Who the What

The hull echoed with dull, distant clangs. None of them as deeply resonant as the first, loud one had been. The sound of a meteor, he'd thought at first, but no, this was not a rock lump. The sounds that continued were fretful, organic. Alive. Nyr pressed his cheek harder to the metal wall, eyes closed, listening. He fancied he could feel their minds already. So distant. Too distant. Too much steel and bulkhead in the way, too much to see those minds clearly.
His insides felt unsettled and he bared his teeth. Minds of the sentient he imagined as points of blue light. The telepathic were the same blue but more.. loosely structured. He would not have noticed had he not been alone for so long, but now.. it was like the scent of blue on the wind, the tiniest spark after a lifetime of pure darkness. He hankered to get nearer.
He took his ear off the wall. Shouldering the rotary steel cutter on its strap, he sidled down along the dim emergency-lit corridor, heading for the noises above and beyond him. He was unaware of grinning like a crazed lunatic.

Right before the salvaging crew boarded the abandoned cargo vessel, the Peregrine was told to stay where it was in the dormitory deck and wait for their return. The one who told it to do so was Tom, the last one of the crew to give a DNA sample after nine weeks of courting and bed-hopping, and he was a gentleman and kissed the Peregrine before he zipped up his uniform and left.

The Peregrine had waited for a short while, sitting primly on the edge of Tom's bunk with its knees together, but that was too boring. There was only the hiss of air through the ceiling ducts and the constant low thrum from the engines. It got up and padded its way through the empty corridors, heedless of security cameras. The couple of men left onboard were more concerned with monitoring the crew's movements than any activity elsewhere, and the Peregrine was completely unnoticed when it slipped through the airlock and into the abandoned cargo ship.

The stillness of the place was the first thing it noticed. The echo of its footsteps seemed swallowed up; the Peregrine's senses as a human were too dull to detect more than the vaguest thumping and muffled shouting from the faraway salvagers. It kept walking, unsure of its purpose here beyond finding something entertaining, and rounded a corner.

When Nyr had heard footsteps, he had scrambled to the top of one of his blockades. Spending eight years alone had left him ample time to set up a defence perimeter, and the piles of empty crates and aluminium coil cylinders dotted the ship. You never knew what hostiles might suddenly descend, what defensive action you might have to take. Or what offensive. They left a V-shaped gap in the corridors, and it was through the tip of the v that whoever walked down the corridor had to pass. He clutched the cutter. He couldn't look over to see, to see what or who they were. He felt his body's heart beat faster. There was somebody there! Right! There! The urge to look over the top of the blockade was almost irresistible, but the lights would have picked him out and made the movement instantly clear. An oversight on this particular blockade, he must not have been concentrating as he built it. His reddened eyes darted from side to side, and he buzzed with anticipation. Come on come on, walk through walk through.

The Peregrine came to a peculiar structure in the middle of the hall and stopped. It cocked its head to one side- some of its auburn hair fell into its face, nine weeks and it would have figured it would grow used to having hair again, but apparently not- it and leaned closer to examine the heap of decaying wood and bespeckled aluminum. The structure reminded it of a type of fishing trap used on the last world it had lived on, a trap that let fish swim in but didn't let them out, but that seemed silly. Fishing, in an empty corridor… Fishing for what? It tucked some of its hair behind one ear, the silver bangle on its wrist sliding down with the movement, and continued onwards.

The moment Nyr saw the person was unarmed, he jumped down with a clang, grabbing the woman by the neck and spinning around, slamming her against the crates. Excitement coursed through his veins, and he held up the saw and buzzed it once. "WHO are you?! HOW MANY ARE YOU?!" he demanded, then realized he should probably be quieter. His voice was cracked, he hadn't used it for a while and probably hadn't been drinking enough either. He bared his reddened teeth at the woman, not really seeing anything in his haze of triumph. A person! Right here! Here!

It was that moment that the Peregrine was halted suddenly, when some madwoman wielding a buzzy, unpleasant-looking instrument leapt down and tossed it against the fishing-trap blockade, and it regretted leaving the salvage ship. While taller than its assailant, it was not by much, and the Peregrine dared not struggle when the unpleasant buzzy instrument briefly activated close to its face. All it did was stare, purple eyes saucer-wide, and after a moment it realized it had been asked a question. Multiple questions, even!

The Peregrine fought back the urge to scream, or struggle, seeing as it lacked any similarly unpleasant-looking implements to defend itself with. It spoke quietly, its voice smooth and soothing like water, but the tone was rather clipped. "Let me go. And I will talk."

Nyr's anger flared, and he shouted: "DON'T you command ME!!" Then he remembered he should be quiet, in case any others came, and cursed his own voice. He let go and stood back, thinking hard. This woman didn't seem much of a threat. He felt a tickle by one nostril and wiped a smear of blood onto his left hand. The edge of his left sleeve had a brown, spotty stain from the same. "Well go on then, talk!" he demanded, clicking the trigger of the saw a couple of times so that it went vzzVZZZzzzzz and brushing it against one of the coil canisters with a small screech and a spit of sparks. There was something odd about her mind, it felt white, but not white, and definitely not the comforting human blue he was used to.

The Peregrine flinched, just once, when its attacker screamed again, but mercifully she did withdraw and it hesitantly rubbed its throat where it had been grabbed. There was a soft rustle as it rumpled the fabric under its chin. "Well, I- ghk!" It recoiled from the rain of hot sparks, arms held back- the last thing it wanted was to get its suit burnt by a stray spark. Crossing its arms defensively, it shifted its weight from one foot to the other and started considering making a run for it.

"I… I am the Peregrine. I'm with a… salvaging crew, they're here for the ship. And whatever's in it that's worth anything. There are… eighteen?" It paused a second, counting off names in its head. "Yeah. Eighteen, and the two still on our ship." The Peregrine was conflicted whether or not to inform this bleeding (literally) madwoman that unlike itself, the salvage crew carried handheld implements to ostensibly cut through fallen debris, but also to fend off any nasty things in residence of very old wrecks. It decided it would say so if asked. Good enough.

As the woman spoke, although he was aware of her words, Nyr found himself increasingly distracted by her mind. He stared at her fixedly, unable to figure it out and unable too see further than just a notion. Races other than human were always harder to see, harder to feel, and different. After the alien woman had finished talking, Nyr stared at her a moment, then lunged forward and stuck his hand on her forehead. A connection! To see another mind properly after all this time! He laughed, triumphant and elated. Her mind felt white, but not white. It was like the grey, shimmering white made when the three base constituents of white light were mixed, a lack of colour made by colours. It felt elastic and complex and fascinating. He pulled his hand away and grinned. "They're not getting this ship, this ship belongs to me now, and you will all take me with you."

The Peregrine was uncomfortable enough to abandon courtesy in this case and started a halfhearted shove at the same moment the saw-wielding madwoman decided to let go. It only touched the interloper for a moment before yanking its hands back, flicking its wrists like it had gotten its hands wet and had nowhere to dry them. For a moment it just stared, considering several options before it decided to humor this strange entity- who did have an unpleasant buzzy instrument, while the Peregrine had none.

"You're well mad but I suppose the crew wouldn't leave you behind. Principles of human compassion or something like that…" The Peregrine paused, and put one black finger to its cheek. "Will you tell me who you are?"

Nyr laughed, throwing his head back. "I am a MARA!" he quietened and rubbed his arm, the mark of the snake under his sleeve. If he had been whole his next course of action would have been plain, obvious, and strategically sound. But he wasn't. The frustration! What if it did work? It might! A release from this small, inadequate, bleeding body. Would it be worth it to try?

At first, the Peregrine gave no reply; it felt the fine hairs at the nape of its neck stand up, a human fear response if it remembered correctly. It was just starting to edge away from the self-confessed Mara, unsure if this was actual insanity or the truth, when the sound of footsteps further up the hall made it look away.

It was Tom, poor decent gentlemanly Tom, whose bulky regulation-compliant boots tamp-tamped against the floor like a heartbeat filtered by a strange instrument. He had probably heard the buzzsaw's noises and come to investigate, and he seemed to notice the Peregrine's presence first. "Peregrine!" His cry was embarrassingly concerned, and he walked forward a few paces with heightened urgency before he even realized a second person was there. Then he stopped.

Nyr turned at the sound of boots. This one was definitely human. He took in the newcomer's uniform, honest demeanor and concerned tone, and straightened. He lunged forward and grabbed the collar of the female alien, holding her in front of him and the saw in the other hand. "Stay where you are!" he commanded. "What are you doing on my ship!?" It wasn't as if Nyr couldn't guess, judging from the practical attire of the man and the strange presence of the alien. Pirates, smugglers, salvagers, or simply space rubbish cleanup. They possibly had bodyguards or weapons of their own, but this was not a military or police ship.

The Peregrine let out a little cry when the mad perhaps-Mara snatched it again, a single high note that made Tom nearly take a step forward, but he stopped himself just as he started tensing his knees. He tugged at the collar of his rumpled-looking brown jacket and hesitated to answer.

"Don't panic," said the Peregrine, eyes on Tom and conspicuously not on the buzzsaw held parallel to its cheek. Tom's face took on a particularly lost expression for just a moment before he shook his head and assumed a serious posture. "We're a government salvage crew. This ship.. Er, your ship, drifted into United Territories space and we're here to ah… collect it. In accordance with er, the Salvaging Manual section three, clause… twelve?"

He paused, and the Peregrine made a slight keening noise that broke him out of whatever brain-wracking he was doing. "Clause twelve. If you've got the legal documents that this is your ship, we'll pack up and leave you to your business if that's what you want." Tom had never encountered a squatter aboard a derelict space vessel before, unlike some of his more seasoned fellows, and this was exactly the scenario that the manual instructed salvagers to avoid. Hostage situations. He planned on giving the Peregrine a stern talking-to once this mess was dealt with.

Nyr clutched the woman closer. What had this dithering tech called her again? Peregrine? "This ship is mine because I am last, so command falls to me. The others left. Years ago! You can salvage this ship if you take me OFF it."

"Good lord, you were left here?" Tom's serious persona evaporated into a strange mix of empathy and incredulity. He scratched at his neck again and frowned. "I'm sure we can help you, miss, but first things first you really ought to put that saw down. Slowly, if you could." Tom was trying very hard not to trigger any sort of fit, but he wasn't sure how exactly to do so. He'd never talked a hostile down before.

The Peregrine offered no resistance, then flicked its gaze to the perhaps-Mara, tense but now silent. Tom's frown deepened, and he held out his hands almost beseechingly. "We'll take you back to the base station and get you sorted right out, miss. Just put down the saw and let her go, she hasn't done you no harm and you are gonna get help."

Miss! Nyr sneered, then recalled that that was probably appropriate for Anna's appearance. He lowered the saw and let the woman go, stepping over to Tom. "Good. You will tell your superiors about me and have them be ready to meet me. I have things to fetch."

With the saw withdrawn and the Mara-madwoman's eerily strong grip relenting, the Peregrine darted forward and pressed briefly to Tom in an embrace before slipping to stand behind him. It was becoming increasingly convinced of the madwoman's Mara status, though maybe the red state of its teeth came from some vitamin deficiency. The human body did strange things if it got too little of anything.

Poor Tom was trying very hard to keep his questions to himself, but mumbled a distracted affirmative to the strange woman. He could feel the Peregrine rubbing against his back through his clothes, and not thinking about it took a colossal effort.

Nyr grunted and gestured to the tech. "Well then GO!" he sneered and turned away, but as he began to walk away something like panic clutched at him. He felt chills all over and he whirled back around and jabbed his finger in the Peregrine's direction. "YOU come with me! I'll not have anybody sneaking around behind me trying anything!" That felt better. He didn't really think too hard on why, but it was obviously better to have a hostage as insurance. He gestured with the metal cutter. "COME!" he shouted, and his nose bled again. He forced himself to be calm, and wiped away a drop of red.

Tom's high opinion of his negotiation skills dropped dramatically; he spluttered a few words in protest, mostly about hostages not being necessary. The Peregrine sighed from over his shoulder and sashayed out in front of him.

"Madness aside, you shouldn't keep this a secret. I'll be alright- I'm a tough girl," said the Peregrine, and kissed Tom's forehead before it darted after the Mara-madwoman obediently. It caught up just as it heard Tom's boots against the floor. Poor reliable, gentlemanly Tom. The Peregrine cast its eyes over to its "captor" and hummed thoughtfully. "Do you have a name, besides 'a Mara'? I know what you are now, but not who you are."

Nyr stood and glared at the crewman out of the corner of his eye until he was sure he was departing, then put a hand on the woman's back and walked her forwards in front of him back down the corridor to the hatchway at the end. Her suit felt slick and strange, shifting around under Nyr's palm. Some kind of adaptive fibers, maybe. He grinned in the dim light. "People don't ask for my name… We are one who are many." He considered this a second. It had been very long since he had seen or talked with any of the others, even the mad ones. "My name is Nyr. Her name is Anna." He sniggered.

The Peregrine wasn't sure it was supposed to laugh, but smiled thinly as it walked. The touch to its back was not exactly unwelcome, and as it looked around the bare corridors with their rows of artificial lights overhead, it thought of how lonely it must have been until this day. Not a voice, or a touch, or anything at all. The thought of such solitude made it shiver. And then they stopped at the end of the corridor, just a moment.

It looked at the hatchway doubtfully, then over its shoulder to the Mara- no, Nyr. Or was it Anna? "Are you going to open this, or am I going to have to figure it out?" It half-reached for the grips on the hatchway door, anticipating an answer towards the latter.

"Don't be impertinent." snarled Nyr. He reached around and yanked at the hatch door impatiently. It came open with a brief screech and nearly caught the Peregrine in the face. It was a glorified tech access hatch, really, and had never opened smoothly even when Nyr had first sneaked aboard. It opened now into the wall of the corridor a strange tunnel of hanging cables and pipes that wound low enough to force the two of them to duck and weave through. Sparks crackled every now and again, and sometimes a pipe would hiss. It was warmer than in the bare, square steel corridors, and the lights were infrequent but brighter; small floor spotlights that Nyr had spliced into the power lines. This was the very spinal cord of the ugly old ship. A long stretch of in-between that reached into everything on that deck in some way. The alien walked ahead, but it was a narrow path and had no forks for some distance. Not for the first time the hanging loops of cable and warm, close atmosphere reminded Nyr of the jungles of Deva Loka.

The tunnel was almost nightmarish to the Peregrine, who honestly didn't like enclosed spaces at the best of times; the faulty wires spitting sparks made it duck as low as it could to avoid them, and it would falter a step and shiver whenever a pipe hissed out a breath of steam. It felt the fibers of its suit loosen slightly in response to the hazy, stuffy atmosphere inside the tunnel, allowing it to perspire without trapping moisture inside the fabric. Not for the last time, it thought of a blessing for the tailor who made it.

The silence pressed upon it almost as badly as the still air, and the Peregrine just had to break it. "If you really are a Mara… Why didn't you possess me when you first found me? I heard you lot jump around from body to body like you're playing an evil version of musical chairs." It nearly walked into a loop of thick black cable, but dipped at the last moment and avoided hitting itself in the forehead.

The Peregrine's gentle voice cut through the silence, and for a strange moment it was almost pleasant. But her words weren't. Nyr's rage ignited inside him like a fire, and he smacked the loop of cable violently aside. He flung the saw into the pipes of the passageway with a huge clang, showering sparks and screeching for a second as the tool's trigger briefly activated, clattering to the floor.
Roughly, he grabbed the woman's shoulders and shoved her up against a pipe-like mass of bundled cabling. "Is that what you want?!" he shouted. His eyes glowed reddish. "Yes?! You think I should try?!" He slammed her again into the cables again and laughed, a laugh of pure hate and anger.

The Peregrine had no time to react; the force with which Nyr flung it against the cables knocked the breath from its lungs. It could not cry out, though it wanted to, and its fear came out only as a weak moan. The urge to cry came, and the Peregrine felt its eyes sting with tears, but crying was a sign of defeat, and this was not a defeat.
"No," it managed to croak, and it leaned back against the cables, trying to force itself to breathe properly. It tipped its head just slightly upwards, a flash of black-covered throat, but its eyes never left Nyr's face. "Please don't."

Nyr's stained teeth were bared and his eyes still glowed as points of red. "Do you know how much EASIER it would make everything?!" he spat. "All these years in this WORTHLESS body, trapped and broken, a trickster without his greatest trick!!" His mind was white-hot, a morass of accumulated frustration and pain blazed through everything, he couldn't think. He knew it was worthless to try, worthless to risk the attempt and the failure and the pain, but the mindless desperation gripped his essence and he no longer cared. He hissed and snatched the woman's left arm, interlacing the fingers of it within own, ramming and crushing them together without finesse. He concentrated all of himself on moving, shifting to his most fluid and fearful state and reaching, clawing out for the scent of the new mind. A second passed, and for a moment hope and triumph glowed through him. Enough, was it enough?
Then a shattering, blinding pain cracked through his entire being. He screamed, staggering away and clutching his arm. He hit a pipe and fell to the floor, hunched over. He had felt that pain before but after all those years he had forgotten its intensity, the sheer white screaming agony of it. He could barely feel the body of Anna around him, and had all but forgotten the alien woman. He crouched, clutching his right arm and sobbing, pinkish tears staining his face and blood running from his nose and into his mouth.

Defanged. The word that came to the Peregrine's mind was defanged. Winded and shocked, it couldn't think of how to react, but it realized that the Mara was somehow crippled, its power broken. And there was the blood. The fine hairs at the nape of its neck stood up; it could smell that girl's body bleeding. Its own pain was minor, breathing returning to normal and the rude mashing of its fingers nothing serious at all, but a failed transfer looked nothing short of excruciating.

The Peregrine knelt when it heard Nyr-Anna weeping, empathy victorious over its fear. It was hesitant, not sure if any comforting gestures would cause the Mara to lash out, but in spite of, well, everything, it reached for him. The touch was light, just the running of the back of its hand over the crying girl's hair, light as the brush of a feather. It registered the texture as very smooth, unusually well-cared-for given the cavalier way the Mara seemed to regard its body. The Peregrine tensed its legs, ready to spring away if Nyr-Anna thought to lunge for it.

Nyr still felt nothing much save numbness and a deep ache. After a second or two he became aware of the woman kneeling beside him, and he glanced up sharply. He held his fist to the side of his head and yanked his sleeve down. "There, you see?" he choked out. "Is this what you wanted to see?!" The long red and yellow patterned snake on the back of his arm, of Nyr's mark on Anna's arm, was marred by a thick belt of scar tissue near the wrist, that cut the head of the snake from the rest of the body. Nyr hung his head again with a groan and smacked his fist against himself a couple of times, rocking slightly back and forth.

That certainly made things much clearer; the Peregrine grimaced as it pieced together what this must mean. Of all creatures it could understand the horror of being trapped, of being unable to change. In its travels, it had had some close shaves of similar nature, but it all turned out fine in the end. But not, it looked like, for Nyr. Pity seeped through it, overcoming fear and even making it forget the salvagers- they would exist in the future too, why think of them- and again it stroked Nyr-Anna's hair. "I'm sorry," it said quietly, its voice soft and slick like silk, "I'm so sorry."

Nyr twitched and fended off the stroking hand, looking up with a glare. "I don't require your pity." he snarled, getting to his feet. "I'm still a MARA!" he said defiantly to the air, kicking one of the pipes in anger. A gust of steam whooshed out, curled, and died. The previous stress made his leg ache like fire from the kick, but he didn't allow it to show. He brushed his hair out of his eyes and wiped his face, licking the blood and snot off his lips. His lips were cracked too, he noticed now. "Come." he growled, picking up the saw as he led the way.

After a very short while they reached a turning that lead almost directly into a blank metal wall. Nyr kicked it, and the panel swung inwards and hit the wall of the tall passage beyond with a clang. It was actually the flood chamber of the two mighty engine coils, but since they had blown out it was free from heat and radiation. It was tall and narrow, with sharp smooth metal walls that met at the top, and slightly convex walls. It was even warmer here than in the spinal passageway, and even more secluded. Unless you knew this place existed, it was near impossible to find, and so it was where Nyr had lived for most of the eight years he had been drifting.

His presence showed: all around were crates with spools of cable and bits of machinery on them. Floor spotlights dotted the place. There were only a few lit, however, near the back of the tall long room. The light came from these and nothing else, and lit up the area eerily in a strange yellowish white that didn't reach the ceiling. At the end of the room was what appeared to be a throne. It was clearly made of scrap metal and bits of cable and other junk, but was symmetrical and cleverly built. Behind the throne and down the whole length of both walls was covered in a meticulous repeating pattern; ornately decorated snakes with cut throats, throwing out spark-like sprays of blood, and cradling pentagonal blue crystals. They were mostly drawn in red, black, and yellow crayon, but the further they got from the throne the more surreal the colours became, as Nyr ran out of the right crayons. The snakes were all the same, all facing the throne, and there must have been at least fifty of them in total, all with bleeding necks.

Nyr strode forward and began to wrench open crates, pulling things aside as he decided what to take and what to leave. He found a supply bag, and threw a handful of small tools into it, ignoring the alien woman for the moment.

The Peregrine took three paces into the Mara's den, and stopped. It didn't want to go any further than it absolutely had to; the feeling of this room was squeezing down on it with a great pressure. All that loneliness and desperation and madness heaped into this single space for years upon years. It wasn't stupid enough to run, but not capable of forcing itself any further, and it stood in the doorway with its shoulders stiff. Nyr-Anna's frenzied activity of packing was at first watched intently, but the Peregrine's attention drifted and instead it stared hither and thither about the room. The snakes were the worst part. After the incident in the tunnel, the symbolism was as obvious as a slap to the face- well except for the pentagons. It didn't see the meaning of those.

"Charming place you've got here," said the Peregrine under its breath, reverting to the time-honored defense mechanism of sarcasm. It wanted to leave as soon as possible, convinced that this room was a bad room after all the tears that must have been shed in it. Not that it could really know, but it could make a guess at how much misery this room must have soaked in.

Nyr snorted, slotting a charge stick into his most prized gun. "What are you mumbling about." he said scornfully over his shoulder.

"Oh, don't mind me…" The Peregrine shifted its weight from one foot to the other and narrowed its eyes as Nyr-Anna strapped on what looked like the holster to a weapon. Otherwise it stayed put.

The gun belt clipped around Nyr's waist, and he felt much more secure. He smiled to himself. The rotary cutter was great for clearing debris and blockages, but as a weapon it was ineffective and crude. This gun was fast, made and altered by Nyr himself using the technologies from three different civilizations. He had other, just as clever devices in his bag, along with the tools he had scrounged or fashioned himself. For eight years he had had nothing to do besides invent, tinker, and stew over his own impotence. The scar was a flaw, a hateful curse, but one he fully intended to break himself of, and he had dwelled on many possibilities while alone in the dark. Perhaps the Sontarans, or even the Ruton host, if their cloning technology could be snuck out from underneath their unending war. Many of the great alien galactic powers possessed technology that could be useful. And vast, pre-established empires just offering to be infiltrated. Nyr's ambitions sparkled behind his eyes as he dreamed of conquest, absently strapping a bundle of resonance crystals together. As he'd assembled all he thought worth removing from his erstwhile "home", he swung his bag over his shoulder and returned to where the alien woman was standing. "Carry these." he ordered, holding the bundle of pale crystals out.

"You have a shooty-thing," it said in a vaguely disapproving voice when Nyr-Anna handed it a satchel of small crystals. It held the bag in its arms like it was cradling something alive. "The crew's not going to like that. They've got all these Rules and Procedures about finding people, they pulled out the handbook and read it off to me, and they'll likely do the same for you." The Peregrine stepped backwards and aside, anticipating Nyr-Anna wanting to move past it.

Nyr looked suspiciously at the Peregrine and his hand slid off the strap of his bag to hover over his holstered "shooty-thing". He wasn't going to be fooled that easily. "You go first." he commanded, gesturing at the entrance to the spinal passage. This woman must think he was born yesterday. Far from it, far far from it. As if he would expose his back to her.

The Peregrine arched an eyebrow, hesitated, then decided the potential argument here wouldn't be worth the proverbial candle. It slipped through the door and proceeded slowly, slowly, down the humid passageway. The hisses of steam from the leaking pipes and the hazardous loops of dangling cable were less daunting than before, but it still picked its way down the hall with hesitant anxiety. The Peregrine hated to be closed in anywhere, and it tried to focus on the thought of the spacious, air-conditioned dryness of the salvager's ship, a sort of reward for when it actually made its way out of this mess.

Nyr stared at the back of her head as they progressed through the dim lighting. He assessed what she had said before. Rules and Procedures, huh. That was either a very good thing, or a very bad thing, but either way it was undoubtedly tedious. Whether he asserted his power and domination over them, or played it silent and strategic, he would have to deal with a large number of armed people at once. His eyes gleamed with interest to see how events would play out. Whatever happened, he wanted OFF this ship. Now that he knew there was a way out it itched and gnawed at him. At any cost, he would leave these metal walls behind.

Not a very long time later, but too long for the Peregrine's liking, the two women emerged from the hatch leading to the spinal passage and the Peregrine nearly bolted down the more spacious hall. Outright running would be quite ill-advised, if the Peregrine had learned anything about Nyr-Anna at all, but it could afford to walk very fast and very stiffly. It was still cradling the satchel of pale crystals like it was carrying something living.

It hadn't progressed farther than twelve paces when Tom, reliable and gentlemanly Tom, appeared at the far end of the passage. "Peregrine!" he shouted, quite overcome with emotion apparently, and he started walking equally briskly until he could sweep the Peregrine up in an embrace. With its arms full, the Peregrine could not reciprocate, but it leaned its head against his and took account of the group of other salvagers advancing towards them. This would be interesting.

As the man advanced, Nyr started for a second, hand flicking over to his gun, but he was doing nothing more threatening than walking towards them, and had all his attention focused on the woman. Typical. Nyr turned away from where they were embracing and hung back, looking at the approaching party. Neat, cheap grey uniforms. Sensible belt buckles. Worn boots. He recognized the make of the pistols strapped to their thighs, which meant they were at least eight years old. They had an air of casual loyalty to the one leading them, and an official sound to their bootsteps. The captain, or whatever they were calling him -controller, bailiff, chief, Mr. goddamn Thompson- was a tall man with watery eyes in a long, grey face, and neat white hair tucked under a captain-esque hat. He had a confident and secure air of command about him, perhaps ex-military. Nyr decided on instinct to play the quiet path. Had he been whole, this would have been almost too easy. A well-timed handshake, and the ship would have been his, the man's mind screaming at him and his body Nyr's to control, but that was no longer an option. He ground his teeth together and vaguely felt his gums sting. Stepping forward, he held his hands away from his body, palms out, and shrugged his shoulder so that the bag was somewhat covering the gun at his hip.

Tom flushed with embarrassment and let go of the Peregrine as soon as he could see the captain in his periphery, and saluted with the wrong hand before he corrected himself and switched to salute with his right. The Peregrine just looked at the captain for a moment, deceptively serene with its wide, purple doe-eyes, but then it cast its gaze to Nyr-Anna and kept it like that. It felt a-hum with worry and curiosity, unable to predict the immediate future with such a volatile subject.

The captain's name was Breegan, and he was indeed once a sergeant. He had been retired after an accident during cadet training, and now they said half his skeleton was bolted together by alloy. The crew respected him, and though he pulled them through every tiny procedural detail, he also got them where they needed to be, when they needed to be, and kept everybody busy and whole. Taking the Peregrine on board had been a calculated move, something to provide variation in the monotony of spaceflight, and she had proved far more positive for morale than he could have anticipated. This dark-haired woman though, was new, and he didn't like the look of her. He strode up to Tom. "Mr. Dooly! I take it this is the squatter woman you mentioned? Don't much like the look of her. Is she armed?"
"Yes." said Nyr, in his most Anna-ish voice. He couldn't quite get the same lilt that she spoke with, his intonation was too strong, but they didn't know Anna, so who cared. "But I'm not going to-"
"Be quiet." said the captain, turning briefly to him, then back to Tom. "Have her weapons removed. You say she threatened Miss Peregrine?"
Inwardly, Nyr hissed venomously, but he did no more than narrow his eyes at the captain and clench his jaw.
 
"Yes, sir. With a rotary saw. She demonstrated some… unstable behavior earlier." Tom looked at the Mara too, but not for the same reasons- he did not at all like the idea of removing anything from the squatter woman's person. He cleared his throat awkwardly, and gestured for someone to assist him. Thankfully, two of his mates obliged, Bill and Dave, respectively gangly and red-haired and brunet and squat, and very gingerly the three of them circled around the Mara and Bill reached for the vague shape of the gun holster.

"Give us that now love, it'll be all right," he said.

Nyr's neck prickled as the crewmen surrounded him. For a moment he entertained the notion of striking out that them. A punch to the throat to the left, the heavy bag swung behind and then a hand free to draw his weapon and then-.. but that was just silly. He flip-flopped the images back and forth in his mind for a second or two, enjoying them, then when the gawky tech reached for his gun he swished the bag off his shoulder and put the strap in the startled tech's outstretched hand instead.
"I will get them back. It's my property. You're not thieves, are you?" he said, staring into the tech's eyes with his own red-rimmed ones.

Bill almost jumped when the Mara handed him the bag, startled by the sudden movement, but with a forced smile he tucked the satchel under his shoulder- very carefully, in case there were any firearms stowed in there too. Tom decided he'd leave Bill and Dave to remove the crazy woman's accessories and drifted over to the Peregrine, who was still frozen in place and staring at the squatter. He'd known the Peregrine for almost eight weeks now and he thought he knew what that look meant.

"Here Perry, let me have that…" Tom took hold of the bag and tried to shimmy it out of the Peregrine's grip- no luck. It took a few seconds to notice the movement, let alone Tom, and when it swivelled its head to look at him Tom had a sinking feeling- off-guard, its face showed no affection, no recognition of him at all. The uncomfortable moment passed fairly quickly, and the Peregrine relinquished the bag of- well, from the clinking noises it had to be something hard but not metallic. Tom peered into the opening of the bag while he had the chance and frowned at the collection of white crystals. He was somewhat pleased he'd deduced the bag's contents fairly correctly but he had no idea what these were for. They certainly had no market value that he could tell, anyone could grow crystals in a lab these days.

"Mr. Dooly." said Captain Breegan in a clipped voice, bringing him back to reality. "You will take this.." he looked Nyr up and down. "..young lady.. to the medical bay on the third level and place her into quarantine, until we can properly psychologically and biologically evaluate her. I'll not have a ticking time bomb roaming around on my ship."

Nyr looked from one tech to the other, hardly registering the exchange going on next to him. He felt tickling amusement at their indecisiveness. It was so good to be among these silly creatures again, they were so entertaining, it was like their very presence fed him after all those years in silent space. Warm, alive blue minds all swarming around him, focused on him.
"Your gun too, please, uh miss." said the fat one.
"Why of course." said Nyr in a sweet Anna voice. He drew the gun and held it out to the tech, and smiled at him with his reddened teeth. A look of slight alarm crossed the tech's face, and Nyr was unable to withhold a snort of amusement. He wiped his nose on his sleeve as the tech took his beloved gun, looking at Nyr now with a small degree of disgust. Nyr gave him another sickly smile. If the fat moron damaged it in any way, Nyr vowed he'd stuff the barrel down his throat and make him choke on it.

Tom managed a distracted salute to show Captain Breegan he'd heard the command, but he hesitated. He who hesitates is lost, his father always said, but the idea of touching the mad squatter for any reason made him break out in a cold sweat. Still, an order was an order, and with great reluctance he edged past Bill and Dave.

"Right, come along then miss uh… miss. Standard procedure, nothing personal." He felt somewhat obliged to explain what he could. The Peregrine rolled its eyes and finally looked down and away from the proceedings, just glancing at its hand- it had palmed a resonance crystal out of the bag on the way back to the main halls, and it had a vague idea of what it could do. Best take advantage of something useful like that.

Nyr's attention flicked back to Tom, as the tech stood awkwardly and gestured in the direction of the salvage ship. He felt rather naked without his bag, and especially without any weapons. At the same time it was rather thrilling. Just his fists and mind and the cunning of a Mara. He stood there and remembered he hadn't taken his second pair of boots either. The irrelevancy of the detail annoyed him.
"Why of course." he said again, in the same tone as before, and followed the salvagers.