Song of the Void

"Combat on a space ship or a station can be a tricky thing, especially between Deities. Even the slightest miscalculation on the part of the combatants can leave a gaping hole straight into open space, and then everyone involved is in trouble. That's why most Deities try to keep their fights outside the confines of such close quarters and use something like mechs in battle. That's not to say fights between psions or indeed even between Deities can't happen in closed spaces. Some psions specialize in close quarters combat, and some even work as assassins. It just requires restraint and careful application of power."

- High Ambassador of the Mrrroww

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”See, it was a good choice. They didn’t even ask us any questions and just let us through.” Selendil stated a little smugly as they walked out of the dock area. The few people they ran into all stopped to stare as the three passed.

"No. No, it wasn't." Huang replied firmly. "Or I should say, it would not be if the plan is to not draw attention to us. You’re an attention magnet at the moment. You’re the very epitome of eye-grabbing at the moment. How did you even come up with this appearance?”

“Nox intercepted communications between ships and collated the most appealing female people in those communiques. Then she determined what were the most attractive traits according to the Cybrans, and then enhanced those traits a bit.” Selendil replied.

"You do realize that the people most often seen in those communiques are celebrities and members of media," Huang whispered the next part. "And porn actors. Those are always popular." Then he continued with a stronger voice. "Most of them have been chosen to their position because they are attractive. If you go up from that…well you catch my point I'm sure. Also, I don't believe this ‘a bit' thing about your enhancements. You clearly amped things up to eleven.”

“Come now, surely you don’t choose all your most popular people based purely on appearance. Even if the most popular topic is entertainment, there are other merits such as musical ability and skill. Besides, some of those communications were official. Surely you don’t pick your officials and officers based on looks?” Selendil argued rather sensibly.

“You have a point, but you’re missing something. We’re the Cybrans. It’s common to change our appearance with cybernetics. Facial reconstruction is not all that uncommon albeit experts in the field are expensive. And while a skilled musician can be popular, a skilled musician that's also hot will be much more so. The same applies to officials to a certain extent, though to a lesser degree as they aim more for charismatic. Even if the officers don’t need to look good, they also get access to the best cybernetics, and if an officer gets the opportunity for some improvements…well, why not improve appearance as well? It doesn't hurt to be more attractive." Huang explained. In fact, the Cybrans were a slightly appearance-obsessed culture because they could do so much to change their own appearance. Even if their faces were not fully prosthetic, they usually applied some modification and nanites to enhance things.

“Well if everyone is so obsessed with being attractive, then my little decision might turn out useful. Besides, if you Cybrans like changing your looks anyway, then I might be inspiring some copycats in the near future. It’s not like it’s a viable idea to change at this point since I’ve been seen by so many people.” Selendil changed tacks a bit. She had to admit Huang had a point even if they didn’t agree on the conclusion.

“That’s…not entirely wrong but you’re missing certain nuances here. First of all, if you don’t mind attracting attention, then by all means, do as you like. Your current appearance could be useful, I admit. But we will be the center of attention wherever we go, so be prepared. Secondly, there won’t be copycats. It’s partially a matter of principle, but just plain copying something like this is frowned upon in the Cybran society. It has to do with the fact that we’re all improving our own enhancements. If you come up with a new type of enhancement that’s really effective, then others can’t just steal the idea, not unless you specifically allow them. Or you’re in the army and your idea has military consequences. You might spark certain trends, but your current appearance will not just be copied by others.” Huang explained.

“Not that they could.” Moonshadow interjected. “I don’t quite understand what the fuss is about, but something that holds true no matter the species is that there's more to one's appearance than the physical characteristics. The air around you, your aura so to say, as well as your bearing, have a large impact. Even if one copied your looks, they wouldn't have the same impact without the air of power, grace, and the almost absurd level of self-confidence you seem to radiate.”

Huang pointed to Moonshadow with a nod, though he spoiled the good impression with his next words. “The cat’s right. Though there is something they can do that I didn’t get to yet. Even if they can’t copy what you have, they can take what’s yours by force. Or at least try to. The theory among some Cybrans is that taking the new enhancement is fine as long as it’s the original, no matter how the original was acquired. So there will be certain parties that think your appearance is based on enhancements and they will try to steal them by force if given the opportunity. So I would advise against wandering dark side streets.”

Selendil burst out in laughter. Now that she actually had a human appearance, reading her expressions was much easier and the disdain and amusement were obvious on her face. "Oh, I do so hope they'll try."

Huang cleared his throat, remembering the earlier talks about Selendil’s strength. “Yes, well, I think you’ll be fine generally, but they might try something underhanded. So just be careful.”

"Your warning has been noted. Now, where are we going? If everybody's going to keep staring at me, we might want to avoid wandering around just for the fun of it." Selendil was rather confident in dealing with any opponents, though she wasn't going to fall into the trap of underestimating the danger. It was just a simple fact that even if the entire Cybran fleet around the city ship decided to suddenly turn their guns against them, Selendil would come out alive and well. As an energy being, she wasn't susceptible to poisons or most traps either. She wasn’t invulnerable, but it required some really specific methods to hurt her.

“We’re going for a hotel located closer to the center of the city. It’s one of the well-to-do areas of this city ship. My friend can slum it when she has to, but she prefers nicer surroundings. We’ll get rooms in case we have to wait, and then we’ll do just that, wait. She’ll show up when she so chooses. Sometimes she likes to keep me waiting on pure principle. It’s not a slight against you as she has no idea who is waiting with me, so I’d like you to keep that in mind before you take her head off out of impatience.” Huang explained.

“I certainly don’t mind proper accommodations, though your friend better not keep us waiting for too long. My patience is not without limit, and the amount of leeway I’m willing to grant her is inversely proportional to how annoyed I am with her when we do meet.” Selendil stated with a stern voice.

As it turned out, the wait would last for two full days, but luckily for Huang, the surroundings managed to provide some distractions to placate Selendil. The hotel had a large food court and provided several forms of entertainment. As Selendil had very little experience of the entertainment of the current galaxy, even simple song performances and night clubs drew her interest. Incidentally, while she herself had fairly little artistic talent, great artists were the most common type of person she had been asked to store as her role as a Keeper. The one artistic talent she did have was for singing, having spent most of her life taking part in the Great Song, but even then she was only able to perform, not create.

------

“So, is the city ship still standing?” Amaterasu asked playfully. She had formed a tenuous cooperative relationship with Moonshadow, as the two realized they might benefit from working together like that. As the two most intelligent and powerful beings on the ship aside from Selendil, it seemed likely that they would be the ones that had to make things happen and keep the order when the situation called for it.

“Miraculously, yes.” Moonshadow replied. Nox had connected them through the communication systems on the ship. “Though she did cause quite a stir right upon arrival.”

Amaterasu laughed. “That’s hardly unexpected, though I wonder what she did this time. She can be careful when she chooses to be. I thought this would be one of those times.”

“Yeah, apparently she did make an effort though she lacks some restraint where needed. She tried to appear as a human and…well, see for yourself. I think you’re better for judging such things.” Moonshadow sent an image of Selendil’s Cybran disguise.

“Oh dear. That’s quite something.” Amaterasu stated a little out of breath herself. Although the beauty ideals of Cybrans and Illum were slightly different, they were still both largely human and those ideals were not too far apart.

“Yeah, that’s about the general reaction here. Apparently it’s even more impressive in person. It didn’t help that we’ve been stuck here for two days already, and she got bored. Note to everyone now part of the crew: bored Selendil is not a good thing unless we're specifically looking for trouble.” Moonshadow stated with a deep sigh.

“What happened?” Amaterasu asked while rubbing her temple.

"Well, after eating her way through most of the restaurants and the food court here, she was pulled along to observe the musical performances of local Cybran artists. Apparently the show managers were so impressed by her appearance that they asked her to take part. For some strange reason, she decided to agree. Before the performance, she mentioned to me that she planned on singing a few Dhar songs that had been popular before things went bad. Just for the record, it seems the Dhar put quite a lot of emotion into their performances and her performance carried that emotion to every corner of the station. The songs were something created just before the fall of their race and contained a lot of melancholy and fatalism. The whole station was sobbing by the time she was done. I wouldn’t be surprised if some were considering just surrendering to death." Moonshadow shook herself a bit as she remembered how she had been affected as well. The deep waves of emotions that had rolled over her were still not completely gone.

“I’m guessing that’s not the whole story.” Amaterasu pointed out the obvious.

“That would be a fair assessment. Just the live song would have been bad enough, but the song was recorded and according to what I've seen it's been playing on all channels all around Cybran space. The surroundings of the hotel are surrounded by adoring fans and people that have business propositions ranging from really shady to perfectly legitimate. I'd say she's something of a star at the moment and two new city ships have arrived since then. And that was from a single random song. Selendil muttered something about how they don’t know real music if they haven’t heard something called the Great Song. I dread to think what effect that would have on people. Anyway, some people tried to break into the hotel and the remains of those people are still strewn all across the city. The authorities might have gotten involved if not for the fact that they don’t want to suffer the same fate. I’m pretty sure they’re just waiting for some Deities to arrive as backup.” Moonshadow wasn’t sure if she should be worried or amused by the whole situation.

“Sounds like you’re having fun.” Amaterasu was definitely leaning towards amused. She was right too. Moonshadow was having a surprisingly entertaining time. The whole thing might have caused her grey fur, if not for the fact that she consciously decided to not worry and just stay out of it.

“Any word of our contact?” Amaterasu continued.

“Luckily yes. Huang got word today. The contact will arrive this evening. We already have a private conference area booked. How about things on the ship?” Moonshadow changed the subject.

“All peaceful here. It’s interesting to watch as the ship slowly repairs itself. It’s hard to remember we’re running just on auxiliary power, as I’m pretty sure the readings I saw indicated numbers well beyond a dozen dreadnoughts. Nochehuatl is going wild with all the new things around him. I finally figured out how to operate the engines and sub-light drives. I could theoretically fly the ship now if Nox allowed me to, although I’d have the grace of a drunken spice merchant in an asteroid field. The ship really is fully operated by mental commands. I think once we get the knack of it, we can operate most systems.” Amaterasu explained.

“Excellent. It’s nice if we won’t have to route all commands through Nox, even if the AI is faster than anything I’ve seen before.” Moonshadow smiled at the good news.

“Yes, well, the downside is exactly what we feared. Non-psionics won’t be able to use any of the equipment that belonged to the ship originally. We'll have to build interfaces for them from scratch." Amaterasu dampened that smile immediately.

“Or we could just go with an almost fully psionic crew.” Moonshadow countered. “I mean at this point the secrecy point is becoming moot, so we might as well get the best people.”

"We'll have to run that by Nox and Selendil, but I don't think it will be that simple. It seems to me that it's not enough to just have slight psionic talent. You need either enough skill and control or enough power to operate…well everything, and I don’t think we can get a crew full of high ranking psions as those work for the military almost exclusively. I mean, I could get more people from Illum, but I doubt the rest of you would be happy with that.” Amaterasu pointed out.

“That’s certainly true. We have a bit of a balance of power forming at the moment, but just the handmaidens you have already brought along are tilting things a bit too much in your favor.” Moonshadow didn’t bother hiding her thoughts since they were both aware of the realities of the situation. With this many races, there would be factions forming, and racial lines seemed like the most obvious way for things to go.

“Well, we can figure that part out once you come back. Good luck with the meeting, and try to keep things civil. As much as Illum is at war with the Cybrans at the moment, I wouldn’t want six of their city ships wiped out just because she got mad.” Amaterasu closed the connection with a small grin.

-----

As the trio was waiting for Huang’s contact to arrive in the conference area they had reserved, Moonshadow was the first to react when she sensed something awry. She was a specialist when it came to sensory abilities, so it was understandable that she would notice. “We have a problem. Several cloaked people have entered the area. They are all armed and armored. I’m counting at least three dozen.”

Selendil had of course noticed them a while ago, but to her it wasn’t a problem. “I’m aware. They have pretty good personal cloaking technology. I haven’t seen anything at this level since I went into stasis.”

Huang looked extremely worried. “We Cybrans specialize in such things. It also helps when most of your body is enhanced in some way. Are we in trouble?”

“Well, that depends on how you define trouble.” Moonshadow replied, now observing the people more closely. “These people move in a professional manner and seem to be part of what you would classify as special forces, but they’re not showing overt hostility and they seem to be securing the area instead of trying to attack us.”

“They’re also not even close enough to be a real danger as they don’t seem to have any psionic talent or equipment designed to fight psions. Moonshadow here could handle them easily.” Selendil pointed out as she saw more detail than the Mrrroww High Ambassador. “Well, except one of them that is coming straight towards us.”

“That one is psionic or I couldn’t handle them?” Moonshadow asked a little intrigued.

"The first one for sure, but I'm not sure on the latter one," Selendil replied with a smile as the door to the room opened.

Huang stood up with a smile as a very attractive red-haired woman in a non-descript overcoat entered the room. “Xiaoli!” He greeted with obvious joy.

The woman, on the other hand, didn't pay any attention to him and locked eyes with Selendil, when suddenly both gave a small grin. The red-haired woman's hand seemed to blur and several tiny objects flew directly towards Selendil. Selendil plucked the projectiles from the air almost leisurely, holding three small needles between her fingers and floated upwards to a standing position. The air seemed to ignite between the two as waves of power from both people clashed and pushed against one another. The red-haired woman was clearly losing, though Selendil was giving her the courtesy of not crushing her completely.

“Xiaoli, Selendil, stop!” Huang yelled with a worried tone. He was more worried for Xiaoli as he knew Selendil was powerful but knew nothing of Xiaoli’s strength. He had never seen any hints that she was anything other than a standard operative, although he had seen certain people be very respectful towards her.

“Be quiet Huang.” The red-haired woman stated firmly. “This doesn’t concern you.” Unseen to the others, hundreds of tiny threads of psionic energy flashed from her towards Selendil and were crushed by Selendil’s equal number of even tinier threads.

“Huang, don’t interfere. You’ll do more harm than good. They are taking a measure of each other." Moonshadow commented. She had seen similar things before when warriors met. Usually, there would be a friendly competition to measure the strength of the other person, though she had rarely seen the same happen between psions before. How the Cybran woman managed to put up any resistance was a mystery as Moonshadow barely even felt any psionic energy from her.

“This is the first time I’ve been bested so handily, and no Cybran has ever come even close.” The red-haired woman declared, finally backing down a bit. “I suspect I didn’t get bested by a Cybran this time either. One of the Illum?”

"That shall remain a mystery for now," Selendil replied with a smile. Although the other party had not been enough to really challenge her, it had been refreshing nonetheless. The woman had a nature very much like a Dhar warrior would. "You show promise for one so young and weak. Your technique isn't bad. With proper training, you could go far."

The woman’s eye twitched a bit at the words young and weak, but she had to admit to the weak part was true, at least in comparison. “You don’t look all that old either.” She shot back.

“Looks can be deceiving. No matter. That’s not why we are here.”

“To the point, I see.” She finally turned to Huang. “So tell me. What brings you here, and what’s important enough to bring a dangerous individual like her to our city ships?”

Huang pulled out one of the items that contained traces of void energy. “We need to know where you got this. This is important Xiaoli, more important than you can imagine.”

The woman gave another smile, though one of sympathy this time. “Well, I can imagine a lot, but you have rotten luck. That item came from one of the worlds we snagged from the Tetrarchy ten years ago as they were too busy with the Illum. As you know, we aren’t big on holding planets we don’t need. Once we got the resources from that world that we wanted, we withdrew and the Tetrarchy took the place back without resistance from us. The place seems to have become a rather decent sized staging area for their fleets since then. Why do you want to find the place out so bad?”

"That…would be a long story," Huang stated.

“Try me.” The woman prodded him.

Huang looked towards Moonshadow, who with a sigh stepped forward, already thinking of what to tell and what to lie about. Improvised lies were important to a diplomat, so she wasn’t stranger to such things.