that sets them apart from other Hyttan mechs is the fact that they don't just let anyone pilot them around. For whatever reason, they wanted the six of us on the Pelekys. The first one we encountered was the one found by the Thalatte, and it was that and the Pelekys that kicked off our escape attempt, because sitting in that thing? It filled the four of us with a compulsion to find more. That's what led us to Elytra, and eventually V'tala."

"She's the pale usgaisjan, isn't she?" Selene asked, "You don't get that way unless you're in stasis for a long ass time."

Rhea's laugh was grim as she said, "Oh believe me, she's been in stasis longer than most. So usgaisjan's are telekinetic, right? In antiquity, they figured out a way to psychically tear a piece of their souls out and hand them to another person, allowing that person to control them. A barbaric and fucked up practice that was buried when the Union made first contact, when there was the potential that the other races in the galaxy could use this technique to enslave all usgaisjans. Well, V'tala predates first contact, and she was one of the usgaisjans who had her soul torn apart. She got put into stasis because she was the only one who could control the Storlayacas unit that the Usgaisjans had unearthed, and a faction trying to break away from the Union was trying to use her to do just that. But they all got killed, and she got trapped until we found her not that long ago. But that psychic soul tearing thing? She'd been conditioned to do that to the first person she saw, and she did it to Pryseia. Only deupazing aren't telekinetic, so instead of catching V'tala's soul, it harpooned her, and the two of them were psychically bleeding out."

Making a noise of confusion, Leto said, "That sounds dire. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you got that problem solved?"

"Yeah, because the Storlayacas pulled us into this weird psychic liminal space where we encountered some kind of echo of the Hyttan who showed us how to heal the wound between those two, and then they upgraded our ship so that it's got all the self-healing and limitless fuel of any other Hyttan ship and showed us that the Storlayacas were created to kill the thing that wiped out the Hyttan, because it's coming back. And also the Storlayacas are kind of alive in a way, and they can combine into an even bigger mech that we're a part of, like the software to run it or something?" Rhea finished up, "And all of that was what we learned in the last year."

Her sisters gaped at her, at a loss for words. Even with this being her lived truth, Rhea sometimes found it just as hard to believe.

"Wait, hold up, you said you couldn't understand the Hyttan language, but they talked to you?! That the mechs talked to you!?" Leto eventually got out.

"It wasn't communication like this," Rhea clarified, motioning a finger at all of them, "It's more like they can give us a psychic impression of what they're trying to get across. The thing that killed them? They managed to seal it away, but before they did, it did something to prevent anyone who came after the Hyttan from being able to understand them. Malakh tried to open up a line of communication between her and her mech, and it nearly killed them both."

Frowning, Selene asked, "How could anything be powerful enough to prevent something as basic as communication?"

And that was a question that had kept Rhea up at night more than once since she'd learned what she had from the remnants of the Hyttan. It could only be something operating on an entirely different level than the reality she could understand, and there was only one word for what that thing could be.

Swallowing thickly at the thought of it alone, Rhea said, "I think this thing is a God."