Little Space [Act One Complete: The Skippers and the Burning Sky/Act Two Soon!]

[kerry]

11 hours ago, Pudding said:

“You were surprised that I lived in standard quarters. Dot. You told me that I should have been living in luxury. Dot.” It wasn’t a confirmation, or a recollection, it was a feeling I needed to follow to find the truth I already knew.  “You weren’t playing hero worship, you honestly felt it was true. Dot. We conserve everything we do, we save energy, we save matter, we don’t waste resources. Dot. Why do you believe a Skipper should be afforded special treatment, then? Where’s that Dot?” I wondered out loud, and if Lilt Jackson knew as much as she claimed to know, then she knew the answer to this already.

I love the way she thinks.

I got so involved in this chapter, even for the second time, that I forgot to stop and quote things. ?

But...they grew the faering...i love the craziness of that (and if the ship is alive it probably could be its own oversight..."

 

[Pudding]

Chapter 9

 

I'd never seen one of them die before, I didn't even know they could die. But I remember the Battle of Mira Station. I remember Skippers in their machines, blinking in and out like fireflies, and I remember seeing the Burning Sky dying for the very first time. It was the first day since we lost our home that I got to remember what hope felt like.

-Ashlynn Jones, Personal Accounts of the Burning Sky.

***

 

I could feel it, and I think that was why it was so easy for me to accept the truth of the words Lilt had fed me, even despite all of her lies and her misdeeds in such a short amount of time. If I were thinking, then I wouldn’t trust her as far as I could have thrown her. But I was a Skipper, so I was feeling, and something was resonating with my feelings. With delicate steps that left no sign of evidence, I paced around the Faering, every fiber of my skin tingling, reminding me of the way I felt when I was walking past the transformer coils on the lower decks of the Station.

The air just felt… charged.

The form of the construct didn’t differ greatly from my Faering, similar to any of those my Skipper Sisters might have taken into cold deep vacuum - three rings of wedges, each smaller than the one preceding it, and the Truss suspended and hovering in the center. The material construction was what set things apart, though, and I could only have described it as otherworldly, because it was like nothing else I’d ever seen.

Except for every single day when I looked in the mirror.

“Is this Skipper technology?” I asked with equal parts curiosity and awe, my words soft and hesitant as though it was a question I really wasn’t sure I wanted the answer to. When my words hung in the air and Lilt didn’t answer me, though, I looked over my shoulder and saw her talking to a middle-aged woman with black hair and almond-shaped eyes that clouded with a milky white pallor in the same shade as the cane she held in her hand.

Without any acknowledgment of my question, and outside of the supervision of my escort, I gave into compulsion and stepped up the adjacent stepladder to bring me closer to the Truss in the center of the Faering. I came chest to chest with the suspended figure in between the three rings, floating as if by magic. My eyes shined with compulsion, my feelings flared, and I reached out one hand to touch the strange, almost alien figure before me. And where my fingers were softly cream colored, pale and milky, child-like and precious, the Truss was dark bluish grey, designed to look metallic at a distance, intended to evoke feelings of artificiality. We contrasted, not flesh and steel like we usually would, but in every other way.

“Are you curious?” Despite the soft excitement in Lilt’s voice, I almost jumped out of my too-perfect skin, and felt myself falling back into her arms on the way down from the startled leap. “Oh hey, it’s alright, you’re good. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I’m a Skipper,” I spat, then faded, “I don’t get scared,” I moped in embarrassment, and Lilt smiled the way my Mom used to.

“Well now that’s not true at all. You don’t have to posture here, Cadence, you don’t have to live up to an image of some ever-perfect hero. It’s alright to be afraid. It’s alright to be excited, to be trepidatious, it’s okay to feel things.” She smiled at me, and her arms were still around me, wrapping me up in physicality the way her reassurances wrapped up my insecurities. “Are you alright? We don’t have to do this right now, you know.”

I looked up, craning my neck to see her gaze as she stood behind me, arms wrapped around me, and her upside-down smile was just as pretty as it had been right side up.

“I felt something, Lilt. Like it was giving me something.” My brow was furrowed as my inflection dropped, my gaze moved back to the Truss in the center of the Faering. “I think I’m just feeling ghosts, though, probably something to do with your ship?” My tone was inquisitive, doubtful, maybe hoping to be told otherwise. Lilt didn’t give me that, though.

“Maybe.” Her voice had melody, “Maybe not. This is all new technology, this is something that can save the world. We don’t know how your Skipper body is going to respond to it, and that’s why you’re here.” Something about her candor put me at ease, despite the fact I was literally terrified of the prospect, and that let my child-like wonder and excitement shine through.

“Put me inside, let me link.” I asserted in earnest, and stepped forward away from her, pressing my hand to the uncanny carapace in front of me, as though I was proving something to myself. Nothing happened. Lilt was looking at me curiously when I turned around, a little smirk on her too-pretty face, and I shrugged my shoulders nonchalantly, trying to act so much cooler than I felt. “What? We’re not saving any lives just standing around here.”

I felt something that wasn’t mine.

Pride.

Something gave me pride.

***

 

“Just try to think of this like any other Delinking, Cadence,” Lilt’s tone was detached, she didn’t make eye contact, and she was going down a checklist on her tablet, trying to force the kind of confidence in her process that came naturally to Laurent. He’d been a handler for decades, though, he’d fought the Burning Sky and he’d paid his prices. Lilt was a spook, a ghost from the inner machinations of some unified governance that nobody even believed we had anymore, and she might have been good at wearing masks but that didn’t answer for her lack of experience.

“Have you seen a Delinking before, Lilt?” She looked up from her little computer, like I’d asked a dumb question, and I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t mean it personally, I know you’re one of the creators of the Faering, but I don’t know what you actually do.” She didn’t seem any more impressed with what I was saying. “I just mean…you might be a systems analyst for all I know, and the theory is pretty different from the reality.”

“The reality is fine, Skipper Cadence,” She answered back, almost defensively, and I puffed my cheeks at her response. I was only trying to be considerate! And maybe a little bit I was trying to shake the vapid feelings being broadcast through the ether of nothingness. Had I upset her? I hadn’t meant to. “Alright let’s do this! Genna, you’re clear to start Delinking our Skipper.”

I watched the blind woman - Genna, I supposed - up above me and to the left. I saw the smile spread across her lips as she used the positioning of her fingertips on one hand to center her other on the controls. She was confident, she was excited, I didn’t even know her name until Lilt had said it, and I still felt safe in her care.

With a mechanical sound, heavy and clunking, old-world and oily, a familiar looking gantry slid along crane rails inset into the ceiling. Some things were the same no matter where you were - if it wasn’t broken, there was no need to fix it. The arrangement moved left and forward, left and down, the blind woman guiding the movement with more precision than any of my myriad linking technicians on the station could have mustered. The steel rig dropped slowly down around me, clunked heavily, and then little peaks pushed into my joints to release unseen indents.

I was felt my arms and my legs pulling gracefully away from my body, leaving along with the two side sections of the gantry as they split away from one another.

And then, I was flying.

“You know, you really sold the whole being freaked out by my arm being Delinked in my quarters, Lilt,” I called down to her, nothing more than a torso and a head right now, and she laughed and rolled her eyes in return, but she didn’t sass me back. Maybe I’d made her uncomfortable, or maybe right now I was just another variable in a long-form formula. The rings of the Faering began to hum and resonate, and one-by-one they rotated noiselessly from vertical to horizonal, inner to outer, like a gyroscope, revealing access to the top of the Truss as the jig positioned me above the opening from above. “What’s this going to be like, Lilt? Anything I should know?”

“Nothing I can tell you without invalidating the usefulness of our data, Cadence. Just relax, think of it like any other Linkage.” Was that earnest focus in the tone of her voice, or was it worry? Concern? Was there something she wasn’t telling me?

The crane descended and in harmony with the motion the top half of the metallic torso began to bloom open like the petals on a flower, a grotesquely alien display applied to what had looked remotely human - if headless - a few moments before. My alabaster skin disappeared inside of the dark form and the parted artificial flesh closed up around me, linking to every aspect of my nervous system all at once.

It was intense.

I was used to intense.

But this was so much more intense than usual; if the sensations of linking washed over me like waves on the shore, right now I felt like I was drowning, like every wave was a tsunami, like they came closer and closer together. I focused. I felt. I didn’t think. This was normal, this was expected, I just had to… calibrate, to synchronize, and this was why I had a whole team of technicians on hand - I had to trust them to be my thoughts so I could be my feelings.

And what did I feel?

I felt cold.

I felt warm.

I felt scared.

I felt brave.

I felt anxious.

I felt confident.

I felt dizzy.

I felt grounded.

I felt alone.

… and then I wasn’t.

I opened my eyes.

I hadn’t realized they were closed.

There was a blue sky above me and grass beneath my bare feet, there was the smell of salt from the ocean and the smell of berries and childhood. I looked at my hand and found soft pinky flesh, chubby little fingers with chipped purple polish and cuts from playing among the blackcurrants. My head spun, and I spun with it, I saw the crops behind me. I’d charted a maze, and I had to find the way back!

I could hear my own giggling as I ran, the soil shifted between my toes and the blackcurrant bushes felt familiar and comfortable against my fingers as I ran and laughed, turning left and turning right, following the path that had led me here. I could remember it vividly; I’d spent all morning here, I’d made the most impressive maze ever! And I’d hidden a coloring book and crayons at the end of the maze, I’d left myself a reward, coloring and a picnic basket, and a happy afternoon, even if Mommy and Daddy couldn’t play with me today.

Left.

Right.

Right.

Left.

I couldn’t imagine feeling any happier than this, this summer would last forever, the dances and the games, the sunshine and the happiness, me and the berries and my family.

Right.

Right.

Left.

Straight!

Left.

I emerged into a clearing, laughing, my gingham dress stained with berries and torn from when I’d ran too close to the bushes, my feet smeared with dirt and a little bit of sweat beading on my brow as one of my pigtails fell in front of my shoulders and the other behind. I saw my picnic basket, and I saw my coloring book, and I saw my crayons, and I saw another girl here, another girl my age, a ten-year-old in a very pretty dress, sitting on my checked picnic blanket.

Confusion twisted my youthful form and I wondered who she was.

Then I knew who she was.

Obviously.

“Hi, Carmen!”

This was going to be the best summer ever, and it never had to end.

[YourFNF]

1 hour ago, Pudding said:

Chapter 9

 

I'd never seen one of them die before, I didn't even know they could die. But I remember the Battle of Mira Station. I remember Skippers in their machines, blinking in and out like fireflies, and I remember seeing the Burning Sky dying for the very first time. It was the first day since we lost our home that I got to remember what hope felt like.

-Ashlynn Jones, Personal Accounts of the Burning Sky.

I kind of expected the limbs to detach no surprises there. But what is this weird vision sequence? Some kind of gestalt VR mind link with the Faerings AI? Also in the words of the Doctor. Why incontinence? Why leave such a glaring design flaw in your cyborg super soldiers?" 

(I mean IRL I know it's because pudding is a lewd girl and even in non lewd story she can't help herself but...)

[Wannatripbaby]

Did anyone else notice the inconsistency between this chapter and the last?

2 hours ago, Pudding said:

And where my fingers were softly cream colored, pale and milky, child-like and precious, the Truss was dark bluish grey,

In the last chapter it was described as being Pink (I'd quote the section here, but it's on the previous page now so I can't.)

[bbykimmy]

7 hours ago, Pudding said:

She was confident, she was excited, I didn’t even know her name until Lilt had said it, and I still felt safe in her care.

Did you feel safe, Cadence?  Or were you ignoring yourself in favor of following your impulses?  Of throwing yourself into Lilt's care?  Is it Genna who makes you feel safe, or Lilt who makes you feel wanted?

7 hours ago, Pudding said:

“Hi, Carmen!”

This was going to be the best summer ever, and it never had to end.

Hi faering!  Carmine, perhaps

I think Cadence is linked up with the faering at this point - I wonder if we'll get a different perspective to see outside the faering, at what Cadence is doing on the outside.

Getting Escaflowne vibes.

5 hours ago, YourFNF said:

(I mean IRL I know it's because pudding is a lewd girl and even in non lewd story she can't help herself but...)

There hasn't been any lewd in this one, it's been a very gentle tale of vulnerability and responsibility.  With the tone set so far, I'd be surprised if it went to a lewd place.  I expect there to be a romance between Lilt and Cadence... but I don't think it'll be explicit or lewd at all.  Sweet and gentle.

So I think she can help herself just fine

I wonder how much of Cadence's torso is biological?  How much is synthetic?

[kerry]

I agree with kimmy that the vision sequence involves her syncing with the AI, but I'm not sure at all how a memory scene like this aids in piloting the faering against the enemy. And she appears lost in it very quickly: "This was going to be the best summer ever, and it never had to end." 

Other than that thought...

 

I loved this chapter. We finally get to see what we've sort of figured for awhile: the way the Skippers and the faerings interact. And the description of the faering's faux-metallic covering opening like the petals of a flower brought me disturbing images of the demigorgon from "Stranger Things." And from there directly to idyllic past? Great chapter!

• "

[bbykimmy]

10 minutes ago, kerry said:

And the description of the faering's faux-metallic covering opening like the petals of a flower brought me disturbing images of the demigorgon from "Stranger Things."

Really?  I found it beautiful and elegant, a tie of organic beauty to the inorganic embrace Cadence was receiving.

So funny that we could have such opposite reactions.

[kerry]

3 hours ago, bbykimmy said:

Really?  I found it beautiful and elegant, a tie of organic beauty to the inorganic embrace Cadence was receiving.

So funny that we could have such opposite reactions.

Yeah, I guess I was reacting to the phrase "grotesquely alien display"

"the top half of the metallic torso began to bloom open like the petals on a flower, a grotesquely alien display applied to what had looked remotely human - if headless - a few moments before"

[CDfm]

I gave it a thanks just to be different. Pudding this is a totally awesome story. I know I have said before I have had a very hard time telling who, between the two of you, just who was writing at the time. That means the both of you are superb authors. I am sorry I took so long to get to this but I just can’t help but fall behind with my reading. I seem to spend every spare minute reading and still can’t keep up. As far as the story goes, I am totally loving it to this point. I feel that so far all this is just setting up a fight like you can’t imagine. I think Cadence had been picked long ago to lead this battle in a completely new machine and that she is going to be the one to help save her people. I have a feeling that Lilt is going to be taking on more of a mommy role as the training and fighting progresses. I am looking forward to reading more and I will do my best to keep up. 

[Sophie ♥]

On 10/8/2018 at 6:40 AM, Pudding said:

I was felt my arms and my legs pulling gracefully away from my body

Take out "was".

On 10/8/2018 at 6:40 AM, Pudding said:

Confusion twisted my youthful form and I wondered who she was.

Then I knew who she was.

Obviously.

o_o This worries me...

On 10/8/2018 at 2:02 PM, bbykimmy said:

I wonder how much of Cadence's torso is biological?  How much is synthetic?

This is a good question!

I am curious as to why this is the end of Act 1.  It didn't exactly end on a pivotal moment or a big reveal.  Or, if it did, it wasn't laid out for the reader.  I wonder if this is going to lead to a time skip or something... hmm.

Or a location skip.  Maybe Act 2 is less focused on Cadence and more on this new Faering?

Either way, I am ANNOYED that you haven't written more in a month!
(And slightly annoyed at myself for taking so long to read it. >//< Sorry about that...)

Keep up the good work, sweetie.  You're a remarkable writer! 

['Lil Wendi]

Hi Pudding, I know this is out of line with rest of comments but, - there's always one - I just started  reading this, and I have to ask. Are you a fan of Orson Scott Card? Enders Game comes to mind but, much cuter. Keep going girl. We don't get to see enough of the darker side of Sophie and Pudding going solo.

[little Georg]

Thats such an intense, fascinating and well driven story! 

Pudding, I really love it and I did read act One twice already! So don’t dare to cancel it, ok? Diaper-SciFi is a rare thing even more rare in this quality. 

Agin: I like it a lot! ?

[Sarah Penguin]

Is fun looking forward to more Am guessing the communicating with the other skippers is because she's an android rocking an I'm Candace memory set for "reasons"  (or  Candace's brain-in-a-box full body cyborg) and the skippers have wifi to connect with each other and relay information builtin to their tiny doll-like forms through the vast depths of soundless space. Prolly wearing diapers because bladders are hard to build in this hardscrabble post-apocalptic future.

[Guilend]

Oh wow, I didn't even remember this story, or realize I had fallen behind. I am caught up now and loving it. I remember when I first started reading this, It was so new and exciting. It still is, i feel like I am right there with the Skipper and discovering everything she is. It's amazing.

[Sophie ♥]

Pudding is at work at the moment, but I believe she plans on continuing the story!  I think she wants to do some edits on earlier chapters first though, and it's stalling her out?

I'll get on her tushy about it.

[Wannatripbaby]

59 minutes ago, Sophie ♥ said:

Pudding is at work at the moment, but I believe she plans on continuing the story!  I think she wants to do some edits on earlier chapters first though, and it's stalling her out?

I'll get on her tushy about it.

Yeah! Get on her tushy!

...

... That came out wrong. O_O

[bbykimmy]

27 minutes ago, Wannatripbaby said:

Yeah! Get on her tushy!

...

... That came out wrong. O_O

No it didn't.

[TBCuri]

So... It's been four years with no update...