141: First Worst Dread – Two
"So, any excitement overnight?" Malakh asked as she and Rhea left their room, dressed in their workout clothes as they headed for the cargo hold.
"Oh yeah, tons," was Viatrix's sarcastic reply over the speaker system that ran through the halls of the Pelekys, "Fought off like a billion Leviathan, discovered a new alien race and became the queen of them, I developed telekinesis of my own so watch out, and someone dropped off a delivery of chocolates! I already ate them all."
Laughing fondly at that, Rhea said, "Well I'm glad you weren't bored overnight, with all that fun stuff to take care of. But seriously though, thanks for keeping the scans going when we can't."
"Given that I don't need to sleep and you all do, it's no problem. Besides, you've brought me so many new systems to play around with, so it's not all bad! Like those shields?! I was testing to see how fast I could bring them up in case of emergency, and it's instantaneous, and I mean that for my digital reaction time! I'd love to see how they fare in an actually fire fight! Well, you know, in a way that doesn't have us being shot at by people who want to kill us or anything."
"I'm sure we'll stumble upon some hostile force sooner than later," was Malakh's grim prediction, before she paused long enough to step onto the demat zone and make the transition to the cargo hold, "I was half tempted to see about if we could track down another Alpha again, see how both the shields and the hull would stand up to that."
From where she was going through her stretches before she got into her exercise routine proper, Nevara stared at her, mandibles clicking together once as she said, "You want to let a Leviathan attack the Pelekys?"
"Half tempted to," Malakh clarified, stepping up to her usual spot on the wide mat that covered this part of the hold's floor, "In as controlled an environment as we can make it, just to get a better gauge on what the limits of the ship are. It's gotta be better than the original Thalatte design, but I can only speculate so much without proper test results."
Sitting hunched on the ground as she stretched out one of her legs, Pryseia frowned thoughtfully before saying, "Having a more thorough understanding of our vessels' capabilities would be to our benefit."
"But maybe we find some other way to do it," Elytra said as she switched between yoga positions, "Like maybe we have the Storlayacas take potshots at the ship instead of letting a Leviathan in striking distance?"
"There's also our newly acquired Hyttan flyer," V'tala pointed out, twisting her back out in a stretch, "That's armed, isn't it?"
"Surprisingly yes, given its size," Nevara told her, "Nowhere near as powerful as a Thalatte main gun, but rather the quicker Hyttan ones that are quite effective at bringing down shields."
Rhea rolled her shoulders as she started stretching out the muscles in her abdomen as she said, "I'm seconding Elytra's idea of us using what weapons we have on hand to test capabilities rather than trusting an outside source. Scientific method, babe, you don't want any unknowns poisoning the data."
Shooting Rhea a fond look of exasperation as she stretched out her arms, Malakh replied, "Given that this would be a combat test, and combat is basically nothing but unknowns, I'd have to disagree with you there, my love. But I do agree that shooting the ship ourselves would be the right way to go. Quicker, at least, because we won't need to go far to hunt down our own weapons."
The conversation tapered out after that as they all got into the more energy intensive parts of their daily exercises, weights and sparring and a jog throughout the hold. Though they were as motionless as always, the presence of the Storlayacas followed after them, oddly charmed at how the organics needed to maintain their strength and flexibility like this.
The first time they'd gone through their morning routine after the Storlayacas had awoken, the Hyttan machines had been more than a little confused as to what they'd all been doing. It took a bit for them to get across the notion that organic bodies were not like machines, that their muscles needed to be used all the time, or else they'd be lost, the Storlayacas flabbergasted by the concept initially. Now they watched them run through their exercises with the same sort of warm fondness of people watching cute animals at play.
As they wound down into their cool-down portion of their routine, V'tala turned a thoughtful look at the Storlayacas. "I've been meaning to ask, just why did you choose all of us to be your pilots?"
Like an unexpected bolt of summer lighting, confusion lanced out of the Storlayacas. Not a shock at the question itself, but rather shock that it had even been asked. Images flooded the minds of the organic members then - puzzle pieces slotted into place, a key fitting perfectly into a lock, the sword in its sheath, the fragile item cradled in the custom packaging that had been designed to hold it. A wave of inevitability rushing past them, as surely as the shore and the tide were bound together, so too were the Storlayacas and their pilots. Why choose them? There was no choice.
"Wait wait wait," Malakh said, pushing her damp mane out of her eyes, "What are you trying to tell us, that the Hyttan built you with us in mind?!"
A feeling like thunder rumbling in the distance. Frustration, but not at them. A language barrier none of them could cross causing vital nuance to be lost. Another image - nodes on a circuit board, each one necessary for the machine to work, each one soldered precisely and deliberately. Chess pieces, each of them with a specific role, each one placed on the board exactly where they belonged. The stained glass window that required each hand crafted fragment to complete the picture. A repetition of a theme - wholes greater than the sum of their parts, and each part created for the sake of the whole. They were their pilots because they had to be. There was no other option.
"Had no others piloted you before us?" Pryseia asked, confusion and awe in equal measure.
Offence like a lightning strike. Indignation. Pride. Who but them were worthy?
Sorrow followed after like rain. An ocean lay stretched out before them, but they could not see past the cresting waves to all that lay below, the light that would allow it hidden away by pitch black clouds. That sea held much, knew much, but those beneath the surface could not breathe the air, and those on shore would drown if they tried to seek out the mysteries that were hidden before them. An impasse, an injustice, and a longing for a conversation that they would never be able to have.
Elytra clapped a hand over her mouth as a sob broke out of her, her eyes overflowing with tears as the Storlayacas' grief draped around her like a heavy cloak. Pryseia and Rhea were at her side in an instant, reaching out for her, and she leaned against their touch.
"This whole situation is so unfair," she choked out, scrubbing at her face to try and stem her tears, "There's so much we have to share with one another, and because of some fucked up outside force, we can't. The Omega can fucking blow me."
Rhea's laugh was half shocked, half sob as her own turn of phrase fell out of Elytra's mouth, and beyond them a sense of melancholy amusement pattered from the Storlayacas like rain onto stone. They didn't know what exactly that turn of phrase meant, but they agreed with the sentiment behind it.
That, at least, hadn't been lost in translation.
Evening rolled around again with no signal from either Hyttan constructs, or any Leviathan that may have been unlucky enough to be in the area. Instead, they'd spent part of the day testing out the capacity for their new Hyttan shields, and the rest of it running through some flying lessons for both Elytra and V'tala.
The guns on their new flyer weren't exceptionally powerful, but like the ship they were built into, they were exceptionally fast. Their rapid fire onslaught proved to be ideal for chewing through shields, but even then, they struggled with the ones now outfitted on the Pelekys.
"Were this actually a combat scenario, and had I been dodging incoming fire rather than sitting here and taking it, the shields would have most assuredly lasted longer." Nevara had said from the pilot seat, her and Malakh hunched over a readout on her console.
"No doubt," Malakh had replied, highlighting a string of numbers that the others couldn't make heads or tails of, "Look at the refresh rate on these things! If our old shields had been fully knocked down like this, it would have taken nearly thirty seconds for them to recharge. These shields? They did it in under five!"
Over the comms, piloting the flyer as she'd been, Pryseia had let out a triumphant little laugh. "Something of the sort will undoubtedly contribute to our continued longevity. Have you any need for this vehicle for further tests, or shall I return it to the hold?"
"Bring it on in, I've got what I needed," Malakh had told her, "I'll crunch some numbers, do a little comparison, and I should be able to get an estimation of how much Leviathan damage these things will be able to stand up to."
The flying lesson had come about due to an offhand comment over lunch that sparked a discussion about the worst vehicles they'd all had to drive, and the revelation that Elytra hadn't flown anything that rose far enough off the ground to be considered more than hovering, and that V'tala had last flown military vehicles a thousand years ago. Nevara had hauled them off to the bridge after that, with the express purpose of getting them familiar enough with the controls of the Pelekys that they could fly it away in an emergency.
The Thalatte military's insistence that their every soldier would be in possession of a broad enough range of skills that should one fall, another could take their place, had ensured that Pryseia, Rhea, and Malakh all knew how to fly the ship already - none of them even close to Nevara's skill, but enough to make good on an escape. Thankfully, while they weren't intuitive as Hyttan controls seemed to be, the Thalatte control scheme aboard the Pelekys was close enough to ones Elytra and V'tala were more familiar with to flatten the learning curve somewhat. Elytra's years as a delivery driver, and her stint as a T0-K4Y pilot, had thankfully given her enough experience with handling a vehicle much bigger than her to be able to navigate the course Nevara had charted out for her after a few practice runs. V'tala, on the other hand, mastered it right away.
"That's a relief, knowing there's six other people who can take over flying duty before it gets to me," Elytra had patted the console where Viatrix had been cheering her on as she made her test run, "Can we add flying lessons to my morning routine?"
"Of course," Nevara had replied, "I would be more than happy to offer my tutelage."
They'd pushed into the edges of Lacertus space some time before dinner, and so once they'd finished, they'd retired to the rec room to watch a recent local release, an action comedy about a pair of border patrol agents who ended up thwarting a Thalatte invasion fleet through a series of slapstick events.
"This kind of thing pisses the Thalatte off so bad!" Rhea had cackled, "They hate it when other people don't take them as seriously as they expect to be taken. They'll call this thing a sign of Lacertus degeneracy, just you wait and see."
Viatrix had promptly gone looking for reviews of the movie left by Thalatte watchers, and sure enough, within the first few reviews they found that exact phrasing.
"The Thalatte are consistent, if nothing else." Malakh hadn't been able to help the laugh that cracked out of her at that.
And so now, after having bid the others goodnight, V'tala was left to her own devices, and so she'd sat herself down at her reading desk, ready to sort out the complicated tangle of her feelings.
Back on Osatiawjo, she'd purchased what she thought were a set of Fiskaz books. And they had been, technically, but instead of the novels she had assumed them to be, they'd ended up being a set of blank and ornate notebooks. She hadn't known what to do with them at first, relegating them to being nothing more than decorative items to go along with the other souvenirs she'd purchased over the course of their vacation, but she soon found herself using them as something of a meditation tool, pouring her thoughts out onto the page so she could view them from an outside perspective.
She'd written frequently during her time as a dregil, often working as a scribe for her dryhten's research notes, which the woman had insisted on being in a cipher she herself had developed, paranoid about having her research stolen. Apart from V'tala, there were none alive who knew that cipher, and so she'd fallen back on that for what was essentially her diary. It wasn't that she thought that the others would come snooping through her notes, most likely Viatrix the only one among them who would be able to crack the cipher itself, but it did feel reassuring that she had something that only she and she alone could read, especially since most of what she wrote down were her private thoughts.
During her training as a child, the axiom that had been drilled into her had been observe, then act. When not barking out directions, her instructors had chanted that mantra at the children they were supervising, to the point that even now, those words were what she heard with every beat of her heart.
Observe, then act. Observe, then act. Observe, then act.
And so over the course of the day, she had observed. She had observed every single member of the crew, and what her own reactions to them had been.
Viatrix was easiest, of course. Digital construct as she was, the Pelekys itself the body in which her consciousness resided, V'tala felt nothing even remotely close to sexual attraction to her. Emotionally, it was much the same. Viatrix's attitude, her mannerisms, they'd always given V'tala the impression that Viatrix was much younger than her, a teen while V'tala herself was fully an adult - after all her time in stasis, both the years she was a dregil, and the span in which history forgot about her, V'tala had no idea what her actual age was anymore. But regardless, the affection V'tala felt for Viatrix felt more like what she assumed an older child felt towards their younger sibling, and not romantic at all.
Nevara next, the woman tall and narrow, grey plates over teal skin, she was beautiful in a way that was so alien to V'tala. She was all straight lines and sharp angles, and it was never lust that filled V'tala when she looked at the other woman, but something closer to the awe of looking upon a work of art. She sometimes found herself watching the way the plates of Nevara's carapace moved against each other, some slotting beneath one another, while others drew a hairsbreadth close but never touched, the biological engineering of her species a marvel to behold. Even if the other woman hadn't plainly stated that she was uninterested in either sex or romance, V'tala didn't think she'd have found herself attracted to her in either regard. Like with Viatrix, the kinship she felt towards Nevara felt more familial, a kindred spirit who abhorred socializing as much as she did. It was honestly a relief to have Nevara around, for both their sakes she could only assume, as they'd fallen into a habit of keeping an eye out for each other as of late, and suggesting leaving a social engagement so that the other would have an excuse to do the same. V'tala didn't know how to articulate how much she appreciated that.
Elytra, like Nevara, had a beauty to her that V'tala could appreciate on an aesthetic level. The soft pink of her skin and the pale purple of her carapace gave a gentleness to her appearance that somehow masked the solidity of her build. The other woman wasn't short by any means, but she was the shortest among the crew, broader than Nevara in build, the plates of her carapace fewer and larger than the more numerous and fragmented look to Nevara's own. Open and easy with her affections as Elytra was, V'tala was familiar with the texture of Elytra's carapace, something on the edge of smooth but with a subtle, imperfect texture to it. It was different than the slick polish of Nevara's carapace, something closer to the way Hyttan material felt. Like Viatrix, Elytra felt younger to her. Not as distantly as the AI did, but enough that V'tala sometimes felt an upswell of protectiveness towards the other woman. She felt more like a sister than she did a romantic partner.
Malakh was closer to the beauty standards of what V'tala's own race had considered the norm, but at the same time it was completely alien. The other woman's body was covered in a coat of fur so short that V'tala sometimes forgot that she didn't have bare skin like herself, the oranges and creams of her markings a far cry from the green tint to V'tala's own people. The patterns of her fur disguised the lithe, agile musculature of the other woman, the definition of her muscles only pronounced when she was flexing them. Her short reddish mane was thick, soft, and enviably stylish. Malakh had a habit of running her hands through it while she was lost in thought, and every time she somehow seemed to pull it into an effortlessly cool style, despite the fact that her mind was as far away from her own appearance as possible. V'tala sometimes found it odd that nature had decided the perfect place for ears in Malakh's species was at the top of her head, rather than the sides, highly mobile things that would rotate to track whatever sound had caught her attention, but V'tala could admit that it gave her a striking profile. Malakh's tail, likewise, had been an oddity to witness at first, but with how emotive she was with it, V'tala simply couldn't imagine her without it. Lust wasn't something she felt for Malakh, but she could definitely see the sexual appeal of the other woman. As far as a romantic inclination, Malakh was so intertwined in Rhea that she couldn't imagine one without the other. And while it was somewhat common among other species, though rare amongst her own, V'tala didn't feel like she was cut out for a romantic relationship that involved more than one other person and herself, wouldn't even begin to know how to navigate the complex emotional weave of having to cater to more than one partner's needs. She didn't know if she had what it took to satisfy a single partner, if she were being completely honest with herself, and getting in the way of the bond that Malakh and Rhea had felt like sacrilege.
Rhea herself was objectively beautiful. Tall, powerfully built, the higher gravity of the world she'd been forged on imbuing her with a physical strength that none of them could ever hope to match. When explaining the aesthetic of the design theme the crew of the Gorgon employed, Rhea had shown her works of art that had come from her homeworld, her homeland, statues of deities from her people's antiquity among them. While the pale white of the marble they'd been carved from was closer to V'tala's own colouring, the powerful physique of the figures had seemed like a pale imitation of the form beneath the rich bronze of Rhea's skin. Gods though those statues may have been carved to represent, Rhea in all her living colour was the one who actually looked divine. Dark eyed and dark haired, the latter of which was long, thick, and wavy, V'tala could more than understand how Malakh could catch sight of Rhea and have that be enough to have her completely undone. If Rhea weren't as obsessed with Malakh as Malakh was with her, V'tala would have absolutely considered it. But as it stood, the two of them were so tightly intertwined that there was simply no room for anyone else between them. With Rhea's warm demeanour, V'tala would not have been able to fault herself if she developed a crush on the other woman. Rhea cared about those she was close to, deeply and profoundly, and she made sure that they knew it. That sort of attention was addictive, something she'd been completely deprived of for the majority of her life, a bone deep relief flooding through V'tala any time Rhea pulled her in for a hug. "Touch starved" was a term Elytra had mentioned to her one time, and V'tala could admit, after a lifetime of being denied it, the simple, casual intimacy the others shared with her sometimes made V'tala feel like she was going insane with her need for physical contact. And after a lifetime of living solely for the service of others, V'tala sometimes felt overwhelmed by the simple kindnesses that the others showed her.
Observe, then act. Observe, then act. Observe, then act. She was observing, all right. Writing down her thoughts about the others didn't have her pulse growing heavy enough to hear it. She hadn't yet put pen to page, and already V'tala felt herself having a physical reaction to just the anticipation of having a thought about the final member of their crew.
Pryseia. She was beautiful. Her skin the dark blue of a night sky, scattered with constellations of golden freckles. V'tala wanted to see more than just the glimpses she got when Pryseia wore shorter articles of clothing. She wanted to follow the tracery of scars across her, artifacts of a life lived in combat, wanted to see what shapes and patterns they formed against the other woman's skin. Not as lithe as Malakh, nor as defined as Rhea, V'tala wanted to know what Pryseia's muscles would feel like when they bunched and strained beneath her hands. She wanted to know what she tasted like, what she'd sound like with V'tala's hands in her hair, fisted in her golden curls enough to expose the elegant lines of her neck. V'tala wanted to know if the sharp, jutting horns that grew from Pryseia's forehead were sensitive to sensation, or as muted as the horns in V'tala's crest. Would grabbing them cause a reaction in the other woman? Could she use them to guide Pryseia to exactly where she wanted her? Likewise, was her tail sensitive as well? What would it feel like to have it moving against her?
Observe, then act. Observe, then act. Observe, then act. The lust V'tala felt for Pryseia was undeniable. It far outstripped anything she'd felt for any of the women she'd experimented with back on Trowsorab, even in the midst of the act itself. With them, it had almost felt like she'd needed to push her own arousal to match the fervor of that of her partners, but with Pryseia, just describing her had V'tala coiled tight in a way she was going to have to take care of before continuing, her thoughts too distracted for her to wrangle them into anything even close to rational.
Observe, then act. Observe, then act. Observe, then act. The acting didn't take very long at all, her nerves left syrupy in the wake of her release, her mind clear enough to focus on the matter at hand.
Did she love Pryseia? Yes. She loved her like she loved the rest of the crew. As a dregil, it had been instilled in her, since before the moment of her birth, that she was to be a protector, to stand between her dryhten and anything that would cause them harm. Held tight by the leash of her dlegh, she had been forced to be the living shield for her own dryhten, but her heart had never been in it. Her mind had barely been in it, instinct and obligation leaving her free to dissociate for years at a time. But with the crew of the Pelekys? She had never felt more present for anything in her entire life. For them she would be a willing protector, an eager shield, because she knew with absolute certainty that they felt the same for her. With that kind of reciprocity, how could she not love them?
Was she in love with Pryseia? That was the trickier question. She didn't exactly know what that kind of love was supposed to feel like. Rhea had told her of her own relationship with Malakh, how the sex was great, but knowing she was hers in all the quiet moments in between was what she truly valued. V'tala wasn't sure, in that regard at least, what the difference between friendship and romance truly was. She loved the casual intimacy the others shared with her - an arm looped through hers as they walked, leaning against one another while they watched something in the rec room, a hand at her back pulling her in for a hug - the only difference between the others and Pryseia initiating contact with her was that only Pryseia's touch would have her pulse turning into a wild thing beneath her ribs. Observe, then act. Observe, then act. Observe, then act. Was that all that romance was? Friendship coloured by lust? There had to be more to it than that, something she was missing.
Rhea and Malakh were really her only example of an actual couple, beyond the fantasies that media portrayed. They would openly flirt, made no effort to hide that they'd be tearing each other's clothes off the moment they got behind closed doors, but beyond that there was an undercurrent to their every interaction, like they were operating on a frequency that only they could hear. A look spoke volumes, a brief touch more profound than poetry, they were like celestial bodies that had been caught in each other's orbit, wholly independent from one another, but irrevocably tied.
And V'tala wanted that.
She wanted that with Pryseia.
Observe, then act. Observe, then act. Observe, then act.
How was she supposed to act on this!? Just walk up to Pryseia and tell her, "I want to kiss you. I want to fuck you. I want to hold you in my arms when you sleep. I want to protect you from the harm you insist on throwing yourself in front of. I want to watch stupid movies with you. I want to tear the heart out of me so that it can live in your chest next to yours." and hope for the best?! The thought of doing so felt as nerveracking as doing nothing. What if Pryseia didn't feel the same? What if she did? V'tala was fairly confident, given her performance back on Trowsorab, that she was an adequate lover, but she had no idea if she'd be an adequate partner. The logical thing to do would be to seek out romantic experiences elsewhere before she tried anything with Pryseia, but the thought of being romantically involved with anyone but Pryseia was so deeply unappealing that she killed that train of thought before it could get further down the track.
Observe, then act. Observe, then act. Observe, then act. She'd done enough observing, she needed to act, but she'd never been less confident about something in her entire life. There were so many variables that could go wrong - go right - that she found herself trapped in an uncharacteristic bout of indecision. She had to figure out some way to move forward with this, to broach the subject, to-
"Sorry if I'm catching anyone in the middle of anything, but you all need to come to the bridge," Viatrix's voice over the comms startled her from her spiralling thoughts, all of them shunted to the side as she snapped into focus at the AI's tone, "I'm picking up a signal for that Omega device."
V'tala flipped her notebook shut and headed for the door of her room. Her fumbling romantic thoughts would have to wait. This was a more pressing issue.