Chapter Fifty-Five: Ex Deus Machina
Sunday, 26th November 2000 - Loop Day 114.
Vala looked around the walls at the glowing golden filigree that had been steadily added to her accommodations for the past several hours. She had no idea what any of it was for, but it intrigued her that no one had set foot in the room to place it there.
Each one had simply appeared in the wake of a searing white light that flared up for a moment before disappearing, leaving behind the now glowing symbols.
So she merely raised her eyebrow at the human-shaped flares of light outside the bars as the black-haired boy and the one she had been brought here with appeared in place.
"I like what you've done with the place," Rol said, glancing at the newly decorated walls.
"Play nicely, Sirius." The boy chided, correcting Vala's incorrect assumption while playing with the little device on his wrist that spawned a couple of chairs.
Vala groaned internally, as chairs meant this lot planned to stay and chatter for a while. A situation she was fast becoming bored with. Many things could be said about Qetesh, few of them complimentary, but she was uncommonly patient. Vala figured living for millennia had that effect. She, however, was not.
"Come now, Harry. You open with a joke. Didn't you know that?" The figure, apparently called Sirius, asked, taking one of the chairs and settling in facing the cell.
As he sat, Vala noticed an odd headband she had not seen on the man before. It was certainly an unusual piece of jewellery, but Qetesh had been used to interacting with the likes of Apophis, so it wasn't even close to the most flashy bit of kit she'd seen someone wearing.
"How are things?" Sirius asked, beaming at her as if they were old friends.
"I'm in a cage. How are you?" Vala scythed back.
"Me too." He said, nodding as if they were accomplices in something.
"Really? You seem to be outside of it to me." Vala flicked her gaze between the man and the boy, who had moved his chair to the corner of the cell where he could easily see the both of them at the same time.
"Depends on one's perspective I suppose. That little friend of Qetesh's is still in here." Sirius said, pointing at his head. "And until I'm absolutely sure he can't take control again, I'm willingly placing myself under house arrest."
The boy sighed heavily, which seemed to confirm what the man was saying. But Vala remained suspicious of this group regardless. The girl had outright admitted she was only here by accident. Had the symbiotes not been rutting one another when this lot had taken Sirius, she would still be back on Iken, ruling over the peasants.
She turned away from the pair for a moment and squashed that thought. It was unfair to think that way about people under the yoke of the Goa'uld. She had been no better in her youth.
"So. This is a conjugal visit then? You never seemed to like an audience before." Vala said and the boy went bright red.
"I'm game if you are." Sirius quipped back and Vala was surprised. "You know as well as I do that we poor hosts don't get to feel all the fun bits of it when the snakes are in control. I'd really enjoy seeing what you've got."
Normally her sexual advances out of nowhere left her opponents somewhat adrift, either confused and backpedalling, or eagerly drooling like animals. This Sirius was different.
And he wasn't wrong about being a host. Vala herself hadn't been laid in almost twenty years now. Not since Ra had stuck this evil bitch inside of her. Just discussing it had her gander up. But she would not be so easily led astray.
"Later perhaps. If you behave." She said seductively, and yet it made the boy cough as though the very idea disgusted him. "Seems your friend doesn't approve."
"It's not that…" the lad added quickly, still blushing brightly.
"Is he still a virgin? You can bring him in too if you like."
This finally got a reaction from Sirius, whose eyes flicked to the boy before widening even further. "Er, no. I'm not about to have a threesome with my godson."
"Godson? Really."
"You sounded like my uncle." The boy replied, shaking his head as if trying to clear something persistent from his mind.
"Oh, Harry. I met that whale once. You poor thing." Sirius said, sounding legitimately concerned before he too seemed to try and shake something loose from his brain.
"Now things are getting fun," Vala said, watching the two males struggle with the concept she had unwittingly planted in their minds. "I wonder how much further we can take this."
"NO!" Harry yelped.
Vala smirked at the boy. This was the most fun she'd had in years. Were it not for the cell bars, she might even enjoy it.
"What exactly is it you want from me?" She said suddenly, hoping to take advantage of their confused state.
"Want from you? A nice chat. That's all." Sirius replied, seemingly back in order, while his godson, whatever that was, twitched and writhed uncomfortably in his chair.
"I'm not really one for long boring conversations. Even less so when I'm locked inside of a prison cell."
"Harry?" Sirius said, glancing at the boy who stared back for a moment and sighed.
A couple of taps on the small device on his wrist led to a change in the air in the room before the slats of the cell wall between her and Sirius began collapsing downwards. Within seconds, they had completely retracted into the floor and now she was staring face to face with the man, though Harry was still slightly concealed behind the corner of the cell itself.
"How is that?" Sirius asked, leaning back in his chair. "Up for a chat now?"
This felt like some kind of test. Vala may not have full memory of the times when Qetesh was in control, but she recalled how easily this lot had recaptured her and Rol. She simply reclined in place, letting her arms fall back on the bench behind her.
"If you don't want anything, then why keep me here?" She asked, staring at Sirius.
"You're good fun at the least." He replied with a cheeky smirk. "Harry?"
The pair turned to see the boy watching them closely. Vala noticed that he had his right hand quite close to the weapon on his thigh, and she wondered if she would be able to rush him and take it.
"We're only keeping you here to help you fight Qetesh. Your acquisition may have been an accident, but we can't just ship you back to that planet and let her take back over. Unless that is what you truly want?"
Vala narrowed her eyes, clearly conveying what she thought of that idea.
"In that case, we have a few options. You can work with Hermione, and help her finish making you a halo. Like Sirius has there." He indicated the silver band around the elder man's head. "Which will suppress Qetesh like the field in this room is, and you can leave the cell. We can try and extract the symbiote, but we've never done something that precise before on a moving living organism inside the brain of another moving living organism. We're more likely to kill the both of you than free you.
"Or you can remain uncooperative and we'll be forced to keep you locked in there forever. Not my preferred choice. But there is no way we're letting Qetesh just walk around our home freely." The boy finished.
"Extract how?"
"Same way we get around," Harry replied. "This bright white light allows us to move matter from one place to another. We could try that to remove the symbiote. But it is designed to automatically take any biological material touching the target with it. A safety feature we cannot easily override. The same one that brought you here to begin with. Even if we do figure out a way around that, the more conservative we are, to protect the part of your brain in which she is hiding, the less of her we'd extract. And we've no idea what leaving part of a dead Goa'uld husk in your brain would do to you long term.
"More precise, and we risk taking some of you out with her. Which could leave you brain-damaged or dead. Defeating the purpose. Especially as I doubt she'll just lie still and let us do it. Magic gives us a few extra options, but no one has ever used it in anything close to a situation like this. So we're in uncharted waters there too."
Vala wasn't thrilled at the possibility of dying, and both methods of extraction seemed to come with a high chance of it. But she was also very over being a meat suit for Qetesh. The suppression appeared to be working for now, and her eyes flicked to Sirius's halo. It was quite bland, but it was apparently keeping Rol contained within him.
"What do you think?" She asked the man, who simply sat there smirking.
"Well, from what Harry tells me, suppression is the real winner. We get our minds and bodies back. With practice, we can even return the favour, digging through their minds and getting the Goa'uld's advanced knowledge for ourselves. And they cannot help but to heal our bodies if we get hurt or sick. Without them being in control of us, this being blended thing could actually be a pretty sweet deal."
"You don't want Rol removed?"
"With my luck, I'd probably get seriously injured the day after we took him out. I think I'll keep him around, even if it's just for the help with healing." Sirius said with a bright smile.
Harry shook his head and sighed at the man. "It's your body, so it's your choice. With a halo, you can be released from the cell. We would keep you confined to some private comfortable quarters while we make sure that it is working fully."
"You should see mine," Sirius added with a wink.
Vala looked at him and once again considered the fact that she had not had sex for herself in a long time. And if she was stuck here for a while regardless…
"Once we're certain it is working, you can then choose what you want to do. Stay, go. Again it would be your choice. We would just ask that you don't go about telling everyone about our home." Harry added.
"So, what do you think?" Sirius asked, leaning back in his chair.
Vala's eyes flicked between the two males, occasionally resting on Harry's weapon, lying against his thigh. Sirius was seemingly unarmed, but she had no idea of his hand-to-hand fighting ability. Nor did she know how to open the door to the cell block, though it likely had something to do with the device on the boy's arm. And from the way they were talking, leaving the room without a halo would instantly allow Qetesh to retake control.
Even if she managed to escape the room and retain her mind, she still had no idea of the layout of this prison, nor what the planet was like. How far she might be from the stargate. Her options for escape were limited, and this group seemed to want to help her. Though she could not yet figure out what their angle was.
"If I were to agree to this, I would hope you can make it look nicer than that." She said, indicating the simple silver halo on Sirius.
He feigned mock offence, and this seemed to make Harry smile for some reason.
"I'm sure you can give Hermione some design ideas and she could incorporate them for you. Does that mean you'll work with her?" Harry asked.
"For the moment." She replied, locking eyes with the boy, who surprisingly, matched her gaze and did not waver in the slightest.
"I will let her know. But until the halo is fitted, you will, unfortunately, have to remain in there. We can't broadcast the suppression field through the entire city."
City? That sounded even more promising than she had previously thought. Maybe sticking around for a while might prove very useful. This lot were clearly quite advanced. Perhaps she could come out of this with more than just the exclusive full use of her mind and body once more.
"Alright. But might I have some privacy, to consider things?" She asked, deciding it best to wait for the moment.
"Of course," Harry said, triggering the device on his arm once more and the cell wall shot back up out of the floor and clicked back into place.
"Do you mind if I come back later?" Sirius asked. "I'd certainly like to talk with you some more."
Vala eyed him carefully for a moment before she simply nodded. The two males stood and with a bright flash, the both of them and their chairs disappeared. Vala gave a soft sigh and moved over to the bed, laying back and considering her options for going forward.
ϟ
Tuesday, 28th November 2000.
"It is definitely Wraith in origin." The man said to Richard and Neville as the newest batch of crew members helped recheck the data.
"We thought as much," Neville replied, smiling at their new recruits.
"Looking over this, I can't fathom what they were hoping to achieve with this base code. There are so many contradictory commands. Though admittedly, we are only hobbyist coders. Not scientists." Another of the new recruits said from a nearby console.
While they knew that the crew did not need to interact with the physical terminals to access the datastream, they were all grateful that they chose to do so. At least feigning the idea that they were directly interacting with the real world made them seem all the more real.
It was beginning to make Atlantis feel like a city full of people, rather than a handful of humans from Earth moving in and doing whatever they liked with the place.
"Thank you…" Richard replied, smiling at the nearest man, who smiled at his pause.
This most recent batch had arrived partway through the morning and simply sat down and gotten to work.
"Daarin. And Havis." The crew mate replied, indicating the other speaker who had arrived with him. "Once we got settled, this sounded like the project to help on. Watching the data stream from the vulta is just depressing."
"Well, thank you both, Daarin and Havis. And everyone else. You've really helped accelerate our progress here in the last few days. This might actually take less than a human lifespan to sort through now." Richard joked and a few of their new companions chuckled.
"Do you think we have what we need to permanently disable them?" Neville asked.
"Not yet." Another crew member that Richard knew was called Rageem said. She was one of the first who had joined their efforts a few days earlier. "We have only properly identified maybe ten percent of the entire code. Any solution we might craft based on that information may be countered by something else in the rest of the code."
"Basically," Havis added, "the Wraith got lucky that the one thing they wanted to achieve was so easily corrected. Odd that such a prime directive wasn't given some form of backup coding. Even their replication function has had three that we've found so far."
"So… More sifting then?" Richard asked, sighing as he finished.
Daarin nodded. "Seems so."
Richard rolled his shoulder and cracked his knuckles, giving a satisfied moan at the relief it brought his fingers. "Back to the grind then." He said, leaning back over his terminal and digging into the code once more.
ϟ
Thursday, 30th November 2000.
Hermione felt unnecessarily crowded as the seven of them walked through the large exterior door into Vala's cell block. Harry and Neville were both present again, Neville already with his stunner in hand. Both her parents had chosen to come as well, and Carson was present just to ensure that Vala's technically alien human physiology would not react poorly to the completed halo.
Sirius completed their number, smirking as they spread out around the cell. Hermione couldn't help but roll her eyes at the man, who currently looked more boundlessly enthusiastic than if he'd changed into his animagus form.
The man had spent the past several days conversing with Vala, under Harry's constant watch, and she knew that both were eager to at the least change the venue in which those chats took place.
"Have you come to kill me then?" Vala asked, eyeing the massive group.
"What? No!" Hermione replied, glancing at her friends in disbelief. "We're here to fit your halo. Unless you want to remain in there forever."
Hermione almost glared at the woman, but she did not react. Simply matching her stare in return. Even after talking with Sirius, she still found the woman to be stubborn and difficult. It had not helped when her mother had pointed out that those were traits she had in spades herself.
She looked down at her wrist and triggered the cell wall, opening it up so that those involved could step inside.
Neville and her father stayed back by the exterior door, both holding their weapons ready in case the woman tried to make a break for it. Or attacked them in some other way once the field was switched off in the cell.
Carson moved inside, holding the small portable scanner that they replicated from ones located in Atlantis in one hand. "Just relax, deary. This will be totally painless." He offered the woman.
Hermione smiled as she realized she had missed hearing the man speak in English. It just sounded so nice with his delightful accent. She walked over to the woman as well while the rest stayed nearby, watching the process silently.
"Alright," Hermione said, more to herself than the woman.
She lifted the thin silvery band up in her right hand and laid it over her remote, having loaded the required program on there instead of using a tablet this time as she had when fitting Sirius's. She had decided that the less equipment she had to juggle during the process, the better.
"Really?" Vala asked, looking at the simple band in disgust.
Hermione looked at her in confusion. "They said you wanted a halo? Why cooperate with my scans if you were just going to change your mind?"
"Well, yes. But that is just so bland. I was promised that it would be something… more."
Hermione's gaze flicked to Sirius who was still smirking like a child. He simply nodded, not saying a word.
"You didn't mention this once while I was preparing it," Hermione said to Vala.
"I assumed they had mentioned it. Surely you can make it more impressive. If I am to wear it for the rest of my life, I'll need to be able to accessorise."
Hermione struggled to keep her growing frustration with the woman in check.
"Something more fashionable. Like a tiara. Or… what's that one with the leaves?" Vala finished with a wide smirk.
"A wreath?" Sirius finally said aloud, drawing Hermione's eye and ire.
"Yes," Vala replied, looking pleased as she leaned back, nodding. "A wreath. I need a wreath."
"You are aware that the halo goes against your skin, under your hairline? You won't even be able to see most of it." Hermione replied, really struggling with this one now.
"Doesn't matter. That is what I want."
Hermione felt a familiar hand on her shoulder and turned to see Harry standing right behind her, offering a supportive smile. His fingers slid down her arm and she had to focus not to shudder under his touch.
As they came to rest by her remote, he quickly tapped into a design program and sketched out a basic olive wreath shape that Hermione could apply to the halo. The intelligent operating system of the remote working wonders with his less-than-stellar artistic talent. The thin leaves were far more suited to go under Vala's hair, while still fulfilling the demand. At least, far better than a laurel wreath would have.
It irked Hermione slightly to 'crown' the woman when she was being such a pain. And had been enslaved by a supposed god ruling over millions. Hermione found the entire concept far too on the nose all things considered. But as Harry had seemingly figured out, it was far easier to deal with the woman if you at least occasionally acceded to one or two of her odd whims.
Laying her own fingers gently atop Harry's, Hermione smiled at him before she reached between them and activated the converter. It quickly applied the simple design Harry had drawn over the silver band, the computer automatically making design tweaks based on the commands he'd entered, making it now resemble the soft brown branch. The 'leaves' as it were, had a healthy green colouring but did not stick out from the branch as they would have on a true wreath. They clung to the branch, making them less likely to tangle in the woman's substantial hair.
Another trait Hermione disliked in the woman, given her own typically unmanageable locks.
"There. Happy now?"
Vala smiled at her, looking every bit a petulant child rewarded as she sometimes considered Harry's godfather. Someone she would be having words with later for enabling the woman's petty childishness.
"Good. Lift your hair. Please." She ground the last word out past her teeth as she stepped forward. Hermione could feel her father tensing by the door as she approached and wound the soft filigree around Vala's head.
A momentary urge occurred to lower it substantially and tighten her grip, but Hermione shook it free. Frustrating as she may have been, she doubted that even Vala deserved such treatment. When the band clicked together, Hermione pulled her hands free and triggered the device using her remote.
As she stepped back, Carson stepped forward and began waving the sensor of the small device in his hand over Vala's head. The woman seemed unperturbed as she fixed the way the band rested on her head. Hermione had to concede that Harry's design looked good peeking out from under the woman's thick black locks. Though, as predicted, it was really only visible across her forehead.
"How do you feel? No headache or nausea?" Carson asked, focused on the screen and the information streaming back about his patient.
"A little crowded. But it's like it is not even there." Vala replied, and Hermione noticed Sirius nodding along.
Seeing the thin metal band around his own head, Hermione smiled as she considered redesigning it in place as well. Something a little more fitting for the old dog. Perhaps something that could remain in place if he were to change into his animagus form.
"Well, she seems to be fine. No sign of any issues thus far. I guess being born on a totally different planet doesn't change human neurological physiology all that much." Carson said cheerily. He did not, however, stop scanning at Vala's head. The sensor continued downwards, running back and forth across her torso. "Might as well finish a quick scan of the rest while we're at it. Unless you have any objections?"
Vala glanced at them but remained silent. After all the difficulties that Hermione had been having with the woman, the silence bothered her more than anything. The absence felt suspicious in a strange way.
Trying to focus her attention elsewhere, she raised her remote and disabled the emission field of the cell, leaving the suppression entirely to the halo on Vala's head now. Seeing her actions, Harry turned to face the woman, well in arm's reach to grab Carson and yank him away if something should happen.
Thankfully, the device seemed to be working smoothly. Vala did not twitch in the slightest as Carson finished his scan and smiled at her, tucking the small scanner into his pocket.
"Picture of health, love." He said softly, stepping back.
"Thank you," Vala replied, before turning back to Hermione and Harry as the closest figures to her now. "So, now what?"
"Now, you get your own apartment," Harry said, and Hermione could hear that authority he didn't even realize he used when talking as the High Councilor. "You will remain confined there for the immediate future while we confirm that the halo remains effective in all situations. Once that is confirmed, we shall have a meeting to discuss how you wish to continue beyond that."
"The halo cannot be removed except by this council," Neville added, still holding his weapon, but not at the ready. "Even if you choose to leave."
"Very well," Vala replied simply. She stood and looked around at everyone. "Shall we?"
Hermione stepped back and allowed Vala to walk past her. She was stopped at the door by her father, who gently placed a hand on her shoulder as Richard, Vala, Neville, Natalie and Sirius all beamed away to the apartment that had been prepared for their newest guest.
Carson gave her a comforting smile as he passed, heading out into the city to get back to his own things. Harry, however, walked over and took her hand, forcing Hermione to look into his eyes.
"You alright?" He asked softly.
Hermione nodded. "I don't know what it is, but something about that woman just irks me. I don't trust her."
"Neither do I. Which is why I have a pair of cloaked vulta set to follow her wherever she goes at all times. She is confined to her quarters until you tell us the halo is good for outside use. And her genetic code, which Carson just took a full scan of, is now locked out of any control device in the entire city."
Hermione looked at him oddly. She hadn't felt any of that distrust from Harry at all before now. And she could usually read him like one of her favourite books.
"Surprise?" He said cheekily. "I've been listening to her and Sirius for five days now. Did you think I wouldn't notice her oddities?"
Hermione smiled in response and pulled Harry closer, wrapping herself in his arms. "My clever boyfriend. I'm sorry."
"Nothing to be sorry about. I was concealing it. Pretty well, I thought."
"Very well, Harry. Thank you."
"For what?" He asked, pulling back and looking into her eyes.
"For being you. It's just what I need after a stressful day." Hermione leaned in and kissed him softly. "Speaking of apartments, let's go to ours. I have a long afternoon of snuggling planned."
Harry simply grinned and his hands loosened behind her so that he could trigger his remote, whisking them quickly away from the now unused cells. Hopefully, this would be the last time they needed to worry about using them.
ϟ
Sunday, 3rd December 2000.
Luna sat comfortably, legs tucked into one another in a way that Harry had still been unable to comfortably match, as the two figures beamed into the small space. She gently gestured to the floor in front of her but did not say a word.
Vala looked at her oddly, before turning away. Sirius smirked and nodded, before guiding Vala to one of the places that Luna was indicating.
"I'm not going to sit here and let her dig in my brain," Vala argued, shaking Sirius's grip loose.
"That's not why we are here," Luna said, drawing the woman's attention. "There is no information we need from you that we would have reason to do that anymore. I'm here to help you both."
"Help us with what?" Sirius asked, taking his place in one of the spots, having just as much trouble as Harry used to when trying to match her interlocked position before giving up and sitting normally.
"Your minds. As you can surely sense, I too am host to a Goa'uld symbiote. Isis." This seemed to intrigue Vala at the least. "Before Hermione and the Asgard developed my halo, I managed to suppress Isis myself. Containing her to a corner of my mind where she could not harm me. I am going to teach the both of you how to achieve this."
"Why do we need to know how to do that?" Sirius asked, gesturing for Vala to take the space next to him.
Luna smiled at the man. She knew, from when Hermione returned to Pegasus the day before, that Sirius had spent most of his time talking with Vala. Trying to get her to open up and talk to him in return. The pair had endured something that most could not fathom, and he seemed to hope that showing her a kind hand might help her trust them a little more.
Vala shook her head before she did indeed sit on the floor, though her facial expression did not improve.
"Because as powerful as the halos may be, they are not a permanent solution. They might become damaged or corrupted. Any number of things could cause them to fail. I'm sure that you would prefer that not happen before you can forcibly contain the other consciousness in your mind." Luna said as if it was the most obvious information in the world.
"I already know occlumency," Sirius noted.
"Good. You should grasp what we're doing much faster. But it is so much more than occlumency." Luna replied, indicating Vala. "And should be achievable by those without magic as well."
"What are you talking about?" Vala asked, clearly becoming frustrated with Luna's vague descriptions.
Luna just smiled. "Right now, the halos are compressing the Goa'uld minds. Squashing them down so tightly that they cannot function. While that is the case, I am going to teach you to build a prison for them inside your mind. That way, if the halo were switched off, you should be able to choose to retain control. Or allowing them to speak while you retain majority control. It will require conscious effort at first, but with practice, you will learn to do it unconsciously.
"And if you practice hard enough, you will eventually find the place where your mind and the Goa'uld mind connect. Prod it in the right way and you could learn incredible things from them. It's how I learned how to counter their natural toxin."
The two adults looked at one another, both seeming to doubt the validity of what she was telling them was actually achievable. However, Luna knew that they had both spent years trapped within their own bodies as slaves to this other mind. It made sense for them to doubt such a thing could be done.
Luna chose to push on and get started. "For the moment, we cannot fit you with minis. But, the halos do have one connection to the Aedis computer system. A training program that you can run. It will help to harden your mind against intrusion. Couple that with the techniques that I am about to teach you here, and you will soon see the benefits. So…"
She paused and shuffled in place, getting into a comfortable position to spend the next several hours.
"Find a comfortable position and we will begin."
Luna waited for several minutes as Vala and Sirius stared at her, as if waiting for her to tell them how to get comfortable. She simply waited and eventually, Sirius shifted around for a few moments before laying his hands on his legs and turning to Vala.
The elder woman rolled her eyes before getting into place as well. Luna noted that the band around the woman's head, mostly obscured by her thick hair, looked very different to her own and Sirius's and a few stray thoughts dashed across her mind about ways she might improve the aesthetics of her own halo. She filed them away to look at later as Vala stopped moving and stared at her.
"Excellent. Now, close your eyes and we will work on your breathing. Steady it enough and you can fall into yourself. It is inside that we must do our work."
Even with her eyes closed, Luna could tell the others were rolling their eyes and hear their sighs. It only fed her smile. If she could teach Harry Potter to meditate, with his need to be active and doing something constantly, she could teach these two.
ϟ
Monday, 4th December 2000.
Hermione stood over the fungus-shaped console and tried again. For the past three days, she had worked on this disgusting interface. Now that Vala and Sirius could self-manage their blending, her work in Avalon was done, and they needed to finalize their Wraith technology interface if they were to properly investigate the distant cloning facility.
But she was finding that Neville had been right. While he had been inspecting the technology in between scanning the galaxy and helping Richard examine the Asuran coding, he had found that the design was meant to be accessed mentally.
Hermione's magical workaround worked okay for doors by using her magic as a bridge that faked the mental connection. But it only reliably worked on simple commands. Open. Display. Diagnostic. Accessing deeper systems, or hoping to truly control any of the many terminals was still well beyond her at the moment.
Actually transferring large amounts of detailed information was still proving immensely troublesome. They had found several small devices in the craft that seemed to be for the purpose of holding data and moving it from place to place, but she was no closer to cracking those either, as they had no interface of their own and needed to be controlled through the ship's computer. At times like these she wished she had spent a little more of her summer holidays in the muggle world, learning these emerging computer technologies better.
Hermione sighed and wished that Padma were here. She had noticed that engraved runes in a tablet could help smooth the connection to the ship somewhat but, while she was extremely good at them, Padma was their true runes expert.
The ship clicked around her and Hermione's eyes darted around the room. She tapped on her remote and ran a detailed life signs scan on the craft, using the combined power of the city and Aurora sensors as well. The only thing that came up was herself.
She shuddered. Now that they were on the surface, the sun seemed to make the ship groan occasionally as it expanded and contracted slightly as the sunlight and cool ocean air moved over its surface. The sounds in the empty corridors always left her unsettled.
Hermione had to do her best to suppress the memory that threatened to emerge every time she was inside one of the Wraith ships.
Letting out a long slow steadying breath, she focused back on her work, leaving the hovering life signs hologram visible out of the corner of her eye. The sooner she figured out this damnable interface, the sooner she could leave.
And the sooner they could figure out just how big of a problem lay before them.