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ximilialog2023-06-17 08:29 pm
CONCLUSION: THE AI AND THE COMMANDER
All of the shards of the orb that the current Ximilia team have gathered through this memory of a station lost to time have been assembled in the North Wing. Following the bright path of light and the twinkling of every colour as it binds to each other like pieces of a puzzle slotting together, Orbers stand by their fellow teammates and know that this is it. They've found another orb and they're just that much closer to the end. The team will return to the station and this will soon make sense; it’ll feel like nothing more than a bad dream.
As the very last of the orb’s shard slots into place it suddenly becomes too difficult to see anything at all — not their friends, not the orb itself, not the station around them — the brightness of the light is almost too sharp and too painful. The crew will squeeze their eyes shut to avoid being blinded and to shield themselves from the sting of it, relying now on their other senses to fill them in on where they might be taken next.
The team might expect to find themselves back at the station as they have after every other mission, but instead what they hear around them is the rush of the station’s engines, and a familiar man’s voice shouting someone’s name through his communications device to no avail.
The sound of crackling static answers before he feels the smooth bright light of the orb beneath his fingertips. He grips it tight and feels the familiar tug of something pulling him back to the station like it always does. The whispering voices in his ears quiet to the familiar hum of the station’s engines before the bright light fades and he can open his eyes again.
This time it doesn’t feel like a victory. He feels bone-tired and heavy and grief-stricken beyond anything he’d ever felt before. It feels like surviving by the skin of his teeth. But he can’t stop now, he owes it to the rest of the crew for what they’d sacrificed … for everything they’d done. Standing on the teleportation platform as the light fades away from him, a part of Degar still expects to see Palva and T’Tama next to him while a greater part knows that their absence is the reality.
He breathes out just as someone coughs from the platform’s floor, covered in scrapes and blood, her reddish hair matted and covered in dust and debris.
Without hesitation he sinks to his knees at her side, hands shaking as he reaches out with his free hand to touch her face. Viveca’s eyes open weakly, but the fire in them when she looks for him is unchanged. She shifts to sit up but the effort is clearly costing her, struggling to speak around her coughs.
The realization of what Viveca’s plan had been when she’d communicated as much over their earpieces hits him like a punch to the gut, sucking the breath out from his chest and sinking something heavy like a stone at the pit of his stomach. When she’d told him she had a plan, he didn’t even think to question it. He implicitly trusted her to do what she had to do to stop Emerton … but he still didn’t expect this. He squeezes at the orb still in his grip and feels its tempting power beneath his fingertips, calling out to him. He lets it fuel an uncharacteristic anger in him, one that comes from sadness and grief, and more than that: the sharp, cold knife of fear … fear that he might lose everyone. That he might lose Viveca.
Viveca coughs again. This time it doesn’t sound right. It’s muffled and wet and too quiet. He needs to take her to the medbay, or he needs to bring the medical equipment here — he isn’t even sure what would be better, he isn’t thinking straight.
Degar can’t even find the voice to tell her that he can’t do that — he can’t do any of this, not without her — because it sounds so stupid and it’s an insult to her for what she’d just done to keep the orb out of their former commander’s hands.
Viveca manages the weakest of laughs and nods. With Degar’s help, Viveca leaning a great deal of her weight into him, they make their way towards the North Wing, the distance of which is only made further by the severity of Viveca’s injuries. She keeps a strong front though, and Degar knows she does it to keep him from worrying, even though his heart feels like it might shatter into pieces at any moment now. But it isn’t long before they make it towards the familiar and now too-noticeably empty room. There are no crewmates passing them by, no one to greet them as they walk in, no one playing a silly game of cards at the table, certainly no commander to remind them to get a good night’s rest. The light of the orb in the centre of the room grows brighter as they draw near, the last of the pieces so close it must sense it. Degar can feel the heaviness of it in his pocket when Viveca suddenly shifts in his grasp, her own weight sagging beneath her. She shakes her head and clutches at her side.
Degar nods, gently setting her down where she can lean against the wall, awash in the orb’s light. She offers him a weak smile meant to be reassuring, but all it does is break whatever resolve he has left. She sees it and she reaches out to touch his arm, leaving a smear of her own blood on his sleeve.
They meet eyes and for a moment, maybe for the very last time, the world seems to stop around them. It’s just the two of them now but it won’t be for long because too soon it’ll be him, alone … and then he’ll be home, just like she said, and Dweyre will be there and the Brigade will get together again, and everything will be like it should be. He leans forward to gently press his lips to her forehead, and to see her for the incredible person she is one last time. He doesn’t say anything when he straightens, and he doesn’t think he has to. Viveca swallows but she looks more at peace now than she had only mere minutes ago.
It’s almost time.
Degar pulls the last of the orbs from his pocket and gets to his feet. Each dogged step feels like concrete blocks have been strapped to his feet, and the rest of his body feels cold and empty and heavy with regret after regret after regret. He doesn’t turn back to glance over where he’d left Viveca; he won’t watch her take her last breath. He keeps his eyes on the orb itself, the way it calls out to him now, louder than ever, for that final piece. Chaos seeking completion, voices murmuring promises in his ears, voices that almost sound like his brother and Jun and Ellia…
He lifts his hand with the last of the orbs and lets it join with the others.
Colour and light fills the room, expelling every last shadow until everything is bright and featureless and still. Colour moves through and around him in waves of pink and turquoise and violet with shimmers of green and blue and gold until the North Wing ceases to look like anything more than a space caught in a void. The chorus of whispers and murmurs scattered in and amongst each other like several threads vying for Degar’s attention suddenly shift and meld into one very clear voice that takes on the voices of every person he’d ever known, every person he’d ever met, the very last tenor sounding too familiar, too much like Viveca.
He takes a breath, slow and steady, and lets it back out.
The voices quiet. Maybe they’re surprised. And then:
He thinks of the way their last mission had gone, the nightmare it had become. Losing every one of his new family feels like a fresh wound to the chest, drawing him closer and closer to some kind of desperation he’s never felt before. It isn’t fair that they’ve all died only so he can go home to some happy end they’ve all paid for. It isn’t fair that their regrets have gone on to give power to the orb. It isn’t fair and it isn’t right and taking their sacrifice for himself isn’t something Dweyre would ever do.
He thinks of Viveca now and he swallows a thick lump in his throat.
From somewhere in the light and the sound and the swirl of colour, Degar hears someone shout, with a voice that is nearly gone—
The Orb’s light seems to dim just enough to reveal the silhouette of Viveca’s injured body as she pushes herself to her knees, grunting with the pain of the effort, still clutching at her side. Her blood has stained her shirt and the floor, and yet the blazing look in her eyes is determined and unceasing; Degar knows that look, he’s seen it on so many missions in the past, had admired and loved it and been inspired by it. The two of them lock eyes just before the Orb’s light grows too bright, accepting their changes, the voices breaking apart to greedily lap at the overwhelming force from two regrets simultaneously being undone like little mouths all wanting a taste of the chaos and promise and power. Instinctively, both Degar and Viveca squeeze their eyes shut, shielding their faces from the light as it explodes from its source.
And then, like the flip of a switch, everything goes black.
Degar is pretty sure his arm is asleep. Or it might be his leg. Or maybe it’s both of his arms. When he regains consciousness, it’s to roll himself over onto his back and stare up at the station’s ceiling above him. There are dark charred scorch marks that have smeared black across the metal, and some of the screws have come loose. A part of him thinks, yeah, they’ll need to clean that up.
And then a larger part of him thinks, Seven Sisters, I’m alive.
When he twists his head to survey his surroundings, all signs of light are gone. No swirling bulbs of glowing light hover in the centre of the room. The containment tank has shattered into shards of debris; it’s actually a miracle he hadn’t been hit with any of it. And neither, he thinks, has—
Viveca.
Degar remembers her name and with it comes a flood of memories, all of them at once, and the sudden sinking weight of a changed regret shrouds over him like a too-thick shawl on a scorching day. He pulls himself up and quickly looks for Viv, only to find her body where he last remembers seeing her. She’s collapsed now and unmoving, and for a moment Degar thinks her regret change didn’t work, and she’s gone, and he really is alone, and that should be okay but it isn’t, not really, and maybe this is all just a part of his deal now, but—
He stares at Viveca’s body. She’s clearly speaking to him, but there is no movement to her body.
It’s the strangest thing, to see everything from where she is, to know what it feels like, what it smells like, what it sounds like, and to interact with none of it. But she has a new sense now, one that goes beyond the boundaries of her now unmoving body — it’s in the circuitry of the station, the hum of the teleportation platform, the buzz of the lights in the mess hall and the ventilation systems that provide this place with oxygen to breathe. She can’t breathe it anymore, she doesn’t need to, she has no lungs, but she remembers what it feels like.
She sees Degar now even without eyes and the heart she does not physically have aches for him. But they’re together on this station, and they saved every one of their crew, and that’s what counts.
When she calls his name, she realizes it’s the first word she utters as the AI of the station, and it doesn’t seem so strange because her intention to speak feels the same as it had when she had a proper body. But Degar looks for her, and he looks miserable when he does, because her body doesn’t move anymore when she doesn’t have a body. Faintly, she thinks they'll have to move it; see if it can be preserved in a state of near-death, just in case.
But that isn't important right now. Degar is. She thinks she needs to be gentler in this moment, something she’s never been very good at, but she’ll try it. Just this once. Just because this is an unusual circumstance.
Degar looks both relieved and devastated at once. She wishes she could reassure him, but she has no arms to reach for him anymore.
Viveca thinks the sensation of trying to nod without a body is one she doesn't want to repeat.
Not what she had meant, not at all — but the relief over being here at all, in any form, is stronger than the anger she feels towards the Orb.
She watches him scrub at his face and that familiar pang repeats itself again. The station will need some cleaning up. They’ll be starting from square one. They’ll need to find others to help them, a new crew maybe. They’ll do it better this time. No one will be lost. She relays as much to him; they’ll have time to sort through these new changes later.
In response, Degar exhales, and Viveca watches him pull himself together like he always does during times of stress. When someone needs a supportive hand and an uplifted spirit, she’s seen Degar take initiative. She’d seen it so many times before; it’s something she admires and loves and finds inspiration from.
The last thing the Ximilia crew hear is the sound of Degar’s voice, resolute and determined, before it fades into silence and the hum of the station as something tugs them forward once more. The rest of it feels like it always does after a mission’s end — the familiar sounds, smells, and sights greet the crew as they find their feet touching down on the teleportation platform.
Both Viveca and Degar are there, but they are exactly as the crew remembers from their own time, Viveca in her android body, and Degar beside her, looking slightly wearier but dressed in his usual standard-fare fashion. They somehow manage to look both relieved and extremely confused, which might be a sentiment some of the Orbers share.
To add to the confusion, Ivy will find the orb from the Ndiera Complex in her hand like a sudden smooth, glassy weight the colour of smoke. And she isn’t the only one in possession of an orb as Kazuma, too, finds one resting in the palm of his hand. This one shimmers in several colours at once against a backdrop of silvery chrome.
He takes them both, one in each hand, and nods gratefully in Ivy and Kazuma’s direction before looking to the rest of the team.
As they head back towards the North Wing, leaving the Orbers to their own devices once more, some might find themselves watching after the AI and the Commander in a slightly different light than before. Perhaps it’s a more complicated one. There’s time now for the team to consider their thoughts, but first — get some rest.
N O T E S
This is the end of the fourteenth mission! If your character goes back to review the mission file, they will notice that next to its name, a little check-mark in green has appeared.
This is not an official log — however, for the next couple of weeks, your characters have downtime on the station and all its locations (aside from the north wing) are available.
Players are encouraged to make their own logs for what they do during the downtime.
Should characters want to talk to Viveca or Degar, they can do so here.