Chapter 51: Seeds of Uncertainty
Catra dodged strikes she couldn't see. She marveled at the feeling of what felt akin to reading and reacting to the future on an instinctual level. Six enemies surrounded her, and she danced around their attacks like it was a game.
She struck at one's throat with claws extended while at the same time contorting her body sideways to avoid a blow from a second. The first enemy dissolved into a fizzle of holographic dust, and Catra's mental load evading (as well as the amount of fun she felt at this exercise) diminished by a sixth.
"You're getting cocky," Taline said to her from behind a console off to the side.
Irritation lanced through Catra. "Cocky? What are you talking about? I'm not—"
She didn't register a strike coming from behind until it was too late. An enemy kicked her hard enough in the butt to send her careening forward, and even though she managed to turn her stumbling into a forward handspring, the other four pounced on her. Electricity powerful enough to send her hair standing on end arced through her. She fell to the floor as her muscles seized. When the electricity stopped, she rolled away, flipped back onto her feet, and rounded on them, ready for whatever counterattack they no doubt were already pressing.
The enemies were gone.
Pip floated into view off to the side, hands on her hips and shaking her head, and Catra clicked her tongue and folded her arms. She had gone through countless combat exercises aboard the Constable over the past few days as it made its way through hyperspace to Archanas, and this was the first time the simulation got the better of her so early. She'd only taken down one enemy.
"See?" Taline said without taking her eyes off the console. She tossed a bottled water to Catra and she caught it without needing to track it with her eyes.
"I wasn't getting cocky." Catra grumbled as she pressed the cold bottle to her forehead and stalked over to Taline.
"No, you weren't actually."
Catra sputtered. "Then why the hell—"
Taline looked Catra in the eyes with such a casually piercing gaze it derailed her. "You lost your focus as soon as I said something to throw you off."
Catra ignored Pip's quiet snickering on the side and grabbed a towel she had draped over one of the unused consoles nearby. "That's hardly fair," she said, dabbing her forehead.
"Battles aren't fair," Taline said. "Maybe you were going easy on the Rebellion when you fought them on Etheria. Maybe you thought it fun to play around with them at times, maybe not, but you were able to walk away from your defeats. When you fight alongside me, you don't 'play,' you keep your head in the fight. We fight as a team, so if either one of us loses focus then neither of us will make it past the first engagement." She returned her attention to the console and tapped a sequence of commands into it, an unusually somber expression on her face, even for her. "Engaging the Beast is never something to make a game of."
"You think we're going to get into it on Archanas?"
Taline shook her head. "Thankfully, the risk of being attacked there is close to zero, but I'm talking about future assignments. I'm not putting you in the field until I'm confident you understand the consequences of not staying one hundred percent focused at all times."
Catra averted her eyes, no longer able to deflect her nerves with snippy comments. Of course Taline was being serious—she had heard more than enough from Glimmer about how intense she was during training. Catra had just never experienced it herself, how huge a difference there was compared to how Taline normally treated her. It was unnerving.
For a few days now they'd been traveling to Archanas through hyperspace, carrying a full contingent of forensic analysts whose job it was to tear apart the Vestamid computer systems at their destination and look for the software they'd used to encrypt Moriarty's drive. However they'd applied the same uncrackable Barrier algorithm lock down the data on that drive, Taline needed to know. And luckily (or perhaps unluckily) for Catra, she'd used the spare time they'd had during their transit to begin training her directly.
"I-I understand," she said, unsure of what else to say.
"How are the nightmares?"
Catra hadn't had a good night's sleep since before Diallo had arrived at Phoenix. The anniversary of Adora's blitz aboard the emperor's citadel—and thus the anniversary of Taline having broken one of her apeirons and exposing them to a memory of the Beast—had long since passed. But every time she'd closed her eyes, it was yet another nightmare and a gamble on whether she'd wake up the next morning feeling rested or restless.
"They're still there," she said, rubbing at her temples absentmindedly. "They seem to be worse than ever. I don't understand why."
"A lot has happened this year," Taline said. "I wouldn't be surprised if that's contributing. It does for my nightmares at least." She tapped a rhythm with her fingers on the metal sides of the console and said, "At any rate, they don't seem to be affecting your ability to fight."
"I haven't been able to take on all six yet, though."
"Still, you're integrating with Pip much faster than I expected."
Catra blinked. "I am?"
"Take a look." Taline pressed a button on the console and the screen mirrored onto a holographic display cast above. What looked like hundreds of colored tangles of string, clumped vaguely together in a loose three-dimensional representation of a brain, rotated before them both.
"Is that…mine?"
"This is the brain of an average Vanguard soldier, not yours," Taline said. "It was recorded during a routine training session similar to this one. Watch how long it takes for them to respond to a blow from an opponent they see coming"—an area at the back of the model lit up—"with an adequate block and then counterpunch." After a moment, Catra saw an area at the top section of the model light up just as the portion at the back dimmed.
"There's a gap," Catra said, repeating what she saw out loud and hoping Taline would explain.
"One hundred seventy-five millisecond response time," Taline said. "That footage is slowed down so you can actually see it. It's not bad for a soldier with cybernetics of their own and the training needed to fight on an elite level. But you?"
She tapped another button and a new brain model replaced the old one. The colors on the 'strings' comprising this one were far more vibrant, as if all the neural connections at once were constantly at some low-level activity. Catra watched some parts of her brain light brighter sequentially and other, discrete parts light up together. It seemed haphazard. The area she knew was her motor cortex didn't seem to light up in any discernable pattern, either.
"Eighty-nine millisecond response time on average across two hundred and thirty-four separate stimulus activation events," Taline said. "Your brain is processing stimuli not just from your eyes, but from your hearing, and from your skin and fur as it detects subtle shifts in the air pressure around you. And on top of that, you are responding to those stimuli far faster than even most elite Imperial soldiers. Most of those blows you dodged you hadn't seen with your eyes."
"So, I wasn't reading the future then," Catra said, cracking open the seal on the water bottle and taking several large gulps while she watched the light show replay.
"Nope, just reacting extremely fast to stimuli you aren't even consciously aware of," Taline said. "Like a reflex. Although it does feel like you are processing things one or two seconds before they happen when you're in the moment, doesn't it? You don't become consciously aware of your actions until after you've performed them"
The question surprised Catra and she looked at Pip, floating in plain sight right under Taline's nose. She too was watching the recording of Catra's brain model play, but Taline didn't seem to know she was there.
"She integrated with me years go," Pip said. "Just enough to sharpen her reflexes. That's why she understands what it feels like."
"You let yourself get distracted when you heard me say you were getting cocky, though," Taline said. "You listened to what I said and thought about it, and your response time slowed. If it were a real fight you would have died."
"I know, I felt the electric shock," Catra said, grimacing.
"No, you don't understand." Again, Taline spoke with such nonchalant gravity despite outright contradicting her. "I didn't trick you into making a mistake purposefully to be an asshole. When we get to Archanas, you're going to find it especially hard to concentrate."
Whenever Catra woke from a nightmare, there was always the sharp taste of copper in her mouth. That taste started to bleed to the forefront of her senses now. "What do you mean?"
"Do you remember what happened in the cell?" Taline asked. "Those ghosts moving about in the dark? That oppressive feeling you said filled the air?"
How could Catra forget? She'd asked Taline about it and Taline had explained it to her, but Catra still didn't understand what had happened. It was all very metaphysical. What was "shades or imprints of people in the past" supposed to mean, and why would they manifest around Taline during what she could only assume was a psychotic break?
"Archanas will be like that," Taline said. "Except…more. I will be there to shield our group from the worst of it, but that's no guarantee nothing won't slip through. Your mind may seem to play tricks on you. There won't be any enemies for you to face, except for what you allow yourself to conjure."
Catra didn't like the sound of that. The draconian preparations the crew had been subjected to before and during their jump into hyperspace suffocated her the more she understood the context behind them.
"What happened on that planet?" she asked.
Taline's expression turned stony. "You already know what happened. You passed the empire's naturalization exams with flying colors since you took such a strident interest in its history. Especially thee parts concerning the prior Beast war." She turned an accusing look on Catra and said, "Why are we playing ignorant to that fact?"
Catra knew deflection when she saw it. Taline would never get one over on her in that regard. "Diallo told me you'd been to Archanas. Before the final conflict with the Beast. He didn't elaborate, but I can only assume he meant before the planet became a Lost World, and that part definitely isn't in the history texts."
Taline narrowed her eyes and whispered something colorful under her breath. "Diallo doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut."
Catra couldn't bring herself to disagree, not even privately, but she kept silent. To her surprise, the ire in Taline's voice was gone by the time she spoke again.
"I know what you must be thinking," Taline said. "I'm not keeping you in the dark on purpose, it's just…"
Catra held her breath. She'd worried about this. What did it mean that Taline was purposefully hoping Catra hadn't learned of this? Why wouldn't she want her to know, and why would she be hesitant to say anything? Even if she didn't have malicious reasons for shutting her out, still…
"Archanas is complicated," Taline said at last. "I didn't know how to broach the subject, and now that it's out in the open I don't know how to explain it. I fear that no matter what, my explanation would just leave you confused and possibly with the wrong impression. I thought it might be better if you just saw for yourself once we got there."
She averted her eyes, and to Catra's surprise, it almost looked like she was worried Catra might get even more upset at her reasoning. "You'll still have questions, naturally," Taline said, "but it will be easier to explain once you've seen for yourself what it's like there."
It still surprised Catra whenever she remembered how she was essentially on equal footing in the power dynamic with someone as influential and storied as the Seraph of Archanas herself. It was easy to forget, and Catra rationalized that the only way she'd start to feel like an equal peer to Taline instead of a subordinate was if she started acting like one.
"You'll fill me in once we get to the surface, then," Catra said, earning a look of relief from Taline. "I'm sure there will be downtime as the analyst comb through the Vestamid's systems. Although, I have to admit I'm even more interested in what I'll see than before. And I was plenty interested already."
"You might not feel so enamored by it all once we get there. Remember the ghosts?"
"I'm trying not to."
Taline laughed and shook her head. "Let's go again, then." She tapped more commands into the console and reset the training room. "Try and block out any distractions, and let's go with seven this time instead of six."
Catra downed her water bottle and sent it flying into a wastebin in the corner with an overhand toss over the shoulder. She draped her towel back over one of the unused consoles and walked back onto the training floor.
"Ready," she said, once she reached the center.
She stood there for several moments with her back to Taline, ready for seven enemies to materialize and rush her. Nothing came. She looked back and found Taline staring at the console with a tense expression.
"Taline?" Catra turned fully around, uncertain. Was this another test?
"Change of plans," Taline said, exiting her session on the console. "I have to go."
"Go?" Catra took several hesitant steps forward, wringing her hands. She really didn't like the change in Taline's voice. "Go where? What's wrong?"
"I don't know yet," she said. "I just got an emergency communication coded for my eyes only. I have to take it privately in my quarters." Taline was already halfway to the exit at the other end of the training room. "We'll make it to Archanas within a few hours. Go get some rest. I'll come get you and fill you in as soon as I'm done."
Catra watched her leave. Seeing Taline's disappear through the door felt like something—a connection, a relationship starting to build firmer roots—was slipping away. Catra suppressed the urge to call out to her, and the door hissed shut amid silence.
You're worrying about nothing, Catra chanted to herself in her head. She fought back the sudden image of Adora slipping away from her, too—something that had not emerged from the depths of her mind now for a while. She's not leaving you. Stop imagining things that aren't happening.
Pip was looking at her from a short distance away.
::What?:: Catra asked.
"I didn't say anything."
::You don't need to say anything. You're in my head. I can tell when you have an opinion you aren't saying to my face.:: Truthfully, this was the first Catra realized she could do that, although the realization didn't help things.
"I think Taline had good advice. You should get some rest."
Catra rolled her eyes and huffed. What kind of message would force Taline to cut their training short and leave like that?
She grabbed her towel and another water bottle and headed for the exit, too. She had no idea how she was going to fall asleep when her thoughts were racing like this. Two bodies on either side of the doorway snapped to attention when the door slid open and Catra stepped through.
"Relax, it's just me," she said.
Trayn and Keren looked visibly relieved, and Catra nodded for them to follow as she hung left and padded down the ship's hallway toward her quarters near the rear of the Constable. They were surprised to learn of Catra's new role as Sentinel, but that surprise dropped to unconditional support the moment Catra had told them she'd vouched for their inclusion in the Archanas mission.
"How did it go?" Keren asked, falling into step at her right while Trayn mirrored to her left.
"I get distracted too easily, apparently," Catra said.
"Seems to me Taline's the one who was distracted," Trayn said. "She sure left in a hurry, and without you. I don't think she even noticed we were guarding the door."
"Something came up." Catra wasn't paying much attention. "Seemed important, I don't really know."
"I'm sure she has a lot going on," Keren said, her tone of voice implying she caught on to Catra's reluctance to speak on it and was trying to cap it off. "We're going to Archanas of all places and she has a new Sentinel to train. I don't blame her for being a bit all over the place. Especially after she went out of her way to commission us for this mission."
Catra grunted her agreement. Taline had the good sense to scoop up many of the officers from her old precinct as she could after Moriarty's cuts left them out of a job. Catra had heard many of the other precinct captains weren't easy to negotiate transfers with, even after lay-offs, but Dax had jumped at the chance to find his people new employment even if it was temporary. Catra had ensured Trayn and Keren were on the list, and they had been assigned to her for the duration of the trip. She was glad they were there—their presence helped temper some of her nerves.
"Even with the absolute gauntlet of tests we ran through before getting a contract it's nice she kept us working," Trayn said. "But she rushed off in such a hurry we didn't get the chance to say thanks." He earned a nasty look from Keren when it was clear he didn't get the hint to let the topic drop.
"Mm." Catra's rumination grew worse the further they walked. She squeezed and relaxed the water bottle in her hand, hoping in vain that treating it like a stress toy might provide relief. Pip shot her worried glances from atop her perch on Trayn's shoulder (with Trayn of course being none the wiser).
Evidence of their stiffer than usual preparations for Archanas were obvious. The cruiser's singular observation deck was closed and nothing except Taline's personal biometrics would open the door. Any viewports looking out were also shuttered, since just looking at their destination planet from orbit was enough to give people night terrors for a month.
Catra caught glimpses of the deck patrols making their circuits in pairs of three instead of the usual twos, a change Taline had ordered to better anticipate a situation where the typical two-buddy system ended with both on-duty staffers experiencing side effects at the same time. The contingency of medical personnel had been doubled, apparently, and Catra was surprised when she first came aboard to see even the viewports on the bridge had their blast shields down and permanently locked for the duration of the mission.
The ship was almost like a prison.
All the extra preparation had only made it harder for Catra to calm herself once she started spiraling. This, on top of whatever message had Taline practically running away from her. Even though this was the first time in years she'd be traveling off Phoenix Station, Catra already couldn't wait for this assignment to finish so they could return. For all her interest in the previous war, she'd never thought she'd be landing on Archanas itself.
She wished Glimmer were here. She'd know how to help, even if 'helping' meant getting into a sniping match over something stupid.
Pip sucked in a sharp breath, Keren and Trayn both hesitate beside her, and both of these things happening at the same time was enough to pull Catra out of the fog and get her to look up. Diallo was there, walking the hall toward them. He was alone.
That was the other thing that had her on edge this entire time: despite the fact Diallo manipulated her, Archanas was his world, and Taline couldn't leave him behind even if she wanted to. Although Catra understood the politics behind it, she still hated how he'd used her.
"H-hello," he said, intercepting them in the hallway instead of letting them pass by each other in peace. "I h-heard Taline has been putting you through s-some rather intensive training recently. How is it?"
Catra squeezed the water bottle so hard her claws punctured holes in the plastic. Water spilled out onto the floor. "Really? After the shit you pulled, you think you can just walk up to me and strike up a conversation like nothing happened?"
Keren and Trayn gasped. Catra might have been surprised at her own reaction too, if Diallo had a predictable response to her violence. Instead, he smirked and spoke without his stutter.
"I did what was necessary to get Taline to act. For years I had been working to get her to even look into what was happening in my system and she refused. I don't blame her, not after what happened, and you should not blame me." He reached out a placed a heavy palm on her shoulder. "I was right, you know. Moriarty was corrupt, and the phantom algorithm his computer decrypted was all the evidence we needed to—"
Catra dropped the empty bottle and grabbed the hand he was touching her with She spun him and pushed his arm far enough up and against his back to cause pain, then shoved him forward hard enough the thump from his face slamming against the polished wall resounded down the hallway. His glasses flew off and skittered across the ground. Several crewmen and officers who had been walking the halls stopped in their tracks and stared open mouthed and wide eyed.
"Catra," Keren said, hissing in apprehension. "What are you doing? You can't just attack a System Governor!"
"You lied to me," Catra said, ignoring her. "You used me and manipulated me knowing that I had no idea what I was doing. I don't give a rat's ass if you were right. If it weren't for the fact we have to bring you along and I have to play nice because it's your system we're going to, I wouldn't hesitate to give you two black eyes." She leaned in, pressing him harder against the bulkhead, and growled into his ear. "But let me be one hundred percent clear with you—if you ever touch me like that again, or if you ever jeopardize my standing with Taline again, I will give you a legitimate reason to have a genuine stutter for the rest of your life."
Diallo's shoulders started to shake and, for a moment, Catra thought she had pushed him so hard he started crying. Then his voice broke through, and she realized he was actually laughing instead. Hearing it sent shivers down her spine.
"You're still convinced she's a good person, aren't you?" he asked. "You're still under the impression she cares about you? I warned you about this before, didn't I? Did you not take me seriously?"
"I took you more seriously than I should have and you used that against me." Catra shoved him harder against the wall. She'd hoped it would have shut him up, but instead it only sent him into further hysterics, and the people around them were starting to whisper among themselves in concern.
"What has she told you about Archanas? Or were you under the misguided impression that she was avoiding coming here because she really thought I had been chasing conspiracy theories?"
Catra didn't want to give him the satisfaction of learning Taline hadn't said anything yet, despite her having directly asked. She didn't want him to see how conflicted it made her feel, and when she didn't immediately say something, Diallo turned his head and looked at her while still pressed up against the wall. The gaze in his eyes made her feel like he was seeing straight through her, and Catra released him with a yelp and backed away.
"As I said before," Diallo said, stooping to grab his glasses from the floor before slotting the back on his face with all the calm of someone who hadn't just been attacked in the hallway. "Taline isn't who she says she is. It would be wise of you to treat her with the same skepticism you now do with me because she wants something out of you, just like I did."
He adjusted the glasses on the bridge of his nose and sent one last look in Catra's direction. She recoiled.
"You will find out soon enough," he said. "That, I promise."
Diallo turned and continued down the hallway in the direction he was originally going, passing all the stunned bystanders with smiles and nods. Catra watched him go, a sudden restlessness attacking her.
She wanted to change course and go to Taline's quarters. Instead, she quashed that urge and continued on to her own room, ignoring the concerned whispers of everyone around them.
"Hey, is everything okay?" Keren asked once they reached her door. Trayn, too, looked uncertain.
"It's fine," Catra said. She palmed the reader next to her door and it slid open with a beep. "Why don't you guys take the rest of the time for yourself until we arrive? Go get some food and rest yourselves."
They glanced at each other with skeptical looks.
"Are you sure?" Trayn asked. "Why not come with us to the cafeteria? We could eat together."
Catra did her best not to lash out. They were worried about her, as friends were likely to do. "I promise I'm fine. I just need to get some sleep and be alone for a bit. I'm more worried about you guys once we arrive. I know they briefed you on what people have experienced on Archanas before it was quarantined. It'd probably be best that we're all as well rested as we can be when we arrive."
Keren and Trayn exchanged another set of reluctant glances before agreeing and heading off, sending cautious glances back at her over their shoulders every few steps. They finally disappeared around a curve in the hall and Catra turned and stepped into her room, shutting the door behind her and encasing herself in near-complete darkness.
Pip floated into view, standing out against the pitch dark that surrounded Catra before her night vision fully kicked in.
"He and I meant it in different ways, you know," she said.
"Meant what in different ways?" Catra asked, speaking aloud.
"That Taline isn't who she says she is. I said the same thing in Moriarty's office, remember?"
"I remember." Catra had never forgotten in the first place. It had sent such a jolt of apprehension flooding through her at the time, there was no way she'd forget, even if Pip had later clarified it as a positive thing.
"Taline is distant and she can come off cold, trust me I understand," Pip said, hovering in front of Catra while she pressed herself flat against the inside of her door. "You haven't seen much if it because, well, you were the distant and cold one between the two of you for a while. But I've seen enough of her to know she isn't a bad person. She opened up to both of us back in the prison cell. She's not manipulating or using you, Catra, I would have seen it if she was."
"I know." Catra's night vision was coming to her and she was starting to make out the shapes and subtle shadows of her quarter's cramped interior. "I've known too many people that pretend to be things they aren't, though. Shadow Weaver barely pretended to be a mother and I still hung on to any scraps of affection she would show. Hordak...well, that one I can't really say much against him since I wasn't exactly forthcoming with him either, but it still hurt when we finally fought."
"And Adora?"
Catra balled her hands into fists tight enough her claws pricked the palms of her hands. "I thought Adora was my friend. Well…she was. She was my friend, until I…"
She trailed off when she remembered that Pip likely already understood everything she was trying to say anyways. She was doing this on purpose, the sneaky program, drawing out her emotions like she was unspooling string, tricking her into processing them aloud.
"I'm not tricking you," Pip said, a hint of indignation in her voice.
"I just thought we were the kind of friends that'd find our way to each other again no matter what happened," Catra said after a deep breath. "And I was wrong. I don't blame her for cutting me off, I would have done it a long, long time ago if I were in her place. Sooner, even. But it still hurts to realize Adora wasn't as forgiving a person as I thought. It doesn't matter how well I rationalize it, either, it still hurts. All of it hurts."
"I see."
"I'm not writing off Taline," Catra said, suddenly feeling the urge to defend her. This, again, despite the fact Pip already knew everything she was feeling. "Really. I think Taline is who she says she is, too. It's just…it doesn't take much to get me to start worrying again."
"I know," Pip said again, softer this time. "These things take time."
Catra was about to ask how she—an AI locked in a server for the majority of her year—could speak so confidently about that when she saw a tiny flashing light out the corner of her eye. She hadn't noticed it before, but here in the dark with her night vision fully kicked in, it stood out. She pulled up her arm and saw it was an indicator flashing on her PDA. With a furrowed brow she opened up the menu and her heart almost stopped when she saw what the alert was.
A message had come through for her. It was from Adora.