It was early morning, at least according to the ship's clocks which were set to a standard Earth cycle. There were no lights on the ship, per say, that could be controlled by the crew, but the soft ambient illumination that seemed to come from nowhere strictly followed the rule of a day night cycle. No one was sure how it worked, only that it did. And here, at the ass crack of dawn, as Narobi made her way down the hall and towards engineering, the light was soft and defused, with, as Narobi saw it, hits of yellow and pink like a sunrise. Now Narobi could have been wrong about that, she wasn't inherently artistic, and perhaps she was only subconsciously homesick for a sunrise, but who could be sure.
Nairobi had gone a long time without seeing the sun. Ever since they had been banished from earth, she hadn't had a lot of opportunities to visit a planet. She could have if she wanted to, but her ship came first, which meant she spent a good portion of her free time lurking in the bowels of one ship or another, first the harbinger, than the Omen, and now the empyrean.
She traced her fingers along the hallway, and where her finger touched the wall seemed to brighten, leaving a trail of light behind her for a moment, like the trail left when you momentarily draf a finger across someone's skin. Nairobi had always labored under the secret impression that the ships she took care of were living, breathing beings with their own personalities.
The Harbinger was a sturdy little bastard, dirty mean and gritty, but she gave what you put into her, and with Narobi as head engineer she gave everything. The Omen had been a classy lady, sort of picky, but poised and hard working, to bely her aristocratic nature.
Even so, there was something different about The Empyrean. Nairobi had talked to all of her ships, but she found herself carrying full conversations with the Empyrean, almost naturally as if she was talking to one of the other engineers, even more so because she didn't talk to the other engineers nearly as much as she talked to the empyrean.
The lights in the maintenance control room slowly brightened as she stepped in. The Empyrean didn't have an engine per say. She drew power directly from the crew so as long as at least a single person was standing aboard the ship, she had power of some sort. Now she required a Maker or two Deus constructs at the very least to fly her, but a single lifeform carrying n anima could power the life support. However, that did not mean she was without a propulsion system. The energy had to be routed through somewhere, and this is where it was routed.
They called it the engine because that was its function despite its strange power source.
It had taken her a lot of work to figure out how it managed to do anything, but Narobi had an inherent understanding of machines and the Empryrean.... Well she was an easy vehicle to work with. Nairobi would have characterized her as cooperative if she could have anthropomorphized her. She was cooperatie, caring, empathetic.... Where the harbinger had been a greasy little punk, and the omen had been an aristocratic lady, the Empyrean was like a mom.
When working on the empyrean, Nairobi couldn't help but feel that the ship was.... More cooperative than other machines. There were never any stripped screws or difficult to reach places. Everything was always on hand and easy to find like the ship was actively trying to help out.
Reaching out, she patted the wall of the ship, "Good morning, how's my girl today." In response, Nairobi would have sworn that the room thrummed a little under her feet, not in the way a machine might rumble, but almost in the way a cat purrs. However, it was so light she was almost sure she was imagining things.
"I'm glad to hear it." She said turning to her console to begin diagnostics, "Let's see how you're doing today."
Almost without prompting, a dialogue box opened on her screen with the warning.
System Maintenance: Loose Valve Section 5-B
She looked up, "Well, thank you, how polite. I will get right on that." She reached out and patted the bulkhead again, feeling kind of silly but deciding later on that there was really no harm in it. Everyone on this ship was crazy after all. And she was sure, if she went to Admiral Vir right now and told him that the ship was alive, he would simply agree with her and move on with his day.
Turns out Narobi wasn't the only one beginning to question the ship. I mean they all knew the empyrean had a simple AI..... or at least that is what they thought
-
Ramirez had not been sleeping well the past few days. WIth Adam off doing things, he had been left to keep the ship up and running. It was a strange dynamic for sure. Once upon a time, he had been a simple marine and liked it that way, but two years of absence from his two best friends had put a lot of responsibility suddenly on his shoulders, and now he was almost used to it.
Still, that didn't mean he wasn't tired.
Adam was back on the ship, so back in charge, but he got up early that day with only a few hours of sleep under his belt to see how things were going. Stumbling out of bed he nearly fell over himself in the dark before whistling for the lights. To his annoyance the lights came on, but when they did they were a sort of dark blue green like rolling ocean waves. He tried to change them, but it didn't work out, and were still like that when he stumbled into the bathroom.
It was warm in there, lightly perfumed with the smell of.... Rain?
Wet earth at the very least, like how it smelled during long nights in early summer with his window open and the sprinkler going, filling his childhood bedroom with the cool aroma of wet soil.
Ramirez jerked awake as his head bobbed downweard.
Shit.
That was weird.
For a moment he thought he heard.
The rustling of tree leaves, and the gentle patter of rain on the singles of their house accompanied by the very distant rolling of thunder. His head bobbed again, and he shook himself.
What the hell was going on.
It was just so.
Warm in here, not a bad sort of warm but a very cozy sort of warm. On the wall the blue and green waves were mesmerizing, almost hypnotic. He walked over to sit on the edge of the bed, trying to shake himself awake, but instead found his eyes tracing the patterns in the wall, listening to the sounds which swelled up inside his head. For a moment it almost felt as if he had gone back in time, and then he was wrapped in warmth and the lights dimmed to black.
Ramirez would never make it to inspect.
No one would notice him missing.
After all he had been running the ship like a dog for the last few days, and he deserved a little rest. There would be nothing for him to worry about today.
-
Adam was gone by the time Sunny got up. Her sleep schedule had slowly begun to increase since their little revelation, a fact she was annoyed with but had come to accept. Besides there wasn't much she could do out of combat, and engineering didn't need her either. Sunny wasn't the same kind of engineer as Narobi. She specialized in small scale mechanical parts, like Adam's prosthetic, and weaponry. Large scale stuff wasn't her area, but most of the time the ship's problems had to go to Narobi.
She would have like some work to do, but since she didn't there were always other activities she could involve herself in. She got up and knelt in front of her little shrine for a few moments thinking about her father, hoping he was surviving the everwar wherever he was.
She grabbed up her spear and went through the full forms which took her almost half an hour. She was basically done with her set, breathing lightly when something on the far wall beeped gently at her. She paused and turned her head, The little internal delivery light was lit up on the far wall, and curiously she walked over to see what it was. Opening the compartment she found a small metal cylinder with a twist off cap.
Not sure what it was, but trusting it because the Empyrean had delivered it, sunny twisted it open.
And was hit with the smell of Anin waterroot. The smell was so startling that she nearly dropped the cylinder out of surprise, but kept hold. She sniffed at it again, but there was no mistaking that smell.
She peered into the cup, and found herself eyeballing a very thick purple liquid.
"What the." She peered into the tube again, and found, again to her surprise, a small package of redmoss, dandelions and nettles. She frowned and picked up the small packet, that was all very odd because. Waterroot was used primarily as a drev supplement for pregnancy but.... Who on this ship would know that.... Same with the red moss though she had no idea what the dandelion was for.
Speaking of which, where did someone even get a dandelion?
Sunny turned sharply to the intercom pressing it with one finger, "Adam."
The message was immediately routed to him, and she heard his voice from the other end, "Yeah zhak Chal, what is it?"
"Did you send me this water root tea/"
"What root/"
"I guess that answers my question."
He paused on the other end, "Everything okay?"
She frowned and rolled the package around in her hand, "Everything is fine, did.... You by chance tell anyone about.... You know maybe krill perhaps."
"No, I haven't told anyone. Only people who know are you, me, Conn and Celex for obvious reasons." he paused for a second voice growing with concern, " What is it.... Something happen?"
She paused again not sure how to respond, "You know what, I don't think so. I'm going to go and talk to Krill."
"Oh Okay, let me know if you need anything."
"Yeah I will." She stopped the call and looked down at the tea. The empyrean had sent it to her, so.... She shrugged lifting the thermos to her mouth and taking a sip. It had a pleasant enough flavor, and she brought it with her snaking on the dandelions as she went up to Krill's office."
-
Krill was having more than a few problems of his own. Fealty had a great system for monitoring the crew members. It tracked positions and vitals, and almost everything else. Krill knew everything he wanted to know and more.
And now he was on the intercom with Dr. Adric of all people, "Look doctor, I know for a fact you happen to be low on magnesium right now, so eat some yogurt or I am going to have to come over there and break your kneecaps. You can still see patients with no kneecaps." he cut the call off before Adric could argue, and then made another call.
"Yeah Maverick here."
"Stop eating the ice. It isn't going to help you. Just come up to my office and get some iron supplements, or I will haunt your dreams tonight."
He had been getting these reports all day, the little screen in his office lighting up to tell him all the things the crew was doing wrong for their health. He didn't know what kind of settings the empyrean had for this, but it almost felt like she was tattling on people. Krill did not mind in the elast.
But there was this one problem. He kept a running tally of the crew just to make sure no one died suddenly and had to be revived, but over the last few weeks or so, the counter had been wrong, showing specifically two more crew members than they strictly had. Now there was always the possibility that the celzex were breeding in the walls, but if that were to happen he would see an explosion of numbers somewhere in the hundreds, not just one at a time.
He had been trying to fix the glitch for a while when a knock came at the door.
"Come in." He ordered, and to his surprise Sunny appeared in the doorway polishing off the last of a dandelion as she stepped inside parts of her mouth stained purple with some unknown foodstuff.
"Morning Krill."
"Sunny." he frowned, "Where did you get dandelions?"
"I actually came to ask about that." She said taking another sip of her drink, "But it looks like you answered that."
"Answered what?"
She held out her items. "I got these this morning, waterroot red moss dandelions and nettle, but I thought maybe you had sent them to me."
He frowned why would I.... and then his four hemispheres finally caught up. He shot her a scathing look, "Why didn't you tell me! As the ship's physician it is my job to know about everything that-"
She cut him off, "yeah yeah, my toes or my kneecaps or something, but seriously, that wasn't you?"
Krill shook his head, "No it wasn't." And then something dawned on him, "Wait.... That explains...."
-
Waffles rested under an unused console on the bridge. Sometimes it was boring and lonely when everyone was busy, or she used to think that until this new house came along. It wasn't as noisy as the others, and when she lay down under the console the floor beneath her grew warm. Little lights appeared on her back like she was being warped by the sun, and when she rested her nose between her paws she could smell the aroma of dirt, and trees and open sky. Her ears twitched with the sound of distant earth.
She had no idea where the sounds came from, but they were soothing, and the smells were nice and interesting, so she made no complaints as she lay quietly and napped in an artificial dream.
She liked the Empyrean.