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Howling alarms split the stale, chilly air, warning that someone was trying to manifest through the shrine’s matter transmission system. Only, that Hana.exe file was terribly fragile and incomplete. Whatever emerged from the booth... if anything did... faced instant death or deformity.
Outside, seen through a curving glass wall, hung a nearly dead world; a barren cinder whose sole patch of life was eroding away, pixel by digit by bit. Inside, a handful of would-be rescuers struggled to save what was left of their home.
Elf-lord, orc, tabaxi and ape, curious marten, construct and shrine goddess had reached Aerie Station using a space elevator. They’d arrived to find the place dark and deserted, except for a single corrupted watcher. That fight had been close, nearly killing them all and taking away their nominal leader.
Miche was gone. His mind had been sent somewhere else by a powerful jolt of electrical force from that rampaging spider repair-bot. In his absence, Firelord had taken over the empty shell of his follower… and no one denied the last god.
Turning to face Erron, Firelord ordered,
“Open your mind to me, General. All that you know of Hana. I am attempting to access the shrine at Amur, where some of her data remains, but you know her best.”
It was Erron’s wife Hana whose incoming datafile had set Aerie Station ringing like a gong or a metal can full of rattling bolts. The auburn-haired elf nodded stiffly. He seemed pale and anxious, fists tightly clenched at his sides and shaking a little.
“Aye, Lord,” he replied in a disciplined voice, allowing entry.
It was not an intrusion. Firelord’s presence and search were incredibly swift, as the god pulled up every last trace of Hana, from their first meeting (when he’d flipped a spoonful of cloud cream at her, across the banqueting table) to that last, frantic kiss by a crowded escape ship. Hana, their marriage, children and unborn little one. All of it. His most important and vivid memories were reexperienced, as though Erron was living it over again.
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Too soon, the god’s probing touch vanished, making life turn back into flat, stored memory. Next, Firelord shifted his attention to the matter transmission booth. (There were three, but only one was active, screeching and flashing a dangerous red.) Then a tendril of energy shot from the incarnate god to the booth’s blinking control panel.
“I believe that I am able to patch the incoming file,” he remarked, as though reporting the weather conditions outside. The god’s borrowed red eyes narrowed fractionally. More power flared, lighting the shrine like a second brief sun.
The station’s alarms choked off in mid-screech, as all of those blazing red warning lights calmed themselves back to a steady green glow. The booth chimed its ‘ready’ signal. Then it produced a hovering progress bar and began counting down. Erron, Marget, Gnameless, Salem and Monkey crowded nearer to watch. They scarcely breathed, each murmuring whatever served them best for prayer or luck. All they could do was wait, as something began to take shape inside of that humming transmission booth.
10… 9… 8… 7… 6…
Firelord’s perceptions were different, non-mortal. Standing aside didn’t alter what he could detect. As for Zak and Lirria, the metallic construct was simply uninterested, while the shrine goddess was occupied bringing Aerie Station back to life. It wasn’t her place, as she’d told them earlier, but it was something to do until they returned her to Far Keep.
5…. 4… 3… 2… 1
The matter transmission booth uttered a single, bright chime. Its projected progress bar reached a hundred percent and then vanished away. Next the frosted glass door swooshed open, turning a fuzzy silhouette into a beautiful elf-woman.
She was dark-haired, with wide and alarmed grey eyes. Dressed not in elvish finery, but a cast-off, much taken-in uniform of her husband’s. Their gazes locked as Hana frantically scanned the gathered watchers. Then the pair of them rushed forward. Hanna tumbled out of the booth while Erron lunged across its LED-sparkling reception pad. They snapped together like magnets, uttering soft, wordless cries.
Erron had existed for thousands of years as a memory file, then as a transferred data ghost and... finally... a full, restored person. He’d hung on for vengeance and hope. For Someday… and now it had come.
Almost.
“Touching,” drawled a sudden, cool voice from behind them. “I do love a big, sloppy family reunion.”