She Who Woke Among Eternity

“Nothing beats the feeling of the wind across my hull,” Avalyn said as the four soared across the skies of Bryst in Stargazer.

“You can feel that?” Scevi asked.

Avalyn spun around in her captain’s chair. “Not at all. I can’t feel shit. Well, I can feel pain when I get damaged, and commandeering your tech and magic feels cold. Mama feels warm, though.”

“What the drak was that?” Hugh asked.

“Melcarna, Ancients’ language.” She stretched her arms and legs in the chair, even if she couldn’t feel it. It just felt like the appropriate thing to do while sitting in a captain’s chair while turned away from where they were flying. “But yeah, can’t really feel anything nice, but a girl can dream, can’t she?”

“Do you have a sex drive?”

“Scevi, why the drak would you ask that?!” Gramps yelled as his face turned red. “She’s not even a hept old!”

“What? She might be young, but she’s born an adult. I’m just curious about how someone could get off without feeling.”

“I can’t,” Avalyn answered plainly. “I also don’t really have much of a sex drive, thankfully.” Though her voice sounded positive, inside she didn’t feel that way. Yes, it was extremely helpful not to have desires running through her body whilst in a body that couldn’t feel anything, but she still wanted the ability to have sex. Even just the ability to masturbate would probably help her relax and maybe even ground her a little in this new life and body. “I also don’t experience physical attraction, which is a huge blessing, but also maybe a little bit of a curse. I can understand sex and attraction run the galaxy, but I can’t really participate in it. I do experience romantic attraction, though. Fucking love a good romance.” She sighed, “though I have a feeling that’s going to be pretty hard to find given my current circumstances.”

“There are plenty of people who are into an automaton body like yours,” Scevi said with a small smirk. “Even more that would cum at the sight of a Stargazer.” Surprisingly, that made Hugh chuckle.

“Scevi, please, that’s my granddaughter you’re talking about!” Gramps’s face was so unbelievably red.

Shrugging, Scevi said, “I’m just being honest.”

“I’d prefer someone to want me for my personality over my sexy hull.” Avalyn could see a smile cross Hugh’s muzzle. That was something she was going to take note of. “If they can get past the hard exterior to the soft little me inside, I hope the whole I’m a living ancients things doesn’t scare them off.”

“Probably will scare off most people,” Hugh said, but not in a mean way as he normally would. It sounded as if he was just being honest about the difficulties she would face.

Scevi said, “I don’t know. I know some history buffs who would kill for the chance to get inside of a living ancients like you.” That got a good chuckle out of Hugh, and Gramps just curled up a little as his blush started extending to his ears.

“Probably not the sanest of people though,” Hugh commented.

“The sane ones are never fun in bed,” Avalyn said. To her surprise, that actually made Hugh chuckle. Were perverted jokes a way of winning over the big bad wolf?

“C-can we please talk about something else?” Gramps asked with a sigh. “Like, where are you taking us instead of just giving some random coordinates to Avalyn to fly to.”

Scevi sighed. “Fine. There’s an old catalyst power plant testing site. It’s kind of a secret, but files on it aren’t really hidden behind anything. It was built far away from any existing settlement for safety. Hasn’t been in operation for at least a hundred vol.”

“And how do you know about this?” Gramps asked.

“I had a thing with a guy who ran security for it. Hopefully, he’s still there.”

“Is it going to be a problem if he isn’t?” Avalyn asked.

“Well… maybe, but, hey, you’re a stealth ship, aren’t you?”

“Oh, drak me, Scevi!” Gramps said. “I told you last time not to drag me into another sneaking into a place you shouldn’t be.”

Scevi smirked at him and winked. “But we had a pretty fun time last time. You weren’t complaining until we were long gone from there.” Avalyn had thought the conversation earlier turned Gramps’s face the reddest she had seen it, but now he looked like a tomato. “Gods, you look so cute when you’re embarrassed.” Gramps sputtered a few syllables before his gaze went down to his shoes.

Well, this was an interesting development. Did Gramps have a crush, or did anything sex-related really get to him? As much as Avalyn wanted to learn more about this interesting line of thought, a blip showed up on her sensors. “Look’s like we’re approaching the place,” Avalyn said, spinning back around in her chair. “Want me to hail them?”

Scevi got up from her chair and walked over to Avalyn. “Yeah, let’s at least see if Bren is there.”

“What’s the name of this place?”

“Hestion Catalyst Center.”

With the flip of a switch, Avalyn opened a hail. “This is Stargazer to Hestion Center. We are on approach from north by north-west, please respond.”

After a few tense moments of silence, a voice came over the com. “Stargazer, this is Hestion, I’m not picking you up on our sensors. Please repeat the location and approach vector.”

“Bren?” Scevi asked.

There was another moment of silence. “Scevi? Is that you?”

“Been a while, Bren. I hope you’re not too busy all the way out here.”

“Busy would be a relief from the lack of anything going on here. We had a cref tunnel under the fence to get to some of the kapes that stoop inside, and that’s the most excitement we’ve had in weeks.”

“Well then, I hope we wouldn’t be too imposing in wanting to look around.”

The man on the other end of the line sighed. “You’re not going to cause trouble, are you?”

“Only the fun kind,” Scevi said. “But not really, we just want access to a reactor output line and somewhere to look at a reading from it.”

“I’m not letting you test out some catalyst here, Scevi. Couldn’t you get that junker you always talk about to lend you a reactor?”

“Not a junker,” Gramps mumbled from the back.

“We need something a little bigger than what commercial ships have. Don’t worry, we won’t even touch a catalyst or reactor. We just want to plug something into an output cable to get a reading, then we’ll leave.”

There was a long pause. “You’re not testing something dangerous or illegal, are you?”

“Nope,” Scevi said with full confidence. “Honestly,” her voice got a little quieter. “I’m helping that cute junker’s granddaughter with some of her antique ship’s equipment.”

Another pause. “Is he there on the ship listening to you call him cute?”

Scevi laughed and took a glance over at Gramps’s red face. “He’s so red. Are you going to let us in or not?”

Bren sighed. “Yeah, as long as you don’t break anything.”

“Thank you, Bren.” The com ended, and Scevi turned back to the group with a smile. “See, no need to sneak in anywhere.”

~~~

“Fuck me, that’s a big-ass cable,” Avalyn said, standing next to one of the main output lines from the giant catalyst reactor in the facility.

“This is the kind of facility size that powers cities and stations,” Gramps said.

“Well, not exactly,” Bren added. “Those facilities are much larger because they have to manage output to places; here, we don’t send the power anywhere.”

“Then what happens to the energy created? Are you just letting it dissipate?” Avalyn asked. That felt like a waste to have such a large power output and have nowhere to send the energy.

“About half goes into a small refinery on site, and the other half is let go through tests to see what’s the safest way to expel unused energy like you might find when a catalyst spikes and starts going critical.”

“Huh. Why’d the place shut down?” It was interesting interacting with Bren. Avalyn hadn’t tried to inform him she was a person because he had just treated her with respect from the start. He never tried to shut her down and always answered her questions. He still probably didn’t think of her as a person, but at least he wasn’t automatonphobic like most people were. There had to be a better word than automatonphobic…

“They were able to fund a better facility on another uninhabited planet in the system. Not that this place wasn’t safe, but if something went catastrophically wrong, then it wouldn’t hurt the environment.”

“Fair enough. Alright, are we ready to try this out?” Avalyn asked the group.

“Yeah, who want’s to go to the control room and check out the readout for this little test?” Scevi asked.

“Do I want to see what you do to the output to give it power?” Bren asked.

“What we do won’t damage the cables in any way, nor is this anything dangerous,” Avalyn started, “but you’re probably going to get really scared when you see what we do.”

“Can it be undone?”

“Without leaving a single trace.”

“If I see what you do and people come asking about it, is it going to be a problem?”

Avalyn had to think about that for a moment. “Maybe.”

He sighed. “I’ll go to the readout.”

“I’m going there,” Scevi said. “I want to see all the readings as in-depth as I can.”

“I will admit, I’m curious to look at those as well,” Gramps said. “Are you okay with that, Kiddo?”

“Sure, I’m not really doing much here. If you can copy the readouts to something I can take back with me, then it’s all good.”

Hugh sighed. “I’ll stick with Avalyn. The readouts are probably just going to scare me more.”

“Then are you sure you want to be left alone with me?”

“Consider it a self-sacrifice to make sure you don’t do something bad.”

Shrugging, Avalyn said, “Well then, let’s get to it.” It wasn’t long before it was just her and Hugh standing by the cable. Even after they were alone, Avalyn waited a little while before speaking. “So, is there something going on between Gramps and Scevi?”

“I saw that question coming.” Hugh said quietly as he leaned up against one wall. “For the last twenty vol they’ve been spending a lot of time together, and dancing around the whole will they, won’t they.”

“Scevi just too much of a free spirit to be tied down?”

“Actually, no. Vestan is the one not taking the next step, and Scevi is just filling her time waiting for him.”

“Oh.” That took Avalyn a little by surprise. “So Gramps is the one who doesn’t want to be tied down yet?”

“He won’t say it, but he most certainly wants to be with Scevi for more than the few nights a week they spend together.”

Now Avalyn was a little confused. “Then why don’t they get together?”

Hugh sighed. “I wish I knew. I think it’s something to do with Vestan’s past before coming to Bryst. He’s only lived here 70 vol and doesn’t ever talk about what his life was before. Well, maybe a little bit about how he doesn’t like his mother. Though… One night he got really drunk and mentioned something about having been married.”

Avalyn wasn’t really sure what she should say to that, but she found herself asking, “Does he get drunk often?”

Hugh shook his head. “He doesn’t touch any alcohol except on only two rotations every vol. On those rotations, he’ll get drunk and beat the giff out of some old starship he keeps on Polair. He’s going to hate that I told you that, but it’s only a hept away from one of the rotations.”

Nodding, Avalyn just tried to put her thoughts together. “Is he a danger to himself on those rotations?”

Hugh looked down at the floor and nodded. “We’ve been trying to help him and get him to talk. I think Scevi actually knows what’s going on, but she won’t say anything because Vestan wants to keep it a secret.”

Now Avalyn looked at the ground herself. Everyone had a past, and it was theirs to share or keep secret if they wanted. She wasn’t going to push or ask Gramps about this. At least maybe not until she had seen it firsthand.

“You guy’s ready? We’re all set up here.” Gramps’s voice came on over an intercom.

Hugh turned around and hit a button on a small panel on the wall. “All set.” He let go of the button. “Alright, let’s get this over with.”

As before, all it took was a gentle tap for Avalyn to start commandeering. This time it was a little slower going since there was a crazy amount of insulation to get through before she got to the conductive part. There was no voice over the com as she started taking over more and more of the wire. In fact, there was no word at all from the other group even when Avalyn had commandeered a thin slice across the entire width of the cable.

“Is it not working?” Hugh asked.

“No, it’s working. I’m done on my end.” Walking over to the panel, she hit the button. “What are you guys reading up there?”

There were a few moments of silence before Bren’s very shaky voice came over the com. “Y-you’re not a-about to set off an e-explosion, are you?”

“No? Why?” Though she asked, she could already tell what the answer was going to be.

“Drak me, Avalyn,” Scevi’s voice said over the com. “You’re maxing out the cable’s tolerance.”

“Kid, you can power cities.” Gramps said.

“H-how is t-this possible?” Bren asked.

“Trust me, Bren,” Hugh said, “you’ll feel better not knowing.”

Avalyn finally spoke up. “Have we got all the information we need?”

“Well, as much as we can get here. The facility just isn’t built for the amount of power you can produce.” Gramps said.

“We’d have to visit some other planet with a much bigger site to test your actual limits.” Scevi added. “I can think of a few places, but they most certainly won’t be okay with us just strolling in and testing out how much power you output. Giff, that output is insane. Ancients are draking crazy for making a person that can power giff like that. Drak me. I’m not scared and turned on anymore, I’m just scared.” Scevi did in fact sound scared over the com.

“A-ancients?” Bren asked, with a lot more worry in his voice. “W-what do you mean ancients m-making a person?”

“Better that you forget you heard that,” Hugh said.

“P-people are going to come a-asking about you, aren’t they?”

“Not if you don’t say anything to anyone about this, Bren,” Avalyn said. “If they do, then… I’m not well-versed enough in your civilization to know what they’ll do.” That phrasing probably only made him more afraid. “Okay, I’m going to pull out of the cable.”