My galactic geography is probably way off but fuck it no-one's paying me and I checked two maps online what more do you people want.
The ride in the lift was tense. Jarrion could tell his decision making was being questioned, silently. He could feel it coming off the others in waves. A quick glance over his shoulder only served to confirm this - they were all looking at him as though he was mad.
Well, Torian and Loghain, at least. Which was impressive for Loghain, all things considered. Jarrion decided to ignore her and focus on Torian, given he was the one who appeared the most aghast of the two.
Thale was as impassive as he always was.
"You seem agitated, Torian," Jarrion said, cheerful enough, idly considering for a moment how much Low Gothic the Commander might be able to catch.
"There are xenos onboard this ship, my Lord!" Torian hissed, having very conspicuously switched to High Gothic to do so. He hadn't understood a word the strange new human had said but he had been sharp enough to notice her complete lack of understanding at Jarrion's bungled formality.
Little slid past Torian, or at least little that he could make use of.
"I noticed, Torian," Jarrion hissed right back out of the corner of his mouth, also in High Gothic. "But we have something we're here to do so let's try and stay on-mission, yes? We can deal with the aliens later. All in good time."
"Is there a problem?" Shepard asked, looking sideways at the pair of them. Jarrion straightened up, having bent to better whisper at his stooped seneschal.
"Not at all, Commander. It is merely that, ah, that this ship is very quiet. We aren't used to it. Makes an old man like Torian a little nervous, I'm sorry to say."
True, while also being a lie.
Now that he'd mentioned it Jarrion couldn't help but notice just how deafeningly, overwhelmingly quiet the ship actually was. Other than the soft hum of the elevator as it rose he could hardly hear anything. Not the rattling of ducts, not the constant background thrum of the engine, not the creak of the plating. Nothing. It was deeply unnerving, like the ship was dead. He shivered.
Shepard, for her part, was unnerved by how her translator failed to understand a word of what had been said between the two men, much as it failed to understand what the flamboyant captain had said to her back down below when he'd done what he'd obviously thought was a very polite introduction.
It had struggled in vain to grasp something and when the two of them had been talking it had seemingly latched onto one or two semi-familiar words or sounds here or there, but the rest had been gibberish. Even now it was still trying to work it out, so far without any obvious success.
Whatever it was they'd spoken it wasn't any language she'd heard before, or that the software had heard before, either. Unusual, to the say the least. Not unheard of or impossible, but unusual.
There was a lot of unusual going around, apparently.
At least it had kind of understood the first bit that Jarrion had said, before he'd turned around and started his little whispering match with the old guy. That at least was something that kind of felt like progress.
Every little helped.
Before too long the elevator got to where it was meant to be going and, Shepard led the little group around a corner and through or two and into the conference room.
"Sit, sit anywhere," she said, gesturing to the various chairs that were sat about the place. From the way that Jarrion came in and started she got the impression he'd been expecting bigger, but he smiled effacingly in that way he did a lot and picked a chair anyway.
The chair he picked was right beside the one she herself picked. The others all sat the far end of the table and stared. Even the woman with the blindfold and the one in the robes with the hood whose face was still almost entirely hidden. They just at the end of the table, silently.
Shepard just ignored them. Jarrion seemed willing enough to talk for everyone in the room anyway.
"Commander," he said, pleasantly. "I am sure there are many questions you wish to ask of me and I of you, and I imagine we shall find time for that. I also feel that - were we to attempt to establish who or what you or I are and why we are here we would only end up with even more questions needing to be asked, and neither of us get anywhere."
This was a mouthful, but Shepard followed it and nodded.
"So we should probably cut straight to the reason why you wanted to come over here to talk."
"Yes indeed, thank you. To put it plainly, we are lost. I hate to have to ask you for a favour so soon after meeting you, but could you perhaps provide us with some local data? Or better yet, some astronavigational data of the local sector, if at all possible. Just so that we could get our bearings."
Shepard had been asked for more, this wasn't that dear. She shrugged.
"That all? Sure, I don't see why not."
Jarrion's face lit up in what was possible the most genuine expression of happiness she'd seen yet. It wasn't a great look, but it was better than his business smile.
"Wonderful! I shall speak to Pak about the details of the data transfer in a moment - but, ah, just to ease my personal curiosity would it be possible for you to perhaps tells us where we are?" He asked. Shepard raised an eyebrow, an act which did interesting things to the scars on her face.
"You really are lost, aren't you?"
Jarrion's smile got self-effacing again, and he shrugged, hands out and palms up. The guy really did have a lot of rings on, Shepard noticed.
"It's a uniquely diquesting experience," he said.
"I bet. Yeah alright, give me a sec."
She could have asked EDI to do it wasn't the hardest thing in the world so didn't really see the point. Bringing up her omnitool and giving it a few taps she got a map of the galaxy to spring into view in the centre of the table and, with another few taps, zoomed in to where they were right at that moment, or near enough.
Jarrion's eyes widened a little at this, and Shepard could have sworn that that Pak guy - guy? - made some sort of clicking sound, but it had been difficult to make out.
"Fascinating device. And ah, thank you. Where might we be at this moment?" Jarrion asked, gesturing to the map display hovering before them.
Her fingers moved again and a single point on the map was highlighted, a twinkling dot standing out amidst all the others, sitting in the midst of an area delineated by a vague boundary line.
"We are here," she said. "Hourglass Nebula, Terminus Systems. This whole area here would be the Terminus systems. I think the planet outside right now is, uh, what was it again, EDI?"
"Nephros, Commander," said a voice, presumably belonging to someone somewhere else on the ship with immediate access to that information. Shepard snapped her fingers.
"Nephros, right. That answer anything for you?"
Segmentum Obscurus. What she was talking about was Segmentum Obscurus, or at least a broadly similar area. Where they appeared to be right at that moment - according to her - wasn't that remote or far-removed. They weren't even out on the fringes. The warp should have been churning. Imperial presence should have been obvious. Segmentum Obscurus was not a notably peaceful one even by Imperial standards.
Jarrion swallowed as his mind clutched desperately for possibilities.
It was technically possible for a human to have not heard of the Imperium. He knew this. He'd been over this. Technically possible. You did indeed sometimes find such people, as a Rogue Trader. Long-lost colonies having entirely forgotten their origins, completely unaware of their Imperial obligations. These things happened. It was technically possible.
But where they were supposed to be?
Not really. Going from the unlikely to the borderline-impossible. This was not the sticks.
"C-could you - could you possibly - what is here, if you don't mind me asking?" Jarrion asked, pointing a slightly trembling finger to the point on the map where the Eye of Terror should have been. Should have been, but wasn't. In fact, Jarrion couldn't see any sign of it anywhere.
Probably just a mistake. It wasn't exactly the sort of thing you could miss. Even light years away you could see the bloody thing. It was a significant factor in navigation, even! Had Altrx not spotted it from the otherside of the galaxy Jarrion might have understood, but from where they were? Ludicrous.
Why wouldn't it be there? Had to be a mistake.
"There? Nothing. Were you expecting something?"
Jarrion swallowed.
"No just - ah - checking. And Terra? Where is Terra? Here, yes?" He asked, pointing. Again, Shepard gave him the same odd look. Delicately, she reached out, took him by the wrist, and moved his finger so it was pointing quite a far way across the map and down.
"No, here."
"Ah, m-my mistake, of course. Our maps must be rotated incorrectly. A simple misunderstanding."
He'd expected something like this, but nowhere near as confounding as it was turning out. He'd hoped to have found some nugget, some kernel of information he recognised that he could immediately operate off of, but everything was upside down and back to front. It did not feel comfortable.
Jarrion licked his lips and swallowed again, though his throat was uncomfortably dry. A nagging suspicion tugged at his hindbrain and before he'd even fully considered the absurdity it suggested he found himself asking:
"Ah, Commander, just to further satisfy my curiosity you wouldn't mind telling me what year it is, would you?"
Shepard blinked.
"The year? Twenty-one fifty-eight," she said.
Jarrion jolted. That couldn't be right.
Sure, yes, he'd been prepared for something unusual. Some difference in positioning, yes, that would be fine, that would be expected. Some difference in time? It would be unfortunate, but he was sure he could rise above it. As he'd already said to Loghain it was a possibility, it had been recorded happening before.
What the Commander had said though just couldn't be right. Couldn't be!
"A local calendar, presumably," he said, evenly, casually, settling on this as the most reasonable explanation. It did happen with fair regularity, after all, just rarely with so low a number. Shepard shook her head.
"No, that's the year it is back on Earth. We're working off of that calendar."
Another, bigger jolt. Jarrion stared into space.
He was out of ideas at this point. At this point he mostly just wanted a lie down in a dark room with a glass of amasec. He somehow doubted he'd get the opportunity anytime soon.
"Something wrong?" Shepard asked as the silence drew on, reminding Jarrion that he had just been stood stock-still looking at nothing since she'd spoken last. He jerked upright and smiled, though the smile was getting very threadbare and strained.
"Could I - would you mind if I took a moment to discuss matters with my crew?" He asked. Shepard wordlessly indicated one of the empty seats further along the table and the Rogue Trader rose briefly only to slump again next to the others, his elbows on the conference table and his head in his hands.
"What is she saying? Where are we?" Torian asked, leaning in and whispering, making sure to stick to High Gothic with a wary glance Shepard's way. The Commander had her arms folded and was watching silently.
"Nevermind where! When! When! She's claiming we're in the year twenty-one fifty-eight! Says that's the year on Terra right at this very moment! Two one five eight! The third millennium!" Jarrion hissed through his fingers. Torian's eyes widened.
"She's lying! She has to be!"
"She's not," Loghain said, butting in.
"How would you know?" Jarrion snapped back, the tension of the situation finally cutting into his good humour. Loghain did not appear to notice. Or care. She just pointed to her eyes or, rather, her lack of them.
"I haven't been avoiding bumping into things by guesswork. I actually am a psyker, in case you hadn't worked that out yet. She's not lying."
Jarrion faltered, but hid it well. In all the excitement he had actually forgotten about that particular detail. Suddenly he was slightly worried about what might be on his mind without him realising it.
"What is she thinking, then?" He asked.
"I'm only reading the surface. I won't push for deeper right now. She's being entirely honest with us. She's skeptical about us and wary of our origins and motives but she's not lying at all."
"But that's impossible! She must be misinformed!" Torian hissed.
Loghain shook her head.
"Travel through time on account of the Warp is not unknown," she said, evenly.
Jarrion laid his hands down on the table. That she'd said it so evenly was really what got under skin. As though this was in any way a reasonable turn of events.
"I know that, we went over that. Ships arriving before they leave, ships taking decades to show up but only feeling as though they've been in transit for weeks. We've all heard about that. But I've never heard of anything like this. M3! That's - that's ancient history! That's before the Age of Strife! Before the Great Crusade! Before - everything!" He said.
Thale - who did not speak High Gothic anywhere near fluency - sat through all of this with the blissfully resigned look of a man who had long-ago found his place in life one where he would rarely have any idea what was going on and who had settled comfortably into this.
Likewise, while Shepard's translation software - with some fresh assistance from EDI - was still doing its job of trying to get a handle on what the strangers were saying, so far all she was getting was snatches and nothing near enough for her to actually know what they were talking about. Eventually it'd probably start working, but for now she was still getting nothing.
"Are they okay?" Shepard asked Thale, for want of anything else to do. Since he was sat on closest to her and wasn't involved he seemed the best person to ask..
Thale did not know what she'd said, because he couldn't decipher her mangled, bizarre-sounding Low Gothic. He smiled anyway and shrugged. In most situations this worked pretty well for Thale.
Sandbagged and denied a proper answer, Shepard moved her attention onto Pak, hoping that maybe they might have more to say.
"Do they do this often?" She asked. Pak turned their cowled head in Shepard's direction and the Commander got their first, proper look at the Magos' face. She flinched.
"Holy crap, I thought I got it bad. You get spaced too?"
Pak remained silent. They did not know what the Commander was saying either, though they had a better idea than Thale had. They just didn't really care what she had to say. Pak did, however, care a little more about the rather interesting device she's used to conjure up the map and the equally-interesting signals they could detect passing from the ship itself to the equipment on her person.
Signals linked somehow to that voice from above that had spoken not long ago. Intriguing stuff, Pak felt. Almost enough to justify the tedium of having to be on board the Assertive for its unedifying round-trip of largely explored planets in the first place. Assuming something of value came of this unexpected side excursion, of course.
But that could wait, Pak knew. All was as the Omnissiah willed.
And if it looked like it might not be all as the Omnissiah willed, well, that was why Pak was there.
Shepard sighed. So much for making conversation.
"This is going great," she said, rubbing her face.
Not too far away, just down the length of the table, Jarrion was also struggling.
"At least it's not another universe," he said, trying to grasp something reassuring, as a drowning man might grasp wreckage.
"Well, we don't know that for sure. Perhaps it's the past in another universe?" Loghain suggested. Jarrion narrowed his eyes at her.
"You really won't let this go, will you?"
"I just don't see the harm in being open to all possibilities," she said, with every appearance of being reasonable. Which she wasn't. She was verging towards the deranged, plainly.
"This is not a good possibility! This is a possibility that would see us entirely cut off! Not even cut off! Being cut off would imply that what you're cut off from is somewhere else - what we're cut off from doesn't exist, assuming your 'possibility' is correct! The Imperium hasn't even come into being yet!"
"The Imperium is eternal," Loghain pointed out, to which Torian - only nominally present in the conversation at this point - nodded enthusiastically.
"It - " Jarrion started, stopping to take a breath and calm his nerves. Now was not the time for a theological discussion or any other derailment. When he started again he sounded a lot more settled:
"I am as Emperor-fearing as the next man - more so, I'd go so far as to say, being a captain of a ship and so therefore directly responsible for countless thousands of His servants! - and while I thank Him for His guidance and protection with my every word and deed I am also painfully aware that neither of those things will fuel my ship, replace my crew or restock my provisions! I can't serve the Emperor with a lifeless husk of a ship in a galaxy that doesn't even have the Imperium in it!"
"Maybe you're not trying hard enough," Loghain said. Jarrion just gaped at her for a moment before finally noticing the difficulty she was having keeping a straight face.
"You - you - you're having me on. Damn you, Loghain, this isn't the time for that!"
"Just thought I'd lighten the mood."
"Are you sure you're an Inquisitor?" He asked, eyes narrowed.
She pulled out her rosette again and frowned down at it briefly.
"Fairly sure," she said.
"You doing alright there?" Shepard asked and Jarrion jolted, wheeling around in his seat. He'd quite forgotten she was there at all. Very poor form, but things were a little bit unusual.
"Ah, yes. Apologies. We are rather - ah - rather more lost than we initially thought, is all. All in uproar! But we'll figure something out, I'm sure. About the transfer of that data - "
Jarrion briefly twisted in his seat and had very short conversation with Pak. Or rather, spoke at Pak who nodded once or twice. Once whatever this accomplished was accomplished he turned to Shepard again and continued:
"I did notice rather a discrepancy in the systems of our ships? So I brought a dataslate. A rather more direct method of transfer if you could possibly put the information on it."
Jarrion dug around inside his coat and pulled out said dataslate, laying it on the conference table and sliding it towards Shepard, who looked at it as though he'd just slid a raw cod across the table at her. This bewilderment Jarrion picked up on, and he got a touch sheepish.
"Or whatever methods works best for you? Pak is ready to assist, as I said," he said, gesturing to Pak who did not move a muscle.
Shepard gave Pak a glance and then picked up the dataslate and turned it over in her hands, eyebrow raised. She had the look of someone handling something familiar enough to be distressingly unfamiliar. Once she'd confirmed that she wasn't entirely sure how to make the thing work she looked back up to Jarrion again.
"We'll work something out."