“Hey, Gah, when you accepted this job, did they mention that they were a Ceti Asteri?”
The blue-painted Cleanser popped his head into the cockpit of the Thantir Two, where his sibling Koh was sitting, alongside the Decay Lord Retvik and two Decaylings, Tenuk and Tahvra, who had been making sure that they were going in the right direction. Filling the entirety of the viewing pane was a colossal whale, with small, glowing cosmic clouds drifting around it.
“Uh, no, they didn’t mention it, just gave me the coordinates, said it was corruption, then told us to meet them there.”
Koh clicked in annoyance, double-checking that they were in the right place, before turning to his crew mates. “Retvik, Tenuk, can you open the communications panel and broadcast a message on local open frequencies?”
Retvik fumbled over the controls, not willing to admit that, despite being a Decay Lord, he was still somewhat new when it came to communications management. After a few seconds, with Tenuk silently helping, Retvik opened up the required channels then handed a microphone to Koh.
“Ready when you are.”
“Thanks…” Koh took a moment, then made a series of strange clicking noises down the microphone. Before Retvik could ask what Koh was doing, a new series of clicking sounds echoed from the speakers. Koh seemed unamused by this response.
“So?” Gah asked from the doorway. “Is that Sanisesima?”
“You know what Koh is saying?” Tahvra piped up.
“Kinda. Koh’s the only one of us who can properly speak Ceti Vox Astra but we all kinda understand it. We’ve helped a handful of Ceti Asteri before but normally we know in advance.”
Koh wagged a finger at Gah, telling him to be quiet, then made some more clicking noises. After a couple of seconds, another array of clicks trickled in. The conversation between the tiny Cleanser and the colossal space monster outside continued for a bit, until Koh tutted and turned to Retvik.
“You can generate high heats, right? You were a Tawahian?”
Retvik hesitated. “I can generate high heats, yes, but I am not certain what a Tawahian is.”
“Oh. Means fire-based. You were a fire elemental when you were mortal.”
“Well, I was not… born with fire powers, but yes, I can create and manipulate fire, to high heats.”
Koh clicked twice. “Good. Is anyone else on board a Tawahian? Or, at a push Suwahian or maybe even Vowahian?”
Again, Retvik hesitated. “I do not know what those words mean.”
“Oh. Sorry, I’m switching languages. Suwahian is plasma-based, the way Pah is. Vowahian is electricity or lightning, which, we, at a push, have used to generate heat.”
Retvik frowned. “Teekay has electricity powers but they are not particularly strong. The only other person on board who can also generate fire and is not a Life Goddess is Relkir, and he mimics my own abilities.”
“Eh, just you and Relkir should be good enough. If we send you two in alongside Pah and Tah, should be able to get this done nice and quick. The quicker the better…” Koh paused. “What is it, Tahvra?”
Tahvra fidgeted in his seat. “If fire powers are called Tawahian and electricity powers are called Vowahian, why is Tah called Tah when he clearly doesn’t have fire powers?”
“Before we were upgraded into Cleanser Kal, we had different elements. I used to have ice powers, apparently, but none of us actually recall anything before we became Cleanser Kal.” Koh turned back to Retvik. “Get Relkir, then meet Tah, Gah and Pah in the cargo bay. I’ve already sent instructions to… Oh, hello Litvir!”
Litvir, Retvik’s fellow Decay Lord, stood in the doorway, wrapped in a purple cloak. “Hello. Koh, I am not sure that, between Eksi and myself, we have the strength to do complete mental sedation, not on a creature this large.”
“Leh can help then. I need to keep comms up with Sanisesima, and Nuh needs to stay put with Seimeni and Phovos.”
“Wait, what about Phovos and Seimeni?” Tenuk interrupted. “Like, they’re both Life Goddesses, they could have fire powers too!”
Litvir shot Tenuk a quick telepathic explanation about a lack of control, then took Retvik’s place as Retvik got up to go to the cargo bay. Under Litvir’s careful instructions, Tenuk and Tahvra took over the ship’s controls and brought it closer to the colossal space whale, so that the Thantir Two was parked by the creature’s eye. Koh returned to the comms, making more clicking noises. It took a little too long for Sanisesima to respond.
“Pick up the pace, guys…” Koh sighed, making a more familiar clicking sound.
As Retvik entered the cargo bay, he was pleased to see that Relkir was already present. Tah, Pah and Gah, the red, brown and blue Cleansers, were waiting for them. Gah in particular had erected a large, metal disc, plenty big enough for everyone to stand on.
“Good day, everyone, and welcome to Large Metal Disc Airlines! Today, we’ll…” Gah stopped mid-sentence as Tah whacked him on the arm.
“Gah, not now.”
Gah tutted, then ushered everyone onto the disk, before using his magnetic abilities to move the disk outside, out towards the colossal creature. Now they were outside of the ship, Retvik quickly spotted a large, gaping wound in the creature’s neck, with a black spire of hideous, oozing liquid sticking out of it. Retvik turned to the three Cleansers as all of them came to the same conclusion.
“How bad is it?” Koh asked from inside the ship. As he spoke, the Ceti Asteri clicked loudly, clearly in pain.
“Very bad…” Tah muttered as he and Pah tapped the palms of their hands, their shield-like blades unfolding from their wristbands. “Going to have to enact the mercy procedure…”
“… Alright… Give the Cewahians a minute to do their job.”
Back on the ship, Eksi and Leh had joined Koh and Litvir in the cockpit, however, no one present was talking. Tenuk kept an eye on the ship, while Tahvra squirmed nervously. Something felt wrong and he didn’t know what. And, annoyingly, despite Tahvra also being a telepath, Koh had been quite insistent that he not help Litvir and Eksi in their current task.
The Psionic Decay Lord and Decayling both had their eyes closed and were lost in deep concentration. The Ceti Asteri outside was still making clicking noises, but the speed at which it was making those noises had quickly slowed down, and it was no longer properly answering Koh’s own series of clicks. Slowly, the Ceti Asteri stopped responding completely, and its massive eyes had fallen shut.
“It is now asleep and permanently sedated…” Litvir tutted as he snapped back to attention. “All pain receptors have been turned off.”
“Alright.” Koh clicked again, transmitting a message to the crew outside. “Tah, Pah, you have permission to commence purging.”
“Permanently? Purging?” Tahvra suddenly exclaimed. “What… wait… YOU’RE GOING TO KILL IT?”
“Yes…” was Koh’s blunt reply. “We’re too late. Way, way too late. Even if we’d gotten to Sanisesima as soon as she’d messaged us, it would have been too late. Corruption spreads fast, and Ceti Asteri lack the resistances to protect themselves.”
“But…” Tahvra stuttered. “You didn’t even try! We have a fucking time god on board, can’t Elksia have done something? Or maybe Seimeni and Phovos?”
“Corruptions that target Ceti Asteri tend to immediately also go for any nearby Life Goddesses, which is why Nuh is currently protecting them both in one of the observatories…” Koh explained. “That large black spike sticking out of Sanisesima’s side? That’s a replicator spire, the corruption is already feeding off her and making copies of itself. She was practically begging me to put her out of her misery.”
“But we didn’t try and save her!” Tahvra repeated himself. “We just… you just put her to sleep and started burning her!”
Leh tugged at Tahvra, pulling him out of his seat and leading him down the hallway. The Cleansers didn’t want him to see what was going on outside, as blasts of heat began to eat away at the corruption that was taking over Sanisesima’s body. Thankfully, the beast was no longer conscious, and the massively high temperatures were destroying nerve endings before they even had a chance to register any pain.
Outside, Retvik, Relkir, Pah and Tah continued their work. While the two Cleansers focused on the corruption, Relkir had begun work on Sanisesima’s body, incinerating its flesh using powers borrowed from Retvik. However, Retvik had separated himself from the others, and was currently raising the ambient temperature around them to kill any corruption that may have been floating in the thin atmosphere surrounding the colossal Ceti Asteri, stopping it from spreading further. Once the replicator spire had been fully destroyed, the Cleansers began to assist Relkir, and, slowly but surely, Sanisesima’s body began to fall apart completely.
“How much longer?” Koh asked from inside the ship.
“Not much longer…” Pah answered, busy concentrating as the heat built up around him.
Everyone inside the ship watched as they worked, examining every action from the cockpit and the observatories. After a while, the last few traces of Sanisesima fades away, turning to ash, and all traces of both the Ceti Asteri, the great space whale, and the corruption that had infected it, disappeared into nothingness.
Exhausted, Retvik, Relkir, Pah and Tah returned to the floating metal platform, and Gah dragged everyone back to the ship.
“Was there really nothing we could have done?” Tenuk finally asked as he checked the ship’s scanners.
“Unfortunately, no…” Koh sighed. “We try, we really do, but we can’t save everyone.”
Silence drifted across the ship, ruined by the sound of the cargo bay doors being slammed shut and Gah getting rid of the metal disc. Still, for a while, no one spoke. Everyone on board had just witnessed the death of an ancient creature, its spirit stripped away by corruption before being mercifully put to sleep.
“So, what now?” Eksi eventually muttered.
Koh shrugged, turning to Leh and Litvir. Leh also shrugged, lacking an answer.
“Do you have any more urgent appointments?” Litvir’s eyes were still focused on the bits of ash drifting away on the stellar winds.
“Not for the next few hours, no.”
“We should take a break then…” Litvir sighed, his focus returning to his fellow Decay Lord and Decaylings. “Two hours rest, then we shall move on. That includes you, Tenuk. I will put Teekay on scanner duty for the next hour, and Elksia will replace him for the second hour. After that, we shall continue on as normal…” Litvir abruptly froze, then shook his head.
“You alright, boss?” Eksi posted Litvir in the side.
With another head shake, Litvir swiftly left the room. “Please excuse me, I must attend to something private…”