(no subject)

[seventhe]

lenity prompted: The ship only has one working bathroom.


The Ausrine doesn't really break down much. She was a great model when I got her - I got lucky - and between Emberle and Sal and I we can cover almost anything that goes wrong with her en route. I know her guts inside and out at this point, better than my own, and Salo does the electronics and the connections. And Emberle had her wardsinger's cert long before she was crew - and a pretty lucrative business with it, honestly, but she wanted to fly. She sang the original wards into the ship: I made sure of that. A ship's stronger when you can go back to the original wardsinger -- I'm just super lucky cause I got her to travel with me.

The thing is, we take good care of a lot of the little stuff -- but when the Ausrine breaks down, she breaks down hard. In this case we'd gotten caught in a flare from another ship: seems their pilot wasn't used to the massive celestial gravity around Gashen-C and tried to fight loose instead. It happens, but only to first-timers: it's a big deal for their ship and a medium deal for anyone around her. If I were on any other ship I would've contacted them for damages, but: the Ausrine is a good strong girl, I've got Emberle, and they've got enough shit to worry about.

At first it didn't look so bad. The massmagic flare had melted one of our wardlines, and set off a few of the other ones, but Emberle got suited up right away and headed out to re-set them all. There were blips in the power system and Salo was grumbling away at a bunch of alarms, but nothing physical had gone out. I sat down at my console and started running some diagnostic checks to make sure, Ausrine singing in my ear while I surreptitiously scanned the newscomm to see how bad it had been. Salo stood up, stretched, grumbled at me, and left.

Next thing I knew it was him in my ear, not the subtle song of my ship. "Emberle, all the rooms are out." The three of us didn't need the com, but we had gotten into the habit of using it for Hitch and Lika. Turns out guests can get kind of twitchy when three of you are wardtuned and don't need to talk. Who knew?

Salodran... Emberle's mental hum sounded strained. I have to get this main line set before I can get to the rooms.

Sal's reply felt irritated, with a small twinge of humor. My bathroom's out. All the bathrooms are out.

Salo, Emberle started, and above the hum of the newscomm and my ship's song I heard Hitch in the doorway saying, "Did something happen to my room? Nothing is, er, working."

I hummed back at my ship, then pulled my hands off of the cryplate, cutting the connection both to her and the news. Use the main facility, Emberle was saying, mostly at Salo. He was transmitting some frustration at her as I turned around to face Hitch. Ignoring the buzz in my ear as Emberle and Sal went back and forth a couple rounds, more emotions than words, I said, "One of the main ward lines came down when that ship blasted us." I'd forgotten - somehow; he'd been on this ship a dozen times - that Hitch wouldn't have felt the magical surge. Lika, at least, would have had some notice.

I pulled Hitcherson over to one of the viewers, since I knew he liked to learn by experiencing as much as he could. "See that ship over there - yeah, the big one that's a bit on fire - they came in to Gashen-C too fast and the pilot hadn't compensated. Must've never been here before. Gashen-C is a massive planet for its relationship to its moons, see, so it has a huge celestial mass. Emmies go nuts here. Pilot must have been an emmie, just got overwhelmed in the brain."

I saw Hitch's lips twitch slightly, but he merely rubbed his hand over his face. His eyes were tracking out the viewer, noting the ship I'd mentioned tilting slightly off-kilt and the resulting fiasco in the yard.

Emberle, can you give me an ETA?

"So there is a high mass-energy field here, higher than usual," Hitch mused.

A few hours, Emberle hummed at me. "Yeah," I said to Hitch. "Gash C is actually one of the places a lot of the Earther emmies have flocked to. Weres love it - there's a growing were community on one of the satellites."

"I hear it's brutal," Lika drawled. I should have sensed her up on the bridge, but I'd been a bit distracted. "Also, the rooms are out."

Tell me something I don't know, I shot to Salo, who recognized me with a brief snort. Lika's nose flared, but for once, she didn't say anything. Some days I loved Emberle's partner, but some days I wished my Em could have picked anyone but an Earther Alpha. Or that I hadn't picked an Earther Alpha for Emberle to fall for as my enforcer in the first place. "The main facility works," I said at large.

"Lovely," Lika said. "When I want to broadcast a piss, I'll use it."

"It's not like the door's open," Salo said, because he was truly awful at keeping his mouth shut when Lika was involved.

"It may as well be," Lika said, broadcasting disdain. It was directed at Sal - on Earth, weres and vamps had a pretty complicated history - but I couldn't help bristling. That was right: Lika would be feeling pretty overpowered this close to Gashen-C, and the mass energy flare would have gotten her right jacked up. Emblerle was an emmie too, but she'd been in space a lot longer and she'd always had such control - after her time on Earth - so I hadn't even thought. Lika was still new crew and it was hard to remember that. Especially because she came on so hard.

"Lika, use the main space and leave everyone alone." Emberle's voice on the com was so soft, so gentle; even Lika felt the peaceful wave Emberle sent after it. I knew down to my core that Emberle was Sha, that she was extremely powerful, but she still kept showing it in ways I didn't expect: my link to the Ausrine, that low hum that persisted in my ear any time my feet were on her, told me that Em was singing, singing that ward back into place, even as she was gently ordering her Alpha around and settling all of us with one of her calming wards. I'm a hybrid and every now and then she amazed me - that's how good she was.

"I'll go wait in the diner," Lika said. Her voice was rough: Emberle had calmed her, Lika was extra susceptible to emmie magics, but she was still bristled from the wave and her natural dislike for, well, all of us.

I felt Hitch shift next to me and was surprised - pleasantly - when he said, "I'll go sit with Lika as well. I'd like to take some readings on her, actually. If she'll let me."

I looked at him, surprised: Hitch wasn't always the most perceptive, especially when celestial magic was part of anything that was going on, but giving Lika company and making her the center of his attention was the perfect way to defuse her. "She'll let you," I murmured under my breath - and then added, "Thank you."

Hitch gave me that little smile of his - the one that wiped the structured academic from his face and replaced it with someone I could actually grow quite fond of. "When all benefit, everyone wins," he said in that way that sounded like he was quoting someone, and he followed Lika off the bridge.

Sal's low long release of air reflected my own half-surge of relief. "Lovely," I said out loud, knowing that Emberle outside would pick up on my attitude. "At least that's defused."

Ash, Emberle said, and I was starting to pick up on some urgency: so even Emberle wasn't invincible. Do you think you'd like to suit up and help me?

I'm not a wardsinger, I said, surprised. Salo lifted his head from his console and quirked his face.

Crash course, Emberle said, and now I picked up on the humor too. I'm not asking anything unreasonable. It's just ... I could go faster with another emmie holding the ward while I sing it in.

"Huh," I said out loud. Coming, I told her, as I shrugged at Sal and went for my suit.

Comments

[lassarina]

ahhhhh I love this, I love the way the ship functions and the way they all react to magic. *squeaks happily at you*

[seventhe]

EEEEE THANKU

[pict]

This was a lot different from what I initially imagined when I gave you the prompt, but oh man - the world building! The lovingly described technology! Singing wards onto ships! LIKA MY NEW LOVE!!

This is definitely a setting I would leave to read so much more of.

[auronlu]

This is amazing and rich and a lot less cracky than I expected (which is silly, because I know the kind of fic you write).

It's a heck of a 'verse.