Sins and Fortunes

[Sombs]

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October 12th, 826 A.S. - Cortez

Ezrael opened his eyes. He was met with the rumbling sound of the ship's engine, ever so slightly rushing vibrant through the ship's solid materials. Usually it was calming him. Now it did not. Now it was a reminder of where he was. Tilting his face to the side, he stared at the sleeping countenance of Abigail. Other than Maren, she didn't use his shoulder as her pillow. Better that way, he thought.

There was this feeling. He was convinced he couldn't sleep like that, so he got up and climbed out of the bed. Abigail turned around, looking idly at him. She could only see his silhouette as he picked up his sweatpants and covered his lower body. "Just getting some water from the canteen," he explained and left the room. As the light shone into her quarters, Abigail gazed at the full bottle of water next to the nightstand. The door shut again. Now she was alone with Luna. She sighed.

It was somewhen in the very deep night on the ship. The hallways where illuminated in bright blue, as that was most likely to keep people awake during the nightshift. Instead of aiming for the canteen, Ezrael moved up to the bridge. Arriving there, he found it to be abandoned. Nobody was here, apart from the robotic crew. Exhaling audibly, Ezrael stepped over to the Captain's chair and sat down. And just like that, another night of him working on the Cult of Technology data cache started.

The crux with this cache was the constantly, pretty much entropically alternating security systems. It had taken Ezrael a while to find out how to think out of the box and find a solution. Any algorythms used by modern AIs seemed to be useless, only able to punch needles through a steel wall. Here and there were translatable words, universal constants like atoms, visualized arrangements of stars. The latter were the most convenient hints to work with. Ezrael was good at finding patterns in visuals. So he stared at the main screen, for minutes and minutes, until he recognized something. The constellation of known Omicron systems surrounding Omicron Major. There were no names, but Major had a special visual dot on the map, probably because of the Dyson Sphere. There was another, slightly different dot which he believed to be Omicron Delta, because of the Azurite Generator. While he was not sure how old the Cult of Technology was, he was sure they knew not much more than mankind about the locations of the Daam K'vosh remains scattered across the Omicrons.

There were a few more dots, some not comparable with known star systems of the most recent sirian star charts. Omicron Zeta, Omicron Eta, Omicron Iota, Omicron Chi. Chi had a very special dot. Ezrael sighed. That made sense, given Chi was mostly covered by a very dense partion of the Edge Nebula, making it almost impossible to explore the system.

Omicron Kappa was not on the map, which was probably related to either the Omicron Kappa Tunnel Anomaly or Gammu. At least so he thought. More interesting were some of the other places he didn't recall from the map. The Apahanta had troubles triangulating these positions. Jumping there with the jump drive was like trying to just from a skyscraper into a glass of water. The last thing he wanted was to end up in another void situation.

An hour later he had made almost no progress. Out of boredom he took a closer look at the cache's saved data on the Dyson Sphere, one of the biggest mysteries of the Omicrons. So well guarded by the Nomads, so damn intriguing to research. The most active remnant of the oldest race mankind knew about. A species with the ability to encapsulate an entire star, and probably do much more things on that kind of scale. And then they simply vanished.

Ezrael never put much value into the theories about the Nomads having eliminated them. The Daam K'vosh were too advanced. No, the Nomads were acting just as confused when it came to their creators as mankind. For a moment, he had to think about Maren. It was funny, he thought. He was with a Wild for so long, and yet he was as close to the universal truth like everyone else. Maybe there simply was no universal truth at all. A saying says that one man is intelligent, many people are dumb. Maybe, translated to a giant scale, mankind and nomads were so busy with each other that they dumbed each other down. Doomed to keep each other stupid, blind for the grand scheme. The big picture.

Just in that moment, as he thought about that, he saw one dot sparking for just a second. The Apahanta was progressing there, he thought, about to reveal something that tried to remain hidden. It was not in the Omicrons. It was in the Omegas. What if the Daam K'vosh had another Dyson Sphere in Sirius? An inactive one. It was just a thought. Maybe it was literally anything else. Another dead planet like Magur, another questionably useful generator like in Delta. Still, he was excited. Maybe that point could be triangulated.

---

It was still raining in the capital. After some noodles and karaoke, Sombra and Noel had returned to the hotel. Wet and slightly wasted, Noel went directly for the shower. Sombra joined him shortly afterwards, which caused him to leave it quickly.

When she was done with the shower and blowdrying her hair, she left the bathroom, a bit deflating at the sight of Noel already having put on his Apahanta suit again. He lay on the big bed, looking out of the wide windows. The rain was clashing against them, causing the neon lights beyond them to become even more blurry. Naked as she was she climbed over to him, laying down right onto him. Her head was next to his, blocking his view to the windows. Her arms wrapping his upper body.

"The night is still young."

"You had a lot of sake," he reminded her.

"Didn't really taste that well, to be honest." She smirked at him, moving her head a little closer to his. He turned his away, looking up at the ceiling. "Did you enjoy it so far, Noel?"

"I liked the atmosphere, yes. It's something you don't get anywhere else, especially not on a space ship or station. Niigata maybe a bit." He felt her hand brushing through his brown hair. The tips were still a little moist. "How is this going to continue?"

She sat up, her bum on his lower body. The lights from outside gave him a good view on her silhouette. Not that the sight was new to him. The perspective was. "I could ask you the same, really."

The boy sighed, feeling the weight of her godly-shaped body affecting the already impure thoughts in his mind. "I really don't know."

"I guess you're not going to do me, then." Sighing, she dropped down on him again, her head on the other side this time, leaving him the ability to look out of the window. She looked away from him while her hands slid under his back once more. "That's sad. I was looking forward to that. Want me to tell you what I would have done with you?"

"Better don't." Carefully he placed his gloved hands on her back, stroking it slightly. "Say, the modifications to the Catport, who did them?"

"Are you trying to change the topic?" she asked him, rubbing one of her feet against one leg of his.

"The shields are modified. I noticed that in the engine room. Leon did that, is that right?"

Sombra sighed, turning her head the other around. Her response was more whispered. "Yes. It's a modular upgrade, not working yet. It's an AGS, like he did to the Apahanta."

"Why?"

"Do you really want to talk about that, right now? A naked, willing woman begging for some attention and you're only thinking about why I want my Whale to be able to land on planets?"

He nodded. "You know, if I wasn't taken, I would take the opportunity like any other sane person would."

"Noel, do you seriously think allowing me to hold you like that, allowing me to kiss you like I did in the park and allowing me to constantly seduce you does not count as betraying your girlfriend?"

Silence followed that question. His hands were still on her back. The rain was weak right now. A minute passed. Another minute. Sombra realized he wouldn't respond to that. It made her wonder whether he was aware of how he allowed himself to end up in this situation. Maybe he wanted to just play along and let her guide him. Maybe he wanted to blame her in the end for seducing him. In the end, it did not really matter to her. She pecked his cheek, then his neck, moved a hand to grab the zipper of his suit and unzipped him. He did not resist.

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