001
Usually the Scavengers’ Lounge was full of people enjoying their time at Scavengers’ Isles. There were those who just sold their cargo for a good price and had some money to spare on drinks and food. There were those who bought something they’ve long desired and that was definitely a reason to celebrate. There were those who sat in the darker corner of the lounge, offering their services of the more clandestine and overly inquisitive kind, and those who came here looking for someone providing exactly that kind of service.
The lounge was at times loud, at times chaotic, and at times unpredictable.
But not this time.
Tides and ebbs of the great filament currents govern the life of the Great Void. They carry heavy voidships with speed and efficiency, unmatched by any engine created by the civilisations. They connect worlds in a complicated web, spanning infinitely large distances. They facilitate trade, exchange of cultures, and, at times, wars and conquest.
But when they stop their flow, everything grinds to a halt. Trade stops, the void stations’ docking ports are left empty, the warships in the enemy territory are forced to either surrender or limp back home hoping they have enough fuel and supplies to make the trip.
And the Scavengers’ Lounge quiets down, becoming almost dead quiet and empty, barring the occasional hiss of a steam pipe or a whizzle of gears in some poor cybermage’s body.
Nobody knows why it happens. Nobody knows when the flow of the filaments will restart itself. All that anyone can do is to offer prayers to the God That Carries and await for the time when those prayers will be answered.
Or you can order more ale and send it down your throat in one large gulp, because what else will you do if you were unlucky enough to be stuck at Scavengers’ Isles when the filaments stopped?
“And you know what’s gonna happen next, Conrad?” Captain asked, slamming the empty mug on the table. “Nothing! Surprising, innit?”
“Extremely…” Lieutenant Conrad shook their head. “Extremely hard to believe, Captain. I’m sure something has to happen somewhere.”
“Nothing… Nothing happens, lieutenant. Not here, nor there, nor anywhere. Big fat nothing.”
“Another ale?”
“Another ale!”
002
“So why are you two so down?” Asked Alaia, looking with disdain at the captain and the lieutenant of her ship getting drunk.
“Nothing happens…” Captain said, drawing every word until each of them had double the syllables than normal.
“Nothing.” Conrad, on the other hand, spat the word out as if it was a single sound.
“And so you decided to get yourselves dead drunk?”
“Why not?” Asked Captain, looking into his empty mug with a vastness of sadness in his eyes. “What in the Void we have left to do… Drink… Talk… Drink some more.”
“You can go outside and watch… stuff?” Alaia tilted her head and put a finger to her lips. “There’s the Trash Mound auroras, filaments glow…”
“Boring…” Captain said. “Everything is the same as always. Auroras are just heat from the trash disposal units. And seeing the filaments reminds me that we’re stuck here forever.”
“Not forever. Just as long as the currents are halted.”
“Feels like forever anyway. Forever in never, he-he.”
“Are you trying to be funny, Captain?” Conrad raised their brow.
“I do, lieutenant.” Captain replied. “But I’m too bored to be good at it, so you’re allowed to not laugh.”
“Thank you, Captain. I’m too bored to, anyway.” And with that, the lieutenant hit the table with their forehead, closing their eyes.
“You can’t be like that!” Alaia stomped her foot. “Go outside! Now! Cheer up!”
“And what’s new there?”
“A dragon! A big rainbow-coloured dragon flying through the Void!”
“Oh please, there is no such thing as dragons in the Void!”
“There’s none…” Said Conrad without lifting their head or opening their eyes.
“There is!” Alaia stomped her foot again. “If you’d go outside more often instead of destroying Scavenger’s Lounge’s ale reserves, you’d see!”
“Oh grow up Alaia!” Captain almost yelled. “There are no dragons there, there’s nothing there! Just the same Void as always! That’s why it’s called ‘the Void’! It’s empty! And now it’s even more empty!”
“How do you know?”
“I know! The filament currents almost stopped! It’s that season again… No voidship flies, nobody goes anywhere, everything just freezes and stops! Day after day, after day! It was like this a week ago, a day ago and it’ll be like that for weeks to come! And nothing will change, no fantastical creature will show up! It’s just an empty endless void as far as the eye can see!”
“Oh, you…” Alaia was fuming with anger. “I… I’m going to fire you! Both of you!”
“And what next?”
“I’ll find my ship another captain!”
“Where? There’s nobody here but us and a bunch of cybermages. Nobody is insane enough to hang out at the Scavengers’ Isles when the currents are low and you’re years away from the closest inhabited world.”
“We’re… stuck… so… stuck…” Conrad mumbled.
“Shut up you drunkard!” Alaia finally couldn’t keep herself down anymore. “Shut up both of you! I don’t wanna hear you anymore! Don’t want to talk to you anymore! Shut up!”
“As you wish, Miss ship owner.” Captain shrugged.
“Shut up!” And with that Alaia turned away and stormed out of the Scavenger’s Lounge.
003
“Have you spoken to Miss Alaia, Captain?” Asked Drake in his usual “I seem unconcerned but I am very concerned” tone.
“I tried…” Captain replied. “But instead of talking back she kept throwing stuff at the door.”
“So you didn’t even enter her room?”
“I don’t want to end on your table, Drake, with a perfume bottle stuck in my head or something.”
“Commendable, but at this point I wouldn’t mind if you did.”
“What?”
“Oh, it’d be something to get myself busy with… Anything’s better than this boredom.”
“Yeah… That’s what I was saying…”
“The problem, Captain, is that I’m saying it all the time. But you and the lieutenant got all brooding lately. And now Miss Alaia doesn’t leave her room and doesn’t talk to anyone for several days because of it.”
“She’ll get over it.”
“What if she doesn’t? It’s really unlike her to be so depressed for so long. Are you sure everything is going to end well?”
“I’m…” Captain rubbed his forehead. “I’m not. But what can I do?”
“You’re the captain, Captain. You tell people what to do. I’m here to stitch them up after.”
“But isn’t it something a surgeon would know about? How do you cheer up a depressed young woman like Alaia? Because if you ask me, nothing less of a miracle would do…”
Before Drake opened his mouth to answer that, a woman, wearing a red longcoat over black sweater and trousers walked up to them behind Drake’s back and stopped him from talking with a hand placed on his shoulder. She jumped into the conversation with all the nonchalance of an asteroid crashing into a planet and causing a mass extinction event.
“You throw her a party, obviously!” She smiled. “Hello Captain, hello Drake. You really should think hard of cheering up not just the little Alaia but the whole of this place. Party, holiday, celebration… anything will do.”
“Hello, Miss Madeleine.” Drake gave her a light bow. “But as I was saying it is something for our captain to think about. I am but a humble surgeon…”
“And you’re always trying to evade responsibility…” Captain said.
“But this time, Captain, he might be right.” Madeleine nodded several times in support of Drake. “It is really something for you and Conrad to do, looking as you two were what caused this in the first place…”
“We didn’t make this place so boring!” Captain raised his hands in defence. “It’s the mood of the season!”
“Wrong, Captain!” Madeleine pointed a finger at him. “The season is the season. It is what it is. But it is you who set the mood.”
“...”
“So I would advise you to do something about it and change the mood as soon as possible.”
“How?”
“I’ve told you, haven’t I? Throw a party! Start a holiday celebration! That sort of thing…”
“And what are we going to celebrate?” Captain smirked. “Sitting on Our Asses Flat day or something?”
Madeleine sighed.
“Why do you have to be so difficult, Captain… Look, in the world where I’m from, there are a ton of different holidays, almost every day of the year. People celebrate everything: important historic events of the past, various people’s jobs, gods’ birthdays…”
"What kind of a God has a birthday?"
"A human one." Madeleine smiled. "They are a god after all, they have everything, they are everything… They can have a birthday."
“And how is that celebrated? I can’t see people giving birthday presents to a god… Shouldn’t it be another way around?”
“Yes, it should. And yes, the presents are involved… But it’s mostly about eating good food, decorating the homes and having fun watching fireworks.”
“Fireworks?”
“Yes, colourful fiery explosions in the sky… People like watching things explode, right? That’s universal across all worlds.”
“Fireworks… Fireworks…” Captain took a pause to consider. He turned away from Madeleine and walked a few small circles while mumbling quietly to himself, then exclaimed:
“Fireworks! Thank you, Madeleine, we might be onto something! If we set off the voidcharges in just the right way, we may be able to.. Maybe? Launch them at the set intervals…? But how do we make the explosions colourful…?”
“Oh, that’s easy, Captain.” Madeleine smiled. “Do you remember those trash auroras?”
“The glow of the trash disposal units?”
“Yes, but not quite… You don’t see the auroras all the time, right? Only occasionally, when the disposal teams stumble upon a certain kind of crystal and toss it into the ovens - that gives the glow colour.”
“So if we mix those crystals with the explosives…”
“It’ll give the explosions colour.”
“And how would we obtain those crystals? I’m assuming the cybermages don’t have a stash of them lying around in a warehouse somewhere?”
“You’ll have to go to the Trash Mound yourself, Captain…” Madeleine nodded. “Take Conrad with you and travel to Point Three, then ask around. The cybermages there would know where to send you next.”
004
Point Three was one of the several cybermages' research and utilisation stations on the outer reaches of the Trash Mound - a huge garbage conglomerate around which the Scavengers' Isles orbited. The Mound consisted of various voidwrecks, of shards of unethically and recklessly exploded worlds, of all kinds of garbage and mystery. Several domed structures of the station were clustered around the normalcy projector mast on the relatively flat plane, surrounded by the uneven and jagged trashscape.
Captain and Conrad flew the lifeboat to just above the reach of a normalcy bubble of Point Three, then tethered the lifeboat to the Mound with the help of cybermages, and used the tether to travel to the surface in the voidsuits.
Cybermage that met them looked as surprised as an unemotional automaton with an oscilloscope display for a face can possibly look.
".-- .... .- - .. -. - .... . ...- --- .. -.. .- .-. . -.-- --- ..- -.. --- .. -. --. .... . .-. . -- . .- - -... .- --. ... ..--.." The cybermage said in the high-pitched binary stream language.
"I'm sorry, mage, but we only speak human." Conrad said.
The cybermage let out a screech, then a hiss, then a series of calibrating beeps until its sound unit settled on a relatively normal pitch.
"Oh, pardon me, we do not get all that many human lifeform visitors here at Point Three." Cybermage finally said. "As a matter of fact we haven't had any visitors at all for a considerable amount of time. Which makes me wonder what brings you here?"
"We were told…" Captain began speaking but before he finished his sentence, he was interrupted by another cybermage running up to them and streaming a torrent of screeching noise at the mage Captain was talking to. They exchanged several beeps and some boops and finally the mage turned back to Captain again.
"So you supposedly are interested in obtaining a considerable amount of trashlight crystals?" The mage asked.
"Yes but I didn't…" Captain looked at the mages with badly hidden curiosity.
"Do not think that it is magic or anything like that at work here, Captain." The cybermage said. "We just received a word from the Scavengers' Isles detailing your quest and imploring our full cooperation."
Both cybermages bowed, as much as their bronze joints allowed. They weren't at all allowing.
"But you must excuse us," the cybermage continued. "Presently we don't have any of the naturally occuring crystals in store here at Point Three. And most unfortunately we don't have any personnel we could possibly spare to venture out and acquire them for you."
"Well, could you at least point us in the direction where we can find any? If that's not too far off, it'd be best…" Captain scratched the back of his head. "To be honest, I don't even know what those crystals look like."
"They look like luminescent crystal formations, varying in size, shape and colour, obviously. They appear in natural formations in almost all of the technogenic caves barring those closest to the Research and Utilisation stations. They are also rather easy to harvest, being somewhat brittle. You should be fine going at them with a chisel and a mallet."
"And can you give us directions to the closest of the caves?"
"The closest… I assume, the closest one that still possibly contains intact crystals? It would be the one at around level twenty six point six four… We could provide you with a relatively accurate map."
005
Following the map, Captain and Conrad found their way through the piles of garbage, managing to navigate around the more dangerous spots where the disused voidships engine cores spilled their toxic guts under the thin cover of what once was a hull plating, or where the deposits of unexplored voidcharges were lying in wait for anyone or anything to trip their primers and melt away in a large fireball.
The entrance to the cave system marked on the map was big enough for the humans to get in without much trouble - and what's more interesting, it lightly shimmered with a familiar glow of a normalcy field.
On the inside, the cave turned out to be a corridor, once straight but now, after being squished with the other trash and battered by the garbage bombarding the Trash Mound's surface, it was uneven and led forward and down through several turns, pointing jagged metal teeth out of the walls and the floor at Captain and Conrad.
The normalcy field on the entrance wasn't an illusion - no matter how surprised Captain was, the insides of the cave had breathable air and allowed the explorers to take off the helms of their voidsuits.
"I guess there are too many voidships here in the Mound… if enough of them still have their normalcy projectors working, that could probably explain the air." Captain remarked, breathing in the smells of this place: rust, metal, oil and a dim note of sulphur.
"Hopefully it won't suddenly go away on us." Conrad nodded and with that they ventured forward.
006
After an hour or two of careful walking along the old corroded metal of the corridor, they found an opening in the wall large enough for a human to pass through. It was slightly above the natural “floor” level of what resembled a large cave - an open space randomly formed when tons and tons of void trash were pressed together by gravity.
No matter how it formed, it still was impressive - neither Captain nor Conrad could even see where its ceiling was. The same could be said of the walls to the left and to the right of them - the cave went on and on until it disappeared into complete darkness. The wall opposite them was maybe a couple hundred feet away and rose up almost vertically.
And there was one more thing. Or many things, really - the floor and walls of the cave were dotted with various crystalline structures. From about a thumb’s length cubes and pyramids to massive multi-spiked outcrops on the walls. The crystals were the only source of light in the cave - dim, but colourful light, which didn’t cast any shadows as if bending around the crystalline formations. It shimmered lightly, following some sort of complicated internal rhythm, changing brightness and shifting wavelengths but never too drastically or sharply.
“So that’s what they've meant…” Captain said, looking around the cave.
“I believe so, Captain.” Conrad pulled the backpack off of their back and opened it looking for the instruments. “We will need quite a lot of them, so we might as well start.”
“... Wh… a… Who… a… ou…” They heard a jumbled sound, interspersed with white noise.
“What’s that?” Captain looked around trying to find the source of it.
“It would seem we’re not alone here, Captain.” Conrad pointed towards one of the crystals on the cavern floor, while their other hand gripped a knife on their belt. Captain looked closer and noticed something moving.
“Who’s there?” He asked.
“Who’s there?” The voice repeated his question a few times, varying tone as if trying to find the right one or just tasting the different sounds.
“We are here.” The voice said, after it settled on the tone and lost all the static from the sounds. “Who are you? Dragons?”
“Dragons?” Captain opened his arms at the direction of the voice, showing that he’s unarmed. “We’re just guests.”
“Guests? Guests… Guests… Gues…” Now there were many voices speaking together. “What? Are? Guests? Mem… ory… Recall… Access… Guests?”
“Welcome to our cave, guests.” Finally said one voice after all others calmed down. And only after that Captain was able to make out who or what was talking to them.
From behind the crystal stepped out a small four-legged creature made out of shiny metal. Its four legs, ending with sharp needle-like spikes, supported a nearly humanoid body with a pair of clawed manipulators and a conical shaped head. The creature lifted its head up so that its “face” - just a round spot with a color pattern, slowly scrolling through it, - was looking at Conrad and Captain.
“You’re too small and soft to be dragons.” The critter said. “So you’re guests. We didn’t remember this word. For a long time. But we remember now. Welcome.”
As it spoke, Captain and Conrad saw other robotic critters identical to the first one skitter out of hiding and run around them with noticeable curiosity. Their mechanical joints made a quiet clunking noise when they moved.
"Yes, we're guests…" Captain said. "But what… who are you?"
"We…" The critter paused, the pattern on its 'face' rapidly shifting and blinking. "We are us? We were… are… called? We're called techmites. By humans. We live here now. We were traveling a long time ago."
"Techmites… Nice to meet you."
"It's nice to meet you too! We don't have many guests here, only the dragon." The techmite shook its head. "And we would rather have more guests and less dragon."
"What is this dragon?" Captain clearly couldn't believe he heard this word again.
"Dragon is… a dragon? It's big, loud and dangerous. It runs through here and stops only if it sees techmites, then it breathes fire. Stay and you'll see. Or…" The techmite lowered its 'face'. “Maybe you shouldn’t stay. The dragon is large and hard. Guests are warm and soft. Maybe guests better leave.”
“We still need crystals…” Conrad said. “And when will this dragon show up anyway?”
“Dragon will… come soon? Too soon? Did you come at the wrong time?” The techmite was clacking its little claw-like hands, closing and opening them repeatedly. “Dragon… In twenty-o… twenty cycles?”
“Twenty cycles.” Captain nodded. “Conrad, do you know how long a cycle is?”
“I’m not sure, Captain.”
“Neither am I, but let’s assume ‘twenty’ is a big enough number.”
“Guests?” The techmite looked at them again. “Did you say you need crystals?”
“We do.” Captain said. “If that’s okay with you and your people of course.”
“Do you want to tell our stories to others? Other guests?”
“Tell your stories?”
“Crystals… Colours… Are stories. Our stories. Do you want to tell them to others like you?”
“We…” Conrad began but Captain interrupted them.
“Yes, in a way we do.”
“In a way?”
“In a very special way!”
Conrad glanced at him unapprovingly but the techmite didn’t notice.
There was a quiet low rumbling coming out of the darkness at the end of the cave.
007
As they were talking, with Captain explaining to the techmite the need for crystals, the sound approached closer. When it became overwhelmingly loud, little techmites busied themselves with hiding in small, almost invisible nooks in the walls of the cave. Captain and Conrad watched them run off, rapidly flashing various colors at one another on the move.
"Shouldn't we try to hide as well, Captain?" Conrad pointed at the opening they came from.
"It is a good idea…" Captain looked in the direction of the fast approaching sound which now had audible hissing tones mixed into the rumbling and scraping. "But will we be able to see whatever it is from there? I would really like to learn what this 'dragon' is or at least what it looks like."
"You should hide!" Said mechanical voice from behind Captain. One of the techmites didn't run for cover earlier and stayed with them in the open. "You're soft humans! The dragon grinds metal and crystals into dust! You should hide!"
"I guess we should then…" Said Captain, beginning to move to the opening in the wall and gesturing to Conrad to do the same. The techmite followed them, moving all six of its tiny metal feet fast and still barely keeping up with the humans.
"You humans are soft, but tall. Good for running away." It concluded.
"That's true," Captain smiled as they entered the side tunnel. "That's how our species survived."
"By running away?"
"By running, full stop. We can be very persistent if we want to."
Even if the little creature wanted to say something to that, it wasn't heard because the source of all the rumbling and scraping and hissing had finally gotten into the cave. The cave shook, the noise got deafening. Captain tried to peek out of the passage but a stream of hot noxious steam hit him in the face, making him cough and spray tears out of both of his eyes.
When the coughing stopped and he was able to clean his eyes, everything had already calmed down. The cave was still there, little robots poked out of the holes they were hiding in, the crystals shone and glimmered as they were before. But along the whole stretch of the cave, right in the middle of it, there was a pathway, a stretch of metal, cleaned and polished.
"Are you okay, Captain?" Conrad asked, taking off their helm which they managed to put on before the dragon filled the air with the smoke and steam.
"I'm ok, lieutenant, just got something in my eye… And lungs." Captain coughed again but only just to illustrate his words. "What was that thing?"
"I managed to catch a glimpse of it…" Conrad gestured side to side along the cleared path. "Not a very good glimpse, but judging by what I saw and what it left behind… I'd say it's an old anti-fouling bot."
Captain looked at the shiny metal road left by the "dragon". Techmites were gathering on its sides and rapidly flashing all sorts of colours… then one of them jumped forward on the newly exposed surface and bent its metal legs upwards to land on its "belly" and slid on the metal, spinning as it went. Others soon followed.
"They're having fun, aren't they?" Captain asked.
"Complicated…" Said the techmite that stayed with Conrad and Captain. "It's not unpleasant to do. But this place should not be so shiny. We don't want it to be like this. So we must cover it up."
Captain looked closer and saw that the exposed metal was quickly losing its shine - the more little robots slid around on it, the darker it became.
"So, anti-fouling, eh?"
"It would appear so, Captain." Conrad said, nodding.
"Kind of a natural predator then?"
"I'd say 'a natural enemy', Captain."
"True… And I really should apologize." Captain shook his head.
008
"Are you leaving?" Asked techmite, gesturing with its hands.
"Yes, we do," said Captain. "But we'll be back and we'll bring someone who can help you deal with this 'dragon'."
"Are you taking our crystals?"
"No we don't. I told you, we'll be back soon."
"But you wanted crystals?" The techmite shook its head as if in disbelief.
"We did," said Captain firmly. "And we still do. But first we want to help you."
"Help?"
"Yes, help."
"Why?"
"What do you mean, why?"
"Why would you want to help us? Only us help us… Nobody else does."
"That's not true…"
"It was true all the time we lived here."
"I guess not anymore!" Captain smiled. "Look, we know how to make this 'dragon' not hunt your people anymore, why wouldn't we want to stop it?"
"Why wouldn't you…" The techmite paused. "But why would you care?"
"Because we feel that it's the right thing to do." Conrad stepped in after it was obvious the captain was out of arguments. "This thing, this 'dragon', isn't supposed to do what it's been doing. It's faulty. We want to correct that fault."
"Understood." The techmite nodded. "But… Aren't we faulty too? We're not supposed to live in a cave? Not if our ancestral memory is correct… and if it's not, doesn't that still make us faulty? Will you correct us too?"
"Do you want to be corrected?" Captain asked with the look of utmost resignation.
"No, but…"
"See, that's the difference. If we could talk to your 'dragon' and ask it, we'd do it. But we can't. It still follows it's original programming without deviation even if the change in surrounding made that programming obsolete. You, on the other hand, adapted and evolved beyond your ancestral forms."
"..."
"What it does is pointless, it makes no sense!"
"Do we… make sense?"
"You do." Said Captain and Conrad nodded, agreeing with him.
009
Persuading the cybermages at Point Three to send one of theirs into the cave with Captain and Conrad turned out to be easier than Captain expected. The moment he mentioned the techmites, every mage volunteered to go investigate.
Calming them down and persuading them to send only one cybermage with Captain and Conrad turned out unexpectedly hard.
But after some excessive yelling and gesturing, Captain and Conrad were on their way back to the techmites' cave, this time bringing with them someone who could possibly deal with the 'dragon', harassing the small robots. The only downside to it was that the cybermage following them was either talking about how fascinating these newly discovered techforms must be, or quietly yet still audibly murmuring the same things to itself after Captain told it to “please shut up or at least talk quietly unless there’s some new information available”.
The techmites’ cave welcomed them with the multitude of colours and a wide range of sounds produced by the techmites, who all gathered to watch the “Guests Who Came Back” - as the techmite, who apparently acted as a representative of all of them, proclaimed when Captain set foot into the cave.
“You really did come back!” The small creature jumped up into the air, rapidly flashing colourful light from its ‘face’. “And you even brought more guests with you! Less… Less soft guests?”
The cybermage looked at the techmite and fired off a stream of rapid beeps and boops in binary.
“.-- .... --- -- .. --. .... - -.-- --- ..- -... . --- .... -.-. ..- .-. .. --- ..- ... -.-. .-. . .- - ..- .-. . ..--..”
The techmite took a few steps back, circled around on the spot, moving its little legs fast, then looked at the cybermage and flashed more colours at it. The cybermage tried to repeat the sequence with its facial display - but it’s really hard to do colour transitions with a monochromatic oscilloscope screen. So it reached into the bag it was carrying on its shoulder, took something out, unwrapped several wires ending in various connectors off of the thing, then plugged those connectors into the sockets on its body. The thing turned out to be some sort of a lamp that could produce light of different colours - as was demonstrated when it started flashing, rapidly changing colours which seemingly took the little techmite to the peak of happiness.
“Excuse me,” Captain raised a hand to get the attention of both the techmite and the cybermage. “You two can discuss everything later, okay? We are here to do something, remember?”
“Oh, pardon me, Captain, for I got too excited about this new form of knowledge transmission… Fascinating, how far they took the idea of the compression algorithms being used to compactify data even more than we do with our sound-carried binary speech. Of course I should’ve placed our joint mission at the top of my priorities, but I must remind you I am still a cyberexplorer at the core, so…”
“And excessive apologies don’t help us accomplish the said mission.” Captain interrupted the cybermage and turned to the techmite. “Did ‘dragon’ show up while we were away?”
“It did!” The techmite switched to voice communication. “Regularly! Without skips. It’s still big and firebreathing as ever.”
“And how long until it shows up again?”
“How… long..” The techmite paused, probably calculating time. “Ten… No, nine cycles?”
"Cybermage, do you know how long the cycle is?" Captain asked.
"Unfortunately, I do not. But I would think it is safe to assume that nine cycles is a rather small amount of cycles, hence, not that long..."
“We better get ready then… right, mage?”
“If you say so, Captain…”
010
Soon the distant rumbling announced the coming of the giant beast and both the techmites and soft guests hastily busied themselves with finding a place to hide from the burning and sanitizing and being run over and smushed along the path of the ‘dragon’.
Not so soft guests though…
The cybermage dropped its robes on the ground - Conrad picked them up, getting an approving nod from the cybermage - then fell on its back, splitting its arms and legs in two and bending joints backwards, turning itself into something resembling a mechanical spider. Techmites reacted to that with a cascade of cheerful flashes of colour.
The cybermage steadied itself on its eight limbs and ran up the wall, squeezing between the crystal formations, too fragile to support the weight of its metal body.
The dragon rolled into the cave, filling it once again with noxious fumes, smoke and steam. The cybermage followed it with the slight motion of its head, then, when the dragon was below it, jumped off the wall, landing precisely on the dragon’s back.
The dragon stopped, spun clockwise, then counterclockwise, trying to shake off the cybermage. The mage’s body released a flurry of wires, crackling with electricity, hitting the dragon’s body, finding any small hole, any bad weld, any gap between its hull plating and forcing themselves into the dragon’s systems.
The dragon kept spinning, releasing more and more steam, until something inside of it whirled, wheezed and with the loud screech stopped.
The steam condensed on the crystals on the cave’s walls and its droplets shone with all the colours of the rainbow…
011
“So it really was faulty?” Captain asked the cybermage after it climbed down off the dragon’s back and put its robes - presented to it by Conrad - back on.
“Yes, Captain. I have believed your assessment to be correct even before the encounter. But now I can say with confidence that this machine experienced severe sensor malfunction, forcing it to keep performing its de-fouling duty even inside the normalcy projector fields - which should otherwise be impossible as it is constructed to operate on the outer hulls of fully pressurised voidships.”
“Is it… is it dead?” The techmite asked, looking how several of his kin were already climbing up the motionless dragon.
“I wouldn’t say it was alive to begin with…” Captain said. “At least not in the way any of us here are alive.”
“Do you truly… really… believe we are alive?”
“For a simple automaton with a developed ancestral memory storage system, you’re asking extremely complicated questions…” Captain smiled.
“Is it… bad?”
“Not bad.” Captain shook his head. “Some would say it is a definite proof that you’re alive.”
“...” Lights on the techmite’s ‘face’ dimmed for a moment.
“Anyway… I hope you’ll be safe now.” Captain looked at the still metal body of the dragon in the middle of the cave. A few techmites were using it as a slide, climbing up and sliding down, rapidly flashing all colours of excitement. “So I’d like to ask you again: may we take some of the crystals from the cave?”
“Of course! You’re guests… You helped us! We’d like to give you crystals… stories… so you can tell them to everyone outside!”
“I’d like to ask you for a specific story… or stories about a specific subject…”
“Of course, guests! What would you… want… like?”
“If possible, anything and everything about the dragon…”
“Sure!” The techmite turned around and ran off.
012
“How is she?” Captain asked Drake, who was meeting them in the lifeboat bay of the “Silver Key”.
“Mostly the same… Still doesn’t leave her room. She allows the cybermages to bring her food and water, so that’s a relief. Doesn’t let any of us in though.”
“Well, let’s hope we can do something about it…”
“You were absent for quite a long time, Captain. Were there complications?”
“Oh it was one of those trips… You know, make new friends, slay a dragon…”
“I see…” Drake squinted at Captain. “I will definitely need both of you to visit me for a full medical examination later.”
“But…”
“Surgeon’s orders!” Drake pointed a finger at Captain and then left.
Captain shrugged, then turned to his lieutenant who was overseeing the unloading of the crystals from the lifeboat.
“Conrad, do you think you can pull off what I wanted from you?”
“Well, we certainly would need to fiddle with the charge fuses… and the propellant… and the warheads…” Conrad counted their fingers as they spoke. “Everything should be ready in an hour. I’ll let you know, Captain.”
“I thought you’d want to launch everything yourself?”
“I would!” Conrad smiled. “I’ll send one of the guys or a cybermage to you, sir.”
“Thank you, lieutenant… I’ll visit the Lounge, check how that place is doing. And don’t worry - no ale without you.”
“Truth be told, Captain…” Conrad looked him in the eye. “That’d probably mean no ale at all.”
“Works for me, lieutenant. Good luck with the setup.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
013
The word from Conrad arrived almost fifteen minutes later than Captain expected. The cybermage ran into the Scavenger’s Lounge, loudly announcing that everything was ready and there would be no waiting for anyone who wouldn’t immediately come outside.
A small mixed crowd of the sailors and cybermages gathered in front of the exit of the Scavengers’ Lounge, watchin “Silver Key'' drifting in the Void just outside of the Scavengers’ Isles normalcy bubble. At first it looked like nothing was happening and someone in the crowd even dared to yawn - but then the void charges went off of the rails of the launchers and their engines ignited, streaking up through the Void to explode above the voidship in large white flowers. And then again and again - silent explosions varied in size and shape, resembling flowers and stars and planets with large rings around them. They filled in the Void, quickly taking shape and then keeping it for as long as the voidcharges explosives were still burning.
“Hopefully this will get her attention.” Said Captain looking up the Scavengers’ Lounge wall until he saw a window of one of the guest rooms open and a girl with blonde hair sticking out, watching the Void above.
The last of the white flowers burned out, exhausted all its fuel and disappeared into the nothingness. There was a pause, there were cheers and applause. People and mages saw a display like this for the first time in their lives and weren’t holding back on praise.
Then, unexpectedly for the audience, another set of voidcharges ignited and flew off, up and away, leaving behind trails - trails of glowing, opalescent colours, slowly shifting through the whole spectrum as they were fading away.
A moment of pause. A moment of silence. All eyes were stuck to the deep darkness above, criss-crossed by the colourful lines of the rockets’ trails. Nobody said anything, watching the trails get longer, trying to guess what’ll happen when they finally go off.
And so they did: explosion after explosion splattered the Void with bright shining colours, scattering the dazzling lights as far as the eye could see. The lights blinked, the lights flashed, the lights twinkled, the lights were eager to tell a story.
Another explosion shook the Void, sending shockwaves through the colourful pattern of bright lights hanging in front of the Scavengers’ Isles.
Captain forced his eyes away from the lights and onto the girl in the window above him. She was gleaming with happiness and the lights reflected in her eyes, sparkling the light within them and fighting the sad darkness that nested in them before.
Yet another explosion sent the flickering colour pattern into disarray. Some of the lights dimmed, others shone yet brighter. From the colourful chaos the shape emerged.
Its snake-like body drifted up in front of the awe-stricken crowd, its enormous wings unfurled into the Void. It appeared and froze in place, an unmoving visage of might, shimmering with all the colours of a rainbow.
"-... -.-- --- ..- .-. .-.. .- -.. -.-- .----. ... .... --- .-.. -.-- - .... .. -.-. -.-. - .... .. --. .... ... -.-.--" One of the cybermages beeped out.
“It’s a dragon!” Captain heard Alaia’s voice from above. “A dragon!”
“You don’t say…” He smiled, looking up where a girl was standing in the window, holding to the window frame with her hands and leaning forward as dangerously far as she could. She didn't care she was a half-step away from a fall, she didn't look down - her eyes were locked on the shining figure in the Void. If she could, she'd jump up and fly towards the rainbow-coloured dragon and possibly would try to hug its thick scaly neck with her lanky arms.
The dragon’s form, consisting of slowly burning void explosives mixed with the coloured crystals, began to dim, as the explosives burned out… The colours faded, became pale, almost nonexistent.
There was a murmur in the crowd, people didn’t want the show to end…
“Don’t disappear!” The girl in the window cried out. “Don’t go away, dragon!”
Dragon’s eyes lit up, much brighter than they were before, much brighter than any voidcharge ever could. The wave of light went through its body, its previously flat silhouette gained volume, filled with a rainbow of colours, bringing the dragon to life. The beast shuddered, its mouth wide open in a silent roar. Its wings started beating, as if it needed to move them to hold its body up in the nothingness of the Great Void. Dragon’s head moved, long neck bent forward, lowering itself to almost touch the outer shell of the normalcy bubble.
Alaia reached to the dragon with her hand, stretching her arm as far as she possibly could, her fingers trembling out of tension. But the beast was out of her reach - no matter how hard she tried. Her eyes clouded, becoming teary.
The dragon opened its mouth, showing her rows of long pointy teeth, and let out a large cloud of multicoloured glowing smoke. It floated in front of the beast, taking a shape of a human figure, vaguely resembling a young girl in a dress, floating in the Void.
Alaia backed off, smiling again and clapped her hands, applauding the dragon.
The dragon huffed, and the girl made of smoke vanished into the Void. Then it flapped its wings, once, twice, its body twisted, turning away from the Isles and with that it left, slowly moving away.
"But… it's impossible!" Said Captain still looking at the rainbow dragon's form, gradually shrinking in size as it went further from the Isles.
"That's the definition of a miracle, isn't it Captain?” Madeleine smiled at him, her dark charcoal eyes squinting slightly. “You've asked for one, you've got it. Might as well enjoy it without unnecessary questions."
"If my life has taught me something.” Captain lowered his eyes. “It’s that miracles aren't ever free…"
"Then they aren't miracles. True miracles are always free, Captain. Miracles with the price tag are just magical groceries: they’re nice, sometimes essential, but nobody’s all that excited about them.
"You did well. Go on, go ask her how she feels now… And be ready to be overwhelmed and possibly hugged.
"You've earned it."
