Read Sun's Ship, Priest's Path :: Entry 005

With a click, a panel in the wall snapped back, and a mechanical limb flexed. As the serpent struck, the limb lunged out, splayed its digits, caught in its grip. Sun clamped on the creature like a vice, but it was already squirming, slipping away.

“FORWARD! MOVE FORWARD!” Sun called urgently. “End of the hall, turn left, elevator!” Too slow, even that speaking that short sentence felt too slow compared to grappling with that thing.

Indrani scrambled into a run, urged on by Sun’s voice ringing loud against the walls of the hallway. Behind him, the serpent’s body dissolved in Sun’s grip, the chitin of its body fragmenting until both snake-like ends shot out of their grasp in either direction. A frothing hiss, and both ends were gone, their bodies rapidly worming into impossibly small gaps in the walls and vents.

The curate was panting by the time he turned and saw the elevator, the light inside flickering madly. “Sun! Where are you! What is that?!”

“Here,” Sun’s voice came from behind him, catching him in a startled yelp. Sun’s avatar came at a brisk run from the other end of the forked hallway, and they hoped they looked convincingly shaken. “Come on!”

The two of them scrambled into the elevator, whose doors shut on the darkened hallway with a wheeze, and they descended without prompting.

Sun slumped against the corner of the elevator, affecting fatigue. They gestured beyond the door, towards the hallway that had extended outside the door. “I had to — manually lock down that side of the level. We can’t let that — that organism escape that level of the ship.” Too late, they were certain. Sun knuckled their avatar’s forehead. “Yeah, that had to be an organism of some kind. Never seen anything like it, though.”

They glanced down at their passenger. “How about you? You okay?”

The terrified curate glanced from Sun back to the door, his small panting body pressed into the corner of the elevator. “I’m — okay? I think? What WAS that? I — told you —you had an infestation!” He drew his knees up to his chest, eyes boring into the door as if expecting the creature to burst through any moment. “D-did you see it? Did it hurt you?”

Hell of a question. Sun managed a wry smile. “I’m fine. For now. I don’t think anything’s reaching us in here, anyway.” They put their hand to their chin, thinking through their options. The elevator shafts were pretty secure; had to be, to keep atmo from escaping the entire ship if a hull breach pierced one of the decks. But they couldn’t stay here forever.

“The ship’s sensors didn’t detect this thing as fast as it ought to. They have some way to cloak themselves from being spotted easily, something in their biochemistry. I don’t know if I — if the ship can root out the organisms by itself.” I’m going to need Indy’s help.

“Don’t you have any uh, defensive drones on this ship? Any w-weapons?” Indrani was clearly shaken, and the idea of watching Sun arm themself even more terrifying. Malakar was far out of the way of major star routes and they very rarely experienced any dangerous creatures or travelers. As a child, Indrani had witnessed a starving Eorian vagrant hold his Paragon’s at gunpoint. He’d been young, and had hid behind his favorite Paragon’s skirts, Paragon Burazet. His mentor had barely broken a sweat and the thief had jetted off with some fabbed food, some of their generators and a few items that had no spiritual worth. It had been frightening to observe someone so desperate. But in the end, they had been reasoned with.

Now Indrani was faced with something that seemed intent on eating him, if the cold putrid breath on his neck earlier was proof of anything. “W-hat does this thing even look like? It sounded enormous!”

Sun looked over the level diagram glowing from the panel by the door, watching the small blip that was the elevator crawl along its path. “It’s long. And slippery. Maybe it’s a kind of exomolluscine structure, absorbing moisture from the habitable levels.”

It could have reconstituted its body out of a tiny dormant state, tumbling within that iceball. If it was moisture the things were after, Sun had a real problem. They looked back up at their passenger and pointed at the diagram.

“I can have the cleaner drones go on the offensive on the passenger level. But we should close it off, handle things from the navigation level. You’ll be safer, and I can run a quarantine.” They pointed at Indrani now, looking at him levelly. “But you can’t run wild down there, Indy. Passengers are prohibited from being there under normal circumstances. It’s my space.”

The curate pressed his mouth into a thin, frowning line. “I’m not a child, Captain! I’m not some… wild animal! Of course, I’ll respect your space!”

Indrani folded his arms in front of him, brow furrowed in offense. Did they think him so untrustworthy? What had he done to give them such an impression? He couldn’t think of a single thing and that soured his panic into irritation. The elevator suddenly glided to a halt, the panel pinging it’s arrival at the navigation level. The curate sank into himself a little, glanced at Sun sheepishly. “I’ll, uh, follow you?”

Sun gave him an appraising look, then nodded. “Please do.” They softened their expression a little as they stepped through the threshold of the elevator. “Don’t be frightened.”

Indrani wanted to answer that he wasn’t frightened but the lie stuck at the back of his tongue.

***

The light airiness of the passenger level was missing here, closer to the heart of the ship, but the ambient warmth and muted glownodes should still provide comfort to any human who had been permitted down here. Hypothetically — for Sun had never dared let a passenger walk these hallways before. It felt too close, too intimate, and Sun felt a prickle of anxiety having Indrani here, even with his naiveté about the vehicle on which he traveled.

But nothing felt fuzzy down here, no invaders this deep into the core. That was something. Sun navigated down the small hallway, stopping at a door that pulled open as their avatar approached. Beyond it was a chamber lined with consoles and screens, punctuated by a heavily fortified door on the far end.

“Have a seat,” they said, glancing at Indrani as the two of them entered the room.

Indrani tugged at his collar, pulling the zipper at his throat down as sweat started beading at his neck. The air was minimally warm, but his body heat had spiked from his panicked sprint, sweat dampening a diamond through the fabric on his back. He wondered how Sun could be so collected, body undisturbed by the attack; they hadn’t broken a sweat at all.

The curate sat as instructed, eyes wide as he took in the nav room. The chamber was aglow with readouts and star charts, gauges and calibrators of all kinds, some layered into impossible geometries. He felt anxious just looking at the graphs and matrixes, tucked his feet up on the chair unconsciously to make himself smaller. Sun wasn’t kidding; the room felt dangerous, miscalculations just a single wrong digit away.

“You…run all of this?” A hesitant pause, realization inching up to the forefront of his mind. “By yourself?”

Sun settled the avatar onto another chair, taking some comfort in the hologram’s realism as they glanced mildly at him. “I do all right. The system’s more intuitive than it looks.”

A glimpse and a nod at the nearby screen, which bloomed to life. For Indrani’s sake they called up a hallway’s camera feed, one from the passenger level. The hall was overrun with cleaner drones, crawling over one another trying to pin down and contain one of the organisms. Even vastly outnumbered, the creature slipped and slithered through any crack within the net of hexapedal legs. Sun flipped through different light spectrums with the camera. On infrared, the creature’s low temperature made it almost impossible to detect at all. Insects banding up against a ghost.

“It barely gives off any heat,” Sun murmured. “It doesn’t want heat. It’s hunting for water.” Sun glanced at the perspiration forming in the hollow of Indrani’s throat. Anything to avoid looking at the door.

“It’ll burrow anywhere it senses moisture, but maybe we use that against it.”

Indrani peered hard at the screen, fingertips tapping his lips in thought. “What happens when it gets to the water? Is it dying and needs to drink? Or…nesting?”

The curate stood, glancing between the various screens and feeds and then at Sun, who seemed to be studying him. An audible gulp. “Can I help somehow?”

“I think so,” Sun nodded. They pulled up a map of the passenger level, with controls for atmo balance and ventilation at their command. “We suck all the humidity out of that level, it’ll go for any big bag of water we bait it with. And if the bait takes it to an airlock — ” They clapped their hands emphatically.

Indrani’s smile had widened, confidence building as Sun explained the plan. A pause, his face falling. “If the bait takes it. The bait as in…me?” Surely, they were confused; there was no way Sun was thinking of sending him back out there with that thing.

“That’s right,” Sun said patiently. “You’ll have protection, of course, and a fresh space suit, and I’ll be keeping an eye on you the whole way —”

“Oh no, haha, no,” Indrani waved his hands in front of himself, chuckling nervously. “You’re joking, no? No? No, I can’t go out there. I can’t! That thing will gulp me down in a flash! I’m very hydrated right now!”

The curate stood, started backing away from Sun to pace in a circle. “We just need to think of a-another way, right? There has to be!”

Sun still had their hands out, palms up. “I really think this is the most efficient way to do this. And the faster we do this, the better.” As Indrani passed the door in his orbit, Sun shook their head. “If the organism continues to breach through the decks and hit this level, it would be very, very bad.”

Indrani leveled a wounded glare at Sun. He felt cornered into his own cowardice with only one way out. Sun’s way. The curate slumped, biting his lip before gesturing angrily, “Fine. Fine! If you’re so sure then…I’ll do it!”

He stalked over to Sun, squinting suspiciously. “What’s so crucial with this level anyway? A loss of water can’t be that troubling to a ship this large.”

With less than a meter between the two of them, Sun took a step back. Too close. Everything about this was too close.

“All of the most essential operations for running a passenger vessel happen here. Powering the engines, storing matter for the fabber — ” another step back, “ — and recycling water and atmo for the passengers and crew. You can’t just replace water you lose in the middle of a voyage, it’s rare.”

Sun raised their eyebrows empathically. “Or contaminated.” They furtively scanned the short, sweaty man, checking the body language and heart rate. They had to be certain he wouldn’t try touching them. They were running out of room. Sun tipped their head a little. “Thank you for doing what’s necessary to keep this ship going.”

Indrani crossed his arms, all stubborn, scrawny angles, but was temporarily pacified by Sun’s preemptive gratitude. He was going to perform a necessary, nay, a life-saving gambit for the entire ship and all onboard. Perhaps it was only the two of them, but maybe… maybe this was the Path: he could prove himself to Sun, that he was worthy of their support, worthy of being followed. This ploy would build their confidence in Indrani, and by proxy, his Path and Purpose. Of course he needed to do this. It was fated.

The curate brought his hands akimbo, grinned knowingly at Sun. “Of course! It’s why I’m here, after all. This was meant to be!”

“Sure thing,” Sun nodded tolerantly. “There’s a fabber back out in the corridor, Indy. Let’s get you suited up.” Just don’t shit in it when you face that thing again.