“Okay so now that she’s settled lets try going over it again? What is going on and what exactly is Tunie doing?”

Omega was gently rubbing Quarti’s back and trying to comfort the girl. The last time Aleph had explained the situation as best she could it had set something off that Omega had never seen in the oracle.

Then again it did seem kind of similar to the stories she had been telling about the ‘end of the world’ and at a guess that probably was pretty traumatic.

But that had been a very long time ago. It probably was nothing to do with whatever these things Tunie had conveyed to them were.

“So um three or so shifts ago Tunie heard a general distress call from this town/city/farm thing. Apparently they are being attacked by these things from elsewhere in the reef, big monsters that swooped in out of nowhere. They tried to fend them off but apparently it was not going well, Then everything um on official or big sounding channels went silent. But there was a bit more messages after full of screaming bursts about uh big triangle shapes and them dragging people away with their tongues and eating them?”

Quarti gave an involuntary shudder and started muttering in a language Aleph and Omega had never heard before. It was fluid and sharp with a few clicks and intonations that were just bizarre. But it also sounded a lot like a panicked child all the same.

Omega squeezed her a bit tighter then nodded for Aleph to continue.

“So, uh yeah, I’m not entirely sure on the specifics of what the monsters are, Tunie is not very good with describing things like that. Pylo is apparently ‘showering’ according to Elsie, Who is also busy with dealing with a bunch of the clerks? Um so I had to use the defaults on the translator and I’m kinda unsure if I got all the settings right.”

She took a heavy breath then gestured to the communication anchor and via it tried to draw their attention to the resonance mapping she had come up with as a kind of laymen’s version of Tunie’s much more precise and detailed course plan.

“So uh the plan as far as I understand it is that while we were wrapping up our camping trip Pylo wrote up a big speech and had Tunie translate it? Uh Transmit? She was not very specific I had to do a lot of guessing. But with that they were coordinating with all the cities/towns/farms around the area to make some kind of big distraction for the monsters”

Omega nodded and continued brushing Quarti’s hair, she was mostly breathing alright again.

“So according to tunie that is going to draw all the monsters up high away from the town buildings. And put their attention on a certain kind of obvious course thing.”

She laughed a little and rubbed at the back of her neck as she tuned the resonance display “I’m not totally sure on this but I think she, Tunie that is, also insults their intelligence, or navigation ability or maybe their mother’s ancestry? It’s complicated but pretty much she is pretty sure the distraction is going to work because the monsters are stupid heads or dumb babies... I really don’t know how to get across the meaning but it’s like that”

Omega snorts a little and Quarti managed something like a nervous laugh. And mutters something else again in a different language from before.

That was a good sign right?

Better then panicked screaming and trying to dig a nest in the ‘clouds’.

Anyway.

Aleph rubbed the back of her head.

“Well anyway since the monsters are distracted and all clumped together because they are ‘stupid’ and think what they see is what is happening and so maneuvering according to that stupidity. Then with them all together Tunie is going to smack all of them”

Omega grabbed Quarti in anticipation for another panicked lunge.

But this time it seemed the story did not trigger terror reflex..

“Tunie is going to smack the monsters?”

Aleph looked around nervously and laughed again trying to sound calm and cheerful about it.

“Yep gonna slam into all of them, uh with all her feathers extended out so she is ‘bigger’ or um something? Smack all of them at the same time. Like mosquitos.”

Omega looked down at Quarti.

“See that isn't so bad, the monsters are not gonna get us, they are tiny and the ship is gonna just slap them away.”

No one was panicking or screaming in what may or may not be the mother tongue of all terran civilization.

So third time’s the charm after all.

Quarti finally spoke, words soft and quavering, she sounded... a lot younger than she looked all of a sudden.

“S-small?”

Aleph nodded and pulled up a image with a vague triangle and a human figure for scale.

“Well relatively small, Tunie is like uh, I think a couple kilometers long? And they are like... I think twelve to twenty meters at the longest? It’s tricky to say tunie describes things in a hard to define way for distance”

Quarti’s breath heaved heavily in relief and all the tension and strain melted out of all her muscles, her expression of such relief Aleph found herself relaxing a little in sympathy.

“There see? Nothing to worry about, those things can’t hurt you now, not like they did before”

Quarti however just laughed and shook her head.

“Not the same... not the same at all... tiny tiny little minnows... Sleep now.”

And with that the resident oracle apparently having had a rough shift of it promptly passed out floating there in front of them.

Omega experimentally flicked Quarti’s nose but she was not responsive.

“Uh okay... so I guess that total cliff shitter panic attack was a false alarm... So when are we ramming these ‘minnows’ again?”

Aleph took out her notes, then counted a bit on her fingers trying to get the math right. Then frowned and double checked a few times before laughing and rubbing at her hair.

“Uh... This is really embarrassing, but I think it happened about twenty minutes ago?”

Omega blinked a little then looked around.

“I didn't feel a thing”

Aleph shrugged.

“Well I guess it really was nothing to worry about at all then.”

Omega stretched until her spine cracked a bit then shook her face out.

“Right well I’ll take up dinner what do you want?”

“Oh how about that spicy rice dish you made with the peppers!”

Omega glanced over at Quarti’s snoring lump of a form just drifting there then shrugged.

“Sure I can do that, you gonna talk with Tunie some more”

“Ah yeah, I want to get an update on what happened”

Aleph didn't want to admit that she was a bit disappointed.

Having a giant feathered living ship ram a swarm of city destroying monsters in excess of Terra orbital speeds should at least have the good dramatic sense to be noticeable on impact.

She guessed it was one of those things she would just have to accept about reality not meeting up with fiction.