158: Timaeus and Critias – Five
It was chaos back aboard the Pelekys when everyone came to.
Elytra and V'tala were wrecked, their psychic systems so painfully fried that they'd been mindless with agony. Rhea had to strap them down and sedate them, then got them started on their psychic cleanses while they were still out of it.
Everyone else was struck with headaches, though thankfully nothing a few painkillers couldn't sort out in short order.
Emotionally, however, everyone was spent, and there weren't enough drugs on the ship to deal with that. A home cooked meal was their second best option, and so Rhea and Pryseia had got something going for everyone in no time at all.
Seated around the table in the mess hall with the rest of them, Akav, Spiracle, and T'haye looked as shellshocked as the crew of the Pelekys felt. While not direct participants like they'd been, the three pirate captains had witnessed the final moments of the Hyttan just the same.
"All this time, we've been sitting on a mass grave without realizing." T'haye whispered, eating mechanically as she stared into the middle distance, "No one's ever been able to find the Hyttan homeworld because it no longer exists."
Akav didn't need to stop eating to speak, their telepathic voice sounding oddly hollow as they said, "They blew up their suns to kill the Omega, but that wasn't enough to hold it at bay forever. Somehow this thing is going to return from Death itself, and we're to believe that this weapon they've built is going to be enough to stop it?"
"It will," Pryseia said, her conviction absolute, "Death is not the only means to halt something. The Omega is the sea, and Storlayacas is the breakwater it will dash itself against. We will not allow the wave of it to extend past this shore."
"I appreciate your resolve, but after seeing all this, I have to admit that my faith is shaken," T'haye said quietly, "Against something like that, what hope is there?"
Rhea's hum of laughter was humourless as she hastily swallowed. "You want hopeless? I spent nearly the entirety of the last century in Thalatte captivity, and let me tell you, hopeless doesn't even begin to describe it! I didn't think I'd ever get free, but I did, and I'm going to fight to maintain that freedom with everything that I have. I don't plan on dying any time soon, not to despots that think it's cool to bolt explosives to people's skulls, or to eldritch abominations that want to wipe out all life for some stupid fucking reason. I have a wife, I got my sisters back, I found a family here with this crew, and I have at least a hundred years of living to make up for what I lost in captivity. Nothing is going to stand in the way of me finally getting what I want out of life, so not to be a Debbie Downer, but if you can't muster the will to stand and fight, maybe you should risk deep space and get the fuck outta here."
Spiracle nearly choked on her mouthful due to the laugh that startled out of her. "Well if that isn't a ringing incitement against us. You've gotta understand, some of us have been here for a decade, and we've only been able to wring partial information out of this place. Our hope has grown fragile over the years."
"Then it's time for something more concrete," Malakh told her, "The Storlayacas, we promised you a meet and greet. What they show you can be something to bring back to the rest of your people."
Akav leaned back in their seat, frowning thoughtfully. "We need more than words, more than second hand information. Our people need to see this for themselves, and I think I have the means to make that possible."
Levelling them with a questioning look, Nevara asked, "And what would that be?"
"A Gemynd Recorder," Akav told them, holding up a hand to forestall any questions, "It's used to record telepathic projections. I doubt any of you have heard of it, as the device only works with a zymeth's psychic neurology. It can't get anything but static if a koleopteran or usgaisjan uses it, which is more than the nothing it gets when any of the non-psychic races gives it a go. Don't know if that's due to the fact that our psychic systems are so different, or if no zymeth tried to make it work for other races, which is where I'm placing my bet. Being the only psychic race in the galaxy was something that the Zymeth lorded over the others as a sign of their superiority, so you can imagine how rude of an awakening it was when not one, but two Lesser races emerged with their own psychic abilities."
Spiracle and T'haye smirked at that.
"But I'm getting away from myself. A Gemynd Recorder would be able to record my thoughts, my memories - audio, visual, the works - and these could then be played back for the rest of our forces. I can show them all what I saw when we rescued your crew mates, and I will be able to pass on everything that your… Storlayacas will show us. After how we were all called here, the others in our fleet deserve to know too." Akav finished with a decisive nod.
"I agree," Pryseia said, "There must have been some reason that you were all called to this place."
T'haye leaned far enough over to balance her chair on its back legs as she said, "So far, aside from the random bits of information we've been able to get out of the tear, the only thing we've done is keep the area clear of random explorers and weirdos who we think are part of some kind of death cult. A ship of them shows up every couple months, going off about how they're going to bring about The End or whatever."
"Are they a credible threat? Do they seek to unleash the Omega in some way?" Nevara asked, her mandibles flickering in worry.
Shrugging as she swallowed a sip of her tea, Spiracle told them, "We're treating them like a credible threat whether they actually are or not, because they do seem to want to assist the Omega in its escape. From those we've captured and interrogated over the years, their stories are remarkably similar to ours. Through occult means, they were given glimpses of the future, of the reemergence of a dark force in our galaxy. Only rather than heeding these visions as a warning to stop something horrific from happening to all life, they took it as a summons to usher in the end times as swiftly as they could. They always have strange devices on their ships, things that looked like they were hobbled together out of nightmares, and though we've never been able to figure out just what, exactly, these devices are actually built to do, we're not going to allow these cultists the chance to get close enough to try and use them. That's not any kind of risk we're willing to take."
"That certainly sounds like a worthy enough task to be summoned here for," Malakh pointed out, "Maybe the reason you weren't able to get any info on where the Storlayacas were was because the force that summoned you here didn't want you running off to leave this place undefended?"
"That's certainly an option." T'haye conceded, "Would have been nice if they'd just outright stated that from the get go."
Shaking her head, eyes distant in recollection, Rhea added, "The force that summoned you, it was the Hyttan, or some aspect of them. We encountered it ourselves, pulled into some kind of metaphysical liminal space when we had a close call with death one time. That's where we first learned that the reason no one in the modern day can understand any Hyttan language is because the Omega did something to make that impossible. It took something from us, from the galaxy as a whole, and so to pass on their message in this space they pulled us to, they brought ghosts from our pasts to act as translators. The one they summoned for me was an old teacher of mine, and she basically called this godlike entity a busybody micromanager, bossing around people that didn't need bossing. I think that's why it kept anything but pertinent information from you."
T'haye made a disbelieving noise as she dropped her chair back onto all four legs. "Typical manager bullshit. This is why I quit my corporate job and went space pirate."
That got a startled laugh out of everyone.
"Well, if its micromanagement to blame for our dearth of information, we'll just have to get it through other sources." Akav said as they powered through the last few bites of their meal, "I do believe we have a Gemynd Recorder somewhere in storage aboard my ship, but if not, it won't take long to fabricate one. My thanks for the meal, it was truly a delight."
"Thank my herb garden," Rhea said with a wink, "Fresh herbs make all the difference."
After checking on Elytra and V'tala (still asleep, still recovering), and then on Viatrix (download nearly halfway complete, a far cry from how long the last one took), the rest of the crew made their way to the cargo hold, their hearts heavy over the conversation they knew they were going to have to stumble their way through.
Spiracle and T'haye had joined Akav on their ship to help either find or make a Gemynd Recorder, though Pryseia had the sneaking suspicion that they'd left more to give the four of them privacy than to be of help to Akav.
Dematting into the cargo hold was like being struck by a wave of dread. Though they hadn't moved, the four of them could sense the wary attention of the Storlayacas settle heavily upon them, a far cry from the open welcome that usually awaited them.
"Elytra and V'tala are safe, just resting at the moment," Rhea opened, "They were pretty psychically mangled, but they'll be able to fully recuperate from this."
Some of the tension bled away from the Storlayacas, twin waves of relief crashing off of Lianshae and Enaruli. It was a muted cheer, however, choked by heavy clouds of grief.
"The pirates we found guarding this place were of the utmost help in bringing our wayward pair back to us," Pryseia said as she and the others climbed up the access walkway to the Storlayacas, "We humbly request that you share with them the same information about the Omega as was shared with us."
The resolute agreement to do so surged up around them like high tide, but when it pulled back, only melancholy was left in its wake.
Stepping up to place a hand against Castore's closed cockpit, Malakh quietly asked, "Your connection to all of us, it lets you see what we see, doesn't it? You know what we saw when we pulled back Elytra and V'tala."
A crushing weight of sorrow struck them like an avalanche. Denial mixed with mourning, the ache of abandonment hollowing them out in real time, filling in with a despair that had the four organics in tears. The Storlayacas knew what this place was the moment they came into scanning range, but they didn't want to acknowledge it. To do so would be to admit that the people who created them were well and truly gone, and that the six of them were completely and totally alone.
Blinded by tears, it took a moment of fumbling for Pryseia to find the emergency release on Zaanlaa's cockpit, throwing herself into the pilot seat before the hatch had a chance to properly swing wide.
"You aren't alone. You aren't. Not in this life, and not in this grief. A scale much smaller, I know, but we do have some inkling of what misery currently grips your souls," she gasped, the image of the ghosts of her mothers wishing her a tearful goodbye at the forefront of her mind, "You were built for us, and we were born for you, so as long as we draw breath you will never be alone. Meat or metal, our hearts are the same, and that makes us kin."
Having followed Pryseia's lead, Rhea's voice was muffled as she spoke from within Yarula's cockpit as she said, "So in that case, you're even less alone, because that makes my sisters your sisters too. You belong with us, here in the present, along with all the other trillions of lifeforms in the galaxy, organic or otherwise."
"The people that created you sacrificed themselves so that the rest of the galaxy could live," Nevara said from within Malra, "So that you could live. As long as you are here to remember them, their memory lives on in you."
Malakh's words were thick with tears from within Castore as she said, "This type of loss, it's never going to stop hurting, you just get better at living with the hole it left you. A century since I watched the people I grew up with die, and I still wake up crying about it sometimes. But having people who love you around does help to smooth out the pain, and like Pryseia said, you have us, so you can call on us whenever you want."
Like wan sunlight trying to force its way through heavy storm clouds, weak as the first hint of dawn blooming below the horizon, a question washed to shore in the form of two images - Rhea and Malakh retiring to one room, V'tala and Pryseia to another, the carnal intent of both pairs readily apparent. This was followed by a wry splash that could only be interpreted as a cheeky, "Whenever? Are you sure about that?"
"You could have just as easily shown us taking a shit or sleeping or something, you brats!" Rhea's laugh was choked off by a sob, "But biological functions aside, we're here for you, alright? Even if we can't have a proper conversation about it, we can still share this grief with you. Many hands make lesser burdens, or however the fuck that saying goes."
Gratitude swirled around them like a cool breeze, but it was thick with the petrichor of bereavement. The Storlayacas had lost their creators before they ever got the chance to know them, orphaned before they were even born. They might not be as alone as they feared, but they were still deprived of the connection to their people, just the ruins and relics of them scattered across the galaxy left behind, the cradle of their civilization atomized into a grave.
The Storlayacas themselves couldn't cry, but as the downpour of their mourning finally began in earnest, their organic halves, both within their cockpits or unconscious in the medbay, freely shed the tears that they couldn't.
None of them moved until they were hailed by Akav and the others, several hours later.
The Gemynd Recorder was not what anyone beyond Akav expected. Looking for all the world like an overlarge prop helmet from some pre-space flight science fiction piece of media, Akav had to use both arms to hold it as they, Spiracle, and T'haye followed Pryseia to the cargo hold. Rhea had gone off to check on her patient's progress, while Malakh had sequestered herself away with Viatrix' main console in engineering, and Nevara headed to the bridge to monitor what she could with what systems were available to her.
If the pirates thought this behaviour was odd, or if they noticed the raw edge to Pryseia's voice, the black sclera of her remaining eye bloodshot a faint purple, they didn't mention it.
"They showed us how this thing actually works, stupid as it looks and all," T'haye told her with all the forced cheer of someone trying to distract the room out of a dark mood, "Got a recording of what we saw in that psychic space when we got your girls back."
"I can have a copy forwarded to your ship. No doubt you'll need something to upload out of this whole ordeal." Akav said with a nod, familiar enough with how the Kith of the Void worked thanks to their own experience with the organization.
Pryseia nodded in return, her slight smile genuine even if her voice was slightly strained as she replied, "I appreciate the foresight. Given that our ship's AI may be out of commission for an unknown amount of time yet still, having something to work on while she's convalescing would be a boon."
Spiracle's laugh was on the edge of disbelief as she said, "It's almost impossible to imagine that the Hyttan were somehow able to upgrade her through time. Not just her, but your entire ship! And to do it again? Makes me curious what the micromanagers are micromanaging."
"We'll know once she's back online. Now," the transition from the ship to the cargo hold took only an instant, and Pryseia swept out a hand as she introduced, "These are the Storlayacas, the ones who we shall fight alongside to remove the threat of the Omega from our galaxy."
The pirate captains were left stunned at the sight of the six gargantuan mechs, the very presence of them filling up the space in the cargo hold.
"Captains Akav, Spiracle, and T'haye, members of the fleet that has been defending this place from malefactors for the past decade." Pryseia told the Storlayacas. The sensation of a respectful greeting fell against the three pirates like a heavy snowfall, bright with the gratitude due to those who had been unknowingly tending a gravesite so unerringly. Only Pryseia could tell that it lacked the Storlayacas' usual bemusement at meeting newcomers, their own grief still hanging like sea fog.
"The pleasure's ours." Spiracle was breathless as she took in the ancient mechs, "Least we could do to keep a bad situation from getting worse."
Grim acknowledgement of the inevitability of the Omega rolled like thunder off the Storlayacas, and only Pryseia didn't flinch at the peal of it.
Swallowing heavily as the sensation crested over them, Akav said, "If its alright with you, I'd like to record this so that the rest of the fleet can know what they're truly fighting against."
An upswell of determined agreement. The bigger picture was more than due to those who had fought for so long, as far as the Storlayacas were concerned.
Pulling on the absurdity that was the Gemynd Recorder, Akav looked up at the Storlayacas and said, "Ready when you are."
And so the Storlayacas shared all that they knew.
It was hours later, well into the dead of night that Elytra and V'tala finally awoke.
"Easy now," Rhea's voice was hushed, scraped raw as she helped Elytra sit up, "You're probably gonna feel rough for a couple days while your psychic neurology has a chance to physically heal. Any significant pain?"
Elytra took a shuddering breath, her heart hammering against her ribs as she choked out, "None that drugs can do anything about."
Rhea had her tucked into a tight hug a moment later, and Elytra could do nothing to stop the heaving sobs that escaped her. She could feel the Storlayacas' grief as keenly as she could her own, even with the divide of subspace between them. It was echoing through the rest of the crew, all of the organic members of it gathered together in the medbay.
It took a few minutes for Elytra to cry enough of their sorrows out of her to be coherent, eventually pulling enough away from Rhea to take in the others.
Malakh was leaning against her bed, looking as exhausted as Elytra felt, though when she caught her eye, she gave her a slight smile, her tail looping around Elytra's waist in a comforting hold. Across from her, V'tala was sitting on the edge of her own bed, Pryseia next to her, pressed into her side and holding a bowl that V'tala was halfhearted scooping spoonfuls from, the pale woman's form visibly trembling. She was eating without tasting, her stare dark and distant until she met Elytra's gaze. Though her expression didn't change, a pitch perfect echo of Elytra's own aching sadness howled out of V'tala. Her own arm looped around V'tala's waist, Pryseia sent Elytra a sad smile, her sorrow just as cavernous.
Rhea kept an arm around Elytra as she moved to the side of her opposite Malakh, Nevara stepping up with a bowl and spoon, saying, "Not as flavourful as you'd prefer, but bland enough to keep down until you get some proper rest."
Elytra reached up to take the offered food, but found that she wad shaking just as bad as V'tala was. Malakh had scooped the bowl up before Elytra could reach it, so she took the spoon instead, Malakh leaning against her so Elytra could eat.
She did so in silence, the scrape of utensils against dining ware the only sound above the ambient hum of medical equipment and ship's systems. Nevara had drifted over to V'tala's other side, and V'tala had reached for her hand the moment the other woman was in range.
She and Elytra powered their way through the provided sustenance, and the moment they were done, Elytra said, "I want to see them."
"Told you." Malakh scoffed, though she sounded more on the verge of tears than triumphant.
Rhea's answering huff was as much a laugh as a sob, and she shoved away from where she'd been leaning against Elytra's bed, reaching out for the empty bowls as she said, "As if we all didn't have the same thing in mind."
They were in the cargo hold in minutes, stopping just long enough to put the dishes in the dishwasher, and the desperate greeting that rang out from the Storlayacas had Elytra tearing up bad enough that Malakh had to guide her up the walkway, her tail still looped around her waist.
Lianshae's cockpit was open and waiting for her, and Elytra threw herself into the pilot seat, Lianshae's presence closing around her as tightly as the restraints usually did. Elytra welcomed it, curling up sideways in her seat, her forehead pressing up against her knees as she let their joint grief wash through her, the others in their mechs just as she was, none of them noticing as they all cried themselves to sleep.