WOW. You guys are all awesome, you know that? AWESOME. Seriously, I couldn't believe it; I think that last chapter was the most positive response to a chapter I've gotten so far, especially for a chapter that I wasn't really happy with! THANK YOU all for your support, I really appreciate it. Seriously, I got back from my final and found all these wonderful reviews, and you guys just made my day.
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Numair watched Daine lead the creatures down to the edge of the meadow anxiously and frowned when he heard Kitten give a very loud shriek. That was—odd. He hesitated, wanting to go after them, but then glanced at Alanna. She gave him a tight smile and squeezed his arm.
"Daine's a big girl, Numair, she'll be fine," the knight soothed.
"Alright then." Jack clapped his hands, all business, and they turned to look at him. "Numair, you and I are going to go and check out the mainframe, which is the central computer. Alanna, I want you to take a tour of the ship and catalog any damages."
"How am I supposed to know what's damaged if I don't know what it's supposed to look like?" Alanna asked wryly, eying the metal vessel with mistrust.
"Sardon's going to give you a guide," Jack explained, indicating the alien standing beside him. "I want you to write down everything you see, and then you'll report back to me. I don't know how we can get the parts, but maybe we can get metal, or something." He turned to Sardon and began to chatter in that odd language. Another Nephalae – and Numair was distracted as he wondered to himself what the singular of Nepthalae was – came down and whispered with Sardon before walking up and nodding to Alanna. It had what looked like a clipboard and parchment and some strange equivalent to a quill in its hand.
"He has a schematic of the ship," Jack said. "You can just put a star next to the part that's broken. This is Demoth Jouron. He speaks Galactic standard, so I'll be able to understand what he tells you to write."
"Demoth Jouron," Alanna repeated, and the creature bowed, handing her the clipboard. Numair craned his neck, peering at the strange, bluish drawing on the impossibly thin parchment. The schematic for a ship meant to go between worlds, he mused with wonder and frank curiosity.
As with Daine, Jack established a few hand signals between Alanna and Demoth Jouron- come with me, please repeat that, watch your step, careful. He sent them off and turned to Numair.
"I don't even know what a computer is," Numair admitted sheepishly.
"Well, we'll teach you. Ready?" Jack smiled coyly and tilted his head. Sardon walked ahead and disappeared into the dark doorway, which led to the hull. "Close encounter of the third kind."
"What?" Numair followed when Jack beckoned him into the space ship. Jack chuckled.
"That's what they called it before conversations with aliens were a regular thing." He said easily, and beckoned Numair up the ramp and into the darkness beyond. "Welcome to the Nepthalae ship, Numair Salmalin."
Numair hardly heard him.
As he stepped inside the shadowed hull of the massive ship, the temperature dropped considerably. The entire thing, Numair realized, was made of sheets of metal. The top of the ship arched high above their heads, and steam hissed out from some of the walls. There were blinking lights on the great, curving sides. The rest of the Nepthalae clustered together in the center, looking afraid. There weren't very many of them, Numair mused, no more than a hundred, a hundred fifty maybe. Sardon stood up before Jack and spoke in a great booming voice; the others cheered when he finished, and he indicated Jack and Numair to follow him.
"What did he say?" Numair whispered.
"No idea," Jack replied. "That was their own language, not Galactic standard. We're in the hull; Sardon's taking us to engineering."
"Engineering?" The word was a familiar one, but Numair associated engineering with building castles and bridges, not flying space ships.
"The mainframe will be there," Jack explained.
Numair took a deep, steadying breath. The air was cool and it smelled odd, somehow heavy. "What's that smell?" he asked, distracted.
"Recycled air," Jack told him as they walked deeper into the ship. "The air that you breathe out is broken up into its components and then reintroduced back, so you can breathe it again. It does get a bit stale, after a while."
Numair stared at him, a grin of wonder growing on his face. "They can break up the air," he repeated, amazed. "Jack, I don't know how I'm going to help you," he admitted, looking around in delight. "I have no idea how any of this works."
"You don't need to," Jack replied, ducking under strings of metal that hung from the ceiling. The lights flickered on and off, casting odd, gray shadows on the metal walls. Sardon led them down a hall, and everything was much closer, now. Numair, taller than Jack, ducked as well. "I might need you to power a few things up. You're a smart guy – you might be able to make suggestions, even without knowing what any of this stuff does."
"I'll take your word for it," the mage said quietly.
They walked down and through dark twisted hallways with flickering, buzzing lights before reaching a long, thin and cramped room. The walls were metal, as they were everywhere else, and there were counters covered with little knobs and switches and blinking lights. White steam issued from under several of them, and most of the lights blinked a strange mauve color.
"Hmm," Jack murmured. He gestured to Numair, who followed cautiously. Sardon brought up the rear, chattering to Jack at a rapid speed. Jack walked up to a counter that looked central and, to Numair's surprise, he pulled the top off. Steam hissed out, shrouding him in a white cloud for a moment. Coughing, he waved it away.
"Numair," he called, and Numair walked over.
"Look," Jack started, gesturing beneath the panel. There were small strings of metal and more blinking lights. It looked very—very something, and Numair did not even have a word to describe it, let alone understand anything about it. "You see how the wires are burnt out?" He touched a melted strip of rubber with what looked like metal inside. "Can you repair some of these?"
Wires. Numair filed the word away. He frowned and, with a glance at Jack, reached inside the small compartment. The air within was warm and heavy, like the air above a fire recently doused. He fingered one of the things called wires thoughtfully.
"Maybe," he replied. "If I had a way to store some of my Gift. Delicate work like this means that I have to siphon some of it off somewhere else, or the whole thing melts." He could feel the power at the tips of his fingers, and knew it was too much. The whole place would blow, he thought ruefully, and was just about to suggest that Jack go get Alanna – her healing ability made her Gift more fine-tuned than his –when Jack interrupted.
"Well then," he said with a grin. "I think I can do that. Come here." He gestured Numair over to another panel. Chattering to Sardon, he opened that one as well.
"This is called a battery," Jack explained. "Or, at least twenty-first century Earth calls it a battery. The Nepthalae call it a power cell. It's emergency power for the ship – and it's almost drained. Could you boost it?"
Numair touched the smooth, curved metal and then smiled. "Now that I can do," he said.
Alanna was having the weirdest time of her life, and she'd gone through some pretty weird times. Demoth Jouron was a patient sort, which was a good thing because Alanna wasn't.
They'd walked around the outside of the ship, Demoth giving her the names of things that were apparently broken. Alanna lost count of the times that she had to use the "repeat that" signal. He seemed amused, at least, if the twinkle in his eye was anything to go by.
When they finished with the outside, Alanna had run out of room to write. Demoth gave her the "come with me" signal and she followed him inside the ship, gasping in surprise when the temperature dropped. It was metal – the entire ship was metal, and she had not appreciated that until she stepped inside and saw the high, vaulted ceiling. She'd never seen so much metal in her life, and she'd learned to fight in a suit of armor.
Demoth handed her a new sheet, a schematic of the inside, and took her around the edges of things. She marked every pipe leaking steam and every hanging strip of metal. It would have been tedious, if the ship had not been simply amazing.
"I can't believe that this thing can fly," she murmured as Demoth indicated a fallen panel. He tilted his head at her voice, but she shrugged, unable to communicate the thought. He made a strange gurgling noise that Alanna assumed was a chuckle and moved on.
A few of the Nepthalae had crept out of the center of the great room in the front and were following them, chattering to Demoth and watching Alanna curiously with their blue, glassy eyes. It was unnerving, but there really wasn't anything that she could do about it, so she went about her business, reining in the urge to snap at them to back off.
A small creature that Alanna assumed was a child raced up to Demoth. He chattered, scolding, at the little one. It chirped back, and Demoth sighed ruefully before looking up at Alanna. He signaled "come with me" and Alanna followed dutifully, confused. They ended up just outside the ship, where Daine was standing holding Kitten, with Cloud, Spots, Darkmoon and Red beside them. Alanna noticed that night had fallen. Had she been working that long?
The children that had gone with Daine were yipping delightedly, racing up and down the ramp, handing out the leaves and grasses that they had plucked. Daine was watching them with a small smile on her face, although Kitten was still pink with fear. The little dragon was pressed tightly to Daine's chest, watching with wide eyes. Daine was letting her curl close, a hand comfortingly resting on her head. Kitten looked up at Alanna and cheeped a greeting, although her voice was small. Daine turned and caught sight of Alanna. She smiled and beckoned the Lioness over her armful of dragon.
"They're really lovely, aren't they?" she asked, indicating the aliens. Kitten muttered unhappily in her arms.
Alanna smiled at Daine's soft heart, despite Kit's worrying response. "I suppose they are," she said. "I didn't realize it was dark out already."
Daine shrugged. "I guess there's a lot of work. Have you seen Numair?"
Just as she said it, two familiar voices rose out of the dark ship's entrance. The four horses turned, ears pricked, and Daine's lips quirked in a grin. Alanna smiled at her friend, and turned to the entryway.
"So the entire thing is based off a current?" Numair was demanding. "How does 'on-off' translate into a command?"
Alanna's smile turned to a grin. Mages, honestly, they were like toddlers. Numair sounded like a child with a new toy.
Jack gave a long suffering sigh that was audible as they approached. "That'll take hours," he complained good-naturedly. "Can't you just accept that it does, and move on?"
"Yes, but I want to know why it works." They both stepped out into the dusky light, Numair in the lead, looking back at an amused Jack. Alanna saw Daine's grin at the sight of her mage.
"There you are!" Daine exclaimed, walking up the ramp to join them. Numair's face, slightly gray with exertion, lit up at the sight of Daine. Dignity abandoned, he raced from Jack's side, down the ramp to reach her, then lifted her up and spun her around excitedly. Kitten dropped to the ramp with an indignant shriek and raced over to Alanna. The lady knight smiled indulgently at her and lifted the frightened dragon from the ground.
"Let Numair have his fun," she whispered, and the dragon huffed unhappily.
"Have you seen this place?" Numair was demanding enthusiastically, clutching Daine to him so just the tips of her toes touched the metal of the ramp, "It's amazing, absolutely stunning! They use electricity and chemicals to power it – Jack was just explaining the mainframe – and this gunpowder, it powers the whole ship, can you imagine? And it works the same way as it does in Jack's gun, just the same! It pushes out, and in space that translates to forward—"
"Numair, I don't think I understood a word of that," Alanna said wryly over Daine's giggles at his delight. She walked up the ramp to join them, smiling warmly at her friends. Numair set Daine down and Kitten immediately wriggled out of Alanna's arms to go to Daine's leg, begging to be picked up again.
"It's just astounding," Numair said, beaming at the both of them. "These people are amazing!" He took Daine's hand and pulled her down the ramp, Alanna and Jack following. Daine turned to scoop up her frightened dragon before letting Numair pull her away.
Jack met Alanna's eyes for a moment, chuckling at Numair's glee. "I said you'd understand it." He walked over to greet his horse, laying a hand on Red's soft nose. Red whickered at him, lipping his sleeve. He really was sweet with Red, Alanna mused to herself. The fact that the two had clearly bonded in so short a time was surprising, even with Daine's help. It had taken Alanna years to get that sort of trust in Darkmoon, and she'd raised him from a foal.
Numair was hugging Daine close, sharing his joy. "It isn't that hard," he told Jack modestly, jolting Alanna out of her idle thoughts.
"We all knew you were a genius," Daine giggled, leaning on him and clutching Kitten to her chest. Alanna rolled her eyes with fond exasperation at Daine and Numair's public affection.
The dragon pressed into Daine, burying her head into her foster-mother's shoulder. Alanna looked at her in concern and was just about to ask Daine about her when Jack spoke.
"At any rate," he interrupted, turning from Red and looking at the beaming Numair indulgently, "It's gotten dark out, and I don't want our mage to exhaust himself."
Numair huffed. "I've gone for days—"
"Yes, and probably collapsed afterward, am I right?" He looked pointedly at Daine who nodded with a wry smile. "We can't afford that. If you rest in between, we'll probably get this done much faster and with fewer mistakes. We do still need to find these weevils, after all."
"We should make camp, then," Alanna agreed. Jack nodded.
"That would probably be best," he said.
Numair gave a sigh. "But if I just—"
"Numair, he's right," Daine told him, jostling him gently with her shoulder. "You'll think better with some sleep, and there's no immediate danger, is there?" She turned to Jack.
"I don't think so," Jack replied. Alanna heard the thread of uncertainty in his voice and she glanced at him sharply. He'd looked away though, watching the dark ship and the aliens inside.
Kitten muttered anxiously, and Daine hefted her in her arms. "He says there's no danger," she told the dragon, who whistled.
"Is she alright?" Alanna finally asked, and all eyes fell to the pink dragon.
Kitten pressed into Daine's chest, but she nodded reluctantly.
"She's just afraid, although I don't know why," Daine said, cuddling her.
"That's odd," Jack muttered to himself, sharp eyes on the dragon. There was something strange about him when he looked at Kitten, Daine was right, Alanna thought. Some sort of sadness, a weird sort of fear. Had he lost a child? The thought was almost too horrible to contemplate. Jack shook himself and went to speak with Sardon. Alanna watched him go thoughtfully before turning to her friends and leading them into the dusk to prepare camp.
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