The Day the Sky Broke [M:Closed:Attn Xiscapia]

[Necrisis]

Fel'tethra
Korfel City
Daruno District

The sun had set now, and Typhoon Rama had become little more than a light snow, reforming around the mass of the Necropolis
Rilaena's boots crunched through the snow that was quickly covering the ground, slowly touring the deadly quiet neighborhood.
In front of her was a tree - a viithas tree, where Necrian children had played games with Kitsune kits. Viithas trees bore fruit frequently, a sour, doughy seed that was made into a juice-tea by mothers on Temple day.

Now it sat there, still in the snow, four bodies hanging from its branches.
'Blood Traitor' was cut into the torso of one. 'Whore' another.
Rilaena stood there, cloak billowing in the cold wind, as the three Necrian bodies - two men and a woman - gathered snow. A young kitsune's body hung next to them, barely more than a child.

One of the Sworn that attended her approached, but said nothing.
"Cut them down," Rilaena said. Green energy flickered across her eyes. "Cremate them."
"At once, Empress."

Rilaena worked with them to burn the bodies with honor.
One of the Sworn spoke some words in Khanthic. Another recited a Xiscapian hymn for the dead.
Even as they climbed back aboard the dropship, Rilaena's eyes never left the site.

Ashfield Grand Hotel
Conference Room

As Rilaena's dropship hummed over the ruined buildings, settling down atop the Grand Hotel, Callus - watching out the southern window - would see the cloaked form of the Empress appear and stride for the building ahead of her Sworn.

Within moments of Vlammir and Talia entering the conference room, the doors were thrown open once more, and the armored form of the Empress appeared.

She smelled of soot and blood, of crisp snow and ozone. Her stride did not break as she entered, the Sworn taking positions within and without the room - two pairs one either side of the door.

Callus had seen old vids and stills of the Empress before. She had been youthful, with a stern but pretty gaze.
The woman that approached him now had a sunken, haunted look that seemed both too old and too young all at once.
She was shorter than him by a good head or so, but as she neared him he felt a pressure build in his head.
It was telling him to run. It was the feeling you got when you knew a sniper was drawing a bead on you.
The feeling when a drake had you in its sights.
The feeling when you have the attention of something you never want to have the attention of.

Then she was in front of him and her gauntlet-ed fist cold-cocked him with enough force to drive him back over a chair.
Now at the head of the table - Vlammir half standing, frozen in shock, Talia still seated and the last woman paused mid smoke - Empress Rilaena turned to face them, cloak whirling.
"Would someone care to explain to me why my Sworn and I just cremated three Necrian colonials and a kitsune child?" Her voice was dangerously low, but all present heard it. It was as if all ambient noise had been ushered from the room, leaving only her.

Her golden eyes flared green, and sparks of it danced along the metal appliances. One of the corner lights popped and went dark. "Anyone...?"

[Xiscapia]

Ashfield Grand Hotel, Conference Room...

All eyes turned to the main doors as the Empress's guards ushered her inside. Callas and his men stiffened, and even the woman with the water-pipe sat up a little. The NFP officer saluted, but his hand trembled by his brow, squinting at the pain that washed over him. Rili's fist cracked against his face and someone gasped as Callas went tumbling over an armchair and onto the floor, groaning and holding his bleeding nose. No one made any move to help him, every person within standing as if paralyzed in face of the Empress's unexpected fury.

Several beats passed, only seconds elapsing but seeming so much longer for the dead silence that fell over the room apart from Callas's moans. No one spoke. No one dared to. It was Dai who finally spoke up, having to twist his head around to look over one bloody, fur-matted shoulder to where the Necrian Empress stood. His voice rasped.

"It was like this from the start," the battered officer locked eyes with her. "They shot civil servants and aides at the Government Center. Intercepted soldiers' families trying to flee and executed them. Bombed an evacuation transport. The only reason I'm still alive is that they wanted to see what the Hetaevans would do to me."

"He, he killed their ambassador," Callas finally righted himself, using the chair to pull himself to his feet, one hand still covering his face and trying to quench the blood flow. "Even now the bastard is lying to you! Don't fall for the fox's tricks, my lady," he wiped a crimson smear across his cheek. "We won today. Nothing he says will change that!"

[Necrisis]

Ashfield Grand Hotel

"We won today. Nothing he says will change that!"

Rilaena barely moved, but her hands - planted on the table - clenched, searing and gouging the expensive wood. Small plumes of smoke rose from the marks.
"Callus," she said slowly, with barely contained fury. "Do not speak again without me addressing you."
She walked over to Dai. She knelt, taking his muzzle in her hand, turning his head to look at the ripped piercings.
"The Hetaevans would certainly want you skinned for killing one of their own..." She used the hem of her cloak to dab away some of the blood around his face. "If they were still only Hetaevans. But much like you Callus - indeed, everyone here - they are now a part of something greater. The Solar Imperium. My father's work - Embrace keep him."
There was a murmur of echoes, save the High Priest who intoned the words with devotion and respect obvious in his voice.

Rilaena stood and turned back to the assembled. "You see, Herak was not an Ambassador of the SIN. He was a combat capable warrior with little political bent and decidedly few clan-mates that would miss him. Master Faeden - Embrace keep him, the old dragon - made it clear to me that the plan was to cut the head from the serpent. They were to capture and detain the leadership, use them as leverage. It did not come to fruition in the way I had hoped..."
She beckoned one of the Sworn forward - a tall man with evident battle damage across his helmet and a mass of healing gel across his midsection - and gestured to Dai.
"Xan, clean him up, then escort him to my shuttle. He's coming with us."

"What?" Callus spat, still stemming the blood. Vlammir and Talia shot him concerned looks, but he continued to the Empress's back as the woman with the pipe looked on with a small smile. "So he's not going to be punished? Ripped limb from bloody limb by the vraking giants? He's lying to you right now, Empress. You don't think that there is collateral damage in war?"

Callus had moved dangerously close to striking distance again, and the thinly veiled anger that was boiling behind Rilaena's eyes tore apart as she spun around. The lights all popped as shadowy green flames licked along her fingers and shoulders, her eyes steaming with emerald ghost-light.
"War?" Her voice thundered both audibly and psychically, causing everyone nearby to wince and recoil. "They are civilians, Callus, not collateral damage. War is combat between two armies, two fleets. This is slaughter at best!" Her a hand swept over Dai, his ears flat against his head in pain. "He is a soldier, brutalized by your hands. This is conduct unbecoming a soldier of the Imperium."

The green energy faded, Rilaena's psychic pull receding. "As we speak, your First Party terrorists are being inducted into the Corps, en masse. Soon they will be shipped out to our next theater and I hope they can do more than indiscriminate murder.
"All that remains, Callus, is for you and your conspirators to swear fealty to me and your new Empire." Her voice got dangerously low here, back to where it began. "Or... I can try you here and now for mass murder and acts of terrorism against the Solar Imperium."
Her smile was not kind. "Your choice."

Dai was pulled aside by the Sworn, but not yet removed from the room.
Healing gel was applied to his wounds with a field medic's efficiency.
The Necrian's voice was soft - hard to tell if it was female or male - and kind. "Be still. My lady will see you treated well."

[Xiscapia]

Ashfield Grand Hotel, Conference Room...

"Be still. My lady will see you treated well."

"That would be a change of pace," Dai grunted. He had to move slowly, feet shackled as they were, and was forced to lean on the medic for support when he got there. With his hands similarly bound he couldn't have interfered with the swabbing even if he wanted to, but the kitsune made no move to interrupt. Instead, he simply watched the drama play out, licking at his chops where Rili had rubbed some of the blood from his snout. His expression betrayed nothing.

"All that remains, Callus, is for you and your conspirators to swear fealty to me and your new Empire. Or...I can try you here and now for mass murder and acts of terrorism against the Solar Imperium. Your choice."

Callas stared at her for a moment, blood dribbled down the side of his face. "Of course," he breathed at last. "We are at your disposal, my lady." The Necrian bowed low to her before straightening up. "Our loyalty to Necrisis and her people will be everlasting."

[Necrisis]

Ashfield Grand Hotel

"Our loyalty to Necrisis and her people will be everlasting."

"Good Rilaena said, the anger never leaving her voice or gaze. "Then kneel."

Callus spared a glance to the others before taking a knee. Dai could no longer see the Empress's face, but he could hear the sneer in her voice. "I said kneel, Callus, not take a fucking knee like your playing Kraega. And get rid of that shirt."
Callus obliged, his neck and ear tips flushing.
Rilaena turned to the others. "Well? Every Citizen a Soldier. Even you Yavine."

The woman with the pipe watched Vlammir and High Priest Benash kneel before Rilaena, the old man shouldering out of his habit to reveal a heavily scarred back and shoulders.
"I had thought that such archaic commands would have died out in your father's idealized Empire," she said, lowering the pipe that had gone out in the psionic fury, frying its electronics. "Or is this just a power play to get off your little ego?"

There was silence that seemed almost deafening. Talia - who had just risen and had been about to remove her own top - took the long way around the conference table, so as to not cross the firing lane between Rilaena and Yavine.

Rilaena's temper had been famous before the isolation. She clearly was in no mood for games, as Dai had seen.
Yavine must have balls of a dragon to tempt her so.

Rilaena took a moment, breathed through her nose, murmuring something to herself that Dai picked up as, "You need them, you can't kill them. Goddess give me strength..."
She opened her eyes and made a beeline for Yavine. She strode over the table, rode a chair down with a crash and grabbed the woman by the throat, dragging her from her smoking chair and hauling her bodily into the center of the room. There was a tearing sound, and Yavine - startled with the manhandling - clasped at her dress as the back fell away, all the little strings and delicate silks that kept it up, falling away.

"What have you-?" She never got to finish.
There was a growling hiss of psionic energy and a blade of emerald fire roared into existence from the hilt in Rilaena's hand.

The silence once more made itself comfortable in the conference room.
"Recite after me," Rilaena said, gesturing to Yavine, who's knees gave out with a psionic shove, forcing her to the ground. "Bow your heads and kneel before me."
The assembled did as they were commanded, Talia even starting to say 'Bow your...' before trailing off.

The Empress strode over to them, the blade flickering at the hilt of her weapon.
"I kneel before the Empress, Empress before all others, in supplication."
The echoing voices were subdued, save Benash's, which was firm and resounding.
"To the Solar Imperium of Necrosa, I pledge my life, before all other lives. I will die for my brothers and sisters, live for them, love for them. Honor in Death, Justice in Life. These are my tenants..."

Rilaena waited for them to finished repeating her words before touching the broad part of the blade to their shoulders, in turn, starting with Yavine.
There was the smell of burned flesh and the Lady Merchant gasped slightly. Benash made no sound and the touch was quick, the barest of singes across his scarred shoulders. Vlammir's jaw clenched as the blade rested on him for a full two seconds, the same for Talia.
Callus's skin burned until he grunted in pain and the blade vanished like a gutted fire.

"I will be expecting reports from all of you to your new lesion. They will contact you in a day or so." Rilaena strode around the kneeling officials. "But don't get comfortable. Tyrass is still out there, and she will be a major complication if she emerges. Find her, alive. She will be judged on Var'kara - as we all will be at the end of this war."

The Empress picked Dai up by the arm and helped Xan escort him out of the room, the doors closing with a bang.

Troop Lander

The side bays closed and Rilaena sat down on the jump seat next to the Kitsune, taking the healing gels and from Xan, who posted across from them.
As the Thuumen engines kicked them off the building and out across the city, Dai would be able to see some of the devastation from the air.

Black towers of SIN troop Spires were launching back into the air, save one that was re-positioning to a more central locations on giant, squat legs.
Walkers swept the dark streets as districts slowly got back electrical supply, lights flicking on below. Snow fell heavily now, making the blue glow from the planet above bathe the world in marines and cyans, almost like it was under water.
This was the brightest part of night. In a day's time, the moon-world would become almost entirely frozen over for a week as it orbited the back side of the planet.

Rilaena finished applying the gel and sat back with a sigh.
"I'm not going to lie to you, Major Dai. You're a prisoner of war now. And there is nothing I can do to rectify the 'collateral damage.'" She spat out the words, mocking Callus's tone. But her voice softened again as she continued. "But I will do my best. And when this is all over, you can choose to go back to the KEX or stay here. Your kind will be welcome here. One day..."

The transport soared across the building tops of the roofs, finally settling down next to an armor column made up of light assault craft and some modified troop transports, Rumblers.
The bay doors opened and Rilaena exited, Xan taking Dai.
Before he was led away to one of the Rumblers, Dai spied the Empress approach a Templar with a black bruise across his left cheek, and he allowed himself a small smirk.
Any Xiscapian could spot a classic right hook like that, augmented by a soldier's augments. The Templars were strong, nearly precognition some said. He might have paid good money to see the Templar get cold-cocked.

"Master Feldrak," the Empress shouted as she neared.
The Templar, already calling his gathered troops to attention, bowed. "Empress. We are honored."
"I usually don't care for such formal attention, Master Templar," Rilaena said. "But after my morning, I'll admit the respect is nice."
"Bad start?"
"You have no idea, Master Feldrak. Regardless, I'm on a schedule, so I'll make this brief. You are officially commanded to act as SIN Leason with the local governing forces. You don't necessarily outrank them, but you are my eyes and ears here, understood?"
"Of course, Empress." Fel cocked his head. "But - not to question you, Empress, but wasn't Master Faeden supposed to oversee the system?"
"Embrace Keep Him," Rilaena intoned and Fel bowed his head.
"I'd heard rumors... I am sorry, Empress. I knew you two were close."
Rilaena merely nodded. "As were you. That's why he mentioned you by name to me. You are part of a small pool of people he deemed trustworthy. You were spoken highly of to me. So now you are Overseer of Fel'tethra. You will report directly to the Throne, often times me. So keep your reports short and none of that flowery Highborn Khanith shit. I don't have the time."
Fel smiled. "Of course, Empress. Your will is my duty."

Dai didn't hear more of the conversation as he was led over to a Rumbler and chained between two other POWs - a kitsune, his right knuckles dark with Necrian blood, perhaps the Templar's assaulter - and a Necrian man with long hair, Xiscapian tattoos and a few bleeding spots in his ears.
He nodded to Dai as he was shoved down and chained to their own binders, his leg manacles removed.
"Truuven Kreel," the Necrian said, introducing himself without preamble. "Look, Kazuki. We've got a friend."

As the snow abated, the Necrian fleet withdrew from Fel'tethra's orbit, Astral Drivers plunging them into the Cascade towards their new staging area.

[Necrisis]

She ran down halls made of ribcages, a seemingly never ending spine running the length of the hall ways, splitting off into various side corridors. The smell of stale tomb-air filled her lungs and Yana found herself using her jacket to cover her mouth and nose.
Shambling and crawling shadows darted by each passage, following her footsteps that echoed all around her.
She called out for Nagy, but couldn't even make a sound. So she ran.
Coming to a crossroads, Yana cast about for some idea as to where she was.
Catching movement down the passage to the left, she started in that direction before seeing them
A young Necrian girl with glowing blue eyes and a white-furred kitsune kit, holding her hand.
The Necrian girl just met Yana's eyes and shook her head, then pointed behind Yana. "That way."
Yana didn't know what to say, if she could speak at all, but the girl had already turned away, pulling the tod with her.
"She's lost. You are too. So many lost shadows."

Yana ran down halls made of ribcages, never ending halls that turned to bones, her feet splashing into knee high black water, as thick as oil.
She could hear splashing ahead of her.
Nagy?
She rushed on, the room growing in size until there was only an ocean of black, knee deep water. She felt things brush against her legs, but she kept going. She could not stop.
Nagy was in trouble.

Then she saw her. The Abhuman was struggling in the water that was becoming tar, dragging her down, pulling her under.
Yana reached for her hand, grabbing it and pulling.
But Nagy's scared eyes sank back, her flesh decaying, the black tar reaching up, crawling over Yana as she pulled away. She tried to scream, but the black slime rushed into her mouth, prying open her eyes and flooding her.

Down she was pulled, as she writhed against the consuming sludge. Down and down...

Kela's Rest
30 hours after SIN Invasion

Fel'Tethrans called the night cycle of their moon-world The Long Night. Though it got to freezing points and often snowed during The Night, most plant and animal life did little more than sleep for a week, while others remained active. The humidity froze in great sheets of fog that slowly settled to the ground, turning the jungles and swamps of the world into a crystalline wonder.

Nax sat on top of his ship when a scream split the night, peeling out across the icy stillness.
He glanced down at the boarding ramp, hearing stirring from within.
It had been Yana, his keen ears picking up Nagy's squeal of pain.

He jumped down quickly, his heavy long coat flowing behind him as he entered the ship.

He glanced into Yana and Nagy's room just as Seito shot through his cabin door, shotgun in hand.
Nax raised his hands, his face humorless. "It's alright," he said. "Just a bad dream."

Yana was consoling Nagy now, who was bleeding from her nose where Yana had hit her. The young Necrian woman was tangled in the bedsheet, sweating profusely, but trying to help her lover staunch the flow of blood. There was still a sunken fear to her eyes, one that Nax wore himself.

Rubbing his eyes, he waved Seito away. "They're fine." He turned away and headed back outside as Koiwa emerged from her cabin, a blaster in hand. He glanced at her, a slight hitch in his step the only sign that he acknowledged her.

Yana cradled Nagy's face in her hands, dabbing at the bloody nose with the blanket. "Are you alright? I'm so sorry Nagy, I'm so sorry..."
She got up to take the medkit that Seito had gotten, almost tripping in the tangle of blankets about her feet, when she heard Nagy gasp.
Turning around to see what had startled her, Yana saw her single black tar foot print on the sheets and deck.

* * *

Nax wandered down the ramp and back into the crystal marsh, taking out his pipe and relighting it.

He looked up at the dark mass in the sky, several kilometres away and still massive - the Necropolis. While most of the fleet had moved on, the flagship and a few others had remained for the last day and a bit. He assumed the KEX had lost the battle, and they definitely didn't have any ships left in orbit.
They would occasionally hear the scream of a Wraith patrol swarm going by, but if Kela's Rest was considered important enough to deal with, he didn't know.

He touched the bandages around his head from where that bastard Faran had decked him.
The people of Kela's Rest, mostly Necrian outcasts and their relative foibles - gay and alien lovers, others who just didn't fit in - had been kind enough to get the Luck unstuck from the trees and towed it here.

They had a 'healer' but the man had gone to hunt before the coldest parts of the Long Night set in. His head still hurt, but it was Nigi and her brood that needed some medical attention.
He just hoped the damn healer/hunter would be back soon.

[Xiscapia]

Kela's Rest was a tiny settlement tens of kilometers away from the nearest town and more than fifty away from the capital city of Korfel. It lay deep within one of the moon's many bogs, alternately icy and crystalline or humid and steamy as the seasoned changed. Due to being so waterlogged and with so little stable land available most of the buildings were on stilts or nestled in nearby tree branches, with a couple of small houseboats moored at a dock shack. Most could be connected to each other using rope ladders or rigid ones, and a simple rope bridge with wooden planks linked three of the tree homes with the other two. Despite the wet and swampy environment, it was quite dry and clean, at least as long as you didn't fall into the water.

A bit over half of the community was Necrian, the remainder including Kela's tod husband and their three halfbreed daughters, the vixen wife of one of the village's female Necrians, and a male Necrian's Olacian wife who was nigh-indistinguishable from the elf-like Necrians. Most of the other Necrians were also engaged in "non-traditional" relationships, with even the more conventional family of four bearing the physical and emotional marks of the despised and abused -ex-thugs and former whores. Kela had welcomed them all, including the old man who lived alone on his boat, hunting the largest of the wild boar and river serpents that threatened to overrun the area. There was evidence enough of that in the scales pried off to hang over racks, drying into snake leather, and the smell of pork being roasted over the fire. She had welcomed the Luck and its beleaguered crew as well, and yet the woman periodically sat at the doorway of her stilt house, lancer lying across her knees, staring at the ship.

She was still there when Nax reemerged, watching him. Off in the marsh, something gave a feeble croak. In one of the tree houses a round face peered over the side, a Necrian woman moving gingerly from a belly swelled with pregnancy, and she seemed to make an excuse to stay as she picked up a broom and swept stray crystals into the water below. It seemed that most of the population hadn't been sleeping much, anyway. With everything that had happened, it was easy to understand why.

Inside the cabin, Nagy tentatively took a roll of gelled bandages out of the medical bag, still staring at the oozing footprint on the metal deck. She was already holding a tissue to her nose, eyes watering and her wings curled protectively close to her body, but after a minute she threw it into the trash. "I'm okay," the bat sniffed, looking up at Yana. "I know you didn't mean to. But that," she looked back down at what looked to her like a muddy track. "What is that?"

"Sleepwalking, Yana?" Seito cocked an ear at the Necrian, taking his med-kit back from her.

"And sleep-fighting, too," Koiwa scoffed. The vixen folded her arms and glared off after Nax, still rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Unlike most, she and Seito had been dead to the world until Yana's scream woke them. "Why do I get the feeling there's more shit he's not telling us? Fuck this." She stamped out after the other Necrian, tail lashing.

[Necrisis]

"Sleepwalking, Yana?"

"I..." Yana glanced around the room, half expecting it all to fade and melt away, revealing ribcage rooms and black water. "No... I don't. Sleepwalk that is. I don't think."

Normally she would of had to just ask Lucky. The freighter's Ship Mind was always attentive of its crew. But ever since the ship had crashed for almost no reason - none of Lucky's last reports came back positive - Nax had deactivated the AI from the rest of the ship. He had spend six hours in the Core where Lucky's main processors were after the twelve or so he had spent checking every inch of the ship for faults, even while the people of Kela's Rest made to help them by towing the ship back.

Sitting down on the bed she shared with Nagy, she looked at her bare feet.
One was clean, just a little darker than her normal skintone for walking through the ship barefoot most of the time. The other would usually be identical, but now it was sticky with a black, tar-like substance.

Panic rose in Yana's chest, her breath shaking.
"The fuck..."
Had it been real? No, no it was just a bad dream. She had nightmares before this.
It had just never been so vivid before, so visceral.

For a few weeks after the Rookery and the Hetaevans, she would have bad dreams. Images of blood, the armored giants and all her new friends dead, but she would awake and it was over. She would curl back up and go to sleep again, but now, every time she looked around, she felt like there was only a thin veneer between her and the nightmare world she had dreamed.

Outside Nax's Luck, Nax himself chewed on his pipe, blue smoke rising into the strangely cold-warm-humid night. He continued to watch the Necrian Dreadnought, searching it for answers.
He remembered long halls, strange glimpses of bony rooms.
A woman, floating in a vat of green gel, her newly shaved golden-white hair in his hands, technorganic tendrils now growing into her skull and spine.
Their palms touched the glass together.

The footfalls of Koiwa on the gangplank sent the images fleeing back into the depths of memory, gone but not forgotten.
Nax sighed and puffed on his pipe once more.

Without turning, he knew she was standing there, watching him with the same confused anger she had been feeling since they fled the cantina. He wished in part that she'd just shoot him instead. Then he wouldn't have to deal with the guilt gnawing and worming its way through his insides.
He hadn't suggested it of course. Knowing her, she might have taken him up on it.

"Yeah?" he asked around the pipe. "She alright?"

[Xiscapia]

"The fuck..."

"It's okay," Nagy hugged Yana, holding her head against her chest. "You're okay. I'm okay. We're all safe." She rocked her gently back and forth, one hand stroking down the woman's back. "Shh, shh, shh."

"Alright, c'mon, Yana," Seito strode across the cabin to open the washroom's hatch. He was already busying himself with turning on the sink, filling the basin with warm water while his tail curled around a mop against the wall. "Let's get that gunk off your foot. Have to change the sheets, but with all the sweat on them, it's probably for the best."

As Nagy gave Yana a helping hand up, she looked into her eyes. A trickle of blood was still leaking down her snout, and for a moment, it looked black.

"Yeah? She alright?"

"Fine," Koiwa didn't look at him either, looking past the Necrian and into the hamlet. "We're all fine." That was a lie and she knew it, but she didn't say anything more as the seconds stretched on. Across the way, Kela had been joined by her daughters, the older teenaged hybrids gathering around her with flicking white tails and piercing scarlet eyes. They kept casting looks over at Nax, she realized, and now her.

Koiwa's ears flicked and she half-turned, squinting off into the swamp. There, emerging from the low mist, came a pair of canoes, paddled almost silently through water as dark as the sky above. A great raft trailed behind them, the same pair of anti-gravity generators mounted on logs lashed together by rope that had served as the barge for the Luck. Now, it carried the corpse of a river serpent so large that it trailed off the end of the raft, one exposed fang still dripping paralytic venom into the swamp. Once their boats drew close enough to the island the bulk of the rowers attended to their kill, with a single elderly Necrian separating from the group and making his way over to Kela.

"Why did you disable Lucky, Nax?" Koiwa asked.

[Necrisis]

Yana ripped from Nagy's grasp, hands gripping the smaller Abhuman's face, twisting it up for the blood to catch the light.
But it was normal. Just a dark red stain on her snout.

Yana let her go, her hands shaking. She stumbled from the room, falling against a wall and sliding down it, feeling the buldges of ribcage bounce against her spine. She buried her head in her hands, knees curling tightly into her chest, her tangled bob of wavy red hair falling over her face.

Was she going mad? What was wrong with her?
A trembling hand slapped the wall behind her, feeling desperately for the pockmarked feel of bones and calcified flesh, finding only cold metal.
She strangled a sob.

* * *

"Why did you disable Lucky, Nax?"

Nax stuffed his hands into the pockets of the long coat, head back, watching the starless expanse of the gas giant's shadow pass slowly above them. He finally sighed, a rush of smoke billowing around him.

"He's dying." Nax dug his boot into the marshy soil. "He's dying and there is nothing I can do about it. I've tried. Goddess, I tried. But She just keeps taking things from me." He looked back up at the looming shadow. "She's a fucking bitch, that Goddess of ours, but I won't let the poor thing suffer for Her. I owe Luck that much..."

* * *

Kela glanced only once to the elder Necrian man as he approached, before turning her eyes back to Nax and Koiwa. She couldn't quite hear them, even in the stillness, but she did catch Nax's '-fucking bitch, that Goddess of ours...'

Ahulu Khard had been a Lord of Alchemy and Physicians before the Dominion's isolation. His work to bring medicine to the colonies in that time had gotten him and hundreds of others - Novices, Apprentices, even other Masters, Lords and Ladies - exiled from the Dominion, by Steward Addrick's orders.
Left to rot, abandoned like the rest.

He had made his way to the outer colonies never the less, finally settling down near Kela's Rest with himself and a young Necrian man who passed some time later from some manner of disease that Ahulu refrained from mentioning, only that he and the young man were not contagious.
He had offered his services to Kela as only a 'healer' - something to do with no longer being a Lord Physician - and a hunter, something he had been proficient in as a pastime back on Var'Kara.

He was tall, even by Necrian standards, with a taught, wiry frame that belied the raw power under the old jacket - once a lush black, now patched and faded.

He slung the compound bow off his shoulder, bowed to Kela's daughters with a smile and then turned to follow her gaze to Nax and Koiwa.

"There was a Wraith Swarm watching the river," he said, his voice deep and calm, soothing. "We decided not to risk it. Velida and Kashizaki picked up a transmission from Korfel. Something about a 'SIN invasion.' I don't know what the SIN is, but they are Necrian." He nodded to the Nax's Luck and her two crew standing out in the open. "Who are they?"

[Xiscapia]

"Yana!" Nagy scrambled out into the corridor after her lover, wings flapping reflexively and uselessly. "Yana, please!" She sank down onto her knees in front of the woman, watching her helplessly as Yana fought back tears. "What's wrong? Tell me," she ducked her head a little, trying to look her in the eye. "Just talk to me, Yana. Please," her voice cracked on the last word, unable to keep from revealing her own fear.
At the doorway, Seito looked down on them both, a towel in his hands.

Outside, Koiwa blinked at Nax's back, then did a double-take. She hardly heard the rest of what he said after the first two words. "What do you mean, he's dying?" the vixen sputtered, sounding almost angry that he would even suggest such a thing. "How can an A.I. die? He's got backups, right?"

By the little home, Kela's daughters smiled back at Ahulu, but there was none of the chatter or even the swarming around him that the man had long since become accustomed to. They were all sitting or standing behind their mother, casting furtive glances at the ship parked nearby, and at close range, it was impossible to miss the dark rings that had formed underneath albino eyes. Kela herself was rarely so emotional, but when she looked up at Ahulu there were telltale glints there. Anger. Fear. Uncertainty. Things they were all feeling at the moment.

"Who are they?"

"I don't know," she looked back at the pair now arguing by the ship's ramp. "They showed up during the typhoon. Needed help, so we gave it. They claim to be traders, and most of them are Xiscapians, but..." she trailed off, staring at Nax. "They don't trust him." Kela looked back up at Ahulu.

"We need to find out what he knows."

[Necrisis]

"Just talk to me, Yana. Please..."

Yana relaxed enough to embrace Nagy, but she couldn't open her eyes.
She could see it in her minds though - sloughing skin, dying eyes.
If she saw her, Nagy would die.
After a long moment of just hugging the soft Abhuman, Nagy's wings stretching to hug her back, Yana dared to breath in.

There was no stench of decay, no dry tomb-dust, just a light, warm scent that was her fur. She squeezed her lover - soft, warm, heart pounding near hers.
Yana dared to open her eyes and pulled Nagy away.

She was the same as she always was. Bright eyes, soft smile, chocolate-brown fur. A bit more worried than normal, even for her.
And alive, not filled with oily sludge.

"I-it's okay." Yana pulled her back into an embrace. "I think... it was just the dream lingering. Oh, Nagy... it was just... I can't ever lose you. I think I'll go mad..."

For the moment, it seemed like she had forgotten about the oily print on her foot.

"How can an A.I. die? He's got backups, right?"

Nax shook his head. "No, he doesn't. And he's not an A.I. Not like you would understand it. Synthetic Intelligence is a bit more accurate, but it's..."
He looked up at her.
Her arms were folded now, eyebrow cocked.
"It's complicated," Nax said. "But you're a smart one. Just... hear it all before you shoot me, yeah?

"Luck is a Ship Mind. Most people assume that Ship Minds are just Necrian jargon for AI, and they aren't too far wrong. But it's not that simple.
Every ship large enough to have a Slipcore or Astral Driver has a Ship Mind. Ships are built with this synthetic 'Neural Web' that is grown using these little crab things. It's like a coral reef. When it's done, the ship has a living, if unconscious, 'brain' running through the entire thing.
"Then there is the Ship Mind. A Necrian sensitive to the Cascade. They get linked up to this unmindful brain and then... they become a whole other personality, the 'ship' itself awakens.
"Sometimes the Ship Mind and the Ship's personalities sync and they can remember bits of both worlds, like lucid dreaming. Other Ship Minds don't, and you have radically different personalities - one the Mind the other the Ship, neither able to remember the other."

He paused for a moment, eyeing Koiwa sideways. "I used to Master for a ship called Valiant Astrolabe. She was a Seer-class exploration cruiser, flying for Talak's Dominion. We did a lot of deep space missions, but the one time I got called on to defend some colonists from pirates... There was this girl, Lhuun. Orphaned. Sole survivor. I took her on as my apprentice, but she grew up to be more like my own kid.
"Then she came of age. Under Talak's Dominion in those years, Ship Minding was no longer a voluntary occupation. The Dominion needed explorers and ships. And ship's needed Ship Minds. So when she tested positive for psionic latency at twelve, I pulled as many strings as I could to get her to the Valiant."

Nax paused, taking his pipe from his mouth and pinching the bridge of his nose, his eyes burning. Flashes of moon-gold hair in his hands passed through his memory.

"For a few years it was fine. Once a week the resonance chamber that linked her to the ship was vented, and she got to be a kid... we watched old vids. Taught her how to play the valoni, khess.
"But one day we were called up for retrofit. Astral Drivers. One of them failed on our maiden shot, and we got dumped out of the Cascade in the middle of nowhere. No points to align to. Deep space, so no planets.
"Valiant - the Ship personality - was as cold, calculating and loyal as a warship came. She advised that we enter stasis to preserve power while she tried to get us back home. Ship Mind's can last for a long time without vent - they are basically in stasis themselves - but it gets harder and harder to leave the resonance. You lose yourself.
"But we didn't have a choice."

Nax realized that his pipe had gone out, the last of the blue smoke trailing away. He tapped it out on his arm.

"When they pulled me out of stasis, I had lost almost 120 years. 123, something like that. Everyone but me and Lhuun were dead. Stasis failed. And she had somehow contracted this thing they called 'the Ahzural Virus.' It had hit Var'Kara some twenty years sooner, spread throughout the Dominion. I don't know how, but they said she had it. Said they had to purge her, the ship. Couldn't risk another outbreak. I was clean - somehow. They still don't know how it gets transmitted."

Nax had paced around in a circle while he spoke, ending up at the landing ramp to the Luck. He sat down on the slope and looked Koiwa straight in the face. "So I killed the men guarding me. Killed the men who burned her body. Killed everyone who stood between me and the only other thing that remained. The 'Phylactery.' It's the juncture between Ship Mind and Ship Neural Web. It is and was all that's left of her. Just... grey matter. I stole a ship and hooked her up. I knew it wouldn't be her, couldn't be. But there was still a part of her in there and I... just couldn't let her go.
"So I ended up with Luck. Changed my name and headed for colony space where they don't check creds and barcoades as much. Looked for Necrian ship salvage every chance I got. Built this ship up from what I could. But that Virus. It lives in the neural paths. I've been dosing Luck with any chem and stim I can find to stave it off. Made good for the last few years. Thought it was ok. Going into remission or something.
"Then everything failed and he barely remembers what failed. We got power surges a few weeks ago, remember? Hauling freight by Fel'Tatra when everything cut off for a few minutes? It's not just that the ship is a junk heap. Luck is getting holes in the grey matter of the processors. It's like forgetting how to breathe."

Nax lowered his gaze. "So there it is. Sorry I never told you. But I figured you would all just... move on in a couple weeks. But then it had been a month, a year and you all just accepted my little quirks. When was I going to naturally bring up all this?"

"We need to find out what he knows."

Ahulu nodded. "Agreed. Are there more? I thought I heard a scream..." he trailed off as he glanced across all of them. "Nightmares?"
The twins nodded in unison.
Ahulu, frowned. "Hmm... strange." He looked up at the SIN dreadnought that still hung in the sky. "We can talk about them later. Kela? Do you want to come with me? Or do you want me to talk to them?"

[Xiscapia]

"I-it's okay. I think... it was just the dream lingering. Oh, Nagy... it was just... I can't ever lose you. I think I'll go mad..."

"Oh Yana, don't say that," Nagy clung to the woman, blinking back tears of her own. "I'm not going anywhere, I promise. We're just going to stay here in this village, where it's safe, while we get the ship repaired. Then we can leave this awful place," she pulled back enough to look into Yana's eyes. "We survived the Rookery. We can survive this."

****

Koiwa listened silently as Nax spoke. Most of it was things he'd never told her before, from the origins of the Luck in both hull and mind to its composition and his own history. She had always known that Nax was somewhat shady with an unknown past, a trait she'd chalked up to being a smuggler and probably illegal salvager, but this went far deeper than she'd ever suspected. It brought up still more questions, and judging by how a couple of the villagers were approaching them, she didn't have the time to ask. Leaning against the strut of the gang-plank, Koiwa sighed.

"So there it is. Sorry I never told you. But I figured you would all just... move on in a couple weeks. But then it had been a month, a year and you all just accepted my little quirks. When was I going to naturally bring up all this?"

Biting back the response she wanted to make, the vixen just shook her head. "We'll talk about this later."

Having nodded at Ahulu's former question, Kela stalked across the frozen ground to the cobbled-together freighter lying on her island. She carried her rifle in her arms despite its sling, ready just in case. She never liked having to kill another Necrian, but she'd had to kill more of them than any alien species. It was something she was familiar with. So when she stopped in front of Nax the woman's eyes were cold, reflecting the bruised interior of someone who had seen too much.

"Tell me everything you know about what's going on out there," she said by way of introduction.

[Necrisis]

"Tell me everything you know about what's going on out there."

Nax, already looking more weary than Koiwa had ever seen him, just let his head sink into his chest. "Gods above... it never fucking ends. Why does everyone think I know what the fuck is going on?"

"Because," Nigi said, walking up from behind Ahulu, having followed several villagers from the shared hut they had offered her family. "You admitted to helping those bastards."

Nax's teeth bared with a snarl-hiss and Kela's old lancer tightened against her shoulder.
Ahulu stepped in front of her, however, his hands raised to either side.
"Now, now. There seems to have been enough violence already. The Rest is a place of peace and community. We won't sully that now." Even as his gaze passed from Nigi to Kela, he turned to Nax. "Even so. Perhaps you had best explain?"

Nax looked from Kela's rifle to Nigi - a fresh gel-patch over her head wound - and let his hand fall away from the lancer pistol strapped to his right leg. "It's not like I know much."
Ahulu knelt across from Nax. Given his height, they were eye to eye. "We are very isolated out here. There isn't much in the way of communication with Korfel, or any other settlement. Some trade, but that's about it. So when my friends say that they picked up an emergency transmission about 'SIN Invasion' and Necrian Wraiths start plaguing the skies, we need some first hand information. It doesn't seem like you - the sole Necrian on this ship - is well trusted anymore. There are only a few reasons for a crew to turn on their ship master. Betrayal seems high on the list."

"I didn't betray anyone," Nax snarled. "If I had, I wouldn't be here and neither would you," he said, jabbing a finger at Nigi.

"I'd like to believe that," Yana said, appearing at the top of the ramp. She and Nagy were still holding each other, Seito walking up soon behind them. "But you knew. You knew what was going to happen before it did. You jeopardized-"

"Enough!" Nax stood in a whirl of coat, Kela's lancer coming up again, but he had rounded on Yana. "I have done nothing but try and protect you. All of you! If I had known the SIN was actually going to go through with this idiot plan, I would have bugged us out weeks ago. You went with me to one of the first meetings of the NFP."

Yana didn't back down, anger flaring in her eyes. She released Nagy, marching down the ramp toward Nax. "And left just as fast when I saw their views. You could have too."
"They were supposed to just give us a voice again," Nax said. "I don't owe the Dominion or this Imperium anything. They just got out of a three year civil war. How the fuck do you expect me to predict they would attack KEX held worlds?"
"Because they are all bigots and facists, Nax!" Yana gestured to Nagy and Seito, to the villagers of Kela's Rest, who had all come to their doors to see what the yelling was about. "You know how much Nagy means to me, and you went again anyway."
"I was wrong!"
Nax and Yana were face to face now, but where Koiwa had seen them both flush with anger before, there was just coldness between them now. Yana and Nax would fight sometimes, mostly just antagonistic banter, sometimes about strangely fatherly attitudes Nax would get, but it was always heated and would blow over.
This didn't seem like it would.

"I was wrong," Nax continued, turning away from her, catching Koiwa's gaze before dropping it. "I've steered thicker skulls before. I Mastered for an entire fucking cruiser once. I thought... they just needed some direction. I thought I would be able to do that. It's not my fault the SIN actually invaded. I didn't think they ever would. Sword rattling... all that..."

"But you couldn't," Ahulu said. The older man hadn't moved this whole time, just watching the drama unfold with a passive expression. "Some people-"

"Some people don't change." Nax scowled. "Not until you put them down with a lancer, at least."

Though he didn't - couldn't - look at her, Koiwa knew the next words out of his mouth were for her. "What do you want from me?"

[Xiscapia]

Aware of Nax's hand near his pistol, Kela was fully ready to shoulder her lancer and shoot him down if he tried anything. The life of one disgruntled old man wasn't worth the safety of the entire community she had worked so hard to build. Fortunately for all of them, Ahulu stayed his hand, and things settled to a merely simmering tension as Kela's husband emerged from their home. Brown-furred with light blue hair, he consoled his daughters for a moment before walking over to the developing situation, watched all the while by almost the entire village. He stood quietly behind Kela, listening with a slowly swishing tail.

Everyone heard Nagy gasp when Yana admitted that she and Nax had attended an NFP meeting. She covered her mouth, wings flaring as she stared at Yana, though she reserved most of her horror for Nax. When the two Necrians closed on each other Seito tensed, looking to Koiwa, but she just gave a tiny shake of her head. The pair had never come to blows before, and that understanding held despite the heated words in cold air and the snarls of angered Necrians. A lull finally came, and Koiwa got a chance to speak.

"What do you want from me?"

"The truth, Nax," Koiwa said, staring at him, willing the man to meet her eyes. "You weren't honest with us when we joined you a year ago, you weren't honest with us about the Luck, and you weren't honest about trying to run with the NFP just a few weeks ago. Damn it, we risked our lives for you back on the Rookery, and for that you nearly got us all killed yesterday. Is that how you repay us? With secrets and lies?"

The vixen shook her head, swallowing hard. "I should have left you for dead. But I didn't. Because, for some stupid fucking reason, I love you, Nax," she paused, eyes shining as she tried to compose herself. "You're a reclusive old fuck who's too set in his ways, and sometimes you annoy the shit out of me, but you're capable and thoughtful and kind and I just...I wish you'd trust me," Koiwa's ears drooped. "I want to help you, Nax. But you're making it really, really hard."

There was silence for a moment before Kela spoke. "I don't know what this is all about, but if you have NFP sympathies, then you can't stay here," she pointed at Nax. "I won't risk my family and neighbors so you can play patriot. So what I want is to know what side you're on," the other Necrian stared at him. "Ours, or theirs?"

[Necrisis]

Nax didn't look up as Koiwa spoke. He could feel an entire village tense as she listed his wrongs, but there was no rebuttal.
There was a rushing in his ears, a howling in his head that wasn't quite his own, and it made it hard to think.
Did she mean it? How could she?
He felt a growing coldness in his chest, like a black hole was eating him apart, bit by bit. Soon, he'd just collapse inward.
"All Necrians lie," he murmured more to himself than anyone else.

"Ours, or theirs?"

Nax looked up at Kela from under a black scowl. "Mine. I'm on my side. Always have been. Always will."

"Yeah, well it still seems like the wrong side to me," Yana said.

"Well, it would be wouldn't it," Nax countered, bitterly. "Look, Kela. You want to be sure? Shoot me. Do it now. Make sure I'm not a SIN spy. Because that's exactly what I'd be doing, all the way out here, in the middle of nowhere, hunting down honest people who the Dominion thought were degenerates. It's not like there is a military operation to hold the city going on right now. You have some hidden weapons store here, huh?"
He stood, hand falling next to his lancer, and everyone took a step back as Kela's hands tightened on her rifle.
"I understand," Nax said, his voice surprisingly thick for how dark his face had become. "I get it, Kela. You'd do anything to protect this place. To protect you and yours. I'd do the same. Even if that means hurting them sometimes."

He still couldn't look her in the face. He couldn't bare to think that the last few moments he'd probably have weren't her smiling eyes or smirk.
Just disappointment and hurt.
He drew his lancer slowly, keeping it down and away from the others. There were two hisses as his pistol and Kela's rifle charged shot into the barrels.
"I didn't tell you any of that, Koiwa, because it wasn't important. Luck and... and Lhuun. They are my demons to bare. I've never let anyone get as close as all of you. It hurt trying to move on from a past I can't let go of. It was easier to just lock it all away. And I've made my share of mistakes."
Though he hadn't looked at Koiwa, his eyes had left Kela. They slid back to her now, his jaw set. "I stand by my actions. I regret a whole lot. Things done, things said. Unsaid. But I've no right to offload all my baggage now. So why don't you shoot me and have done."

There was a heartbeat and Nax took a step down the ramp. "Come on! I'm armed, there's no dishonor here." Another step. "And if you don't pull the fucking trigger..."
The lancer pistol rose up the side of his body, not aiming for Kela, but rather himself.

[Xiscapia]

"And if you don't pull the fucking trigger..."

Kela's eyes narrowed and she lifted her rifle to her shoulder before Nax could elevate his own pistol. Koiwa screamed "No!" but the lancer flared scarlet, burning through the butt of his gun and taking two of Nax's fingers along with it. His lancer fell in two pieces, the metal hissing as it dropped into the mud, and the stamp of feet on the ramp behind him was Nax's only warning. In the next second, he found himself tackled to the ground with Seito on top of him. They struggled for a moment before the tod pinned him, tail waving wildly, to be joined by Koiwa as they half-dragged, half-carried Nax back up the ship's ramp.

"Damn it Nax! What in the Emperor's name is wrong with you," they all heard Koiwa say, somewhere between a shout and a sob, as he was hauled away. It left only Nagy and Yana there, facing the crowd of villagers, all tense now that a shot had been fired. The smell of ozone and charred flesh was strong in the cold air. For a long moment, no one said anything, letting them all hear the soft whine as Kela deactivated her rifle.

"Um, we're really sorry..." Nagy said, trying not to meet anyone's eye.

Slinging her rifle, Kela just gave the bat a look before her eyes switched over to Yana. "I'm not done talking to him yet," she told the other Necrian. "Tell me when he's healed and not suicidal." Turning away, she made eye contact with Ahulu for a beat. "Nigi and her kits still need to be seen to. Leave the old fool for later."

[Necrisis]

"Nigi and her kits still need to be seen to. Leave the old fool for later."

Ahulu turned away from where Seito and Koiwa had dragged Nax, Necrian curses echoing through the ship and crystalline forest.
"Of course," he said, a small bedside smile adorning his face as he took Nigi's arm and escorted her back to where she had been put up.

As the crowd dispersed back to their homes, Yana and Nagy were left standing on the ship's ramp.
Yana hugged herself, feeling too dirty to touch someone as innocent as Nagy, once hot, angry tears freezing to her cheeks as the cold crept in.

Nax had always been bitter when the Dominion came up. She never understood why exactly, but sometimes he talked about stuff to her, about the 'Old Ways.' He seemed torn himself over if he should support them - the NID, the SIN, who cared? - but in the last few weeks it had been worse, like mood swings.
And less than three days ago, when he had sent Seito, Nagy and her out to get fuel, he'd gotten into an argument with one of the Rusty Bucket's cargo hands, one of Faran's goons.
Had it been about the NFP? What had he known?

The meeting she had gone to had been for recruitment. 'Putting Necrian lives first in a new Empire', they had said.
Nax had wanted to see what it was about. After the Dominion had abandoned the outer colonies to their own fates, the KEX had moved right in. Nax had been resentful of that, but he'd never really said why. Just trading one Empire for another, he had muttered.

Did he secretly just put up with all of them?
She thought that he had understood her and Nagy, maybe even returned Koiwa's feelings - something that had been painfully undetected on the old man's radar.
Had it all just been a lie?

All Necrians lie.

Not all of them, Yana thought, setting her jaw and stomping back up the ramp, heading to the Ship Core at the heart of the ship.

Nax's Luck Medbay

"Krii'gaar z'u!" Nax dug in his heels, stalling Seito and Koiwa as they bodily hauled him through the ship. "[i]Mae'doc should have taken my head. You're a bad sosseing shot!"
Seito grunted as he hefted Nax off the floor and carried on. Black blood spattered the wall and ran down the kitsune's arms and front as the two of them heaved Nax onto the medbay table.

Nax and Seito had been in more than one bar fight over the time they had crewed together. Where Seito had grown up brawling, Nax had a cold precision that seemed military, and given that every Necrian served some years in the armed forces, probably was.
Even so, Seito knew just about how strong Nax was. While the older Necrian had laid out a few opponents in his day, he lacked the raw power to just deck a man, and relied on choke points and nerve bundles.
But now, Seito could feel his augments straining to keep Nax in place as Koiwa grabbed the restraints. To his sensitive ears, there was a weird hissing-hum when Nax strained against him, similar to his own augments but... smoother?

The lancer blast had not only separated his fingers, but disintegrated them, leaving only his thumb, first two fingers and one knuckle of the third. While the lancer had cauterized most of the wound, there were lacerations from where the lancer pistol had come apart, which was where most of the blood was coming from.

Once Koiwa and Seito had strapped him down - both looking at each other panting with side-long confusion - Nax seemed to calm himself.
"Khruvu..." he hissed out between clenched teeth as he slammed his head in the med table. "Why won't She just... let me go!?"
He turned narrowed eyes on the two kitsune. "Why? Why do you care so much? There's nothing left of me, don't you get it?" He sagged back. "Nothing left..."

Ship Mind Core Chamber

It only took Yana a minute to figure out the code locked door - it was a series of numbers that, now she looked at it, seemed to be the last six digits of a NID ship ID number.
Her detective skills weren't all that great, but the slicer Nagy had been meddling with was a Goddessend.
The bat Abhuman stood a few feet behind her, nervously batting her wings.
For once, Yana didn't care. She needed answers, and Luck was going to give them to her.

The room was dark and cramped, but save for an empty socket in the floor - where a chair might have been? - the powered down equipment sat around the circumference of the room.
A soft green glow reflected back at them from the canister along the back of the room, catching the light from the hallway.

Yana had never seen a Ship Mind before, nor even entered a harmonic resonance chamber. She didn't really know what they were looking for.
She powered on the emergency lantern, the light flooding the room.
Walking over to the green cylinder, Yana looked over the case. Though it was mostly made of transparaoids and heavy alloys, it was also nondescript - except for an engraving along the top ring and a piece of tape under it.
The tape read 'Luck' while the engraving read 'Phylactery Containment Unit: Lhuun/Astralabe.'

Yana peered into the cylindrical tube, trying to angle the lantern to get a better look inside.
Something caught her light and she let out a loud gasp, dropping the photon-lantern and taking a step back.

The canister was mostly filled with techno-organic growths, small luminescent nodes shining dimly. At the center of the mass, barely visible amid the gossamer strands, there was a singular, alien eye, staring back at her.

[Xiscapia]

Nax's Luck Medbay...

"Why? Why do you care so much? There's nothing left of me, don't you get it? Nothing left..."

Heaving a disgusted sigh, Koiwa stopped short with the syringe she had been preparing to inject Nax with. "That's not true, Nax," she scowled at him, tail snapping this way and that. "You're still alive, aren't you? Still conscious and coherent, despite your best efforts," the vixen snorted. "And so is Lucky. And if you want it to stay that way, you'll buck up, stop feeling sorry for yourself, and help us solve this fucking problem!"

She set the syringe down on the tray behind her, pinning Nax with a look. "And don't you dare tell me it can't be done. You did it by yourself all these years, so the group of us can do it, too." Koiwa paused then, glancing over at Seito, who had stopped short. She jerked her head at Nax and the tod came around, swabbing at Nax's wounded hand with disinfectant before starting to pull bits of shrapnel out of his flesh clipped between tweezers. Folding her arms over her chest again, Koiwa turned back to Nax, jaw set.

Ship Mind Core Chamber...

Jumping back at the gasp and the way the shadows danced crazily with the clattering of the flashlight, Nagy just managed to stifle a scream of her own. "What is it?" she asked almost automatically, peering around for a better view before catching sight of the eye. This time she had to clamp her hands over her mouth, eyes going wide as she stared at the disembodied organ floating in its vat. Not daring to look away, Nagy reached out and grabbed Yana's hand, wings fluttering anxiously. Finally managing to tear her gaze away, she looked to Yana.

"Yana," she started, words stuck in her throat. "What are we doing here?"

[Necrisis]

Nax's Luck Medbay

"And don't you dare tell me it can't be done. You did it by yourself all these years, so the group of us can do it, too."

Nax didn't even flinch as the disinfectant ran over his ruined hand, eyes never leaving her's for a change.

They stared at each other for a while before he lost and closed his eyes, letting his head fall back on the table.

"I'm... sorry. Sorry to all of you. But this is the end. And don't think this is just... nihilism or something. I'm not trying to be difficult." He cracked an eye, and gave her the ghost of a smile. "It's just the reality I've been fighting with, for a long time."

Laying his head back down and closing his eyes,Nax continued.
"They call it Hahdrinok. Mind Death. It's not common, but common enough that there's a Temple Rite for it. It can effect anyone, but it is hereditary. My father... I had to perform the Rites for him, prick that he was. But I don't have anyone. And I knew none of you would honor it, so... I've just been dealing with it. Ever since me and Lucky escaped.
"But when I took you all in... and the whispers in the back of my skull? They would howl sometimes and I'd find myself plotting points to Var'Kara. But with all of you it... they didn't howl as much. It's been years since I even thought about it."

Koiwa saw his good hand flex, his jaw clench. He swallowed the lump in his throat and sighed. "But... they're back now. A few months ago. And its been getting worse. My temper... the howling in my head. I don't remember the last time I even slept. Days, maybe? But when I went to that NFP meeting with Yana, it all went away again. If I just went back, it stayed away. And I thought, maybe that would be it. Go to those stupid meetings, do my best to try and redirect them, get my affairs in order then, when we left, just... I don't know. Take the short walk out the airlock.
"I know that's selfish. But I don't know what else to do. If you have any ideas..."

He trailed off as he and Koiwa looked at the long, twisting, blue-black techno organic worm Seito had just extracted from his hand, slowly devouring a piece of shrapnel.

"The fuck is that?" Nax asked, looking from it to the kitsune and back.

Ship Mind Core Chamber

"What are we doing here?"

"Getting some answers," Yana said. She pulled Nagy closer to the cylinder.
She'd heard of Ship Minds before. Had assumed it was just some technical job title. You didn't find many on civilian ships, or at least those that used slipgate engines, not Astral Drivers.
But she knew that the Ship Minds were all knowing about their vessels. They could 'sense' the crew within the ship and could respond as fast as any traditional AI.
And while unwavering loyal to their Ship Master, were just as behooved to the rest of the crew, especially the First Technical Engineer - a title Nax had given her a few years ago, while he trained her and Nagy on ship engineering.

That meant Luck couldn't lie to her and he had to answer any question she posed.

Working around for a minute, Yana managed to find the main disconnect for Lucky - a two-wave input. One linked Luck to the ship, the other provided power to the capsule.

She powered on the capsule and flares scattered through the techno organic web within, like neurons firing over a brain.

The eye blinked with a tri-folded eye lid, then then twisted away from her, focusing on something she couldn't see.

"Miss Yana?" Lucky's voice - high, lilting and a little posh - issued from the glass itself, almost as if it were plying into her mind. "Miss Nagy. Goodness, I've been out for... how long? Master Nax... he said I..." Lucky trailed off. "Miss Yana, you know he has strict standing orders about being allowed in here. He-"

"Calm down, Luck," Yana said. "Nax has been injured, but hes okay. Sieto and Koiwa are treating him now. I need to ask you some questions."

"Like what? I should really be plugged in, Miss Yana. Master Nax might need-"

Yana waved a hand. "He's fine. Small wound, it's just bleeding a lot."

There was a pause before Luck's eye relaxed into a puzzle expression. "Master Nax cannot bleed."

The two women exchanged a look. "What do you mean", Yana asked. "Yes he can."

"Well, yes, technically. Much like how he is technically still Necrian. But that is less up to debate."

[Xiscapia]

Nax's Luck Medbay...

Though she made no mention of it, Koiwa wasn't sure what Nax was talking about. That was often the case between them: she barely knew anything more about Necrian society than he knew about Xiscapian culture. But here she strained to understand, rites of death and lack of sleep and voices in his head all alike. If she hadn't known better she would have thought he was losing his mind, though, from the sound of it, that might be what was happening. The vixen opened her mouth to speak when Seito tugged with the tweezers and pulled out something that made the words die in her throat.

"The fuck is that?"

"The source of your problems, maybe," Seito grunted, holding the wriggling thing as far away from him as possible. Pivoting, Koiwa grabbed a nearby jar and held it out, slamming the lid shut when Seito dropped the little creature inside. They all watched as it slowly engulfed the shard of shrapnel, seeming docile for its sudden appearance and how bizarre it looked. Koiwa met Seito's eye, though the tod's expression was unreadable. Looking back down at Nax, Koiwa inhaled.

"Do you think one of the villagers might know? More importantly," she looked back down at the man's hand, "do you think there's more of them inside you? Maybe we should put you into quarantine."

Ship Mind Core Chamber...

Though Yana didn't quite have to drag her, Nagy stayed behind the woman as they approached the console again. She peeked around the Necrian's shoulder tentatively, ducking back away so she wouldn't have to make eye contact with the disembodied organ. The fact that they knew it was Lucky only made her feel a little better. Still, she paid attention, knowing that Yana would have only brought them here for a good reason. After sharing a meaningful look with her, Nagy looked back and finally felt brave enough to face the eye.

"Well, yes, technically. Much like how he is technically still Necrian. But that is less up to debate."

"Technically?" her wings fluttered. "What do you mean, he's technically still Necrian? What else would he be?"

[Necrisis]

Nax's Luck
Medbay

"Do you think one of the villagers might know? More importantly... do you think there's more of them inside you? Maybe we should put you into quarantine."

Nax just shook his head. "I mean... I don't know? That medic guy, Ahulu? His jacket, it had an Physician's emblem on it. Maybe him? But... Look I've taken my turns around the systems, and I've never heard of..."

He trailed off, staring at the little worm thing that had gorged itself on the shrapnel, and was politely waiting near the top of the jar for Koiwa to open the lid.
Nax narrowed his eyes at it, then looked down at his hand.
He couldn't feel it, but they could all see it.
The shift of skin, the stretch of muscles and tendons.
The black, inky-blue blue that glowed slightly and stretched like mag-gel back up to his wound. The slithering of the worms as they knitted the skin back together, sans the fingers.

In a matter of seconds, the blasted fingers were fresh scar-tissue and Nax flexed the other two and a half, and the thumb.
"That's... different..." He glanced at the two kitsune. "I think I'm fine. I... I don't know though..."

Ship Core

"Technically? What do you mean, he's technically still Necrian? What else would he be?"

"Precisely," Lucky's voice sounded, slight reverb accompanying it. "What else indeed."
"That's not what she meant, Luck." Yana resisted the urge to grip the capsule like a face - the eye wasn't tracking them, or maybe Luck's orientation was different relative to them. It kept tracking between two points, like it was watching them, but decidedly not actually seeing them. The strange little 'W' pupil didn't dilate, showing almost no sense that it really could see.
But the tri-fold eyelids blinked rapidly, as if he was lying.
"I didn't think Ship Minds could lie, Lucky."
"Well, no, they cannot, Miss Yana."
"Even to the First Technical Engineer?"
There was a pause. "I cannot, and would never lie to you, Engineer Yana."

Yana leaned back, starting to fume quietly.
She glanced at Nagy, but her lover was completely lost here. This was a Necrian thing, and even Yana was out of ideas.
All Necrians lie.
She had thought she had found a way around it, but Lucky wasn't something you could bully answers out of. There was a cunning there, combined with a childish naivete that one could simply not...

But then again...

Yana leaned in again, narrowing her eyes to gleaming slits. "You cannot lie, Luck. But you can tell half-truths and avoid the question. But I'm not leaving here without my answers. So let's try this again."
She planted her hands either side of the capsule.
"What did you mean when you said Nax isn't Necrian?"
Lucky was quiet for two heartbeats longer than he should have. "I mean that he is not... just Necrian anymore. Please, Miss Yana, Miss Nagy. This is classified as personal information. I would not breach-"
"Luck, right now, Nax is on his last legs." Yana slammed one her hands against the wall. There were a clustering of lights across the technowebbing within Lucky's capsule. "If you don't tell me, he might die. Or worse."
"Worse?" Lucky's eye narrowed itself. "The only thing worse than death is mutiny, Miss Yana." The voice was no less Lucky, but much more sinister somehow. "We aren't talking about that now... are we?"
"And if we are?"
"I would be forced to defend Master Nax with my very being."
"And how would you do that Lucky?" Yana gestured to the tubes and cables. "You aren't attached to the ship. You're just an eye in a jar, and that's weird enough as it is. Look, I don't want to take you from Nax, or him from you. But there are people out there who do. And if you don't help me, you might never have a chance."

There was a very long pause.
Then, Lucky replied, subdued. "I will do my best."

Yana didn't waste any time. "What is Nax?"
"I do not know. In truth, I do not. But from my observations, he shows signs of Hallownite nanoculture. But that should only effect the recently deceased. Nax is not dead, but nor does he act like a full-blooded Necrian." Luck paused. "I feel... that I a missing something on this. Perhaps, ask me again later."
"Alright," Yana said, leaning back again and folding her arms. "Why did he attend all those NFP meet ups?"
"As he recorded his journal," Lucky said, the eye rolling back and then forward again, like Yana did when she was trying to think of something. "His motive was two fold - One to attempt to lessen their impact. He believed that while their intentions were good - that is, working to gain equal rights amid growing KEX nationalism and a decline in Dominion legislation."
"But the KEX have been nothing but good for us," Yana said, waving her hand. "That's bullshit."
"Then perhaps the secondary reason is more valid."
Yana waited for a moment before gesticulating. "Well?"
"Oh, are we done interrupting me?" If Lucky had eyebrows, he would have raised one. As it was, Yana could hear it in his voice just fine.

"Master Nax believes he is suffering from a condition known as Half-Life Mental Decay, more colloquially called 'Mind Death.' It involves such things as increased anger, paranoia, lethargy, as well as sensory illusion, such as hearing voices, tangent ideas surfacing and increased, vivid nightmares.
"I am no medical assistant," Luck said, "But Master Nax has complained of 'howling' in his head. It has not bothered him for more than twelve years however, including the last three or so since he took all of you on board."

[Xiscapia]

Nax's Luck Medbay...

"I think I'm fine. I... I don't know though..."

"You just held a gun to your own head, you're missing two fingers, and you have worms inside you," Koiwa scowled. "You are not fine." She turned her glare to the thing in the jar, examining it through narrowed eyes. It was clinging to the side near the lid, patient, and if she hadn't known better she would have said the thing was staring back at her. It would have been laughable if the whole situation hadn't been so strange.

Looking back, the vixen fixed Nax with a look. "So no, you're not getting off that table until we get that doctor in to look at you. You're a danger to yourself, at the least."

Beside her, Seito just gave a small nod. Seeing Nax's flesh knit itself back together had made him set his tools down, still looking at the scar tissue that had formed over the cauterized wounds. It seemed beneficial to the man, but that didn't make it less disturbing.

Ship Core...

Though well out of her depth, Nagy paid attention to the conversation as best she could. Looking at Luck, or Luck's eye, didn't really help, so she focused on watching Yana. Her obvious frustration made the abhuman flinch, and the evasive way Luck spoke didn't help. Nagy hadn't had a great deal of interaction with Necrians apart from Yana and Nax, but it was enough for her to tell that the V.I. was conforming to stereotypes. The only saving grace was the authority Yana held over Luck, which eventually pried the truth free.
Such that it was.

"Master Nax believes he is suffering from a condition known as Half-Life Mental Decay, more colloquially called 'Mind Death.' It involves such things as increased anger, paranoia, lethargy, as well as sensory illusion, such as hearing voices, tangent ideas surfacing and increased, vivid nightmares. I am no medical assistant, but Master Nax has complained of 'howling' in his head. It has not bothered him for more than twelve years however, including the last three or so since he took all of you on board."

"Wait, so, what does that have to do with the NFP meetings?" Nagy looked from Yana to Luck and back again. "He couldn't have just gone to the hospital for it?"

[Necrisis]

Nax's Luck
Medbay

"You're a danger to yourself, at the least."

Nax reached over and before she could stop him, gripped the jar that held the worm with his good hand, pulling it from her grasp with surprisingly no effort.
There was a little sound - something like what Nagy sometimes did in her sleep, a hypersonic kind of squeak - and it burrowed through the glass with no effort, burrowing under Nax's skin and vanishing.

Nax blinked, and shook his head, starring at the jar as if he couldn't remember picking it up.
"They won't let me." He set the jar down and looked at the spot where the worm had vanished. "I... tried. When I first pulled the lancer. But my finger wouldn't compress the trigger. The whole time, I just thought I was a coward for not being able to do the right thing. Maybe... these little things won't let me."
He looked up at the two kitsune. "Maybe we should get Nagy or Yana to go get him. You're right. I have... no idea what is going on here."

Ship Core

"He couldn't have just gone to the hospital for it?"

Yana took Nagy's hand, rubbing thumb across the soft fur. "It's not treatable. My great-uncle had his faculties fail him in his eighties. My father and uncle took turns caring for him. It hit hard. You lose yourself, everything that makes you... well, you." She glanced up at the Abhuman. "You forget people. Places. Names. Yourself in time. He'd yell at the mirror sometimes, asking who he was." She took a deep breath and looked back at Lucky. "Once his affairs were in order, they performed the Rites. Poisoned him. Let him die in peace, with the last vestiges of himself still in mind."

"It is a horrible way to die," Lucky intoned. "He did not wish to burden you all, without familial ties, to perform the Rites."

"That's great and all Luck," Yana said. "But it doesn't fit. Mind Death occurs quickly. One day you're fine and the next you are forgetting who you even were. The Ahzural Virus does something similar, but that's treatable. There is a physical manifestation of it as it eats the grey matter. Mind Death is... more metaphysical." She gestured vaguely toward the sickbay. "So if he's been feeling this for years, it's not that."

"Perhaps not," Lucky said, a little stiffly. "But that is Master Nax's opinion."
"Why would going to meetings make it go away?"
"I don't know," Luck snapped. "Master Nax has always cared for the Necrian people, even when foolish politics have seen better men and women die. Perhaps it gave him a sense of purpose again, like when he served with the Jha'Rhoun."

Yana couldn't stop herself. "Nax was a merc?"

Lucky paused. "Master Nax is over sixty years old, Mistress Yana. He has lived many lives and strives for a better one now. Please do no pry into it." His voice got low and pained. "I... don't seem to have memory of it. Details are... unclear." The eye swirled about its fleshy socket, seeking something. "Mistress Yana? Am I... losing my mind?"

[Xiscapia]

Nax's Luck, Medbay...

"They won't let me. I... tried. When I first pulled the lancer. But my finger wouldn't compress the trigger. The whole time, I just thought I was a coward for not being able to do the right thing. Maybe... these little things won't let me."

Staring at the place where the worm had disappeared into Nax's skin, Koiwa gave the man a look. It wasn't like it was his fault, but she was discovering hidden layers to him a lot more quickly than she would have liked. Reaching down, she tightened the straps holding his wrists to the table, cutting down on his range of motion even further. "Maybe they've got more sense than you do, then," she told him, cinching the buckles. "But if you're not in full control of your own body then we still can't let you up. Again, I'm sorry, but that's how it's gotta be."

"Maybe we should get Nagy or Yana to go get him. You're right. I have... no idea what is going on here."

"I'll do it," Seito stood and stripped off his gloves, dumping them into a hazmat container. "Be faster than trying to find those two and tell them what's happening. Not like I'm of much use here anyway," he shook his head and stepped away. "I'll be right back." Nodding to the two of them, the tod left through the medbay's hatch, leaving Koiwa and Nax alone.

Outside the ship Seito made a beeline for the hut that Nigi and her children had been set up in. The younger of the sons was fast asleep, his arm in a splint and bandages crossing his head, while the older was sitting silently off to one side. He looked up when Seito entered but otherwise kept his eyes on where Ahulu and Nigi were leaning over her daughter's bed, each gently applying a gel to the vixen's scarred face. Arms folded, Seito waited quietly to one side, knowing better than to interrupt. Even if Nigi didn't bite his head off for disturbing them, Ahulu needed the time and space to finish his good work.

Ship Core...

Squeezing Yana's hand, Nagy listened to her and Lucky explain with steadily lowering ears. She had little doubt that they were speaking the truth, but none of it made her feel any better. The abhuman wished she could tell Lucky that he wasn't going crazy, but out of everyone on the ship she was aware that she was the least able to make that judgment. There was one aspect she couldn't keep quiet about, though. Still holding Yana's hand, she looked Lucky in the eye.

"I don't know," Nagy breathed. "I wish we could help. But..." she inhaled. "Does that mean it's terminal? We can't do anything to help Nax?"