Ruined Worlds: A Ghost in the Void

Lady Mu was tired of being summoned on her own ship but there was only so much resisting she could do when it came to someone as high ranking as Sun Tai. She entered the elder statesman's quarters. He had the best quarters on the ship, she knew, because they'd been hers until he showed up. The quarters constituted not one, but four different rooms linked together. They'd been well decorated before he'd had all her stuff put into storage, now it was decorated in ancient paintings from Chinese Masters. Lady Mu hated paintings, especially ancient ones.

It was also decorated by two completely nude young women that he'd brought with him. They were part of his harem. Thankfully the elder man sent them from the room when she entered. He did not send the man standing with him from the room though. That man was dressed in a loose fitting robe of simple, colorless cloth. She'd seen him when Sun Tai boarded the ship, but not since.

Sun Tai strode to a table, her table, and carefully selected porcelain chop sticks from a variety of extremely elaborate, extremely expensive sets. He snapped his fingers, still not addressing her, and them and the man disrobed. For a moment Lady Mu simply stared, then she turned her head and put her hand to her mouth, using every ounce of will she had to keep the bile filling her mouth from spilling out onto the floor. It burned going back down. Holy shit.

The man must have been in excruciating pain, his entire torso, front, sides, and back, as well as his arms and the backs of his hands, had been turned into a farm. For bot flies, fat, disgusting, bot flies. They pushed the skin out unnaturally, leaving openings the size of large coins where their fat black heads were and sometimes they wiggled or squirmed. There must have been a hundred, or more. She didn't know the kinds of medication necessary to prevent blood infection, but he must have been on a ton of it.

"I believe, Lady Mu, in order." He approached the man, scanning his body with hungry eyes. "The Universe is an ordered place and discord only serves to introduce pain and disaster. Everyone has their place. The Emperor above the scholars, the scholars above the generals, the generals above men, men above women, women above merchants, merchants above slaves. This is the way of things. When this order is in place, all proceeds as it should."

He clicked the chopsticks together, turning to face her. "When someone upsets that order, disaster follows. This is why I have long argued against your command of this ship. This is why I continue to argue against it. To this point, the Glorious Emperor, may he reign for a thousand years, does not agree with me. He believes that your special understanding of this--Yue Fei--puts you in a unique position."

He turned again and, using the chopsticks, slowly wiggled one of the two inch long larva from a hole in the skin of the man's right breast. The man winced and groaned. The larva were covered in spikes designed to make exactly what he was doing difficult, and painful.

Lady Mu looked away.

"You continue to upset the order. Do not think I did not notice your words at the dinner yesterday. You will obey your superiors and you will not contradict me again." In an act that nearly had her vomit again he actually plopped the larva into his mouth and ate it, with gross, squishing sounds that made her skin crawl. "I put people who disobey me in their place."

He snapped again and the man put his robe back on. "Take this man here for example. He used to be one of my closest advisors, now he's a farm. Disobey me again Lady Mu. Am I clear?"

She looked back at him.

"Yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes my lord," she said, bowing deeply and maintaining it for long moments of silence. When she stood again she finished her sentence. "Thank you for your benevolence my lord, I am not deserving of your kindness."

Sun Tai smiled, wiping his lips with a napkin that probably cost more than a house. "Good. I'm glad we have a working understanding then. Please, see to the mission."

She bowed again and turned to leave, eager to put the whole room behind her. "And Lady Mu," he said. She froze. "Yue Fei is an it undeserving of gender. Remember that too."

She took a breath, crushing her rage with a vision of the poor man, and departed without another word.

---

By the time she arrived in the hanger to meet with everyone, she was visibly distracted and a little pale. She should eat, but she couldn't bring herself to do it just now. She arrived carrying a data slate and nearly didn't see the other person to arrive with her. When she did, he quite literally took her breath away. He wasn't as beautiful in this form as he was in his own skin, but he was so much closer. She could touch him. She wanted to, to reach out--but that skin wasn't him. Arriving next to her was a smiling slightly older male dressed in traditional attire, a Jian hanging from his right hip. It was functional, but if anyone thought he was going to waste his time fighting with such a primitive weapon, they were sorely mistaken.

Yue Fei, in his male human avatar, smiled at her. She nearly fainted. He smiled so rarely, and it was so beautiful, even on this face that was not his own. Yue Fei looked all the world for a human here, and now, but he was so much better. This form would fool anyone who didn't know better, perhaps because it was an actual human body, though it had never housed a sentient brain. They'd grown it, and a female version of it, from cloned cells. Each had a nervous system, but the brain was functionally dead until Yue Fei occupied it.

Hello Lady Mu He'd forgotten to speak with his lips and instead his voice, sounding for all the world like chimes in the wind, sounded in her mind. He had other tones, she'd heard them before. Sometimes, when he was focused on some deeply occupying task, his voice was stripped bare to what it really was. Powerful, headache inducingly powerful. When he 'spoke' with a different voice it was because he was carefully taking his time to only apply a light telepathic touch.

They came to a stop before everyone while orderlies were searching out sources of caffeine for the assembled group of decidedly not morning people. Yue Fei bowed to them.

"Yue Fei, your lips," she reminded him. He'd not used his avatars much and was still unused to physically talking.

This time he remembered.

"Hello everyone, I am Yue Fei. I will try to speak traditionally, but I'm not yet used to this avatar and may instead use my telepathic abilities. If I do, I apologize. I wanted to come with you in more than my war form so that we might get to know one another."

And so he can actually see something other than the inside of his tank and the cold walls of this ship. It's not right to keep him there.

"I uh didn't pack any." There was a small droop of the head and lowering ears Jackie a little bummed by it's inability to squeeze snacks into its pack of equipment. It had lights, lighting equipment, it had cameras and lenses, sound equipment and even a make up kit. The critter had stuff for recording data be it audio, hand written or typed. It had tools in a concerning number of so many types. Be it for an old car or the latest engine component one had to wonder if Jackie had the tools for it. Yet within that heavy pack there was no food that had slipped the tiny explorer's mind.

Mood brightened though as the announcement of Yue was made. The mystery addition of the team. The Lutumul didn't like the idea of the situation the alien was in but it did like new crew. It had gotten to meet the others but not this one. Lady Mu seemed pretty interested in the "guy" Jackie wasn't sure if the attraction was the host or the mind. It also didn't know if host was the right word. It looked like another human but it was being piloted that was all very weird. Not aided by the fact Jackie was no biologist.

"Provided it doesn't explode my head. Speak naturally if you want. I want to know your traditions not how well you replicate others." Jackie was a Lutumul and it e old try and eat politely and not sleep in a total mess, but it was Lutumul. Some things couldn't be helped. A human trying to follow Lutumul ways would probably look sloppy and silly, and just lack a great fuzzy coat. It didn't know what Yue traditionally did but it assumed it wasn't going to be human. "Also lady Mu you should eat something, look sick. I am not cleaning up vomit in zero g."

It really didn't intend to clean up any mess like that in general. If a Lutumul could find a sink or toilet before getting sick surely a human could. Of course some of that tolerance was do to the critter being raised and around many crews and their drinking escapades. The remarks concluded with Jackie offering handshake.

Those tiny thin fuzzy hands reached up. Surely not because of how small the critter was, but because a Lutumul was towering and reaching for the stars. And hand shake that would grasp the horizon because of how far a team with Jackie in it could go! Just ignore the fact that if Jackie reached as high as it could it probably couldn't poke anyone's shoulder.

Dorothy takes a seat on one of the benches and sips her tea once more before setting it beside her. Staying quiet on the matter of caffeine - she didn’t bring enough to share, not to mention how unhygienic it would be to offer a cup she already drank out of - she instead digs through her pack. She’s got snacks aplenty, though mostly the high-nutrient minimal-taste kind. Pushing a first aid kit and emergency flare aside, she retrieves, at last, a brush.

She sets this on her other side and zips the bag up again, looking up in time to see the last of their group arrive. The mysterious Yue Fei, surprisingly, just looks like some guy. Telepathic abilities, huh? Well, it’s a big universe, she supposes. Just in case he was listening, she mentally apologizes for calling him plain-looking.

Externally, she offers a crisp “hello” and a nod in response to the greetings, waiting for Jackie to dart back within arm’s range. When they do, she takes up the brush and attempts to make some sort of order of their static-ridden fur.

She’s got her priorities, and right now most of them center around keeping herself and her crewmate alive and presentable. In that order, probably. One of the orderlies sets a plate beside her, and she looks over to see - ah, breakfast. Always wise to keep the crew fed before a big mission.

Apparently they were paying attention, as there’s another of those muffins waiting for her. She can’t even muster the will to be surprised, at this point. They probably know her blood type and favorite color, by this point. Maybe with the telepath they have on staff, or maybe through good old-fashioned snooping. Who’s to say?

“Who’ll be piloting the ship?” She asks, after everyone’s done fawning over the… alien? The guy. Whoever he is. Telepaths, sure, interesting, but she’s more interested in hearing about the plan for the day. Unless Yue Fei has some oral history hidden in his government-controlled brain, she doubts how much there’ll be for her to report about him. Even if she gets the chance to film, she’s pretty sure he’ll be one of those things they conveniently cut from her broadcasts.

That was the thing, wasn't it? Because Cory had expected this 'avatar' to be mechanical, or at least partially mechanical, but she was a biologist and at this range could pretty much tell that it wasn't. Not only was it not mechanical, it also wasn't just some sort of weird flesh amalgamation - it seemed, for all initial assessment practices, to be human. It would be hard to confirm for sure without internal scans, but her initial assessment and the reason for the hesitance was that the arm moved like a human arm - inclusive of joints, bones, musculature, ligaments - all the basic things that one would expect in a human being.

The answer, from Yue Fei, was... interesting. Very interesting, on a number of levels. Cory raised her eyebrows, still staying where she was for now, her gaze turning to it/his/the avatar's/Yue Fei's own eyes.

So, either the Chinese Pillar had figured out how to make mindless clones from flesh grown in a vat, or the Chinese Pillar had figured out how to make mindless clones from its citizens. Cory wouldn't have put it past them. Either option was extremely unsettling, though for different reasons. She released the arm of the... thing... with a quiet "Sure."

Whatever Yue Fei was, he either didn't know, or he was an extremely talented liar - and Cory didn't think she understood enough about him yet to figure it out. Cory turned back to Lady Mu, her stare a bit more focused than it had been the night before. Does she know? If nothing else, Lady Mu was human, with human motivations and human weaknesses. Her weakness, in this case, seemed to be Yue Fei. There would definitely be some that would use that against her.

Cory wasn't one of them. "Let me know if you need anything. Either of you."

“Fully biological?” Cilla raised a brow. She was no stranger to cloned organs and limbs, accidents happened within the fleet as often as they did anywhere else and the medical ships offered many different treatment options to those who would rather stay more stock sapien than those in search of more technological fixes to the human body. They were tools as anything else, things that didn’t require the donation from another and the possibility of rejection, but the cloning of an entire person with their brain simply turned off gave her an odd squeamishness in the pit of her stomach. It wasn’t Yue Fei’s fault for it, he had no control over what the Pillars did, but it still led Cilla to look at Lady Mu in a slightly different light. Willing to do the morally dubious to be closer to the being she was clearly infatuated with? A thought to deal with later if it seemed like it would be worth worrying about. “The Pillars really have such interesting medical technology.”

Was removing the consciousness from a human mind something they could do to anyone?

That was a thought that was going to fester.

“If he has no objections with how he’s communicating, then I have no real problem with it.” Cilla said, her smile returning as easily as it had gone. Something Lady Mu wanted for him, or something the Chinese Pillar wanted to turn him into another model soldier for their empire? Not worth worrying about. “Well, shall we get loaded up? I’m sure we’ll have time to iron out the details we need to in transit down to the shell.”

Lady Mu waved off their flight concerns. "If you wish Yue Fei to fly he is more than capable of it. We do not have your activities on the surface planned, you are the experts, so we leave that to you. I would suggest of course a base camp and there are portable shelters in the shuttle, as well as food and other basic supplies should you find yourselves in need of it. We tried to anticipate any extra equipment you might need and loaded it into the shuttle. If there are items you need next trip please take notes and let us know." 

She eyed Cory a moment longer before returning her attention to the rest of the group. "Please, proceed to the surface and do whatever is necessary for you to do. Be sure you return to the ship by sun fall, for safety if nothing else." 

She bowed briefly and departed. She had much to do, and that included being in Yue Fei's command center while he was doing all this. 

for his part Yue Fei smiled, completely missing the concern people had for his avatar and its potentially unspeakable technologies and origin. He completely lacked the ability to pick up on it and simply continued on as if everything was fine. "It will be strange piloting with actual hands," he mused. It would be strange, because he was essentially piloting a body that would be piloting a ship. Since they were keen on departing, he headed for the shuttle. 

"I've read your files, but I really look forward to getting to know everyone. Files can only say so much about a person, and usually none of the right things." He entered the shuttle's cockpit, going through the pre-flight startup routine while he waited for everyone to be seated. Once they were ready he elevated the shuttle off the ground and took flight.

Yue Fei's piloting skills were far from stressed by venture and he took his time, approaching at a good angle so everyone could get a view of the mammoth structure they would be landing on. No description of a Dyson Shell did it any justice, it was massive, well beyond the size of any one planet and easily occupied the entirety of any viewing window. The surface was silver grey but difficult to see in space, the whole system was dark, the light of its sun captured by the very shell they were attempting to view. Only as they passed the place where the shell fragmented did light flood into view, so brilliantly the windows had to auto dim to prevent retina damage. 

If the Dyson Shell was poorly described compared to its actual presence, the damage to it was even more so. Whatever had hit the Dyson Shell had broken it apart into huge chunks, like a child taking a bat to a pane of glass. The pieces still floated close to one another, held relatively in place by the forces of gravity. The surface, partially lit by escaping sunlight, was blackened and charred on the exterior for the better part of a thousand miles north and south in one great, uninterrupted line. The shell was further haunted by the wreckage of ships drifting pass, all lazily making their way towards an eventual demise and impact with the exterior surface. These ships were broken too, blown apart or sliced in half. No doubt bodies drifted among the ruins. 

Yue Fei skirted these ruins and slipped the shuttle past the enormous damage to the shell. Here they would see the depth of the shell, the weapon, or whatever it was, that had struck the shell had blown through *miles* of super material. The inside of the shell was a different story, a sudden, vibrant world opening up before them. There were mountain ranges, great lakes, huge oceans, and rolling plains. Much of this remained intact, though even from orbit it was possible to see where craters were over grown with new growth. 

The whole way he said nothing, his eyes ever on the scenes unfolding before them. His face remained passive, but his eyes narrowed. He didn't give voice to the weird sense of familiarity picking at the back of his mind and kept going. 

He spoke only when he found their landing site, a place in tall grass not more than a mile past huge, mostly overgrown ruins. For now he made no attempt to descend, they'd made mention of a fly over and ironing out details. He did that, flying over the landing sight, letting them see the area picked out on their maps for landing, and the huge, overgrown crater that called for research.

"If we assume a population density similar to the Sol system..." he trailed off, not sure what the right words were, or how to even put that sort of loss of life into an understandable perspective. There was a certain point at which the sentient mind simply chose not to grasp it. 

"Anyway," he said after a moment. He brought the shuttle to a stable orbit well above the landing sight and turned to face the group. "You had details to iron out?"

Jackie was relieved to hear once on ground they were free to move and plan to their liking. The more time spent on the ship and around Lady Mu and Co had the critter thinking there would be no chance. It half expected to be told they would have to park on this hill and set camp only on that hill and restroom breaks were only allowed over at this spot of grass. That every little thing would be scheduled at a set time. Or worse that they would have drones do a bunch of the work. Because getting hands dirty was for the cannon fodder. Or maybe that was why they had so much freedom. Because if the group perished for mistakes hands didn't get dirty hiring more.

A ship is taken, Lady Mu's choice not one of their's. Jackie of course didn't like that either as would have liked to see what the others rode here up close. If it had its way it'd be crawling around the decks and compartments rummaging around. Jackie loved seeing what scrapped together solution others had. The fancy military or corporate ships like the one Jackie was stuck on they were more uniform just order a new replacement. To Jackie the real pilots and mechanics though didn't have that luxury they instead took scraps. One of Jackie's favorites had been a human sister of his who used a old car engine block to replace the motors controlling a ships navigation panels. That crew member declared family was years ago though and instead Jackie felt unallowed to explore the current ship.

It sets a camera on the dashboard a few little magnets to hold it in place. Allowing the critter to film the flight while it found somewhere to sit. The humans would want the seats up front probably. Also Jackie just didn't want to sit in any of those. They made it feel small, which it was not! Beady eyes looked around and settled on a window looking out to the left. There was a storage unit above the window, the fluffy tail would reach up and coil around the unit for security. Buckling up was important but a Lutumul tail was just as good a security measure...usually.

The flight was calm for the most part and conversation small. Until the debris came into view. A second camera pulled out of a pocket was removed to zoom in on the debris. The hands shook some though steady as they usually were this sight scared the critter. The sphere had been huge incomprehensible just how much so. Jackie had seen many marvels of technology but none of them came close. The accomplishments in engineering seemed wasteful in scope to it sure but there was no denying the work that had to go into it. But then there was the destruction, the only bigger marvel then the sphere had to be whatever weapon did that. The scorch marks on the debris, that would what be entire cities maybe country sides turned to ash. "Don't think there's a big enough military drone for you Yue." If a hostile force did that then what hope was there in defense.

They near the landing sight and plans become the discussion. "But I don't wear socks." The spindly feet of a Lutumul was one of the harder things to work around. It'd put on boots designed for a Lutumul when the time came. But everyone knew soon as a planet seemed safe to step bare feet on a Lutumul would. "I'll carry one of the tarps. The shelters are probably better in someone else's hands. It's so not a size thing." It was a thousand percent a size thing.

Moments were taken to rummage through equipment. The pack the critter had been heavy but was soon two. One of snacks and water, comms and flashlight, two cameras and every tool seemingly under the sun. The second bag was blankets and clothes, lighting and sound equipment, more cameras, and what could only be described as vast assortment of parts. Could have and likely was everything from a toaster to a carborater, junk was good to have for repairs but it wasn't critical. "Who's budding up with who?" Part of Jackie wanted to just stick with Dorothy. Normally the creature loved getting to know others, the crew mate and friend could probably see the nervous twitch though. The destruction they saw had bothered it. Jackie would have moments ago loved to hang out with anyone as most were worth getting to know. When death seemed dwarfing possible though a Lutumul wanted to go out around those it knew. "Dorothy and I've worked together so should we split up?" It made sense, and even if a friend probably knew it was scared the critter didn't want to show it.

Jackie had put on a brave face, just ignore the beady eyes looking every which way.