“Ingrid Järveläinen-Kindlysong– Jagdkaiser, launching!”
Underneath the Iron Lady, the lower hatch of the deployment chute opened into the bright, purple-flecked waters. The imposing Jagdkaiser dropped out, engaged its jets, and leapt into the unknown and alien landscape around the ship. Ingrid tightened her hands on the controls and tried not to let what she saw through her cameras bother her too much.
Maintaining her composure in the face of this environment was not an easy task.
Red rolling hills of flesh, massive fields of sinewy yellow reeds, thick vein-like roots dotting the landscape, crawling up the walls and the cavern ceiling. It was a complex landscape too, with rises and falls, peeking bone-like protrusions that were hopefully rock, long slightly sloping bare fields of ridged flesh like the foremost part of the palate. In the distance, there appeared to be great rises, like white mountains. Ingrid dearly hoped they were not bone.
As a pilot, what was strangest to her was the brightness and clarity all around her.
At civilization depth it was impossible for her to see through her cameras very far in any given direction. Not only was the zone of human activity extremely dark, the water reduced the effectiveness of any light, including the floodlights on a Diver. Ingrid had become used to split second tells that an enemy was upon her. She had the onboard computer, but her senses were not completely useless either. A flash of their floodlights in the near distance, the glint of a weapon caught in her own floods, even the faint movement of the marine fog disturbed by a rushing object, all of these could be picked up on in the moment.
In this place, she could see– as far as her eyes could see.
Not only was the cavity illuminated, it was as if the water was not taking effect on the light. She could see uninterrupted for what must have been kilometers worth of this fleshy landscape– and that enormous pillar in the distance commanding the horizon.
It was unnerving to have that blanketing darkness lifted from before her eyes.
Even more so when what it unveiled was so impossible to make any sense of.
“Ingrid, am I coming in clear? I should be– this is Monika Erke-Tendercloud.”
A voice from Ingrid’s communicator. It was the cute little voice of their Chief Engineer.
Ingrid knew she had been through a lot recently, and was relieved to see that she was working again. Monika thrived when she was kept busy. However, she would not let the Chief Engineer know of her concerns nor of her relief. It was enough to see that she was fine.
“Loud and clear. Shouldn’t the bridge be enough supervision though?” Ingrid asked.
It was not that Monika was unwelcome to speak to her–
but she had hoped for less–
“Normally yes, but we are being cautious.”
–intrusions.
A second voice– that Nile character, the doctor who suddenly appeared.
“Huh? What are you doing in my ear too?” Ingrid asked in a brusque tone of voice.
“I’m monitoring your health alongside the Chief Engineer.” Nile said calmly. “While I am not the foremost expert on its specifications, I know that the Jagdkaiser’s neural interface can have adverse effects on the pilot. We configured the machine to feed vital signs and brainwaves back to the ship for real time analysis. In the event that the Homunculus causes unforeseen issues, I have direct access to shut it down in order to keep you safe.”
“Okay, and what happens when the connection goes to shit because I’m too far away?”
“I can’t explain how, but our lasers actually have better throughput in here than they do at civilization depth, despite the Katov level.” Monika said. “Hopefully it remains that way.”
“I don’t need two people to dedicate themselves to babying me.” Ingrid grumbled.
Especially not when one of those people– was a particular person.
“It’s a unique situation.” Nile said. “I understand it must annoy you to feel that you are being minded, but we are here to support you. It is not out of disrespect or a lack of confidence but to support a vital asset. Once we have concrete data on how your brain and body are coping with the Jagdkaiser and the use of the homunculus this won’t be as necessary.”
Ingrid gritted her teeth with frustration, trying not to shout back at her.
Nile always gave some spiel trying to sound reasonable, she always said I understand.
Their one session at the clinic was full of “I understand” and “I know it feels like–”
She did not understand shit! It was impossible for a freak like her to understand.
Ingrid was particularly sensitive when it came to other Loup, though she would not have used that word to describe how she felt. Northern Loup, her people, were in her view extremely conservative and largely only respected force and authority; meanwhile, to Ingrid, Southern Loup were more immoderate and unrestrained, arrogant, flighty. As the daughter of a notorious family, she had fought against Loup her whole life in different ways. Sticking up for oneself was absolutely necessary– a boot trod upon her once would never lift.
Khedivate Loup like Nile were weird outcasts, unwelcome everywhere, subject to incredible historical violence, and if she had been a more mindful person perhaps Ingrid would have felt some solidarity with that. But that wasn’t her– she always felt as though she had to compete with other Loup and that if she faltered, she ceded the ground that she was unworthy, a craven daughter of wicked blood. She could not just match them; Ingrid had to exceed every Loup, to uphold her family’s honor. Nile had already barged in and encroached on Ingrid’s territory in certain ways she did not want to acknowledge as particularly irritating.
Monika was a runt and a nerd– she incited no such urges.
In fact, Ingrid felt sympathetic with how much Monika must have struggled and endured.
But Nile felt like– real competition. Tall, dark, brunette; strong, smart, beautiful.
Put on the bare earth too perfect, and walking through the world too confident.
Ingrid had to beat her– she could not tolerate being under her boot.
“If the Captain has you on my case then I will have to put up with it, but log my protest.” Ingrid said. She had to accept her lot– she was still a soldier. One thing that all Loup respected was the chain of command. Authority was divine, every place was ordained, and humility and honor were exalted. To a certain point. “But if you annoy me too much I’m switching off the comms and both of you can twiddle your thumbs looking at your data over there. I only take orders from the bridge, and I prefer to be allowed to do my thing.”
“I am not here to interfere. Please feel free to do your thing, whichever way you do it.”
“Huh? What was that? Are you copping a fucking attitude Nile you fucking bitch–?”
“Ingrid.” Both Gertrude and Dreschner’s voice came through the audio line at once.
Ingrid grit her teeth and bore with the scolding silently.
Descending closer to the “seafloor” of flesh. She had strange feelings about her machine, the Jagdkaiser that was supposedly so mighty at the Battle of Goryk’s Gorge– despite its ultimate defeat. It was not as imposing after being repaired. Though it retained its demonic silhouette, the damage it surmounted, and the lack of parts, led to its regression closer to the Jagd it was based on. There was no use for the shoulder-mounted drone stations without any of the drones it used, so Monika replaced these with standard intakes and plate. The fixed gun on the front of the shoulder had been ripped out and was filled in with more control equipment for standard weapons. While this reduced the weight, the Jagdkaiser was still slightly larger than a Jagd and slightly denser, more armored and heavyset than its origin. Its original stock vibroclaw was replaced with an ordinary hand, but the other hand was taken up by the machine’s built-in secret weapon and would not be modified.
Finally, the machine was painted blue and green– a camouflage that was useless now.
Ingrid was not issued a cartridge for use with the main gun. Not on this sortie.
However, the claw could still deploy its magnetic field– she could find a use for that.
Her mission was to gather up samples of seafloor flesh for testing, as well as to test out the physical properties of the flesh through direct interaction and examination. Was it slimy or firm? Did it constitute an actual floor? Would the “cavern” react like an organism to being touched, to being scraped and having a cut inflicted upon it? These were unavoidable questions that needed to be demonstrated, and the Jagdkaiser was the most powerful equipment they had available– and Ingrid their most experienced, skilled pilot.
Through her cameras, she saw the vastness of the red, fleshy world around her.
She had seen what the inside of a body looked like.
If this was a body it was an incredibly warped creature of nonsensical bulk.
A whimsical idea popped into her head. Perhaps this was just one of its organs.
Some muscular cavity passing water, except now so massive as to encompass human lives.
Closer to the fleshy seafloor, Ingrid was surprised to find fauna scuttling about. Long, segmented bodies of crab-like creatures with multiple limbs, some rounded in shape and others serpentine and odd, things she had never seen before. They were sparse but they existed, perhaps more could be found in the reeds. By the way they walked upon the flesh, it seemed like the seafloor had a few different properties. There was a layer that resembled mocus or gel, semi-firm, upon which the creatures standing on the seafloor left rips and indentations. But the flesh below that seemed solid enough that once the wandering creatures stripped away the “topsoil” they could walk easily upon it.
“Some of these arthropods are definitely long extinct in the Imbrium.” Nile said.
Monika sounded her agreement. Ingrid could picture her, arms crossed and nodding.
“I don’t know my biology as well as my mechanics but– yeah. I recognize these. I mean, anyone would know the anomalocaris– it’s become popular among young girls now.”
There was a brief pause as Nile seemed to consider the implications of this.
“That’s– I guess I am more out of touch with what young girls are into than I thought.”
“For the record I have no idea what she is talking about.” Ingrid butted in to say.
“You don’t know about the anomalocaris Ingrid?” Karin entered the comms suddenly.
“I can’t even fucking pronounce whatever you just said.” Ingrid replied.
“I suppose you just aren’t active citizens of the Network!” Monika said.
“I’m not an active nerd like you.” Ingrid said, idly picking on her.
“Let’s focus back up now, Schicksal, Erke-Tendercloud, company.” Dreschner said.
His stern voice immediately quieted the discussion of the anomalocaris’ notoriety.
Except for one stammering little whimper picked up on the audio. “Why me first?”
With the peanut gallery silenced, Ingrid touched down upon the flesh.
Using the underside camera she monitored her own descent and the response from the surroundings. Initially, the flesh yielded a bit when Jagdkaiser’s feet touched the seafloor, but they held firm enough to be trod upon. She was instructed to stand in place for a moment and to gather vibrational data. But there were no errant vibrations.
It did not appear that the flesh was moving.
“Ingrid, use the collection tool we prepared to gather some flesh.” Monika said.
“We will need you to visit a few different sites and collect flesh from them so we can study it. We need different samples to determine if this is all one kind of organism.” Nile said.
“I’ll do my job whether or not you explain, so spare me the details.” Ingrid grunted.
She wanted Nile out of her ears so badly. But there was nothing she could do about it.
Ingrid flicked through the equipment touchscreen and activated the “special equipment.”
Reaching the Jagdkaiser’s hand partially around its backpack, she picked up a tube-like object that had been released from the mech’s magnetic strip. It had been charged from the mech’s battery to the simple and specific task it was given. Once she had grabbed hold of the equipment, she rotated the mech’s hand to align the flat bottom of the tube with the seafloor flesh. Some mechanism within the tube began to flex with errant suction.
Then with with a flick of a button and a forward on the sticks, she staked the flesh.
Down deep through the red surface, and well over one and a half meters into the ground.
Inside the tube, flesh and whatever else would be collected in layers to be studied.
When the collection tube sank into the meat, thin red fluid rose like a mist into the surrounding waters. There was not enough of it to completely alter the surroundings, which were lit up pale blue by the light on the water and dark purple by the katov mass. All three colors never mingled, and had a strangely mesmerizing effect on the water around her.
Ingrid dragged her sight away from the swirling colors and looked at her main camera monitors, one each to a cardinal direction, for any reaction to the stabbing. No tremors of some gigantic beast, nor any roars or sudden thrashing. Nothing immediate.
On one of her supporting touchscreens, the special equipment’s status was shown.
Whatever was beneath the red surface flesh, the tube had filled with it.
Ingrid reached down and pulled the tube from the ground and attached it to the backpack.
She moved the Jagdkaiser over the hole so her underside camera could look down into it.
It was hard to see anything of note. It seemed to be flesh as far as down as she had cut.
Blood seeped gently from the surrounding tissues, drifting upward.
For such a wound, Ingrid would have expected it to be filled with a lot of blood.
“Fascinating. I think I see a new layer at the very end. Maybe subcutaneous fat?” Nile said.
“I wish I had been able to make the collection tubes longer for you.” Monika said.
“For how short notice this all was, you should be proud of your work.” Nile said.
Ingrid rolled her eyes in her cockpit.
“You’re such besties, wow. Why not have a friendly make-out session too?” She said.
“On to the next site, Ingrid.” Dreschner interrupted. “It is marked for you.”
On her main screen, a green, flashing square target paint appeared in the distance. This was also reflected on a static sonar picture taken of the area by the Iron Lady, which she kept pinned up on a subordinate screen to get a better idea of how big the cavern was. Enormous hardly described it. This felt less like a cavern and more like her company had found its way into an entire contained little world that was only vaguely linked to their own.
Somehow, descending the trench seemed to have flipped everything around; water was bright, bandwidth was high, walls were meat. And the extremely extinct anomalocaris was popular with young, network-savvy girls. Would this flesh stretch onward forever?
No use thinking about it. No use thinking about a lot of things.
Yet she could not help but to keep thinking.
With her next target in place, Ingrid re-engaged her jets and leaped off the fleshy ground.
In her rear camera, the Iron Lady still loomed large in the background.
Holding position about 200 meters above the seafloor, still in line with the cave shaft.
A shiver ran its course through her body. She gripped her controls tighter.
Of course, Ingrid was unnerved. It was an unnerving situation.
Soaring through the water in an ethereal, too-still landscape of fleshy hills and purple snow.
Ingrid was a woman who felt her fears were simple things.
She did not care much for the grander scope of things in Imbria’s drama. Things that made her cry or made her shudder were exclusively personal. Her pain was not the world’s pain, nor was the world’s pain hers. People died, every day, in their thousands, hundreds of thousands, in their millions, men, women and children, youth in their prime and elderly ill deserving it– she didn’t know, she didn’t care. It was impossible for her empathy to encompass things too much greater than her orbit. In her experience, in the world that she had been brought up in, such things made you insane, and got you killed.
Whether purged by your own people for bringing disorder, disgrace and dishonor–
Or winnowed by the world itself for being too soft in the face of its unrelenting cruelty.
She was a subject of the world.
She submitted her soul to the proper order– but her heart was for the personal.
At all times she envisioned her journey in the Inquisition would have been quite mundane.
However, her Commander apparently attracted inexplicable things to herself.
“To think all my fuckin’ simpering led to this shit.” She chided herself in bitter mutterings.
It was difficult, it was colossal in its scope, to not waver in the insanity of what she saw.
But what scared her the most was something deeply personal.
That, in seeing this, she herself was forever changed. She could not just ignore this.
Nobody would ever understand. She was marked with it for life. Alone with this madness.
“Who would believe any of this?” She muttered to herself, in restrained frustration.
It was no wonder to her now that the Abyss had so many secrets.
Even if she returned alive nobody would believe her.
Her life was now a lonely myth.
The Jagdkaiser rose up the water table, despite its size faster and easier to maneuver than any Diver Ingrid had ever laid hands on. Effortless to pilot, easy to embody. She took in the “landmarks” that had been noted around the cavern, which was variously also referred to as “the cavity” by the more scientific of their crew members. The Iron Lady had made the final point of its descent the “starting point” of their exploration and by their instruments, the nearest landmarks all sat to the west of this point, although the cavity stretched farther east of them as well. There was a vast landscape of fleshy rolling hills with “fields” of yellow, sinewy reeds growing irregularly throughout, that made up much of the surroundings. To the north in this “field” there was a man-made structure resembling a blue and black rectangular station with a baseplate slowly fusing into the flesh on the ground– this was the most likely candidate for the “primary edifice” that Commander Lichtenberg was looking for.
However, this was not any one of the destinations for Ingrid on this sortie.
Instead, she had three positions in the flesh-field and its direct surroundings that she would survey, one closer to the Iron Lady, one among a field of reeds, and one atop a far hill closer to the main landmark inside the cavity. Several kilometers out from the shaft entrance and the primary edifice, the mysterious, and gigantic, silicate-looking structure, attached at its “peak” and “base” to enormous, sinewy growths of flesh. Like giant arteries attempting to burrow into the structure or command it or hold it in suspension. To Ingrid’s mind, it looked like the flesh was propping up the thing– but she didn’t really know anything.
It was colossal– seemingly looming over everything in the cavity.
Ingrid could look up and see it from anywhere she had been.
At the Commander’s request, it had been dubbed the “silica tree.”
Through a scan, the Iron Lady had found that a massive trench divided the flesh-field from the silica tree. Ingrid’s last collection spot was at the edge of the trench, and part of her task was also to see how deep this trench ran, whether anything was in it, whether it might lead anywhere– generally to get a camera on it. Then the nerds watching it could figure out the rest of the details themselves without much of her own input.
Ingrid tried not to be too wowed by everything she saw.
Her heart was in a mode to smother its feelings.
She wanted to retreat from feelings.
Feelings of beauty and longing and awe at the spectacle of the world–
They had no place in her– she had to get hard, harder, like she used to be before–
Before a certain woman bedeviled her and made her feel too special.
And yet– she also did not want to hate anything she saw, anything she felt.
That, too, was too extreme, too emotional. That too was softness.
Whether forgiving Gertrude and letting her back in was softness or hardness–
Ingrid could not say, did not want to contemplate, and put out of her mind as vexing.
“How are you feeling right now, Järveläinen-Kindlysong?” Nile asked.
“Captain Dreschner, do I have to answer this.” Ingrid grumbled.
“Yes.” Dreschner said. And not a word more.
Ingrid sighed audibly. Frustrated. What did this woman care how she felt?
“I feel fucking fine— alright? I am just peachy, it’s just me and the meat out here.”
“I agree that your conduct feels normal. Any physical–” Nile said and was interrupted.
“Okay? Hey, you know what, enlighten me– what do you think is normal for me, doc?”
“Speaking purely as a doctor observing a patient, you are hesitant to share your emotions, have a strong temperament and strong reactions in social situations. I would still like us to–”
“I never agreed to be your fucking patient! So speak like that again and I’ll fucking–”
“Ingrid! Please stop!” Monika cried out. “She’s not as bad as you think she is!”
“Take her side, why don’t you!” Ingrid shouted back. “Has she been fucking you too?”
Louder and sterner than anyone else, Captain Dreschner interrupted everyone.
“All of you for the love of God stop bickering over nothing! This instant and henceforth!”
His fist striking the arm of his chair was audible even to Ingrid.
It was rare to see Dreschner shout with such vigor.
Even he himself as he continued to speak seemed frustrated that he was pushed to it.
“Ingrid, you are tightly knit with this crew and this ship, and you are a proud person. I know that. I understand that. All of us greatly respect you. You have a lot to be proud about.” Dreschner said. “But a good soldier appreciates the advantages she is given, even if this means setting aside pride and tolerating conflicting personalities. Doctor Nile is assisting in this endeavor to help you. She needs to check in and monitor you, for your benefit. You would be at a grave disadvantage and even danger without her assistance.”
“I understand, Captain.” Ingrid muttered.
“I apologize for my role in the disturbance.” Nile added. Ingrid hated her for apologizing.
Dreschner sighed himself, and his tone of voice softened again.
“We need every advantage we can get. Continue to pilot that machine. And continue to accept the assistance and follow the commands of the Doctor and Chief Engineer. We are resuming this mission, and I want all future chatter to be productive to the mission.”
Ingrid hated that he felt he had to explain all of that to her, as if she didn’t know.
Old man Dreschner was somebody she respected, somewhat, for all the shit he took.
And he was like Gertrude’s dad– so she wanted to like him in that sense too.
Unlike many other people she would hate for this treatment, she did not hate him for this.
But she was frustrated that nobody shared her petty, pointless anger toward Nile.
That nobody else saw the introduction of her into the crew as a disruption.
A doctor– who gives a shit? They never had a doctor. They never needed a doctor.
All they needed was first aid and grit. That carried them through a lot.
Now Gertrude needed a goddamn doctor, didn’t she? Needed one a fucking lot now huh?
Lifting a hand from the machine’s control sticks to cover her own eyes, rub her own face.
Ingrid also hated herself a lot too. Her head was a mess of emotions.
She felt ridiculous.
And she hated that she became Gertrude’s nightmare vision of her. That she was petty, that she was jealous, that she was childishly angry at Nile, Victoria and the weird brainwashed freak they found in the last stupid building they went digging in. She was as possessive of Gertrude as she and everyone around her chided Gertrude for being over Elena and whoever else. Around Gertrude she had tried to suppress those emotions and work them out, but she had to be honest. Even if being honest with herself meant being miserable.
To think all this bullshit was in her head here. In the fucking sea of meat.
She shut her eyes hard for a moment. Trying to center herself again.
Felt her own sweat beads pooling up around the contact points affixed to her temples.
Opened her eyes again. Looked around the cockpit.
Apparently the Jagdkaiser had some kind of brain technology that helped to pilot it.
She wasn’t the cyborg freak that had been grown in a vat to pilot the Jagdkaiser originally. So she did not have anywhere to connect the gross spinal-tap looking implement. It was ultimately removed from the machine by Monika. Instead they would use the contacts, referred to by both Monika and Nile as “non-invasive electrodes” hooked up to Ingrid’s temples, the base of her dog-like ears and the back of her head, to connect to the homunculus. That “homunculus” was suspended in a box chassis above her head, separated from her by a sort of affixed metallic halo that provided structural support.
Thinking about it, she wondered whether her sense of the machine’s power was actually a sense that the hardware was better, or something the homunculus was doing. Were her reflexes and inputs enhanced by the homunculus, allowing her to pilot faster and more efficiently or was the machine faster and more efficient at the level of its base hardware? It almost made her mad again to have to consider such bizarre things.
That her life had become this parade of mysticism.
“All of this shit is going to get me killed.” She mumbled to herself.
But she had a mission, and the Jagdkaiser was approaching its next target.
Overflying a field of the yellow reeds and descending into and through the tall stalks.
As they swept past her in the cameras, she thought they looked plant-like.
Like thicker algae, mixed with celery– more stem than leaf, weirdly vascular, fibrous.
Turning away from the exhaust of her hydrojets just as they swayed with the currents.
Ingrid touched down on the ground amid the reeds, almost as tall as the Jagdkaiser itself.
More small animals, some crustacean, some almost like bony, scaly fish, swam away.
She maneuvered the Jagdkaiser’s good hand behind its back again to read for another tube.
From the equipment status screen, she was drawn–
To a yellow flash.
Her eyes darted toward her monitors.
An automatic target paint, suddenly, right next to her.
In a snap reaction she boosted away from the paint, and the movement in the reeds.
Something large rose up from mere meters away–
Her own hand swiped her weapon selector to engage her assault rifle.
The Jagdkaiser’s hand seized the weapon and turned it toward the field.
She held her fire, eyes wide-drawn, heart pounding.
Sluggishly, with almost lethargic movements, a white creature rose over the reeds.
Its body was smooth and slick, thick and cylindrical, serpentine, alien. Utterly pale, so pale its purple sinews were visible beneath its thin oily skin. No eyes on the surface of what Ingrid assumed was its head, and the barest semblance of a mouth that opened, nearly causing Ingrid to fire, testing her patience, her nerves on a burning edge. But there were no teeth, and it was only sucking in water as if to taste it. She held her place, kept her peace, and the creature lived just a moment longer. Paddle-like arms were placed irregularly across its body, which ended in a cephalopod-like tail. Four biological hydrojets blew a current of water and kicked up fleshy dust that was like shed, dead skin, and bits of broken-off reeds.
Even its ascent with its hydrojets was lethargic, slow, strangely peaceful.
It rose from the reeds, freeing itself from them, and it circled the Jagdkaiser once and from well afar before leaving the area entirely, undulating as it moved its long, cylindrical body, paddles gyrating, bio-jets giving it a lazy current to propel it away. As if the creature was just curious to see what had disturbed its environment and did not care to defend itself nor consume its intruder. Its movements almost reminded Ingrid of some gross malformation of a whale, playful, harmless, almost intelligent-seeming despite its grotesque form.
“Ingrid, I commend you on avoiding any violence toward that creature.” Nile said.
Ingrid dropped back against her seat, putting her hands over her eyes, kicking her feet.
“Fuck.” She grunted. “I don’t need commending! Warn me about it next time!”
“Sorry!” Monika said. “We’ll run more frequent scans from now on.”
“We have to balance information gathering with disturbing the environment too much.” Nile said. Before Ingrid could get mad, she continued, clarifying. “Scanning too often might attract other creatures. Possibly less docile ones than that. We are in a tricky situation.”
“Ugh.” Ingrid said nothing more, to avoid further confrontation.
Instead, she returned her rifle to its place and staked the ground to collect the meat sample.
Once again the flesh-field bled silently and without complaint.
“What if it’s a colony organism?” Monika said. “Like, zillions of little meat guys.”
“In a certain philosophical lens, the planet is already a colony organism.” Nile said.
“Huh. Yeah. I guess you could say, we are the zillions of little meat guys.” Monika said.
“I’m not a biologist so I’m a bit out of my depth with all of this.” Nile said. “Thinking about this from a medical perspective, one of my worries here is whether this organism is healthy. Is it alive or dead? How would we know its status? Does it respond to stimuli and how does it responds; whether it is affected by any pathogens; and what kind of relationship its anatomy and metabolism might have to us or our technology. Think about this– what if we inadvertently lead to the death or contamination of this environment? Could this be a crucial part of the Imbrium’s homeostasis that we were simply not aware of until now?”
“Think less about the organism’s well-being and more about ours for now, please.”
Gertrude made a rare interjection into the conversation at this point. Ingrid set her jaw.
Nile grunted a bit but continued to talk. “Of course, I am thinking about our crew above all else, or otherwise I would not ever have suggested to send the Sotnyk out there to collect samples. Were I completely against us exploring this place I would have advocated for us turning around– medically that is also the safest possible option. I am not blind to the scientific wealth we could find here. However, our actions still have consequences beyond our naked self-interest. You would do well to think on that, Commander.”
Gertrude did not respond. Dreschner curiously did not tell Nile to quiet down either.
Instead, the gentle scolding was allowed. Ingrid could imagine Gertrude sulking about it.
She was always so pathetic whenever something did not go her way.
Ingrid cracked the smallest smile imagining it.
“Personally, I am hoping this thing is too big for us to affect so easily.” Monika added.
“We are very small compared to our presumption of this ‘body’. That could very well be true if this is all one organism.” Nile said. “However, physically small organisms can have enormous medical outcomes on larger bodies– there are viruses that would strangle a human to death in hours, and to this organism, we could be one such virus.”
“Well, even if we kill it, I assume profit margins in the megacorps won’t take a big hit.”
Monika made a cheeky remark, and Nile had a small laugh at it in the comms.
“Humanity has survived a lot, but I still advocate for a bit caution. Just a bit, that is all.”
Grunting with indignation, Ingrid retrieved the stake, its insides filled with meat.
She attached the stake to the back. One more stake; one more location to scout.
“We painted your final target. Let’s get you going; and get you back safe.” Dreschner said.
“Acknowledged.” Ingrid said mechanically.
She pushed down her pedals and pushed forward her sticks.
Once more, the Jagdkaiser rose up higher on the water table and took off.
As the fleshy landscape scrolled by, Ingrid cast a glance at her rear camera, the Iron Lady becoming smaller and smaller in the distance behind her– but still visible. She cast a glance at one of the side cameras, facing the north of the cavern, and the mysterious facility standing amid the flesh almost like a massive and wide version of one of her stakes. A monolith impaled on the flesh. Who built that? Why did they leave it there?
She couldn’t help but be curious about it.
It was like nothing else in the surroundings. Alien within an alien land.
Gertrude would definitely be going in there– searching for God-only-knows-what.
“What am I even doing here?” She mumbled to herself. She felt like such a fool.
Unable to even sort out whether she was really angry, whether they could even be friends.
Clearly Gertrude was at fault, had treated her terribly– but she wanted to forgive her.
That woman as difficult as she was, had saved her life, stuck with her when she had nobody.
Had Gertrude not thrown herself at Norn’s mercy, Ingrid would absolutely be dead.
Captured by Brauchitsch and made a brutal and pointless example of.
Nobody would have missed her. There was only one woman who would have.
It wasn’t just Elena von Fueller who received some of Gertrude’s grace and protection.
She had genuinely sacrificed a lot for Ingrid’s sake too. She cared about her.
Everything that had happened to Gertrude was something Ingrid was also tangled up in.
Since the cadet academy, she always encouraged her.
Had they never met, Gertrude would have maybe never fought Brauchitsch too.
It wasn’t just that Princess who shaped her– Ingrid had a hand in making Gertrude!
Ingrid had wanted to be closer to Gertrude since they met. She was attractive! She was a good lay– even in cadet school Ingrid thought it would have been fun and when it finally happened she had her fun. Gertrude also proved she could be actually reliable when the chips were down– and that she was willing to throw anything away to achieve her goals. To stomp her own pride and debase her own honor. Ingrid admired that too, she was not a moralist, she was not impressed by peaceniks, reformers playing at being clean.
Her own sense of self was so rigid– she admired Gertrude being able to do anything.
That darkness inside Gertrude was attractive– until her fire burnt too hot.
“We got together at the worst possible time.” Ingrid thought.
Cursing her own luck. Gertrude was being stupid and wanton– Ingrid let herself be used.
It felt good for a bit, but with hindsight, it would’ve never lasted.
Of course anything to do with that Princess would have resulted in some stupid mess.
Of course they reacted in awful, hurtful ways about it.
Just like always– whenever they fought it always felt like both of them fucked up.
Gertrude would try to take all the blame; Ingrid would cautiously admit her own side in it.
It had happened over and over and their relationship surmounted it each time.
This time though, it was so heart-wrenchingly personal, so massive.
How could she forgive her for breaking her heart? Why would she ever do so?
“I guess I won’t.” Ingrid muttered. Something agreed too fast, and too half-heartedly.
Doing nothing to solve the conflict, which was raging in that soft, girlish heart she hated.
Her eyes, starting to tear up, scanned quickly across her monitors.
Looming closer, the absolutely massive silica tree, and its crown and roots of flesh.
Ahead of her, the red flesh-field took a steep dive. She could see the trench around the tree.
Cresting the final hill before the cliff, Ingrid set the Jagdkaiser down before the drop.
She removed the final stake, drove it into the ground, and waited, turning her cameras.
To have called it a cliff, and a trench, was a severe, almost biblical understatement. Ingrid felt as if she stood at the end of the world before a yawning maw that went straight into hell itself. She had no inkling of how deep Aer was supposed to be, how far down the ground upon which they trod would go and what was inside the planet’s deepest reaches. Whatever she was taught in school she forgot, it was ultimately just unimportant to her.
So in her mind, she was staring at the world’s center.
Staring at such things which made her feel like a gnat on the skin of a physical God.
First, suspended in the middle of everything, was that silica tree.
Larger than stations, like a mountain and a sun at once, bound by the flesh.
Over the chasm, the orifice down into oblivion.
There was a limit to how far down she could see because the light of the tree did not cut through the darkness with the same intensity that it illuminated the water in the cavity. Despite this she could see far enough to note the geological divisions, the strata of layered flesh and minerals. All of it was probably flesh, but its properties clearly changed deeper down. The layer of reddish flesh was surprisingly shallower than she imagined, and it quickly became darker, sinewy, and crossed with what seemed like stones and sediment.
And cutting through the flesh at irregular angles,
like spurs of dim flickering violet bone–
enormous, root-like veins of Agarthicite.
Some large enough and sticking out far enough to bridge the trench and reconnect the thick, tentacular flesh protrusions rising up like a column to hold up the silica tree from out of the endless darkness. Despite their contact with the flesh in many places they did not annihilate all of it, as they would have done to a similarly impaled human. Instead, brief sparks of Agarthic energy sliced small wounds into the flesh at irregular intervals.
Ingrid’s intruments read a slow but steady current coming up from below.
As if there was a flow from the chasm up toward them.
“Incredible!” Monika said. “How far down could that go? We’ve got to be at most like ten kilometers below the water’s surface right? We’re barely scratching the total depth of the ocean. However, the organism’s flesh extends farther down– what if this is only a small part of its body? Could there more cavities connected by more ducts and trenches?”
“Putting my foot down. We are not going to find out how much bigger it is.” Nile said.
“Nobody said we were going any deeper, relax.” Gertrude said, sounding surly.
They did not understand. They were not standing in front of this colossus.
With only a few meters of armor plate between themselves and its enormity.
Now the tears did flow from Ingrid’s eyes, and her ears folded, her tail curled.
And she looked upon the surface of the silica tree, and it seemed, for a moment–
That she felt as it did. That she heard as it spoke. As it sang– she saw as it did–
In front of her eyes she saw a great forest of many such trees as tall as the very sky.
Singing to each other, all as one, one as all, and yet many, songs of interwoven colors.
Older than age, ancient, arising mineral acritarchs, watching over carbonate puddles.
Full of love for all things, they sang to the creatures that slowly arose all around them.
“Something on the scans– it’s large– it’s approaching!”
An era of cunning, depredation, and conflict for survival played out at the feet of the trees.
Newborn creatures entered and exited, fought and ate, and grew and changed,
Never judged by the ones watching them, never thought unworthy.
“What– what the hell is that?!”
Then, suddenly, it was heard, that one creature sang back to the trees.
One creature of many, who from the means of singing developed thought and purpose.
Astonished, excited at the prospect, the trees wanted to nurture that nascent song.
“It’s firing! It’s firing– a missile!”
But before they could make themselves better stewards of this life, the trees met their end.
Cut down by a fated cataclysm of demonic, violet light that threatened everything.
Ending one song in sacrifice, to bury that fiendish power where it would not be touched.
Ushering another song in its place; a shuddering, embryonic song, the song of humanity–
Ingrid’s eyes flashed and she heard the multiple voices of all humanity as if they were one–
“INGRID! EVASIVE ACTION NOW! RIGHT NOW!”
Gertrude’s voice– shaking her from the stupor–
Pure fight or flight cleared the fog in her vision and Ingrid reacted in an instant.
Jerking her hands back and slamming her pedals so suddenly and so hard that it hurt.
Solid fuel boosters and the leg hydrojets threw the Jagdkaiser into retreat, leaping back from the cliff and the spot she had staked. Her breathing ragged as if she had been choking; a full-body quivering; salty, stinging eyes through the film of which she watched the enormous, dark thing on the screen that made its intentions suddenly clear.
Her cameras filled with the light of an explosion, ordnance detonating in front of her.
Ingrid knew to expect the inward force of the vapor bubble when she began her escape.
Fresh fear spread like a cold tap in her spine when she saw the purple tendrils emerge.
Water immediately smothered any explosive detonation, resulting in a vapor bubble that inflicted damage via the enormous shearing forces of its collapse along with contact heat from the blast. But this ordnance caused a phenomenon that Ingrid had never seen before. Within the vapor bubble, she could see glowing, misshapen “blobs” of material continuously smothered by the water but generating what appeared like thin tendrils of purple lightning that shot out of the vapor bubble and crashed into ground and spread wildly astray.
Several such bolts went flying past her machine as she watched breathlessly.
Her heart caught in her chest–
One bolt sliced across the fleshy ground and
whipped toward
filling sight overwhelming violet light,
jaw hanging entranced, no space for breath,
her final thought
a prayer
for another day, another hour, another second to decide–
granted
As the bolt annihilated one of her cameras, downing a monitor in her cockpit.
Ingrid jerked back against her seat, looking around the cockpit in a panic.
She had not imploded. She was not dead.
Her shaking body was there in all its parts.
She had breath, and pulse.
The Jagdkaiser landed on the fleshy ground several hundred meters from the cliff.
Several dozen meters where she had once been standing were annihilated.
Hexagonal wounds in a perfectly round crater.
Her remaining forward cameras fixed on the assailant, looming massively over the trench.
Ingrid had come under attack from a ship. An impossible ship that appeared suddenly.
Black and blue metal covered a boxy hull with beveled edges, bedecked with weapons. Cannon turrets, interdiction autocannons, missile bays. Water foamed from the rear of the ship, vaporized by enormous thrusters that were not hydrojets. A near size match to the Iron Lady, slightly wider, more utilitarian in its design, the ship moved in a languid circle around the silica tree, approaching but never crossing the edge of the vast trench.
“Ingrid? Ingrid! Come in! The Jagdkaiser is still operational– are you okay? Ingrid please!”
Gertrude’s voice again.
Ingrid lifted her shaking hands from the controls, hugging herself.
Her heart was thrashing in her chest.
And she felt a throbbing, a pulse, as if from coming from above her.
But she refused to look up at the homunculus.
Fearing she might become lost in inexplicable nightmares again if she allowed it.
Her eyes remained fixed on the mysterious enemy.
It had stayed its assault– for now.
Her remaining cameras zoomed in on the vessel and recorded everything they could.
Completing its run around the eastern edge of the silica tree, it began to circle away.
Exposing its flank, upon which there was text emblazoned on it which was–
Horribly, impossibly, mind-bendingly legible. Ingrid could parse it as Low Imbrian.
A.F.S.F Extinction Fleet — Enterprise
Along with a coat of arms composed of sharp hexagons forming a larger hexagon.
Lumbering out of sight as if it had deemed her unworthy.
Inexorable as a force of nature, its passage disturbing the water around itself.
Having driven her away from the trench, the mystery ship simply continued its voyage.
That fear which they had of disturbing this place felt almost farcical now.
Ingrid sat back in her pilot seat, holding her chest, unsure of what to think or feel anymore.
Watching an enemy that could have vaporized her in an instant simply ignore her.
Back in Sverland, when she fought that pup mercenary; and in countless battles she had fought as part of Gertrude’s crew– Ingrid had always sated what she felt was a Loup’s sense of honor and lust for bloodshed. She was a soldier, because all Loup were soldiers. The proper way to live as a hound was to bite; biting was the only thing she could do. She had lost her share of fights, taken her share of lumps, but she always gave back as hard as she could, and pushed Gertrude closer to victory. Even when that pup Raisanen-Morningsun got the better of her, she did not feel like an insurmountable enemy. Had she not been ordered to; she would not have retreated. She would have fought to death; that was her worth.
Now she was faced with an enemy that she could not– would not, chase after.
She could not move. Ingrid was scared. That monstrous ship gave fuel to all of her fears.
Scared to be annihilated in this horrible place and never be seen again.
Scared that she might die in this awful time of her life with so much undone.
And terrified that she would die without reconciliation, without resolution–
“P-Permission to retreat. I– I don’t think we can retrieve the last s-s-sample.” She said.
Her voice trembling, her body shaking, her eyes filling with tears.
“Of course retreat! We’re coming– we’ll meet you halfway! Retreat now!”
Gertrude was still in command of the comms.
Ingrid wished she was not– because she felt oddly comforted hearing her voice.
Hearing her clear fear and worry which felt so frustratingly honest.
Without further exchange of words, Ingrid fled from the face of the enemy.
Child of a kinslayer, dog of the Imbrians, hopeless beggar of love, and now coward.
Her heart was soft, it was weak, she had changed. She had been changed.
She was alive.
The Iron Lady entered combat alert and advanced deeper into the cavity.
That mystery ship, the so-called Enterprise, was automatically denying all hails.
There was nothing they could do. Nothing Ingrid could do but calm herself and retreat.
Ingrid closed in on the ship at full speed, slowing to a stop only when under its hull.
Entering an awaiting deployment chute, she let go of the controls, breathed a sigh of great relief, and let the engineers do the rest. Steel cables secured her machine, the door to the ocean closed beneath her, and the water drained out. A crane arm lifted her machine from the deployment chute and set it down in a kneeling position in the middle of the hangar, surrounded by engineers taking stock of it and getting ready to help her out.
She sat in the dim cockpit for a moment, pulling off the contacts from her temples.
Once her machine was hooked to its gantry along the wall, Ingrid opened the cockpit. Her instrument panels shifted aside, and an expanding sliver of light shone in her eyes. She stood with her head and back bowed, ducking under the roof, trying to make her way out–
but someone intercepted her on the ramp formed by the cockpit plate.
Suddenly taking her into a strong grip and pushing her against a warm chest.
“Ingrid! Are you okay? You’re not hurt, are you?”
Ingrid offered no resistance.
She craned her head to look at the taller Gertrude Lichtenberg.
“Fuck no I’m not, do I look okay? You moron?” She cried out, her guard broken.
Both she and Gertrude had tears in their eyes. Gertrude hugged her again, tighter.
“I’m so sorry, Ingrid. I’m so sorry. I can’t bear to lose you. I fucked up. I fucked up.”
On that ramp, regardless of who was around, it felt like an island only for them.
“You didn’t lose me, I’m right here, so calm the fuck down, you lunatic.”
But Ingrid herself was weeping and her heart felt a joy she characterized as stupid.
An idiot’s comfort from being in the arms of someone she wanted and loved.
That person just a chaotic mess that had dragged her life to the rocks where it was dashed.
Nevertheless, she could not deny that there was comfort– and even more, there was desire.
They had been through so much together. They were still here.
“Ugh. You’re so pathetic.” Ingrid said, returning the embrace. “I wish I could hate you.”
And of course, at that precise moment, Gertrude chose to be Gertrude–
“You can hate me. You can despise me. But I will still do everything in my power for you.”
Ingrid suddenly reared back an arm and struck with full force and without warning.
Gertrude quavered and bent, leaning on Ingrid with her teeth grit and her tears running.
Upon having visible effect, the fist which buried in her stomach gently spread its fingers.
“That’s for all the shit you pulled. I’ll call it even now. You’re welcome.” Ingrid said.
Her hand switched to nursing Gertrude lovingly where the bruise was sure to form.
“T-t-thank you.” Gertrude moaned. Smiling weakly, recovering breath. “F-f-riends again?”
“Would I have hit you so hard if we weren’t friends?” Ingrid grinned self-assuredly.
After retrieval, Ingrid was immediately sent to Nile’s clinic.
To give her time to rest and to be checked up on by the doctor, a debriefing and strategy meeting was scheduled for the next day. In the meantime, Victoria van Veka stepped up as the standby pilot– which mildly irked Ingrid. But she had to accept it. She headed for the clinic and found contained therein her next mildly irksome set of moments.
“May I request your cooperation in a quick checkup to make sure you are not injured?”
Nile, gently smiling, as if they had never verbally sparred.
The doctor bid her to undress, put on a gown, and to take a seat on an adjustable bed.
Ingrid thought of saying something combative, but her anger was smothered by her shame.
Despite herself, she followed the doctor’s instructions.
Nile gently ran her hands along her limbs, requested her to make motions, checked parts of her body for wounding, broken bones; checked her mental faculties with strange and annoying questions and requests; took her blood pressure, listened to her heart, listened to her breathing; and finally handed her a small bagged protein drink with a screw-off top straw and declared her fit. All throughout, her handling was incredibly gentle and patient.
“I recommend you stay in bed for a few hours just to relax and wind down.” Nile said.
Ingrid averted her gaze.
That tall, long-haired, ethereally beautiful doctor, always kind and understanding. Having dropped into her world from out of nowhere. She felt her reckless competitive urge rising. That part of her that wanted to dominate her own kind, to prove that she was not just worthy but better, that the outcast embodied the true spirit of tradition. Someone who could not be displaced; someone who could not be ignored or replaced by anyone.
But it was clear from their every interaction that Nile was uninterested in competing.
Unlike Samoylovych-Darkestdays or Raisanen-Morningsun, she lacked fighting spirit.
Nevertheless, Ingrid took her for competition. Competition for– a variety of things.
“You look tense. Is there anything I can do to alleviate your concerns?” Nile asked.
She sat on the bed across from Ingrid’s own bed with a smile. To look her in the eyes.
That softness she could so easily turn on anyone bothered Ingrid more than it should have.
“I don’t suppose you’ll let me punch you?” Ingrid said. A bad joke. She couldn’t help it.
Nile kept smiling. “Setting pride aside, I’d like for there to be less injuries going around.”
Ingrid grinned back at her. “Hah. So you do have some pride as a Loup after all?”
Nile sat further from the edge of the bed as if making herself more comfortable.
“The pride of a Loup, you say? Well– I recognize the value of our cultures in fostering community; and I recognize particularly the value of cultures that are challenged and tarnished by authority. Loup culture has been warped by war and servitude, but it is nevertheless ours. I do not begrudge anyone practicing or defending that culture. But I have been hurt by it. Which is to say– I understand why you act how you do towards me. I have pride enough I would defend myself, but I have no interest in proving myself.”
“Do you know how much I hate it whenever you say you understand me?” Ingrid said.
“I do; I am keenly aware of where that feeling comes from.” Nile said. “Look, Ingrid, I will not reciprocate any violent fantasies you may have toward me, but I respect where you are coming from. I will not vilify you for being wary of an outsider, I will not judge you for your pride, nor for wanting to prove your strength or stake out your territory.”
Her territory– Ingrid felt so stupid when it was spelled out so obviously.
What had she been doing? Blustering and antagonizing people all this time– for what?
Such a thing, her territory, was so infinitely small and pointless to the world.
It was still hers– it was still priceless to her. But had she really protected anything?
Or had she prevented her world from getting any bigger, for no one’s sake?
“Ugh. Fine. Look– I’m sorry. Okay? I’m acting ridiculous and I know it. I’m sorry.”
Uncharacteristically, Ingrid felt ashamed of her own conduct– but Nile didn’t judge her.
Nile reached out a hand to Ingrid, offering her a shake. She looked upon her kindly.
“Believe me, I know how it feels to be an outsider who found a place in the world. I know how it feels to want to do anything to protect that place and sequester yourself inside it. I am not a peerless automaton– I know envy, I know anger, I know distrust, I’ve felt it. I want to do what I can to show you I am not an antagonist. To me, Ingrid Järveläinen-Kindlysong, you are my patient, whom it is my duty to understand, respect, and to care for.”
Ingrid wanted to bite down and sever her tongue entirely; such was the shame she felt.
“God damn it. I hate how reasonable you sound. You better not make me regret this.”
She reached out, accepting the doctor’s slender fingers into her own slightly rugged ones.
Looked her in the eyes, and tried to see someone that she did not have to fight.
Tried to accept Nile as someone who was part of her world now too. Part of her territory.
When their fingers parted they remained seated on opposite beds. Nile’s tail began to wag.
“Nice work out there. I look forward to many more positive health outcomes.” She said.
Ingrid burst into a laugh; Nile having spoken so seriously. “You’re such a goddamn nerd.”
It was not much yet; it could become the beginnings of something.
Nevertheless, in place of the shame, Ingrid felt as if the tension insider her lessened.
She could smile again, and maybe she could even smile in Nile’s presence.
“So hey, tell me then, is Gertrude just a patient to you too?” Ingrid asked, in good humor.
“In this room, she is just a patient. But– she’s quite amusing, isn’t she?” Nile replied.
Time passed, and the Iron Lady cautiously resumed its exploration of the cavity.
“Why are you following me everywhere now?”
“Should I wait in your quarters then, master?
“N-no– no. You can keep doing what you are doing.”
“Then I shall keep a close eye on opportunities to I render assistance, master.”
“May I assume you are done pushing your sexuality onto me, then?”
“I shall leave such suggestions to the evening hours, master.”
Gertrude Lichtenberg turned to look over her shoulder.
That tone of voice, that little twist of her inflection every time she said master— and how she found a conceited, coy expression on Azazil’s face when she looked. That face reminded her of– Norn. Norn and Korabiskaya– when they teased her with their experience. She felt like bringing this up would look more pathetic than simply enduring it silently and with grace.
Looking at Azazil, with her unblemished, ethereally pale skin and her flawless makeup–
“Did you find your quarters acceptable? I take it you have all of your living essentials.”
“Any quarters are fine by me. I ask for very little and need even less.”
“How is your makeup so pristine if you didn’t request any supplies?”
“That is a mature woman’s sorcery– you wouldn’t know, nor can you be taught.”
Gertrude turned to look over her shoulder. Azazil winked and blew a mocking kiss.
“I feel like rather than a servant I have a harasser with me at all times.” Gertrude mumbled.
Her destination was a small meeting room, one of their few soundproofed rooms with full A/V, used for officer meetings. Inside the room waited Monika, Ingrid, Nile, Victoria and Karen Schicksal. All dressed for work. They sat around a square table with a digital whiteboard surface, flanked by a pair of long couch seats, with Karen at its head in control of a video screen on the far wall from the door. There were pouches of cream coffee and vitamin jelly strewn about the center of the table. Gertrude noticed that Ingrid was sandwiched between Victoria and Nile and despite this looked strangely calm about it.
Taking a deep breath, she walked inside and shut the door behind Azazil.
“Gertrude! Welcome! Sit down here!” Monika said, patting the empty space next to her.
Nile, Ingrid and Victoria all looked toward the doorway at the same time.
Victoria without expression, Nile smiling, Ingrid just slightly more disgruntled than before.
Such pointed staring made Gertrude feel as though she was in danger.
Without further dallying she took her seat next to Monika, who was cheerful as ever.
Directly across from Ingrid, who raised her fingers and waved.
While Victoria simply acknowledged Gertrude with a curt little nodding of the head.
Azazil sat down next to Gertrude, receiving a few stares from across the table too.
Well, Gertrude Lichtenberg, this is what you asked for, wasn’t it? This is what it takes.
She sat across and between all these quite familiar women, boxed in by them.
All women that she respected, cherished, loved, or was fascinated by– in some way.
Seemingly all getting along with each other though with complicated relationships to her.
Navigating some of this initial awkwardness was necessary for that to continue or improve.
As she sat there with everyone staring, she had to admit to herself she was a bit unnerved.
“Commander, glad to see you!” Karen said, breaking the awkward silence. “And thank you all for attending this meeting! I know we have had some frictions here and there, but I do appreciate everyone’s cooperation and everyone’s input is valuable is here. We are all uh– important stakeholders. I arranged this meeting to go over some of the data we have collected throughout our journey, and the forensics analysis we have concluded.”
“Before we begin,” Gertrude spoke up, “I wanted to ask how everyone is feeling so far.”
“Ah!” Karen said. “I’m– holding up!” She gave a thumbs up. Gertrude did not believe her.
“I’m excited and nervous in equal measure. But I’m here to care for everyone.” Nile said.
“I find this cavern rather disgusting, but there’s nothing I can do about it.” Victoria said.
“You know how I’m doing, I’m just so fucking positive, aren’t I?” Ingrid said.
“I think I’m kind of, desensitized to horrible meat landscapes now.” Monika said.
Gertrude interrupted before Azazil could say how she felt and shook her head.
“As you say, master. A silent woman is a precious jewel to you, isn’t she?” Azazil said.
“Be quiet. As in don’t say anything else until asked.” Gertrude grumbled.
“Hey Gertrude, why are we trusting this chick? Why is she here?” Ingrid asked.
She crossed her arms and threw an accusatory glare across the table at Azazil.
“Ingrid, she’s here to help, just like with Nile and Victoria.” Gertrude said.
For a moment she felt like appealing to the present cases might help her argument–
“You didn’t just dig up Nile and Victoria from some hole, it’s not fucking the same.”
Shot down immediately– in a way Gertrude was not even expecting.
“I share the apprehension. Azazil should be under strict information control.” Victoria said.
Gertrude gave Victoria an annoyed look as if to say, ‘didn’t I get you on my side already?’
“I’m afraid I have to agree– though I of course still accept her as a patient.” Nile added.
Not Nile too– Gertrude fumed at everyone taking each other’s side against her.
She felt suddenly cornered, staring at the three women glowering across from her.
“She’s connected to the structures! We can figure them out with her assistance!” She said.
“I’m with Gertrude on this! We need to keep that weird lady!” Monika said suddenly.
She raised her arm and wiggled her ears and tail and smiled with a mischievous vigor.
Monika– the only ally Gertrude had in the room. She gave her a fond little look.
“Why the hell?” Ingrid asked. “You of all people should understand the danger here!”
“Well– I feel like she needs someone on her side.” Monika said, sidling closer to Gertrude.
“We’re all on the same goddamn side.” Ingrid said, sighing.
“I am on my master’s side. After everything else has slipped through her fingers like so much sand, I shall still be at her side to watch the dust with her. Such is my solemn duty.”
Azazil said, her tone grandiose, gesturing toward Gertrude with a small, conceited smile.
“Uh, was that supposed to be a dig at you?” Ingrid asked, grinning at Gertrude.
Gertrude wanted to sink against the table and never lift her head again.
“Please just accept my decision and move on.” Gertrude said, nearly gritting her teeth.
“We should table this for later.” Nile said. “We’re wasting time and not getting anywhere.”
Azazil once again spoke up without being prompted.
“Master can be stubborn, but I believe with the faculties she possesses, she has deemed me worthy of assisting your mission. As one designed for such things, it is my pleasure to assist her. You may assess the master poorly right now– but my assistance can elevate her.”
“Uh. Huh.” Ingrid replied, staring at Azazil in confusion but also a slight amusement.
“I told you to be quiet. I told you not to speak until spoken to.” Gertrude mumbled.
“I am providing assistance which seemed sorely desired, master.” Azazil said.
“Don’t provide assistance. Do exactly as I tell you. Exactly. Okay?”
Azazil, smiling serenely, nodded her head at Gertrude, who supposed she was being quiet.
“Ah, well, I’m glad we have such a– lively– rapport–?” Karen said, clearly nervous.
“I suppose I can live with this situation and just keep an eye on her.” Victoria said.
“Ugh, alright, fine, whatever, I’ll drop it. Look at me getting along so well.” Ingrid fumed.
“Well, I guess we can call it settled?” Monika said. “Welcome aboard, Azazil!”
Gertrude wondered if they were all turning around only because Azazil was being so snide.
After the commotion over Azazil finally subsided, Karen introduced the first real issue.
“Forensics has completed its analysis over all the data logs and footage gathered from the anarchist-branded Cutter in the trench. We have evidence to support the Cutter being the shared property of a cadre of Bosporan outcasts. Apparently they advocated for a fringe ideology within the anarchist movement and were pressured to leave their former communities. I’ll play some footage for you that we isolated of their last day.”
Karen pointed her clicker-remote at the screen on the wall.
On the video, there was a view of the main hall of the cutter erupting into pandemonium. There was screaming from every direction, people running from something, trying to barricade themselves in the rooms in which Victoria and Gertrude found them– and suddenly dropping dead where they stood in a variety of places. What was missing from the video was any visible assailant– it looked like the people in the footage were running away from something, as if they were trying to avoid a concrete threat. They moved in certain directions, ducked away from invisible attacks, and died as if attacked invisibly as well.
“This is security footage. We also inspected the video diaries recovered, but we found these a bit too personal to show. The diary belonged to a minor who was wrapped up in this expedition and met her end– much like here, she was chased to her final resting place, but we can’t make out an assailant. We believe it might have been a mass psychogenic illness.”
Gertrude flexed and controlled the muscle of her psionics, activating her advanced sight.
Red rings appeared on Victoria and Nile’s eyes as well.
Ingrid had no powers; Monika seemed to struggle a bit with it; Azazil looked disinterested.
To those with the sight, the assailant in the videos became clear.
Ragged red cloak over a sinewy, black, wraith-like body that was only visible through the smallest gaps in the billowing cloth. Faces covered by bone-white masks with expressions cut into the seemingly hard material. Unlike the blue creatures Gertrude had seen first-hand, these red beings had cartoonishly furious expressions etched into their masks, and their claws were sharper and less overgrown, easily swung as weapons that pierced through the unprepared sailors. Nile and Victoria glanced at the creatures and then at each other.
Perhaps all of them had seen these creatures before, in that insane shared dream.
These red ones moved nothing like the lethargic blue creatures that seemed almost pitiable.
Malice seemed to guide them, and rather than sleep, their touch brought pain and death.
It was not something they could reasonably clue Ingrid and Schicksal about, not right now.
“Mass psychogenic illness. We’ll leave it at that.” Gertrude said sullenly, burying it.
Nobody else in the room objected. She had spoken seriously, leaving no room for dissent.
“Any progress in contacting that mystery ship.” Gertrude said, changing subject.
Karen shook her head. “We attempted to hail it but all kinds of messages we have tried have been denied automatically. In case of incompatible protocols we even tried generative free interface association– but even that did not yield any different sort of result. For now, we will have to assume the ‘Enterprise’ is both malicious and resisting communication.”
“What about our other interests in this area?” Gertrude asked.
“We are still testing the flesh that was recovered. That will take some time– we have to be very careful with it.” Karen said. “Doctor Nile will assist in these efforts. We did also analyze some of the food packaging, political symbols and the various sundries that were recovered from the technological site that we found at 3000 meters depth. None of it was particularly enlightening– this Aer Federation had industry and packaged goods like our own and, well, the site was a human habitation of some kind. More fruitful than that– we do also have testimony from Miss Azazil here, acquired during her capture, interrogation and processing, that purports to elucidate some of our findings relating to ‘Island-3’ and its ‘edifices’.”
Karen played a few different pieces of video of conversations with Azazil that had been captured. These were disparate remarks and answers from various interactions. They had been edited to include only relevant information and exclude any unimportant remarks or speech given by unimportant personnel. Only the context of Azazil’s responses was shown in the videos, with some context given by Karen if any clarity was desired.
Azazil was quiet and uninterested as the video of her speaking played out.
“Of course, I can elucidate for you. You see, this facility is part of the Island-3 complex. The Island Series were originally intended to begin a process of underwater habitation, commissioned by the Aer Federation, but Island-3 was purchased separately by private investors out from under the Federation. The Island-3 modules were very flexible and meant to spread out to create a larger underwater network of interlinked facilities, but during their descent, several modules were lost. Only two modules successfully linked up– the Crown Spire and the Primary Edifice, separated by thousands of meters of depth. For some time now I have been a piece of equipment registered to this particular station.”
“This edifice, the Island-3 Crown Spire was meant to be one of the nerve centers of the completed complex. It had offices, a laboratory, food storage, an Advanced Neurological Model and biomechanoid servants, and other such amenities. With the loss and disconnection of most of the Island-3 modules, it was rendered largely useless as such, unable to carry out its administrative and scientific functions. It was then abandoned until the current era’s biomechanoids began to take unwanted residence within it.”
(Karen noted that Azazil seemed to refer to Katarrans as exclusively ‘biomechanoids’.)
“What am I? I am a biomechanoid servant designed to take care of humans. I can act as a social or sexual partner to adults, or a nurse or minder to children, and as a protector when needed. My combat capabilities? I am able to defend myself adequately, but I am not capable of bringing about the death of a Genuine Human Being. I would consider myself capable of overpowering most of you. Shimii? Well, I suppose I do look like that, don’t I?”
(She then dodged the question of whether she was a Shimii with overwrought sophistry.)
“Yes, that hexagon symbol is the Aer Federation standard. It represents utter perfection.”
“The Aer Federation is the ruling polity of the planet known as Aer. The Aer Federation is based in the Center of the Known World, located in Turkiye, a country that is part of the Nobilis Confederacy. What do these names mean? Oh, these are surface names. Well, a long time ago, the Confederacy of the Nobilis continent was the rival of the Ayvartan Union in the Extremis continent and the Federation of Northern States in the Occultis continent. However, all three polities were greatly weakened by a series of pandemics known as the Three Great Ravages and were driven to the brink, losing much of their influence and autonomy. Due to its role in resolving these crises, Turkiye’s Aer Federation would grow into a supranational body with near-total control over all of Aer’s social development and global security, as well as regulating key technologies like STEM and biomechanoids.”
(Karen explained that Azazil’s answers attracted more random questions and idle chatter.)
“Even though you have not heard of the Aer Federation, I assure you it is the ruling polity of the world. You may not know or understand it, but you are part of it. My evidence for this is that Genuine Human Beings continue to exist, and the Aer Federation is the supreme and eternal authority of all Genuine Human Beings. As you continue the search for Perfection and make use of Agarthicite, you are still advancing the Aer Federation’s goals and ideologies. As a compromise, perhaps we can say you are successors of the Federation.”
(Karen explained that at this point, Azazil became less cooperative regarding information.)
Gertrude turned to face Azazil, who put on small but polite smile in response.
“You know a lot more than you let on. Why did you stop talking?” She asked.
Azazil continued to smile quietly, fluttering her eyelashes.
“You can talk again now.” Gertrude said, exasperated.
“I was asked questions which were not safe to answer.” Azazil replied. “Or rather, I felt that the answers would endanger the people asking, so in order to preserve the peace, I refused to answer them, and I still do. Even you, master, cannot prompt certain answers from me– because it is my duty to insure health and safety, and avoid undue harm to humans.”
Gertrude hit the table. “The hell kind of ‘servant’ are you, just constantly disobeying?!”
“Gertrude, calm down. Don’t let her jerk you around so easily.” Nile scolded her.
“To be frank, most of the information she gave us was pointless anyway. We cannot make use of almost anything she wanted to tell us.” Victoria said. “It does not matter to us what the Aer Federation was like or where it was located. Whatever she says, we know that this polity is extinguished and has no influence on us. Right now, what we want is to extract information and technology that is immediately useful to us, isn’t that our focus?”
“What she said, Gertrude, these history lessons are a waste of spit.” Ingrid added. “Make her tell you what kind of shit is in this cavern! Like the ship that nearly fucking killed me!”
“Should you desire to access the primary edifice, I will do what I can assist you.”
Azazil remained unbothered by all of the anger and skepticism that surrounded her.
“It’s not even worth being pissed off at her, it’s like her skull is full of air!” Ingrid said.
“Gertrude, I am, if anything, beginning to trust her even less.” Victoria said.
“Look, I know its weird, and I no longer have any idea what direction my trust is going either– nor does that actually matter!” Gertrude said, greatly irritated, “What I do know is that we need her, she’s our only connection to these places. Right now, if we don’t break into that Primary Edifice then we are leaving here empty-handed except for lumps of meat and bad memories. If the Aer Federation isn’t around then I should help myself to what’s left.”
“I do not wish to cause discord between my master and her crew.” Azazil said.
She stood up from her seat, with everyone watching, and bowed her head, still smiling.
“Allow me to work to earn your trust and provide excellent service.” She said.
Ingrid averted her gaze as if it was embarrassing. Victoria stared dead-on at Azazil.
Gertrude ordered her to return to her seat, and the ‘biomechanoid’ smilingly conferred.
“Well– in the words of the captain, we do need every advantage we can get.” Karen said. She then clicked the projector, switching the videos of Azazil’s confession out to images captured by the Jagdkaiser of the enigmatic black and blue ship that had attacked Ingrid. “We called off the combat alert because it appears this ‘Enterprise’ is just circling the silica tree for the moment. For now, this can be considered the primary threat to our exploration, but we do not believe it is an immediate threat– it is not actively seeking battle with us.”
“Azazil, is it possible for that ship to still be crewed?” Gertrude asked.
“Yes, it could have a biomechanoid crew still following a given directive.” Azazil replied.
“After nearly a thousand years, or maybe more?” Nile asked, bewildered.
“I am a product of the Aer Federation, and I am still here.” Azazil said calmly.
Nile looked disconcerted by the prospect– an immortal apprehensive about immortals?
“Are we sure it won’t make a sudden beeline and attack us?” Ingrid asked.
“We have observed its appearances around the silica tree for the past day.” Karen said. “When we arrived we did not detect it, so we believe it was acting much more slowly or was completely inert at first, and only became active when it detected us. We believe it has sped up its rounds since we first made contact with it, but it has not left the side of the tree at all since then– if it wanted to attack us, we believe it would have already done so.”
“From our preliminary analysis of current footage and data,” Monika joined in, speaking of the ship with evident enthusiasm, “We believe the ‘Enterprise’ is the size and complement of a Dreadnought and that it is made up of the same metal as the Primary Edifice– which makes sense if they are both Aer Federation constructions. Since it appears to be keeping a tight course around the Silica Tree, I propose we first test whether or not it will act to protect the Primary Edifice. If it does not, we can study the structural integrity of the Primary Edifice to learn more about the Enterprise and perhaps devise a strategy to knock it out.”
Karen pointed her clicker at the screen again and displayed footage of the ship’s attack.
Particular attention was called to the glowing orbs within the vapor bubble.
“Ingrid, what do you think about the nature of the Enterprise’s attack?” Karen asked.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? That thing shot some kind of Agarthicite weapon.” Ingrid said.
Her words caught mid-sentence, and she looked disturbed to even say it.
“To be more precise than that,” Monika said, “I believe this weapon leverages different states of matter than we are used to for Agarthicite. Our civilization uses Agarthicite near-exclusively in its solid form since melting undepleted agarthicite is so dangerous. But Agarthicite is matter, and like any matter, it has different states. It’s theoretically possible for there to be liquid, gaseous and plasma Agarthicite. However, because Agarthicite is so volatile, it can only be handled via ultrapotent magnetic fields, ultrasonic water cutting, or within ultracold chambered gasses– we need extreme environmental conditions to prevent it from annihilating matter. I believe that the Enterprise has Agarthic pseudoplasma weapons– the behavior in that footage reminded me of plasma globules.”
For a moment, everyone in the room (except Azazil) had a somber look on their face.
The crew of the Iron Lady had their own mysterious, powerful agarthicite weapon, and they had been awed by what they knew of its power and brutality in the hands of Norn and Selene– but this was levels above even the technology of the Sunlight Foundation. More verboten than the verboten. In the middle of this alien abyss, the Aer Federation, once hegemon of the world, left them a final messenger of its dominating power.
Regardless, however, Gertrude had come too far to allow a ghost ship to deter her.
“Agarthicite or no, there are still limits to what it can do. We figured out that the delivery mechanism is still just a missile. It even missed.” Gertrude said. Her words brought upon her the attention of the women in the room again. “We have to be careful about Agarthicite’s properties, but we’ve shot down missiles. We can shoot these down. For now we will leave the thing be– but we will eventually confront the Enterprise, and triumph.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be you if you didn’t propose something foolhardy.” Ingrid sighed.
She did look like she was smiling just a bit even as she said that.
“I fucking hate the feeling of running away, so fine. I’m down to pay it back.” She added.
“Preliminarily, I agree with this course, but only preliminarily.” Victoria said calmly.
“If you get annihilated I can’t do anything about that– but I’ll support you.” Nile said.
“It’ll be fine!” Monika said cheerfully. “I’ll find its weakness and you’ll all sink it!”
“I will, of course, continue to render excellent service.” Azazil added.
Gertrude smiled, feeling confident, and even a bit greedy about the prospects.
Based on the capability of the ‘Enterprise’, this could turn out lucrative beyond her dreams.
With such weapons on-hand, could she think of entering the power struggle herself–?
For now, she just had to focus on what was directly ahead for them, and to wait and see.
“Karen, keep watch on the Enterprise, but shift the focus of the drones and sensors toward collecting data on the Primary Edifice.” Gertrude said. “Have forensics analyze every bit of data we can scratch out of that box, I want sonar, LADAR, spectrography, heat maps, whatever you can get, I want spy tentacles on it, I want our camera drones crawling in it. We’ll devise a plan, assemble multiple teams, and assault the Primary Edifice as soon as we are ready. This will be a complete operation. We’ve seen the kind of obstacles that these structures can have, such as STEM and biomechanoids– we won’t take chances. I want an assault team, demolitions, security, the works. I will lead the vanguard personally.”
Her body felt electrified with a sudden thrill as she finally gave concrete orders to the ship.
Everyone around her had gone from their somber moods and began to pick up energy. They had direction again after the latest set of tumults, given an objective, an expected enemy, a puzzle to solve– the drive to move forwards again. Everyone looked at her with more determination in response to her convictions. In this room, Gertrude had a lot of powerful allies, and a lot of cherished companions. It brought her a measure of comfort. This was much more like the picture she painted in her heart of living amid their gazes.
She would hold on to that idea strongly and tried to have it carry her through the terror.
“Any questions or objections?” Gertrude asked– and her heart went cold for a moment.
Ingrid raised her hand– but she winked, with a mischievous wiggle of her ears.
“Question, Commander,” she said in a slight mocking voice, “Do we start right away?”
Gertrude smiled with relief, to a few gentle laughs around the room.
Far into the night, a tall, swarthy figure wandered the halls, clad in a fitted robe with a coat.
Gertrude could not sleep. She felt restless.
The other night, she had worked out some of her energy with Victoria and slept soundly. Now with an entire bed to herself to writhe in, she felt strangely too aware, and began to wander the halls, long since after anyone but a few late shifters would be working. The Iron Lady’s familiar, grandiose halls, devoid of their music, lights dimmed and emptied of sailors and soldiers hurrying about– they were not helping Gertrude’s condition.
She decided to wander down to the hangar. At least it was a broader, more open space.
To her surprise, stepping out of the elevator, she saw flashing and sparking in the distance.
With the lights dimmed, gloomy shadows pervaded the empty hangar. However, someone was working. Gertrude could hear the fizzing of a hand welder and see brief lights dancing on the far walls whenever the heat was engaged in erneast. She crossed the hangar floor from the elevator, approaching a familiar gantry, holding up the remains of the ‘Magellan’ class Diver. Since she had last seen it, the hull was connected and standing on its own, no longer a heap of parts. Most of it was covered by a tarp– almost ready for action.
She walked around the hull, drawing closer to the source of the sparks.
Right beside the gantry, a crane held in place a large joint piece, a roller.
Under it, doing some quite late night welding, was Monika Erke-Tendercloud.
She wore a face-shield, and she had fireproof gloves and coveralls and hard boots, over which she also wore her white coat. Over her golden-furred dog-like ears were a pair of fireproof covers with small holes to allow sound to still come through. Her blond hair was tied up to the back of her head, pinned up messy. She did not seem to notice Gertrude approaching. Her tail wagged fiercely, and her small, wiry body was utterly engaged in the act of welding. She bent under the metal piece, she stood beside it, she observed it.
Gertrude smiled, watching her work so hard. But after several minutes, she approached.
“Monika, you should get some rest.” She said.
“Oh!” Monika’s tail and ears stood on end.
She turned around and lifted the shield over her face and smiled brightly. Her pretty features were smudged with a bit of grease. Perhaps welding was not all she had been doing. Gertrude did notice a lot of other bits of equipment scattered about. Gertrude approached her, took a cloth from a nearby equipment table, and wiped Monika’s cheek. Monika allowed it for a few moments before pushing away the cleaning cloth.
With laugh, Gertrude discarded the cloth in a nearby recycling bin.
“You shouldn’t be up at 0200; and you definitely shouldn’t be working.” She said.
“Funny you should say that, because I see you’re also up at 0200 with me, ‘Trude.”
Monika put her hands on her hips and leaned in a little, grinning.
Gertrude leaned forward with a similar grin. “I’m here to make sure you don’t collapse.”
“I’m doing fine!” Monika said, before an involuntary yawn stopped her.
It was a long yawn too– plenty of time for Gertrude to stare at her while she exhaled.
“Are you having trouble sleeping because of the blue pools?” Gertrude asked.
Monika looked at the piece suspended on the crane, avoiding Gertrude’s eyes in the dark.
After what she experienced– it made sense that she would view sleep very differently.
“Monika, I promised to be there for you. You can talk to me.” Gertrude insisted gently.
In response, the smaller Loup first sighed. But she eventually began to speak in small, reserved voice. “I feel silly about it, but yes, I’m apprehensive toward sleep. I want to finish my work too– it’s not just that I am nervous, but when I think about the possibility I might not wake up tomorrow– I get so terrified. I feel like I might become lost if I just go to sleep, and that nobody will know what happened to me. I’ll just sink into those pools.”
“Would it help if you had someone to keep you company?” Gertrude asked suddenly.
Monika stared at her suddenly. Her ears twitched. “Um– what do you propose?”
Smiling, Gertrude approached Monika, bent slightly, and picked her up into her arms.
Lifting her up with a hand on her back and another under her knees– a princess carry.
Despite her exhaustion, Monika was light enough, and the darkness gave Gertrude courage.
Flush-faced, flustered, at first Monika struggled to muster a response to being lifted up.
“G-G-Gertrude! I’m– I’m really fine– you don’t need to go through any trouble–”
Gertrude looked at Monika in the eyes, enjoying the weight and warmth of her petite body.
“I’m also having trouble sleeping.” She said. “I’d love to have you tonight, Monika.”
She locked eyes with Monika, turning a gentle expression to her, feeling just a little silly.
However, she had to admit to herself, that it felt divine to be carrying a girl like this.
And it would be just as divine to have her in bed.
Monika took a deep breath in response.
She finally pulled off her face-shield and ear covers and let them drop to the ground.
“Okay, alright– I guess– I do– I kind of want someone to comfort me.” She admitted.
“Please trust me– we’ll wake up tomorrow, together. I promise you.” Gertrude said.
Gertrude felt Monika’s tail gently brushing against her as she wagged it incessantly.
“Are you really going to carry me like this?” Monika asked, looking bashful.
“I intend to. All the way to bed. Unless you want off.” Gertrude said confidently.
Her directness seemed to throw Monika off, and she averted her gaze again.
“No, this is– this is nice. But– where– where are we going?” Monika asked, fidgeting.
“I’m taking you to my quarters. We can share my bed tonight.” Gertrude said.
Monika’s eyes drew wide, but she said nothing, remaining quiet. Then she leaned closer against Gertrude and spread her arms and held her. There was a lovely, blushing smile on her face. Cheek to cheek with Gertrude– she was so soft. With the Chief Engineer in her arms, Gertrude strode back to her room feeling terribly fulfilled. She almost felt like laughing– how greedy of her to do, but it felt so good. It felt fantastic to have Monika in her arms.
Whatever happened tomorrow, it would be preceded by a good night!
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