Valiant: Tales From The Drift

[Tails #2: Motive]

Log Date: 8/5/12763

Data Sources: Jazel Jaskolka

Jazel’s Journal

We both know why I’m doing this.

We just choose not to say anything about it.

Event Log: Jazel Jaskolka

Helios Settlement: Airfield

9:32am SGT

“She’s a beast.” Deputy Milor says, slapping a hand on the hull of the ship that he’s introducing us to. “Planetary reconnaissance hauler. Came in with the initial settlement group. Colony ships usually come equipped with one or two of them. Fully automated, kitted out with a modular surveillance array, and an autopilot with a catalogue of scan pattern presets that make it easy for your Jacks and Jills to operate without needing a degree in geography and piloting.”

“Nice.” I say, looking over the ship. Like most colony equipment, it looks like a series of rectangles slapped together, with their corners rounded off. This one looks like the base model was a planetside freight hauler, so the cockpit is small, relative to the rest of the ship. “I’m guessing she’s multipurpose?”

“You guess correctly, m’boy.” Milor says, nodding to me. “Meant to alternate roles between reconnaissance and inter-settlement freight hauling. But, since all the planetary mapping was done back when the settlers first arrived, and there aren’t any other settlements on Vissengard, Beruna’s been sittin’ in the storage hangar for the last eighteen years.”

“You haven’t booted this thing up in eighteen years?” Lysanne asks as she walks around one of the rotary thrusters. There’s some serious doubt in her voice.

“Don’t get yer tits in a twist.” Milor says, rapping on the hauler’s hull as we come around the backside to the loading bay. “This is colony engineering, girl. Built to last, easy to repair, intended for long periods of dormancy. I had the hangar boys pull her out of storage and do a flight check yesterday. She was a little slow starting up, and I think I’d need a cup of coffee after napping for twenty years, but otherwise she works like a charm.”

“Perfect.” I say, walking up the loading ramp and into the cargo bay, listening to my bootsteps echo against the metal floor. “What’s her range and top speed?”

“When the tank’s fully loaded? She’s got a range of several thousand miles.” Milor says, taking his toothpick out of his mouth as he follows me up into the cargo bay. “You won’t be winning any trophies with her; she’s not built for that. Slow and steady is the way to roll with this one.”

“I’m guessing the surveillance array is through here?” Lysanne says, walking past both of us and up the stairs leading from the ship’s cargo bay to its midsection.

“Yeah, on your right.” Milor says, clomping up the stairs behind her. I give one more look around the cargo bay, then head up the stairs after them. Rather than follow them into the room with the surveillance array, I head down the hall, pushing open the door to the cockpit and taking a look around.

It’s definitely a little different than the cockpit of the skippers that Lysanne and I use for hopping between the Dandelion and planets. The skippers were designed to work as extensions of our arkship, so the consoles and the seating arrangements are a little more elegant, to match the aesthetics of the Dandelion’s interior design. But in this ship, the consoles are blocky, angular, and utilitarian; the forward windshield is broken into reinforced sections, rather than being a single continuous curve. Even the pilot and co-pilot’s seats have that geometric, no-nonsense feel to them; there’s no padding on the armrests and the backs don’t look like they’re designed for ergonomic comfort.

I can’t help but smile to myself. Colony engineering, down to the G.

Stepping into the cockpit, I settle down in the chair to the right, running my thumb along the console it sits in front of. There’s still some dust on the edge, a reminder that this is only its second day out of deep storage. Letting my hand wander along the bottom edge, I trace the outline of the row of switches, wiggling a couple of them and finding that they’re stiff, hard to flick until unless you really put your thumb behind it.

Doesn’t seem like it’d be fun to operate, but it gives you a feel for how it’d handle.

I lean back in the chair, or at least try to; the back doesn’t give. Looking to the side, I search under the seat with my hand, looking for a lever to let it recline, but there’s nothing there; I suppose these seats weren’t built for dozing off in. After a moment, I push back up out of the chair, ready to check in on Milor and Lysanne, but I pause on looking through the forward windshield.

Standing out there on the airfield in front of the hauler is a lank fellow in a dark suit, staring right into the cockpit.

There’s a lot of reasons he stands out - first, slacks and a slim-cut suit jacket isn’t what most settlers wear around here. Second is that the sparse traffic on the airfield seems to be avoiding him, flowing around him like a stream flowing around a rock. Third is that there’s a writhing mass of three or four black cats on his shoulders, continually twisting and winding around his head, obscuring it from view — each and every one of their yellow eyes staring into the cockpit.

Then a freight loader passes in front of him, and he’s gone.

“Jazel?”

I jump and turn around to find Lysanne standing in the hatch to the cockpit, with Milor behind her. “Oh, hey. Yeah. How’s the surveillance array look?”

“We’ll have to pull out the adapter, but I think we can make it work with the mapping enchant that you put together.” Lysanne says, stepping in and swiveling one of the pilots’ chairs so she can take a look at it. “These seats look like they could do with a few cushions.”

“The company that funded the colony ship went budget on the furnishings for the hardware.” Milor says, slouching against the hatchway, tilting his head at me. “It’s been ten days, kid. Shouldn’t those scratches be healed up by now?”

I reach up to rub a knuckle over the strips of medical tape on my cheek, but Lysanne reaches up and catches my wrist. “I told you, you need to stop rubbing at it, or it won’t heal.” She pulls my hand back down, then looks around at Milor. “It’s taking longer to heal than we thought it would. She mixed some flower juice into her claws when she cut up his face, so we think it has something to do with that.”

“Did she now?” Milor drawls, taking his toothpick out of his mouth. “May want to get that looked at. Could be infectious or poisonous or something.”

“If it was poisonous it would’ve killed me by now.” I say, leaning back against the other chair. “We already visited the hospital in the settlement and had them take a look at it; the doctor there prescribed a gel to help it heal. I’ve been applying it every night.”

“Mm. Well, you can’t go wrong with following doctor’s orders.” Milor says, tucking his toothpick back in the corner of his mouth. “Anyhow, I’ve given you kids the tour, so unless you need something else, I’m going to get back on the job now.” He pushes off the hatchway, straightening up. “Find a bar brawl to break up or little old lady to help cross the street. Keepin’ the peace and all that.”

“Don’t let us keep you.” Lysanne says, sitting down to one of the consoles. “I’m sure you’ve got a parking ticket quota you have to meet by the end of the day.”

“Hey Milor?” I ask as he starts back down the hallway. “Do you guys have any… crap, what do you call them, I forgot the name… Calyri! Do you guys have any Calyri here in the settlement?”

He stops in the hall, looking back at me. “Calyri… oh, you mean werecats? I mean… I’m sure we have a few, but none spring to mind right off the bat. Why, did you have a problem with one of ‘em?”

“No, I just…” I look back towards the windshield. “Was just curious is all.”

Milor raises an eyebrow. “You’re a shit liar, kid, but I ain’ got time to play detective. If someone on the settlement is givin’ you trouble, just give me a ring and I’ll come glare at them.” With that, he turns and clomps his way back down the hallway.

“What was that all about?” Lysanne asks, giving me the raised eyebrow as well.

“Nothing.” I say, still staring out at the empty airfield. “Just something I thought I saw.”

Jazel’s Journal

We typically don’t spend this long on assignments.

Most times CURSE dispatches us to frontier worlds that have a creature problem, and we either catch it and resettle the creature, or we find a way to get rid of it or neutralize it if it’s dangerous. As a rule, we always try to bag and tag, then resettle - we only neutralize creatures if they can’t be resettled, can’t be pacified, and can’t be persuaded away from civilized areas. Typically, it takes about two weeks to determine if that’s the case, and we usually don’t stay in a system for more than about a month or so.

That we’ve been here for more than three months has raised eyebrows with our supervisors over at CURSE.

At first, we fended off attention by saying that it was a hard case and the creature in question was going to require more work than usual. Which wasn’t untrue. At the time, our direct supervisor had shrugged and basically told us to do what we needed to do.

Once we got past from the two-month mark, though, someone noticed we were still parked in the Vissengard system and we got a very pointed communique asking for an update on the situation. At that point we decided to come clean and let our supervisors know that we were dealing with a sentient creature along with cultural tensions between the indigenous population and the resident settlers. There was also the distinct possibility that the creature was centuries old, so it would not be an easy catch.

We were asked at that point if we’d made a determination between resettlement or neutralization. If it had just been Lysanne, and based on what we’d known at that point, she would’ve answered ‘neutralization’ without hesitation. There really wasn’t any indication that the creature was interested in changing its ways or being moved to a different world. If one of our supervisors had firsthand knowledge of the case, they would’ve marked it for neutralization in a heartbeat.

But Lysanne had taken one long look at me, and answered ‘resettlement’.

We didn’t talk about it afterwards. We didn’t really need to, or want to. Lysanne wasn’t going to broach the subject because it would’ve been awkward; I wasn’t going to thank her for it because it would be admitting something I didn’t want to admit out loud. And besides, if we got to talking about it, there was always the distinct possibility that she was going to tell me what I didn’t want to hear.

That what I was trying to do here — what I wanted to happen — was impossible.

Event Log: Jazel Jaskolka

The Beruna

11:59am SGT

“Alright, should be ready to go.” I say. I’ve set up the adapter in the surveillance room; it’s nothing more than a disc with different sockets running around its rim, and its sole purpose is to translate magical information into a digital format for storage in computer systems. I’ve finished sorting through our bag of six bajillion adapter cables and gotten the adapter itself plugged into the main console; the dreamcatcher with the lock of hair woven into it is hovering over the adapter disc. On the disc itself, the mapping enchant is projected down onto its surface, circuit lines linking the runes and symbols. After checking everything over again, I turn on the primary surveillance array, and step back once I’m sure that it’s running.

“That’s good, because we’ve almost hit two thousand feet.” Lysanne calls from the cockpit. Stepping out of the room, I make my way back down the hallway to the cockpit, sitting heavily in the copilot’s chair. “I’ve set the mapping pattern to a widening spiral, and set the origination point over the settlement, since we know she spends a lot of time probing the barrier around its fringes. This should allow us to map out most of the region by evening.”

“Oh joy, whatever shall we do for six hours.” I say, leaning forward to study the mapping route laid out on the console in front of me.

“You can work on writing up that status update that HQ is requesting for our current assignment.” Lysanne says sharply. “I’ll try not to fall asleep as I read through another dump of literature on various species of soul-stealers.”

“Oh c’mon.” I complain, looking up from the console. “Can’t we switch tasks?”

“This is your pet project. You can be the one that lies to HQ about why we haven’t gotten this sorted out yet.”

I slouch in my chair, thinking about how I’m going to spin this. “We don’t necessarily have to lie… we just have to be selective about what we tell them.”

“That’s what we call a lie of omission, Jazel.”

“I prefer to call it ‘selective dispensation of the truth’.”

“You sound like a politician.”

“Maybe I should’ve gone into politics, I could get paid a lot more to do a lot less.”

“The idea of you making policy decisions is nightmare fuel.” Lysanne says, letting go of the control switch as she flicks the autopilot on. “The point is that no matter how you say it, what you’re doing is manipulating information in such a way as to distort how a situation is perceived. On an objective moral level, that is wrong.”

“Is it wrong to lie in order to save a life?”

Lysanne presses her hands to her face, dragging them down and looking at me through her hay-yellow bangs. “A life will probably need to be saved at some point in the future, and it’s not going to be hers. We are playing with fire, Jazel. This thing cannot be reasoned with.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” I say, reaching down to my pack and zipping it open so I can pull out my data slate. “Insects, reptiles, mammals with small craniums can’t be reasoned with. They’re creatures of habit and instinct. But her — she’s a person. She can comprehend and process complex concepts just like we can. She’s capable of having opinions and beliefs, and those things can be altered and modified by perspective and reasoning.”

“Just because they can be doesn’t mean they will be.” Lysanne says, reaching for her own data slate. “You and I both know from experience that sentient creatures can become set in their ways to the point of refusing to change even when presented with perspective and reasoning. You, for example, continue to load the dishwasher in a suboptimal manner despite me having explained many times why we need to load the plates all facing the same direction.”

“Optimizing dishwasher efficiency and convincing a soulstealer to change her preferred lifestyle are two different things.” I say as I wait for my slate to boot up.

Lysanne gives me an incredulous look. “Are you trying to tell me that you would rather try to convince a dangerous creature to not do something that she’s been doing for four hundred years instead of admit that you’re loading the dishwasher wrong?”

I sit and think about that for a moment, and how asinine it might seem. Then I look at Lysanne and I grin.

She rolls her eyes and goes back to opening up files on her slate. “I swear, if the creature doesn’t kill you first, I might finish the job one day.”

“Tell you what. If you help me convince the soulstealer that she doesn’t need to steal souls, then I’ll start loading all the plates in the dishwasher in the same direction.”

“This does not seem like anything remotely resembling an equal exchange, but you know what, Jazel? I’ll take you up on that. If you start loading the dishwasher the right way, I’ll help you find a way to reform this monster girl of yours.”

I kick my boots up on the edge of the console as my slate finishes loading, grinning sidelong at her. “Will you now?”

“I better see those plates facing the same direction next time I open the dishwasher.”

“Alright. You got yourself a deal.”

Jazel’s Journal

Lysanne and I have known each other for years.

Our mothers were friends, which meant we would spend a lot of time together whenever they visited each other. Plus we lived in the same area, so we went to the same schools together. Over the years, we drifted in and out of different friend groups; sometimes we were close with each other, other times we didn’t talk to each other for months, but we were always able to slip back into our friendship no matter how long it had been.

And when we went to college, we ended up attending the same campus. We went to the same classes, chose the same vocational field; Lysanne helped me with my homework and I helped her through her breakups. We razzed on each other, talked about our lives, went grocery shopping together, talked for hours about what we thought about the galaxy and society around us.

We’re not just friends, we’re family.

That means we watch each other’s backs, call out the stupid stuff when we see it, and then help each other do stupid stuff anyway.

Stupid stuff like trying to ride a dragon, catch a rainbow, take a shortcut through Collective space, sneak into hot tub full of Shanarae, break into a zoo to rescue a lepidopteran, confront a well-armed trophy hunter and his security detail… stupid stuff like that. Like trying to catch a date with an soulstealer.

They say a good friend will bail you out when you get in trouble.

But a best friend is one that helped you get away with the crime, or will be sitting next to you in the jail cell saying “told you so”.

Event Log: Jazel Jaskolka

The Beruna

3:43pm SGT

“It’s a Rantecevangian morphox.”

I blink a couple times, looking up from where I’d nearly dozed off in my chair, and looking at Lysanne. She’s rubbing a thumb across one of her eyebrows. “Are you alright? One of the signs of a stroke is losing your ability to speak.”

She gives me a flat sideways look. “Haha, very funny. You missed your calling in stand-up comedy.”

“What can I say.” I say, stretching my arms and legs. “The industry’s already saturated, and there were a few too many openings in the Preserver line of work.”

“Seriously, though.” Lysanne says, setting her slate on her console. “I’m pretty sure that what we’re dealing with here is a Rantecevangian morphox.”

“Is that all one word?” I grunt, trying to sit up in my chair. “Rantecevangian… that’s the, um, whatchamacallit.” I wave a hand drowsily. “The thing. You know. That one world.”

“It’s a wonder you passed any of your vocational exams.” Lysanne says. “Rantecevang was an incredibly diverse arcanological world that suffered an extinction-level event over fifteen thousand years ago, prompting a diaspora into the galaxy. The world has partially been reclaimed, but most of Rantecevang’s native races either remain interstellar nomads, or settled on other worlds. They have an origination identity, but no unified government, and from what anthropologists can tell, the diaspora colonies kinda just… do whatever they want, independent of the other branches of the diaspora.”

“Yes. All that.” I say, picking up my slate and setting it on the console in front of me. “I knew all that on an instinctual level, I just didn’t have the words for it.”

“Right, sure you did.” Lysanne says, clearly unconvinced as she uses a finger to flick through the screen she’s looking at. “Anyhow, a morphox is one of those species, particularly a variant of the human-animal hybrids that originated on the Maelstrom Isles on the Rantecevangian homeworld, blah blah blah, more history, more history, more history… alright, here we go. Morphox biology and culture. Morphoxes are inherently magical creatures, capable of extracting and consuming souls to gain power and lengthen their own lives. They’re kinda like the Shanarae in that regard, except the morphoxes, as a subculture, have mostly grown out of the tradition of soulstealing. Nowadays, soulstealing is considered taboo among modern morphoxes, with certain spiritual and ritual exceptions.”

“Wait, so… they’re not actually rare creatures?” I say, pushing out of my chair and moving over to stare at Lysanne’s data slate.

“Relatively speaking. They don’t crop up much outside of Rantecevangian colonies, but on average they make up between one and three percent of a given colony population. Which doesn’t seem like a lot, but it’s decent when you consider Rantecevang had over twenty unique sapient species and dozens of subvariants within those species. Most worlds only give rise to between one and three sapient species.”

“Huh.” I say, looking at the pictures on Lysanne’s screen, showing morphoxes in contemporary cities, wearing modern clothes and doing things like working in offices, going out to get coffee, attending concerts. “Then how did…”

“How did it get here?” Lysanne agrees, resting an elbow on the armrest and leaning her head against a closed fist. “There’s no Rantecevangian colony here. And the descendants of the survivors of the ship that crashed here are all racially homogenous — the ship that crashed here four centuries ago couldn’t have been Rantecevangian, since their communities always have a high diversity quotient.”

“These morphoxes all have one tail.” I point out, squinting at the pictures. “She’s got nine. Are you sure she’s a Rantecevangian morphox?”

“I’m fairly certain.” Lysanne says, flicking further down in the document. “Morphoxes gain a tail every time they eat a soul, and cap out around nine tails; since the practice has been phased out among the common population, most morphoxes you’ll meet will only have one tail. According to the census document here, every now and then you’ll come across a morphox with two tails, or one with three tails. More than that is rare, and apparently morphoxes get judgmental about other morphoxes that have a lot of tails. There is the perception that morphoxes with lots of tails have broken the taboo out of greed, and don’t respect the sanctity of life.”

“Interesting.” I murmur, leaning on the shoulder of Lysanne’s chair as I scan the document with my eyes. “I wonder how many souls she’s eaten over the last four centuries.”

Lysanne raises her head, then looks back at me, eyes narrowed. “The amount of fascination in that remark doesn’t reassure me, Jazel.”

I flick my eyes to her. “Think about it. The document said that every time they consume a soul, they gain power. She’s been eating souls unimpeded for the last four centuries. Can you imagine how powerful she must be?” I scratch the back of my head as I mull that over. “Come to think of it, she should be obscenely powerful after four centuries of this. Enough to blow the two of us out of the water, instead of snaring us with vines and overpowering us with copies of herself. Those are parlor tricks compared to what she should be able to do.”

“She is powerful, if the attacks on the settlement are a measuring stick.” Lysanne points out. “Literally, she’s an arcane artillery cannon with legs. Did you see what she did to the supply depot and the west wing of the mayor’s mansion? Reduced both of them to scrap metal and debris, and when the sheriff's department traced back the attacks, both of them had originated more than a mile and a half outside the settlement walls. That sort of range and precision is insane!”

“See, there you go!” I say with a smile. “Now you’re getting just as excited about this as I am!”

That immediately puts a damper on the amount of incredulity that Lysanne’s expressing. “I wouldn’t say it’s ‘excitement’.” she mutters, giving her data slate a cursory look. “More like ‘concerned astonishment’. If we can’t deescalate the situation and resettle this creature, then it’s likely people will start getting hurt. More people than have already been hurt, that is.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll figure out a way to get through to her.” I say, pushing off her chair. “I know I can.”

Lysanne looks uncomfortable with that. “Just because she looks like a person doesn’t mean she’s not a predator, Jazel. In fact, she’s probably more dangerous for it — the most effective predators are the ones that speak like us, look like us, and can lure us in because of it.”

I tuck my hands in my pockets and think that over, weighing the truth of the words. Because they are true — I’m not fool enough to believe they aren’t.

“That road goes two ways.” I say after a moment. “We’re hunting her too, aren’t we? Just the same as she’s hunting us. Predators chasing each other around in circles.”

Turning about, I step out of the cockpit, leaving her to think on that.

Jazel’s Journal

Sometimes I like to think of Lysanne as the big sister I never had.

She watches out for me, is the voice of caution and reason and responsibility whenever I get carried away. I wouldn’t really call myself reckless or irresponsible, but I can get tunnel vision at times, get so focused on something that I don’t see everything around it. Whenever I get like that, Lysanne is usually the one that snaps me back from it, pulls me back to seeing the big picture.

It’s not like that’s always our dynamic, though. A lot of the time, I’m plenty cautious, plenty thoughtful and aware of my surroundings and situation. Sometimes I’m the one that stays grounded while Lysanne gets fixated on something. She’s the anchor more often than I am, but it’s a give and take on both sides. We help keep each other stable, and though it can be annoying to have someone tug the reins on you, it can also keep you safe, and protect you from yourself.

It’s not always easy to admit, but I’ve learned that the hard way, considering the number of times that Lysanne’s bailed me out of trouble when I’ve gotten in over my head. We may not always agree, and we may not always get along, but at the end of the day…

It’s good to know we’ve got each other’s backs.

Event Log: Jazel Jaskolka

The Beruna

8:12pm SGT

“I dunno, Jazel, it doesn’t look like it’s doing any good.”

I hold still as we sit on the floor of the cockpit between the consoles, Lysanne carefully peeling back the strips of medical tape that covers the slashes on my cheeks. Outside the cockpit, the sky’s darkened as the sun goes down, and the Beruna remains on its ever-widening mapping spiral, which has by this point extended far beyond the local area outside the settlement.

“The doctor said the gel would help it heal…” I say as she peels another strip off.

“Well, it is healing, but the way it’s healing, you’re going to end up with scars.” she says, squinting at my face. “The gel was supposed to prevent that, but it doesn’t look like it’s doing what it’s supposed to. I think the Vissengardians were right: she marked you.”

I grimace. We’d visited the one of the main Vissengardian villages a few days after our last encounter with the morphox to see if we could try to dig up some more information on her. The villagers, however, were far more interested in my face than any questions we’d had for them; we were practically dragged along to the village longhall so I could be presented to the elders for examination. There they’d told me that I’d been ‘chosen’ by the ‘spirit’ to either be her next sacrifice, or guide her to the person that would be the sacrifice. It was odd, but it put everyone in a good mood; Milor said it was the happiest he’d seen them since the barricades went up.

“Well, it’s just a few scratches. I’ll live.” I say, shrugging it off as Lysanne pulls the tube of gel out of her pack and squeezes a dollop onto her finger.

“It’s more than just a few scratches, Jazel. I think it’s possible she may have placed a curse mark of some sort on you.” Lysanne says as she starts to dab the gel along the slashes on my cheeks. “Once we’re done here, you and I are going to visit a hospital that specializes in arcane afflictions and have a specialist take a look at it.”

“A curse mark.” I repeat doubtfully. “I can’t think of any curse marks that require six evenly spaced lines and a little flower juice to work. Generally curses require a little more effort than that.” Once she’s done with the left side, I turn my head so she can get the right side. “I’ll be fine, don’t worry about it. It’s not like I was winning any beauty pageants anyway. Hell, a little scar tissue might even boost my street cred.”

Lysanne pauses in dabbing the gel over my slashes. “Your street cred? Really?” Reaching into her pack, she rifles around until she comes up with a mirror, then reaches back, fumbling around with the switches until she finds the one that kills the lights in the cockpit. Then she holds the mirror up to my face. “You think that’s gonna do any favors for your street cred?”

It’s only half-dark in the cockpit with the fading glow of the sun still on the horizon, but I can still see my owlish reflection, and the faint blue lines glowing along the sides of my face. I squint closer, and sure enough, each of the slashes has passive luminescence that mirrors the sapphire hue of the spirit blooms when they open at night.

“Oh.” I say softly. “I… had not noticed that before.”

“Yeah. It’s what the Vissengardians were gawking at when they had you in the longhall.” Lysanne says, putting down the mirror and going back to dabbing the rest of the gel on the slashes. “It’s why you’re going to a specialist once we get done here. I don’t want to wake up one morning to find you’ve grown a tail, some fuzzy ears, and a hankering for souls.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works.”

“You get what I mean.”

“It’s probably nothing.” I say as Lysanne finishes with the gel, and caps the tube off. “I mean, it’s been what, ten days since she did this to me? If it was going to have an effect, it probably would’ve kicked in by now.”

“It could easily be a sleeper affliction, only triggered by certain conditions or situations. You’re not getting out of this, Jazel; you’re going to see the doctor whether you like it or not.” Putting away the tube, she pulls out a roll of medical tape and starts ripping it into equal lengths.

“Shouldn’t you turn on the lights before you start slapping those on my face?” I ask.

Lysanne raises an eyebrow at me. “They’re lit up like somebody stuffed fiber optics into your face, Jazel.”

“Right. Of course.” I hold still while she leans forward, placing each strip of tape over the slashes, and pressing them down to make sure the adhesive’s firmly seated until tomorrow night. “Forgot about that.”

“What are we going to do with you, Jazel.” Lysanne murmurs as she runs a firm thumb over each strip of medical tape. “You couldn’t have found a normal girl to fall for. You couldn’t have gone to the bar like the rest of us and picked someone up, or met her in a drug-induced haze at a rave party, or caught the eye of some cute nerd at the library, or hell, even met her online. Out of all the quadrillions of women in this galaxy, you’ve got to set your sights on an ancient backworld monster with a murder streak four centuries long.” She sighs, leaning back against her console as she sets the roll of medical tape to the side. “Would it have killed you to fall for a normal girl?”

I give a sheepish shrug. “I like what I like.”

“You’re my best friend, but there are some things about you that I will never understand.” Lysanne says, shaking her head. Hooking one arm over her knee, she stares out the forward windshield, watching the clouds out on the horizon as they slowly morph from sunset orange to pale pink while the day’s light fades. “The mapping enchant’s still picking up traces of her, even this far out?”

“Yeah. She gets around. I didn’t expect her territory to cover this much area.” I say, thankful for the change in subject. “I wonder if she migrates or hibernates in the years between the spirit blooms.”

“That’s a good question.” Lysanne says, giving me a sidelong smile. “Maybe you’ll get to ask her if she doesn’t kill you.”

I smile, but don’t say anything in response, as we both go back to watching the night slowly overtaking the fading sunset.

Jazel’s Journal

It’s a funny thing,

attraction.

It is the common thread that binds us together, and upon which life relies. A biochemical process that exists to facilitate the transfer of genes to future generations. A complicated organic response meant to ensure that the template of proteins that makes us up keep existing even after we’ve died.

That’s what science says it is, at any rate. On the factual, objective level.

I wonder sometimes if things like feelings are nothing more than electrochemical ripples through an organic machine we call a brain. I wonder if, with sufficient time and tech, we could figure out the electrochemical pattern of each emotion and map them, the way we have with colors and sounds, and reproduce them at will. I think, in certain cases, we already have, if Cybers and especially Synthetics are anything to go by.

But some part of me wants to refuse that. I don’t want to believe emotions are something you can mass-produce, or replicate using a machine. I want to believe they are something more than that. I want to believe life and attraction are more than biochemical processes meant to propagate a pattern.

I want to be able to say that my fascination with this creature is more than just the age-old process at work.

And I know that’s what Lysanne thinks it is, and I can’t blame her for that. Can’t really blame anyone for it. The monster’s pretty, no one’s going to split hairs over that. I’d be lying if I said that my attraction wasn’t due in part to her good looks, the age-old process in action. But there’s plenty of pretty girls in the galaxy; this was something more than that, something different. She’s cute, yes…

But I felt something the first time she bared her teeth at me and snarled. A dormant, slumbering instinct that woke for the first time since I’d been born, looked into those feral eyes and that wild soul, and said yes, that’s what we’ve been looking for. I don’t know what the feeling is, aside from describing it as a magnetism of some variety. A curiosity unlike any I’ve ever felt before, a desire to learn and understand what she is, who she is. Why she is.

Attraction…

It’s a funny thing.

Event Log: Jazel Jaskolka

The Beruna

11:23pm SGT

“Alright, your turn.”

“Okay.” Lying on my back on the floor of the cockpit, I’ve got my fingers laced over my stomach as I stare up through the cockpit window, watching the stars in the sky overhead. Beside me, Lysanne is doing the same, while the autopilot keeps us on that ever-widening mapping spiral. “I think… I think Dandy has a crush on you.”

“Jazel!” Lysanne exclaims, smacking my shoulder. “Don’t say that! Do you know how awkward that is?”

“What? It’s true.” I say, grinning. Dandy is the nickname for Dandelion, the Cyber that helps us manage the arkship. She is the ship in a sense; she has a humanoid frame that she can use for interaction, but she exists primarily in the ship’s computer systems as a digital intelligence.

“No it’s not!” Lysanne says, resting her head back against the floor of the cockpit.

“She’s very quick to answer when you have a problem you need solved.” I point out. “She responds to you much more quickly than she responds to me.”

“Because I don’t ask her to do weird stuff!”

“Look, dental health is important for all creatures. Snakes included. I only asked her to help with the yearly fang cleaning once.”

“Once is enough for a lifetime! Snakes only have two teeth, and half the time those two teeth are venomous. We don’t need to brush them!”

“But it’s easy because they only have two teeth! A little scrub on each one and you’re done! Much easier than brushing a drake’s teeth.” I say, making a little brushing motion with my fingers. “Look, we’ve gotten off topic. Dandy has a crush on you.”

“You’re delusional.” Lysanne says. “Alright, it’s my turn now. Let’s see…” Her thumbs tap against her ribs as her nose scrunches up in thought, then straightens out in delight. “I think… the monster hasn’t taken a bath or a shower or brushed her teeth in four centuries.”

“Pfff. As if.” I say, blowing off the suggestion with a wave of my hand.

Lysanne rolls on her side to face me, grinning devilishly. “Think about it. She’s been living out in the wilds for four centuries. She’s probably rank as hell.”

“I’m sure she takes a dip in one of the lakes out here every now and then.” I reply, unconcerned. “In fact, I’m pretty sure she does. Didn’t notice any unusual odors when she leaned in to whisper her name to me last week.”

“Oh yeah, I completely forgot you managed to weasel that out of her.” Lysanne says, her tone going from teasing to curious. “What’s her name?”

I think it over, then lace my fingers behind my head, grinning wordlessly at her.

“You are such a tease!” Lysanne says, smacking my shoulder again. “I saved your scrawny ass from her scrawny ass and you’re still going to keep it all to yourself?”

“Names are precious things.” I singsong, tapping my boots together. “I want to test it out first, see if she’s more willing to talk when I’m using her name.”

Lysanne rolls her eyes. “You’re weird. You really think that being on a first-name basis with her is going to keep her from trying to murder you? She was pretty dead-set on it last time we saw her.”

“She’s had over a week to calm down. She might be a little more reasonable next time we see her.” I say, tracking the sky and the thick band of stars that is the rest of our galaxy.

“And in that time, she’s gotten that much hungrier.” Lysanne points out. “Y’know, just for the sake of following this road to its illogical conclusion — let’s pretend for a moment that this does somehow work. You manage to talk her down, talk her out of eating souls, convince her to leave the planet, and for some reason we don’t resettle her on a preserve world, but she sticks around with us instead for… whatever reason. And you have got all the time you want to win her over. What’s your game plan, Jazel? How are you going to make her fall for you? Did you even think that far?”

I scrunch up my face. “…admittedly no, I didn’t think I’d get that far, so I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“Well at least you’re being honest.” Lysanne says, puffing a lock of blonde hair out of her face. “But you’re still kinda hopeless. You’ve never been in a dating relationship. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”

“I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry, I’m not rolling into it with any unrealistic expectations of a perfect girl or an impossibly harmonious coexistence.”

“Well, your expectation that you’ll be able to reason with her is unrealistic, but it’s good to know that you’re not counting on a storybook romance.” Lysanne says, rolling back onto her back. “No greater love hath a mortal than waking up at three in the morning, realizing your partner’s ripped ass, and deciding that you won’t shove them out of the bed then and there.”

“Speaking from personal experience there?”

“Shut up, Jazel.”

“Look, you’re the one that brought it up.”

“Exactly. I’ve been in several relationships, and you’ve been in none. Trust me when I tell you that you never get quite what you’re expecting when you decide to give it a shot with someone.” She goes back to lacing her fingers over her stomach as she stares up at the stars. “I just wish you’d decided to set your sights on someone a little easier.”

“Never thought I’d hear you tell me to go for the easy girls.”

“Easy, relative to the impossible goal you seem to have locked onto. Hell, trying to get between a popstar’s sheets is easier than what you’re trying to do here.”

“And you would know, having seduced many popstars?” I ask, before the proximity sensor alarm starts going off, startling both of us. Seconds later, a streak of blue light rushes past the forward windshield; I scramble to my feet, staring through the reinforced glass. “Did you see that?”

“Yeah, I did.” Lysanne says, coming to the windshield and staring through it. Since it’s night out, it’s hard to see much of the terrain below; we can make out vague shapes, like the outlines of mountains, the contours of hills and valleys, the flat darkness of lakes, but nothing more distinct than that. “The way it was moving, it looks like it originated at ground level.”

“And it was moving fast. Most aerial creatures can’t move that fast.” I add, still studying the dim contours of the valley before I notice a spike of light down and to the right, in the area of the lake. It starts off as a blue dot that gets larger and larger, before the proximity sensor alarm starts going off again and I realize it’s heading right for us. “Shit, Lysanne, we’re about to get hit—”

The entire hauler shudders to the left as something hits it, and the fact that we’re not sitting in our chairs and buckled in means that both of us end up slamming into floor as it tilts to one side.

“Alright, alright, we’re done for the night.” Lysanne grunts as the hauler straightens itself out, the floor going level again as several damage alarms start blaring. She claws her way along to her chair, pulling herself into it and buckling up as I do the same. “I’ll take the helm, you figure out what’s broken.”

“How much you wanna bet we found her on accident?” I ask, bringing up diagnostics on my console.

“I don’t know anyone else that can sling a ball of energy two thousand feet into the sky and manage to hit a moving target, so yeah, I’m pretty sure we found her.” Lysanne says at she turns the autopilot off and brings the Beruna around ninety degrees, setting a course back towards the Helios settlement. “Milor’s going to be pissed when he sees that we brought the ship back with damage.”

“He should be glad we brought the ship back at all.” I say as another streak of blue light races past the hauler and out into the night sky. “Diagnostics are showing a hull breach on the starboard side and damage in the relays that provide power to the cargo bay door. It won’t keep us from flying, but we’d not as aerodynamic as we’d otherwise be.”

“Wait, did you say the breach was on the starboard side?” Lysanne asks.

“Yeah?”

“That’s the side that the room with the surveillance array is in.”

I stare for a moment, then unbuckle and lurch back through the hatch of the cockpit. Running down the short hall, I open the door to the surveillance array room, and I’m nearly sucked straight through the threshold by the pressure difference. Catching myself on the counter, I give the room a once-over — there’s a three-foot breach in the wall, and the metal around it is buckled inwards. The adapter disc, and the dreamcatcher, are gone.

“No no no…” I mutter under the roaring wind, sliding along the counter and consoles, searching for the dreamcatcher and the disc. Dropping to the ground, I start checking the floor, around the bases of the consoles, but all I can find is the bag of adapter cables. The breach in the wall is right next to where the disc and dreamcatcher were sitting, so the pressure differential probably would’ve blown both of them right through the breach.

Setting my head in my hands, I take a deep breath. The roar of the wind is making it hard to think, and I can barely hear anything else; Lysanne could be calling out to me and I wouldn’t know it. It’s hard to think past the mounting sense of defeat building in me; we’ve lost both the mapping enchant and the adapter that we were using to translate it into a digital format.

I pause for a moment, then go over that in my head. The dreamcatcher was collecting the data, the adapter was translating it, but neither of them were storing it.

It should still be in the console.

Dropping the bag of adapter cables, I scramble to my feet, fighting against the wind and checking the screen of the console that the adapter was plugged into. There’s a single box in there, with text scrawled across it.

Data transcription interrupted. Please replug your device to resume transcription.

OR

If you would like to save the data you have gathered so far, select yes. If you would like to clear this dataset, please select no.

“Yes yes yes…” I mutter, jabbing the yes option. A loading circle appears on the screen, before providing me with a dropdown asking what I want to name the dataset and what part of the directory I want to store it in. I rush to type in ‘morphox map’ and store it in the general folder, letting out a relieved sigh and sagging against the console as it gives me a little bing and a confirmation that it’s been saved to the directory. After a moment to calm the pounding of my heart, I lean down to pick up the cable bag, looking for a portable drive that I can copy the map data over to, and a transfer cable to get it from the console to the drive.

When I step back into the cockpit a few minutes later, I slump into my chair, blowing out a long breath. Lysanne looks at me. “There you are. I was getting worried; thought you’d been sucked through the breach.”

“We lost the mapping enchant and the adapter disc.” I explain. When she starts to groan, though, I hold up the portable drive. “But I managed to save the mapping data.”

Lysanne lets out a short little laugh when she sees the drive. “Damn! Good. Hell yeah. That means this whole trip wasn’t a waste. Gods, you had me worried for a minute there, Jazel.”

“Me too. I about had a heart attack when I stepped in there and saw the enchant and the adapter disc were gone.” I say, sliding the drive into my pack. “But the data was still in the console, even though the adapter was disconnected. I saved what we had, and we can ask Dandy to map it when we get back.”

“Now we just need to convince Milor that it was worth the damage to the Beruna…”

“Oh, it will be.” I say as I kick my feet up on my console, folding my arms as I gaze at the stars sprinkled across the night sky. “I’ll prove that it was worth it.”