Visk couldn't fall asleep.
Nari had brought him to his room after showing him where to clean himself up. The Skyweaver was a cozy ship, with two bedrooms, one for Nari, one for guests. He was staying in the latter.
After a few days of sleeping on hard metal floors or piles of leaves wearing hastily-modified Architect armor, cloth sheets and proper clothing were a very welcome change of pace. Nari only had dahmak clothing with her, but he'd been able to adapt decently well. He figured he'd just get some irva clothes when they reached the Mercantile.
The bed was nice and warm. Visk hadn't had a place this cozy to sleep since he awakened from his pod. Pulling the sheets over his eyes, he tried to doze off unsuccessfully.
The irva winced slightly as one of his arms made contact with the mattress. He'd scabbed up where the Phage had injured him, and seemed to be making a recovery, but his arms were still very sore, and he was having trouble getting into a comfortable position.
He lifted his singed hand up towards his face, and was barely able to make out the mark on it in the dark. I wonder what this means, he thought to himself, worried by Nari's words about Sentinels back on the planet they'd previously been on. Sanctuary, he'd called it.
Well, for a sanctuary, it wasn't very safe. It had been absolutely swarming with Phage, as if the tiny robots were somehow replicating themselves, building more of themselves to consume the planet. What happened there? And why did it only start happening when he arrived?
The Phage really concerned Visk. He and Nari had found a way to kill it, but their method was slow and inefficient. It really was a deadly predator - the scabs on his arms were evidence enough - and he shuddered to think about what would happen if it made it out into the galaxy at large.
Unless it already has.
He shook away the thought. The portal had already been closed. There was no way back to Sanctuary right now, unless someone were to open another portal back to that forsaken planet.
But what if there was?
He tried to fight the rising anxiety collecting in his head, to no success. He couldn't help but replay doomsday scenarios in his head, think about Phage spreading, consuming all in its way, spewing across the cosmos…
As his thoughts spread out and slowed, he fell into sleep.
He awoke to a metallic rattle.
He was back on Sanctuary, in the endless halls of the Monolith. Black metallic rooms ran as far as the eye could see, lit overhead by dim blue lights. It almost felt liminal in nature, like he was somewhere that shouldn't exist.
He turned around to see what was behind him, and let out a scream as he saw the familiar glint of Phage, swirling in clouds, filling up the Monolith, and approaching him rapidly.
He began to run.
He risked a few glances over his shoulder. The Phage was growing in size, consuming all in its path, only to form more of itself, spreading like a plague of the very matter that made up the world. And it was gaining on him, approaching faster and faster with each coming moment, the gap between irva and machine growing smaller gradually but steadily.
He kept up his pace. As he ran, the ground started to feel wet beneath his feet, and he noticed puddles of a cold black fluid accumulating. As the Phage approached, the liquid rose, first covering his feet, then making it up to his knees, his pace slowing as he was slowly submerged in the viscous fluid.
Then it made its way up to his waist. He was swimming now, unable to run in these depths. His entire body was chilled, like the energy inside his muscles was being siphoned somehow. It reached his shoulders. He could barely see solid ground at this point. It reached his head. He was submerged.
The world was a dark blur around him, and for a moment he was back in the pod, naked and afraid, confused as to who he was and what he was doing here. And then, the Sentinel's voice flooded his head.
"DO NOT EMBRACE THE CALL OF THE DEEP."
"Wake up, sleepyhead. Nari made waffles."
Visk awoke in a cold sweat, the imagery of the nightmare still fresh in his mind. He recognized Spark's voice coming through the ship intercom.
"Alright…" he gasped. "I'll be there in a moment."
"You okay?" the AI asked, noticing the panic in his voice. "You sound distressed."
"I guess you could say that. Nightmare."
"I had one of those myself," Spark remarked. "Thought I was back in the Monolith network being chased by the Phage and the Sentinels."
"You have dreams?"
"Yeah. I mean I don't really sleep, but I go into a more dormant state occasionally. Sometimes have…visions or something."
"That seems foreboding. They ever come true?"
"Not yet," she remarked, a hint of subdued concern in her voice.
"My nightmare was similar," said Visk. "I was back in the Monolith, and the Phage was approaching, and the…fluid…" he trailed off, returning to a state of panic as he remembered the dream.
"On second thought, I think I'll head to breakfast," the irva interrupted himself.
"That sounds like a good idea."
Visk found Nari in the kitchen, eagerly scarfing down a plate of waffles.
"Gud murnung," the dahmak mumbled through a mouth full of food, before pointing at another plate of waffles on the counter. "Hep urseff."
"Thanks, good morning to you as well," he said, making his way over towards the waffles. "You sleep well?"
Nari swallowed. "Yeah. It feels good to be back on the ship. Been a while. You?"
Visk motioned toward the bags under his eyes. "Take a wild fuckin' guess."
Nari sighed. "Ah well. I guess you'll get comfortable in time."
Visk took a bite out of a waffle. He'd doused his stack in syrup, and had some butter and powdered sugar on top. It was a quite tasty meal, and a vast improvement over the raw fruits he'd been having on Sanctuary. He supposed being here was a good cause for celebration.
"So what's going on with Spark?" he asked. "She was talking to me through the ship intercom earlier. Thought she'd still be in the data matrix."
"I broke in," Spark interjected over the intercom, eliciting a laugh from Nari.
"In all seriousness, I let her into the ship systems," the dahmak explained, still slightly laughing.
"Wouldn't she be able to, like, screw up our trajectory and whatnot?"
"Yeah," Spark answered. "But as long as I just touch intercom, cameras, and Nari's library of newspaper puzzles, I should be fine."
"You like puzzles?" Visk asked, puzzled.
"Yeah," Nari shrugged.
"So is that why you decided to become a Vaulter?"
"I guess that's part of it." The dahmak looked down. "There's other reasons too. Personal reasons. But I won't weight you down with my emotional baggage."
"I'm here if you need someone to talk to," Visk offered.
"Nah, I'm okay," Nari replied. "Thanks for being concerned though."
Catching a glimpse of disappointment in her eyes, Visk wasn't so sure she was.
A picture was taped up to the side wall of the cockpit.
On it were the faces of two dahmaks, one an even purple-blue gradient in color, the other considerably more on the purple side of things, both with bright blue eyes. The bluer dahmak was taller, and had an arm wrapped around the smaller dahmak, looking at the camera in joy.
The larger dahmak sat in the cockpit, staring sentimentally at the picture.
One of these days, I'm gonna find you. I promise.
A tear made its way down Nari's face as the door to the cockpit opened with a whoosh. Quickly drying the tear off, she turned around to look up at whoever had entered.
As expected, it was her bluish-white irva friend, making his way into the cockpit for whatever reason. "What's up?" she asked, staring at him.
"Just wanted to ask about how this cockpit works. Like how you fly it. I feel like it'd be useful to know."
"Alright, fair enough," Nari sighed. "I'll show you around. This sure as hell won't get you certified to fly, and I can't even really touch most of the controls right now since we're in null-space, but I'll at least try to explain how this thing works."
"This is the rotation joystick," she started, pointing at a red joystick in the middle of the console. "This is how you turn the Skyweaver, and if you spin it, you can even roll the ship. Pretty neat."
"And this is the movement joystick," she gestured toward a blue joystick. "It's what moves the ship. Usually you're moving forward or maybe backward, but this is a combat-ready ship and supports strafing as well. It's great for evading pirates if need be."
She then pointed toward a collection of buttons. "These are most of the main movement control buttons. They're a bit more complex, but do useful routines like landing the ship or aligning it towards a trajectory."
The dahmak pulled up a computer monitor. "This is my radar and navigation system. It allows me to pinpoint where I'm going and calculate how I'm going to get there. That's how we're currently heading toward the Mercantile, and if you take a look, you can see that we've got a few days left of travel."
"And this right here is a real treat," she exclaimed, showing Visk a purple lever. "This is the null drive. It provides us with FTL travel, and it's what we're currently using to get to our destination."
Visk nodded. "Can you explain how null-space works? You didn't get around to it yesterday."
"Yeah, sure," she nodded. "I don't know exactly how null-energy works, but it's some sort of all-permeating energy field that the Architects used to do a bunch of crazy things, your gun being one example. It's tech so advanced it appears to be magic."
"Regardless, in an event known as the Ascensions, the Sentinels gifted the Chosen Races with the knowledge of null-energy, and it was quickly reverse-engineered into null drives, which allowed them to enter null-space, kicking off the interstellar age of space exploration. Lots of null."
"The best way I can describe null-space is 'slipping in between atoms.' Normally, when you're trying to fly faster than light, you're hindered by the properties of normal matter dragging you down. When you're in null-space you can 'slip past' all that matter, and break the speed limit. Pretty neat."
"Agreed," Visk nodded. "That clears things up, thanks."
"You're welcome," smiled Nari. "Let me know if you're curious about anything else."
"Who's that?" Visk immediately asked, pointing at the picture hanging up on the wall.
The shine left Nari's eyes as the dahmak's face fell into a slight frown. "A friend from the past. From…good times."
Recognizing his friend's discomfort, Visk awkwardly nodded, shuffled out of the cockpit, and returned to his room.
