Part 8

Shipboard Duties

As the team dispersed to their separate duties Pilot Swarznedruber went into a meeting with First Mate Koth and the other pilots, it seems the attitude control thrusters had been firing sporadically and resisting any attempts to just shut them down, which would be unwise anyway when docked this close to Port Wander, requiring nearly constant attention to compensate.

Eric didn't really know what they needed him for exactly.

“I can take a shift at the controls sure, but I am not a tech-priest.”

“Parte Visiblis reacts better to you, surely you've noticed? She rides smoother with you at the controls than to any of the rest of the pilots, or even the Captain” Said Koth.

Truth be told, Eric hadn't noticed, he rarely paid any attention to what other people did, spending most of his off shifts alone in his cabin staring at the walls, it had been years, but the events on Innocent Blood stayed clear in his mind, and why shouldn't they? A year spent in the warp on a damaged and decaying ship, as friends and lovers died around him, the survivors, including himself, growing more unhinged as time went on. The things he'd done to survive, he knew the Emperor would never forgive.

Shaking off his moment of melancholy, he turned to the controls, placed his finger on the gene-reader and attempted to calm the vessel now, he had failed the Innocent Blood, perhaps he could do better with his current home.

...

Tech-Priest Gaetan parted from the others without a word and hurried to the enginarium, as soon as he'd entered the noospheric network on the ship he began an intense data communion with his subordinates and was able to begin preliminary rituals to calm the machine spirit of the ship, but he needed a more direct interface with it's heart.

The whole trip had been frustrating and depressing for Gaetan, Port Wander was not well maintained and the spirits of the station were in considerable distress, but instead of going to their aid he was forced to converse with unmodified humans and attempt to negotiate... something, if he was honest the last part of the venture was a complete mystery to him as he had turned off his auditory processes while considering the malfunctioning coat servitor in Pultarch Norns chambers. Captain Bale kept insisting that he interact with people for some reason and out of respect for his position Gaetan attempted to do so, but the why of it still eluded him.

Putting aside the matter of human interaction for now, Gaetan entered the vast enginarium decks, home to the massive plasma engines that powered the vessel, and the control systems that kept the power of a stars heart captive within. Ignoring the multitude of laborers and lower functionaries going about their duties, he hurried to the primary access point and with a thought, plugged his data access mechadendrite into the port, instantly he accessed a diagnostic, no physical damage to the casing or accessible internal structures, just as his subordinates reported, no corruption in the systems either, the holy code running the operations was free of scrap-code or contagion. He brought his mind into communion with the Parte Visiblis itself, the vast and ancient awareness that was the true soul of the ship, and found it curiously uncommunicative, Visiblis had never been particularly conversational, this was to be expected for a being of it's age and power, but if he was seeing things right, and he was certain he was, it had actually cut itself off from many of its sensors. Curious, Gaetan reengaged the link between the machine spirit and the external sensors, only to find it swiftly cut off once more.

This explained everything, if the machine spirit couldn't see what was around it, or receive error codes, it couldn't resolve issues like the instability in its power system, or the atmospheric venting, or any of the multifarious error messages impinging on his awareness even now. He needed to get the ships attention, adapting an intrusion technique he bombarded the machine spirit with access requests, he knew his mind, powerful and augmented though it is, was still not capable of actually challenging the machine spirits core and that was fine, to attempt to do so would be heresy anyway, he only wanted to get its attention. Unlike many other systems like standard cogitators, machine spirits could be irritated.

It worked, and for a brief moment the full, terrible will of Parte Visiblis bore down on his mind, lashing out in an effort to silence the intruder. Gaetan's body trembled as his mind braced under the assault.

Parte Visiblis was startled out of it's fearful isolation by a cascade of irritating access requests, automatic counter-intrusion routines engaged and it lashed out at the offender, which resisted stoically but was clearly no match for it, as the machine spirit prepared to eliminate the bothersome pest it recognized it's identity codes, Engineseer Prime! One of the core crew had returned!

Now recognizing and automatically sorting through access messages and error logs, it noticed the Spacemaster gene-code had been used and attitude thrusters were being engaged, a swift check of internal cameras showed that the captain and Navigator Primus were also aboard, it wasn't going to be left alone after all.

Gaetan disengaged from the terminal, wiping blood from his nose as he did so, machine spirits don't really have emotions as humans understand them, but he could swear the ship almost seemed... embarrassed as it acknowledged his access authority and relented it's assault on his psyche. He shrugged and went about his duties, he was probably wrong anyway, human reactions were nearly as much of a mystery to him after all.

…

Navigator Rasputina finally relaxed as she entered the tower set aside for her and her fellows, it had been a long day and while she recognized that it was useful for the Captain to show his authority as backed by the Navigators and Mechanicum, her area of expertise was not in negotiating trade deals, baseline humanity was just... kind of gross, it always felt degrading when she had to deal with them in person. It didn't help that they all seemed to feel the same way, with some exceptions such as Bale and many other crew.

She had work to do, her apprentice and journeymen navigators swarmed about her, insisting that travel would be impossible, that the light of the Astronomican was clouded by nearby warp storms and other disruption.

“Coreward sector is completely occluded Mistress.” Said her senior journeyman, Navigator Fuss was short, round, and wore a perpetual look of confusion on his face, though as yet he seemed to have no other visible mutations from his heritage, they often took some time to develop, Fuss was skilled, but there were some things he had yet to learn.

“We shall see” Rasputina said as she lowered herself into her guidance socket, she closed two of her eyes, and opened the third.

The Warp is often described as an ocean, or a sea, by those who don't know any better, and indeed mere language is incapable of truly describing it, just as normal human eyes can't truly see it for what it is, as metaphors go it is reasonable enough, you travel across it like a seafaring vessel, and you could sink, or be devoured by monsters.

But that wasn't the totality of it. The Warp is a dimension of emotion, emotion doesn't reign there, it doesn't effect the Warp, it IS the Warp, when a ship runs afoul of a storm while traveling they aren't consumed by a mysterious energy or anything, they are bombarded by waves of hate, or despair, or love. When the Geller field fails and the Sea of Souls pours in, one is just as likely to be dissolved in a blast of happiness as one of bloodlust. There was no emotion any more or less dangerous in the Warp, they simply were, just as a rock will kill you when thrown at your head if it is granite or marble, so to does emotion effect those in the Warp.

Rasputina saw formations of emotion, as her junior reported, the Astronomican was occluded, a storm composed mostly of greed and apathy blocked the most direct route towards Terra, but there were other ways to see.

“Yes, you can't see the beacon directly,” she spoke while keeping her attention on the subject at hand, “But we are near the Expanse, and the storms of the Maw are stable enough to show a reflection of the Astronomican off of them. It will require some effort, but it is possible to triangulate a position from that, the Emperor still guides us.”

“Come, I will guide your sight and we will begin composing a course.”

The Navigators set to work, and for a time, Rasputina forgot the cares of the material.