Song of the Void

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Selendil was lost in thought as she observed the Mrrroww Deities go through their exercises. Haven had informed her of the events in the galaxy the Mrrroww came from, and something about the whole thing made her suspicious. There wasn’t anything odd in a new threat appearing in unexplored areas of the galaxy. The Mrrroww were the most advanced race of that galaxy, that she was aware of, and even they had only spotty information at best when it came to large swathes of the galaxy. Some rival empire appearing in that unexplored area wasn’t the least bit strange. In fact, it would’ve been more odd if no threats from that direction materialized.

That’s why she had decided against looking into it more deeply for now. If there was more to it, then she could always change that decision. The odds were however, that it was just a standard rival race or a group of races making the first forays towards a larger war. If it was just that, then it would be better to allow the younger races to deal with the problem themselves. They would not be able to develop without adversity, and her babying over them would deprive them of the opportunity.

However, there was one problem that was nagging at her. The timing of these events was a little too convenient. It wasn’t all that long since Selendil had woken up in that galaxy and made several waves with her presence. She hadn’t actually done much to hide her identity either. She had also recently left that galaxy. She returned on occasion, but those visits were less obvious than her earlier actions. It could be just a coincidence that these attackers arrived at such a convenient timing, but it could also be because of her. It could very well be that these strange attackers had appeared as a response to her presence or even her sudden return to absence. However, that raised another question. Why?

It could be that they had simply recognized her ship and wanted a piece of what that represented. That was the most obvious explanation, and the most likely one. Selendil somewhat wished that to be the case, just because that would be easy to deal with. The second possibility was that these attackers had something to do with the old servant races of the Dhar. Why they had stayed quiet for so long instead of taking over that galaxy was an open question, as was the reason they would be interested in her and her ship. They could be out for revenge of some sort. Or they could simply be trying to confirm rumors about their old masters. Either way, that would be much more complicated to deal with.

The third option, and the one she least wanted to be the case, was that they had something to do with the void beings. Selendil had killed the Void Wraith that had infiltrated the Tetrarchy. She had seen very little that would suggest the presence of another void being in the same galaxy, but she couldn’t completely eliminate that possibility either. On the other hand, if this second void being had been on the loose longer than the one she had killed, then it could’ve made some preparations against someone like her. That galaxy had little to no capacity to open the door that the void beings would want to open without some serious development and support from someone skilled in science, so that would explain the lack of movements in that direction. In any case, if she got even a hint of a void being, then she would need to act quickly.

Suddenly she felt a familiar disturbance in the psionic energies of the room. As she paid more attention, she noticed the female Mrrroww Kurnau forming another achievement ring or halo as they called it. Large amounts of psionic energy was spinning around her and coalescing in the form of the halo. “Well done. You reached a sufficient level of mastery with the shield to form another ring.” Selendil commended.

"Thank you," Kurnau replied rather sedately. The Mrrroww had grown much calmer in the last few weeks, and that calm had positive effects on her psionics as well. The safe environment of the ship worked for her, and coming face to face with the Shinzen had seemed to break some mental blocks that had existed inside her. “I didn’t even realize that forming a common psionic shield could be trained to a level where one could receive another halo.”

Selendil had been giving lessons to the Deities and the first real ability she had them train, aside from hiding their halos, related to self-defense. She didn’t like the idea of wasting her time teaching some students that would just get themselves killed. Besides, nearly all psions could form some sort of a basic psionic shield, so it was a good place to start everyone. “You still have some way to go then. It is possible to get several halos with shielding abilities as it is one of the most varied disciplines. There are after all many different kinds of shields and hundreds of things to protect against. That said, once you form a ring due to mastering one shielding ability, then it becomes exponentially harder to form another ring with a similar ability.”

“Have any of the others formed a ring using the same ability?” The Mrrroww that had made the least amount of process, Clawsome, asked.

“Moonshadow, Xiaoli, and Amaterasu have all done it. One of Amaterasu’s Handmaidens has also done it. Many others are fairly close.” Selendil replied. She knew revealing such details could be considered a bit rude, but they were all her students, so they’d just have to deal with it. Her lessons, her rules.

“Basically that means pretty much everyone except you and Hazeem.” Kurnau teased the other Deity. She’d actually gotten some of her sense of humor back as well, although her comments tended on the acerbic side.

"Shut it, Panther girl," Clawsome growled.

“Make me.” Kurnau provoked. She was allowing some of her original aggressive character to show.

Clawsome was about to rise to the bait, but they were both given a psionic smack on the nose by Selendil. “Do that on your own time. There’s even a room where you can have realistic simulated battles against each other. I recommend using it for training anyway. Now you're taking lessons from me, however, so you don't have time to mess about."

Both of them had the decency to look a bit contrite, even if it was mostly fake. “So what’s next?” Kurnau asked.

“Next you’ll be training some mental skills. We have not truly tested your aptitude in the field and this seems as good a time as any. Even if you have no talent in the field, you’ll need to be able to detect and stop mental intrusions into your mind. Any powerful psion can be disabled if their mental defenses are not adequate. That doesn’t mean you have to master the skills, but you need to be good enough at least.” Selendil started another lesson.

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“So you’re saying some of the races we barely have contact with are already under attack from this unknown enemy? I thought we only had information about some ships disappearing.” Moonshadow asked the gathered crowd of Mrrroww officials. The ranks of the people involved were similar to the time they had talked about the threat of the Shinzen, except the number of people allowed to attend was smaller. That felt so long ago but it was only a matter of months. A lot had changed in that time.

“That is what our informants are telling us, but whether that information is reliable is up for debate.” A Lynx-tribe member from the Mrrroww’s psionic forces replied with a distinct voice of uncertainty.

“Truth be told, our confidence in this information is quite low. It feels like we were fed the information.” The female Lynx Deity explained for her subordinate. Moonshadow realized that she was now more powerful than the woman leading the psionic forces, but decided not to reveal that fact.

“And I don’t suppose we have any details about the capabilities of the attackers?” A Lion-tribe admiral asked in a sarcastic tone.

“Aside from the fact that the enemy seems to be crushing all resistance, which also sounds like information purposefully fed to us, no.” The male Lynx replied curtly.

“In many ways, whether the information is true or not is irrelevant. What we must do remains the same. We need to make contact with the races in the other quadrants of our galaxy and try to find more about this unknown enemy. We’ll also need to start making preparations for war, and we need to try and work out some sort of coalition with friendly races.” The hologram of the Primaris stated.

“We just got out of a war with the Synthetic Dawn and the Shinzen.” A civil official complained. “Our economy is getting stretched pretty thin with this constant state of alert. We were just starting to recover as well.”

“Good thing we took a hold of those automatic shipyards the Synthetic Dawn left behind.” Another admiral stated.

“Which brings us to another point. Both of those conflicts were not solved by our fleets but by a very particular being. Would she help us again?” The Lynx Deity asked.

“No.” Moonshadow replied simply. "She helped us before for a reason, and that reason no longer applies as strongly. She already relayed to us that we'd be on our own with this crisis unless certain conditions apply. So far there’s no sign of that being the case.”

“What would those conditions be exactly?” The Primaris asked.

“The attacker would need to be from a very small and select group of races. Or the Galaxy would need to be on the brink of destruction. Or Haven would need to be I suppose. She would likely step up to defend Haven.” Moonshadow didn’t elaborate further.

“Let’s proceed under the assumption that she won’t help. We need to be able to deal with things on our own. Luckily there seems to be no sign that the Shinzen plan on restarting hostilities with us any time soon. Maybe the enemy makes the error of attacking them.” The Primaris said hopefully.

“A long shot, but we might want to consider baiting them into it if the opportunity presents itself.” A Tiger-tribe general suggested.

“Moonshadow, you returned at the perfect time. Can we rely on you to approach some of the races that might know something about what is attacking everyone?” The Primaris requested. As she was under Selendil’s command, he could not order her to do anything directly.

“I can try. They might not be feeling particularly cooperative though. I’m not sure I would be in their place either. If this threat really stems from the other side of the galaxy, then they are first on the line of attack, not us. And I doubt you’re planning on sending our fleets to defend their territories.” Moonshadow pointed out with a sarcastic tone.

“Not at the moment at least, no. Though it might be worth the consideration at some point. If we have to fight this enemy, I’d rather not do it on our worlds.” The Primaris admitted.

They all thought of the same thing though no one voiced the thought. If something were to happen to Moonshadow during this diplomatic trip, then Selendil might be tempted to take action in revenge. As the exact threat of this new enemy was yet unknown, and because they weren’t complete bastards, they of course didn’t wish any harm to befall her. However, they all recognized the possibility and wouldn’t feel so sad about it happening either.

---------

“So how does it look?” Selendil asked as she entered Haahun’s lab. The man was working on Nox’s biological body. Xiaoli had already provided her input earlier before going back to Haven, so the rest was up to the Eriad man and Nox.

“We’re close to being complete, but I can’t be certain of the result. Some of the materials you provided us are completely new to me, not to mention never having worked with them before. The ‘brain’ part especially is a complete unknown to me.” Haahun admitted. That said, he loved working with all this new stuff. It gave him ideas.

As the biological body was harder to just modify on the fly, instead of altering the body later, Selendil and Nox had provided the improved materials to Haahun directly. The brain part was also completely different as the biological body had to be able to handle information, especially related to senses, differently. “The brains should be fine. The Dhar used the same system successfully countless times, and we can say for certain that the brain is capable of handling all the senses and still housing Nox.” Selendil replied. “The connections I’m less certain about. Even though I know the system should work, The Dhar didn’t usually handle our AIs quite like this. It’s one of those cases where you develop something but don’t actually test it enough to really confirm everything.”

“Well, I’m more confident in that field. I don’t want to brag but pleasure bots are one of our best selling and most sophisticated products, and a proper pleasure bot needs to be able to feel everything a normal humanoid would to respond perfectly. That goes with the other senses as well. We’ve run extensive tests and we’ve mapped the feelings and other senses perfectly. The same connections are used in prosthetics and the Eriads that have used those prosthetics swear that the sensory input feels exactly the same.” Haahun stated confidently. “I’m somewhat surprised though. Your people seem so advanced in other ways, so why did you never truly develop this field as well? Moral quandaries?”

Selendil tilted her head in thought. “In a way, yet not quite. In our society, those that were able to bring pleasure were respected professionals. That's why we didn't want to relegate it to AI. It would’ve been inferior. There’s just no way even a simulation can match the skill of someone who has psionic gifts in the field.”

“If Haahun is confident in the nervous system and senses, and we’re confident in the brains part, then it sounds like this should work?” Nox suggested, bringing the subject back on point. She had no idea how the talk always turned to topics like that when it came to her biological body. They were not creating a pleasure bot after all. Nox had none of the programming after all.

“Mmmh, theoretically, but there are some potential issues. I’m not sure how all this will react with the crystalline material that you provided for the skeletal structure or the nanites you gave me. We also made some radical changes to the artificial tissue that should be fine in theory, but we can’t be sure how they work in practice. And just because our two areas of expertise work marvelously on their own, that doesn’t mean they work perfectly together.” Haahun tempered the expectations a bit.

“On the other hand, we really won’t know until we try.” Selendil countered.

“That is true as well. We’ve run all the simulations we can, but it all boils down to actually trying things out.” Haahun also agreed.

“Alright then. Let’s give it a shot.” Selendil decided. “Assuming you’re ready Nox?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” Nox admitted. The other, more obviously artificial body, had also been a sort of test run for her. She should have less trouble getting used to this body after that one.

Haahun operated a console and a large cylindrical glass container in the center of the lab was drained of nutritional liquids and the naked body of a being that looked very close to an Eriad was revealed. Haahun had made small changes to separate Nox’s form from a standard Eriad. The skin tone was lighter and had darker patterns not usually found on an Eriad. The cloven hooves were also replaced with standard humanoid legs with toes and they had added tails similar to Selendil at the back of the body’s head.

"Initiating connection," Haahun announced and it seemed like every muscle on the body tensed at the same time and the eyes suddenly opened with a golden glow.

“Ow! Big fucking ow!” Nox's voice complained. The voice was somewhat altered by the body's vocal cords though. "Note to anyone interested. Having the pain receptors all over the body start working at the same time is not a brilliant idea. Even if there's no damage to the body, all those nerve endings connecting for the first time feels extremely unpleasant.”

"Duly noted," Haahun said with a grin. “On the other hand, it’s good to know the nerves work. Is the pain lingering?”

Nox moved her limbs one by one starting from her fingers and toes. She wanted to test the feeling and mobility before starting to move around properly. “No, the pain is quickly fading away. The sensations work fine so far. They’re also quite consistent with what I felt with the other body, only much more intense. I’m also way more aware of certain things. The feeling of air flowing on your skin is a rather novel one for instance.”

“It would be much more acute if your skin had hair on it.” Haahun pointed out. That had actually been a rather long debate among the crew as they had talked about Nox’s future body. The Mrrroww were naturally advocates of body hair, while Selendil and the Dashane were against it. Surprisingly all the Illum, Cybrans and Guardians had voted against hair as well, so that’s what they had gone with. As a result, the only hair on Nox’s body was on her head.

"You'll get used to it," Selendil promised. Not very convincing coming from an energy being.

“We’ll have to run a thorough checkup to see that everything works perfectly. Things like involuntary reflexes are hard to judge with a cursory examination after all. We’ll also have to check the responsiveness of your senses to external stimuli. Some senses are supposed to grow sharper and more pronounced when exposed to more stimuli while others are supposed to become less acute.” Haahun seemed to be going through a mental checklist.

“Is that a fancy way of saying that we have to check if my sexy parts work?” Nox joked, referring to Haahun’s earlier comment about pleasure bots.

“That too. Those are rather delicate mechanisms after all.” Haahun admitted without any shame. “Although I have confidence. As I said, we happen to excel in the field.”

“Which reminds me. You’ll also need some clothes.” Selendil rather pointedly looked Nox’s new form up and down.

“Ah, right. That. I knew we forgot something. I’m not sure if we have everything you’ll need in the lab. We might have to ask to borrow something from Yrala or Mother.” Haahun seemed to realize his error. One that he had definitely not made on purpose. And it wasn’t like he forgot to mention the clothing that could be found in the other labs where their products were made.

"I'm not sure those will fit," Selendil said in a deadpan voice. "Nox, tell me again why you went with the stupidly well-endowed package."

“We voted on that one too, remember? Besides, I ran the analysis. I just did the same thing we did when we designed your Human and Mrrroww forms. I wanted something appealing if I was going to have a body.” Nox retorted, while actually managing a shrug while still laying suspended in the gravity field inside the container.

"Well, you certainly succeeded there," Haahun muttered. The only reason he wasn’t staring at Nox in open admiration was his experience designing pleasure bots and fantasy simulations. He’d seen almost every dream body that the Eriad and most CAS races fantasized about, so he was an expert. Even then he had to admit that Nox had done a great job.

“We may have overdone it a little.” Even Selendil had to admit. Even if she was slightly oblivious to such things, she wasn’t blind. On the other hand, if this was what Nox wanted, then she wasn’t going to argue. It was the AI’s body and she had promised Nox free hand.

“Something to work on for version 2.0.” Nox said, but she vehemently disagreed in her mind. She’d overdone it a bit on purpose and had no desire to change. She had gone through countless amounts of material just so she could create a form that was appealing not just to Eriads, but to as many other races as possible as well. She had found surprisingly many commonalities, even though tastes would always factor in, that basically boiled down to symmetry, lack of obvious flaws, and features that signaled the ability to bear offspring successfully. This was her masterwork, and she wouldn’t allow anyone to ruin it!