Conscription Errors
Posted on Mon Oct 8th, 2018 @ 10:42am by Captain Remas McDonald & Lieutenant Commander Shadi Zatra
3,099 words; about a 15 minute read
Mission:
S1:3: Myriad Problems
Location: Science Lab 1
Timeline: MD 61 02.13
The science lab was empty, which given the state of the ship spoke well of its crew. In an emergency situation, there were very few reasons for an emergency hydration experiment on sedimentary clays. Though Remas suspected the fact the science lab was really empty was two fold.
The first clue was it's recently repaired status. The air still had the acrid epoxy smell of hull sealant and hot plasma welds from where fresh plates had been secured. Against the interior wall of the lab there was a very obvious new hull plate, the interior markings of where a superluminal rail gun had tried to dive through the Traveller. It sat there like an omen. A reminder.
A wound.
The second factor was the small collection of items harvested from the derelict ark the Traveller had encountered in Dark Space. The Clock Maker remains, deactivated if such things could be said to be so, rested in their plastic blocks behind an almost humorous amount of quarantine fields and physical barriers. Humourous to all who hadn't seen the effects such devices had on matter.
And in the centre of the lab, on a small raised rotating plinth bathed in soft light, was the intricately carved brass cube that was the Morning Star Empire sentient known as Clee'san. What was the terminology the construct had used for itself? A Simulated Consciousness? Whatever was contained within the brass cube, whose sides were carved with patterns and glyphs that shifted subtly with the changing light, Remas had come to bargain.
"This will probably be one of my more memorable mistakes," Remas said mostly to himself as he stepped towards the cube and spoke. "Clee'san, I am in need of your favour."
And nothing happened.
"Why isn't the space ghost talking?" Shadi wondered aloud. "Is it dead?"
"That is indeed an interesting philosophical question to ponder," Remas pondered. He tilted his head one side to the other, looking at the box as it turned slowly on its plinth. There were some clearly moving internal mechanisms, things that looked like clockwork until you realised their movements would take them beyond the shell of the box if they were moving in three-dimensional reality.
"Usually I'd be a little more inclined to ponder, but given we're on a timetable..." he held his hand out over the cube of Morning Star technology, closed his fist and gently rapped it against the top. "Knock kn-"
Remas vanished in a flash of azure light and the smell of ozone.
"Great Sanguine Goddess of Blood!" Shadi screamed. "Space ghosts, give Captain Remas back right now or I will... I'll..." Her threat fell flat even on her lobeless ears.
As if in answer to Shadi's request, Remas did in fact reappear. He still stood the same way he had before the first flash, hand held out over the top of the cube. He stepped back a moment, looking around the science lab, and then at Shadi and T'raa.
"Well I appreciate the two of you waiting for me, but there was no need for either of you to stay so long," he said, brushing his fingers over his uniform jacket. " Have we caught up to Abborax and Ari yet?"
Shadi turned to look at T'raa who had not said or moved in the scant couple of moments since the three of them had entered the room. Without any remark from her, Shadi turned back to Remas. "Captain, you were gone for a few seconds. I barely had time to threaten the space ghosts before you returned!"
"A few..." his words trailed off, and looked back at the box. "Well, that is...odd, to say the least. Felt like a good long hour or so of fruitless searching. I say fruitless, but in actuality, it was quite educational."
He turned to look over his shoulder and ushered the two closer.
"Mayhap I could indulge your scientific curiosities a moment," he said and gestured to the box. "Just place your hand on it. I assure you, it's just like a transporter. One moment here, and the next...well I suppose you could call it a memory. A vault of memory, if you will."
Shadi turned skeptical. "Wait just a minute... how do I know you're the real Captain Remas? You could be a space ghost trying to trick me into walking into Starvation!"
"Touch the box and I'll strum the first few chords of The Short Song Of Shadi Zatra," Remas said with a smile.
"My song!" Shadi gasped. "Very well, let's go!" She set her talon fingers upon the box.
Remas nodded to T'raa, gesturing to the other side of the box. And then he too reached out and touched-
The science lab was gone.
In fact, the entire Traveller was missing.
The trio of Starfleet officer's stood in the centre of a grand plaza, hedged in one either side by gleaming towers of brass and chrome that lead up into the sky. The sky itself was littered by the fast-moving daytime stars of space stations and orbital structures, but far more than even Earth had above its surface.
"Wait for it..." Remas said, holding up a hand with a grin. A sudden rushing sound filled the air, and a warm breeze carrying a scent not dissimilar to cherry blossom and freshly cut grass surrounded them. "I reckon this is some sort of virtual abstraction, like a holodeck only...a lot more advanced. No need to go to all the bother of creating false matter when you can create a digital hallucination to fool a neural pattern."
He pointed to a large tower arising from the, for lack of a better term, northern end of the plaza.
"I didn't know how to get back out, so I spent a few hours exploring that one. Seemed the most useful use of time," he grinned. "Its some sort of academy. I couldn't tell you if it was art or engineering, or a bit of both."
Shadi shuddered. "Are we dead?"
"Another fine philosophical point worthy of pondering," Remas said, turning about the one spot like a tourist visiting the big city for the first time. "One I think we safely put to bed a few centuries ago with the advent of the transporter. We're no more alive here than we are elsewhere."
He turned and pointed at the pedestal that arose from the centre of the plaza behind them, on which was a replica of the brass box from the science lab.
"Touch to exit," he said. "Learned that in hour two of being here. Seems this place is running on a different temporal standard to ours. So for once, we have more than enough time. Now...where to go from here?"
"Are there any foes to be slain?" Shadi asked as the first point of order. "If not, then maybe we should look around."
"She I find acceptable," a voice said from the air. "It is as it always should be. Restless in victory, alive only in battle, in the journey towards triumph. Never in waiting for what is to come. Her example, low though it is, I would agree is most welcome here."
A heat shimmer passed through the air ahead of them, and a towering figure appeared out of it. Taller than Remas by an easy foot and a half, and sporting four arms, the alien figure was a unique sight to behold. She was dressed in a garment of loose-fitting silks resembling a cross between a kimono and a sarong. Alien images flittered in stuttering patterns across the silk.
"Your's on the other hand, is not. You walked into my grave, interrupted my contemplative exile, and now you do not wish me peace here?" The Simulated COnsiousness called Clee'san narrowed her eyes at Remas. "You seek treasure and easy diversion. The recourses of children not raised in the proper creche. I gave you leave to exit before, I might reconsider that now."
"Great Goddess!" Shadi gasped. She knelt down before Clee'san with her eyes black from dilation. "I beseech you for mercy in the name of Our Great Lady of the Blood Fields of N'Ragolar!
"If we be of kindred souls, let neither starfield nor distant fen separate our united song and foes, that we sing and slay in one accord!
"If we be of kindred souls, then give us succor at Thy breast and hearth, that we may devour Thine enemies and dance the dance of their doom as we administer to them their gravestones!
"Only spare us our lives..." Shadi bowed her head and extended her hands straight upward, talons outstretched as if to present arms. "... for our life-blades are yours."
"Please...stop talking," Clee'san said, her voice dropping into the subzero temperatures of pure displeasure. "I am not some primitive deity figure you can please with words. I am Clee'san, the Simulated Consciousness of Clee'san Fal: First Ancillary Judgement for the Primacy Fleet Formation. I am honoured to be modelled on the mind of the Immolation Hawk, and will not be dressed in the rags of your delusions."
"Modelled? So not the original?" Remas asked.
"I will not share secrets of the Morning Star Empire. I have spoken of the honour of it, that is sufficient explanation," Clee'san growled. Above them, the stars were shifting, sliding into lines of formation and striated designs.
"Then I call you to service," Remas said, holding up a hand. "You owe us nothing save your safe extraction from the Ark. But my crew requires the aid of someone of your unique skills."
"You interrupted my mediative exile. If you had not found the Ark by happenstance, then I would still be there. Instead, here I am, on a ship of fools who allow such base betrayal as your Chief Engineers," Clee'san sneered, eyeing Shadi. "Your computer security skills are lacking. I have had just as much access to your system as the Myriad agent has. Neither of us was caught in this act, though he was unaware of my presence until your Engineer showed off the repair drone. Why should I help fools?"
"Because if you don't, then we will hand you over to the Myriad," Shadi said, clearly smarting from the multiple rounds of savage chastisement. "Abboraxxx likes to trade, and my people are good for two things: fighting and bartering. If you won't join us in battle, then you leave us no other recourssse than to use you as a bartering chip."
"There is a problem with your reasoning, little Saurian. One, that I could be taken against my will by another. Secondly, that you will be leaving here. The aperture between my domain and physical substantive reality is mine to control," Clee'san said. Above them, the sky was lightning up, as the formations of stars began to be connected by elaborate lines of light. Pale white flowers appeared in the sky, curdling the darkness there with orchid-like petals.
"Then might I ask what all that is?" Remas asked, pointing a finger towards the sky. "I mean if we're gonna be here for a spell, seems only fair to get the big questions out of the way."
Clee'san's smooth face tilted up, looking at the night sky as more of the milky clouds appeared. Stuttering lances of light could be seen flickering in the darkness, as parts of the formation winked out of existence.
"The last night on Charde, the Morning Star throne world. Above us is my recollection of that night," she seemed to take some pleasure in that, her shoulders straightening. "Even against a sky of death, the Second Ancillary Judgement for the Primacy Fleet Formation is still in control up there. Doing his duty. By now they've expended all of the H-Guns, the only really effective weapon against...Clock Makers?"
"It seemed appropriate given their intricate nature," Remas admitted. "And the white clouds are...blast effects?"
"Subspace lesions, tears that bleed out fractured space-time and warped gravity. Hypermetric Weapons are by no means an ultimate defence, but they are effective. This was the end of Charde, we did not care to leave much for the Clock Maker's to subsume," she winced preemptively as a chain of violet lighting stroked fingers through half of the remaining formation, leaving behind brief glowing orbs of light.
"How many?" Remas asked quietly.
"Forty subsidiary fleets were lost in that counter-attack. Each fleet would hold ten thousand ships. Millions of lives given freely to keep them at bay a moment longer," Clee'san sighed, and turned, using a broad upper arm to point to the cube at the centre of the plaza. "The sun will be rising soon, leave. Allow me peace to reflect in the light of my dying people."
"This is it," Shadi said to herself. "I have fallen into the Pit of Eternal Starvation, and this demon is the eternal tormentor..." She turned her head skyward and shouted, "Great Goddess, First Blood of My Blood, hear my plea! Deliver me from the Pit of Starvation and I will slay myriads of enemies in Your Great Name! Or even just the Myriad! Either one... Only kill the starving space demon of many arms and endless taunts, or make it out tasty slave to do Thy bidding!"
Remas chose to ignore the religious event that was Shadi Zatra, if only for a second. Though there was a lingering image of a Saurian in a Catholic nun's habit stuck in his mind.
"Are you really content to stay in this memory reliving this moment?" Remas asked. He noticed now that on the towers surrounding the plaza were beginning to glow with the rising sun. But the glow was coming from all four sides.
"It is my duty, to reflect upon the ultimate sacrifice of my people and their ultimate victory. This is the end of the journey I believe." Clee'san said with what could have been mistaken for bleak finality.
"But it can't be," Remas said, putting together a few pieces of what he felt was a larger puzzle. "Abborax knew of the Morning Star Empire. He knew that on his first glance at the repair drone. Which means your people made it to Messier 4, and may well still be here."
The light rising from all four points of the compass was brightening sharply now. The tops of the towers were smoking, or in some cases beginning to glow from the rising temperatures. Remas didn't feel the heat, which if he was standing on a world being torched by an artificial nova he took as a kindness.
"Childish hope," Clee'san said.
"But a hope you couldn't investigate until now. You were trapped in a stalemate with the Clock Makers until we arrived. For good or evil, that stalemate is now over. Work with us-" Remas said, knowing he was in a way abandoning their pure mission of discovery and exploration with his next words. "-and finding any remains of your people, present or ancient, will become part of our mission."
The glass-fronted buildings around them shattered, their diamond panes breaking apart into a rain of molten death...which froze in midair. Clee'san looked at Remas, and then turned her attention to Shadi.
"Little Saurian...you seem to have a child's grasp of honour. What do you know of this one, are his words shadows or do they carry truth in their meaning?"
Shadi fixed her narrowed eyes at the construct. "Do not speak to me of honor, space demon. You fear treachery because that is what you are. Help us or betray us, only stop with the charade. You are an imitation of life, an impostor, and I will suffer you no more."
Then she raised her voice im an ear-piercing wail. Head cocked back, she dislocated her jawbone to unleash a crescendo. Every few seconds she gasped for air only for her hissing, screeching shriek to jump in pitch and timbre.
Clee'san waved a slender lower arm, and Shadi vanished in a blaze of golden light.
"Fear not, she has been returned to baseline reality unharmed," the tall alien said, looking at Remas. "I will...commit to your cause, until I find some better use of my time. But know this, I will not forget the bargain I have struck: any lead you find, you investigate with my aid."
"And when we find your people?" Remas asked.
"...we will see. Until then, I will do what I can to offer you aid."
She raised a hand again, and-
Remas sighed.
"You can stop praying Shadi," he said into the echoing science lab as the two of them stood before the golden box. "We're back."
Shadi grasped the golden cube in the claw of her right hand and leered into it with one eye. "Starve you to famine, space demon!"
She flung it against the wall hard enough to slightly dent the bulkhead. Looking to Remas, Shadi said, "I spent an hour on the way back running through a rainbow field of wild flowers! Wild flowers! Can you believe that?"
Her hissing countenance fell upon the cube once more as if considering further reprisal.
"I can well believe that," he said and patted her on the back. "Now, I'll be needing you to figure out a method by which we can interface that device with the Travellers computer network. If you need to move it to where the computer core used to be, do it. I'm not holding out much hope of us getting it back in a single functional piece."
He took his hand away, and then regarded her.
"You didn't get a chance to take the officer's exam, did you?" he said with half lidded eyes. "Field promotion and all."
Shadi turned her aggressive posture away from Clee'san laying inert but visibly undamaged on the floor and faced Remas with the mild shock of surprise. "What? No. Why?"
"No reason," Remas said quickly with a smile. "Well you have work to do, and I have to make sure we're on course for an intercept with Abborax's ship. If you need help from Engineering, call on Jenkin's. I'm sure he'll be more than happy to help you get something that looks like the main computer up and running."
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