It would be an understatement to say that the Ninsirsir, a relic of more than two centuries past, would not have been equipped for modern void combat at the best of times. Converted into a pleasure barge as it was, however, it might as well have been made of paper. The glass separating the top deck from the void of the Empyrean wasn't a clever illusion of camera and hologram; it was literally just reinforced crystal.
If the ship had been aiming for it, they may well have all been killed on the spot regardless of what Lamu did, but fortunately the shots landed significantly lower, impacting something on the lower decks on the ship. So all that happened was that the pressure caused the entire deck to lurch violently to the side while the contortion of the metal framing cracked, if only slightly, the lowest point of the glass.
It was chaos. Most of the crowd - the overwhelming majority that hadn't reacted fast enough or cared to heed Lamu's warning - were sent several feet through the air and violently into the ground just by the force of the initial impact. At the center of the party, people were crushed under tables and one another, and several fell down on to the window that separated the 3rd and 4th decks. The damage to the hull wasn't sufficient to wholly expose the deck to the vacuum of space, but even a hairline breach summoned a rush of air pressure so ferocious it felt like they were at the edge of a storm. Lamu's ears popped violently and unpleasantly.
Fortunately, the barrier she'd hastily thrown up to defend the gazebo area hadn't been the only one. Nhi's security staff must have contributed too, because not only was the impact force of the quake dulled such that she only stumbled to the ground as opposed to being sent flying (Gudrun, inevitably, landing on top of her and almost smacking her in the teeth with one of her knobbly elbows), it also felt as though something slowed her descent.
Still, that only helped for initial impact. A moment later, as most of the lights on the deck abruptly shut off, the scene turned to absolute bedlam.
"Warning," a booming voice came over the intercom. "Gravity artifice failure. Secure yourself to the nearest wall or grounded object. Warning--"
Lamu's head spun as the world lost its orientation, her body drifting from Gudrun into the air - and barely managed to catch hold of one of the wooden poles suspending the outer roof of the gazebo before she began to drift in the direction of the breach. Without anything to hold things down, even the modest amount of force the pressure was exerting was enough to send every mobile object on the deck directly towards it - slowly at first, then rapidly. There was a collective scream as soil, furniture, and of course people were all torn from the ground.
Lamu tried to get her bearings even what as felt like half the ship fell directly past her in great, writhing clusters (she tried to not look at the people, she couldn't look at the people), her arms already aching. "Gudrun! Are you--"
"'m here!" The other woman cried out awkwardly, her voice strained. "I'm good, I'm--" Her speech was cut off by a guttural noise that may or may not have been the start of her throwing up.
Despite the darkness of the deck - now illuminated only by a few red-tinted emergency lights and the distant orb of the Great Lamp, currently on the underside of the Mimikos - Lamu attempted to follow the sound, and craning her neck down (?) saw that her companion had caught herself just a little lower, on part of the gazebo stairwell. Despite her state, she'd done a better job securing herself compared to Lamu, pulling her whole upper body around one of the beams.
The pressure started to fade quickly as objects (objects, she forcefully considered them in spite of the noises she was hearing, objects) began to quickly coalesce around the breach. Since there wasn't enough space to build up the momentum, it was all just forming into a massive pile that seemed to be acting as a kind of seal, the damage too slight for much to actually be compressed through.
Of course, that could hardly be considered a stable state of affairs. Despite no further cannon fire coming from the adjacent ship for some reason (though they certainly could be, at any moment now), you didn't need to be a physicist to know that once there was any sort of breach to a pressurized environment like this, its days were definitively numbered. Even now, the ship was creaking precipitously, its near-ancient metal bones pushed to their meager limits.
But there was no point in worrying about that. Gudrun accounted for, Lamu next sought her other companion. "Nhi!"
There was no response from atop the gazebo. At first, she feared the enigmatic woman might have been lost to the pile, but looking closer she could see the shimmer of a bubble around the interior, figures moving at the edge, something unaffected by the change in physics.
Her face twitched. "Gudrun!" she repeated.
"W-What?"
"Nhi's people have set up some kind of barrier, but it's blocking the sound!"
"Fuck you want me to do about it!?" She shouted back.
"We need to get her attention!"
"You're an arcanist! Just fly up!"
Lamu hesitated. "I can't reach my eris canisters without letting go!" Plus after putting the barrier up, she wasn't sure how much she even had left.
Gudrun grunted. "Then just like, pull yourself up and shimmy up, you're way closer than me!"
"I-- I'm barely holding on to this thing!"
"Use your legs! Don't you know how to move in zero G?"
Lamu did not, as a matter of fact, know how to move in zero G. Despite her in some senses storied life, this was actually only the third time she'd ever left the Mimikos (the second being for her work a few decades ago, and the first, of course, being her childhood trip to the Empyrean Bastion) and because her education had been somewhat compressed, she'd missed out on a lot of the generalist training arcanists usually underwent before committing to a specialization. She'd always assumed it'd feel similar to flying, but that wasn't the case at all. It was like she was falling in every direction at once. She was sweating, terrified.
"Ugh, fuck, fine--" Gudrun pulled herself up further. "Just focus on sticking there, okay? I'll figure something out!" She grumbled something to herself.
Lamu tried to reorient herself around the pillar, but failed. Even with the pull reduced, the way the weight of her body responded to exerting force through her hands felt alien to her, and the sense of danger was palpable. Even trying to pull up her legs left her feeling dangerously unbalanced, and even if it didn't feel like it, she knew that even if she lost her grip for a second she could easily end up in a horrible position.
So she just shut her eyes, doing as Gudrun instructed, trying not to think about it, trying to think about any of the multiple layers to which her situation was absolutely dire.
About a minute passed, her grip starting to feel perilously weak as her palms became caked in sweat, before finally she heard Nhi shout: "Lilith, can you hear me?" Her affect was still somehow relaxed; the only indication that she even understood the severity of the situation was that her speech came at a faster clip than normal.
Lamu opened her eyes, though she still couldn't see up into the gazebo. Gudrun was gone, however. "Yes!"
"Great! My boy here is gonna modify the barrier to try and pull you in, we're gonna need you closer. If we throw something down for you, d'ya think you can grab hold of it?"
"I-- C-Can't you use the Power to pull me in? Shred my resistances."
"We haven't got a good line of sight, and we're short on eris!" The woman insisted. "C'mon, Lilith. Work with me here."
She grit her teeth. "Fine!"
A few moments later, something was extended in her general direction. It wasn't rope, as she'd expected, but instead a pole that appeared to have been part of the hastily-erected podium used for the speech a minute earlier. It batted against the side of the pillar at an angle, just barely long enough to reach her.
"Grab on!" A man's voice - she could just about see the edge of his face - called out.
Lamu looked at the pole nervously. It was just barely long enough to be parallel to her hand. There was no room for error at all. Her breaths were growing very short and stiff. "I can't reach. Please, you can see me, just pull me up. With the. Power."
"Just grab on!"
He repeated.
"I. I can't. I can't reach."
"You can reach!"
She couldn't explain her behavior in the next moment if she tried. She panicked, completely disengaging from the present moment, possessed entirely by the feeling of not wanting to be in this situation at all costs. Her hands let go of the pillar, but instead of trying to grab the pole, she simply flailed wildly in the air. She realized instantly the gravity of what she'd done, and realized intellectually that she needed to get hold of her eris containers and incant on herself as fast as she could, but it was like the logical part of herself was being drowned out in a wave of static, a system overloaded by too much input. A wild sound escaped her lips that wasn't quite a scream.
She began to drift towards the breach, quickly picking up speed, and her chest wrenched in fear - but before it could either snap her out of it or send her even deeper into breakdown, a force pulled her back the way she'd came. She passed through the barrier, landing uncomfortably on the floor of the gazebo.
Inside were most of the figures she'd seen within earlier: The security staff, some members of the band, Nhi, and the announcer woman, looking terrified in the corner. Gudrun was there too, catching her breath on the floor, dazed.
But not as dazed as Lamu felt. She'd landed on her knees, and she found herself struggling to breathe, her eyes gone wide. Her body was caked in sweat.
"Easy, Lilith," Nhi said soothingly, wearing a soft smile. "Just try and calm down, alright? It's gonna be ooookaaaaay." She gestured downwards with her palms.
Despite her attitude, the general atmosphere within the gazebo was considerably less forgiving. Those who didn't look panicked and who weren't outright distracted were giving her rather sour looks.
Lamu's face flushed. Shame hit her quickly, in spite of the circumstances.
"I," she stammered. "I-I'm sorry, I..."
"It's fine, it's fine!" Nhi reassured her. She let out a chuckle. "Sorry. You've been through so much and have been such a good sport through all of this, I guess I'd started to think of you as a bit of a superheroine. Figured you'd have a knack for athletics too. But no worries-- It's only a dab of eris, right?"
One of the uniformed men, the one she'd been speaking to initially, learned towards her, his jaw set. "Ma'am, we have to--"
Nhi held up a hand. "I know, I know. I needed a minute to think about how this is all gonna go down anyway, so this is for the best." She glanced back at Lamu. "You just take a minute, Lilith. I'm gonna have a word with Davi here about the situation we're facing." She started to turn, but then stopped herself, flipping around sharply. "Oh-- One thing. We're grateful and all, but how exactly did you know that was going to happen?"
Lamu's head was still spinning. "What..?"
"The attack," Nhi clarified.
"I..." Right, yes. Logic reasserted to a degree; the situation came back to her. "Someone..." She corrected herself; there was no point in being anything less than completely forward at this stage. "Theodoros contacted me. Seth, another member of our class, is leading one of the groups of soldiers on the other ship, and he knew the attack was coming. I realized that meant the attack wasn't contained to this one, like you'd-- As you'd believed."
Nhi's expression flashed from confusion to understanding back to confusion remarkably quickly. "He contacted you? How?"
Lamu frowned at the seemingly stupid question. "By logic engine."
The woman's lips parted slightly, then closed again. "Lilith, don't you remember what happened back in the room? Logic bridge communication is being suppressed."
She blinked, then widened her eyes. "I-- What?" She stammered, but it was true, she remembered her trying.
"Can I see it? Your logic engine, I mean."
Normally, Lamu would have been very precious about such a thing, but she was too dumbfounded to resist. She withdrew it from her pocket, unlocked it with her thumb, and handed it over.
Nhi's eyes narrowed as she pressed her hand into the False Iron in turn. "...well, I'll be damned. It is working." She clicked her tongue. "Whoever cast the incantation must have made an exception for you... and for the rest of your friends, presumably. My, my."
Lamu tried to make sense of this. Why would the Silent Alliance and the Brotherhood, or even Utsushikome, do something like that? If it'd been some kind of trick intended to mislead her, it'd be one thing, but that information had just saved their lives. Did they want that, or was it some sort of side effect?
As out there as the notion had sounded, Nhi had said that her group's objective was to metaphysically trick the entity the Order had been studying by recreating the circumstances of the conclave. At a stretch, maybe they'd heard about that, and wanted the experiment to happen - but then, that would make an attack as bombastic as this illogical. It wasn't as if she couldn't have just died.
"Mind if I hold on to this for a sec, Lilith?" Nhi said, her eyes now halfway glazed over as she focused closely on the interface. "We might not be able to directly call anyone, but I've got a couple ideas I wanna try real quick."
"...fine."
"Cool," Nhi said. "Okay."
"What ship," Lamu said suddenly.
"Eh?"
"The one that attacked us," she said. "Which one was it?"
"That would be the Royal Penitence," Nhi said quickly. "It's at our starboard. The Wilusa's port."
So that means it's still possible the other one is actually on our side, Lamu thought. Not exactly a great comfort, but...
Nhi led her man over to the other side of the gazebo where the other agents were congregating, either having realized the implication of her question herself or indifferent to it. They began to speak quietly, leaving Lamu to recover in momentary solitude. Gudrun was now flat on her back.
For the first time, she had a moment to actually look at the state of the deck. More people had endured the initial strike than she'd expected, in part because of the terrain: The crack was at the very bottom of the hill, beyond the sloping gardens, which meant there were a lot of fixtures along the way. Dozens of people seemed to have attained more stable positions than she'd managed on trees, fencing, or even ornamentation, one Viraaki man lying flat on the side of a large leonid statue against the starboard slope.
But there were also other bubbles like the one she was in currently situated where lion's share of the crowd had been, the largest of which was shielding and providing some form of grounding to more than 30 people, with two - maybe three? - visibly wielding scepters. This despite there being almost no security beyond the staff immediately around her.
Still, the devastation was nevertheless tremendous. Soil was still slowly peeling away in layers from the gardens, and even with the sound cut off, she could see numerous people crying out desperately. And even without turning her attention to the pile-up, multiple inert bodies, limbs sprawled in odd positions, were floating through the air hauntingly in the half-light, and the majority of people were at least marginally injured.
Without gravity, even the most trivial of injuries were rendered catastrophically dangerous. Blood could not clot properly; without intervention, it just kept flowing and flowing. People were likely dying by the minute.
Notably, one thing that hadn't been destroyed was the shuttle. Despite being completely exposed, the attack had left it, and the airlock, conspicuously untouched.
It felt as though no time had passed at all when Nhi suddenly clapped her hands together. "Alright, everyone! Your attention, please!"
Lamu, and most of the rest of the survivors - save for the agents, who were grim expressions - looked up quickly; Lamu heard a quiet exchange where someone asked who Nhi was, then was told 'one of the organizers, I think'. Gudrun did not move.
"We need to move quickly, so I'm going to try to explain the situation in the briefest terms I can," she began. "Obviously, the enemy has taken control not only of the lower decks on board this ship, but the Royal Penitence as well."
"Who is the 'enemy'?" One of the band members, shaking, half-shouted. "What the hell is going on?!"
"There's a lot we don't know," Nhi said with soothing ambiguity, "and I know the situation is frightening, but there is some cause for hope. Firstly: It appears that this attack was not intended to harm us, only to disable the Ninsirsir's navigational and shielding systems. As best we can tell, they intentionally were trying to avoid any components that might have caused structural damage to the living quarters, and this crisis is-- Well, it's a cold comfort, but an accident."
Some people tried to ask questions or speak up in further protest, but she pushed ahead: "But that's better news than it sounds! Because there would be no reason for them to have done that if they controlled this ship already. Which means one of two things: Either there's two different groups after us at the same time which are also fighting - would be nice in a way, but maybe not so likely - or they've failed to take control of the bridge, and had to resort to desperate measures."
It seemed to Lamu that from the perspective of the audience, there ought to have been a third possibility - that the Royal Penitence had never been overrun at all, and had attacked them in a misguided and bungled attempt to neuter the capabilities of the attackers to control the ship. But since her insider knowledge went against that (discounting the possibility that Seth would withhold the truth for some other reason), she stayed silent.
"We also don't know the Royal Penitence is entirely compromised, or in a similar situation to us," Nhi continued. "What we do know, though, is that the Wilusa is definitely still under our control. We've managed to re-establish limited contact with its bridge, and they're trying to get to grips with the situation as we speak. We also know that the enemy doesn't want us dead. That's obvious in everything they've done so far." She clapped her hands, a gesture somewhat diminished in assertive power by the fact she'd just done it a few minutes earlier. "So, here's what we're going to do. Escorted by most of our remaining security," she gestured accordingly, "most of you are going to be headed into the shuttle as planned. As guests, your safety is the highest priority here, and since this whole thing seems to be a move of desperation by the attackers, we don't anticipate there's much chance they'll have it locked down. The shuttle is the safest place to be on the ship: It's faster, its armor and shielding are more modern-- It's the best place to be. There's an eris stockpile there, and even a medical unit where the injured can get some treatment."
The safest place to be? A shuttle? The Ninsirsir was obviously a piece of junk, but even then..
"It's also where we'll have the most options: To undock and escape if there's a good chance, or to lock down if they try to move up and take us all hostage," Nhi added. "Meanwhile, a smaller team is going to head down to the lower decks and an emergency communications terminal to try and get in contact with the bridge and organize a counter-assault. The ship has some automated defenses they may very well not know about. You don't need to worry about that, though-- Just follow instructions, and move inside as quick as you can. I know it's scary, but everyone's just gotta work together, okay? Okay."
There were numerous voices of protest, but Nhi said nothing more, stepping away and letting one of the security officers take over, her voice firm and instructive by contrast. She moved to speak with a couple others - different than the man from earlier, a Mekhian man and a Lluateci woman who must have been an immigrant - then quickly moved over to Gudrun, who she patted on the back and pulled to her feet.
"Alright, Lilith," she said in a soft tone, tossing her back her logic engine. "You're sticking with me."
"We're not going to the shuttle?"
"Nah," she said, shaking her head. "If the bridge is still in one piece, then things might still be moving ahead. I can't let you off the hook just yet."
Her brow flattened. "You-- You can't be serious."
Nhi smiled sympathetically. "'Dead serious. We still have a deal, here, y'know? You can't walk away from that just because there's been a bit of a spanner in the works."
Despite what had just happened a few minutes past, Lamu seriously considered the idea of trying to make a run for it. With the ongoing chaos, this could well be the best chance she had. The only problem was that she didn't know if the barrier was penetrable from the inside.
Well, and the two guards on either side of the grey-haired woman, of course. They both stared down at her with stoic indifference.
"Hey, don't look so desperate," Nhi said, picking up on her thoughts as if she already had that nightmarish device strapped to Lamu's head. "I'm doing you a favor here. Like, what do you think them leaving a window for your logic bridge to connect implies, regardless of all else?" She inclined her head. "They want something from you, Lilith. Now that the ship is stuck grounded for now, do you really think it's a good idea for me to leave you in there like a sitting duck?"
"What feels like a 'good idea' for me is to find somewhere quiet on this ship and hide until this is all over," she hissed in reply.
"Isn't hiding what got you into this mess in the first place?"
Lamu's features stiffened. "You've made it all too clear you know exactly what my situation is. You know I've never had a choice."
"I think you've had a couple."
Her gaze fell, and she let out a sharp breath through her nose, trying to stay calm.
Frustratingly, the woman was right. Going on the shuttle - some of the agents were leaving the barrier now, moving to assist the other groups - was essentially surrendering herself to fate. Going back to the logic she'd used for the shuttle plan, at least this way, she'd have more of a chance to escape if she truly needed to. Other than the shuttle, there had to be some other way out. All ships had escape pods, didn't they?
...that sort of thinking was starting to feel markedly hollow.
"Here," Nhi said. "I'll sweeten the deal." She turned to the Mekhian man. "Pedub, give her your reserve tank."
The man tensed, looking like he had extremely strong opinions against this but was equally unhappy with the prospect of voicing them. "My lady..."
"If you please." Nhi smiled.
My lady, is it?
He didn't resist further. He reached beneath his black chiton and produced a silver receptacle, which he passed wordlessly to Lamu. She took it quickly; it did, in fact, make her feel quite a bit better.
"Well then!" Nhi said eagerly. "No time like the present, eh?"
𒊹
Even with preparation and aid from the Power, traveling through the 4th deck in its current state was deeply unpleasant. Now that it wasn't all drifting in one direction, detritus of every sort was floating around randomly. On the top of the obvious stuff like tables and chairs - and, again, the occasional corpse, though fortunately they managed to avoid running directly into any of those - the dirt and assorted fluids of the environment had begun to spread out, creating a hard mist that would have made it almost impossible to breathe without a barrier.
(Something about the scene did have an eerie beauty to it, the strange part of her mind noted. In the dark.)
Controlling herself and Gudrun was difficult even like this, too. She had to keep careful control of her momentum and compensate for drag differently. A few times she almost picked up too much speed and crashed them both into the ground.
They were headed back the way they came-- Supposedly, the tunnel that they'd climbed with Nhi to get here also went all the way down to the lower decks. Lamu was sandwiched between two of the agents - the rear one carrying Nhi - so all she could do was follow their lead.
"Let's drop the incantations here," Nhi said as they approached the entrance. "It's a straight shot down, and we'll have plenty of things to hold on to going forward."
Lamu nodded reluctantly as she took hold of the first step of the ladder, pushing herself inside.
It was an unpleasant experience, though admittedly much more intolerable now that they weren't out in the open. It felt like she was both sliding downwards and crawling at the same time, and her brain couldn't decide how graceful the situation was, and so responded by simply sending repeated violent pulses of nausea to her gut. She steeled herself.
Gudrun, who sounded like she had passed through both drowsiness and invigoration into a new state of bitter fatigue, muttered: "This is fuckin' weird as shit, man."
"I know," Lamu replied softly.
"Why did she even bring me? She's got her own people now. Doesn't make any sense." She swallowed. "I feel like a dormouse in a pot."
"I-- What?"
"Y'know, like, when they fatten 'em up."
Lamu had no idea what she was talking about, but nodded in false understanding anyway. "Mm."
"If you wanna try something," she said, lowering her voice further and darkening her tone. "Just like, tap your left leg. Near the knee."
"I don't know if that would help, Gudrun."
"I'm just saying."
Lamu sighed through her nose, shutting her eyes for a moment.
"I'm sorry for what happened earlier," she told Gudrun.
"Eh?"
"When I... at the gazebo."
"Oh."
"You're doing well, in spite of everything. Even if--" Even if what? Where do I start? "Well, results are what matter. And I'm still here, so... keep it up."
Gudrun was silent for a moment, then made an ambiguous half-groan. "'s cool, I guess," she said very quietly.
The descent continued. A small blessing was that it was much less of an exertion than it had been to go up in the first place. Even though it felt like it took longer than expected to get from the entrance to the Cream Lounge to their destination, her arms barely even ached when the tunnel came to a sudden stop.
It opened out into a small chamber unlike any she'd seen in the ship so far. Starkly utilitarian and minimalist, the bronze of the walls was so tarnished it could have been mistaken for stone. Ahead was a round airlock of a design so antiquated it was partly stone, the kind of thing that was disappearing even in her youth.
Nhi whispered something to the agent next to her, then spoke up as she stepped over the seal: "Lamu, Gudrun, these two are gonna watch our rear. We'll forge ahead on our own for a bit."
"On our own?" Gudrun protested. "Lady, are you nuts?"
She chuckled. "Not about this. It's a one way trip. Only one way in or out."
Why would the ship be designed that way?
Gudrun grunted. "Aren't you worried we might start some shit?"
Nhi waved a hand dismissively. "Nah, you're not gonna do anything to me. We've got a whole rapport going now!" She glanced back at them. "Besides, where would you go if you did?"
Lamu and Gudrun glanced at one another for a moment.
"C'mon," Nhi said, as the hatch slid back with a low grind. "We're not going far. This'll only take a minute."
This was not true.