Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

Mother Hen

It was early morning, at least according to the ship's clocks which were set to a standard Earth cycle. There were no lights on the ship, per say, that could be controlled by the crew, but the soft ambient illumination that seemed to come from nowhere strictly followed the rule of a day night cycle. No one was sure how it worked, only that it did. And here, at the ass crack of dawn, as Narobi made her way down the hall and towards engineering, the light was soft and defused, with, as Narobi saw it, hits of yellow and pink like a sunrise. Now Narobi could have been wrong about that, she wasn't inherently artistic, and perhaps she was only subconsciously homesick for a sunrise, but who could be sure.

Nairobi had gone a long time without seeing the sun. Ever since they had been banished from earth, she hadn't had a lot of opportunities to visit a planet. She could have if she wanted to, but her ship came first, which meant she spent a good portion of her free time lurking in the bowels of one ship or another, first the harbinger, than the Omen, and now the empyrean.

She traced her fingers along the hallway, and where her finger touched the wall seemed to brighten, leaving a trail of light behind her for a moment, like the trail left when you momentarily draf a finger across someone's skin. Nairobi had always labored under the secret impression that the ships she took care of were living, breathing beings with their own personalities.

The Harbinger was a sturdy little bastard, dirty mean and gritty, but she gave what you put into her, and with Narobi as head engineer she gave everything. The Omen had been a classy lady, sort of picky, but poised and hard working, to bely her aristocratic nature.

Even so, there was something different about The Empyrean. Nairobi had talked to all of her ships, but she found herself carrying full conversations with the Empyrean, almost naturally as if she was talking to one of the other engineers, even more so because she didn't talk to the other engineers nearly as much as she talked to the empyrean.

The lights in the maintenance control room slowly brightened as she stepped in. The Empyrean didn't have an engine per say. She drew power directly from the crew so as long as at least a single person was standing aboard the ship, she had power of some sort. Now she required a Maker or two Deus constructs at the very least to fly her, but a single lifeform carrying n anima could power the life support. However, that did not mean she was without a propulsion system. The energy had to be routed through somewhere, and this is where it was routed.

They called it the engine because that was its function despite its strange power source.

It had taken her a lot of work to figure out how it managed to do anything, but Narobi had an inherent understanding of machines and the Empryrean.... Well she was an easy vehicle to work with. Nairobi would have characterized her as cooperative if she could have anthropomorphized her. She was cooperatie, caring, empathetic.... Where the harbinger had been a greasy little punk, and the omen had been an aristocratic lady, the Empyrean was like a mom.

When working on the empyrean, Nairobi couldn't help but feel that the ship was.... More cooperative than other machines. There were never any stripped screws or difficult to reach places. Everything was always on hand and easy to find like the ship was actively trying to help out.

Reaching out, she patted the wall of the ship, "Good morning, how's my girl today." In response, Nairobi would have sworn that the room thrummed a little under her feet, not in the way a machine might rumble, but almost in the way a cat purrs. However, it was so light she was almost sure she was imagining things.

"I'm glad to hear it." She said turning to her console to begin diagnostics, "Let's see how you're doing today."

Almost without prompting, a dialogue box opened on her screen with the warning.