The command nexus of the Dreadnought Thalassa was suddenly a very crowded, very surreal place. The soft, source-less light glinted off Marya's leather jacket and Bianca's grease-stained overalls, casting long, dancing shadows from the two luminous newcomers. For a long moment, the only sound was the low, ship-wide hum and the faint, wet squelch of Charlie's boots on the floor.
Bianca blinked, her magnifying goggles pushed up into her messy hair. She was the first to break the silence, her head tilting with the curiosity of an engineer faced with a fascinating, broken toy. "So, like… who or what exactly are you? No offense, but you're kinda… see-through."
The shimmering blue figure—Halia—floated forward. Her form, composed of cascading particles of light that suggested flowing water and a long, ethereal tail, pulse with gentle warmth. "No offense taken," she said, her voice like a soft chime echoing in a deep pool. "I am Halia. This," she gestured with a graceful hand towards the stocky, amber-lit figure with arms folded, "is Telchines. We are the vessel's interactive training and operational guidance interfaces. Our function is to facilitate the acclimation and education of authorized personnel through proper procedural—"
"YOU MEAN TO TELL ME YOU ARE PART OF THE SHIP'S SYSTEMS?!" Charlie's voice exploded into the chamber, cracking with hysterical wonder. He'd removed his helmet entirely, and his face was a masterpiece of academic ecstasy, eyes wide behind his round glasses, mouth agape.
Telchines, who glowed with the steady, warm light of banked forge coals, grunted. "That's what she just said. Weren't you listening?"
Charlie wasn't listening now. He spun towards Bianca and Marya, his arms waving in wild, uncontrolled arcs as if conducting an invisible orchestra of pure revelation. "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THIS MEANS? THEY ARE NOT JUST RECORDS! THEY ARE SENTIENT PROGRAMS! THEY PREDATE THE VOID CENTURY! WE ARE NOT JUST FINDING A SHIP, WE ARE CONVERSING WITH A CULTURE! WE ARE GOING TO LEARN FROM—WE ARE GOING TO SPEAK WITH—PRE-VOID CENTURY—" He stuttered, overcome, a tear actually tracing a clean path through the grime on his cheek. "CONSCIOUSNESS!"
Halia smiled patiently. "If you would like, I can walk you through the initial orientation steps regarding atmospheric regulation and basic navigation."
A sharp, blaring alarm cut through the chamber, a red glyph flashing insistently on a main console. Telchines jabbed a solid-light thumb towards it. "You won't be doing any walking-through if the core containment fails. We're bleeding power from the secondary flux conduits. Again." He shot a look at Halia that was pure, centuries-old irritation.
"Right. Engine room," Bianca said, snapping back to business. She hitched up the strap of her overalls. "Maybe you can, like, show us the way. Save us the guesswork."
Telchines gave a curt nod. "This way." He turned and strode—or rather, glided with a purposeful, heavy impression of striding—towards a curved archway that irised open at his approach.
Charlie, sniffling, used the sleeve of his khaki shirt to wipe his eyes. "This is… ahem… the single most profound day of my life."
Marya, who had been watching the spectacle with her arms crossed and a faint, amused smirk, finally spoke. "Maybe you should go meet the others at the loading dock, get them settled. Halia," she said, turning to the aquatic hologram, "think you can show my friend the way? He has a lot of questions. A real lot."
Halia's gentle smile didn't waver. "Of course. It is a pleasure to be of service. Follow me, scholar."
As Marya fell into step behind Bianca and the grumbling Telchines, she heard Charlie's voice already launching into a barrage of queries behind them. "The linguistic root of your designation, 'Halia'—does it derive from a thalassocentric dialect, or perhaps a proto-form of the modern Sky Island tongue? And your visual matrix! The tail configuration! Is it symbolic of maritime mobility, or a literal representation of a now-extinct species?"
Bianca glanced back over her shoulder, then at Marya. "Like, I think his head just exploded. Like, for real."
"Halia's probably going to glitch out from all the questions," Marya replied, the smirk still playing on her lips as they followed Telchines down a smooth, sloping corridor that pulsed with a deep, rhythmic thrumming the further they went.
The engine room wasn't a room. It was a cavern. A cathedral dedicated to a sleeping god of power. It was dominated by a central column of dark, crystalline material that rose from the floor and vanished into the ceiling, throbbing with a deep, internal light the color of a stormy twilight. Around it, a labyrinth of twisting, coppery pipes and conduits snaked, some as thick as giants' arms, others fine as thread, all connecting to banks of stone-like panels covered in slowly swirling glyphs. The air here was different—warmer, charged with a static that made the hairs on Marya's arms stand up. It smelled of hot stone, of ozone from a lightning strike long passed, and the faint, metallic tang of immense, dormant energy. The hum was a physical thing, vibrating in their teeth.
Telchines marched up to a panel that appeared to be woven from bands of brass and black crystal. "This is the primary point of failure," he announced, his voice taking on the tone of a master lecturer. "The isotopic regulator for the singularity core has suffered quantum decay. As you can see, the feedback loop is attempting to compensate, but it is drawing power from the structural integrity field, which is why your life support is on a timer. The principle is based on contained gravitational negation, a technology your current era likely misinterprets as mere 'perpetual motion.' Now, observe the harmonic stabilizers…"
As he spoke, Bianca wasn't observing. She was doing. She'd found a hidden seam on the panel, and with a click of a release catch she'd spotted, it swung open. Inside was a breathtaking, terrifying nest of crystalline filaments, some glowing softly, others dark and dead as spent coal. Without ceremony, she wedged herself halfway into the opening, her voice muffled as she dug through the compartment. "Uh-huh… yeah… flux capacitor's lookin' a bit peckish… gotta love antique wiring…"
Telchines paused his lecture, his amber form flickering slightly. "…As I was saying, the conduction pathways require—"
"What do you think?" Marya asked, cutting through the technical monologue. She leaned against a nearby console, her gaze fixed on Bianca's booted feet sticking out of the panel.
Bianca wriggled back out, bracing her arms on the edges of the opening. Her face was smudged with a new, sparkling kind of dust. "So, like, I think I can get it operational enough for us to, like, at least surface. Maybe even make, like, a short jump." She blew a strand of hair out of her face. "But."
Marya raised a brow. "But."
Bianca sighed, a long, weary sound that held more excitement than exhaustion. She gestured around the vast, impossible chamber. "It, like, needs parts, Marya. Like, lots of them. And, like, a whole team of engineers who've spent their lives studying how to, like, whisper sweet nothings to a contained black hole. I, like, mean, look at this place. It's like… amazing and terrifying and I, like, wanna take it apart and put it back together just to see how it, like, ticks."
"We don't have a team of engineers," Marya stated, her voice flat. "We have you."
A slow, proud smirk spread across Bianca's face. Then she shrugged. "So, like, I think I'm gonna be super busy." She nodded back toward the open city and the distant, hidden cove where their subs were moored. "Anyway, if I, like, cannibalize the subs… I can, like, adapt the parts. Our sub's like, retrofitted with like space tech, and, like, the other one's like on its last leg. Between them…"
Marya's golden eyes narrowed. It was a massive gamble. Their only ways out, taken apart to feed this ancient leviathan.
Bianca saw the look and plowed on, her words tumbling out. "Like, I know, right? Do I, like, chop up our only rides home and, like, hope this big, beautiful coffin actually floats? But, like… our tech is newer. Simpler in a way. I think it'll, like, adapt better to this old stuff than trying to, like, find parts that don't exist anymore. It's like… giving a grandpa a newfangled pacemaker. Might just give him, like, a second wind."
Marya was silent for a long moment, listening to the ship' ancient heart thrum. She looked from Bianca's hopeful, grease-streaked face to the incomprehensible majesty of the engine core. A slow breath escaped her. "So it appears we're about to roll the dice, then."
Bianca's nod was firm, her eyes sparkling with the challenge. "Like, yeah. But I like think it'll be worth it."
In the brightly lit, cavernous loading dock, chaos of a gentler sort was unfolding. Aurélie and Ember had just stepped off their sub's ramp, their eyes adjusting to the sheer scale. They found Charlie standing there, sniffling and rubbing tears from his cheeks with his sleeve.
Aurélie's hand went instinctively to the hilt of Anathema at her hip, her posture coiling. "What is wrong? Is someone injured?"
Charlie shook his head, a watery, beatific smile on his face. "No! No, it's… it's beautiful. This is the most significant archaeological encounter of my entire professional life!"
Aurélie raised a sharp eyebrow. "You haven't lived long enough to make such a definitive—"
"Who is this?" Ember interrupted, her voice quiet and lucid. She was staring, not at Charlie, but at Halia, who floated serenely beside him. Ember's mismatched eyes were wide, taking in the hologram with a childlike clarity, free from her usual manic fog.
Charlie gestured with a dramatic flourish. "This, my dear colleagues, is Halia! She is a fully interactive, holographic interface system with a personality matrix! She will teach us the operation of the vessel! She is a voice from the dawn of the world!"
Halia offered a slight bow of her head. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance. Where would you like to begin?"
Aurélie blinked, her stern expression softening into one of pure astonishment. She looked from the serene light-being to the weeping scholar. "I… stand corrected. You may have a point."
The other sub's ramp descended with a hiss. Out came a sorry procession. Galit hobbled, one arm clutched around his ribs, his face pale. Atlas limped heavily, each step sending a jolt of pain through his lynx frame, his ears flat. Jelly bounced alongside, trying to be helpful and mostly getting underfoot. "Adventure! Bloop!"
Vesta emerged, her rainbow hair brightened as she spun in a circle, taking in the hangar. "WOW! This place has acoustics! I could do a concert here!"
Eliane was struggling mightily, trying to support a barely-conscious Jannali. The taller woman was mumbling, "Strewth, everythin' is spinnin'… feel like I've been on a week-long bender…"
Halia floated forward immediately, her large, expressive eyes scanning them. "You have injured. Multiple life signs show significant distress."
Galit grimaced, trying to straighten up. "We are… managing."
"You will report to the primary infirmary at once," Halia stated, her gentle voice leaving no room for argument. "Come this way."
Galit blinked, finally processing that the luminous, mermaid-like woman giving him orders wasn't human. "Wait, who are you…?"
Aurélie stepped to his side, slipping his free arm over her shoulders to take his weight. "I will assist. There is no point in arguing right now. This is… a very advanced system. Let's see what it's capable of." Her voice was practical, but there was a note of awe buried deep within it.
Galit, too drained and in pain to protest, simply nodded. Vesta hurried to Atlas's other side, offering her shoulder. "Lean on me! I'm stronger than I look!"
Charlie, after a longing look back at Halia, scurried to help Eliane with Jannali, who groaned, "Cheers, mate… watch the arm, it's feelin' a bit dicky."
As Halia led the wounded away towards the ship's interior, the loading dock fell into a momentary quiet, broken only by the distant, hopeful hum of the ancient ship and the soft, awed whispers of those left standing in the light of a rediscovered dream.
The primary infirmary of the Dreadnought Thalassa was a chamber of serene, sterile wonder. The walls were a soft, pearlescent white that emitted a gentle, diffuse light. In the center stood sleek medical beds, each resembling a shallow basin of liquid metal more than a cot. The air carried a clean, sharp scent like rain on hot stones, undercut by a fainter aroma of exotic herbs—relics of ancient pharmacology still lingering in the filtration systems.
Halia guided the wounded with a firm, gentle insistence. "Please, recline here. The diagnostic array will require full contact."
Galit, Atlas, and Jannali didn't so much lie down as sink into the responsive surfaces, which molded to their bodies with a soft sigh. The moment their weight settled, the beds came alive. Rings of soft blue light spiraled out from beneath them, and holographic monitors flickered into existence above each patient, streaming with cascading glyphs and rotating, three-dimensional images of their internal injuries—cracked ribs for Galit, a deep muscular tear in Atlas's leg, and a worrying cocktail of toxins and blunt force trauma for Jannali.
Halia studied the streams of data, her luminous face a mask of focused concern. "The injuries are severe. I will require assistance." She clapped her hands once, the sound a clear, chime-like ring that echoed in the chamber. "Activate the Chief Medical Officer."
The space above an empty medical station shimmered, particles of light coalescing, twisting, and swelling into a massive, translucent form. Ember, who had been quietly sketching in a corner, dropped her charcoal. Vesta let out a squeak that was half fear, half delight. Aurélie's hand twitched towards Anathema. Charlie's jaw became unhinged.
Materializing before them was a giant, portly octopus made entirely of shimmering aquamarine light. He wore small, round spectacles that flickered with data streams, and six of his eight flexible tentacles ended not in suckers, but in an ever-shifting array of glowing medical instruments—scalpels, syringes, bone knitters, and sensor probes. His body had a constant, gentle cascade of light particles raining downward, like a waterfall of solidified sky.
"G-g-goodness me!" the octopus-man stammered, his voice possessing a warm, scholarly, yet distinctly quaky quality, as if he were perpetually mid-shiver. "A full house! And such a… a colorful array of physiological distress! Halia, my dear, you have been busy."
"These three require immediate intervention, Doctor," Halia said, gesturing.
"Of course, of course! Let Uncle Octavious have a look-see!" The holographic octopus—Dr. Octavious—floated over the beds, his large, kind eyes scanning the readouts. "Mmm… compound fractures, lymphatic contamination, severe myofiber shearing… oh, and what's this? A touch of exotic paralytic venom? Someone's been having a very rough week!"
Aurélie, recovering from her shock, whispered to Charlie, her silver hair framing a face of pure astonishment. "Could you have ever imagined…?"
Charlie, tears once again welling behind his glasses, could only shake his head, utterly speechless for the second time that hour.
Aurélie finished her own thought, voice hushed. "This is truly a remarkable piece of… living history."
The treatment began. It was less a medical procedure and more a ballet of light and technology. Halia focused on Jannali, her hands emitting soft pulses of blue energy that seemed to coax the bruising from the woman's skin like drawing out poison. Dr. Octavious, with terrifying, beautiful efficiency, attended both Galit and Atlas at once. Four of his tool-tipped tentacles went to work on Galit's ribs, applying gentle pressure as miniature beams of light danced across the fractures, encouraging the bone to knit with a soft, ticking sound. The other four limbs worked on Atlas's leg, administering a synthesized antivenom from one needle-like tip while a second emitted a low-frequency vibration that made the torn muscle fibers visibly tremble and re-align.
Vesta and Eliane stood mesmerized, holding onto each other's arms. "He's… he's playing their bodies like instruments," Vesta breathed, her musician's soul recognizing a fellow artist, albeit in a wildly different field.
Eliane just nodded, her chef's eye noting the flawless, simultaneous "multi-tasking" with professional envy. "He doesn't waste a single movement."
CRASH.
The spell broke. All heads turned. Jelly, having been curiously poking at a cabinet of crystalline vials, had somehow managed to knock an entire diagnostic orb from its stand. The orb bounced once with a musical ping and rolled under a console, utterly unharmed. Jelly froze, his azure form rippling with guilt. "Bloop? Oopsie?"
Halia looked up from Jannali, a flicker of something like exasperation crossing her serene features. With a barely perceptible nod of her head, a hexagonal panel in the ceiling glowed. A beam of solid amber light shot down, encapsulating Jelly in a perfect, buzzing force-field cylinder.
"Bloop! No fair! Trapped! Squish is trapped!" he wailed, pushing against the energy bars that gave slightly but held firm.
"I must insist," Halia said, her voice calm but firm as she returned to her work, "that if you are to remain in this chamber, you will be still. I will release you when these procedures are complete. Consider it a time-out."
In the corner, Ember, her moment of lucidity holding, picked up her dropped charcoal. A small, almost peaceful smile touched her lips as she began to sketch the scene: the majestic, multi-limbed doctor, the serene mermaid-nurse, the trapped, pouting jellyfish, and the ring of awestruck onlookers. For now, the ghosts were quiet.
Deep in the engine room, Bianca slid the final access panel back into place with a satisfying clunk. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, leaving a new smear of glittering crystalline dust. "Okay. So, like, let's catch everyone up. I've, like, rerouted the bad stuff and, like, patched in a temporary regulator from our sub's spare parts. She'll, like, hold for a bit."
Marya gave a single, slow nod. "Good."
Telchines, who had been observing Bianca's work with a mixture of gruff approval and muttered criticism about "modern brutishness," spoke up. "Your other passengers have congregated in the primary infirmary. They are currently acquiring medical treatment."
Marya's head turned sharply, her golden eyes locking onto the amber hologram. "Medical treatment?"
"Affirmative," Telchines rumbled, crossing his muscular arms. "This vessel is equipped with advanced somatic repair systems. It is my understanding the procedures are already underway. Shall I show you the way?"
"Please do," Marya said, her curiosity now fully piqued, a faint thread of concern—not quite worry, but a tactical assessment of her assets—woven through it.
As they navigated the flowing corridors, the hum of the ship a constant companion, Bianca's mind was still back in the engine cathedral. "So, like, I noticed your systems wiring," she began, bouncing slightly on her heels as she walked. "It, like, looked like it was, like, designed to funnel power outward, not, like, just circulate it internally. Almost like the whole ship was, like, s meant to be a… a giant plug."
Telchines glanced at her, a flicker of surprise in his glowing eyes. "You discerned that from a cursory examination? Hmph. Better than the last batch." He walked in silence for a few more paces, the history weighing on him. "Your observation is correct. It was the final, desperate gambit of our commander."
He began to speak, his voice losing some of its abrasive edge, becoming the voice of a chronicler. "When the war turned, when the great betrayal sealed our kingdom's fate, the commander knew the Dreadnought could not be allowed to fall into enemy hands. Nor could its knowledge be lost. He steered our crippled vessel here, to the heart of Aethelred—the cradle that birthed our science. His plan was not to hide, but to merge."
Telchines gestured to the walls around them. "The city's original geothermal power plant, a marvel of planetary tap, still pulsed far below us in the trench. The commander intended to fuse our singularity core with that limitless earthly heart. To create a permanent, hidden wellspring of energy that would keep the ship's systems, its archives, its very soul, alive and safe for generations until worthy heirs could find it."
Bianca was hanging on every word, her "likes" forgotten in the face of the epic engineering tale. "A, like, permanent power link… like grafting a tree onto a volcano."
"Apt," Telchines granted. "The docking was successful. But the merge…" His solid-light form flickered, a visual echo of the ancient catastrophe. "The surge of raw, untamed planetary energy was too great. It overwhelmed the phase harmonizers. It is what catastrophically damaged the teleportation grid and locked several primary systems into a low-power hibernation cycle. The merge failed. Instead of a perfect union, we achieved only a parasitic, charging link. The ship has been sitting here for centuries, slowly feeding off Aethelred's dying heart, trapped in its berth, neither fully alive nor completely dead."
He stopped before a wide, arched doorway that irised open at their approach. The clean, herbal scent of the infirmary wafted out. "A glorious dream," Telchines concluded, his voice gruff once more, "that ended with a short circuit."
They stepped inside just in time to see the final moments of the medical ballet. Dr. Octavious was withdrawing his tentacles from a now-sleeping Atlas, whose fur looked glossy and healthy, his breathing deep and even. Galit, also asleep, had color back in his face, the lines of pain erased. Jannali was sitting up on her bed, gingerly rotating her shoulder.
"Bloody hell," she muttered in her twang, a grin spreading across her face. "Feel like I just had a month at a posh spa. Cheers, doc."
Dr. Octavious beamed, his spectacles flickering. "All in a day's work! Or, well, a century's work! I do so love a challenging case!" He noticed Marya and Bianca, and his form quivered with excitement. "Ooh! More patients? Anyone feeling peaky? A touch of scurvy, perhaps? I have a marvelous synthesized citrus!"
Marya took in the scene: her wounded crew, whole and healing; the awestruck faces of the others; the miraculous, chatty octopus-doctor. She looked at Halia, who gave her a serene nod, then at the force-field cylinder where a now-sleeping Jelly floated contentedly, a bubble escaping his lips.
She shook her head slowly, a genuine, unfettered smirk finally breaking through her stoic reserve. In a world of miracles and curses, they had just stumbled into one of the good ones.
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