Chapter 015: Testing

Discord was first discovered by the exploratory mission of the Immortal Assembly, a future member of the Transhuman Alliance. The discovery of the first jumpgate network (and a gigantic space station in the middle of it) came unnoticed, as the Assembly didn’t inform the Solar Commonwealth. Because of that, it became one of the major reasons for the early one-sidedness of the War of Purity. With the D-Gate network and the military and logistic bases on the Discord station, the forces of the Alliance could redeploy rapidly, striking targets throughout the Core almost at will, effectively multiplying their forces.

Once the War of Purity ended, the Discord station became a refuge for surviving elements of the Transhuman Alliance. They soon turned it into a safe haven for all exiles and outlaws of Human Space. From insane cannibals of the now-defunct abyssal cult of Silent Sorrow to militant nihilists of the Necrocracy, from human pirates and slavers to exiled transhumans and alien raiders. They all call the Discord station and neighboring systems their home, millions of slaves captured in their raids form the backbone of their economy, allowing the inhabitants of Discord to focus on their petty squabbles and raiding Human Space.

Discordians remain a problem to this day. They snuck their jumpgates into every sector and subsector out there, serving as backdoors allowing pirates to bypass all hyperlane blockades. Each destroyed gate is quickly replaced, and all attempts to assault Discord through recovered jumpgates are repelled. They are an ever-present threat, though one slowly changing into nothing more than a nuisance. Lacking the strength to launch planetary assaults against Garden Worlds, they are instead focusing their efforts on raiding outlying settlements, asteroid mines, and ships.

Encyclopedia Galactica

Book 1, page 322

***

Finally, a combination of Princess Róża’s attacks connected. Her furious axe swings powered with all the strength her exoskeleton could muster, managed to break Innocent’s telekinetic shield. Two machine guns above her head roared to life, their bullets pushing the priest back and keeping him stunned while the princess moved in for the kill.

“This is both historically incorrect and overly brutal.” Tiriel commented. She was standing right behind the couch, observing the battle on the screen. “Are there no better videogames on the ship’s net?”

“Oh no no, the Longest War is more or less historically correct. We’re just playing the free battle mode, so we can choose whatever characters we want. Even if they are of the same faction.” Christopher replied while Princess Róża finished her opponent and attached Innocent’s head to one of the spikes adorning her armor. The priest’s head was still blinking when the battle ended officially and the screen presented the battle stats together with a large PLAYER TWO WINS label. “I will not oppose the second part of your statement, though.”

I’ll also stop myself from commenting the fact in the future there is a side scrolling fighting game resembling Mortal Kombat that uses REAL WORLD CHARACTERS. Around three hundred of them. Some of them are supposedly still alive!

It was weird to see a non-VR videogame in the far future. As Christopher concluded, it’s hard to make a VR side scrolling game as the key point of VR is typically the perfect first-person perspective.

“This is bullshit!” For a second, Christopher thought Tendrik would throw the controller in a fit of fury. But he managed to control himself. “I’m a TRANSHUMAN of a MECHANIST LINE. A notable part of my body is a machine and I have been surrounded by computers since birth. And I’m losing to someone from a pre-computer age!” We should probably tell him the truth. Maybe not now, though. He needs to calm down a bit. “HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?!”

He should REALLY calm down. Merely a week has passed since he almost died. Lith let him leave the ship’s sickbay three days ago, and gave him a week-long medical leave. That’s more than I got after almost dying because of a heart attack!

“Another rematch?” Tendrik answered with a murderous look… followed by a nod.

“I love how absolutely nobody seems to care that our ship’s tactical officer is a priest named Innocent.” Tiriel commented in the background. Christopher returned to the game’s main menu and began setting another match.

“Oh, you know him and his sense of humor. It’s probably some bizarre insider joke only he and the Captain understand. Besides, Innocent is technically an alien.” Tendrik played it off, once again choosing Innocent as his playable character.

Wait, an alien?

Christopher was about to choose his character when Tiriel suddenly leaned towards him and switched his controller off. When he looked up at her, she put a finger to her lips. That’s when he saw another controller in her hand. Once she switched it on it automatically connected to the game, replacing Christopher. Then she scrolled down the list of characters and picked Liberator from the Genetic Warlords category.

Five minutes later Liberator vivisected the still standing Innocent only to pull his heart out and take a selfie with it.

“What?!” Tendrik didn’t take it lightly. He was about to keep protesting, but then he looked at Christopher for the first time since the match started. And noticed Tiriel standing right behind the man, with a controller in her hand. To fully dispel any misunderstandings, she stuck her tongue out at him and made a victory sign with her right hand. “Really?”

“As a noble, I possess a moral obligation to instruct and help the commoners such as you in their perpetual struggle against themselves.” Tiriel smiled wryly, obviously enjoying her noble act. “Because of that, I have to inform you that your playstyle is absolutely h-o-r-r-i-b-l-e.” The last word was intentionally prolonged so much they could hear every letter of it in detail.

“You are continuously picking Innocent as your character.” Tiriel continued. “His entire skillset is tailored toward medium-range telekinetic attacks to interrupt enemy attacks, with quick counterattacks then used to slowly shave off the enemy health bar. However, all you are doing is just bashing the attack button without even trying to stay in the correct distance, which leaves you woefully exposed to about every melee fighter in the game. From Princess Róża to Liberator.” She switched her controller off and looked at Tendrik with an angelic smile on her face. “Do you feel enlightened by my natural noble superiority?”

As Tendrik was looking at her with an expression of pure shock on his face, Christopher leaned towards her a bit and asked a question of his own.

“So… ‘historically incorrect and overly brutal’?” She looked towards him and winked.

“Was any part of this wrong?” She answered. “Even the former was factually correct for a free battle mode. It didn’t stop me from taking second place in my homeworld’s planetary Longest War championship, though. My father, unfortunately, beat me in the finals.” … ok, her family sounds weird. This surprises me less than it should, as her father knew Captain Keller. Maybe this really is some disease?

“Er… so… if I ask you nicely, will you teach me how to play the game properly?” Tendrik seemed to have swallowed his pride.

“Of course, Tendrik.” Any chances of Tiriel leaving the answer brief were quickly banished. “Not because I’m taking any pleasure from beating you in something involving computers. It’s just… something I will do out of the goodness of my heart.” Yes, right. Of course you do, Tiriel. “Before we get into that, however, I think it’s time to address the elephant in the room.”

Oh, so that’s why she sneaked up on us when we were playing. Great.

“What elephant?” Tendrik suddenly asked. “There is an elephant in the room? Which room?” He looked genuinely surprised, and not simply trying to derail the conversation.

“It’s an idiom. It means something important that everyone ignores.” Tiriel answered. When Tendrik kept staring at her without a hint of understanding in his eyes, she clarified further. “Idioms are a phrase or expression that typically presents a non-literal meaning attached to the phrase. They make no sense when they are read literally, but carry a more non-straightforward meaning.” He kept staring at her. “Seriously, what did they teach you in your language lessons if you don’t even know what idioms are?”

“Uhm, Tiriel?” Tendrik finally answered. “Before I left Techtria I had to receive a vocal cord implant allowing me to speak biological languages. Because on our planet we communicate in a typical Mechanist Line way. With a series of mechanical beeps representing the binary code text, typically sped up so much that you can’t understand what is spoken without a translation implant.” Christopher suddenly imagined Tendrik speaking with R2D2 beeps. He managed to not burst into laughter, which was a significant proof of the strength of his willpower.

“Said translation implant is cerebral, capable of directly inserting the translated meaning of the speech into my brain.” Tendrik continued. “Because of this my knowledge about the peculiarities and technical side of conventional languages is limited. I can’t even say them. My vocal cord implant automatically converts my binary speech into audible English, which is then translated into whatever language you speak by your translation implants. So, uhm, I do not understand what an idiom is. I also suspect the part with the elephant was some malfunction of my implants.”

“That’s… both interesting and disturbing.” Tiriel said, with Christopher more or less agreeing with her. Christopher wondered how exactly Tendrik’s sense of humour works in spite of the revelation, but in the end he didn’t ask. ”Ok, so can we return to the subject at hand?” Tendrik nodded. “Once again, but without idioms. Can we finally talk about the big issue everyone seems to ignore?”

“You mean how Nekia and Kivanna got traumatized by our recent battle?” Christopher replied. “How Tendrik almost died and is less cheerful than he used to be, despite not admitting to anything differing from how it used to be? How Ryan seems to be pulling a ‘let’s focus on work so I do not think about my problems too much’ strategy? The only unfazed people in the entire team are Rukh, Tiriel, and me, and I’m not sure about the last one.”

It terrified Christopher how quickly he got over the fact he killed several people. What helped his transition into a state of unnatural peace of mind was his decision to read about the country his ‘victims’ came from.

This, in turn, increased his underlying dread. He was never very much into thinking some people do not deserve to live. Was the future’s weirdness finally rubbing into him?

“Yes, I mean precisely that.” The tone of Christopher’s voice didn’t discourage Tiriel. “No, Tendrik, I do not allow you to say that everything is ok with you unless you include at least two terrible jokes in every sentence.” Tendrik closed his mouth.

“Eh, I don’t see a way of getting them all out of depression.” Christopher declared. “Especially as our mission is officially moving from scavenging into a military operation.” With the ‘basic self-defense training’ they all received now including heavy weapons and military vehicles (in simulators), it was fairly obvious.

“If they feel bad, they can just visit our ship’s psychologist.” He continued. “If they want to talk, I’m all ears. But I can’t exactly pull them out of their problems if they don’t want me to. They have to make an attempt on their own.”

“I guess.” Tiriel clicked her tongue. “Still, at least a week until we arrive in the Senla system. Hopefully, the clouds will part by then.”

She really acts and feels as if she can’t stand people around her suffering. Even when she doesn’t like them, like Tendrik. If she doesn’t like him, I find their relationship difficult to identify. Huh. I wonder how serious she is about the whole ‘noblesse oblige’ part?

“Well, if it makes you feel any better…” Christopher told Tiriel. “... I can promise you that if I see an opportunity, I’ll try to talk with them and steer them in right direction. Maybe I’ll even find a way to get us all back into one more or less cohesive ragtag group of misfits. Does this make you happy?” She replied with a nod.

“Uhm, I’m still here, people.” Tendrik reminded them of his presence.

“Great, so we have a volunteer for another brutal massacre… my bad, it’s a training exercise now.” Tiriel smiled in only a bit of a mocking way. “Pick your character, Tendrik.”

***

Christopher wasn’t a paragon of all virtues, or at least he didn’t think of himself like that. However, he disliked going against his word, especially when he explicitly promised something to someone. Even more so if it was about the mental wellbeing of people surrounding him.

Four days later, during his first post-recovery shift, Tendrik ‘mysteriously’ forgot to take his lunchbox from the quarters. The most ‘mysterious’ part of it was the coincidence, as it happened precisely when Christopher had his free time with Kivanna and Nekia.

Officially, when all this happened, Tiriel was working in the enviro section of the ship. Christopher could still see her sleek fingers in the entire coincidence. Christopher had to add ‘refuses to not get what she wants’ to his list of Tiriel’s character traits he spotted thus far.

I promised her I’d do it. Time to do it then.

“All right, girls.” Christopher left the kitchen and entered the common room of the quarters. “Tendrik forgot his lunchbox. I will go hand it to him, but it will be supremely boring if I go on my own. Do you want to accompany me?”

Nekia was watching some action movie on the screen, while Kivanna was tucked into the corner of the room, reading something. At first glance only Kivanna looked like she had some problems - she was rather gloomy and unapproachable. But when one knew Nekia for a while, it was easy to notice changes in her behavior.

“I’m in!” Nekia jumped off the couch. Did I misread her? No, probably not. She seems to force herself to appear cheerful, though she also isn’t entirely against the idea. “Kkiv, are you going?” She added with a noticeable stumble at the beginning.

“E, uhm, no, not really.” Kivanna made the ultimate mistake. She tried to argue with someone who carried the surname of Sistonen… without being Tiriel. It took the catgirl exactly two minutes and thirty-seven seconds (Christopher checked it on his chronometer) to persuade Kivanna to accompany them.

Scary.

The ship was even emptier than usual. All the recruits they gathered on Texia were moved to other ships of their small fleet. When one added the casualties they sustained during the Pristine Jewel incident and recent battle, the ship was almost empty.

Even for a half-abandoned ship, the silence surrounding them was still much too strong. And awkward.

“So, uhm, do you think we’ll get some new crewmembers?” Christopher tried to break it.

“It would be nice. It’s too empty.” Nekia answered. “It really feels like we’re actors in a horror story, you know?” Yeah, I can see that too, Nekia.

“Oh, don’t worry about that.” Christopher felt relieved. The conversation was at least some progress. “If there are any monsters here, we’ll get rid of them easily! We’ll just threaten that we’ll give you some explosives unless they surrender immediately!”

“Heeyyy!” Nekia’s fist bumped into his arm. “Not fair!” Christopher laughed. Kivanna remained gloomy in the background.

One person at a time, Christopher. One person at a time.

“So, excuse my slightly personal question, but…” Christopher said when Nekia calmed down. “... why exactly did you join the crew? I can understand Ryan since he barely had another option, but…” Christopher had suspicions. Suspicions reinforced by accidental violation of privacy via… something he suspected could be the sorcerer’s meta-empathy power. But he wasn’t sure if that was truly the reason.

The article he read explicitly stated that sorcerers possessed only one power per person. Of course, the universe didn’t work perfectly clean. A bunch of random mutations (the cause of the sorcerer’s Awakening) had to be messy. Sometimes a sorcerer developed more than one ability, but the additional skills were vestigial. And got excised together with ‘their’ mutations during the post-Awakening corrective surgery.

He wanted to test his yet unconfirmed meta-empathy, but he wasn’t sure how to proceed. For now, he had to check the information he got with his first, unconscious usage.

“For many reasons.” Nekia suddenly made a serious face. Unusually serious for her, in fact. ”I wanted to get out of Felie. The entire planet is pretty much one large military base, it’s super boring. The best way to leave it was to move into space, and you need some skills and experience to get into a good job. Mother was adamant she would join Captain Keller’s crew. Going with her sounded like the best option to get both skills and experience.”

I’m not buying that. She is too serious about it, that’s the first problem - she looks too unnatural to be honest and comfortable around the issue. What’s worse, she made it sound like she chose the ship DESPITE her mother being here, or that it was only a minor factor when she decided. C’mon, Nekia. It’s too obvious of a lie.

“So… you didn’t choose this ship because you wanted to be like your mom?” Nekia almost tripped when she heard what he said. What followed was a short stream of half-formed ‘why’s’. And then, finally, an actual answer.

“W...well… maybe a bit, just… don’t tell her that, please.” She looked away from him, blushing furiously. “She is always so cool. Everything organized, on time, and right as it should be. But I just keep being a bother. I keep ruining things, but she never even raised her voice at me. Well, maybe save for the explosives incident on the Jewel, but she did that through a text message, so I’m not sure if that, uhm, qualifies.” This confirmed it. Christopher really got a read of her emotions. It also confirmed that Nekia was cute, especially when startled.

Christopher gave the still-startled Nekia a reassuring smile and patted her head. This successfully stopped her small meltdown.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell her.” Time for the proper Superior Officer Pep Talk. “You should, first and foremost, stop being so nervous about it. Calm down and try your best WITHOUT constantly thinking about what your mother would do. Also, fewer explosives, if you can.” I’m considering - due to her love for explosives and her choice for entertainment - that she’s really into adrenaline. Just not the ‘oh God someone is shooting at me’ adrenaline. Probably, it’s hard to figure out what she thinks without using the meta-empathy.

“Ok, fewer explosives.” Nekia chuckled. “Can’t promise the former though.” Yeah, I didn’t expect you to achieve that right now.

“So, uhm, you’re from Felie? What sort of place is it?” Christopher wasn’t interested in the talk about the background. He was already swarmed enough with information about the world in the 28th Century. But the talk went into an awkward silence territory, and he had to change that.

C’mon, Kivanna, at least say something from time to time!

“Eh… how should I… oh, I know.” Nekia seemed to struggle with finding the correct way to answer for a while. “So, you know how some countries ended up practicing slavery and similar, uhm, systems?”

“I’m acutely aware, thank you for reminding me.” That came out more bitter than I wanted. Seriously, give me back my glorious vision of a future where people become less of a dick to each other.

“Yes, so there is a treaty signed by the countries considering them a horrible idea, but aren’t numerous enough to just ban the whole practice in the entire Confederation.” At least there are SOME sane people left out there. “Long ago, they decided that the hunting season on slavers’ ships is permanent wherever their ships are. But there was a problem.”

“Let me guess.” Christopher could already see where it was going. “They had to store the liberated slaves somewhere and didn’t feel super good with taking in potentially unknown numbers of foreign people. So they created a place just for them, right?” Space Liberia, huh. I hope they don’t end with their own Charles Taylor.

“Not… fully, I guess.” Nekia replied. “There are several such places, AND the issue is more complicated in reasoning. Every Variant requires a unique approach to healthcare, so stuffing a lot of them in one place is rarely a marvellous idea. Besides, many former slaves just wanted to live on their own, preferring… life among similar people. Felie is one of such sanctuary worlds inhabited by cathumans.” Ok, she’s right. That was more complicated than I thought.

“So, uhm, I know this is an awkward and insensitive question, but… did your mother, uhm…” Christopher could hardly imagine Tiaa Sistonen in chains. She would probably chew through them and then strangle everyone between her and freedom. With their own intestines, probably.

“Oh, no no no.” Nekia replied, this time with some furious gestures. “She was born on Felie. But my grandparents were first-generation colonists of this world. They were freed when the passenger ship they traveled on with their ‘owner’ got an unexpected visitation from a European Commonwealth’s cruiser. Whose crew acted according to said treaty. Which meant they checked every slave’s opinion on their owners. Then they shot, threw out of an airlock, or in rare cases ignored said owners, before taking every willing slave aboard their ship and departing.” Nekia went silent for a few seconds. “The ‘visited’ ship in their case was from the Imperium Romanum.” She looked away, her face now rather grim.

Holy shit. This adds an entirely new layer of trauma to what she went through on Hastati. Getting imprisoned in a malfunctioning armor is bad enough - you are pretty much immobile, locked in a metal coffin, and without seeing or hearing anything. But she had to hear at least some mentions, even unconscious or accidental, about what her grandparents went through. Besides, she grew up on a planet of liberated slaves who were very talkative about slavery. What if our side lost the fight, and the Hastati crew found her after the battle?

“Well, you’ve just cleared a significant part of my ethical concerns regarding the fact that a few of the Hastati marines died because of me.” And explained why she was so shaken by what happened. “Seriously, you should have mentioned this earlier. I’d wait until our marines cleared the enemies, then I’d get Rukh to chop some fallen enemies’ heads and give them to you on a silver platter as a gift.”

Nekia stared at him for a few seconds, almost walking into a wall. Then she burst into laughter. To Christopher’s great relief, as he was afraid he might have worsened her mood with his attempt to restart their talk.

“Such a gentleman and a romantic!” This time her smile seemed heartfelt. “You’d be super popular on Felie. Slavers’ heads are the second most popular gift for felian women after guns.” It sounds like the perfect place for retirement for every marine on Echo. “So, enough about me, how’s your world like? The Terra, I mean.” This sounded like she forgot where I was from, and remembered right after making the question, huh.

“Well, you know how every country in the 28th Century seems to be composed of some disparate bunch of weirdos? Mostly because the Solar Commonwealth during its decline was busy vomiting political radicals towards the edge of Human Space to get rid of the poison in its body?” At least that’s how the article I read described it. Quite… graphic. “Now imagine having all of those people on one planet, spread in smaller and greater patches throughout it, with many of such patches co-existing in a single country.”

“Oh my… that’s horrible!” Nekia looked at him with a genuine look of terror on her face. “How do you avoid killing each other?!” I’d like to know that myself, Nekia.

“Absolutely no idea.” He replied. “People just shit on each other on the internet, and occasionally beat each other in real life, so I guess they vent that way.” Domestic politics of his country were one thing Christopher didn’t want to remember. “Then again, we didn’t have any major war between developed countries for a while, and there is virtually no slavery.” I shouldn’t mention what ISIS did. It’s pretty much over though, whew!

“Huh, that’s not too bad.” Nekia looked thoughtfully in front of her, somehow avoiding the bunch of crates right in front of her.

Kivanna remained gloomy and followed them without saying a word. Christopher began being bothered by it. He had no idea how to start a talk with the girl. She was always so on edge with him around. Christopher saw her talk with Nekia and Tiriel occasionally, but she remained reserved throughout it.

How should I approach her? Or maybe… maybe I shouldn’t have to approach and instead…

Christopher got an idea. Meta-empathy. He could try to read at least the surface emotions of Kivanna. She was very, very concerned with something and he had no idea how to help her. Using his new power could be both a key to unlocking this mystery as well as a way of making sure he possessed this power. There were two problems with this, however.

He solved the first one when he unlocked the Meta-Empathy Amplification option in his neuroamp. He figured out how to do this, which left with the choice of whether he should do it.

This technically is awfully close to reading one’s mind without their knowledge and approval. On the other hand, just how much different is it from reading one’s emotion from their face? It’s just a more direct and precise version of it, right?

They almost reached the bridge - placed in the center of the ship’s citadel, in the deepest, best-protected part of the ship - when Christopher decided. He activated his neuroamp and extended his power towards Kivanna.

He regretted it almost immediately.