Starfinder: The Jade Regent Pt. 05

As the ogerkin rushed forward, mace overhead, Hana's pellet slammed into the ogerkin's chest, not even slowing her down. She kept screeching. "DIIIIE BIIIITCH!"

Sam swept her sword out with a single flash.

Sheathed it in the same smooth motion. The hilt clicked against the scabbard.

The ogerkin stumbled, then hit the ground, her head rolling between Ami's braced legs. Ami watched it go, then blinked - shaking her head. "Wow, uh..." She coughed. "Thanks, Sam."

Xata's eyes shone bright green as she lookeod in admiration at Sam.

Hana pouted, "We helped too.." She said, kicking at the woman's body. "So.. what's the dealy yo?" She said to Nora curiously.

"Not a problem Ami." Sam said modestly. Nora was best for checking out the tech she and Ami just pilfered, so she went to examine the mace and the corpse. Rakain lowered his hand from his casting position, secretly relieved. The constant uses of Jolting Touch were unsettling him for reasons he still didn't fully comprehend.

"...It's the control unit for the power system." Nora said after a minute, growing visibly pale. She took a few moments of care to set the disabled controller down and carefully started going over the basement power systems. "Like that movie with the moon sized station that explodes."

"What did it do?" Ami asked. "Let me guess! Overloads the reactor and causes the whole...right..." She nodded at Nora's added explanation. "Thought so." She shook her head.

"Spaceboom," Nora said, seriously.

"Fun times," Rakain huffed, putting his hands on his hips and taking a deep, relieved breath. "Fun times."

"So.. now we have our own space base? Can we slap some engines on this sucker and have a super badass supership?" Hana asked hopefully.

Ami grinned, gesturing around herself. "Would you really want to fly around in this?" She asked, sounding amused. "Plus, this is just one base on an ocean sized chunk of salt-ice. I don't think it'd be very pleasant..." She shook her head. "S-Shall we head for the basement, then?"

"Dear Desna, what fresh hell will we find down there," Rakain muttered.

"Can you get information from that thing?" Hana asked curiously. "Like, tell us if they have any hostages?"

Nora keyed at her wrist before rubbing her neck, "Don't know yet. Probably need to find a terminal or something that's linked to the whole system, not just a dead-bitch-switch."

"Just saying if we figure out what's here, we can check out the harpy and either rescue her or kick her butt, then blow the place and head home," Hana said, nodding.

Nora's face froze as she continued to tap away at the controller. Then a look of confusion settled across her expression. "Wait. They're containing and controlling something for the power source."

"...No, that can't be. It's alive?"

Ami blinked. "What?" She asked, her eyes widening as she looked at Nora - while Sam checked over the corpse. Ami started. "Is it...what's sending out the SOS that's making me...glow?"

"Like.. an elemental or a dragon?" Hana said curiously.

Nora mumbled and keyed at her wrist before displaying some bizarre runes using her wrist projection display. "Dunno."

Rakain cocked his head. "Doesn't make any sense to me."

"Oh, it's referring to a protective spirit. Maybe something that was supposed to be watching over Ami? So.. we should probably go free it..." Hana said. As they had this discussion Sam had gone about the trouble of examining the room from which the Ogre-thing came from, and after being satisfied dumped the collection of corpses into the deemed 'murder room.'

"Amazing..." Nora mumbled. "Really happy I shut that controller down now. I would...really hate to have fumbled and hurt that spirit."

Xata looked at the symbol "They are... Tian. They are references to a kami, a protective spirit of a person or a place. Or a thing."

"..yeah.. did not think of that until just now.. yeesh.." Hana said, wincing slightly.

Ami bit her lip. "My Kami..." She said, quietly, her eyes widening. Then her voice rimed. "We should-"

Their coms crackled again - startling Ami into jumping and squeaking loudly. "Okay, I don't want to alarm anyone," Brash said, sounding nervous. "But I may have broken the kitchen..." he sounded nervous. "Which is the kitchen's fault. It was not designed for a superior dragon's touch!" He paused. "Water won't stop coming out of the faucet, and I did what Alfie told me to do, but no matter how much I try and push the faucet knob, water keeps coming!"

"Well, she was a lovely person." Sam said dripping with sarcasm after disposing the bodies and thoroughly cleaning the wire cabling she used. She muttered to her friends, covering her com unit to not speak to Brash. "There is an entertainment terminal connected to the extranet in there. Seems she spent her days trolling message boards."

"So, was sh an ogrekin or a troll?" Hana said, grinning, clearly aware of the cheesiness of her joke. Then she blinked and uncovered her com unit too, "Um.. is the water going down the drain?"

Nora's jaw slowly dropped open and she mouthed 'my ship' before shifting to a nervous walk, "Could I run back fast?"

"Yup!" Brash said, nodding.

Ami snorted, quietly. "Uh, wait, can you put it on visual, Brash?" she asked, looking at Nora, holding up her hand to keep her in the room.

"I can try!" Brash said. There was a clattering, then the coms chirruped - the request coming in for a visual feed.

Nora rocked a little on her heels, "The one that looks like a box with a little cone thing on it," She added after a moment. "Or ask Alfie."

They all saw the video feed pop up - on their coms, or their HUDS, if they were wearing helmets. The view showed the floor as Brash dragged the web-camera along the ground. Then he angled it at the sink. Water was indeed pouring from the faucet.

The issue was clear...

The knob was tugged out - so the faucet was running. Brash hopped onto the sink next to the faucet.

"See?" He said, voice muffled as he bit down on the knob, tugging it further out - causing the water to pour out of the faucet faster. "No matter how hard I pull, it keeps coming out!"

Rakain stared for a moment, then let his face fall into his hands. "Braaaaash," he muttered into his fingers.

"Nora, you might want to work a bit on Alfie.. Brash, push the knob the other way." Hana said, smirking. Sam just sighed. Xata smiled fondly and stayed quiet. The display was almost too cute to ruin.

Brash blinked. Then he stepped forward. The water stopped. "Yay!" Brash beamed. "I fixed it! I fixed it!"

"I told him to operate the knob," Alfie said - sounding uncertain. "Was that not the correct instructions?"

As she asked, Ami grinned. "Well...my morale has been vastly improved," she said.

Nora's face went red and she ended up mouthing 'Not Alfie's fault' to Hana with a stomp of her foot.

"Alfie, can I talk to you alone without bothering Brash with our discussion?" She smiled to Nora, raising a finger.

Alfie nodded, and Brash waved as the vid channel shut down. "I am now speaking directly to you, without using my ship board speakers." She said as Ami started to gesture the party out of the somewhat fetid room. They walked together, heading back for the "ballroom", as that was the best place to find the entrance to the basement.

"Brash is effectively a child. He is quite proud and sensitive however, so you'll need to gently explain things to him on occasion, even things as simple as operating a sink." Hana looked to Nora, "and what I meant is that Alfie needs to be more familiar with how to treat non-adults."

Nora pointed a finger at Hana, "I know how to treat non-adults, I just didn't get time to fully program that line of secondary branching thinking and working out all the details! I designed Alfie for a group like us!" She blew out a breath, pinching the bridge of her nose, "Sorry, sorry."

"It...is true that my programming mostly concerns the interactions with...adults. It's not Nora's fault!" Alfie said, shyly, as they came to the door that led into the basement levels - the one the harpie had gone down.

"And now we have Brash. Hence, you need to adjust her to deal with his way of thinking. I didn't mean any insult by what I said," Hana said, her voice gentle.

Ami squeezed Nora's shoulder gently. "It's okay," she said, smiling. "We're not mad! That's royal we, I don't know about anyone else." She nodded.

"Alfie does a fantastic job at interacting and managing." Sam added with a smile. "Quite well designed and rounded." Ami stuck her tongue out at Sam.

"I'm not mad, just that level of hindsight isn't enjoyable getting thrown in my face. How dare I not foresee every freaking interaction possible in the galaxy," She said, throwing her hands up into the air.

"I am confident in Nora's foundation. Alfie will adjust." Xata smiled. "I know how Brash feels. If faucets are the worst problem he encounters, well, that will be fortunate."

Rakain padded after everyone else, hugging himself with his broad arms and letting their conversation soothe his troubled mind.

"Just saying, as cute as he is, I think we'd all prefer Alfie be able to recognize that when he's upset about starting a fire in the vid-screen, what he actually means is that he turned on the vid-screen and it's showing a fire." She blinked, "I.. am sorry, I didn't mean any insult. I was just mentioning something you need to work on as you are the only one of us qualified to do so. Just an item on your future to do list."

"I get that Hana, I really do." Nora said after a long, deep breath. She still had a red, frustrated face but looked like she was cooling down. "Just, three years of the best work I've ever done. It's like me highlighting every flaw with a spell in an untested or unknown variable situation." She pinched her nose, "No, sorry. You apologized. I'm...really protective of Alfie and jumped the gun."

"Sorry, less a problem with Alfie, and more that Brash is the ultimate stress test," Hana said, smiling at Nora.

Ami nodded, then flung herself forward. Her arms wrapped around Nora, squeezing her tightly as she pressed herself to the other girl. "There," she said. "Royal hugs." Her voice was solemn and serious as she squeezed Nora tightly. "Fix everything!"

"I would also be protective of Alfie." Xata grinned. "Subject change. There is a Dastardly Harpy in the basement, yes?"

"Well.. we don't know she's dastardly." Hana smiled, "We still need to give her her voice and find out."

"Possibly an Innocent Victim who might be mistaken for an Antagonist." Xata nodded seriously. "Shall we find out?"

Sam chuckled. "Yeah, I'm putting a bet down on captive." She said simply.

With red cheeks still blazing Nora blew out a breath and squeezed Ami back in a hug with her real arm. "Thank you Ami, and Thank you Hana. Sorry for...flying off the bench there."

"Nah, no worries Nora. Alfie is practically your baby." Sam teased.

"No problem, I can understand the offense given your perception." Hana said, smiling. "This is why we talk things through."

Ami smiled. "Exactly!" She said, nodding, then stepped away. She turned to the door, then smiled. "Lets do this thing." She opened the door and, together, the team headed into the basement. As they walked into the darkness, Ami turned on her flashlight, grinning. "So, who wants to bet the ship has burned down by the time we get back?"

TO BE CONTINUED