Chapter 4, Attrition
Shizuka was alive and in control of herself, truly feeling both for the first time since many reconstructions. She was not mentally prepared for the experience in any way; understandably, she did not welcome it.
"I was not supposed to come back from Gauna assimilation, and Nagate should never have chased after me a second time."
The thought that occupied the center of her head kept echoing off every metaphorical wall; it was the first coherent idea she formulated after her Gauna firmware's combat mode subsided. It took her a long time to understand she was now surrounded by people and man made machinery, instead of incomprehensible biomechanisms. Though, the things that attempted to swarm and eviscerate her - the source of her signal - were all from a new kind of biomechanism.
Firmware? Biomechanism? She startled herself thinking over these words: I have been subconsciously forced to pick up these concepts from the Gauna, haven't I? Have I learned to think like one of them now, or am I reduced to one of them that attempts to copy my behavior using an alien system? If it was the second case, the Gauna better have an endless bad time doing it.
Across all the sterile reflective metal surfaces nearby, she could pick out the red light from her own eyes. As her back tensed from the thought, her eyes also fixated on the clearest reflection, provided by a stainless steel water cup. In plain sight, the scanner array and accelerator in her eyes were following the contraction of her pupils. Gold sparks on red iris - she once liked such a color combination, back when she bought her precious red festive dress with gold patterns.
The replacements, reconstructions and disfigurements were too integral to her existence now.
Existence not as a human, or a pilot, but as a primal unthinking killing machine. Shizuka felt she shouldn't deserve any of the hospitality and friendliness she experienced right now. Who were these people and what do I mean to them? This seemed like a hospital, they should be checking on Nagate. He was hard to look after, but he always paid back more than the care spent on him.
Those people tending to her all spoke a language she could only understand pieces of it. English was an elective in Sidonia, a functionally dead language preserved by katakana and legacy data in centuries-old programs the ship struggled to replace. She once even had plans to learn it if she could go to officer school. Was this on another Seed Ship?
Still fixated on her reflection, she felt an oversuit being put on her back, and something on it clamp onto her back and shoulders. Instinctively, she put her arms through its sleeves.
"Hello, Shizuka? Can you understand me?" A built-in speaker on the RIG translated for her while a projector set down a line of floating subtitles. The voice came from a blonde woman who shared the pilot school doctor's age, and her warm attitude. Was the doctor called Kobayashi just like the captain? What a strange fact to suddenly remember after a literal eternity.
"Yes? Yes, I'm Hoshijiro Shizuka..."
"I'm Nicole. Thanks for saving my life back there, we'll make it through together. Nagate is fine, and he on his way."
It was like the time where Nagate followed her escape pod again, Shizuka thought, leaving behind more people who needed him. Maybe I stopped being a living weapon for humanity's greatest threat, but I still took down Sidonia's greatest hero.
"It all started when I activated eject after the Gauna with Eiko's face hit my Guardian."
"Hoshijiro! Hoshijiro!" Nagate charged through the ICU section's door, stopping himself before crashing into the hardened glass on Shizuka's operating chamber. He looked genuinely overjoyed to see her, clumsy and passionate like every day she saw him before. He wore the same Sidonian pilot uniform, but...
"...Is that blood on you?" She asked, then blinked as she looked around. There was blood on herself, too, not Ena but actual organic drying blood.
"Yes, not my blood." A Sidonian regular pilots' katana was on his back, something radiating or vibrating from its position giving her a strange pressure.
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& Dissolution information data in physical volume and mass
& MODULATE AND ASCEND
Shizuka shook herself out of a daze and tried to stand up. Nagate opened the operating room's door, grabbing a hand of hers to help her balance. Their eyes met again, him paying no attention to her altered pupils:
"This ship is in danger, and people need me. Another enemy instead of Gauna. Stay here as you recover, I'll make things safe."
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Dr. Kyne knew a trial of his faith is at hand, and he would be forced to make a decision with absolutely no room for regret. It was 24 hours since Barrow's crash landing.
First of all, the Marker madness existed beyond doubt. Altman's own eyes saw the weak spirited people being tested. Mathius must have been blinded by the same power that caused Hans Leggio to snap. The captain still occupied the bridge, indecision snowballing towards bigger disaster than on the colony below. In the first place they should have built a protective shell around it like the housing of the First Marker on New Horizon, but the whole Aegis VII operation was never licensed.
And then, the situation with the living dead - attacking everyone and threatening to multiply. Every new flatline made a difference of two in this raw exchange of numbers, not one. He already gave the permission to cremate all bodies, in his position of religion authority, though he knew how demoralizing the idea would be. His most valuable supporters now were the atheists formerly not seeing eye to eye with him, like White and Vincent. Handing weapons to crew for self defense wouldn't mix well with Marker madness. Beyond that, there was a rumor of suspected hostile alien life form latching onto the ship, even back up by asteroid defense turrets' cameras. This could have some precedence in a set of top secret salvaged SCAF documents only accessible to Oracles and Enigmas back on Earth; he has been trusted with a heavily censored and abridged excerpt by Eckhart before the mission, but through reading has been postponed by the obvious difficulties.
The ship couldn't immediately return with its circuitry still highly compromised; even if the colonists and overseer Eckhart were all formally written off dead, escape meant more than discarding the tethered rock and activating Shockpoint. The communication system was barely usable, life support and the reactor requiring emergency re-evaluations. To check up on any of these would need a dozen or more crew backed by at least half that number in guards. The security department's 90 staff were already spread out between everywhere that needed them, and brutalized by the mutants.
The obvious and heartless solution would be to remove the Marker, drop it back to surface; but to speak out the idea would cause immense friction or even violent schism right away. Only good news could give all the believers onboard the unity they needed.
Outside of all these life-and-death dilemmas was the pod recovered ahead of the Marker! It could be interpreted as a sign of any good news. It could be extremely symbolic as a message of Convergence: Machine and life, male and female, human and alien, living and born again. For the Marker's incomprehensible extraterrestrial power, the kids from another universe must have been its chosen messengers. Shizuka or Benisuzume's esoteric subatomic composition could well be a new form of existence waiting for mortals to achieve.
"Holy creatures, transform me into your humble servant. Show me the path to enlightenment as you alter my flesh and free my soul." This line could have referred to the whole earth biosphere, the creatures Altman once saw in out-of-body experiences, or the Enigmas which Unitology's ceremonial masks were based on. What if they're Gauna?
Most importantly, Nicole's report and security cam all showed that Shizuka was fantastically effective in combating the abominable re-animations. Nagate could be a viable security chain on her, a decent fighter himself.
Kyne scratched down a list of propaganda bullet points condensed from his observations and started a group call to all the clerical staff onboard. They have taken losses in the past day, but they could still pull their weight.
"Brothers and sisters, we have received the first glimpse at our true potential after Convergence. Watch this video of harmonious cosmic power blasting away infection of mind and body; Help me spread the glory of our new Marker's new herald."
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While Nagate joined the security team's effort in containing the hostile reanimations, Shizuka gingerly accepted Nicole and Anne's plea to study her Benisuzume side. She was afraid of losing control, but they persuaded her with the more urgent existential threats from the vicious undead. To save people, they needed her back in the fight as soon as possible.
& Datamass auto-extraction and conversion: Malfunction, system reboot required
& Datamass source identified as hostile
The Gauna firmware that carried her identity and consciousness could be accessed from her mind as strings of disembodied ideas and images, providing little help on how to regain energy. Hyggs particles and radiation existed in this universe like her own, and she could absorb them like a Guardian's built-in recharge system does, but the bad news was she recharges much slower than a Guardian.
For her safety, she was moved to an office next to the imaging room. Nicole as a doctor was qualified to provide advice on both mental and physical wellbeing, while Anne, the lower ranked medical professional, did handiwork and check-ups.
On the bed she sat on, next to her were a variety of chemicals and batteries gathered by the security team. The test was simple: Touch something and try to "absorb" energy from it.
Glucose, no effect, better just eat it and hope body heat could transfer to the eyeball particle cannon.
Plasma battery, no effect. She decided against having one cracked open and touching the reagents inside.
Pulse round, no effect. The security guard assigned outside their office, Mike, has suggested putting one hand in front of a pulse rifle barrel and pulling the trigger with the other. This idea testing Benisuzume's indestructibility was vetoed right away by Nicole and the security chief both.
Power node, no effect. "Not even Issac knows what's inside a power node, it's not a capacitor nor a can of nanobots."
Stasis recharge pack. As soon as Shizuka's hands touched its electrodes, the energy inside began to glow through its casing, brighter than the meter light.
O& Refill energy
The bright flecks of Hyggs particles emerged from the recharge pack, floating in the air like stars outside the ship. She was exhilarated; talons of megastructure began to condensate and solidify on her fingers, blood red over her pale fingers.
CRUNCH
"Sorry!" The recharge pack was sliced open by her finger blades, and collapsed within itself, releasing all its energy. She imagined retracting the blades and extending them; they all shaped themselves exactly as she wished. She stepped off the bed and high-dived the air triumphantly, careful not to hit anyone, "Yes! It's working!"
To her surprise, Anne skipped over to meet her high five. Shizuka awkwardly waited till the armor plating disappeared; the discovery felt like the moment Nagate successfully filtered water from the Guardian's machine oil.
"Boss, we just got a very expensive savior." Mike reported the success to Alissa, "Hope she's worth every Creddy."