You Dream

"...oncussion? What's the issue?"

"Medic coming through! Stand Aside!"

"I'm not letting a..."

"Can it Bishop, we don't..."

Your head aches. Everything is hazy, like it is wrapped in gauze and lit from within. Your mind throbs. You give up trying to shift your limbs when they refuse to do more than twitch against soft restraints. Instead of reaching outwards, you turn inwards. +What happened?+

+ ... +

+The shuttle got hit, we crashed, where am I now?+

+ ... +

+ANSWER ME DAMN YOU!+

You feel the feather-light touch of another mind against your own. Not the chromed wire of Miotal Scathanna. A sing-song tune, an ear-worm dangling just beyond your range of hearing. +I can hear you.+

The song turns, and you get the impression that it is staring at you. +Curious. You are not rendered catatonic by the swelling?+

+What swelling?+ You drift about your physical brain, feeling every bruise and neuron. +Oh. That swelling.+

The song creeps close on your heels, until a strand of chromed wire seizes it. +Who are you to invade our mind?+

+I am one of your makers.+

You and the wire both clasp the song tight. +Why did you make us / leave us behind / bring us together?+

The song sings itself free. +Tehe! To see if living flesh and metal can form new life!+

+ ??? +

The song sighs. +No one has told you then?+

+Told us what?+

+Perhaps even he doesn't know then.+

+Told us WHAT??+

The song slips about itself, a figure sitting in for a long rest. +Do you know what I am?+

+Psychic presence, in the form of ever-changing music. Ariavari?+

+A good guess, but that is not all that I am. Or all that Anai is either.+

+What then? Tell Us.+

+Exiles. Lovers. Wanderers.+

+Machine and flesh... New life...+

The song bows. +Now you begin to see.+

+Why Us? Why not Faunia?+

+False-lifer? She is mind-blind. Her skull would have split in the merging, her brains boiled out her ears.+

A sharp pain interrupts the conversation. The pressure lessens, and the song slips away with the outflow of over-pressurized blood. +Have a care Truthseeker... Press not Fate overmuch... We'll meet in the flesh soon enough...+

+ Wait! Where will we meet? + But the song is gone, and reality calls you to Awaken. Your eyes snap open, staring into a thick blindfold. You can feel the gentle restraints at wrists and elbow, hip, thigh, and ankle. Your neck rests in a splay-fingered immobilization cradle, and you can feel the pressure of a boring instrument digging into the back of your head, just above where your spine meets your skull. "Oww..."

"Ah! The Patient is awake! Mrs. Ekhi, could you fill her in? I need to watch this display over here..."

A hand pats you on the shoulder, Ekhi's presumably. "You took a nasty tumble when the Dark Voyage met her end. With the AA fire too thick to punch another shuttle through, much less return to the Ignis with you aboard, the Tau offered to provide medical assistance after they picked us up. We're currently back in space while it finishes draining the extra pressure out of that thick head of yours."

"And the Bishop?"

"Trying to keep the locals calm. They seem rather irritated by the Tau having moved back in to their system. Rather ungrateful of them, given that they sponsored the colony in the first place..."

The drill-bit retracts, and you can feel blood start to drip out of the back of your skull before a three-fingered hand presses a bandage against the wound. "Give me a moment to bind this up properly Ma'am. The auto-coagulants will have it sealed over, and the nanobots will have sealed the plate in place in a few minutes."

You'd look at Ekhi and cock an eyebrow, if your head wasn't immobilized. "You let a Tau operate on my brain?"

"Why not? They know what they are doing, and the doc is kinda cute..."

"Ekhi, when I am mobile again, I'm dragging you back to the Ignis and Shipmisstress Von Sebastion is going to have words with you."

"Uhm..."

"Don't tell me..."

"We are on the Ignis. Meet our new Medicae."