Song of the Void

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”Come on. We need to come up with a name before Selendil interferes and gives them some boring and official-sounding name.” Xiaoli encouraged as most of the crew members had gathered in the cafeteria.

“How about Vantablack? Naming them after one of the darkest colors ever developed would be somewhat appropriate.” Ka’eo suggested. The Dashane liked to keep naming relatively simple.

“Eeh, I have a similar problem with that as with calling them Shadows. It’s a bit too obvious.” Xiaoli prevaricated. “But it’s the best one so far.”

“Well, they’re shadowy spiders. How about we combine the two? Sharaki? Shadaki?” Amaterasu suggested, keeping to her earlier arachnid theme.

“You know, something like Shadaraki wouldn’t be too bad. Sounds kind of cool.” Yrala nodded in approval. “Do we want to give them a cool nickname though?”

“If we’re going that route, then why not use the word spider in another language? Hämähäkki for instance?” Nochehuatl pitched in.

“No, we’re not naming them spider. Too obvious.” Xiaoli shot the idea down. “Also that Hämä-whatever is too hard to pronounce.”

“Something like Umbraneae?” Lilly pitched in.

Xiaoli gave a shudder. "For some reason, I got the chills. I have the oddest feeling of danger, as if calling them anything Umbra related would be a bad idea. Nox, what about you? Do you have any ideas?"

“Well, their real name is basically a screech, so why not stick to that? Just call them Screeches or something? Or Eep?” Nox joked.

“Yeah, I knew asking Nox was a bad idea. Last time she was all for calling the ship Nocturnal Opportunity for Xenophilia.” Amaterasu interjected.

“Well let’s hear you come up with something better.” Nox joked. This was beginning to feel like they were starting to treat her biological body just like another crew member, which was part of why she had made the body in the first place.

“Well, why not call them Nyx, the night incarnate from ancient mythology?” Amaterasu shot back, knowing the idea would be shot down.

“I’m vetoing that one, for obvious reasons.” Nox said just as Amaterasu had expected. The two names, Nox and Nyx, were too similar after all. Nox wouldn’t want to be so closely associated with the shadowy species.

“Why? You didn’t have any problem suggesting the ship be named after you.” Xiaoli joined in on the teasing, knowing exactly why Nox was rejecting the name.

“Because I literally control the ship. Now suggest something better.” Nox shot that line of conversation down.

“I think Amaterasu was on to something.” Ka’aukai decided to interject. “Her ideas were simple yet sounded good. They were a bit long though. How about just Shaer?”

Some of the others looked around to see what everyone thought of it while the rest were testing the name out. It was easy to say and had a bit of that mysterious quality to it, so most liked it. “Shaer it is then. Nox, make it official quickly before Selendil has the chance to interject.”

-----

“So what did they decide?” Selendil asked with some amusement as she heard Nox’s report. Her non-interference in the naming was done on purpose, as she knew the others were having fun with this and her opinion would carry too much weight. So instead of taking part in the naming, she was sitting in the sickbay, watching as Moonshadow floated in a tank filled with nutritional liquid and nanites.

“They went with Shaer.” Nox replied. “Just to satisfy my own curiosity, what were you going to suggest?” The AI asked.

“Me? I would’ve gone with something like the Scions. That’s relatively descriptive of how they think of themselves after all, even if I don’t fully agree with the sentiment. But Shaer, huh? I like it. Let's keep that." Selendil slowly replied after giving the question some thought.

Nox felt like an opportunity had been wasted. Scions was a great name. She’d have to bring it up next time they were naming something. “So, are you going to do it?”

“Yes. We need her input on the matter, and we can’t wait until she recovers.” Selendil decided with a wave of her tails that expressed her frustration. She then reached out with one of the tails and touched the glass of the tank that held Moonshadow.

She used her powers to create a bridge for their minds to come together. She had learned from her experiences with these younger races. They couldn’t handle the strain of having her enter their minds, as they were simply too fragile. She also couldn’t bring Moonshadow into her own mind, ironically for the same reason Keepers were not allowed to take part in the most intimate ritual of the Dhar that melded two minds together for a short time. Keepers were containers for minds and memories. Countless of them. Moonshadow would be hopelessly lost and crushed under the countless preserved personalities inside her if she was brought into Selendil’s mind.

So Selendil created a neutral ground between them. It was a bit of an experiment on her part, but it had been done before. What Selendil created was essentially similar to how the generals of ancient armies sometimes met between their respective armies to negotiate one last time before the battle. She had created something in between for them to use for a meeting. Now she just had to wait for Moonshadow to take the invitation. The problem was that Moonshadow was also being kept in a coma by her for a reason, so she also had to bring her to a sort of half-wakeful state where her mind would be awake enough to participate, but wouldn’t allow Moonshadow to feel her physical body and all the pain that would come as well.

She had to wait for a while, but eventually she managed to prod Moonshadow enough to cause her to take the invitation. Moonshadow looked around her in confusion as she arrived at the meeting place. “Am I dead? I did not expect you to be part of my afterlife. I doubt this is a dream either, or you wouldn’t be in that form.”

Selendil allowed her tails to display her amusement. “No, you’re not dead. Although you did cut things pretty close there.”

“Yes, well, things did get kind of bad there for a moment. Your timing was impeccable as always. Where are we?” Moonshadow asked, looking around at the surroundings once again. They seemed to be in some sort of forest clearing. There was a lake nearby, and the moonlight was reflecting on the dark surface of the perfectly calm water. Moonshadow narrowed her eyes a bit. Her real name translated roughly as ‘Moonlight caressing the shadow on the surface of a calm lake during a silent night’. It seemed that Selendil had remembered that.

“Your body is recovering in a sort of medical stasis that allows the nanites to work. You got banged up pretty badly. It’s going to take some time to recover, but you will be fine.” Selendil replied. “I was going to just make this a white room, but Nox mentioned that might not be a good idea. This just something I cooked up in a hurry instead. For some reason, most races have their own version of a white room like the one I mentioned, where they’ll end up after death. Maybe they’re on to something, or maybe it’s just something simple that everyone thinks of at some point. I wouldn’t know.”

“How badly did I get hurt?” Moonshadow asked with a small grimace.

“Your entire lower half was gone. Organ damage and radiation damage as well. The only reason you held together at all was a combination of the nanites doing their work and the good doctor doing his job. He can be surprisingly serious at times. He even ordered me around when I arrived, and he didn’t look at me lecherously even once. Anyway, we're regenerating the lost parts, so if you want some improvements, now's your chance. Otherwise, we're just going to go with the scan Khaemwaset performed after you got improved by the nanites."

“I’m quite happy with my old body, thanks. So we’re not in my mind?” Moonshadow suddenly asked a little worriedly. She wasn’t sure she wanted to broadcast all her thoughts again.

“No. Unfortunately, I’ve learned that you people have minds too fragile for this sort of thing. Or it might be that I’m too strong. Truth be told, I’m not sure anymore. Anyway, that’s not why I’m here. I wanted to tell you the news, and ask you how you want to deal with those that attacked you.” Selendil finally got to the point of this whole endeavor.

Moonshadow was quiet for a long time as she considered her options and the implications. “I don’t actually hold the dark creatures that almost killed me responsible.”

“The crew decided to name them Shaer by the way. The naming process just ended, so if you want to shock everyone, use the word right after you wake up, before anyone has the opportunity to tell you.” Selendil interjected with slight amusement.

“I missed the naming convention? Dammit!” Moonshadow cursed playfully. “As I was saying, this wasn’t really caused by the Shaer, even though they were the ones to almost kill me. The Va’al asked for their help, and they provided. I think they considered it only proper as new overlords, or whatever. I was just a normal enemy to them, and they acted accordingly.” She considered her next words carefully. “I don’t think they’re really the type to condone what the Va’al did. That’s the impression I got anyway. I think they were not really told the truth about the situation.”

“I’m not entirely sure I agree with that assessment, but let’s leave that for now. I notice that you don’t seem as tolerant towards the Va’al.” Selendil pointed out.

“The Va’al broke some of the most important agreements forged between the intelligent races. And their reasons for doing so were entirely selfish and quite slimy to tell you the truth. They will need to be punished. However, I don’t want you to be the one to punish them. They need to be punished by the other races to show that those agreements actually still mean something, even with the arrival of the Shaer. Otherwise, who knows which agreement will fly out of the window next? If you do the punishing it makes it personal and defeats the whole point. The races of the galaxy have a choice to make on what kind of people they want to be. Will they run away and forget the agreements at the first sign of adversity, or will the agreements actually matter?” Moonshadow explained her view.

“Have it your way. I will relay your will to the crew, and the Mrrroww.” Selendil promised. She had expected this, which was one of the reasons she had decided to not act rashly earlier. “In the meantime, we’ll be returning to Haven to start our repairs.”

-------

“I could cut down on the time if we repurpose what’s left of our fighters. We haven’t really used them so far, and this way we don’t have to empty our material stores either. Besides, the fighters are pretty much all busted anyway, so they wouldn’t be much use for us without spending time repairing them as well.” Nox mused as she and Selendil were looking over the diagram of the damaged auxiliary arms of the ship. The arms also functioned as hangars so most of their shuttles and fighters had been destroyed along with the hangars.

“Why haven’t we been using them by the way?” Xiaoli asked. She and Yrala were among the few people who were tech-savvy enough to take part in the repairs.

Selendil scratched her chin a bit. “It’s a case of having more effective tools in our toolbox. Fighters are more of a tactical tool, and we’ve been brute forcing most of the combat situations we’ve been in so far. It’s also a problem of efficiency. Almost every time the fighters would’ve been useful, it’s simply more effective for me to handle it personally. The fighters could be useful if you got into a tactically complicated situation where you need to be in several places at once, but I’m not around. So far we haven’t run into such issues.”

“Selendil also isn’t a big believer in fighter doctrines. Some Dhar were strong believers in fighters, while others despise them. Selendil is more in the latter camp.” Nox explained cheerily.

“Well, I have a decent reason I think. They don’t really work as a power projection tool. A handful of fighters is the answer to such a narrow range of problems because they don’t have the armament or defenses of a real ship. Nor do they have the sensor suits or the science and engineering facilities for non-combat situations. Every time you face a problem that would need more than a handful of fighters, you might as well send a proper ship. So what’s the point?” Selendil argued.

“Not everyone can rely on an overwhelming amount of psionic power like you.” Nox pointed out. “That forces them to be more careful and use more complicated tactics. But I digress. We were talking about repairing the auxiliary arms. We can cut down on the time wasted quite a bit if we can utilize the materials from the fighters. That way the nanites don’t have to create the more complicated parts and the heavier elements from scratch. We have enough of the necessary materials in our storage that fabrication won’t be a problem, but the more complex elements will take time to create.”

“How much time would we save?” Selendil asked, more out of obligation. She was already willing to go along with the plan, but she felt necessary to be aware of the options.

"We're going to have to spend several weeks on the project either way. We'd shave off at least a week I think. Unfortunately, there won't be enough ready-made materials even if we use the wrecked fighters.” Nox replied.

“Is this how you deal with most construction projects?” Xiaoli suddenly asked. “Just throw some nanites and base materials at it, and the nanites will take care of the problem eventually?”

“Basically? I mean, there were dedicated shipyards in the past that could’ve just replaced the auxiliary arms and manufactured new ones the old fashioned way, but we don’t really have that option now.” Nox didn’t really understand where this was going.

“Why don’t we have that option? I mean there must be some old shipyards left. The Dawn Collective were using one similar facility to create that huge megaproject of theirs, so why wouldn’t there be shipyards left as well?” Xiaoli pushed.

“Most of the shipyards were actually focused into specific galaxies. With the ability to just warp the ships where they were needed, there wasn’t really any need to build specialized facilities everywhere. Unfortunately, those facilities would likely be the first ones to break down as they required some very particular and dangerous surroundings. We also didn’t want to leave them behind to be exploited by others, so most of those shipyards should’ve crashed into a black hole a long time ago.” Nox explained.

“Not that there couldn’t be some still around, even if they can't build proper Dhar ships anymore," Selendil added.

“You mentioned that before. Why not?” Xiaoli kept asking questions now that she had gotten Selendil and Nox in the mood to provide answers.

"Well, many of the most important materials require both very specific psionic abilities and a lot of psionic power to create," Selendil explained and pointed at the central hull of the ship on the hologram. "For example, our main hull is built of a material that doesn't appear naturally. It requires very specific facilities and powers to create.”

Selendil was about to add something but her senses were telling her that they might have another problem on their hands. “We’re going to have to postpone this. I just sensed a lot of Shaer ships approaching Haven. They’re still a bit away, but I think we’ll need to get ready.”

“How many is ‘a lot’?” Xiaoli asked worriedly. “And have I already mentioned that I hate their stealth abilities. They’re able to bypass all the phase space warning systems.”

“You’re just jealous that they’re better at it than the Cybrans.” Nox pointed out.

"Yes, I am!" Xiaoli admitted with a pout.

“To answer your earlier question, I can sense almost three hundred ships approaching. That seems like an odd number…” Selendil tilted her head in thought.

“Why?” Xiaoli questioned.

"Well, it's big enough to be an attack force, yet at the same time, it isn't. It's enough to likely give Haven's defenses some trouble judging by their level of technology, but it's not really enough for them to be confident in their victory. And that's assuming I wouldn't interfere. A bold assumption to make. On the other hand, it’s too many ships to be any sort of diplomatic gesture. What’s going on?” Selendil explained her confusion.

“Well, I guess we will find out pretty soon.” Nox said simply.