Chapter 9-3 Shadows of the Past
To everyone who can hear this, this is the SCS George Washington. We are lost. We are lost within a spatial distortion.
There are things out here. Something something grabbed us. Something swam out in from the darkness and grabbed us.
Systems are damaged. Central Shepherd AI is screaming. We cant fix itit's code is burning? The damage doesnt make sense! None of this shit makes sense!
Its pulling us down. I thinkI think it swallowed us. Swallowed the Napoleon too. We were planet-bound. Sawsaw signs of civilization on the surface. Sent out probes confirming sophont life
[Rumbling]
Shit, we're revectoring our thrusts but it's like theres no propulsion.
To all associated vessels of the Sol Central Equanimity, do notI repeatdo not approach Quarantine Zone Id. Thaumic activity remains high. I repeat. Thaumic activity remains high.
The surviving crew are going into stasis. Were going to secure ourselves. Try to get our Shepherd working again.
[Distortions; Possible memory-echo from ghost]
Oh, god, Im so fucking scared.
[Sobbing]
-Chief Admin Andrew McConney of the SCS George Washington, Sol Central ARKSHIP
9-3
Shadows of the Past
It was an unnerving thing, to be dwarfed by lost history. Avo didnt yet know the lore behind this place, but stories sang from the structure itself, its bones colored with culture and history long lost to New Vultuns memories.
Ascending, he found himself at the center of an immensity of a dias. Runes directed him forward, thrones gleaming distantly. The spilling headlights of Draus aerovec basked each an ominous shade, casting his shadow against them, a grotesque puppet as he led the way.
The runes parted like clay with each step. The sensation was disconcerting, like the ground itself molding to form better grips for his claws. The touch of darkness was far from the interior of this pace, the grand gateway they entered rattling to a close behind them, flaps of pale whiteness bolted onto an interior of tesselated colors and ripe with the atmosphere of worship.
Before the gate came to a close, Avo watched as the Darkness crashed down, engulfing the tunnel behind like a wave smashing down on a narrowing tube. The light faded as thick strands of darkness collapsed, fusing together like a melding seam. The Essence of the ghoul they sacrificed resonated weakly, splashing down along the sides of the structure, deeper and deeper until he could sense it no more.
+Well,+ Draus said, eyes still fixed on the panes of glass lining the corners of the room, +hope we didnt just make a one-way trip.+ Beyond the glass, swirling emptiness speckled with dots of nebula answered silently. Vast swaths of pustulating tumorous oozed gouts of eldritch flame into the real.
+We can eat Thousandhand,+ Avo suggested. +Use her for food if stranded.+
Draus mind was filled with doubt. +Can you beat er?+
+Eventually,+ Avo said. +Draw, at least.+
The obvious lie spilled over from his mind into hers as she scoffed. +Dont think I want to eat no drug-fiend-old-lady meat anyhow. Suppose well have to make do with you. Reckon we all got better odds with that.+
He sneered. +Did my beating knock something loose inside you?+
Her mind reacted, its sequences ringing with mockery. +Nah. Heads clearer than its been in a while. Figure the old lady might wanna piece of you anyway. Seein how you run roughshod over your squad, and spent some time bein the holder of her piss-cans, I got guesses hangin in the back of mind, and that guess is that she got your number.+
Chancing a glare at Zein, he found the older woman nodding at him, expression one of pleasure and anticipation. Something inside twitched. Violence for him was like leaking gas. Always hissing, except all the world was a spark, and he could only take being taunted so long.
Oh, dont listen to that ox of a girl, Zein said, tilting her blade so she reflected his salivating face. He furled his headplates together as a response. Do as you wish. As will I. We are Godclad, after all.
It felt as if the beast was burrowing deeper inside him, gnawing in his chest so he could calm the dissatisfaction of not killing her with his bare claws.
A faint ringing pulled his focus out of the conversation and back on one of the thrones. The seats stood apart from the room, forms speaking little of opulence but much of tradition. Bone inlays formed patterned sigils on each of the marble seats, their representations emblems to the Low Masters.
The ivory inlay in the throne of Defiance was calling out to him, a blackened, dormant locus embedded at its core sudden snapping out from a hidden panel. Staring at the crystalline structure, he saw something flashing inside it, shining in a fashion only something bearing a paired memory would.
It is safe, Zein said. Bemusement spread across her face as she prodded the ground. The matter parted before the glaive, offering obedience instead of being pierced. The responsiveness continued to unsettle. For you. Should anyone else connect with it, it will empty enough traumas into their mind to null a thousand-sequence strong warding.
Like water rushing up a pipe, the first spills of ghost stuff flowed through and he connected. Blackened roots spread outward from the locus, manifesting as if an analogy lost between a fissure and expanding vein. From beyond the shimmering crystal locus and through the maze of hallways spilling up the structure like broken pieces from a kaleidoscope, ghosts flowed free, their flows rushing out like waters released from turned faucets.
The locus embedded in the throne before him gleamed with a growing phantasmal presence. Sequences threaded themselves into the crystal as it spewed out a phantom.
Human failed to serve as an adequate descriptor for the simulacrum manifesting before Avo. As cards could be stacked, so mimicked the nature of this phantasmal construct, its body an endless mesh of individuals compressed into the space held by one, their minds symphonic but bereft of any melody; it felt as if he was beholding a thick stack perfected for processing mass, but not harmony.
Raw processing power, in simplistic terms.
HELIX ONLINE
CONNECTING TO THE SHEPHERD
+He-hello, Defiance+ the phantoms greeted. He felt a strangeness to their nature. Like there was something of actual agency behind the beings thoughts, yetalmost similar to Kaethere was something damaged about them, and that each person in the cluster was meant to serve as a component. Filling. Something to hold the overall construct together.
There, at the center of it all, he noted a cluster of minds.
What do we behold? the Woundshaper asked, curiosity piqued as much as his. How strange its architecture, like doorways built against each other, trying to bear a impossible yield.
A strange uniform spilled over the phantom like water. Dark blue and lined with glinting synthetic hexagons, the chest formed a patch, the insignia a spear emerging from a sun to punch through eight planets and beyond. As it moved, it left inky imprints on reality, each echoing limb belong to a different person. Its face was a turbulent sea vibrating with the frequency of countless minds shuddering against each other. He saw nothing of eyes, noses, or skin. Only the faintest of wrinkles, as if exhaustion was the only thing that couldnt be scrubbed away.
Behind him. He heard the aerovec go quiet. A door hissed open. The static whine of a gauss rifle spinning up sounded. Draus couldnt shoot a ghost, but they still didnt know what else this place had in store for them.
+We have been expecting you,+ the ghost-hive spoke, voices a bone-shivering legion. +Would you like to begin your tour?+
Tour, Avo said. He could guess what was being offered, but his unfamiliarity with the place still unsteadied him. Want answers first. Where are we? This place. What is it?
The being registered his words as it thought, the wavy wrinkles on its face ebbing and collapsing, ebbing and collapsing. +All inquiries have been anticipated by prior fork: Walton. Please be seated for direct interfacing wth ark systems.+
Ark, Avo asked.
I believe this used to be a voidship, Zein said, an uncharacteristic frown plastered on her face. Or a least, part of one. My, so many possibilities.
Know what I should ask?
She tilted her head, as if trying to get a better signal from the future. Strange is its nature. The possibilities are quite the inventory. You should sit. Dive into it.
Wont eat my mind? Avo asked.
She didnt answer immediately, a wry look coming over her as she flattened her lips. That depends on the future, little dagger. It nulls us all should I try to stab it with my blade, but not when I shoot it with a gun.
Her wryness broke into a scowl. Damnable ghosts. They are glaive-prejudiced. Zein spat at the ghost. Her phlegm spattered dead-on with the locus. Your feared death offends me.
The ghost-hive didnt even turn to Zein, choosing to continue to address Avo instead. +Warning. Countermeasure: Thousandhand unable to be initiated. Missing key modules and components to devise pacification measures.+
Frowning at the phlegm, Avo scraped it from the seat with a twist of wind. Turning, he regarded Draus,who was standing behind her landed aero, gun laid over the top. Draus. If it eats my mind
Shoot you. Yeah. Know the drill.
Zein turned to face the Regular, angling her body so show her fingers tapping along the shaft of her glaive. A wordless challenge was cast out. Draus chuckled.
Alright, old-timer, Draus said, if it comes down to it, youre on.
Avo stared blankly. Comforting to know that his death was in good hands. A quick draw between Draus and Zein favored the latter by nature, but Thousandhand was too much a spirited competitor to cheat.
Much.
She might pull a nuke-pistol out from her sword.
INITIATING MIND-DIVE
And suddenly, the world expanded. Sensors and diagnostic components lit up with Avos mind and interfaces expanded. From being a being of narrow perception, he felt his eyes explode, with multiple sensory feeds filtering data directly into him.
A splash of bolded reports ran up along the corner of his eye, but before that, he found himself drawn to a specific line of text.
It looked faintly Standard in script, though henor any ghost within him for that matterseemed to harbor any knowledge of its origins.
+The text is in a language formerly known as English,+ the ghost-hive said, their words vibrating through him. An impossible quantity of ghosts flooded into him, cycling an endless deluge between him and the hive. +Beginning translation.+
Staring into the Nether, he peeked at their mem-data and found himself shaken.
He had no idea what he was looking at. The was but one sequence to this structure, but it ran on seemingly forever, each ghost coiled around the next, with something impossibly potent forming a spine at the center. And with the way it thought, he felt it far beyond human.
SCS George Washington, Sol Central ARKSHIP
CENTRAL MODULES DETECTED:
COMMAND NEXUS
CLONING POOL
GENE CLINIC
HYDROPONICS
EGI SHEPHERD CORE
All at once, the locations of each of the aforementioned modules became known to him. With a thought, he found himself able to peer out from the walls, the tessellating matter currently forming the shape of a template rapidly reshaping not unlike his Woundshaper could. Even better, perhaps.
From the walls, he could cameras and receive audio as well. They were currently in the command nexus it ran far longer than he anticipated. Ancient blueprints flashed in his mind alongside countless other stored templates. The halls, he realized, were but the latest templated design. At the time of its origination, the composition of the structure had been entirely fog-like, reshaping quickly to the whims of its staff.
The nexus ran for twenty kilometers. Kilometers? Voidwatch numbers. That made sense.
It was built more like a tower than a golem, its structure malleable on the inside, but hardened weaves made out of countless tubes forming a layered weave made from a hardened poly-silicon mesoskeleton. The other modules clung to the nexus from bridges and arms, each piece spinning. From outer visuals, it vaguely looked like twenty blackened cubes sheathed and melting over each other, with a few ovular extensions leading out from the length of its central body. The vast rings spun around its exterior, connected along crystalline lattices. Two were slightly cracked, and the machinery within looked long hollowed.
TURN SPEED: 9.8 m/s
It was through the tubes comprising the ship that darkness came flowing in. From what few visual sensors he had on the outside of the ship, he gazed out, trying to study the void itself.
An immense, pulsing construct of shimmering brightness took up his view, its resplendence coated in a shell of mirrors. Countless echoes undulated through the darkness, like currents rushing through synapses. They turned as if metallic upon being fed a death. On an instinctive level, he realized these werent stars, but Essence flowing. Other ghouls were being sacrificed. He felt the allure of their deaths. He felt the touch of their shine.
A throb cast a tidal wave out into the void. His feeds flickered as oblivion rushed up at him. Avo flinched back.
And the shadows passed through the ship, smiting nothing.
+The Heart of Noloth is purely a spatial-conceptual anomaly,+ the hive said. +It cannot inflict kinetic damage. Currently, it is running at minimal capacity. Much is hidden here. Even from itself. Would you like to begin your tour now?+
Avo grunted, still reeling from the impact which never came.
That Heaven it lacks a cycler, the Woundshaper said. These sacrifices must be made constantly. Without efficiency. But perhaps it does offer a function of quietude. The specificity of its offering and conditions allow the Low Masters an edge to their subterfuge indeed.
The words spoken by the Woundshaper inspired Avos curiosity, and from it, his first questions flowed. How long have you been here?
+We were captured approximately one-thousand-five-hundred-and-seventy-two Sol standard cycles,+ the hive said. +We estimate that the Heart retreated beneath the surface of the planet some eight hundred cycles ago before we were dislodged into the catacombs of Old Noloth around five hundred cycles ago.+
Not content to only recite the history, it injected history itself directly into his memories. Schematics and slaves became known to him. Walton, dressed in ashen robes lined with rope-tightened bones stood before a gargantuan ship protruding from the underground.
A piece of glinting crystal protruded from his skull then, embedded deep as ghosts simmered out like a fog. In the haze, he saw the Hungers again, seeming far smaller in his memories. Countless pale-skin slaves hammered away, smashing and pounding through miles of rock and soil to carve the voidship free.
+The remaining modules of the SCS George Washington were then dismantled and re-anchored into the Heart approximately one hundred years ago to serve as the primary operations center for Low Masters of the Eternal City. Approximately one month prior, all users other than Defiance were wiped from administrative functions.+
You pre-date the Godsfall, Avo whispered.
Suddenly, he felt Zein leaning close. Do you see anything about weapons? Or an armory? What arms does this ship have?
+All non-listed modules are missing. All armaments and drive specs were lost due to critical system damage.+
Crew? Avo asked. What do you mean crew?
+Current crew members: DefianceAvo plus two other fury class sophonts and one base-class sophont.+
Another spike of information filled his mind. A memory from Waltonor who he was before. They cut one of the crew out of her stasis pod. She screamed when he poured his ghosts directly into her. From her, they harvested implants. Pieces of technology they couldnt yet understand.
Not until the arrival of Jaus, and with him, Voidwatch, did they fully learn that which they held.
Avo blinked. The way the information came to him was unlike any transfer of memory he ever experienced. No sequences flowed through, rather, it felt like he was directly getting a blast of static scenes carved into his mind. Studying the overall architecture of the hive again, he felt his fascination in bloom.
He had no idea how one could build an Auto-Seance into this thing, or even strike it for that matter. It felt like an entirely different creature grown out of a garden of human minds spliced with something impossibly robotic. Almost like a far more advanced version of the coldtech machine he interfaced with before the Crucible.
Sinking deeper into the locus, he felt himself enmesh with the ships systems, drowning, overwhelmed. +Yes,+ Avo finally said, +Yes. Start the tour.+
+Understood. Attention. Pre-recording initiating: Waltons final farewell.+
Upon the dais, assembled from flecking motes of tessellating particles, an effigy of Walton formed.
An effigy savaged by the final stages of wombrash. Swollen pustules of murky whiteness rose along the mans skull and chest, marring his form with pregnant lumps. The translucence of the rash clusters was filled with the deformed shapes of homunculi; their bodies were like drained apples. Most drifted, unmoving in their false wombs, dead without a chance to struggle.
A few others, however, fought on, pushing tiny twitching fingers out through the rupturing sores reaming flesh.
Through it all, however, Walton kept smiling, the expression on his face serene, his own death but an unexpected moment of rainfall to him.
Out of the aero now, Avo heard Kae whimper. Oh oh gods.
+Hey, there, Avo,+ Walton said. A small hand punched out through the back of his skull. He coughed, reached up, and politely pushed the arm back in. The bulge protruding from behind his head began to thrash. +By the time youre getting this, Im probably long gone. I wont lie. The main reason Im doing this is jealousy. Pure and simple. Now, some parents get to teach their kids how to drivewell, command, an aerovec at least. Never got to do that with you. I think I would have liked it.+
He chuckled. The homunculi burst out from behind him, toppling free with a squleching noise. +I also think you wouldve gotten distracted by thinking about the passing birds. How they might taste to you. Anyway. Im dead, but Id still like to show you how to work this half-broken voidship I dug up.+ His chuckle bloomed into a full smile as genuine mirth glinted in his eyes. +Your uncles arent going to like this. Neither is that thing I used to call my god. The hells with them. You got my Frame. You got my Helix. Let me show you how to steal whats left of an empire.+
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