155: Timaeus and Critias – Two
Falling out of subspace, stealth fully engaged and the combat dome of the Pelekys up and running, the crew were greeted by absolutely nothing.
"These are the coordinates, right?" Rhea breathed, taking in the view around them.
It wasn't much.
Far enough from any star that they weren't getting any light pollution to obscure their view, they were flanked by the hazy band of the rest of their galaxy behind them, and the distant scatter of galactic clusters far in the distance before them. But around them? Nothing.
"We're smack dab in the middle of where we're supposed to be," Viatrix confirmed, her own voice coming out hushed, "Do you want me to start scans?"
"Low level ones at first, please," Pryseia replied, rigid with unease in her seat, "I worry that if we try higher power ones, we could potentially reveal our presence to any unseen foe, much like what happened with Slake and her pirates."
The crew waited with baited breath as Viatrix ran through her scans, her results appearing on screen with every new pass.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
"This… cannot be natural." Malakh said, going over the details of each scan at the console of the gunner station she was sat at. After quickly typing something up, she projected a map on their main view screen - it showed them in the middle of an almost perfectly circular empty hole in the galaxy, nothing but the equivalent of dust scattered through the space, blown in by distant solar winds.
Standing from her seat, Pryseia asked, "How large is this… void?"
"Roughly five lightyears," Malakh told her, "And void is right. Something's gotta be maintaining this, it's way too clean."
"And there's something wrong about this place," Elytra whispered, looking wan as she stared out at the void, "You can feel it, can't you?"
"Yeah," V'tala bit out, an uncharacteristic tremble coursing through her, "Something's missing, but something else is here."
Rhea gave her a sharp look, her Longan out of her pocket and on her face and scanning in an instant, her gaze darting between Elytra and V'tala.
"Both of your psychic systems are lighting up similar to how the Leviathan affected you before we got the dampener sorted with Storlayacas," she said after a moment, "Maybe you're picking up on an echo of the Omega?"
Elytra let out a humourless laugh at that theory. "If this is just the echo of it, I'm really not looking forward to facing the real deal!"
It didn't take much longer after that for Viatrix to finish her preliminary scans, confirming the results that they were in the middle of a void in a very real sense.
"I even ran our scanner for Hyttan tech, and there's nothing in range. Maybe if we skate along the edge of this anomaly we'll be able to pick up anything if it's closer, but I'm not detecting anything from this central point." She summarized.
"We should perform our due diligence and expand to more invasive scans," Pryseia said before turning to Nevara, "I trust you will stay vigilant for any sign of danger?"
Nevara's mandibles flickered in the barest of grins as she replied, "Of course."
Giving her a nod and a small smile in return, Pryseia turned to V'tala and Elytra and asked, "And are the both of you alright? The oddities of this place are affecting you harder than the rest."
Elytra let out a breath, her hands clenched in her lap as she said, "It's nothing I can't push through, but I wouldn't say no to a psychic cleanse once we're done with this place."
"Agreed," V'tala said, visibly shaking, "For now I'd rather satisfy my curiosity than my comfort."
"I'll get that set up for the both of you." Rhea said, turning to leave, "Let me know if you discover anything juicy."
Glancing at Elytra and V'tala, Pryseia said, "If it does become too much for either of you to bear, please retire to your Storlayacas. Their dampening fields should be more than adequate to protect you from this discomfort."
"You got it, but for now I'd rather stick around in case I'm needed." Elytra said with a smile that was more of a grimace, tapping where the gunner controls would emerge should combat mode be fully engaged.
Pryseia shot V'tala a questioning look as she sat back down, and V'tala just nodded in return, reaching out to hold her hand. Pryseia took it, and then tugged her closer, insistently, until V'tala had no choice but to collapse into the other woman's lap.
"You needn't stand the entire time." Pryseia said quietly, lifting their joined hands between them so she could place a kiss against V'tala's knuckles.
"I suppose not." V'tala replied, her voice pitching low. She settled back more fully against Pryseia, her eyes on the readings on the main view screen as Viatrix ran through her scans, while she focused on the feel of Pryseia's mechanical arm stroking up and down her back. Anything other than the gnawing sensation lurking at the back of her mind.
It was nearly an hour before Viatrix finished her scans, the readings on these deeper ones shedding little light on their situation.
"There's nothing here, and I think that's on purpose," she said, sounding on edge, "There's a trace of something sort of similar to a tear in subspace that's just closed, but the energy from that usually dissipates in a couple minutes. Whatever left this tear, it doesn't lead to subspace, and the force used to create it was powerful enough that the scar of it might never heal, especially if this is where the Omega is going to reemerge. I can't imagine what could have been powerful enough to leave a wound lightyears across!"
"And there is nothing else hidden in the area, like how we found Slake and her lot?" Malakh asked, although she already knew the answer.
Viatrix spun her avatar slowly across the combat dome of the bridge as she said, "Nope, we're alone as far as my scanner range can see, and that range is pretty substantial after all my upgrades. It's like this scar or whatever it is has kept out everything, for who knows how long."
"Not everything," Elytra said, still looking uneasy, "There's some kind of psychic energy here, and it's…"
"It's bad." V'tala supplied, still sat in Pryseia's lap, her own unease still very much apparent.
Looking over towards where Viatrix's avatar was drifting, Elytra said, "I wanna try something. Do you think you'd be able to get readings if I use the empathic booster?"
"Oh!" Viatrix spun im place, "Yeah, if you activate it, I should be able to get a read on what it picks up. I completely forgot about that! I don't have the psychic mojo to activate it."
"Then I can very much do that for you." Elytra said as she opened up the panel at her console with the psychic interface, "You ready for a reading?"
"You bet." Viatrix told her as she swung her avatar over to Elytra's side of the dome.
"Please be careful," Pryseia told her, "If it is too overwhelming, do not hesitate to drop the connection."
"I will, don't worry." Elytra said, giving her a nod before turning to face her console. Taking a grounding breath, she placed her hand on the interface, her eyes slipping closed in concentration.
And then she seized.
"Elytra!" Nevara called, rising out of her seat, but the other woman didn't respond, eyes closed and jaw clenched like she was in pain, her entire body shaking with how she'd tensed every muscle in her body.
V'tala and Pryseia sprang up at the same time, both reaching for her, but V'tala got there first. And the instant her hand closed around Elytra's wrist, she completely locked up too.
"Rhea, medical emergency in the bridge!" Malakh shouted over the comms, lunging forward like she was going to try to pry them both away from the psychic interface, but stopping shy of touching them.
"Vi, what are you getting?!" Pryseia demanded, "Can you disconnect them from your end!?"
"I… see…" Viatrix's voice was distant, garbled, "I can see."
An instant later, half the systems on the Pelekys shut down, Viatrix's avatar vanishing as the combat dome went offline too.
Rhea tore into the bridge a moment later, Longan on and scanning before she even crossed the threshold. She was at Elytra and V'tala's side an instant later, her hand reaching out for the both of them, the others screaming at her not to touch them, but she didn't stop. She grabbed Elytra's hand, wrenching it off the interface, and as soon as she did, both women collapsed like marionettes with their strings cut.
Pryseia lunged for V'tala, catching her before she collapsed, while Rhea scooped Elytra up into her arms, saying, "Medbay. Now."
Rising with the unconscious V'tala in her arms, Pryseia called out for Viatrix, but there was no response. Turing to Malakh, she said, "See what you can do for her," and to Nevara she asked, "Get us out of here if you can."
The two of them nodded and rushed to comply, Pryseia booking it out of the bridge after Rhea.
Rushing into the medbay a few seconds after the other woman, Pryseia had V'tala on a bed next to Elytra shortly thereafter, following Rhea's instructions as they brought up each bed's shrouds over them.
"Bridge to medbay," Nevara's voice came over the comms soon after that, "We're becalmed. Systems are shut down like when Vi was upgraded."
"I've got them." Rhea promised, and Pryseia paused just long enough to squeeze her hand in wordless thanks before she tore off back to the bridge.
"Status report." She barked the second the doors opened for her.
"We've got life support and internal power, maneuvering thrusters but no other movement capabilities. Stealth has dropped, and we've got no shields or weapons. External comms are down, but we've still got the QECD, we'll just need to operate it from the console in the engine room. Basic scanning capabilities, and thankfully no Leviathan anywhere close. Our link to the cargo hold is still traversable." Nevara told her.
"Fuck," Pryseia spat before she called out, "Malakh, have you information on your end?"
"Vi's out and downloading something again," was Malakh's terse reply a few seconds later, "It seems to be coming in quicker than the last one, but I don't know if its due to a smaller file size, or if its because her last upgrades gave her more bandwidth. I'm trying to see if I can get a workaround to bring up some of our systems, but don't put your coins down on them just yet."
"Do what you can." Pryseia told her.
Turning in her seat, mandibles worrying together, Nevara said, "My hope is that this sector of space is unappealing to Leviathan, that the scar of whatever happened here will keep anything else at bay until our systems are back or help makes its way to us."
"A hope I share as well." Pryseia said, swallowing thickly as she stepped up close enough to grip Nevara by the shoulder. As Nevara reached up to squeeze her hand back, Pryseia called out, "Rhea, how are they?"
"Stable. Comatose." Was the response, "Brainwaves are showing that they're dreaming, but their psychic readings are going haywire. I don't know that I can get them out of this state without causing them serious damage."
"Then we won't risk it," Pryseia replied, a muscle in her jaw twitching with how tightly she clenched it, "Monitor them for now, and fortune favour us they can snap out of it on their own."
Rhea confirmed that and then the line went dead. Nevara let out a humourless laugh, saying, "Not what I expected to come of this trip."
"Of that we are of one mind." Pryseia agreed, voice thick with worry. The pair of them turned to the empty view screen, nothing but the void around them still on display.
Viatrix remained completely offline, Malakh unable to find workarounds for the systems she'd taken down with her. Elytra and V'tala were both unresponsive, somewhere beyond dreaming, sustained intravenously for the time being. The others, meanwhile, had a tense meal on the bridge, on guard for anything that should cross their path in their current state, memories of the seemingly endless days of Viatrix's last upgrade at the forefront of their minds.
"I'm going to check on the Storlayacas after this," Malakh said, staring blankly out at nothing as she mechanically made her way through her meal, her mind working through problems more than it was present in the moment, "See if they're caught up in all this, or if they've got some kind of insight into what's happened to the others."
"Go with her," Nevara said, shooting Pryseia and Rhea a pointed look, "I can monitor our surroundings, but if trouble arises, you should be near the Storlayacas in the event we'll need their protection."
No one had any arguments against that.
So it was that the three of them entered the cargo hold not long after, the Storlayacas immediately giving off a pulse of worry when they caught onto the moods of the organics before them.
"We have come to the place where the scanner for the Omega had indicated as its reentry point to this reality," Pryseia informed them, "Our scans showed nothing beyond a wound similar and yet different from the sort that is left behind by a tear into subspace, several lightyears wide, while with their psychic senses, both Elytra and V'tala felt that something was amiss. When she attempted to get an empathic scan of the area, Elytra was overcome by something, and in trying to aide her, V'tala too was fell victim to it as well, and this, in turn, has affected Viatrix. As we speak, both Elytra and V'tala are unconscious in some state akin to dreaming, their psychic systems run amok, while Viatrix is offline and in the process of receiving another download from presumable the same place as her last one came from, similar enough as it seems."
A sharp peal of panic from Lianshae and Enaruli, a lower rumble of confusion from the rest. Waters uncharted, the sea before them nothing but frothing, featureless waves indiscernible from the clouds above it, a storm of uncertainty that none of them knew how to navigate.
"You've got no idea what's going on either?" Rhea's voice carried an undercurrent of panic to it that she was doing her best to quell, but she couldn't mask all of it.
An image was brought to all their minds then - a sheet of velum, on it a map half drawn. A hand stood poised to continue, a feather quill inked and at the ready, but it hesitated. The image shifted, as though the person whose eyes they were looking through lifted their head up to stare out the window of the cabin of the ship they were in. Beyond the cabin, it was dark, only the vague shapes of dark clouds edged in weak moonlight, and the brief white flashes of waves cresting. No stars, no landmarks, no way to tell where they were beyond the knowledge that the waters they were anchored in were uncharted. They would have to wait for the storm to break or dawn to arise before they could get their bearings, everything around them a complete unknown.
"Yeah, that certainly feels apt," Malakh said, shaking her head and blinking as the image receded, "The place we found ourselves, it's on the edge of the galaxy, and this scar on it seems to be a repellent of some sort. All the shifting of the galaxy over the eons, and nothing has come in to fill this hole. Do you have any idea why, or how that's possible?"
A deep, gnawing dread rolled off the Storlayacas then. Horror. Denial. Another image, this time of a morgue cast in shadow, the only source of light a single, flickering bulb over one of the slabs. Cast in this spotlight was a sheet-draped body, and the sight of it had grief roiling within them, because they knew, with absolute certainty, exactly whose dead body lay covered before them. But in this temporary limbo where it remained shrouded, they could live in the delusion that it was someone else under there, and the desperate plea to keep the corpse shrouded at least a little longer rang out like a bell.
Pryseia pitched forward, tears streaming down her face as she clamped a hand over her mouth, the grief that churned through her the same as when she'd discovered that her mothers were dead. She heard muffled sobs behind her, Rhea and Malakh likewise affected by the strength of what the Storlayacas conveyed to them.
The Storlayacas seemed so small, then. Not diminished, but painfully young somehow. Children who didn't know how to cope with the loss of a loved one.
Swiping her sleeve across her face, wrestling back the fresh wave of mourning that rolled through her, Pryseia opened her mouth to speak, but then Nevara's voice rang out over the comms.
"I have ships incoming, three of them. No identification is being broadcast, but they're coming in slow, weapons and shields offline, and they're hailing us."
Desperation surged up like a tide from the Storlayacas, all of them pleading to see where this interruption might lead them, and the further away from the metaphor of the morgue, the better.
"Alright, we'll greet our guests," Pryseia told them, "But you know as well as I do that we must face whatever it is that is here."
Again, the childlike denial of a difficult truth bubbled up from the Storlayacas then, and Pryseia was suddenly struck by the realization that, for all intents and purposes, the Storlayacas were younger than Viatrix. Created by the Hyttan though they may have been, they'd spent countless eons offline, tucked away in storage, some found by those who were never meant for them, while others yet waited to be discovered. It was only recently, with the last upgrade that Viatrix and the Pelekys had received, that they'd all awoken, brought into a world where their creators were nothing but a distant, hazy memory. The Storlayacas were young, and they were so profoundly alone.
Pryseia was helpless against the fresh wave of grief that brought tears to her eyes, the Storlayacas as thoroughly orphaned as the rest of them were. "We'll get through this," she promised them as she and the others turned to leave, "You aren't alone."
Gratitude. Sadness. Different though all of them may have been, the recognition that they were kin all the same. The echo of that sentiment followed the three organics as they rushed for the demat zones, gilding the worry about their new arrivals with a protective determination.