Enemy Unknown: Conclusion

[voidtreckermods]

The third night is as long and creepy as the others...

It might be that they found the engine room, solved the puzzles and found themselves in the hangar bay with no way out. It might be that they were still in the station hiding from the invisible monsters. Or it might be that they had been plucked from the mission and were waiting in their holding room.

Either way morning dawns on the fourth day...

---

ENEMY: UNKNOWN

---

DAY FOUR

the trapped. THOSE WHO SOLVED THE ENGINE ROOM SPENT THE NIGHT IN A LARGE HANGAR THAT DOES NOT SEEM TO HAVE ANY DOORS. Their SCA's are working, so they can still communicate with those in the station, perhaps talk them through the engine room puzzles or tell them to stay clear. As morning comes all the lights in the hangar come on. Brighter than any lights so far in the station, harsh white light after the eerie red of the rest of the mission.

Everyone still in the station wakes where they fell asleep - if they slept at all. It's not long after most people are up and about that they will hear a high-pitched beep from their SCA, and then a blue light will envelop them and those around them. It might be they spot their friends vanishing before they too disappear.

They arrive in the hangar, reunited with those who spent the night there. All their gear is with them at least, but that doesn't solve the problem of being in a hangar with no obvious way out. Nor are any of those who vanished during the last three days here, their SCA's still go unanswered.

---

the vanished. FOR THOSE IN THE HOLDING ROOM, THEIR NIGHT HAS PROCEEDED MUCH LIKE THE NIGHTS BEFORE. One of the screens showed the hangar, and those that had succeeded in completing the engine room task. The lights had dimmed for sleeping and turned on again bright in the morning. For those watching the screens they will see those in the station vanish in blue light and turn up in the hangar.

Around half an hour later a voice sounds in the room. "Please gather your belongings and prepare for release."

It's another ten minutes, allowing them to make sure they have all their things before their SCA's beep. They are then surrounded by a blue light, taking them from the room they had spent the last few days in.

REUNITED

reunion. AN HOUR PASSES AFTER FIRST ARRIVALS PASS IN THE HANGAR. Suddenly, there is another flash of blue light, and the missing eighteen Voidtreckers appear with the rest of their crew. They will find they had all their gear as well, including their missing weapons.

They are left to their own devices for a small while, a time for reuniting with friends, but not long enough to exchange stories before a voice rings out in the hangar:

"THANK YOU CREW OF THE VOIDTRECKER EXPRESS FOR YOUR COMPLIANCE. YOU MAY RETURN TO YOUR CRAFT."
There is a loud mass of beeping as everyone's SCA's flashes at the same time, holographic messages popping up too fast to be able to read them in their entirety.

Voidtreckers come in.

All Voidtreckers return to the Voidtrecker Express

Voidtreckers evacuate now

Voidtreckers do you read?

Layers of holographic messages pile on top of each other but a moment later everyone's SCA's glow gold and everyone vanishes from the hangar...

LUGGAGE CARRIAGE

return. EVERYONE ARRIVES INSIDE THE LUGGAGE CARRIAGE, PACKED LIKE SARDINES BETWEEN SUITCASES AND TRUNKS. There is no announcement, no warning of returning to the void; just a lurch that is likely to throw anyone on the train unaware of what has just happened off their feet, no matter the carriage they're in.

They return to the void at what feels like breakneck speed. Colours fly past the windows, and it is a good few hours before they seem to slow to their normal travel speed.

---

Comments

[longforgottenpromise]

"Yes. They put everyone in danger just to... See what we could do."

As if they couldn't have just asked them. If they were going to take people to interrogate anyways.

"Yes. We couldn't reach you but it was clear you were still here... Rather than back on the train."

Or vanished, name in gold.

[jingyeets]

"Yeah, and more obvious with the train running scared now."

He'd understood what that speed of acceleration meant. He didn't begrudge it.

"We were as much held hostage against the train as we were being held hostage against communicating with each other."

[longforgottenpromise]

"Yes... Did you see the messages?" They had popped up very quickly but it had been clear what had been happening.

"The train was trying to contact us." And somehow they had blocked it. "I... I don't know if this train feels scared but it certainly wants us away from that place."

And Taiki was absolutely on board with that.

[jingyeets]

He frowned, looking up, as if the train had some means of looking back down at him from the ceiling. Perhaps someone would draw the train a face up there, to look down on all of them post mission each time, but for now, none existed.

"It's scared. Scared doesn't mean making smart decisions."

Not for anyone. He doubted the train somehow was smarter when running scared. Jingyi sighed, hard, looking back to Taiki.

"Let's get out of the crowd?"

[longforgottenpromise]

"No... People often make hasty decisions whilst scared."

Especially when scared and running. Sometimes such desperate decisions were needed, but often it did not end well.

"Yes... Let's get somewhere quieter."

[jingyeets]

"Yeah, like running away and not trying to talk to anyone or listen to us, unless you think panic train will give any of its attention to a bunch of people who were interrogated on what they're feeling."

He sounded doubtful, because while he wrote the train daily, he didn't feel the train particularly listened in any meaningful way. Should it? In a general sense, who knew? He personally felt it should, even as he used his larger bulk and weight to navigate them out of the luggage carriage without touching the transgate. It'd move them further, but people were already using it, and he wanted out, impatient to not be boxed in.

"Have you ever tried flying in the garden carriage?"

[longforgottenpromise]

Taiki didn't do much in the way of trying to talk to the train, but he heard Tidus complain about it enough to know that it didn't seem like the train was really listening. Or not listening in the way that the people on the train understood as listening.

"Oh... No I haven't." He hadn't wanted to get in peoples way, but people probably wouldn't be heading there first. "Do you want to?"

[jingyeets]

"Yes," he said, no hesitation, continuing to walk with a purpose, tail arcing up behind him. "It's tall enough, and there's nothing there other than the ghost kid sometimes, or the bird that belongs to Willow. Same for the greenhouse." Easier landing room for a kirin in the garden in his opinion, however.

[longforgottenpromise]

He followed him, sticking close to him to not get lost in the now thinning crowd of people.

It seemed Lan Jingyi had flown in there before, Taiki had never thought about it, but he was different than Lan Jingyi. He had spent so much of his life stuck in his human form then being a kirin beast was almost other to him, not the natural form it should have been.

[jingyeets]

Jingyi continued walking until they hit the transgate nearest to them, activating it to bring them closer to the garden with a few practised taps.

"Do you fly upside down often? It's kind of fun seeing the void beyond your feet," he said, waiting for the transgate to indicate it was ready for transport. Once it was, he gestured for Taiki to join him stepping through, spat out closer to their chosen destination.

[longforgottenpromise]

"I've never flown upside down..." He told him with a shake of his head.

"But I can try..." It shouldn't be too difficult. Though Lan Jingyi as a dragon was much more a creature who could twist and turn in the air.

[jingyeets]

Jingyi wasn't quite in a mood to smile so easily, grumpy, upset, and dealing with it by moving, so his long, drawn out haaaah was paired with a half-smirk, one that didn't make it to his eyes.

"When we're not relying on wings, it's fun. Your mane and tail will go flowing down... you know, why do we have an up and down on train? Does the Void even have direction?"

He hit the panel to open the walkway between carriages, stepping into the liminal space between and flicking a glance to the Void held at bay. His hand pressed on the next panel, opening the connecting door, though his eyes lingered a moment longer.

What the hell is out there? He shook his head, stepping into the garden carriage and already starting to beeline for one of the stone benches, working at his waistband.

[longforgottenpromise]

He can sense Jingyi's mood and he can understand it. After all he had been kidnapped, taken away from the strange and unusual mission that they had been sent on.

"Oh I'm not sure..." He blinked. Did they have direction? Up? Down?

"Maybe the train automatically orientates us, so it's not strange for us... The artificial gravity probably helps in that."

Like on the space station too, space didn't have up or down either.

[jingyeets]

"Is that what it's called? Artificial gravity?"

Terminology not entirely familiar, but context helps with guessing, as it often does. He was better at guessing these days compared to where he was when he first arrived. He also had his waistband off and folded around his hands, set down on the bench as he shrugged out of his robes, divesting himself of layers with efficiency and zero worries on anyone walking inside to find him stripping. They'd have to make it past entrances and visual blocks, but that wasn't the point: he needed to move, to shift, to touch on parts of himself locked off for four days, and work out something.

[longforgottenpromise]

"Yes. Gravity is the force that draws objects together. On a planet it is what keeps us down on the surface, but it is also what keeps planets together in a galaxy and what can cause them to orbit around a sun."

He's always wary of confusing his friends who came from less technological worlds from him, but he keeps his explanation as simple as possible. In space gravity is different and so on space stations, and I guess in the void, they have technology that copies it... I guess. Nothing like that exists on my world outside of stories."

He takes off his hoodie and his boots but then just shifts, a gust of wind blowing through the carriage leaving him in his kirin form.

[jingyeets]

"Showing off?" Jingyi said, hair and fur all aflutter from Taiki's transformation, given the wind that accompanies it. He found it amusing on a level of wonder if he should indulge in theatrics as a return, because he could, it just wasn't an inherent part of his shifting.

Clothes stacked, shoes stacked, silver shimmered to life across him, painting his human form with light that shifts, condenses, resettling into a smaller, familiar form already springing into the air. He rode his own companion wind, sent toward Taiki to tease over his mane and tug at his tail, Jingyi's small claws raking at the air as he leapt and curved and swam up, twisting so his back aimed groundward, his empty claws pawing at the void-sky beyond the garden's roof.

[longforgottenpromise]

Kirin beasts can't blush but he shuffled his hooves slightly in embarrassment. He hadn't been trying to show off. This was just how his transformation happened. He laughed though when Jingyi send wind in his direction, causing his mane to flow out behind him as he lept into the air to follow his friend, twisting himself and laughing as he tried to figure out flying upside down.

It's been a very stressful few days so it was good to fly.