Tasha finds herself standing in this strange place, clad in Vartan armor but without a helmet. Floating at chest height before her is something she's never seen before; it might be a weapon, or a shield. It's nearly as long as she is tall, and tapered to a point at one end while being curved and wide at the other. There are multiple recessed gripping points apparent, along with two handles that emerge straight out of the otherwise solid body. The edge looks very sharp, and is all in gold while the body is glossy black.

She's also still a bit tingly. Beyond the floating weapon is a duplicate set a few yards away, hovering in front of the now-armored avatar of Melchior. "This is your shaard," the golden Vartan says, his voice reaching to Tasha's hooves as usual. "It is your primary weapon and active defense."

Still recovering from the bliss of completed neural union, not to mention the powerful maelstrom of other emotions attached to the Melchior and the events leading to its discovery, the woman's response is slow. She fights to focus amidst the miracles and changes that surround her. Her head rises, and as she beholds the Melchior's avatar again – she smiles. Beautiful beyond words, he's easy to focus on. Cybernetic connection with the Magi system is many things she did not expect, and will likely be many more. But even in its strangeness, she finds it all a thing of wonder, tugging at her soul …

Tasha's ears perk forward as she listens, rising for her dazed reverie. She listens, gazing down again to regard the strange device before her, and then she nods.

"My shaard … ," the young woman repeats, her tone distant, thought-filled. "What is it, Melchior? Where are we?"

"It is a combined blade and shield, as we are a hand-to-hand combat machine," Melchior notes. "This is merely a training simulation space."

"Hand-to-hand, I understand," Tasha confirms, smiling a little more. She stares at Melchior a little too long, then blinks, the woman standing straighter. "I'm ready for instruction," she confirms with a tone of renewed conviction and focus. "I'm sorry for being distracted, Melchior."

"What is distracting you?" the avatar asks.

"You," Tasha admits, smile going lopsided. "This – all of this. You must know I'm not the pilot promised to you, don't you? A lot has changed. And, well," the red armored woman gestures to the strange world around her with both hands, expansively, "Just being here is wonderful for me. More than wonderful." Her ears perk, head tilting, "I hope I'm not being odd? Well, … Odd to you? I don't … don't really know how to explain what all of this means to me."

"Full concentration is required for training," Melchior claims. "Feedback can be intense."

"It sure can be," Tasha agrees, rubbing her head. "I'll do my best. I'll just try and … not think about more than what I need to do." Looking down, Tasha takes a breath, then nods, decided. "Focus. This is a shaard. We are training. I am a pilot, and I made a promise. Focus." Looking up, she nods. "Ready. Instruct me."

The avatar grips his shaard by one of the protruding handles, and brings the weapon up against his arm guard where it seems to attach. "This is the standard ready position," he explains. To Tasha, it reminds a bit of how Eeee used blade-tailed skedat shells.

"That is somewhat familiar to me," Tasha notes, trying to mimic the avatar's business-focused style of speaking. "Like a punch-weapon and a shield, combined."

"The entire leading edge serves as a cutting surface," Melchior explains. "At this stage, we will use it in the deactivated state. Active sonic vibration must be used sparingly to preserve energy."

"The sonic vibration makes the blade more dangerous, then?" The looks down at her own shaard and, after looking at it for a moment, extends her hand confidently to grasp the same handle Melchior had on his. "So you'd activate that when you're sure you'll strike?"

"Correct," Melchior replies. "It allows for cutting through ferro-ceramic armor. However it can just as easily cut through your own. Practice moving the shaard, and moving with it. Like any bladed weapon, you must be aware of the location of the tip at all times."

Tasha hefts the weapon in front of her, raising it to examine its surface carefully – especially the edges. Given how sharp it looks, the woman can fully believe it could cut her own arm off as well as anyone else's. "I've never used a sword, or axe, but I do know how to move with punches," she offers, turning the weapon this way and that. "It's a very large weapon – it must be lighter than it seems?"

"It is very light, compared to your own armor," Melchior notes. "When held in this mode, however, the armor compensates for the mass to make it feel lighter."

"Like how powered armor supports itself so the wearer does not feel it," Tasha observes. Having completed her inspection of the weapon, she shifts it to attempt to attach it just as Melchior has done with his own. "And it functions as a shield? Does that mean against other bladed weapons, or everything, like a plasma cannon?"

"It's designed to disperse heat and ions, but is not as sturdy as your own armor against impacts," the avatar says. "In close combat it has many uses, however. Angling it properly can deflect a cutting strike, or it can be used to catch and break an opponent's weapon."

Tasha nods to this, remembering well the weapons arrayed against her when she piloted the Themis-Skoll in another simulation. She occasionally has nightmares about a large machine shooting her head off. "Use the shaard to block weapons that use heat and ions," Tasha notes to herself to look into what "ions," are, and what weapons use them, " … as well as bladed weapons, but take impacts like punches on my own armor, if it's safe?"

"It is best to deflect impacts with the shaard without allowing it to take the full force," Melchior says. "Attack me, and I will demonstrate."

Absorbing this information, Tasha regards her own shaard, considering how best that might be accomplished in any given attack. She's still considering this when Melchior asks her to attack him, causing her head to snap up, and the woman to blink. "Yes, coming," she says after a moment of hesitation. She regards the shaard attached to her right arm, thinking on how to swing it, and decides to go with what she knows. Ducking down, lifts so that it angles down from her right shoulder, across the front of her body, as she runs. When she gets close enough to begin her planned attack, she pulls the shield back, then tries to punch Melchior with the tip, like a punch-dagger.

The avatar's own shaard comes up like a vertical shield, and it looks like he's going to take the punch with it directly – until the bladed section splits apart to catch Tasha's thrust in the gap. She feels her arm wrenched as she swings around by the tip of her weapon until the angle allows her to fly free.

Tasha stumbles back a few steps, bringing her weapon up to shield herself from a return blow, thinking it would have been much too late if that had been a real exchange. Fighting instinct urges her to be ready. "The weapon changes as well, Melchior?" The woman lowers her own slightly, not about to completely lower her defense – one too many dock-side sucker punches has made her careful. "It's very unusual, I'll give it that!"

"It has several shapes," Melchior notes. "You will learn how to initiate them and how best to use them.

"I will," Tasha agrees. She steps back several paces, then lowers her weapon. "Thank you for teaching me, it's good to be fighting again." And she smiles.

"Try some sweeping attacks," the avatar says, shifting his shaard back to normal. "I will show you how to use angular deflection."

After considering asking the avatar not to laugh at her swings, Tasha decides Melchior might not be the laughing sort. It strikes her she isn't quite sure what sort he is; Her knowledge of AIs, especially machine-AIs, boarders on the non-existent. Melchior has held her and kissed her, but now seems distant. It's a mystery she decides she'll have to sort out later.

Lifting her weapon, Tasha considers the angles in which the blade might be swung against someone from a shielding angle, then decides against trying such a complicated combination of maneuvers. Instead she approaches with her arm out, and just tries to make basic, learning swings. A underhand slice, an overhand, a cross cut – as she swings, she sees that the blade's position and weight before and after a strike suggest what next attacks might be available to her. In learning, she begins to understand just how complex swordsmanship must really be.

Watching Melchior's defense shows that there are multiple ways to hold the shaard, as he shifts his grip often to move and position the shield. He twists and turns, often using the angle of deflection to reposition himself for a potential counterattack.

Losing herself to the simple bliss of fighting practice, Tasha studies Melchior's deflections and her own strikes. In minutes, Tasha has switched from simple trying various swings to swinging with purpose, repeating the same strike over and over with slight variations to see how Melchior reacts and moves. It eventually strikes her that just as deflection can be used to setup against her open side, her own strikes might be able to force an opponent to react in a way that is advantageous to her. While not feeling quite ready to attempt such advanced attacks, she keeps them in mind as she practices the much more simple exchange of slice and block.

"Are you ready to defend?" Melchior asks during a break.

"We'll see," Tasha replies, grinning and wagging her tail. She lifts her weapon into the standard position, trying to recall all the defensive moves Melchior employed against her.

To start with, Melchior sticks to Tasha's own attacks to make sure she can handle the basics. It takes a bit before she gets the groove of shifting her grip on the shaard (but only drops it once). The repetition makes Melchior's attacks rather predictable though.

Tasha lays her ears back at the drop, blushing and grimacing. Instead of apologizing or belittling herself, she decides to stick to Layth's advice and have confidence. Keep trying. Strike and block, strike and deflect, strike and move. In the back of her mind, she briefly wonders what Layth must think about her now, but decides he and the rest of her life will need to wait. For now, she satisfies herself with working to improve her deflection techniques.

Next, Melchior takes Tasha through some mixed melee, trading blows with one another. Some of what Tasha thought before about using her opponent's defense strategy to position him for the next attack is put into practice, but only in a limited sense – there's no way to do a follow-up attack without letting herself be open for a counterattack. The limits of a weapon that is both offense and defense begin to become apparent.

As she goes through the motions Tasha wonders where the balance is; How can such a massive, multi-role weapon be used without so much vulnerability? Various answers come to her as she enters into positions to attack and defend. A combination of attacks and defenses may lead to a moment where her opponent cannot defend well enough to counter against a dedicated attack, perhaps. A degree of guts, she thinks, is also required; To attack you must sacrifice defense. "It's, … hurk," Melchior's reposite deflects off her own shaard, forcing her to consider if he is open or not, delaying her words. After a deflected strike, and a block against his counter, she gets out, " … a very Vartan weapon!" Tasha had always appreciated a degree of danger and risk, of recklessness and ferocity, and now she's found means she might use that instinct for more than just bar fights and expressing her feelings.

"How do you feel?" the avatar asks, without pausing the melee.

"I-" Tasha pauses to angle her blade, deflecting downward a slanted strike. She tries to counter by slicing her shaard across at Melchior's head, but the top of his own shield catches hers, angling her strike off. "Ah- dirty trick!" She waits for the next blow, putting her efforts to defense, giving her a moment to speak, "But," her shield blocks the next attack easily enough, making her think just how difficult this might be if Melchior wasn't holding back, "I feel," another attack, horizontal this time, gets angled off. She considers leaving the opening alone to talk, but … , "I feel good!" Her shaard slashes upward at an angle as she speaks, the woman grinning all the while.

Melchior's shaard turns vertical as he holds it two-handed to deflect the upward sweep… and then splits in two along the long axis! Now he can deflect with one arm and attack with the other, albeit not as effectively as either could be done by the full shaard.

"Wha-" Tasha barely has time to even utter that fragment of a word when the split-weapon blow comes. Not used to deflecting something much smaller, and with another edge at the corner of her vision, she finds herself over-investing in the block.

The avatar pulls back the strike, and puts some distance between himself and Tasha. "You seemed to be predicting my moves too well," he claims. "Grip your shaard as I was: two handed, raised upwards. Then pull and it will separate."

"Too well, is it?" Tasha does as she's instructed, turning her blade and gripping it in both hands, pulling the weapon apart so that she's not holding two separate long-bladed lengths. "Does that mean I'm doing good?"

"It means you may not be quick to respond to something unexpected," Melchior says. "Repetition is good for conditioning reflex, but reflex is never enough in combat." He then comes at Tasha, and it isn't clear which blade he's going to attack with.

If Tasha was new to bladed weapons, a two-bladed weapon scenario is far beyond her personal experiences in combat. She's knows some people fight with a weapon in each hand, although she's only seen it among duelists and nobles – and even then her observations of actual practice have been limited to dockside duels. Captain Blackwings carried two weapons, the dark-winged, green featured Vartan woman having shown Tasha many things, but never how to fight. It all leaves Tasha at a serious disadvantage, which she tries to compensate for by using both weapons as defensive tools, trying to ensure one blade is always in position to deflect a strike from one of Melchior's own – a technique she finds to be by no means easy!

Once it's clear that more practice is needed with the dual-blade form, Melchior pulls back. "I see you may require training in each shaard form," he says. "What combat methods are you already familiar with?"

If this were her actual body, Tasha thinks she'd be panting by now. She withdraws as well, lowering her weapons only when Melchior is out of range. "Well," she begins as she considers, "I can fight with my fists, and Gabriel taught me how to use a gun. I know how to use a Terran Gauss rifle, too." Captain Eyeshine had always resisted letting her carry a weapon, something her mother supported him on. She can see why, now, but that doesn't make the situation any less irritating. "I can use a bow, too, but mostly for hunting. And I can use my whip, but that's really more of a tool." If her mother and father-figure only knew what she's doing now. It makes her grin.

"Are Titan duels still used to settle disputes between groups?" Melchior asks.

Tasha considers the question, head tilting as she lifts her right blade and examines it, thinking. "The Joint Expeditionary Fleet has disbanded after most – if not ALL – of it crashed upon the planets of the Sinai System. It has been 6000-plus years since that time, and we no longer have access to the rest of space, nor our home worlds, their nations … " The woman shakes her head – so much lost, and for what? "Of the groups that remain, only the Silent-Ones employ Titans. The Expedition – the Terrans – have a few. I think the Confederacy does too. The others, I don't know, so … ," Looking back from her weapon, Tasha's head shakes. "The answer is mostly no."

"We will focus on operational training next time then," Melchior announces. "Combat is of lower priority it would seem. Your acetylcholine levels have dropped, suggesting fatigue. Are you prepared for disconnection?"

"That depends, what will disconnection require?" Tasha lowers her weapon to her side, gazing across at Melchior. "I guess it'll mean good-bye, for now?"

"Yes, you will be leaving the simulation," Melchior explains. "There may be some disorientation or kinesthesia during the process."

"I … " Taking a moment to gaze around at the stark, simple world, Tasha wonders how such a simple place can still call to her. As her eyes shift back to regard Melchior, she wonders about him, too. She's felt him, kissed him, and now fought in training against him, and it all produces a strange mess of emotions and questions she has no answers for. "Well, I don't know how I feel about leaving, but if you think I should, then I … I will." One thing she does know, is that it all seems to be over so soon. Trying to smile, she says, "Every beginning has an ending, doesn't it? I'm so glad I found you, Melchior. And before I leave, I want you to know something."

"Yes, Tasha?" the perfect Vartan asks.

"Maybe you didn't hear me, so I'll repeat: I will never abandon you, I will do my best to be the best pilot I can be, and you always have a place with me and my family," the woman says, smiling more genuinely now. She then tilts her head, tail wagging. "Just as you are my Gryphon, I am your pilot. Please, remember this."

"My memory is very good," Melchior replies, his inflection still a bit flat. "Rest before returning. A pilot must be refreshed and relaxed for proper response timing."

"I'm sure it is," Tasha says, with a hint of exasperation. She still smiles, though. "I'm ready."

Rising to a seated position, Tasha reaches up and rubs her head with her right hand, her left flexing several times as she feels the soreness. Given her fatigued state, she's glad for the Terran powered underlay, likely the only thing keeping her from looking like a mess. When finally she feels able to move again, she takes a moment to check herself and observe he room.

There are strips of blue light glowing softly within the egg-shaped cockpit, but no other controls or indicators of the machine's status. Light comes in through the still open airlock passage to the back, which means she was in at least long enough for Blammo to lose interest and wander off.

"Uurrf." The woman climbs to her feet, still grasping her head as she walks towards the airlock passage. When the light catches her, she winces. "Oi, Blammo?" The woman calls out, stepping into the airlock and beyond.

The basket is still in place at least, and Tasha can see that the two thick cables are still connecting Melchior to the generator. Some movement finally catches Tasha's eye though – coming from the building next to the launch bay. Blammo is in the top level, which has a continuous strip of windows running on all three sides. He seems to be waving.

With a hop, Tasha lands on the cage. After a brief scan she spots Blammo, her keen vision easily picking him out, and so she untangles her hand from her head to wave at him. "Gimme a sec!" The woman yells, then she reaches over and places a hand against the machine, hoping that will seal the airlock.

With eerie silence, the scales of the door slide back together to close it off.

"Hrum," Tasha utters at the motion, thinking, even the closing of the airlock has a certain stark mystery about it. She shakes her head and steps back, searching for Blammo again. "I'm coming down," the woman yells. And with that, she leaps off the cage to glide to the hangar deck below.

The Titanian keeps waving, as if beckoning Tasha to come up. And while gliding down was fine, her legs still come close to buckling when she lands.

Staggering a few steps, Tasha drops to her knees. "That was … not smart," she tells the empty silence, panting. She spots her weapon where she left it, but decides against picking it up. The guass rifle is heavy when she's rested, right now it might well take her arm off. Pushing back up again, the woman decides to walk to Blammo and give her body a break.

At least there's an elevator to take her to the top level. It lets her out into a room full of display panels and workstations, and even displays that hang from the ceiling. A few are lit up and active, and Blammo is hovering over one of them, looking a bit savage from being lit from below. "Titan no eat you!" he barks, wagging his tail.

"I feel a bit chewed on, though," Tasha replies, giving the Titanian a tired grin. She steps into the display-filled chamber and looks around, shielding her eyes whenever she looks fully at a bright display. "Found somethin' interesting, did you?"

It looks like a map of Orpheus, with several sections blacked out in the Imperial section. There's also a flashing red area – which also goes black, before another section starts flashing red. The blacked out area and flashing red one seem to be advancing towards the Khattan-Vartan section.

"What is-" Although tired, Tasha's mind has been on fighting for the last few hours, making her keenly focused on dangers. It takes her but a split second to make a guess at what the black sections mean, and the realization is enough to make her eyes widen and ears flatten to her head, "Th-the creatures! Those little … things! They're coming!"

"Glass crabs?" Blammo asks, almost as a bark. "Or big wiggly crab-worm?"

"Oi," Tasha breathes, running a hand back through her hair and wincing at the soreness. "Pro'ly the crabs, maybe the big worm, if it's what I'm thinkin' of. But whatever they are, they're comin' here – I jus' wish I knew why now."

The woman steps towards the view screen, eyeing the ominous advancement of blinking ship sections falling to blackness. "Maybe it's the reactor? Or Melchior? Or jus' all the lights comin' and goin'?" She leans forward, trying to figure out if the path the outages are taking is avoiding the biodomes, or other block that somehow suggests of why Bellerophon and the engineering section hasn't drawn them. "The engineering reactors and Bellerophon are bigger … "

If the outlines on the 'map' are accurate, then backtracking the path does show it skirting around the biodome before turning towards the Khattan-Vartan sector. It is unclear what might be luring the bugs however, if not power.

"They are avoiding the biodomes – that might be the key in stoppin' them if they come." The woman looks up, barking with sudden authority and focus, "Blammo! Can we control any part of Orpheus from here? Any of these sections between them and us? The hangar? How close is the bridge?"

"Uhhhhhhhh," the Titanian says with his mouth hanging open. Picking the last thing Tasha said, he points to a section of the map adjacent to the zone they're in now, at the front of Orpheus. "Bridge!"

"Let's go, I'm goin' to try an' take command of Orpheus. We'll see 'ow they like Captain Tasha. No one's hurtin' my Titan, not unless it's over my dead body!" After grabbing Blammo's arm, Tasha heads for the lift, head turning to regard the massive, ancient heirloom of a time long past. She made a promise, and she intends to keep it – even if she has to return and fight the creatures with her bare hands.

The control room screens stay illuminated as they leave, crowding into the lift to go down to the hangar floor. Tasha's gun is where she left it, as is everything else (including the box-lift).

By the time Tasha reaches the Melchior, she's not looking well. The woman slumps to lean against the foot of the mighty Titan, feeling the weight of exhaustion piloting has placed upon her body. Reaching over, she lays her hand on the frame and says in Vartan, "Melchior, can you hear me? We might be under attack," she warns, voice tired and worried. "I need to know 'ow close you are to launch, if you can move what we need here to the main hangar, and if you have any weapons that will be online to fight a army of metal bug monsters," To Blammo, admits, using Expedition Standard this time, "Blammo, I migh' need your 'elp, bu' if you wan' to retreat, I won' blame you."

The Titanian is looking at the generator, which shows mostly green on the Titan outline now, with just a few areas left in the diagnostic and charging cycle. "I carry yah," Blammo claims.

The Gryphon doesn't reply at all, however.

"I guess Melchior can't communicate with me this way, or at leas' no' yet," Tasha tells Blammo, nodding to his unspoken agreement to stay. She pushes off the foot, the limb larger than she is by a few magnitudes, turning her gun to act as a cane as she begins to walk. She heads towards the reactor, eyeing thf display. "Blammo, how much time before those things reach us, can you power one of those suits to help me move, and did you see any other weapons aroun' 'ere? I 'ave a plan, bu' I need the bridge an' some time to do it. If we can' get there in time, then we 'ave to fight 'ere."

"Weapons," Blammo says, and brightens up. "Got my gun! And your gun! Got talky-book to explain power suits, yeah?"

The big Titanian pats his belly too and grins proudly.

"Thank Abaddon for talky books," Tasha agrees, managing a weak smile. In what's more of a controlled fall than a clumsy sit, the woman drops down against her Titan's foot after collecting the Achilles Environmental Suit case. Laying her gun aside, she opens the case up and takes the data slate, wasting no time. "Hi Khattan lady, I need to know if an Achilles can help someone who's exhausted, an' a few other things. Quickly. Please."

The help-o-gram Khatta talks Tasha through the power-up sequence for one of the environment suits, which she then has to explain to Blammo. Unlike Melchior, these are common 'Tech 3' suits and can be charged up from standard sources and don't have complicated 'brains' or other systems that need calibration or testing. The suit is ready to be climbed into soon enough, once Tasha gets rid of the various bits stuck to her bodysuit that won't fit inside the powered shell.

With devices piled beside her, Tasha climbs into the Achilles suit, easing herself in and whimpering a little as she wiggles sore muscles to get herself in place. Once everything is where it should be, Tasha glances at Blammo and says, "Start it up, I'm no' sure 'ow much time we 'ave." She's left the helmet off for the moment, memories of Nora deciding to pick a bad time to resurface. The woman really doesn't want to be enclosed in an unpowered suit; She'll wait until she can move!

"Hokay," Blammo says, and does something behind Tasha's back. This triggers a bizarre and amazing to behold process where the back of the suit comes back together and the wing and tail casings seem to fold and twist to cover Tasha's anatomy – none of which she can actually see since turning her head is interrupted by the pressure seal inflating in the neck piece.

"Hrk!" Head straightening, Tasha feels the suit close around her. Missing the wonders of suit-sealing behind her, she maintains a rather startled expression until everything has stopped moving. Testingly, she tries to lift an arm in front of her face.

The arm moves effortlessly, which helps given her exhausted state. There's just a hint of a tingle through the body suit, enough to give a sense of pressure – extending her sense of touch to the armor, effectively. Once raised, Tasha can see the glowing green power strip on the forearm. It's all green, showing a full charge so far. According to the manual, there should be other controls that show up when she touches the panel.

Taking a careful step forward, and then another, powered-armored Tasha proceeds to return to her weapon, leaning down and puzzling out how to fit her hands around it. "Withou' knowin' how long it'll take them, it's hard to decide where to go. The bridge isn' far, though. My plan is to try an' see if we can 'ave a talk with those things. If not, I wan' to try moving oxygen and water, we jus' have to hope my clearance is good enough." Once she works out how to pick up the gun – she can only use three of her fingers, after all! – she shoulders the weapon and appraises her armored hand. It's a wonder she has scarce time to appreciate; Defense superceeds nearly any other desire, the Vartan decides.

"Yah, crabs no like gettin' wet mebbe," Blammo agrees. "No go in engine area… lots of steam. Green area… lots of damp. Like dry."

"If we can get the water in 'ere, or in between us an' them, maybe they'll give up. If no', we'll pro'ly 'ave to do this the 'ard way," agrees the young woman. Suited up and as prepared to move she she feels she can be, Tasha turns towards the elevator and walks on, the heavy footfalls of her suit making a clunk-clunk noise as she moves. "I feel li' a small Titan, bu' those things can eat metal – I doubt they'll be impressed by me an' me gun. You either, they look tough." She reaches the elevator and prods the button, glancing at Blammo, "Bu', thank you for stayin' Blammo. It means a lot you're willin' to risk your life with me."

"I can pee on 'em!" Blammo offers helpfully. "Strong bladder! Goes far!"

The lift doors open immediately, of course.

"Tha'll be our secret weapon," Tasha says with a smile. The expression is less tired than it was, the woman looking a bit more hopeful for having a plan, as well as many pounds of technology helping her move. When the door opens, she steps inside and prods the first deck. "Remember, Khattans don' like Titanians, so if it asks say you're with me. An' I'm the Harbinger Force Commander, Khattan representative. Tha' migh' make me the senior Khattan on board, which migh' be enough. Otherwise, I have a few other ideas," she explains as the elevator moves.

"Oh, crabs will eat the kitties first," Blammo asserts. "They made of … prog-mat? Smart Sand? Yeah?" The door opens on the first deck, and the lights go on, extending down the passage back towards the zone entrance.

Tasha glances at her companion as she steps out of the elevator, striding down the corridor at a purposeful gait. While still tired, not feeling the weight of what she's carrying and wearing is a relief, and the suit itself seems to provide a boost to her confidence. While not exactly comfortable yet, she thinks she could get used to wearing something like it – if she survives the night.

"Prog-mat?" The woman asks, several steps in, glancing at her partner. "Smart sand? The crabs like sand? I saw they're no' holograms or robots – so they're made of sand?"

"Thinky-sand, yeah?" Blammo claims. "Rilly expensive! Good loot. Lots uses."

"Really? All the more reason to ensure they don' take it from us. This migh' be their home, bu' it was our home first." The woman approaches the bridge door, not sure what to expect, or even if her plan will work. Failure means a mad dash back to the bay and an attempt to manually get water into the hangar. The bartender would be impossible to save, a fact that makes the woman frown. Maybe all the Khattan prog-mat would be lost – a blow to her attempt to live up to her ancestor's duty and a loss for the budding JEF as well.

The door is open – it could even be the one Zerachiel and Layth used earlier in their raid on the memory cores.

Tasha pulls her helmet from where it's hooked on the suit's belt, the slides it over her head, lowering her weapon. She takes a moment to adjust to vision inside the helmet, and tests her voice as well with an attempt at saying, "Can you 'ear me, Blammo?"

"YEAH!" Blammo replies, yelling to make sure Tasha can hear him. It's very loud since the external microphones are active.

"AHH!" Is the woman's reply, clutching at her 'ear' with her free hand. "Oi, I hear fine and can talk. Let's go." Tasha's voice is a little more sinister with so much space in the beak, giving it a hollower, deeper, slightly robotic quality from the external speaker translation. Taking her weapon up again, Tasha stalks forward on to the bridge.

Well, not quite onto the bridge itself, but into the Command and Control zone at least. A map is posted on the bulkhead with directions to a hundred different places laid out in colored lines, and of course there's a map for each level. The 'bridge' itself seems to take up almost all of level 4, right in the center of the stack.

Tasha slows to s stop in front of the map. If Blammo could see her face, he'd see a bemused woman blinking at the map. It seems that whenever she starts to feel like she knows what to expect with Expedition-era technology, it throws her for a loop once again. "This place is 'uge," she exclaims a moment later, head shaking. After a few more second sof study, she points her barrel down a hall. "Level 4, center stack. Let's go."

"Hokay," Blammo says. "Smells like bunny!"

Following the map and Blammo's nose at least gets them to an elevator, which gets them to the bridge, which immediately gets them lost given that the room has to be hundreds of feet deep and wide, full of workstations and acceleration chairs and lots and lots of big, bizarre machinery.

Tasha heads in that direction, looking to her partner again. "Bunny? Was Layth 'ere?" she inquires. "I can't smell anything in this suit – most Vartans have a poor sense of smell." And it's true; Tasha had the best sense of smell on The Rake, which let her in on a lot of little details the others missed – often juicy details.

As the woman steps on the bridge, she gapes under her helmet. "This is a bridge?! It's 'uge!" She knows roughly how big Orpheus is, but comprehending and accepting the facts are another thing entirely. Trying to picture the bridge in full operation makes the Vartan feel a little dizzy, although that may just be her tiredness talking. "Well, um … Look for something high, or a importan' lookin' chair? I'll try an' find a workin' terminal. Maybe I can get a AI help … "

"Uh… snakey one?" Blammo asks. Once the forest is studied, the trees become visible: there are clusters of workstations set up based on species. The human-style chairs and workstations are easy to note, as are the Imperial and Silent-Ones stations thanks to Tasha's experience on Bellerophon's bridge.

"I'll try the Terrans, wan' to try Imperials? I'm good for Silent-Ones too – an' maybe Khattan if they accept Vartan," Tasha directs as she gazes among the various selections. Aiming for a chair similar to the captain's chair on Bellerophon, Tasha approaches the unit and settles in. "Imperial control would let us try an' get at their source, bu' what we need is somethin' better than sectional control. We need access to Khattan areas."

"Bu… we jus' left?" Blammo points out. He doesn't seem inclined to choose a workstation though – he seems to be sniffing the air.

"I mean Khattan environmental control, li' life support an' whatever else handles the water. I'll see what I can find 'ere, yell if you find anythin'," Tasha calls back. She sits awkwardly at the terminal, her suit large and wingyer for the moderate-bodied Terrans. As Nora taught her, she begins trying to try and access Orpheus's systems, just as she did with Bellerophon.

Before Tasha is a keyboard with an odd joystick-like device and a flat, dark screen. It looks a lot sturdier than the stuff seen in Terratown – but less user friendly. There is a row of colored switches along the top of the keyboard though, even if they are unlabeled. All of them seem to be set to 'off' positions.

"It's no' looking good," reports the armored woman. "I don' recognize any o' this. If we don' find somethin' likely or a map of the ship to see 'ow much time we 'ave, we may 'ave to abort." Wasting no time, Tasha begins flicking one switch at a time, waiting to see what comes up before trying another.

Nothing happens until at least three of the switches have been flipped. Then the screen glows and flashes a bunch of gibberish, before the words 'EVC NODE 14 ACTIVE' appear for a moment, only to be washed away by a flood of boxes and cubes and other shapes full of colorful bars and charts and other displays.

The predominant color, however, is red, followed by yellow… with just a touch of green here and there.

Tasha studies the shapes and words in front of her, and frowns. "EVC node 14, any idea wha' that means? Think I'm lucky enough to 'ave found an environmental control? Not tha' it makes sense … ," the woman asks in a yell. While she has almost universally felt unequipped to deal with the myriad of devices on this vessel, rarely has she also had a time limit in front of her. Were she human, she would be sweating now.

The display doesn't really make sense, since everything looks too small to actually read, even with Vartan eyes. But those eyes do pick out the glowing, shiny arrowhead in the center of the screen.

Blammo has already wandered over to one of the big floor-to-ceiling columns of machinery, looking for a panel that can be removed.

"Arrow … Controller? Direction? Or … ," Testingly, Tasha nudges the control stick to see if anything happens.

The little arrow moves when the stick is moved. The control also has a slider on top that can be moved forward or back.

Tasha blinks when she realizes the terminal may just be that simple. Shaking her head, she starts moving the arrow around, adjusting the slider, trying to locate anything that describes itself as being in the necessary areas, or any signs of changing systems that would indicate the crabs' progress.

Moving the slider changes things drastically, letting Tasha 'fly' deeper or further out from the data sets – which actually go back several levels more! Moving side to side scrolls the screen, and when she accidentally squeezes whatever was under the pointer expands to fill the entire view. This happens to be Oxygen Processing Capacity, and from the different charts it seems to be showing which biodomes are producing the most oxygen and consuming the most carbon dioxide at the moment.

"I found somethin' – I think I 'ave access to some kind of chemical control. I see oxygen from the biodomes." Tasha eys the display past her visor, thinking how removed everything feels while completely inside her suit. Even so, worry makes the hairs on her neck rise – the world may seem distant, but that doesn't mean she's forgotten it. "I could try an' blow up the Imperial biodome, which migh' cut them off … Bu' that' migh' do nothin' an' risk Bellerophon. Maybe I can get this oxygen somewhere … " Tasha tries moving her arrow to the readout, hoping some interface for transfer will pop up, like it did with power control on Bellerophon.

The problem with this effort becomes apparent soon enough: there aren't any controls in the display. It's all just reporting what's happening with no apparent way to affect it.

Tasha looses a string of curses – frustration definitely getting the better of her. She leans forward and begins flipping more switches, hoping something will pop up. "There's nothin' more aggravating then not knowin' wha' to do when you need to," she mutters seconds later.

Flipping switches brings up completely different displays, concluding with one that simply says, 'COMMAND PASSCODE' followed by a blinking cursor.

"Oi, it wants a passcode now!" Tasha's fist balls, but she eases off. Punching the computer would be an entirely different kind of emotional breakdown, probably followed by a mechanial, and finally a physical one. "Blammo, I'm worried. I can't get anythin' done 'ere, it's goin' to take years!" Frustratedly, Tasha touches buttons until something happens.

There's a long pause, and Tasha adds with an air of one relenting, "Can you reach Bellerophon here?"

"Uh, me?" Blammo asks, poking out from behind the machine he's been poking at and looking guilty. "You no have talky link? What station they on?"

"I um, … I threw it. On … the floor," the Vartan admits uncomfortably, pointedly not looking back at Blammo. The gesture is done out of habit, given he can't see her face anyway. "I'll see if I can reach them, or can this suit do it?" Not waiting for an answer, Tasha reaches over and taps her wrist console.

New elements light up. Besides power, there is a 'Life Support: Active', 'Flight Mode: Standby' and 'Amplification: 10%' showing, and also a 'Comm System: Standby' one.

Proceeding to Comm System, Tasha taps that interface and hopes for the best. There can't be too many active comm channels, she thinks, but she also knows she's been wrong before.

Various other controls pop up as a result, including one that simply says 'Scan for Active Channels'.

"Help systems are the best invention," murmurs Tasha, who then taps the 'Scan for Active Channels' function.

There is a window with a lot of wildly-gyrating lines on it and a various numbers that keep changing, until it suddenly flashes green and shrinks down to a button labeled 'Chan 0'. The main box continues to work through numbers and squiggly lines until it gives up and vanishes, leaving just the 'Chan 0' behind.

"One choice." Tasha would wag if her suit allowed for that much articulation. Vartans, after all, are not nearly as expressive with the appendages as Karnors. She pokes at 'Chan 0,' then barks out, "Tasha to Bellerophon," quickly, not wanting to dwell on her situation with the crew, her anxiety, and the dwindling seconds.

"Tasha!" The voice that replies is Mariel's. "Uh, I have you isolated right now, if that's okay? There's been a lot of yelling and stuff and I wanted to warn you. Are you alright?"

"Hi Mariel," Tasha greets the woman, feeling grateful that the omega officer is the one who replied. Tasha briefly considers that today is the day those she ignored have come to her aid, and she decides to try and make good on this lesson – assuming she lives to act on it. "That's fine Mariel – I don't have much time. I need the command code to access the Orpheus's EVC node 14 functions, I'm tryin' to route oxygen and water from the biodomes to Imperial and Khattan sectors."

"Why would you want to do that?" Mariel asks. "I'm not even sure that's possible. Each sector has its own life support system separate from the others. I… don't have any command codes for Orpheus. It would help if you told me why you needed them."

"The metal crabs are approaching the Khattan launch bay, where my Titan is preparing for launch, but he doesn't have time. Blammo thinks they might be after the Khattan AIs, but I'm not goin' to wait for them to show up to find out. It's possible they'll try an' kill us, as well. Blammo an' I are tryin' to stop them from reaching the Khattan AI areas, but if tha' fails, only the hangar is really importan'. We believe they're afraid o' water, so I'm tryin' to get some in their way, maybe flood the hangar," Tasha explains. She stares at the screen after her review is complete. Yelling, she thinks. It makes her stomach turn, but she hasn't time to deal with that worry right now. Melchior's lesson was relatively short, but it taught her one thing: focus on the here and now.

"Have you confirmed that the… crabs… are approaching the Khattan sector?" Mariel asks, sounding a little distracted, as if maybe talking to someone else at the same time.

"The Khattan launch bay – Vartan mercenary bay – displayed sectors going red to black and approaching our location, on a screen in the flight control room," answers Tasha. Her free hand drums on the control desk, the woman wanting to act more than talk. Every second could be the last second for her Titan, and after Nora, another failure of that magnitude seems beyond endurance.

"Tasha," Fred says, coming on the line. "Where are you? Can you give visual confirmation of alien incursion?"

"I'm on the Orpheus bridge, sector 4, Terran command cluster," the armored Vartan answers. "In a moment, I'm goin' back to the Khattan/Vartan launch bay to get ready for a fight. An' no, no visual except the displays showing sectors goin' black. I'm no' sure how close they are, but they went aroun' the Imperial biodome from the Imperial section where we saw them, an' are headed this way." Pushing herself to standing, Tasha grabs her weapon and walks toward Blammo as she talks. "Blammo, unless you or Fred 'ave an idea, we'll head down."

"Tasha, I want you to go into the Imperial tunnels you saw on the monitor and confirm what's in them," Fred says. "You've activated sensors that have been dormant for 6,000 years. There's a good chance what you're seeing is a cascade failure in the monitoring system. That's why you always do a visual inspection before anything else. Can you do that for me, Tasha?"

"I'm on it," Tasha replies. She doesn't mention not checking visually seems, in hindsight, incredibly obvious and now she feels a little stupid. Still, she has to agree it was a reasonable assumption to try and protect the sector. But, still a bit stupid. The woman finds new appreciation in her armor – it hides when she looks irritated or embarrassed. "I'm headin' to the Imperial tunnels to see if the aliens are really movin', Blammo, at Fred's request. Come or stay." Tasha heads towards the elevator at a jog, hoping the armor can keep her together and seriously considering activating the flight mode if moving becomes too much.

"Oh, yeah!" Blammo says, and stops whatever he was working on to follow Tasha. "Coffee maker busted, couldn't fix," he claims.

"Then the ship is a loss," Tasha replies, her tone a weak attempt at joking. She meant it at a joke, but her focus is elsewhere and her stress level high, not to mention her exhaustion. The woman heads for the elevator at a fast clip, heading in and descending with Blammo.

It's a bit of a march, since the entrance to the Imperial zone is down near the rear of the main hangar – at least, the part that Tasha is actually familiar with. Blammo finds another entrance from the Engineering section, closer to the Khatta sector, which might let them get to the corridor ahead of the blackout. Otherwise, they can take the known path and try to approach the damaged area from behind – and possibly run into the crabs even if they aren't advancing along the blackout path.

"Let's try your way Blammo, you've been good to me so far," Tasha answers when asked about which route to take, relaying Blammo's suggestion to Fred in case he has suggestions. The two vaguely canine people hurry into Engineering, hoping their decision was not a poor one.

The doors that Blammo leads Tasha too are not so big as the others, but they are open. The passage beyond is dark… but foggy, as mist hugs the ground. Blammo pauses, and pats one of the many weapons that make up Gunzilla. "Want flamethrower first?" he asks, tail wagging.

"Oh, why not," Tasha says, grinning. Another side effect of suit wearing is that, helmet on, Tasha has an eternally somber expression, at least as far as her helmet faceplate is concerned. It's a strange way for Tasha to be, devoid of a source of expression. "Do we even 'ave time though?" She scans the misty dark, not expecting the crabs to approach in such humidity, but not about to let her guard down – another Melchior lesson.