The Galactic War: Rogue Element ~The Beginning

[Chad32]

<I met Terenia and Efaen when she came to the sapce bar, and am the one who initially freed Efaen from slavery under Terenia.> Claxter said. <I went through a few things in regards to them, and it and ended when Terenia convinced Efaen to join the rebellion. Due to difference in time, a year passed outside the bar, while only a few days passed where I was.>

<Now so much has happened that I am unaware of, but due to Terenia's repeated death threats towards Efaen, I feel she's still in danger. I was wondering if efaen trusts you, and if you cared for her safety.>

[Luke Skywalker (Ossanlin)]

Ossanlin nods to Myitt as she begins to speak, but continues his conversation with Enorryma.  <<None of them were infested during the rescue, Enorryma.  Did you see them begging us to leave the Yeerks in their cells?  None of them were infested during the first portion of this flight...did they voice anything but concern for their Yeerk comrades?  And did they not come willingly, even eagerly, to the pool to be reunited with their friends?>>  He pauses again.  <<If it means you will try to see in a different light, I will honor your request unless extreme circumstances demand otherwise.>>  Internally he breathes a sigh of relief.  He hadn't expected Enorryma to take the option, he thought he knew her better than that, and the very same issues with her return to the Homeworld had occurred to him as well...but even those he thought he knew well had surprised him in the past, his main eyes resting on Myitt unbidden at the thought.  He nods again at Myitt's thanks.

<Of course, as I mentioned, finding the rest of your kin is priority one.  I will not interfere in your internal politics after that point, but to ensure a safe and speedy recovery of your survivors, I do ask you to temporarily accept this arrangement as a necessity.>  He pauses, looking around the room one last time, stalk eye following Efaen's progress...the bridge was not that big...it must be getting crowded in there by now...before continuing.  <If there are no further questions, I....>  Ossanlin falls completely silent as a portion of the common-room ceiling seems to bow and stretch and twist as if it were liquid being warped by a disturbance of some sort before settling back to its original pattern.  His main eyes widen and he twists around to the bridge just as Leskel calls out for him.

<Sir!  I don't know what's happening...I...I can't keep up with it!  Look!>  Leskel gestures at the Z-Space display and the whole arrangement seems to be shifting in some random pattern.  In all his time aboard a ship in Z-Space, Ossanlin has never seen the like.  Waves and whorls and disturbances twist the map of Z-Space, starting and ending with the same alacrity.  He's never been in the middle of such a large and active Z-Space shift before.

Ossanlin wastes no time.  <Enorryma, you have the helm.  Leskel, try to plot developing disturbances and see if you can find any pattern.  We can't risk a drop from Z-Space, but I don't want to see what those disturbances will do to biological matter.>  He already had some idea of what they would do...ships that had crossed Z-Space planes or "wakes" had lost entire crews...

<Esarvit, report to the bridge immediately!>  Ossanlin calls to his sensors officer.  <I need you to search for and plot gravimetric micro-anomalies...>

He scans the room again.  <Efaen...please vacate the bridge.>  Though he uses the pleasantry, his tone makes the statement a command rather than a request.

[Shenmue654]

Keshin, for his part, entered his own host during this time without incident. It took a bit longer than he expected, but sometimes he lingered longer than normal. It was glorious to see again, wonderful to breathe real air out of his perfect human lungs. Keshin had enjoyed his male Hork-Bajir, had enjoyed the power and the strength of that ironically guileless race. Much as the creature had hated him, he had entertained the idea that the thing was his pet. But a human body---a flexible, lightning-fast infinitely versatile machine---he had preferred them from the very moment he met Joanne. And naturally, Joanne herself. In her heart and mind he had his most coveted prize.

<I am happy to see you,> he stated honestly and with uncommon warmth for him.

<Kess....oh god Kess, you have no idea,> stated Joanne's thought-voice, rapidly sending emotions and images to him as if desperate to spew it all out. <I've missed you so much. We're on the ruddy Andalite's ship. He saved us. Him. The guy we almost killed. We gotta do somethin' for 'im an' Myitt. We owe 'em and we got nowhere else to go.>

<People like us have plenty of places to go,> states Keshin matter-of-factly. <We'll ride this boat until we're otherwise disposed. If you want to stick around awhile to repay what you see as a debt, I suppose I don't mind the sojourn.> Joanne's eyes snap open, glancing about the room warily and instantly noticing Terenia. She had...spoken to him. She had said...she wanted a favor? She looked....terrified . Lost. Even more so than she typically was. This...could not be good. The three of them were alone in this room.

Keshin glances at Terenia with an incredulous look, almost a grin. "When last we met, we were trying to kill you. You either don't remember or you're a bit stupid. If you want to die, this really is not a good time. We need to contribute something to the ship and the alliance if we intend to survive the next year. Killing a crew member isn't a good start. I can't see how you'd make it worth our while."

[Ember Nickel]

Myitt. And Tarala? Esarvit tries to remember, wondering whether he can program the computer to just learn all these slugs' names for him. Bad enough trying to tell members of another species apart, now he has to learn two different names at once...This is going to be an extremely long voyage.

His stalk eyes are roving rather than bothering to memorize the other human faces, so he immediately notices the Z-Space disturbance, and has bounded towards Ossanlin even before the order is complete. <Of course, Captain!> he yells in reply, having already booted up his computer and run initial broad-scale scans. They won't tell him anything of importance, though, he needs the bridge's specialized equipment.

He arrives at the bridge and begins the scan, focusing in with his main eyes while his stalk eyes scan the display. Intuition matters for the true scholar, of course; from his initial guesses it seems like a distortion of two-dimensional shear, locally bounded by quadratic variance.

<The analysis will finish shortly, but I would watch for singularities. If this guess is correct, beyond a certain distance, matter will be quadratically escaping from these micro-anomalies, but at short range, they will pull matter in. Still, wait for it to conclude.>

[Estelore]

<Waiting is not really an option, Esarvit, but I will take your analysis under advisement.> Enorryma immediately took the helm and fell into the tight focus she reserved only for tail-fights, dogfights, and Z-space maelstroms. She exited the star mapping programme to free up processing for the ship's computer, and with one hand on the key input and the other palm flat on the touch-thought interface, she worked quickly and carefully to tease the ship away from the trans-dimensional ripples which threatened to shred the hull.

In a several-second lull between two moderate waves, she pulled one of her stim capsules from her utility pack, dropping it onto the bridge floor and crushing it underhoof in a too-familiar motion, not caring who saw it but also fairly certain that nobody had the eyes to spare for watching her get her fix. Immediately the icy rush of the stimulant sent her metabolism into high gear, and everything on the viewscreen in front of her seemed to slow down and gain a pristine clarity. Objectively she knew that each twitch took half a second or longer, but right now everything was smooth, precise, and logical in the vast coiling whiteness outside the ship. The ship was an extension of her hands and hooves and mind, and even though it was quite a bit bulkier than a fighter vessel, it moved obligingly as she directed it.

At a deeper level, in a more quiet part of her mind, she mused, Good thing I did not leave when offered the chance. These vortices are absolutely beastly.

As if on queue, something amorphous and large detached from one of the waves to their left, and Enorryma had to do a sharp jigging motion to dodge it. Other blobs became visible in the near distance. <Prince Ossanlin, you may want to tell the passengers to prepare for turbulence.>

[KitsuneMarie]

Tess sniffs, bringing a hand up to wipe at her residual tears from Ossanline's speech and, particularly, the names of Reven and James. Losing Chris's cousin--the Yeerk and human duo that the mere idea of rejoining had given her lovers purpose for a decade--was unthinkable. Horribly tragic.

Her other hand still in Chris's, she takes her eyes from Myitt to him as she finishes speaking and leans towards him to whisper, "We'll create a new Council, surely. I trust Myitt but... she isn't the most level-headed Yeerk I--"

She cuts herself off as Ossanlin abruptly seems to lead the Andalites into a flurry. "What is it?" she whispers to Chris and Keslin, eyes widening. If they're in pursuit or something worse... I don't know if I can handle it, she thinks, her tear-dampened fingers dropping to press lightly against her stomach.


Illim squeezes Myitt's hand after her quiet speech. "Well done," he murmurs quietly, only looking away from her when Niko touches his shoulder. "I think we've had enough gunfire for one day," he replies with a small, sad smile, returning his gaze to Myitt. "We should talk about this, the reformation of the Council. I know it's early, in the face of all our losses, but these Andalites don't know us. Not the way we--"

He falls silent, head swiveling towards Ossanlin and the bridge. "What do you think's going on?" he frowns, keeping his voice down.

[Luke Skywalker (Ossanlin)]

The momentum of the ship changes sharply as Enorryma dodges anomalies, the inertial dampeners unable to keep up with the high-end maneuvers.  Ossanlin widens his stance and sways with the ship's shifts naturally, hands on one of the consoles...he hadn't done this since his last battle in a Tail-Fighter fresh out of the Academy.  He furrows his brow slightly as Norry drops a stim-cap on the floor and crushes it.  It was her vice...but this wasn't the time or place for any type of discussion.

<It would probably be best if you all sat down.>  He announces to the ship at large as he represses a grunt  and sways, bracing with a particularly sharp turn.  He doesn't bother to upbraid Leskel...that could wait.  These types of major disturbances always showed signs of formation on the projected Z-Space map.  Ossanlin uses his console to boost the energy supply to the braking and maneuvering thrusters to threshold, monitoring the Z-Drive unit.  If a fluctuation hit that...Ossanlin leaves the thought unfinished.

Leskel gives up complete control to Enorryma, showing no signs of discomfit.  He immediately begins trying to project patterns of Z-Space modulation.

[Chad32]

Claxter grew nervous when the ship seemed to change shape, and Ossanlin suddenly left to take control of the problem. The turbulence afterwards made him even more nervous, and he leaned against the nearby wall for support. His fight or flight instincts were kicking in, but there was nothing to fight and nowhere to go. He would have to rely on Ossanlin and Enorryma to see them out of this.

<Z-Space is shifting with us still inside.> He said, unable to completely conceal his growing fear. He had managed to control it while in a near helpless state before, during the battle, but he had allied fighting against Andalites. This was their very reality shifting and bending as they tried to get out of it, and there wasn't anything he could do about it but try to maintain his balance and wait. His eyes all tracked frantically around him. He couldn't just aim his shredder at the threat and make it go away. All he could do was wait, and try not to become totally panicked.

[Terenia]

Terenia stares at Keshin for a long moment. Then she shrugs and nods, ducking her head. "Thanks anyway," she mutters, turning away. She finds a place against the wall and slides down it, sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest. When the ship starts rocking violently she shows no indication of noticing, or caring.


Keslin grips Tess' hand, almost thrown off of his feet from the sudden jerking of the shift. "Feels like a Z-Space shift," he says, steadying himself against the wall. "Stay here."

<<You can't honestly be thinking about-->>

<<You have a better idea?>>

<<Not really, no.>>

Keslin makes his way onto the bridge, which is teeming with Andalites. He resists the urge to cringe back, instead making his way up to Ossanlin directly. "I might be able to assist in piloting," he says. The ship lurches and he shifts his stance, staying remarkably well-balanced, despite his trembling. "I lived on a ship for almost a decade, and I spent a lot of that time in Z-space. I'm no fighter pilot, but I know how to keep a fleet from turning into shrapnel."


Efaen winces at Ossanlin's order, both relieved to retreat the sudden flurry of activity and dejected, the only Andalite specifically ordered off the bridge. Fine, she thinks to herself. I don't want to be by them anyway. Unfortunately, she is not nearly as good on two legs as four, despite her ample time spent in human morph. She staggers into a wall, nearly tripping over Terenia as she makes her way back into the other room.

"****," she hisses, finally losing her balance and falling to her knees. She grunts in irritation and begins to demorph.


<<Is he aware of Efaen's memory wipe?>> Aya murmurs. <<Or the fact that Terenia does not currently look to be in any condition to kill anyone?>> She cannot control her eyes to glance towards Terenia, but she saw her earlier. She looked positively devastated. <<Here, let me talk to him, Lanath.>>

[Luke Skywalker (Ossanlin)]

Ossanlin spares a stalk eye for Keslin.  <These consoles are designed for partial or total thought interface.>  He pauses, glancing over at Leskel who appears to be having trouble plotting the encroaching pattern.  <If you truly have appropriate experience, help Leskel plot and project the disturbance paths for Enorryma.>

[Terenia]

Keslin nods. "If you want us to work together, they will have to be adapted," he warns. There was no way he was going to leave all of the piloting up to the Andalites. For the time being, though, there was nothing to be done. He scans the room, looking for whichever Andalite 'Leskel' might be. He identifies him by the holoscreens hovering around him, rather than the Andalite's appearance itself. To Keslin, they all look more or less the same.

Hesitating only for a brief moment, Keslin approaches the Andalite. "Let me help," he says, gesturing for Leskel to give him command of one of the holoscreens.

[Shenmue654]

Keshin's reacts to the rocking of the ship by attempting to gain his footing, darting against the nearest wall and bracing his back against it. He notes that Terenia is totally unaffected by the ship's turbulence. Oh geez, that woman. Keshin hopes there is a way to fix what's wrong with her head before she does something that compromises the entire voyage.

<Dammit, this is a really bad time for a disaster. Haven't we already been through Hell?>

<Come on Kess, ain' the only time stuff has sucked righ' after we were relaxed. You jus' gotta brace yourself.>

<We have to get to Ossanlin in the others somehow to determine what happened. Can you move with balance in the ship while it's shaking?>

<Uh...sorta. Don' coun' on it bein' too impressive, though. I ain' gonna get myself killed jus' 'cause you're an information ****.>

Joanne glances around as Keshin relaxes his grip, gripping the side of a wall and attempting to move herself about. It wasn't easy, so she wasn't going to go very fast. Joanne shudders and backs quickly against the wall when another tremor shakes the ship, waiting for the next opportunity to move. "Don' die jus' yet, huh?" she says rather unhelpfully in Terenia's direction. "There's only so many of us on this boat, and everyone counts."

<Did you need to say that? We don't need to be involved.>

<.....I don' like lookin' at people who've got no friends.>

[Ember Nickel]

<All right,> Esarvit announces, as soon as the system beeps. <Julian-model fractal shear, at least to first order.> He doesn't bother to mention that he'd hypothesized as much; there are more important things to worry about. <I would recommend setting a linear course, the direction doesn't matter at this point as long as we can get out of range. And quickly.>

[Myitt]

Aya's expression hardens just slightly as Lanath regards Claxter.

<<Are you certain this is wise, Aya?>> Lanath sighs. << I do not relish the idea of discussing what happened.>> He relinquishes control, just in time for the floor to rock with the nauseating pulse of shifting z-space.


Myitt gives Daniel and Illim a watery smile. "Thanks," she says softly, cupping his hand in hers. She sucks in a breath to speak her mind about the Council arrangement, but the jarring shifting movement is all the explanation she needs for Illim's question.

"Z-space shift," she mutters, staggering a little to keep her balance, letting go of Daniel's hand. "****. We should get buckled up, huh? Let's...yeah, let's do that." She shifts her weight against the wavering inertia, bumping into her husband with a little yelp. "Quickly. Uh huh."

She pulls Illim along toward the common room's nearest wall, for lack of chairs, and sits heavily.

<<Andalites could really use a visit from a good armchair salesman,>> Tara tries to joke, attempting to sound wistful.


Niko braces himself unexpectedly against the smooth metal wall, wincing as he straightens himself.

He peers up at the ceiling. "What the hell was that?" he whispers, though no one is near enough to hear. He's just step foot onto the bridge, clinging to the edge of the wall as the room widens.

Recognizing Enorryma, he nods, but another shift in z-space and Ossanlin's warning make him slide to the floor to watch the Andalites and Keslin set to work. Niko hugs his knees, clad in blue jeans. He cannot help but think--rather manically--that they are in sore need of a wash, and he wrinkles his nose.

[Estelore]

<Get out of range, you say, and direction does not matter? I can do that.>

Norry gave the ship a command to go straight 'up' and left at a steep angle, then swung it around so that the distortions were below and behind the ship. It felt similar to riding the mag-lift at the fighter training center, and she unconsciously braced her legs in resistance to being suddenly heavier by an extra G or two. The ship lurched forward suddenly as it escaped the resistance imposed by the vortices, and the sense of added weight went away. She kept it on its escape trajectory until the turbulence had been gone for several seconds, then carefully slowed into a flight path which didn't show any major warping.

<Prince Ossanlin, I believe we are clear of the worst of it, but until we have more data returns from the ship's computers, I will not know how far we have traveled off course. We have rotated partially through all three spatial axes, so I do not know where we would emerge, if we were to exit Z-space now. I have slowed the ship minimally to avoid traveling exceedingly off-course.  Leskel and Esarvit collectively know more about our original projected flight path than I do. With your permission, I will yield the helm to them now.>

The stimulant would not wear off completely for another half hour, but it was already hitting its last plateau, processed rapidly by her high metabolism and her high tolerance for the substance. It had felt good to be in control of a ship again, in a hazard situation, but I would trade this glorified bucket for a tail-fighter any day.