Meo Sector, Battleship Singularity
It wasn’t a graceful movement. Admiral Gives could lift Yankovich’s weight over his shoulder, but it was a struggle. Even with his chest and torso armor removed, Yankovich still had protective pieces on his shoulders, forearms, and legs. That alone added an extra thirty pounds to his weight. Admiral Gives kicked the drone Yankovich had wrecked through the hatchway, then stepped in and dropped the unconscious Marine beside it, gently as he could. The door slammed closed behind him, and a silver streak came forward, sprinting along the wall.
Admiral Gives didn’t hesitate. He put the blur between the iron-sights, adjusted for its speed, and pulled the trigger. The handgun released its electric discharge, an invisible pulse that moved at the speed of light, and the silver drone fell to the deck, its power systems disrupted. Unlike the strange white drone wrecked in the hallway, this was a standard cutting drone with a simple round body and spindly legs. In no particular mood for mercy, Admiral Gives shot it twice more, frying its processor with the power surges.
The acrid scent of burnt electronics dissonated into the air, prompting the room’s other occupant to stir. Slithering up and over the back of the couch, the Hydra raised its head and tasted the air with its long tongues. “I thought you might return, Shipmaster,” it spoke in its native language, unperturbed by the gun held between them. The pupils of its dark eyes dialated as it smelled blood in the air. “You bring me flesh. Come to strike a bargain, perhaps?”
Admiral Gives stepped pointedly between the Hydra and Yankovich’s unconscious form. In Hydrian culture, badly wounded soldiers were fed to their brethren, strengthening the nest, even in loss. “I am not here to feed you, Rowin.”
“You humans have such a strange determination to protect the wounded.” the Hydra hissed, sliding its long neck a little further over the back of the couch. “Always willing to sacrifice the healthy for the hurt, though,” it flicked its tongues once more, baring its sharp teeth, “the fresh blood upon your hands cannot conceal the reek of poison in your body, Shipmaster. Your flesh is not worthy to sustain the hive.”
“I have no intent of sustaining your infestation,” the Admiral replied. And an infestation it was, the Hydra reproduced too quickly, inevitably overtaking the levels a world’s ecosystem could sustain, killing off any that competed for resources – an invasive species in every sense of the word. “You have trespassed into humanity’s territory.” That meant war, plain and simple.
The Hydra hissed, not in a threat, but in a sound of amusement. As it lay across the sofa with its head raised, its long body took up the length of the couch, and its tail hung off the side, lashing back and forth. Its hide had a waxy sheen, a natural, chitinous armor so segmented it looked like scales. “Do you believe you are still in control here, little Shipmaster? You are ill, and your Queen’s strength has fled you.”
Admiral Gives took a step closer, noting that the estate quarters the Hydra was kept in were still clean. The temperature aboard ship, calibrated to be comfortable for humans, was cold to the Hydra. It had curled up on the couch to conserve warmth. It had burrowed into the throw cushions, but the rest of the room, complete with a desk and dining area, was untouched. The Hydra hadn’t rummaged around. Likely, it had seen no point, for a sigil had been burned into the bulkhead on the wall. It wasn’t visible from the door, but it was perfectly visible from the couch.
The pattern was precise, the heating less so, as metal balled and dripped unevenly. Vastly different from the human standard text, Hydrian script was exceptionally difficult to read. It wasn’t read in any linear pattern, but organized in a circular form. Additions were made on the circle for detail, the positions of such marks dictating the time, location and action of the sentence subject. The circle carved into the wall was relatively plain. Only a handful of marks cut across its circumference because it was not a complete sentence. It was a single instruction: wait.
Admiral Gives knew he had lost a degree of control over this situation. The price to fight off a drone attack would be high, but here, there was still a way to command its end. And that was his duty, as the ship’s commander, regardless of the political complications between humanity and the Hydrian Empire. He flicked the pistol off of its electric charge, to the setting that would fire bullets, knowing that the Singularity’s inertial dampeners weren’t active to intervene. “Your ship’s AI is responsible for this,” he told Rowin. The Hydrian scoutship’s AI was the only thing that could or would control these drones in this manner. It was attacking the Singularity’s crew, but leaving the ship mostly unharmed, ensuring that the biological Hydra was not injured or killed. It, much as the ghost would, was trying to recover its crewman. “Order Swordbreaker to cease its attack.”
“Swordbreaker commands its own actions,” the Hydra said. “The AI is following its programming,” and that programming demanded it leave no evidence of its venture into the human side of the Neutral Zone. “It serves a purpose to recover its ship controller, and it will not cease until it does so.”
“Then we are in a stalemate.”
“A stalemate?” The Hydra twitched its tail languidly, lounging without an apparent threat. “Your ship is overrun, Shipmaster. Swordbreaker could end you at any moment.”
“And I can kill you before that happens.” A Hydra’s scales were tough, but this close, a pistol was still deadly. This biological drone was not healthy, either. It had suffered years of neglect and hunger in the pirates’ custody. Its natural armor was more brittle than it should be. “Either we negotiate, or you die.” Those were the terms. Surrender was not an option and the Admiral knew it. The Hydra did not respect such things.
“Primitive. Humans are so primitive.” A new voice cut into the air. “Your bargaining. Your pleading. Your selfishness. It’s all so primitive.” It was loud, and so dreadfully clear. “Your minds do not fathom your rightful place: flesh to feed the Empire. You cower in the protection of a false Queen that was so easily felled.”
Swordbreaker. The AI itself was here, listening – or one of its hosts was. Admiral Gives searched the room, careful to keep his aim on the Hydra. The state quarters were nicely furnished, though vintage in human fashion. The chairs and tables had navy blue upholstery; their legs elegantly carved. They looked like wood, but the Admiral doubted it truly was. Wood was an expensive commodity in space. It couldn’t be manufactured here and broke easily. A few lamps lined the room, giving off a yellow-tinted light that may have been warm and inviting in other circumstances. And there, crawling out of the ventilation duct on the floor was another ivory-white drone. Its leg joints bent and swiveled strangely, mimicking no animal or design the Admiral had ever seen. It was far more intricate than the simple round bodies and skinny legs of the human-built cutting drone. It was a truly alien machine, even as the voice emanating from it was a perfect mimicry of humanity.
“I obliged the others for far too long, controlled their loaders and machines, granted them stealth technology to fight their kin. It serves the Empire for humanity to fight itself. It serves the Empire to recover Rowin. And,” the drone focused upon the Admiral, “it serves the Empire to cull you here.” A glow began to take root on the top of the drone, unidentifiable mechanics channeling power to an unknown end.
The Admiral swung the pistol to the right, unwilling to let the drone complete its charge, but the Hydra leapt in the same moment. Except it wasn’t Hydra from the couch. All of the sudden there was a second Hydra in the room. It was twisted and deformed, emerald scales jutting out from pale skin. Its jaw stretched over an oval face, as if squished and pulled from the underlying bone structure. Dark, slitted irises glinted from small forward-facing eye sockets, too close together to be Hydrian. At least, not completely.
Admiral Gives leapt to the side, and fired. The pistol kicked in his hands, not too difficult to control, but enough to know that it had discharged properly, heat and gun smoke filling the air. But in that instant, the Hydra was in front of him again, taking the bullet meant for the drone. Silver and sizzling, the bullet stopped upon its chest. The projectile froze, not by impact, but as if it had been grabbed and yanked to a stop the same way the ship’s inertial dampeners arrested objects of high kinetic energy. Before he could comprehend the sight, let alone react to squeeze the trigger again, the Hydra jumped, faster than he could track it.
It lashed out, long hands brandishing sharp claws that sliced into the Admiral’s arm. He sidestepped, just barely keeping the second swipe from hitting its mark, but it was on him again before he even found his footing. He hit the wall without a realization that he’d even been struck, and Yankovich’s sidearm fell from his hand. It fell the deck with a dooming clatter, and instinctively, the Admiral dove for it. He didn’t even make it to the ground. The Hydra wrapped him up in its long limbs and pinned him against the bulkhead.
Only then did he get a proper look at its form.
This Hydra was no Hydra at all. It was half-human. Chitinous green scales mottled its pale skin, emerging like an uneven rash. Its back was too hunched and too long, stuck permanently between the bipedal human posture, and the Hydrian capability to move on all four limbs. A long, barbed tail counter balanced it. Shags of dark hair hung unevenly from its malformed scalp, a Hydrian bone crest trying to pierce through the pale skin.
It took the Admiral only a moment to realize what this was: Swordbreaker. This form had to be the avatar of the Hydrian scoutship’s AI. Hydrian AI did not often use avatars, but humans didn’t like speaking to things with no face. As Baron Cardio coerced the Hydrian AI into helping him, he would have mandated it chose an avatar, and probably pressed it into appearing human. Yet, a Hydrian AI would never bow to humanity. It would never cast the illusion of belonging to a lesser species.
This had been the result: a human-Hydra hybrid. A form the AI, bound by the Hydrian bylaws, would be forced to maintain. Once an AI selected an avatar, the bylaws did not permit them to change it. That was thought to be a guard against madness, binding them to an identity and purpose, but this form, borne from captivity and desperation, could be nothing so kind. It looked at him with all the hatred of its creation. “Humans are primitive.”
This had been what Yankovich fought: the Hydrian AI given physical form. Admiral Gives could feel the cuts stinging on his arms, clean wounds, not at all like the ripping effect of organic claws. “Swordbreaker, let us negotiate.”
“Her Majesty’s Empire has no need to negotiate with prey,” it hissed, the sound emanating not from the form above him, but from the drone a few feet away. “Humans are but flesh to feed the Mother Nest.”
Pinned by his shoulders, Admiral Gives had little room to move, but the avatar hadn’t bothered to bind his hands. He grabbed the little knife he kept tucked between his wrist and his watch and flicked it open. He drove it into the stomach of the figure pinning him, but it felt like stabbing a brick wall. The knife, much like the bullet, stopped and simply refused to move, no matter how hard he pushed. The half-formed maw of the AI avatar opened only to flick its tongue. “Primitive. You are helpless against our people. You are helpless against our technology.”
Admiral Gives tried to wrench himself free, but the avatar’s grip was too tight. It simply ripped past the thick fabric of his uniform jacket and stabbed directly into his shoulder. The drone was doing this. The foreign components that he hadn’t been able to identify had to be some kind of projector, not only holographic, but also physical.
The reek of iron, far stronger than blood, indicated some sort of magnetic field control. It was bending and aligning magnetic particles to emulate a physical presence. It couldn’t eat him, but it could certainly cut, stab and kill him as the magnetic force between the particles mimicked solid matter. Humanity had no technology like this, but the Hydra had always been ahead, especially in computer and AI-related fields. The only thing that had given humanity a chance in the War was their efficiency with structures and artillery. But right now, none of that could help him. That drone was well out of his reach.
“You are a rare prize, Shipmaster,” the AI hissed. “Your ship’s end shall be celebrated by the Almighty Queen herself, and the flesh of its crew harvested to feed the Armada. Despair that your poisoned flesh will be discarded, never to serve a higher purpose.”
The avatar opened the half-formed maw that protruded from its almost-human face. It plunged downward, its dagger-like fangs aiming for his neck.
In that instant, a long blur streaked in front of him, spearing into the avatar’s torso. The force of it ripped Swordbreaker away and carried the AI’s mutated figure across the room, leaving him to fall. With an unearthly screech, the avatar was impaled against the opposite wall. It squirmed and hissed, scratching at the massive spear suddenly run through its body. Then, as the Admiral fumbled for the gun next to him on the ground, Swordbreaker’s avatar began to blur and stretch, trying to disperse its illusion and reform elsewhere.
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“Oh,” a chilling laugh sang into the air, “I’m afraid that’s not going to work, little AI.”
The avatar shrieked louder, clawing desperately at its impalement. A thick chain ran from the back of the spear. The Admiral traced its length back across the floor to where it wrapped around the wrist of a tall woman. A sadistic smile played on her lips as she watched the AI’s projection struggle. Behind her, the broken drone had risen like a marionette, twitching erratically as translucent white fibers infiltrated its every mechanism. They shoved into the joints and attached themselves to the wiring, puppeteering the drone’s remains.
Swordbreaker hissed and began to pull itself forward on the impalement, unable to remove it. It would have been garish, but the avatar didn’t bleed. It didn’t so much as stain the length of the spear, just wrenched itself forward, little by little, toward its attacker.
With a cruel huff of amusement, the other dropped the anchor chain and pinned it below the wicked point of her boot. Pulling the second weapon off her back, she spun its massive weight as easily as a bamboo rod, then slammed it down beside her, expression growing only more wicked. “Please,” she snarled, predatorily watching Swordbreaker’s struggle, “make this fun.”
Rising from the couch, the biological Hydra stared at the interloper. Clad in armor, she was easily taller than the Shipmaster. Spikes cascaded off her shoulders. Detailed in red and etched in silver, her armor was intricate, though every bit of it purposeful. It was no set of ceremonial armor. It was scratched and scuffed, angled only to give an edge to a strike, and it fit her figure perfectly, down to the iron crown of black fire that sat upon her stark white hair. And the weapon in her hand? That was no spear. The mechanism on top was designed to spring out an anchor itself in its victim. The thick chain attached to its end only made it more obvious. It was a harpoon, and its twin had managed to pin Swordbreaker to the wall with ease.
Humans all looked much the same to Rowin. They were squishy, and varied from pinkish to brown, but they all reeked of flesh, of food. This one didn’t, and a now-familiar presence began to dig into his mind, not-so-gently seizing control. “She-who-sings-death.”
The AI avatar ceased its struggle when Rowin fell, writhing to the ground. It went still, as if calculating, while confusion replaced the hatred in its eyes. “The Banshee Queen.” Humanity’s falsity. “Your strength is not bound by biology.” It had engaged here, in the realm of machines. “Your strength is far beyond humanity. Why do you intervene?” It was a waste to defend prey. “Release me.”
The ghost’s chilling laugh echoed in the room. “Now, why would I do that?” She narrowed her eyes, daggers of cold steel. “Oh, no, I am going to rip you apart, process by process, line by line, little AI.” Hungrily, she bared her teeth, “This is my domain.” The Singularity and all lives aboard belonged to her, and Swordbreaker had endangered them, injured them. A price had to be paid.
“You cannot defeat me, Banshee.” Humanity’s champion of death could not herald the Swordbreaker’s destruction. “I remain far from here. Watching, waiting. Studying the weakness of humanity’s flesh.”
“I’ll find you,” the ghost promised. “I always find you, and I always sink you.” The Hydra were noisy little playthings, needy gross minds. Their AI were their sick mirror, every bit as fanatical and devoted, programmed by code to love their Queen, rather than by pheromones. “Your Ship-Controller will die here, Swordbreaker.”
The avatar hissed, its tongue too long to be human, and too fat to be Hydrian. “You decry the killing of prey, Banshee, and yet you would bring war so abruptly. The Armada would feast. See how easily your Nest was infiltrated.”
Danger quivered in the air; the shadow of an immense power prepared to rip apart everything here. But there was a feral nature to it, the sense of an animal protecting its territory. “Stand down,” the Admiral spoke.
Her hunger for violence remained, but the ghost loosened her grip on the harpoon in her hands, no matter how her mind, her machine yearned otherwise. “She hurt my crew,” she found herself saying coldly. Did that suffering not demand repayment? Did their pain not necessitate vengeance? Eliminate the threat, her analyses urged.
This wasn’t the persona Admiral Gives knew best, but the weapon conditioned to act and react. That weapon was wholly prepared to eliminate any threat it found against those it had been directed to protect. But the ghost had never been given that order. She reacted to protect him and the others because she’d grown attached to them, and that made her all the more dangerous. There were no orders, no considerations in her mind except that drive to protect, which she’d do the only way her mechanical existence knew how: violence. Extreme, exceptional and utterly undeniable lethality. Chaos in its rawest form.
But still, the ghost turned to him. Even with that rabidity in her eyes, she eased off Swordbreaker. The years, decades of history between them had built an unbreakable trust – one that held even now. “We are not seeking a war,” the Admiral reminded. Humanity was ill-prepared for it. “Let us negotiate.” The ghost was reacting blindly. Her hatred of the Hydra was almost as potent as the Hydra’s hatred of humanity, but executing Rowin here would solve nothing. The rest of the AI-controlled drones would continue to wreak havoc all over the ship, and Swordbreaker would vanish, taking news of Rowin’s execution back to the Hydrian Empire.
It would mark the start of a war that humanity would lose, so he turned to the Hydrian AI, “Swordbreaker, this can end peacefully.” For now. Such harmony would be temporary, and the Admiral knew it. “You want your Ship-Controller back.” That was clear enough. The AI had gone to great lengths to recover the single member of its crew. It had served as a slave to the pirates that imprisoned Rowin for years. “Allow us to negotiate an exchange in neutral space. He can be returned to you.”
“What do you seek in exchange?”
There was interest in the avatar’s eyes. Admiral Gives knew it could be planted there, that the AI could manipulate its expression however it chose, but it was listening and that was a start. “Disable your drones, end your attack on my ship, and fetch an ambassador. I ask the chance to maintain peace between humanity and the Empire. Let us speak on neutral ground, where Rowin can be released.”
“You are a rogue, Shipmaster. The Empire has no use of such terms.” Traitors could not evolve from the Mother Nest. It was the basest instinct of all Hydra to serve their Queen. “We shall negotiate with whomever claims to speak of humanity, but your species’ infighting endangers such talks. Your ship, in particular, is being hunted.”
It was unusual for the Hydra to care about human affairs. Human politics never mattered to them. A pirate, a Marine and a colonist were all the same: prey. To know he’d gone rogue against Command was an admission they were studying humanity for a purpose – most likely invasion. One Admiral Gives had to delay. “We can meet somewhere the rest of humanity would never dare approach.” Somewhere he had sworn to never go. “Azura.”
“Azura,” the AI echoed. It was silent for a moment, staring at him, as if trying to divine his intention. “The site of the Empire’s gravest failure.”
“And the site where our peoples first spoke.” The world itself had little meaning now, a dead planet, ruined in the War. It had been a site of desperation, but it had provided evidence that humanity and the Hydra could speak on equal terms, that negotiations were possible.
“I accept your offer, Shipmaster. Turn over Ship-Controller Rowin and all Hydrian technology aboard your ship, and an ambassador will hear you speak.” If all evidence of this incursion was eliminated, then the Empire’s plans might survive, and so too might peace, for now. “From this position, your ship’s capability can reach Azura in a matter of hours. I shall allot you twelve. If you do not arrive, then know all of humanity will pay the price.”
The AI’s avatar disappeared. The moment it did, Admiral Gives raised the handgun and fired, putting two bullets into the Hydrian drone. It collapsed with a weak little spark, now useless. The biological Hydra, drooling on the ground did not so much as stir. “Try not to leave him brain-dead,” he told the ghost. “We still need answers.” The reason the Swordbreaker had crossed the Neutral Zone was more important than ever.
She cooly watched Admiral Gives secure the pistol. “I’ll consider it.” The very existence of the Hydra here made it a vile presence, never mind the fact it had contemplated eating her crew. “You must know negotiations are pointless.” Swordbreaker had crossed beyond the Neutral Zone by intention. The Hydrian Empire had knowingly violated the armistice treaty years ago. “The Mother Nest grows hungry.” The Empire’s staggering population had outgrown its available resources. “War is inevitable.”
“But that war does not have to start now.” There was a difference between a war today and a war six months from now. Six months could allow defenses to be built. “It may be a matter of time, but if we can extend that time… That’s the fate of worlds.”
The ghost could follow that logic. For the first time in days, her mind felt whole, healed in the calm hours before this attack. “I understand the intent, but is Azura wise?”
“You told me it was safe.” Admiral Gives hadn’t been particularly inclined to believe that, but there wasn’t much choice. Command’s ships frequently patrolled vast swaths of the Neutral Zone. There’d be no sneaking the Singularity past that, but Command would never touch Azura, and neither would the Hydra.
…At least not willingly. The Hydrian bylaws mandated that they would never civilize that world. No one would. It could never be fortified for either side, truly neutral ground, even if it did rest at the center of the Quarantine Zone.
“Safe is a relative term,” the ghost reminded him. “Azura was the heart of the worst Cataclysm humanity has ever seen.”
I know, the Admiral thought. There was a reason he had refused to go there. Maybe it was stupid reason, given that the ghost had already been there and seen those events firsthand, but it was a reason all the same. Though, perhaps, the only one he was deluding was himself. He discarded those thoughts and met the ghost’s silver eyes. “You made quite the entrance.”
“Well,” she smiled, “I do my best.” A part of her still very much hungered for Swordbreaker’s destruction, but that satisfaction would probably come in time. “You are brilliant, you know. An idiot,” she allowed, “but a brilliant one.”
“Because I’ve demanded a negotiation on a planet so cursed the Hydra won’t touch it?”
“Because this drone is applying a magnetic particle projector.” A fusion of magnetic field manipulation, iron particulates and a holographic projector, it gave an illusion a physical form. “I couldn’t figure it out.” Even once she’d used the neurofibers to infiltrate and power the Hydrian drone, the ghost hadn’t been able to figure out how to control it. She hadn’t understood it. “But you did.” He had realized that the avatar’s physical form was granted by the laws of magnetism, not by some violation of the laws of matter, and she understood magnetism. It was one of the four fundamental laws of the universe. It did not come as easily to her as the others, but it was something she could calculate, something her mechanical mind could comprehend – more so than a projector that appeared to create physical matter from energy. Once he had identified the avatar’s true form to be particles aligned in a magnetic field, she’d been able to activate the damaged drone’s projector to counter Swordbreaker.
“I don’t recall announcing it was magnetism.” All Admiral Gives recalled was losing that scuffle. And calling it a scuffle was probably generous, as the struggle had been effectively one-sided. He hadn’t stood a chance against that drone.
“You didn’t have to.” Was that not the beauty of it? He had understood, and thus, so had she. That was the incredible nature of humanity. They connected the dots. The smell of iron could be attached to a magnet, and that to the electromagnetic force. On her own, the ghost could not draw those conclusions. Her machine was a hulking methodical existence, bound by linear procedure. Creativity and adaptability were no part of it. In that, humanity was her better.
Admiral Gives did not know how to reply to that. “So,” he deadpanned, “should I be insulted the Hydra doesn’t want to eat me?” Ordinarily, the Hydra wasted nothing. They were like locusts, harvesting worlds of nutrient matter and useful materials.
The ghost tilted her head. “Do you want to be eaten?”
“Not particularly.” But it seemed strange. Why would the Hydra insist he was ill, and his flesh poisoned? “Do they not eat Shipmasters?” Was it something about the influx of a Queen’s blindsight?
“Actually, it’s considered a great honor.” The nest considered it a celebration of strength to consume the old Shipmaster and elevate a new one.
“Delightful.” The Admiral cast a glance over to Rowin, as the biological drone’s alien form lay sprawled across the oriental rug, foaming slightly at the mouth. Everything he learned about the Hydra made them seem even more vile, but one could not expect an alien civilization to abide human sensitivities. Most of humanity frowned upon cannibalism. It was generally a sign of extreme desperation or unstable minds. For the Hydra, cannibalism was expected, and to die without being consumed was to deny the Mother Nest sustenance to strengthen itself. “That said,” the Admiral sighed, “you bailed me out. Again.” He should have waited for reinforcements instead of confronting the Hydra alone. “Thank you.”
He took a step closer and offered out a hand. It took the ghost a long moment to place the gesture, as it was completely foreign to her: a handshake. She only recognized it because it was the only time Admiral Gives ever willingly touched someone, and he forced himself to give that polite greeting to everyone who came aboard ship.
It had never occurred to the ghost that she wanted to shake his hand. Why would she? She had no hands. The gesture had never been offered to her, nor could she have feasibly accepted it. There were more meaningful ways to make her feel welcome.
And yet, she found herself wanting desperately to take his hand, longing to be an equal, just for that one painfully simple moment. But, even with this magnetic field projector, she couldn’t. The differences between them were still too vast, had always been too vast. “This technology is imperfect.” Even the Hydrian Empire could not claim perfect control over the forces of nature. “The magnetic field projector can only create simple shapes.” It could slice, stab and shove, but could not mirror the visible details of the holographic projector. “It is nothing worth trying to interact with.” Even now, it could present nothing approximating a hand, just some abstract form. The slight physical abilities of the magnetic projector and the visibly detailed form of the holographic projector made a convincing illusion of a physical body, but it was still an illusion all the same.
The Admiral lowered his hand. “My apologies.” Finally offering that handshake had seemed the right thing to do, but now, seeing the flicker of disappointment in her gaze, he wasn’t so sure. “It wouldn’t have been you anyway.”
“No,” she agreed, it wouldn’t. She possessed no hands. She would never stand before him in any manner other than the ghost: a phantom form of convenience that could fit in the room and express matters in a way that was comprehensible to humans. “All the same,” the gesture would have meant something. “I would have liked to shake your hand.” He greeted every other member of the crew that way, and she wanted to be among them, wanted to belong. He had offered that gesture to include her in that tradition, as one of them, but it wasn’t possible. Not even with Hydrian technology.
Now, she could sense that bitter resentment, as he cursed his carelessness to offer something impossible and disappoint her. But the offer revealed his utter willingness to interact with her, and that was a kindness, no matter the result. Do not feel bad, she wanted to tell him, perhaps someday… But that was foolishness. They would always exist on different levels, barely overlapping in perception. It had always been that way, and she could picture no scenario where that might change, nor did she truly wish it to. She had no desire to be human, only wished it was easier for her to interact with them.