“So, uh, the problem is, I got all this data but I can’t translate any of it. Installed a Voidborn language service pack before we went, so the text is there, but I have no idea if any of it is correct or not or whether it’s all now garbage data.”
Tah glanced through a folder of files, searching for keywords that he recognized, before translating small strings in his head. Thankfully, Teekay had installed the correct language packs, but as Tah searched, he found he wasn’t picking up as much as he would have liked. By his side was Koh, Kal’s resident communications expert, but a quick telepathic message from Koh suggested he was having similar issues.
“So you ripped this right out of a Voidborn console?” Koh asked.
Teekay nodded. Also present was Eksi, who was currently both hiding from several members of Loopblade and nursing a rather nasty headache. Really, the team known as Kal had work to do, but since they were mostly doing Voidborn Kenic Spore removals these days, it meant that Tah and Koh, who dealt with the more administrative side of things, weren’t particularly busy, since Nuh, Gah, Pah and Leh had Kenic Spore removals down to a fine art. Occasionally Tah would help out by teleporting aggressive spores into specially made canisters, but Koh in particular had a lot of free time currently.
“Plugged in a specially neutered laptop, started downloading as much as I could, basically.”
“And you’ve kept this off all communication networks, yes?” Tah also asked.
“Of course. Didn’t want any nasty stray Voidborn stuff getting in.”
“Alrighty…” Tah went back to scanning things. One thing did catch his eye, a file titled ‘map snapshot’ with a series of numbers next to it. Out of curiosity, Tah opened up the file and, as it suggested, it contained a static image of a map. Or rather, a large, empty void with several marked points on it, one of which read “ShimmeringBlade072” in the standard Voidborn font. The other points only had numbers as names, but one of them was marked with just the number 1.
Feeling somewhat concerned, Tah started a new search for other map snapshots. He came across ten of them and opened them all up to compare them. Each of them contained the same points, including a “ShimmeringBlade072” apart from the last one, which also seemed to be the newest one. Tah opened up an image editing program, copied and pasted all of the images into one file, removing the black backgrounds. He then started drawing several lines, measuring how close the ShimmeringBlade072 marker came to the point just named 1.
“Is that 1 point the main Voidborn ship?” Teekay asked.
“I’m not sure, but whatever it is, the Phantai’s main ship got too close to them…” Tah pointed to a circle that radiated off from the 1 point. “Pretty sure this line here, if we’d gotten too close, they would have opened fire. We didn’t, but Voidborn ships do have some sort of perimeter defence mechanism and we could have been in trouble.”
“And we would have been completely unaware…” Teekay tutted. “Do you have any time stamps though?”
Tah went back to the file names, then shrugged. “I don’t know what Voidborns measure their time in, and I’m certain it’s not the same as what we use to measure time here.”
“Are any of the other points on this map anything you recognize?”
Tah fell silent and inspected the maps again, looking for a point that wasn’t labelled with a number. Right in the top corner of one map, one of the older maps, he spotted the word “RINGBLAD”. Tah didn’t know much about the Phantai’s fleet, but he was pretty sure there was a Phantai patrol ship called Shattering Blade 012. He pointed this out to Teekay and Eksi, both of whom smiled.
“I could probably get information about the Shattering Blade’s location off Loopblade!” Eksi grinned. “They do a lot of ship tracking, they probably keep data on where the ships have been. If Teekay and I get the info on both the Shimmering Blade’s recent positions and those of Shattering Blade, we can use that to triangulate where this 1 point was located, right, Teekay?”
Teekay nodded. “Yeah, basically. Shouldn’t even be too hard. And, looking at these maps, it looks like that marker doesn’t move much at all.”
“Still, there IS a problem…” Koh clicked. “They clearly have a defined radius where they potentially attack anything that isn’t a Voidborn ship, and the Shimmering Blade nearly got too close. Which means you lot are going to have to somehow hijack a Voidborn ship to be able to get through. Normally, I’d say that isn’t a problem, but you guys are working covertly, and you have no way to store a Voidborn ship close by without the Phantai finding out.”
Eksi shrugged. “Yeah we do. You guys have that gold Olmak mask thingy. We could just store the ship in the Nest and-”
“WE ARE NOT STORING ANYTHING LIKE THAT NEAR THE NEST!” Koh’s voice increased in pitch until only Tah could hear it. Tah gave Koh an odd look (as odd a look as a featureless Cleanser could give), suggesting that Koh calm down and not give things away. “Sorry, but that’s super risky. I’m willing to play along but I’m not putting our home in danger for this insanity.”
“We could use that mask though, right?” Eksi asked. “That mask can create portals, right? Can’t we just use it to create a portal that goes over or past or through that Voidborn proximity alarm thingy?”
Koh wished he had visible emotions to show how uneasy that idea made him feel. “Well…”
“You can, but you don’t want to.”
Koh clicked several times in frustration. “Yes, basically. I don’t feel pain normally, but that damn Canoh makes me feel things that I don’t understand. And I’m pretty sure it tries to talk to me sometimes.”
“Could one of us wear it?” Teekay asked. “Maybe Akah could try? Or if Tenuk shapeshifted into a Cleanser? Could also give it to Phovos maybe?”
“Funnily enough, Kanuva let Akah try on his Canoh Avohk but nothing happened…” Tah shrugged. “Still, some sort of teleportation might work, but I don’t think either you or I are powerful enough to teleport multiple ships any sort of meaningful distance.”
“Have either of you tried?” Eksi butted in. “Actually, Phovos can teleport stuff with her magic Life Goddess wish powers, that might work.”
Teekay hesitated. “I mean, I can teleport quite a few people at once, but I’ve not tried a ship before. No idea how I’d even try that though.”
“You could just try teleporting ships in the hangar!” Eksi beamed. “Frankly, right now, we can get away with any old piss, because we can just cover it up with the fact that we’re training for our Decay Lords trials. Which, according to Kaytee, might be super hard for us because we’re going in as a team of eight…” Eksi trailed off, then glanced at Tah and Koh. “What was your Decay Lord trial like?”
Tah thought to himself for a moment. “We were pitted against a Voidborn filled with Corruption. I think we were supposed to kill it, but we ended up curing it of the Corruption. It thanked us, teleported away and our trial kinda just ended there. We got to speak to the Overlord, he removed the trackers they’d soldered to us, he tried to offer us food and a drink but we politely declined because we can’t actually eat or drink, he congratulated us on our unusual thinking, declared us Decay Lords and just teleported us back to the Metrum’s base.”
Teekay and Eksi both shrugged.
“There’s six of you and-”
“Well, back then, we only had two bodies between us. Thankfully, Leh’s legs did work, his body kinda just fell apart after we became Decay Lords. But you do have a point, we can just hide a lot of this stuff under Decayling training…” Tah turned his attention back to the files. He spotted one in a language that wasn’t written in Voidborn.
“Soooooo…” Eksi leaned forward. “You lot can read Voidborn?”
Koh tutted. “We can read a little bit, but different cults have different dialects and we can’t read those. The Crystal Doom in particular, we don’t get their dialect at all…”
Tah clicked in agreement, then started opening the files he recognized. He quickly spotted a pattern. Every single file was some sort of captured communication that contained one specific phrase: The Diamond. The name the Phantai had given to the Crystal Doom’s main ship and headquarters.
“Have the Voidborns been intercepting any and all messages the Phantai have sent about their mothership?” Eksi peered over Tah’s shoulder.
“Looks like it…” Tah trailed off. “I know we’re supposed to be keeping this secret from everyone, but it might be worth bringing this up with, I dunno, Loopblade maybe?”
“Why?” Teekay and Eksi both looked confused.
“I mean, run it by Retvik and Litvir first, but clearly the Voidborns have something in the Phantai’s systems, and since we’re also using Phantai networks, we don’t want to get caught out ourselves.”
Teekay shrugged. “Fair enough. I’ll go speak to Litvir then. Do you guys need me or are you happy to keep on combing through that data, since you guys can actually translate it?”
Koh clicked in vague annoyance. “Eh, we have nothing better to do. The quicker we clear the Phantai networks, the better.”
“Alrighty! See you later!” Teekay beamed as he disappeared in a puff of sparkles.
Tah and Koh both turned to Eksi. “So, are you sticking around?”
Eksi hesitated, then frowned. “Do you want me to leave?”
“Nah, you can stay!” Tah clicked cheerfully as he went back to searching through files. “It’s always nice having you Decaylings around…”