x t+1 = kx t (1-x t) [closed]

[lottawork]

“- you know, lead scientist of the Icarus Project?”
“Dr. Rush?”
“Yeah. You ever notice how he pretty much runs on a schedule that’s like, five minutes ahead of everyone else? And that’s why he’s so pissy all the goddamn time?”
“Pretty sure that's just - you know, man's got an ego. With the whole ninth chevron thing - ”

He would prefer it if there were a more expedient method of transferring caffeine from its cheap paper cup to his bloodstream, but he is confined by the typical human inefficiencies of snatching fleeting, scalding sips as he navigates homogenous gray halls with an angrily humming phone in hand, an untidy stack of files trapped precariously between elbow and hip, endeavoring to devote his concentration to responding to fucking Base-wide text alerts while caffeinating systematically and not allowing his files to come apart at the fucking seams and performing all three tasks flawlessly and contemporaneously.

The various Base personnel glide along in a streamlined blur as he weaves between them with crisp, purposeful strides, pinning his phone with a harried, impatient glower.

Senator Armstrong arrival ETA 0800

Rush snorts and pockets the undesirable thing and with a series of brief, economical movements, transfers his mass of files from their unsteady position to his free hand as he enters the gateroom and, with a viciously satisfying slap of paper against metal, slams the disorganized bundle of files onto his desk.

A brief scan of the suitably startled personnel is considerably less satisfying. He scowls.

“Asadi,” he says shortly, “is where, exactly?”

“Um,” coughs Volker. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but - we’re here.”

Rush looks at him, subtly arching a brow.

Volker presses valiantly on with the rising intonation of unspoken expectation. “Like, your science team? Hand-picked from Earth's most qualified?”

“Thank you, Dr. Volker,” says Rush, still relentlessly scanning the room, breaking off the words with an icy precision. “And should I require incompetence I shall request it. But my question,” his tone hardens incrementally, his eyes flicking briefly to the hapless astrophysicist and away again in a manner that somehow approximates a nameless threat, “was regarding Asadi.”

“Right,” says Volker faintly. “She’s, um. She’s not here.”

“Yes, you’ve been very helpful,” he hisses, brushing past him to study the dark scrawl of dense calculations printed over the whiteboard, pushed back beside a colony of monitors. “So someone find her.”

Comments

[etherthief]

Iman opens her mouth and closes it again, galled, hurt, and the worst is she can't retort. She isn't being useful, it's finally happening, now everyone will see that she's not as great as she wants them to believe. The secret is out. She's just limp and useless. Dead weight.

She's trying really fucking desperately not to feel sorry for herself, to come up with some scathing comeback, or to figure out the math and remember what it was she solved when she's saved from these endeavors by a crash and a rumble, the earth shaking beneath them, the entire base shifting and clattering.

"The fuck was that?!" she snaps, looking around sharply.

[lottawork]

The base shudders in its poorly supported, hastily constructed foundation, dust streaming from the ceiling, slowing the personnel into a shocked stillness prefacing an abrupt flurry of activity. The second tremor of a receding impact sends the pen clattering from Rush's fingers, one arm shooting out to grasp the edge of the nearest desk. Jaw tight and in the absence of locating any party to which he can direct the blame for that grievous disruption of his mental thought process, he fixes the nearest SF with a furious look.

"The base is under attack," rasps the SF's radio with its ominous crackle of interference. "All non-combative personnel, report to your designated areas; everyone else to your battle stations."

Pause.

"This is not a drill."

"Fair fucking perfect," hisses Rush, neatly evading the swarm of scientists flowing to their quarters or their designated areas or whatever inane destination to which they've been directed. The nearest dialing computer has become his primary focus and so he will execute on that until such a choice of action no longer becomes sustainable.

[etherthief]

"Fuck," hisses Iman. What the shit is happening. What is her 'designated area'? As far as she knows it's here, with this guy who wants nothing to do with her (and why exactly does that hurt so much? she shouldn't give a shit what he thinks). She presses past the flow of fleeing people to get back to Rush.

"What are you doing?" she asks, raising her voice to be heard over the pounding alarm and repeated radio warning. The base shakes again, and she stumbles and grabs hold of the desk for balance.

[lottawork]

"What does it look like," he snaps, eyes trained unblinkingly at the screen as he seizes the seated technician, some SGC-trained personnel unlucky enough to be tasked with the asinine job of hitting the coveted buttons on the dialing computer.

"I have my orders," the sergeant insists mulishly, but immediately vacates his seat when Rush renders a more forceful shove.

"Get out of the way."

He does. The base rumbles, the prelude to a cracking and shifting of cement over rock as entire thing's underpinnings predictably begin to go to shite.

Ideally they would have some method of testing the validity of Asadi's solution before implementing it, but it has been installed and it can be executed and so they will have to accept it as is - the ninth-chevron address will have no other chance, clearly, and if that is the case then this presents an opportunity none of them can ignore. Possibly an extremely singular opportunity.

"We can't risk dialing Earth," he says over the swelling chatter of civilians as they come streaming into the gateroom in a slow, unrelenting wave. Seeking escape, or reinforcement against the unanticipated bombardment, or whatever the fuck. One of the SGC's many unknown enemies has doubtless targeted them, and the sole relevant factor gleaned from that non-informative report is that the Base, situated on the only planet with enough power to dial the ninth-chevron location, will soon become an ex-Base very quickly.

He has no choice.

He implements Asadi's solution.

With the grinding of stone over stone, the 'gate begins dialing.

[etherthief]

All this is new to her and she has no fucking idea what's going on, but she knows enough to understand this - 'dialing Earth' - and that Rush is opening up a pathway somewhere else. Using her work, no doubt. Whatever that work was.

She turns, staring up in shock and dismay as the 'gate' starts to turn, slotting heavily into place. It seems to be making things worse, the room shaking more violently than before, dust cascading from above, worrisome noises of redlined machinery and a crackle of electricity in the air. This seems like bad fucking news and she's helpless in its wake.

"Where-" she says, breathless. "Where is it-"

Her question becomes a startled shriek as the gate opens with a blast of light and a burst of what looks like water. She jerks back, holding up an arm to shield herself, then lowering it to stare at the thing in awe.

[lottawork]

The symbols on the cannibalized DHD illuminate promisingly as the dialing sequence proceeds, grinding and tireless, even as power levels spike and the room trembles at the straining of physics and available energy, until finally with a satisfying, heavy, shuddering lock - the final chevron notches into place, giving way to the unstable, stochastic rush of an establishing wormhole.

"Power's fluctuating at critical levels," the sergeant says, the nervousness plain on a face cast in the pale blue-white glow of the open 'gate, but the declaration is utterly irrelevant.

Rush says nothing.

He stares at the wormhole with muted euphoria, the product of his failure and Asadi's success, now seen to its glorious completion.

The ninth and final chevron.

The civilian staff remains locked in their own private suspension, apparently unwilling to venture into what has surely become their only reasonable escape from the Base's imminent collapse on the absurd grounds of uncertainty. The entire endeavor had been an uncertainty from the beginning, and Rush had advised them as such. The Base vibrates again from a series of crescendoing impacts. Clouds of dust pour from deepening cracks in concrete walls.

"What's everybody doing?" The familiar, accusing growl that cuts across the stunned silence of the assembled personnel is both unwanted and a reminder of undesirable consequence.

He enters the room, apparently aghast, surveying the unmoving personnel in complete confusion.

"I ordered an evacuation," says Colonel Young.

[etherthief]

Iman pulls back as the military man brushes past her, watching closely, nervously, as he approaches Rush. Her heart is pounding hard in her ears, her chest vibrating with every shake and rumble of the base, she'll have to get closer if she wants to hear what's being said, and something tells her it's probably fucking important.

She inches back toward them, bracing her hands on the desk, trying for a change of pace not to stand out.

[lottawork]

Young presses forward in a slow, ominous advance, the combination of civilians and personnel parting easily to accommodate a swelling temper. Rush faces him squarely, the defiant tilt of his chin betraying nothing.

"The attack started a chain reaction in the planet's core," he explains, both hands coming up in patient placation. "There's no way of stopping that, and any blast could easily translate through an open wormhole. It's too dangerous to dial Earth."

"You could have dialed somewhere else," growls Young flatly. "Anywhere else."

"This could be our only chance," he replies, the words an even hiss.

"Shut it down."

"You can't," says Rush, his tone level. "It's too late."

Young leans forward, shoulders squaring with the unmistakeable air of one attempting to assert authority in a situation where none exists. "I need to get these people out of here."

Rush smiles, subtly triumphant. "We have a way out."

"We don't know what's on the other side." The colonel's tone reaches an outraged pitch and volume. "Damn it, Rush!"

The whole of the Base rumbles again, and there is no method of re-dialing on short notice, not with power at its peak, lethal capacity, not with a planet's core boiling over, not with a grand sum of eighty individuals requiring a location to which they can evacuate safely.

The decision was justified. This is their only chance.

[etherthief]

Iman listens with gradually tightening anxiety as she pieces together the situation as close as she can understand it, that they're trapped in no-win situation, their solution is an open end, no idea where it leads. She looks up at the gate, newly fearful. She doesn't want to step through it, even though that goes against everything she is, naturally curious, naturally dauntless. Something in her gut tells her this is bad.

But there is no choice to make. Things start to bleed together. There's a swarm of people moving forward, herded into that luminescent blue pool like cattle, and Iman is swept along with them. She doesn't know what to expect when she steps through it, and the sensation is indescribable; pushing and pulling, shearing her apart and wrapping her back up, it doesn't hurt and it lasts no time but it's still some kinda shock, something that prickles through every atom. And cold. Overwhelmingly cold.

When her awareness settles she's alone, oddly, no people. All those people who went in before her, who were around her, behind her, they're nowhere to be found. All there is is a new room. Big, dark, musty, and still fucking cold. She picks herself up, staring around herself, and finally comes to settle on the only other person in attendance.

"Where'd everyone..." She shakes her head, trying to dislodge the fog in it. "Where have you sent us?"

[lottawork]

Demolecularization and subsequent rematerialization are a harsh, icy rush through his chemical composition on a subatomic level.

Momentum receives a significant increase when passing through a ninth-chevron address, and so their bodies become projectiles. Rush strikes the ground harshly, rolling and coming up in a disoriented sprawl of limbs. The oscillating blue glow of the open 'gate illuminates the structure that is the ninth-chevron's purpose. Immediately he traces the lines of their destination's manufacture - the walls dark, curved and neatly angled, arcing stairwells rising gracefully to meet at the central point of an overlooking platform. Ancient. In the truest sense of the term.

A ship. A city or a building or a ship.

He breathes in, pulling in crisp air, the clean, icy chill settling darkly into his lungs. Pure. Fresh. Unused. Unexplored, the raw potential bared to him.

The room is silent, save for the wet ripple of the 'gate and the cadence of their breathing. Their. Plurality is, sadly, ideal. Rush scans the vicinity for any other survivors, but when the 'gate discharges no one else he feels he may assume that he and Asadi are, apparently, the only two to come through. He would have preferred a greater number of survivors for the purposes of achieving optimal productivity levels, but this will have to be adequate.

"The ninth chevron," he says, surveying the room with evident satisfaction. "It worked."

[etherthief]

"Well that is GREAT fucking news," snaps Iman, the constant simmer of panic finally starting to rise to a boil. "But where are we? How do we get back? Are these things you considered, like, at all?"

She has no idea where all the other people went, why they didn't end up here, but she expects Rush won't know either. She's not sure they were lucky or not to be spared this outcome - based on what the colonel had been saying it seems pretty well split.

[lottawork]

"Does it matter?" he flares back, temporary flash of annoyance overtaken by an adrenalized flood of exhilaration. The sheer potential of what they have discovered, the pathways they have wrought - it is easily worth the sacrifice all discoveries invariably demand. He had made that choice. He would make it again if presented with the same matrix of sequential events. There would be repercussions, he had surmised as much, and so he will accept them and progress. It is a process, rational and serial and ongoing.

"We'll need to determine our current location, obviously," he responds, visually taking note of the scope and breadth of the chamber in a methodical, practiced sweep. "Power requirements and available resources become our next priority."

The 'gate shuts off with a sucking snap, the severing of an oscillating, isothermic, unidirectional variable. The absence of any other apparent source of lighting floods the room in darkness. Pressurized steam hisses out from either side of the 'gate in a loud, angry rush.

Perhaps he should delineate lighting as priority four. It is an option worth consideration.

[etherthief]

"Rush," she says desperately, just as they're plunged into darkness. She pulls her hands into fists, nails biting into her palms. She does not like this, not one fucking bit, and Rush is just bustling around talking practicalities like this is no big fuckin deal, just like he always does-

She stops short with a little intake.

This is familiar.

Not the situation but her anger.

Him.

[lottawork]

"We have no idea where we are or what resources we have at our disposal," he snaps, sluicing neatly through the puddled dark to ascend one of the gently sloping staircases. "If you're so insistent on being melodramatic about it, kindly do so after we ascertain our location and a means for survival."

Two fingers skim the railing's edge as he climbs it. There are consoles, mounted by the room's posterior wall. An implication of power, or the intent for power to be available at some point. A promising prospect, provided they can access a means for utilizing said power.

[etherthief]

"Yeah," she says, her mouth dry, swallowing a few times before she can put any bite behind it. "Yeah, and whose fuckin fault is that?"

She hurries trippingly after him, climbing the stairs and gripping the rail. "You know what's melodramatic is rocketing us fuck knows where to suit your goddamn thesis. Is this really happening?!"

Did this really happen, is what she means.

She's all mixed up. This isn't how she knows Rush, though, not like this, through something else, something much more recent, and the vitriol is informed by something weird and deep, concern for what this means for him, fear of the implications, morbid curiosity. She doesn't get it, can't slot it into place, but it's gnawing at her hard just the same.

[lottawork]

Asadi has at the very least apparently regained her outspoken charm, which is likely indicative of the return of her other former, much more applicable capabilities in place of the complete uselessness she exuded on-site prior to the dialing process. This is favorable. This works to their collective favor.

Immediate situational output remains unclear. More data is required.

"We had no other choice," he tosses the words over one shoulder, navigating twisting corridors with a fervent, rising energy. A successful dial-out. The ninth chevron. A city or a building or a ship. "We couldn't risk dialing Earth."

He halts, considering the dull yellow glow of what appears to be a door console of some kind.

"The other survivors were acceptable losses." The ridge of his thumb grazes the button that will doubtless open the door control it is in all probability linked to. "Unfortunate, but necessary."

[etherthief]

"Accept-" her voice gives out before she can finish the word, and she just stares at him, burned, shocked. This feels uncomfortably like betrayal. You'd never consider me an 'acceptable loss', she wants to say, but that wouldn't sit right with him because he doesn't remember her. Why doesn't he remember her?

Where the fuck are they?

"You had a choice," she snaps, picking up the pace to fall into step beside him. "There's always a choice. I heard that guy say so, he said you could have dialed anywhere. It didn't have to be this. Even if this was your last fucking chance, your only chance, you can't just - you can't write off all those people as unfortunate but necessary for a fucking theory, christ, do you hear yourself?!"

This isn't right. It's not the Rush she knows. Is he in there, somewhere, like she was, buried beneath false memories and complacent confusion, or is she just - eavesdropping, like, on his past?

She couldn't have come up with that ninth chevron, whatever-the-fuck, but somebody did. Somebody else facilitated this bullshit maneuver, and for some reason he just expects it to have been her.

[lottawork]

"There was no guarantee we'd ever find another Icarus planet," he says dismissively. "Everyone on that Base knew they signed up for. They knew the risks. I knew the risks."

His fingertips slip over the illuminated panel and depress it slightly, and with a flare of yellow and a faint chime the heavy metal of the door slides open to expose what is doubtless the ship's vast observation deck.

A ship, then. Not a city. Not like Atlantis. A ship.

Rush moves smoothly forward, eyes locked on the bright linear streaks of stars crawling past the observation deck's domed glass. The universe swirls by in a myriad of blurred blue trails, flowing easily along the ship's exterior.

"FTL," he murmurs. The rate of movement versus their current range of visibility - it's the most likely explanation. "Faster than light, yet not through hyperspace."

[etherthief]

No, no, no, this isn't right, as she gapes in terror at the light streaming around them, around this ship, pieces come flooding back to her, Manhattan, the dreams - this is not the Rush she knows, the Rush who went back into the place where they tried to break him because they were holding someone dear to her, this is someone he used to be, someone she barely even recognizes.

This happened, though. She knows the nature of these dreams, how deep into it he is, this is not just some fabrication. This happened. He did this, not to her, but to someone, probably all the people who vanished into that 'gate'.

"Where are we," she says, low and dangerous. "Where are we."

[lottawork]

"Space," he supplies unhelpfully, eyes fixed on a distant point buried in the stars, the inevitable destination whose distance from their current position can only be guessed at. "Until we locate a database of some sort, I don't know."

He twists deftly around, tearing from the visual evidence of their steady forward progression through the universe, re-entering the streamlined dark of the ship's corridors. "We'll require access to some sort of knowledge base to determine our position in relation to anything, Earth included."

[etherthief]

She follows him closely, biting down on her lip to keep from saying anything more. She can't break this. It might be too difficult to wrench him out, might even be traumatic. Or maybe she just wants to see as much as she can before she tries to wreck the illusion. Lord knows he'll never tell her about this.

Yeah, and is he gonna forgive you for pulling this? She buries the question recklessly. Stark lights are flickering back on along the top rim of the corridors as they go, as though the ship is waking up again; eventually Rush leads them into a circular room with a mess of wires and consoles at its center - some kind of core. Odds are this is where he needs to be. They found it easily, thanks for that dream logic.

"This looks moderately important," she mutters.

[lottawork]

"It is."

He doubts it would be anything as important as the ship's true center and nervous system - more likely a convenient outlet. He had glimpsed the exterior, the truly massive, sprawling size of the thing, and a ship this large would, naturally, require numerous points for convenient maintenance. Naturally.

Rush sweeps to the console immediately, watching it flare to life in a halation of blue. Fingertips run around the edges of each dial and knob, all labeled in Ancient. A scroll through the interface illuminates the same - Ancient, always and throughout.

That would confirm his assumption regarding the ship's origins.

"The database is immense," he murmurs, scanning through the bright crawling lines of geometric text. "It will require lengthy examination before we can even understand much of this."

His perusal stutters to a halt, his eyes narrowing, the cerulean cast throwing him into sharp relief.

"Destiny," he says, and the word is almost awed.

[etherthief]

"Fantastic," says Iman, making a tight circuit of the room, staring up at the thing. "I'm sure we're just made of time."

She wonders if this is where Rush was before he came through the Rift. How long ago did this happen? Was he able to get back, did the experience change him into who he is now? Still a prick, but - a prick who at least somewhat considers others?

At his last word she swings around to frown at him. Destiny feels familiar somehow, or rather the confusion of why he'd ever use the word. Didn't he bring this up before? Maybe while they were - while they were in the TARDIS?

"Sentient... spaceship?" she ventures, that's what it was, wasn't it?

[lottawork]

Rush snorts.

"I wouldn't go so far as to say that," he says, eyeing her over the top of the console, his scorn dark and smooth. "It predates Lantean technology. But our presence activated it. It knows we're here."

Most likely a response due to the activation of the 'gate itself. If they could manage to establish a secondary wormhole, potentially devise a way to dial other planets in hopes of recovering resources, their efforts to dial the ninth chevron may not entirely go to shite. What little knowledge of the ship he can access via the interface, however, has not been particularly promising in the way of power supply.

[etherthief]

Right, sure, okay. She huffs out a sigh and crosses her arms tightly.

"So how soon can you find out where we are?" she says curtly, feeling in the pit of her stomach like it's gonna be bad, it has to be bad, and is he even gonna care, is this calm exterior he's projecting ever gonna falter? She doesn't know what to do with him when he's like this. Doesn't know what to do period.

[lottawork]

He does his best to compact as much disdain as possible into the icy look he shoots her as he begins dissecting the console's streamlined flow of information, extrapolating anything relevant to location or destination or distance as it relates to superliminal travel on a specific if unlisted and unknown and unquantified plane.

He finds her question superfluous and therefore easily ignored.

The minutes elapse (or hours, possibly, though the measurement of time ultimately matters very little) and he is able to distinguish and execute on a visible heads-up display. The pale blue of a vertical holographic diagram depicts the Milky Way's swirled structure, indicating the ship's point of origin.

"The ship was launched from there." He studies the reconstructed galaxy, wholly focused, fiercely intent. "Thousands of years ago."

He wordlessly depresses one of the consoles buttons.

The point of origin begins to travel, leaping from galaxy to galaxy in a clear map of the innumerable, astronomical light years of distance between Destiny and Earth.

[etherthief]

She finally stops pacing as the display springs to life around her, she startles and looks up to watch his cold, calm demonstration. First it's like, oh, okay, somewhere in the same galaxy, and then, very suddenly, it is not like that at all.

No. No. Noooo no no no.

"That's-" Her voice and her knees both wobble slightly. "Holy shit."

She staggers back against the wall, pressing a hand to her forehead. "How far is that actually," she rasps out.

[lottawork]

"Several billion light years from home," Rush murmurs, attention dropping back to the console with distant interest. "Launched, hundreds of thousands of years ago, by the Ancients. Unmanned."

His gaze flicks briefly up to scan the room with a faint sense of awe. Unmanned. Sent for what purpose. What purpose. The Ancients had a reason, a destination in mind, he is certain of it. But what purpose.

[etherthief]

"Several billion-"

Her voice gives out. She feels like she is going to faint, and this is a fucking dream. Not really happening. It's okay. It's okay.

But this happened to him. To who knows how many.

And he's just standing there calm, composed, like nothing is happening.

Before she's really able to mark what she's doing she's come forward and seized him by the shirt, pulling him from the console, shaking him firmly. "How many people did you fucking strand out here, Rush?! And you just stand here like 'huh, fascinating', like this isn't your life? The fuck is wrong with you?!"

So she's sort of coming apart.

It's been a rough night's sleep.

[lottawork]

The unexpected snap of movement jerks him up and away from the far more interesting topic at hand, and immediately he must wrest himself from her grip, expression contorting into one of furious annoyance. He has just single-handedly implemented the solution to obtaining access to the most important discovery since the stargate itself, and Ms. Asadi is choosing to be a distraction.

How utterly, predictably disappointing.

"Get your hands off me," he snarls, shoving her brusquely away. The unpleasant sensation condenses around his spine with a hard chill, but it is not relevant or highly important in the context of what is worth his attention and so he may dismiss it. Rush glowers, narrow shoulders set in a taut, determined line. "Obviously you and I are the only survivors. It is not fucking ideal but this - these are the resources to which we have access. You either survive and assist me in discovering what the Ancients were willing to devote entire lifetimes to discover - "

He opens a clenched fist, one side of his mouth twisting unpleasantly.

"Or die here. And become utterly useless to me."

[etherthief]

Well it would be one fucking thing if he remembered her, if she weren't trapped in his shitty memory of his shitty past, and if he hadn't chosen to close his argument with that.

That would all be one thing. She'd have backed off, gone back to respecting his space, guarding it even.

But unfortunately.

"Fuck you," she snaps, and she slugs him across the face, gripping his shirt again to keep him from scrambling away. "Not ideal? This looks like a fucking death sentence to me. And you didn't even blink." She releases him roughly, aiming to send him sprawling.

[lottawork]

This is not going well.

For fuck's sake.

Rush has come to expect violence, though most primarily from military personnel. He recognizes the arc of the fist, the anticipatory winding back, and it streaks at him in a sparking, thudding crash of skin against skin. The hand fisted into the front of his shirt cuts the inevitable downward vector of his descent short, jarring him until the moment when Asadi releases him and that path of motion may resume and he smashes into the console, scrabbling to remain upright. Fingers hook around the cool metal of the console's edge in a stabilizing pull.

He recovers with a low, dangerous glare, dashing a wrist over the hot leak of blood from the lip split by his own teeth.

"I weighed the risks," he snaps out coldly. "I made the decision that was necessary. No one else would have."

Clearly, Asadi has no immediate plans to be useful to him.

She will need to be relegated to secondary objectives, unless she has outright plans to attempt murder or otherwise irreversibly incapacitate him, which he feels may be detrimental to progress. From a professional standpoint, her personal opinion on him matters very little unless she continues to physically act upon it.

This outcome is proving to be annoyingly likely.

[etherthief]

She turns away from him, rubbing at one temple with the heel of her hand. That arm's not supposed to work, is it. Phantom feeling, worming into her dreams.

"God," she mutters. "Fine, whatever, do what you need to do. Gotta wake up sometime."

As if the dream is fucking taking her up on that, the ship responds with a distant, ominous rumble, the floor shaking enough that she needs to steady herself on the wall. Fantastic.

"The fuck was that," she says, turning slowly back to Rush.

tw: physical trauma

[lottawork]

Uninterested in Asadi's clearly mercurial outlook regarding him and his motives, the shuddering of the ship as it encounters some disagreeable force is a far more immediate and relevant issue, and Rush reroutes his attention back to the console.

"A problem," he says shortly. Deft manipulation of the console's interface alters the display to indicate the layout of the ship itself, patches of red flickering to indicate the various points of internal-external damage. Hull breaches, numerous, all due to a wavering shield level and a dangerously low fucking power supply - the process of dialing here doubtless drained whatever reserves the ship had at its disposal.

Low shielding, when traveling at supraliminal speeds, may exact enough stress upon Destiny for the ship to tear itself apart.

This is not the preferred output.

The groan of metal under pressure. The crackle of live wires. A veil of sparks spraying from ceiling to floor in a blazing spray.

His grasp tightens reflexively as the high-voltage jolt snaps through the console to the hands gripping it, momentarily welding skin to superheated metal before releasing it in an agonizing discharge.

Rush loses his ability to track current events for a few moments. He thinks, possibly, that his body arcs - certainly it impacts something, head cracking sickeningly against metal, and when he is next fully cognizant he is on the floor again, awareness suffused in the dull ring drilling itself through the center of his skull.

tw: blood, burning references

[etherthief]

"Shit-!" She lurches at another shipwide shudder and scrambles forward, dropping quickly to her knees beside him. "Rush!"

Things are getting worse, fast. Everything going wrong all around them at once, doesn't seem probable, doesn't seem like it should be happening, but maybe that's just it, maybe this is their way of waking up.

Rush is bleeding bad, his hands burned, a faint smell of scorched flesh in the air. No matter how much chaos bursts around them, none of it seems to touch her; she feels distant, like the whole thing is fading more and more into the background, leaving only Rush in focus. He blinks up at her, she's not sure if he can ever talk.

As angry as she still is it slides away in that moment, too familiar, too much like when she pulled him out of Gus' cell, when he - when he let it slip that he wanted her there. He's dying, abrupt, unceremonious, and painful, and he still thinks this is all real.

"It's okay," she says softly, and he might not like it but she can't just sit there, she reaches out and lifts him up partway, trying to cradle his head as best she can, ignoring the blood that'll be gone when she wakes. "It's okay. It's just a dream."

Another spray of sparks flares out behind her and she barely even feels it.

"You're okay," she says again, trying to get a fix on his eyes. "You'll be okay."

tw: gore, description of body-horror type stuff, DEATH

[lottawork]

He blinks, protracted and slow, and attempts to marshal his thoughts into what may be deemed an appropriate response between the heaviness of his own limbs, the stench of ozone, the hot trickle coating the back of his neck. His hands are thick and utterly nonresponsive so he must attempt movement in another respect and so he rotates his head on its spinal axis and when he does things move and there are no joints in the skull nor are their any parts of it that should be disconnected or untethered or floating in the softened mess of their own fluid deconstruction this is incorrect and impractical for a number of reasons.

The sensation of fingers around the darkened mat that is his hair is not altogether one he finds he can react to he is overly preoccupied with the grating and shifting of ordinarily solid bone and so he has no response to it nor does he have a rebuttal for the insistence of an optimal outcome the outcome has already proven to be staunchly not optimal and it will continue to be as he is not a terribly enthusiastic supporter of outcomes in which he is dead and this should be readily apparent for obvious reasons.

His jaw feels fused shut. Perhaps that is an ancillary effect. He should not concern himself with it unnecessarily.

Events have established a clear direction and it is not the preferred direction but he finds he has little choice in the matter and prolonging his own awareness is at this point a detriment not a benefit and so he surrenders to the direction things seem to be heading toward much like one would surrender to gravity that inevitable pull to the molten center of the earth they are so far away from.