"Wait," Nova interjected. "Explain. You said that section would be completely safe, after we reclaimed it."
"And it will," Vessa insisted. "It's a teleport array, like what I use to send you two down to a planet's surface. It can't be used by an enemy any more than someone can hijack the teleportation array in my sanctuary. As long as one of us three stays behind, the other two can safely teleport to the outside surface of my ship-body, and help me perform minor repairs there, or at least get actual, physical eyes on my outer damage. Sorry," she added self-consciously. "Maybe someone looking at it won't actually be that useful, since it's not like we can just pull into a star port or shipyard and fix it."
There are star ports? I wanted to ask, but didn't. Do they know we're still running around with spears and swords?
"But I kind of want to remember what the rest of me looks like," she admitted. "Even though it probably doesn't look right anymore."
I winced for her.
"We're up for it," Nova said, then suddenly looked over at me. "I mean… right, Jasper?"
"We've only had one battle today, and got through the last fight with no injuries and plenty of rest afterwards," I said, getting up and picking up everyone's empty plates. "The shadows were not only unable to touch me, I'm stronger than I was before they tried. I can't see a reason why we shouldn't try to get something as important as your sensors back on-line as soon as possible, and for all we know, a glimpse at the outer surface of your ship could reveal something vital. We should leave for that as soon as possible."
"Thank you," Vessa said, sighing in relief. "Thank you, both. It's scary to send you two—you three," she corrected, looking around for Nestor, "It's scary to send you all into danger. Speaking of which." She closed her eyes in concentration, as if she was counting off numbers in her head. "My audio and visual feed is detecting a handful of lifeforms in those rooms. Three total… two of them humanoids and heavily decayed, which implies they may be undead as well—but I can't swear by that. They both have more Source energy than the strongest sott-jotun you battled earlier. The third one is using some sort of veiling technique to mask its form, a shroud, I think. If it can already create a shroud, then it's possibly the most dangerous creature I've ever asked either of you to fight on your own." She paused to take a breath. "But I think you're ready for it. You two aren't neophytes anymore. And if the creature is more powerful than I guessed, you can retreat into the hallway, where my own weapon systems can help. In fact, I'll be watching the fight. As soon as things go badly I'll sound an alarm and provide cover for you two to escape into the hallway. Sound good?"
"That sounds fine," I replied. "You could also just message us with what you see, with your texting system."
"Right," she said, blinking again. "I have that… we should stop forgetting I can do that. In fact, if we retake a communications array room inside my ship-body, we won't even need it anymore. I'll have a better way to reach out to you both. That will make things much easier."
"Alright then," Nova said, standing up as well. "I suppose we're ready to go now."
After carrying Vessa to the capsule in the room just beyond the emergency drive room, so that she could be closer, we returned to the first emergency drive room and prepared for our second mission of the day.
Nova and I turned our attention to the second door, the one we had passed over during our last expedition. The giant barrier loomed over us, looking far more ominous, now that we were determined to see what lurked beyond it, and knowing for certain that there were creatures inside that Vessa was not entirely certain we could handle. Nova and I shared one cautious glance before we both used our own abilities to scry forward, but this time I saw nothing but a long, dark hallway that I could not see the end of.
This time, Nova's senses were superior.
"It's exactly what Vessa said it was," she said, sounding relieved that the ship-woman's information was correct. We had no real reason to doubt her, but there had been a number of surprises down here, from the mad shadows to the Longman seizing control of nearby doors. "We've got a hallway that's even longer than the one leading back to the sanctuary," she told me confidently. "With another room just beyond it, one roughly the size of the emergency drive room with at least two doors leading further into the ship. I can't detect anything lurking in the hallway, but that room just after it has the two creatures Vessa mentioned earlier… and they do feel off, like their bodies aren't emitting the normal traces of life.
"Let's do this," she said confidently, closing her eyes to activate the door.
I drew my halfblade, and stood guard while she did so, watching the massive barrier slowly rumble open. When it finished, I stared down a pitch-shrouded hallway, as Nova stepped forward, drawing her baton and blade.
"I'll lead the way," she stated, her bright-blue eyes somehow piercing the darkness. "Back me up if I'm attacked." She spared me a quick glance. "And maybe you should use that spear again? Instead of that broken-looking sword thing?"
I shook my head, still gripping my halfblade as I walked behind her. "It's as well-crafted as any of the weapons from the Sourcepalace, and the right length for fighting in a confined space like this. If I need a different tool, I can summon it instantly."
"Fair enough," my friend said as she steeled herself and stepped into the darkness.
I swallowed my pride and followed her, reflecting on the fact that my friend could still fight better than I could, and with her superior vision it made sense for her to take point. Then I felt silly and stopped to let Nestor back out of my Soulscape. The little mouse had woken up some time ago, and I had just then noticed him jump up and down to be let out. Nestor quickly put our own reconnaissance to shame, rushing in front of us and whispering into our minds that the way was clear all the way down to the door.
"Sorry." Nova winced as she let the lifemouse do his job and scout. "This one hallway is making me jumpy for some reason. I completely forgot about our magic super-mouse."
"Me, too," I admitted. And sorry, little friend. I shouldn't have forgotten about you.
Is-fine, the little mouse chattered back in my mind. Had-nap. Great-great-nap! Have-pack-too! Good-pack!
I grinned as Nova and I relaxed a little, and followed our tiny scout into the darkness.
The dark hallway made a number of disturbing creaks and echoes as we walked, but it proved to be just as empty as Nova said it would be. As my enhanced eyes finally adjusted, though, I noticed numerous scratches along the walls, much like the ones I had seen when I retook Vessa's first hallway, as well as clawed footprints on the floor. The claw-prints puzzled me, because most of them were going in the same direction we were. That meant that the emergency drive room must have fallen before this area, which reminded me that these hallways probably did not lead much further into the ship. If we kept exploring down here, we would likely meet a dead end, soon, which meant that we could completely secure a section of Vessa's ship-body.
That would go a long way toward easing all of our fears. But the rooms had not been reclaimed yet, I reminded myself as we finally reached the end of the long hallway.
Nova stared at the door, while we both took the time to confirm what lurked beyond with our special senses. Extending my spirit in this manner was tiring, but Grandmother had said frequent exercise was necessary for improvement.
I once again saw a palette of black hues, giving me the dimensions of the room beyond. It looked almost identical to the emergency drive room, even having the same partitions in the center, but there was no barricade at the opposite end. There was a door along every wall, but as far as I could tell there was no secret passage on any of the room's sides.
There were the two beings that Nova had mentioned before. My soulsense was still not developed enough to give me many details about their appearance, but they gave off a sickly-gray light, and remained too still except for some slight motions that suggested they were breathing.
Which they should not have needed to do if they we
re undead.
"That's…" Nova began as she finally opened her eyes. "Odd."
"Very," I agreed. "They should not be this still, for things that continued to breathe. Unless it is because they have been trapped in there all this time."
"In that case, they should probably not be alive at all," Nova replied, taking a deep breath. She turned her head to look at where Nestor was waiting, right at the door's edge. "Do you have any ideas, little guy?"
Starve-much, the little mouse suggested, lifting his fluffy head. Weak-weak.
There are some creatures and practitioners that no longer need to eat or even breathe, when they reach a certain level of Advancement, Grandmother Mara offered from inside my soul. And most beings can consume their own Source energy if they have to, though it will weaken them severely, possibly even reducing the number of Advancement stages they possess, though they can recover their power in time. The holy vessel-saint has done such to help her survive all this time, and I was forced to take a similar measure when I made your Soulscape the house for my part-soul.
"So there are a pack of half-starved monsters hiding in the other room," I clarified, since Nova could not hear Grandmother Mara's voice in my mind. "They might even be some of the original invaders, and were somehow locked in there in the beginning. Which means they've been weakening themselves for ages in there, unable to batter down this door for reasons unknown. They have weakened to the levels we detected, but will be hungry and desperate. We should not let down our guard."
"Got it," Nova said as she pointed her war baton at the door. "We need to be ready for immediate attack… but could they also be crew?" she asked after a moment.
I had no idea, since the beings looked mostly humanoid, and I had no idea what Vessa's original people looked like, so I just shrugged helplessly and readied my own weapon. It seemed that Vessa should have been able to recognize them when she saw them earlier.
But then again, she had forgotten entirely about having certain species of beings on her crew until a few hours ago.
That made me wonder something else, that I had noticed but forgotten about in my surprise to find breathing creatures trapped inside there.
"Hold on, Nova," I said as I sent my soulsense back into the room. This time I ignored the two beings and concentrated on the other sensations I felt, raw sensations that were not hidden behind a flesh-and-blood body.
Anger.
Hatred.
Hunger.
More hunger.
A sense of being misled, and then denied.
Grandmother Mara, I said to the inside of my soul, I think there are more ghosts here.
There may be, grandson, the dragon-woman warned. If there are hostile spirits here, I will do what I can to guard your soul. As long as they are weaker than the maddened shadows, I should be of help.
I was unconvinced, but there was little I could do but take her word for it.
"Um, Jas?" Nova asked me. "Are you having an important conversation with your dragon-grandma-ghost?"
"Yes," I answered, snapping my attention back. "There may be more ghosts in the next room, in addition to the two creatures. Angry ones."
"Oh," Nova said, blinking. "Okay. Can they hurt us?"
"My grandmother doesn't think so," I replied, and she looked no more reassured than I felt over that pronouncement.
"I suppose we'll find out just what's behind this door in a few moments," I told Nova grimly. "Ready when you are."
With that, she closed her eyes and sent a command to open the barrier.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The metal creaked as it shifted for the first time in dozens or hundreds of years. I felt a stillness pour through the opening, as if the beings on the other side could not believe their prison was finally opening. But nothing rushed at us from the other side. I couldn't tell for sure, but I suspected everything lurking in that room had suddenly decided to hold its breath.
Nova muttered some words under her breath, and gold-and-white light washed out from her armor.
"If there is anyone friendly to Vessa Soulship in there," she called out in a gentle, but firm, voice, "now would be the best moment to reveal yourself."
Assuming you still have the strength to speak, I thought but didn't say.
But the light revealed no friendly faces.
I caught a brief glimpse of grey-and-brown limbs pulling deeper into the shrinking shadows. Other than that movement, there was no response to Nova's words.
"Very well," Vessa's Beacon said calmly. "Jas? If you would do the honors?"
"As you wish," I replied, reading her intentions and raising my free hand. "Sending fire and death into the room full of foolishly silent predators in three… two…"
"Wait," a hacking rasp came from the middle of the room. "You wouldn't dare. You'll damage this place."
"If you really believed I was bluffing, you would have remained silent," I countered, while quietly and belatedly wondering if my new fire attack would, in fact, damage whatever sensitive systems Vessa might have in this room. At any rate, at least we knew one of the creatures in here could talk. And given how long it had been kept down here, it probably had knowledge we wanted it to share.
"You don't even know if we want to fight!" the rasping voice followed up.
"It's proven to be a rather solid assumption to make down here," I replied, unmoved. "Unless the lot of you are still hiding in the shadows just to conceal how badly you would like to hold hands and sing with us."
"If you had been down here for as long as we have," the voice said next, "you would be slow to move as well. Even before we came to this room, it was unwise to draw attention to one's self. But we have made no move to attack you. We have not even left this room!"
"Not for lack of trying, apparently," I noted as I looked down at the floor. The tiles covering it had scratch marks everywhere but directly in front of the opening. There was at least a five-foot radius of clean space, where not even dust lingered.
"Nevertheless," Nova spoke up, taking command of the conversation. "If you can give me a convincing reason to let you live, I will consider sparing your lives. Which of you wants to go first?"
That was a good trick, I thought approvingly. By giving multiple speakers a chance to interrupt, our enemies were less likely to keep their lies straight.
"I was already talking!" the first voice said. "I can give you what you want!"
"So can I!" another corner of the dark room called out, this voice hoarse and deep. "He does not speak for all of us!"
"That's interesting," my blonde friend said. "How many of you are there exactly?"
It was an interesting question, because we had already been able to determine their numbers before we opened the door. But it gave us a chance to see how they would respond.
"Do not—" the first voice began to say, before the deeper one interrupted.
"Just the two of us in this room!" the second voice shouted. "He cannot be trusted! I only wish to leave this place alive!"
"Liar!" the rasping voice snapped. "He wishes to use you to kill me! Then he will turn on the weakened victor!"
Nova and I shared a look as the two voices continued arguing, and I guessed her to be thinking the same thoughts I was. Most of what they had both said was probably true, except for the second voice's insistence that he merely wanted to leave in peace. But more importantly, the exchange revealed that the two were hostile to each other, yet they had coexisted all this time without exterminating each other. That already made them different from the eaterlings I had encountered earlier, who only worked together in small groups and were quick to wipe each other out.
"You both should have mentioned the number of others in the rooms beyond you," Nova said calmly. "So there is your first mistake. I have not decided how many I will allow you all to make. But I will move on to the next question: why have neither of you ever left this room?"
An awkward pause preceded the voices' answer.
"We could not," the f
irst voice rasped. "The door would not open."
"We were locked inside," the second voice rasped quickly. "We could not have left even though we wanted to."
"Very well," Nova continued, "why did you enter the room to begin with?"
Once again, the speakers hesitated.
"It was an accident," the first voice said.
"For us," the second speaker added. "His pack chased someone into here! We followed them!"
"Who were you chasing?" Nova asked without missing a beat. "What species, and what group, did they belong to?"
"We did not know," the rasping voice answered cautiously. "But they were running away from the violence, so we followed them."
"Do not believe him," the hoarse voice spoke up. "He is a liar. His pack followed one of the ship-being's crew into this room! They wanted the Source energy!"
"You are the liar!" the first speaker hissed. "We were only looking for a way out!"
"Is there one?" I interjected calmly, glancing at Nova to confirm she didn't mind. "None of the other doors behind you look closed. Do they lead to another part of the ship you could escape from, if your groups were stronger?"
I heard a faint shuffling in response to my question, as the creatures hiding in the room realized that we probably knew where they were hiding even if they stayed away from our light, and also that we already had a fair idea as to their number and relative strengths.
"The doors lead to dead ends," the first voice answered reluctantly. "We suspect one of the consoles may take us outside these steel rooms, but it is unpowered now, and we have no means to reactivate it, and we would not know how to use it even if it was functional."
"Can you fix it so we can leave?" the second voice spoke up. "That is all my people wish."
Liar, I thought to myself automatically. Those with peaceful intentions never go around announcing that every few moments.
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