Voices from Heaven (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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driftfleet2019-07-07 08:23 pm
thespaceopera) wrote in driftfleet2019-07-07 08:23 pm
Entry tags:
Once More, with Feeling...
[It comes at some point in the mid-afternoon, not that space is anything but timeless. The Fleet holds its collective breath as a lone figure works tireless at the controls, surrounded by as much machinery as could be feasibly cobbled together in the span of a few short weeks… But Zhade is here and working hard, and at last he finds an opening.
Communicators and consoles light up everywhere, broadcasting his voice and half-shrouded face in a broad echo. There's nothing to lose, and no reason to hide themselves any longer.]
This is Zhade! Prepare yourselves-- the shields are about to come down! You'll need to hit it with everything you have. Spells, cannons, everything, all of it. Don't you dare hold back, not after the heroics you've shown us time and time again!
[He wipes some sweat from his scarred brow and hits a button, broadcasting instead an image of the Marsiva. The space around it crackles and sparks visibly, lightning rippling over the barrier in a honeycomb fashion. This is the same view as from any of the Fleet's windows. The audio picks up the sound of things sparking and crackling around Zhade, but this doesn't slow him at all.
Instead, he roars a simple command:]
FIRE—!
[The shields are down, and all is laid bare.
What happens next is up to the combined strength of the Fleet, whether they are firing upon the ship to maintain a distraction or boarding the ship themselves.]
[ooc: Please see the latest drift post for information on toplevels, threading, etc. and what to expect.]
no subject
[The questions are a mile a minute inside his mind, but he does seem to relax a bit when it seems his connection helps. He'll continue reaching out to it, though he won't be as effective as Wanda, for sure.
In the meantime, he's also analyzing the information from the monitors.]
It may be able to help us, if we can neutralize the pain. If you're comfortable looking through the software, I'll examine the hardware as well. [Whatever's going on here, routine maintenance is not being performed. They might need some tools to fix whatever's wrong--because it has to be something gone wrong, doesn't it? Nobody would design something this way. Surely.]
no subject
[Wanda cautiously approaches the enclosure and lightly lays a hand on it, unable to shake the parallels to the first time she'd touched Vision's mind. Only this time, she wasn't manipulated to this point.
She doesn't need to get any closer, but in the absence of any other way to help...
Last time, words hadn't been as effective, so first Wanda tries to project comforting emotions and memories of the song on Naviadna. But there's no getting around needing to ask a question: where does it hurt?
If nothing else, maybe she can try to insulate it from the pain until Vision and the Monarch can find something else.]
no subject
[ A few more clicks, some typing... And then, she just looks angry. ] Wow. They wrote a program to basically electrocute this thing if it so much as thinks about anything it's not supposed to. So that's what happened - we came in here, it reached out to us, it got zapped. [ She looks over at Vision. ] I'm gonna shut off that protocol, but that's just gonna be a temporary fix until the next time it does something the ship doesn't like. There's got to be a more permanent solution -- maybe we break whatever's actually doing the damage?
[ Wanda's calming projection helps, and the shaking of the room seems to lessen - though the wires are still dangerously crackling and the core's cry of pain still lingers, albeit lower. It's not alone. It understands that now. And that helps it endure until this can be fixed for good. And when Wanda shares memories of Naviadna's song, it answers with excitement - muted a little by sheer exhaustion, but still, it's happy. Sister! it sends to Wanda, and then again, Hope!
The question, though, "where does it hurt?" Everywhere. It knows no other words for how to answer... but it does its best with what it can work with. Wanda will feel twinges of fear and hunger, and with it comes the mental image of a swirling sphere made of shimmers of darkness and color... Then it shows her a crackling bolt of lightning, and the snapping of a wire.
Then the projected emotion shifts to urgency, and almost emphatically, it shows her another image: a series of levers, surrounded by dangerously active and exposed wires. There are three of them - two positioned up, one down. Must be somewhere in this room... ]
no subject
She wants to get angry, but instead it's coming out as a fierce protectiveness. She'd known that mind she'd touched couldn't be bad...and Wanda of all people can empathize with being used for your powers.]
I think...I think we can turn it off. Vision, you need to find a panel with three levers. There's a lot of damage around it.
no subject
I understand.
[He scans the room to locate the levers. It takes him a minute, but he does - and stays a few feet away. Electricity is one of the few things that can hurt him.]
This may be it - I have a panel with three levers. Do you have a three-variable binary control system? [He calls out the current orientation of which are up and which are down to Dr Mrs The Monarch.]
There are exposed wires. It may not be safe to move them by hand - Wanda, your powers should be able to do it, however. I can also cut any of the wires if necessary.
no subject
I think we just need to--
[She wiggles her fingers and flips the levers to match what the core showed her.]
--like that.
[And hopefully it will help.]
( SORRY this week killed me )
It's a backup kill-switch, so it's manual only. It should--
[ Yyyep, there it goes! All power in the room shuts down, and the familiar sound of massive amounts of electricity suddenly going dark echoes heavily against the walls. All of the live wires stop, and only two of the computer monitors remain lit at all: the one Monarch is using, and another on the other side of the room.
The pain is gone, replaced with a wave of relief that everyone can feel. There's a moment's hesitation, and then it tentatively begins to sing a song... And when there's no sign of electrical punishment, the song grows and grows!! Hope! Thank you! ]
[ But Monarch walks over to the glass, gently raps her knuckles against it, looking thoughtful. ]
Okay, but all we did was turn off the power. It's still in there.
[ And suddenly, the light is mentally tugging at Vision and Wanda, guiding them to look at the other monitor. If they do, they'll see the name Marsiva along with what looks very much like biometrics - alien ones, sure, with values that seem exponentially off of any charts on a humanoid scale. The very last lines read:
"Ready for inhabitable planet formation?: NO
Reason: TOO YOUNG"
And the light finds a few more words to share with everyone - Travel. Until time to grow. ]
you and me both
Without the false controls overlaid, this is what it is meant to do. It travels the stars until it becomes a planet, or finds one and makes it habitable. That was the original purpose of the Atroma, until it became corrupted.
[He splays his fingers against the glass and sends back a matching expression of gratitude and joy, albeit in the digital form he can use and not as pure emotion like Wanda can.]
I've never felt a living being with that much power. All it wants is the freedom to grow.
[And he nods, turning back to the other two.]
If we can permanently disconnect what was shocking it, we may be able to ask it to help us return home. It can interface with the computers, after a fashion.