DAY 03 [1045 HRS.] SETTING SUN | AWAY MISSION
![](https://uss-theurgy.com/w/images/0/0c/Tyn-Akir.png)
Weep, o my soul, for what is lost,
The song of my heart falters,
Barren is the womb of the mothers,
For the city of Tyn Akir has fallen.
I stretch my palm toward the suns,
Forever they burn, while we cease,
But we will not be forgotten,
We will not fade!
The last child approaches, senna!
Born of Alata and Gîl Naur, a bridge,
Our peoples will live on, in memory,
And the darkness will yet fall away,
By the light of the living suns.
BY THE POWER OF ONE!
- Excerpt from an unknown Nauri Rememberer
[ Heather McMillan | Tyn Akir, Last Stronghold of the Gîl Naur | The Coreless Moon ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan, @Kaligos, @CanadianVet, @Striker N7, @Havenborn, @Josie & @Doc M.
“Sh-Shâ'Nyél?” said Heather furtively, searching the air above her. She had chased the holographic Radiant as best as she could, but while the woman could fly, Heather had to navigate through the beautiful buildings of the Commercial Center. The streets were paved with stones and moss, with small drawbridges over riverpaths that once ran with water. It was eerie how alive the place looked and felt despite the evidence of dead petrified plants and a complete lack of people, though she half-expected to see people emerging from any of the buildings within moments.
“Follow, Alata,” said Shâ'Nyél, her voice called clearly ahead of the girl, who immediately redoubled her efforts, even though her legs were beginning to ache and felt leaden and heavy, and her head pounded furiously within her skull, almost causing her to topple a few times.
“What on Earth does Alata mean?” Heather asked herself quietly, but the hologram answered loudly even as she continued flying.
“That is who you are, Heather McMillan. You are Alata, as I am Gîl Naur. Here. Come up here.” She alighted on a dais that was preceded by a long flight of stairs. Behind the hologram, were an assortment of large computer devices and machines. They were smooth, curve-edged designs with symbolic runes and writing etched all over them, and she couldn't quite make sense of the consoles, but yet felt a sense of familiarity towards them as she obediently walked up the stairway, and the hologram lifted up again so she could float at least four feet overhead. “This is Tyn Akir, last known stronghold of the Gîl Naur. There is little time. I will prepare a data crystal, that will contain the entirety of our lore. Ask what you will as you wish.”
Heather's heart beat excitedly, questions that abounded all her life about her people, and it was all here! But she knew there was a difference, based on the facts already presented to her by Shâ'Nyél. “Please tell me about the Gîl Naur and the Alata. We are not the same?”
Shâ'Nyél's eyes crinkled in a knowing and kindly smile, and suddenly Heather was struck by how much kinship she felt for the hologram now that she didn't look so furious. “The Gîl Naur and the Alata share a common ancestry. Once we were all Alata, made from the Light of the Maker.” When she waved a hand in the air, forming a large circle, a slow-spinning map of the universe appeared between Shâ'Nyél and Heather. Golden dots began to pock-mark the map, forming a rough circle. “We were not unique in our creation. The Alata are not the first, nor the last to be created, and even the Alata came from another, an earlier race, whom our oldest Wisdoms called Nid Anor. Children of the Sun.”
Shâ'Nyél's image flickered, and the projection reacted as if she were afflicted with great pain, and she groaned as if to confirm it as she doubled over, floating back down to the ground. “No...not yet!” she uttered in frantic desperation, even as Heather reached out and helped steady the projection, and she was surprised to feel actual weight, “The data transfer is not yet complete...transfering all power to processor...allowing two percent for shielding and Sentinel turrets. Those spiders are thrifty.”
She looked up at Heather, and smiled wanly, “Centuries ago, there was a debate amongst the Wisdoms. The Nid Anor had spoken of a great and terrible devouring force, which we were all created to protect this universe from. Behold,” she gestured to the map, straightening up and standing under her own strength, “the golden marks show the locations where the Created Ones were placed, as a defensive parameter. The Alata began to disagree fiercely, and finally, a small faction left the homeworld, whom the Alata called as Lost Ones. In time, we gave that name to the Alata themselves, for their blind devotion to the gods we protect. Blind, and without purpose. But the Gîl Naur found ours. We found the Devou...NO!”
Heather jumped violently at the woman's outburst, and she looked worriedly at the hologram. “Wh-what is it?” She stammered, “What's wrong?”
For a moment, Shâ'Nyél was silent, staring into nothing, and her image flickered in and out of sight once again, Heather feared the city's power was at its end, and then she spoke, “I am detecting a hostile force, identifying...Ùl Torog! Mindless Destroyers. Fools. Enemies of the Light. Thirteen vessels bearing nine-eight-one mark one...” her voice crackled, and took on a mechanical sound, “their destruction takes precedence over everything else. Devoting all remaining power to parameter defenses...”
There was more static, and then the hologram began shifting in a flurry of colours and light, though Heather was unaffected by the brightness, “More of the enemy approach. One capital ship, thirty-seven smaller crafts. My systems indicate I have sufficient equipment still available to mount an offensive. Initiating...” the ground trembled and Heather fell to her knees with a cry of fear. Quivering before the hologram, she watched helplessly as she felt more than heard great things moving beneath her. The platform beneath Shâ'Nyél opened up beneath her and a coherent beam of immense energy fired from the gaping maw beneath, connecting with the matching platform above, that Heather had failed to notice before, and the beams cascaded through access barrels the size of a starship's warp nacelle. The hologram vanished as the beam appeared, but she momentarily appeared in front of it, before Heather. She could hazard a guess as to what was happening.
“W-w-wait!” she said, “I have...I have friends out there! Good people...gods! Don't hurt them!”
“I cannot stop the process. Countdown beginning...” Shâ'Nyél's emotional range was impotent now to Heather, focusing on what only she could see.
“P-please...don't kill them...” her mind raced furiously for a solution, and she struck her Combadge, “M-McMillan to Bremmer! McMillan to Lance! Anyone? Sabine, come in...come in please.”
“The radiation may interfere with your communications,” said Shâ'Nyél indifferently. “Adarthim technology is far inferior to ours.”
“There must be something!” Heather looked around, eyes manic with desperation. She had no idea just how much power was left to the city. She noticed a pearly white cylindrical object pushing out from a slot near a console, and at the subtle nod of the hologram, the girl mindlessly grabbed it and stored it away, realizing it was the collective lore of two peoples. That was when she remembered, “The ship. The ship in the docking bay, can I use it? Does it still work?”
After a moment's thought, the hologram nodded, “It may yet work, but you must hurry. I sense you care for the adhartim a great deal, but I cannot stop the countdown. Go. You are now the Wisdom and Loremaster of Alata, and you must take the knowledge imparted with you. Go.”
The girl bolted, dashing through the streets even as the trembling and shaking of the ground hampered here, and debris collapsed upon the city. With a cry, she realized that some spiders had made it past the Sentinels and shields, and began pursuing her hungrily. One of the monstrosities caught her leg and she went down in a heap, screaming as she saw its mandibles reaching for her face, heedless of the helmet. A cascading beam of multi-hued light tore the spider to shreads, and Heather looked up to see Shâ'Nyél floating higher than ever, one hand stretched towards her. With a final shout of "HURRY!" as she winked out of existence, no longer able to maintain a cohessive shape while also powering the city's defenses Heather climbed back to her feet and made the final dash for the ship. It had a more aggressive design than the image of the one the Alata had crashed on Earth in, showing the progressive differences between the Alata and the Gîl Naur.
There was another sound, like a tremor, but different, and she saw hundreds of spiders swarming along the ground, the walls and even the high ceiling of the city, and she crossed the last few dozen meters to the hundred of more meter long ship. Either her own light, or the city's AI activated the ship's boarding ramp for her, and she was able to race inside, the ramp closing behind her soon as her foot touched it, and the legs of one of the spiders was broken off as the ramp slammed shut on it decisively. Locking the spiders out, but also trapping her inside. Her exposed hand lit up the place, and the Cascadium material reacted with her light, bringing the ship to life. A weak hum of energy thrummed through the decks and hull, allowing the girl to see her surroundings properly. The Gîl Naur still favoured circular curved designs on the interior even as their exterior designs took on a triangular form.
“Okay okay...think...th-think,” said Heather to herself, closing her eyes and wringing her hands, “Communications! I have to warn them that this place is coming alive!”
She raced down the corridor, noting the Gîl Naur didn't really seem to care to make railings along runways and the smooth walkways leading up or down. Either they all could fly/float, or they were very sure they'd never miss a step and fall off to the side. There was a four-person transporter pad adjoining directly to the bridge from the main corridor, and she charged into the bridge, where she noticed the lights were flickering and threatening to go out. “What's wrong?” she asked no one in particular, but a voice, almost like Shâ'Nyél's spoke out, answering her. Static intermitently broke in between every word.
“...power...critical...replace...cell...”
“Power cells? Okay! Where?!?” Heather's head swivelled about frantically. There was a hiss and an electronic drawer under what she guessed was the engineering console, and she scampered over to find a relatively unused power cell, with an amount of dilithium crystals, just sitting around it. She pulled some items out of her survival kit and stored the dilithium in there, knowing that was mainly what they came for, and this was likely a godsend. She privately thanked heaven that the Alata and Gîl Naur seemed to use dilithium as well and not something else. There was also an egg, different from the one belonging to the elephant mice she found lying everywhere. That too went into her storage compartments.
She was able to easily replace the empty power cell, as it turned out, since she found the outlet in a very obvious location. But when she placed the fresh cell in, the bridge's light died altogether, “No!”
The ship had been derelict for so long, it couldn't generate the spark necessary to ignite the power. “No no no no no owww!” she was beginning to pace frantically when her migraine shot into an earthquake in her head, and she curled up into a fetal position on the deck, writhing in agony, “Please!” she pleaded to no one, begging for relief from the pain. Pain was something she was utterly unaccustomed to, and she almost wanted to die. Then the pain slowly ebbed away, fading into a mild throb, but never leaving completely. Still, it was enough to let her get back to her feet, and she looked about, pondering what would successfully catalyze the power cell. “My phaser!”
She took the weapon out, shuddering as she wrapped her fingers around it, and she used some tools in the containers in her belt to crack open its power casing, and she pulled out the wires from the device carefully, picking specific cords, and then doing the same to the system housing the power cell. When she had finished her haphazard hotwiring, briefly remembering the time she worked with Hylota Vojona to crack open a door in a similar manner, she squeezed the trigger. Instead of firing a beam, the phaser catalyzed the power cell, and the bridge and the ship lit up once more. “Yes! YES!”
She got back to her feet and figured roughly which was the communications station, and tried to activate the consoles. “Uhm...uh...Computer?!? I need to find the active ships and communications devices nearby! Uhmm...ALL OF THEM!”
That seemed to work, and a single button lit up, blinking insistently, “What does this button do?” She pushed it. And she heard a soft whirring and hissing noise, and turned around to see the space just outside of the Coreless Moon, and several red blips appeared with the strange name of Ùl Torog appearing over them, but Heather recognized them as something else. “Wh-what? Klingons?!? They're Klingons!” The ship's automated systems was trying to open a hailing channel to them, along with everything else. There were grey blips, that were seemingly unidentified vessels or communicators that were detected outside and within the moon as well. The screen flickered momentarily.
Remembering herself, she shouted her message, “The city is alive and armed! It's targetting the Klingons and anything else outside the moon. Daniel! Zrinka! Get inside NOW!”
Sighing, she set her message to keep repeating until everyone picked it up, collected her belongings, and said, “Computer, lock on my signal and indicate ready to beam to the Sabine when they are ready to pick me up.”
She sat down in the middle of the floor where a Captain would normally sit, though the Gîl Naur seemed to favour standing over sitting in a chair, and she waited, hearing Shâ'Nyél's voice counting down, "Ten, nine, eight, seven..."
Heather closed her eyes. Meanwhile, the spiders swarmed the ship, clawing and biting at the Cascadium hull to try and break into the craft, sensing a live prey buried within.
OOC: Here is the suggested posting order from the GM: ![Smile :)](https://uss-theurgy.com/forum/smileys/Sunshine/smile.png)
- IKS Hakkarl: @Auctor Lucan (first post)
- SS Sabine: 1) @Kaligos (If conscious, hearing Ida mention Klingons knowing they will destroy the moon, and then the earthquake begins, the moon arming itself) 2) @Doc M. 3) @Auctor Lucan 4) @Striker N7
- Coreless Moon debris field: 1) @Blue Zephyr (hearing Heather's warning, crashing into the zero-gravity docking bay next to the Sabine. A Mk III Valkyrie has mag-locked itself to the ceiling of the bay, btw.) 2) @Havenborn getting inside the bay too.