Mune'stahr and Pylott: HELLMARROW, a tale of the Ventriculum

Part 9, "...And We Heard the Roar of Dying Beasts"

The Common Lector, more commonly referred to as the "Second Speaker", slowly tore his gaze away from the computational hologram projection hovering over top the strategy table as he experienced a uniquely rare moment of pique that he shared with the Bridge-Command Rhetorician. The Rhetorician returned his look with a guarded look of their own, hesitating to reveal as much of their internal turmoil in return. Neither of the two Nebulancers wanted to admit the dismay they felt at the last set of orders given by the Principal Overseer, who was frequently referred to as "the First Speaker". Being Third Generation Bernoulianite Ascendent Integernarians, they tended to, in their political and professional interactions, adhere rather strictly to their social code of self-restraint, forbearance and acquiescence. One accepted One's place and rank in The Multitude, and molded their behavior to best benefit the goals of whatever Directive the Overseers enacted. But this, to behave in this manner, THIS was madness... The First Speaker was behaving recklessly, conducting themselves as if they had been personally wronged by the unfortunate outcome from the latest set of events.

They were being vengeful. And vengefulness, along with any expression of impassioned retaliatory action during the course of pursuing a Directive in service to The Multitude, was an act of Heresy.

The Second Speaker of the Nebulancers could see from the way the Rhetorician dropped his gaze that the Bridge-Command officer agreed with him. The realization put the two Nebulancers in an incredibly stressful and uncomfortable position.

The First Speaker was going to get a lot of his fellow Nebulancers, to whom he owed the duty of protection, killed.

The Principal Overseer was obstinately adamant about going back after the Paranescience's Black Sun Seraph named Kandyruu and re-engaging him in battle. Madness and futility. There was precious little to be accomplished by doing that, except to risk further, more permanent damage their squad of Void-Transit Infradimensional Flowships --- and send their crews into harm's way for no reason other than restoring the pride of a bruised ego.

How short-sighted. How dismally small. How lamentably human.

They'd lost thirty-eight members of their flagship's crew. Another fifty were grievously wounded and incapacitated. There was a wide hull-breech on the port side exposing seventy square meters of the inner bulkheads of decks eleven through nineteen, but magna-screen dampener fields prevented atmospheric leakage out from the vessel. Overall structural integrity was still actively trying to recover, effecting repairs via nano-torrent robotic-reweave construction. The ship's OmniFlow Capacitance Dynamo was operating at only sixty percent efficiency. Defensive shields were down by twenty-four percent. Life Support systems and Propulsion remained mostly unaffected, even though Propulsion's internal comm-system was still offline. And, miraculously, their Particle-Fire Weapons system was fully operational.

All Gods Be Damned... They shouldn't have ever left the western quadrant of the Quaternillion Port Layer. Hagaishenn Breach was their last safe haven. Moreover, they should never have abducted and caged that fanged, bluish-gray herd-beast in the ship's Hold, never captured that Aingyll they discovered was named "Zahmmael".

So the question had now become: how far were they willing to allow this insanity to spread? Unlike arrogance and cruelty, courage was not predominant among the prevailing character traits of the Nebulancer disposition.

However, self-preservation was such a trait.

The Second Speaker of the Nebulancers swiftly began developing his plan to assassinate and supplant the First Speaker, thereby getting them out of their current calamity, without alienating the remainder of the flagship's battle-weary crew.