After spending some time with the new recruits (and assuring them the quarantine and emergency wasn't connected with their work on the specimens recovered from the libration point junkyard, without telling them the real cause of the problem) and catching up on quality time with Gabriel, Tasha didn't have much sleep before it was time to ship out again.
She was still alert enough to move Melchior into the Picnic Basket, while Remiel handled transport of the more sensitive (and secure) bio samples. Shojo handled the rest of the gear, including the Celestial Origin Marker, Apollyon's sword and the transcriptions of Hakeber's notes. Once everything was stowed, Tasha got to take a nap for the trip to Harmonia.
During the bulk of the transit, the group remained in stasis, but Tasha also sorted through the fragments of toporgic to find a medium-sized piece that the mages could examine, and a smaller fist-sized chunk in case Vasterlion could discover a way to work with it - after all, it came from a living thing, sort of.
Once they finally arrived at the Pit of Himar, it was just a matter of contacting the Viceroy through his secretary, and by evening they were in an armored bug-vehicle racing across the desert wastes to an undisclosed location.
For all her travel, Tasha once again finds herself racing off to a completely new and mysterious location with only a vague description and some assurances to go off of. It's her great pleasure as an explorer to see these places knowing she's been treated to visit something few ever may. A secret, a treasure, a mystery solved -- and often mysteries made. The latter she could dow ith less of these days; far too many mysteries hang over her head like a gillotine blade, but that just makes the reveal that much sweeter.
And she got to make up with Gabriel. Few things are sweeter that that. It makes her feel like a good Karnor, Vartan, mate and woman once again.
As the sandy red desert zooms ever onard, she leans back, content to enjoy the cool air and the feeling she doesn't have anything she can do at the moment. If she hadn't been already rested, she'd take a nap. "How are you doing, Shojo?" She asks, having shifted to lean against the big black Vartan.
The young Vartan medic is sitting rather rigidly. Which is fine, given the smooth ride provided by twelve 'all terrain' legs that propel the bug-tank. He sits next to a semi-transparent part of the shell that serves as a window. "I'm doing well, ma'am, all things considered," he says. "It is good to be around calm people again. The others were on the verge of panic while we were on lockdown, and I'm not good at providing comfort for that."
"I don't think any of us were very good for that, at the time. We're all under a lot of stress right now," Tasha assures the big man, reaching up to pat his arm. That they're all under stress is not reassuring but a reminder that they're not out of the woods yet. A test, too, to see how far Shojo is willing to follow her in to the strange dark. "Did you feel like any of them wanted to leave, Sho? How about you? And what ever happened to the Eeee that was with the volunter group, when we first met? The one that didn't shake my hand."
"She was just a graphic designer," Shojo notes. "Colonel Rapatia sent word that it wasn't the right time yet for Eeee to join the JEF in forward roles, until the Confederates had reestablished their stability and proven themselves useful partners in other endeavors. As for Celeste and Digger-of-Ancients, they seemed more concerned about being 'flunked out' of consideration for becoming JEF crew. Celeste was worried that it was all her fault for not seeing a danger, and Digger felt he was responsible and had let down his species. He was more concerned that his failure would reflect badly on the Silent-Ones, in other words."
"I see." It's a strange juxtaposition for the senior cadet to be the one on the evaluation side of things. The worries of the new cadets are largely familiar ones: Was it my fault? Am I not good enough? Will I ever be? How could I be so stupid? Likewise the answers, except the clarity comes so easily analyzing their mistakes -- and yet rarely came for her own. She decides they must suffer the same inability to see themselves, needing others to steer them right and help them see the truth. Still, she recognizes their position is more tenuous than her own.
"The truth is, I like Celeste. i can't evalate her performance, I'm really just a cadet still despite what I'm doing. If times were better I'd probably be ... " Tasha squints. She'd probably still be running off to do things and not siting still and being taught. "Uhm, well, probably something better I'm sure." Running off more carfully? Resting more, less prone to brief insanities, calling herself a god during half-baked acts of desperation? "Digger is fine though. They all are, as far as I can see. It's good they're getting used to the panic, that never seems to go away."
"I'll be reviewing their evaluations," Remiel notes. "Nora is the one writing them up though. She can be a bit.. overly critical at times."
Tasha snorts a laugh at that, guffawing a moment and then sits up to look Shojo in the face. "She's my sister, I know. The poor cadets, it's awful. It really is. And they can't punch her like I can." She winks, then slides back down against the man, looking to Remiel. "At least Nora has calmed down a lot. She's a good role model and she's inspirational. I know she's just driving everyone and herself to be the best, she just needs to learn not to be more gentle about it."
The Eeee driver has been quiet since they left the pit, but now pulls out something that looks suspiciously like a gas mask. "We're approaching the secrecy perimeter," he announced. "From here, I'm going to have to insist that all communications devices be disabled - no tracking or electronic signals can be sent or received."
Tasha glances at Remiel and shrugs. They both know that JEF resources could track them easily even without the devices they carry, but they also know to play along. For her part the hybrid turns off her datapad rather than switching it to the usual low power stand-by. "I'm done, how about you two?"
Remiel also powers down his device - a smaller data pad that can fit into his pocket. Shojo doesn't have anything similar to deal with. And then it goes dark, as they enter a tunnel and slow down.
The young woman puts her hands behind her head, still leaning against Shojo. "Another spooky tunnel," she remarks, easily able to recall two hands worth of unsettling caves and other shaded nooks and crannies -- some between more than earth and stone.
"I'm going to release a gas now," the driver notes, affixing his breathing mask, which makes his voice sound deeper. "It won't put you to sleep, but is a mild anaesthetic. It'll keep you from remembering the path we take through the maze, but once you're out of it the effects will fade quickly. Except for Mr. Shojo. You're going to have to wear a blindfold and a breather. We don't risk using this stuff on people with Maerkos Syndrome." He tosses back a bag with the blindfold and breather in it towards the Vartan.
Shojo affixes the Vartan breather. It covers the entire face, and has goggles, but he still has to tie the blindfold over them. It's completely dark outside, but apparently Vasterlion Industries doesn't take any risks when it comes to people's ability to navigate in the dark like Eeee can.
"Another dose of anaesthetisc," repeats the young woman with a new variation. She wonders if she's becoming a bit jaded from her adventures and wonders more at the danger of allowing themselves to be gassed. Mr. V. wouldn't betray us. Would he? If travel may have made her jaded, but it certainly has made her paranoid. With all that has happened, its become very useful. But no reason to worry Shojo. To help people relax she further quips, "Oh, here? Of course we're here. It's all obvious now." She thinks Nora would be proud.
The next thing Tasha remembers is feeling a bit wobbly as she stands in a canal. It's a very small canal.. probably only a kilometer or so long, but the walls are steep and tall, and the entire thing is covered in an organic life-dome supported by chitinous struts that grow up from the canal walls. Light comes through it, but from the outside it probably looks like barren desert. The lower walls and floor of the canal are dotted with bubble-buildings, and a large section of the floor has been turned into an obstacle and target range. Several Vastille-styled bioroid Titans are going through their paces. An Eeee in a lab coat.. including a pocket-protector full of pens and pencils stands before them, smiling. "Ah, you seem to be coming out of it now.." he (or she, from the slight feminine pitch to the voice) says.
Tasha squints at the Eeee. "Muh," is her reply to being coherent, though her gaze rolls off the man (or woman) to fixate on objects that stir her mind and memory: Titans. She watches them absently as realoty comes back in to focus, so that her first memories of arrival are of bioroids at work. She blinks, wondering how long she'd been there and, further one she realizes it, how long the Eeee near her has been waiting on her.
"Uhm, right." Her head shakes. A little, then a lot, followed by her reaching up and giving herself a light slap to the forhead. her ears flatten. "Here we, uhm, are." Why are we ... Oh. "Right. Right. Lets, um ... " She turns to glance at remiel and Shojo. "Lets go?"
Shojo nods, and Remiel yawns to pop his ears. He then remembers that he's carrying the specimen case, and says, "Ready as ever."
"You can call me Dr. Foo," the Eeee says, and leads them along a path that winds between several of the living buildings, before they get to a really big, long one. Instead of a door there's a slightly pinkier area on the otherwise white surface, and the Eeee just goes right through it as if it were liquid.
"It looks like the stuff Mel dunks me in for high-G." Tasha rolls her shoulder in a shrug and heads right at the wall without stopping.
The sensation is odd, but once on the other side Tasha feels as she just spent five minutes under an ultrasonic fresher. Inside, the air is much cooler and drier than in the canal, and the remains of a section of Whiplash's severed tail take up the central length of the building. There are lots of tables and workstations alongside, with large chunks of monster-meat and shell laid out for study, along with tanks of preservative fluid with more specimens floating inside. Remiel and Shojo follow Tasha, and once all three are in Dr. Foo waves for them to follow along again.
The tail gets a half-hearted wave. "Nice to see you again Whiplash." She distinctly remembers the moment when she severed that tale, it was firmed written to her mind after she left full depth. One of her prouder moments, she and the Melchior performed admirably then. Yet she also considers how it happened, why it has become more difficult, and the long term ramifications of cerebral virtualization as she walks along after the Eeee. Much has changed and Nora's voice has faded.
They are led to a station a bit further from the tail, which is mostly a large machine - and a purely mechanical one as far as Tasha can tell, with no obvious living components. "I was told you had some rare sampled you wanted to compare to the Kaiju cells," Dr. Foo states, as he or she begins to power up the machine.
Remiel sets his case on a side table, and retrieves two sealed tubes from it. "These are recovered cells from a machine-life Berserker," he notes, handing over the first metal cylinder.
The Eeee scientist seems reluctant to take the tube. "I'm.. fairly certain they would be inert on this world," Dr. Foo says, and slips the tube into a port on the machine. "It will take a minute to prepare a sample for scanning."
Tasha grimaces as she sees the tube. She's struck by just how much she's managed to destroy since her adventure began, though she once again reasures herself, Better me than the others, and reminds herself it was necessary. "The Berserkers were in bad shape as it was and they weren't on the surface. I doubt they'd be able to function this close to a SPF heavy region."
"Yes, nano-mechanisms generally fail here," Dr. Foo says, and operates the machine controls. Soon an image appears on a large screen that takes up most of the control area. A few more tweaks add color to it to bring out certain details. It looks hexagonal, the surface studded with odd microstructures. Further adjustments bring out the inside of the cell. Tasha does not have a xenobiology knowledgebase to draw on, so can't really tell what she's seeing.
"Control contacts?" Remiel asks, pointing out the surface structures. "I don't seen any internal energy storage or self-replication mechanisms.."
"It does appear to be purely structural," Dr. Foo agrees. "There'd need to be a central power and control source. Like a very basic form of programmable matter."
Tasha steps away to give the two scientists room, turning to Shojo and giving him a unknowing shrugs before she resumes watching. "Please don't tell me the Khattans learned ProgMat from these people," she murmurs, almost too low for Shojo to hear.
Shojo doesn't say anything at all. His knowledge of biology is mostly focused on keeping people alive, after all.
Dr. Foo splits the screen, so there's a side by side view of the Berserker cell and what is probably a Kaiju cell. The scale on the image shows that it's nearly 100 times larger than the machine one. It also has a lot of unidentifiable features.
"No nucleus.. bacterial DNA?" Remiel asks the Eeee.
It's all very interesting to Tasha even if she has no idea what she's looking at. She decides she can at least try to learn something new and save questions she might have for later. Still, occassionally her gaze drifts off to watch the bioroids run their paces. She can't help but wonder what it must be like to pilot such a squishy, organic machine. The squishiest part of the Melchior is herself.
"Something like that, but even simpler," Dr. Foo notes. "We've found almost no cell differentiation. It's as if the creature is all muscle tissue. We're pretty sure these structures are energy storage. No replication mechanisms we can find, and they don't replicate in culture either. Some rare-earth elements are present as well. We think it explains why the creatures retreat when they suffer damage: they can't heal."
"Your bioroids have self repair though, don't they?" Remiel asks.
Tasha perks her ears at that -- one shot organics! Suddenly every blow struck carries a whole new weight. If she hadn't destroyed all the one she'd encountered, she'd be feeling very hopeful. As it stands, she just feels that much more effective.
"Yes.. which is why we are so disappointed in these results," Dr. Foo notes. "These monsters are biological machines, but far less sophisticated than even simple multicellular organisms. They're made to resemble native forms, but they aren't grown from them. These things are assembled. Even the nervous system seems more like its used for energy transfer than sensation."
"Did you recover anything from Tesla?" Remiel asks next.
The Eeee shakes its head. "No. I personally expect that creature had a self-destruct mechanism. It had to have been more complex than Whiplash. We only recovered a few bits of armor, but it wasn't any different than these other samples. Iron-crystal lattice with organic filler."
"What sort of facility would assemble giant one shot organic machines?" Tasha wonders aloud in a quite voice. More accurately, and carefully left unspoken, she wonders how Katha-hem can produce such things. She considers its starship-sized body, wondering if it also has a starship sized repair and construction capability somewhere inside it. The Source said their forms depend on need, so did it just form itself a construction bay?
"Something large and wasteful," Dr. Foo claims. "We don't know how these things are even fed, if they process matter at all since they don't grow. They may be charged up directly with chemical or electrical energy. We've exposed the cells to both, with no reaction. These things are incredibly inefficient."
Is Katha-hem a terrible buildr, or are these just cludged together puppets to put on a show? Tasha recalls the hand and string puppets back on Rephidim, some elegantly crafted, others sewn together by what was available -- and all dancing to their puppeteer for a purpose and a story. So what's the story, Katha-hem? She thought she knew it, but now she's not sure what to think.
Though thinking the better of it, Tasha speaks her thoughts. "So, they're like puppets, maybe? Puppets to put on a show? But you're not supposed to see how empty they are."
"We weren't able to salvage any of the.. brain.." Dr. Foo notes. "We only managed to get the tail because your Titan weapon cauterized it. But the idea of it being a puppet seems on the mark. We've found structures in the tail that could be control nodes. A central nerve truck connects them all, and they connect to the muscle groups. They're shielded against outside field interference."
"Quantum resonance remote manipulation?" It comes out before Tasha can think it over, the idea coming to her in a snap. Well, we are here for answers.
"Resonance is usually just for detection," Dr. Foo points out. "But.. it isn't impossible that it could be used for communication. But for that you'd need.. well, if these things are assembled, then an entangled resonator could be included. I've no idea what the bandwidth on something like that would be, or the range.."
"I'd bet on quantum entanglement," Tasha insists, glancing at Shojo to see if he's at all surprised by her bout of science. "They might even be remotely powered. If they are, their operation time might be effectively infinite."
"As long as they aren't damaged," Shojo offers.
"That's not the most bizarre thing," Remiel says, and offers up the second vial. "See if you make any sense of this. It's a skin cell."
A few minutes later and the third cell is being displayed. It takes longer to color in, and the chemical analysis is a lot longer than that of the other two. "Well.. from the outside it looks like a normal animal cell," Dr. Foo says, before switching to the x-ray crystalography view. "Uh..." The image displayed is incredibly more complex than the other two, with over a hundred different internal structures.
"It's impossible," the Eeee concludes, looking at the analysis. "It's got every known metabolic process, but these should be poisonous to one another. There's carbon, silicon, nitrogen, sulfur, hydrogen.. that's a variant of chlorophyll in there. And silicon-carbide crystal. I think that structure is some sort of electro-chemical ultra capacitor.."
"So, not a Berserker or Kaiju," Remiel concludes.
"Well, it has to be artificial," Dr. Foo claims. "No environment exists that could produce this naturally. And there's no DNA, either. But it can store a lot of energy, and it can replicate.. but these chemical and protein and crystal structures just.. shouldn't be able to integrate."
Remiel seems to relax a little, some unnoticed tension leaving him. "Well.. it's too complicated to be related to the other two, that's the important thing," he says, and smiles to Tasha. "At least we know the one who put the projector together isn't one of Katha-hem's agents."
Tasha returns the smile, albiet cautiously. "Now we just have to be sure 'it's' not an agent of one of the others." She shrugs a little; what can you do? "Well, I have a sample. I didn't want to be left out, after all." Reaching in to one of her many belt containers the hybrid pulls out a beautiful amber chunk of crystal roughly the size of her fist. She offers it to the Eeee. "Don't stare at it too long and be careful how much energy you feed in to it. Remy can explain more."
"Actually, don't use x-rays on it all," Remiel advises. "Particle-beam only."
The Eeee feels over the chunk, and sniffs it. It then goes into a drawer on the machine. There's sound of a vacuum pump, and several minutes pass. Nothing shows on the screen, other than a blinking message in Eeee script. "Well.. it says there's nothing there. The electron beam doesn't backscatter, it stays coherent. Like hitting a holographic beam mirror. What is that stuff?"
Tasha glances at Remiel and asks, "What would it convert them to? Gamma or cosmic rays or something? Heat?" She returns her focus to the doctor and tries her hand at an explaination. "We call it topogoric, we think it's highly condensed, folded space-time. If you look at it you can see that it isn't reflective, but shows what we think are other realities or at least some reflection of them. It converts energies, but that's more than I understand."
"Except for antimatter annihilation," Remiel offers. "That's what 'broke it up' in the first place."
"Where did it come from?" the scientist asks, after extracting the chunk from the machine and really looking at it. There are some high-pitched sonar pings as well.
"It may be from another reality," the Cadet adds after a second of thought. "The Sifra may have brought it here, or made it, or-- or something." She then nods to Remiel, further explaining, "It's part of strange living creatures we've found. Small floating ones directed by a larger one, though that one's dead now."
"Wait.. are you talking about the.." Dr. Foo starts to ask, then looks around and leans in very close to whisper, "Volcano creatures?"
The young woman leans forward. "I was there when the big one was destroyed," she explains. "I'm the one who gathered the fragments."
"Did you get any of the.. flesh.. from it? Surely it wasn't made entirely of this stuff," Dr. Foo asks quietly.
"No, it was considered too risky at the time." The hybrid decides to leave ut the part of it being considerably disgusting and also far less sparkily than the crystals themselves. "Is exposure dangerous?"
"Then that cell sample wasn't from the creature?" Dr. Foo asks in surprise. "I have no idea what this stuff would do.. it will need to be sent to the physics lab to see if it gives off any sort of radiation. It may produce quantum-gravitic waves though.. which we couldn't detect anyway."
Tasha's ears perk at this and she turns to Remiel again. "Would that be any help to us? Quantum gravity waves?" A glance is cast back towards the Eee and she asks, "Can it be integrated with Silent-Ones optical technologies?" A pause and then she further inquires, "Do you still have records and information related to D-Space drives?"
"I wouldn't have that information," Dr. Foo admits. "Nobody uses quantum-gravity that I know of.. but after 6000 years that could have changed. We'll have to see how it responds to polarized light, but really you'd need to bring some to the Silent-Ones to check for compatibility."
"I understand." The hybrid looks between the two scientists for a moment, thinking but coming up with no further questions other than to ask, "Well, we'll need a copy of all the analysis data, right Remy? Is there more you needed to do?"
"Well, we know a bit more about the Kaiju, which gives us some idea of their creator's capabilities," Remiel says. "The don't show much imagination, at least for Whiplash. It's just a bigger version of an existing canal creature. I don't imagine there are creatures like Tesla though, are there Dr. Foo?"
"We can't rule out a native animal that Tesla is based on," Dr. Foo explains. "Each canal system has a different set of flora and fauna, although they share certain similarities. We just haven't cataloged all of the canal systems on Abaddon. There could be electric eel lizards in an undiscovered canal."
"I wonder if Tesla was created when Whiplash fell, or maybe it was kept back for emergencies," Tasha asks no one in particular. She then reaches in to another pokcet to pull out the other shard of topogoric, turning it slowly in her hand and wondering which of the infinite possibilities is the correct one. Is Katha-hem as simple as it seems? Is it playing them for fools, hiding great power and intellect? Is it crippled by the Sifran aura of change, unable to fully function? She wishes she knew.
"We'll be having another sample examined by the Mages," Remiel notes. "If they can't figure anything out, we'll likely approach the Silent-Ones."
"If possible, could you tell us the operating time and range of your bioroids?" the Karnor asks next.
"If you know of anyone -- or anyone who might know of anyone -- that knows about D-Space, please contact us if you can. Remiel especially, but I can at least try to work it out in a pinch." The mention of bioroids has Tasha gaze off in the directionof the organic pseudo-robots. Like her won machine they act as extensions of the pilot, though she doesn't know if they possess advanced AI or even computer systems that she'd recognize as such.
"Oh my, I'm certainly not authorized to answer that," Dr. Foo says, raising his hands. "But you got here via a pass signed by the Viceroy, so your best course would be to ask him.. or provide him with a plan of action that he could deny or confirm the feasibility of. I don't know what hyperspace information is classified or not though. It isn't like it matters since we don't have any spacecraft anyway. But all the same, you'll need to ask someone higher up the chain than me."
Tasha turns back, smiling to Remiel. "He's a very nice man anyway and I haven't seen him in a while. He has the best food, too, and his offices are very interesting. It'll be fun." Her shoulders rolls. "And we can use some fun. Yoiu'll be back with Fudgy before you know it."
"I don't think she really cares for that nickname," Remiel notes with a grin.
"Well, I can at least treat you all to lunch in the commissary before you have to be drugged and dragged off across the desert again," Dr. Foo offers. "I'll also need you to fill out some official documents on leaving us the cell specimens and the top-whatever to study, that will specify our own sharing of anything we learn with you."
Tasha barks a laugh at that, then thumbs at herself. "And you think I like Rustpuppy? It sounds like I get in to things and break them, which just makes it worse because it's true!" Her head shakes; she laughs all over again.
At the offer, the young woman turns and nods. "As half a Karnor with all of a Karnor, I can't urn down the offer of food without losing face." She glances toards Remiel, then. "It's face isn't it? Face? That's the word, right?"
"You still have a bit more left to lose," Remiel points out with a grin.
"Oh very funny, make fun of a woman's face. It's only because you can't glue or staple or laser half a head back together I get to be a Nohbakim. I'm not kidding, everyone thinks I'm a Nohbakim back on Sinai now!" Tasha throws her hands up, then turns to the Ee scientist and lowers her hands just to shoo him forward. "You see what I have to work with? I almost die all the time and my doctor makes fun of me. Well, lets go!"
There were a lot of forms to sign, several of which were just ones requiring the visitors to not tell anyone what they saw of the facility itself. The food at least was interesting, and there was even red meat (although it probably came from a 'steak bug' somehow). Much of the rest of the trip back to the Pit was a blur, due to the amnesia gas, monotony and full stomachs. The vehicle did bring them straight back to the Vasterlion compound in the Pit though, in view of the new water pumping station.
An hour later, Tasha and Remiel were in the office of the Viceroy (Shojo being left out since he agreed to some blood tests to chart the progress of his syndrome).
"Welcome back from the Sandbox," Villem says with a grin. "I hope the visit was beneficial?"
"Somewhat, although given what we're dealing with the answers are usually minimal, or cryptic, or weird or else they're somehow just more questions that look like an answer," the younger of the two wolflike beings replies. She walks over and takes a seat across from the Eeee, more dropping in to it than actually seating herself. The hybrid leans back, sinking in with her arms over the arm rests and out to the side. "It's all a mess, Mr. Vanderlion. All. A. Mess."
"What sort of mess, exactly?" the Viceroy asks, his brows perked and fingers touching as he steeples them. "The one that is an opportunity in disguise, or the sort that is best shovelled into a pit and set on fire?"
"The fire one, then maybe the first one. If we survive." Tasha watches Remiel be seated, then waggles her left hoof towards him as she asks, "So how much should we tell Mr. Vasterlion? Do we want him to sleep at night? I like him, you know?"
"Given what we've figured out, we'll need his support and the Silent-Ones on this," Remiel notes. "I'm sure they'll appreciate working together."
Vasterlion barks a laugh at that. "If you can get the Silent-Ones to work with us.. well, I'm sure larger miracles have happened."
"I hope so." That decided Tasha turns ehr head back. After a sour look of reluctance she wiggles until she can pull out her datapad, then manipulates it a moment before sliding it across the man's desk and returning to collapsed comfort. "Our very own radio star," she explains of the ominious star shaped entity, large enough to make its immediate size hard to gauge at a glance. "You'll be interested to know it's a inferior producer of bioroids, at least."
Villem scrolls through the orbital imagery. "So this is the mother of monsters?" he asks. "How far away from us is it?"
Tasha lifts her hands, holding them apart. "Far enough we can't reach it by ground, not without a lengthy journey. It's exact reach isn't well known, but it can probably use ee-em, gravity, quantum gravity, entanglement, quantum resonance, dark matter and who knows what else from a distance. It's avoiding notice, though. See how it's between the crystal stretches?" More hoof based indicating. "It's scared of the Sifra. Ever heard of D-Space? Harrowers?"
"D-Level Hyperspace.. something to be avoided, is all I know," Vasterlion notes. "However far this is, surely it not out of range of your kinetic weapon? Tesla was obliterated by it."
"This thing is different." It's said with a kind of solemn poutiness, the kind of summary only a nineteen year old girl could manage. "Tesla is a mid-range city sized threat. That thing is a world-class threat. Mid range, maybe higher if it wasn't here. The kind of being even spacers might consider to be a god, or god-like. It's older than the Confederacy, the Terragens -- it's older than the Old Ones. A few high kinetics probably won't even reach it."
"So.. how you hope to deal with it?" Vasterlion asks, sliding back the tablet. "It is rather large, and you believe it has formidable defenses. We don't have access to atomic weapons."
"We could make atomics or buy them, but we probably don't have the time. Besides, we have other ideas. As for D-Space, well, meet a D-Space inhabitant. This one's probably higher than a Harrower though, maybe a director? Or a specialized type. A spy. I've met Harrowers that can relocate planets," Tasha goes on to explain. Her wings and feet waggle at the danger in her descriptions, a bit like a flopping fish. She's slow to retrive ehr datapad, eventually sliding forward, taking it, and dropping bacak again. "I love this chair. Anyway, you see, it needs special weapons and other tricks. My thought is to try and build another Seraph. Or something greater. Remiel has other ideas from the rest of the JEF, too." She then mouths the words, 'my idea is better' to the Eeee when she thinks Remiel isn't looking.
"The issue when bringing any weapon to this thing, which we're sure is flesh and.. blood.. sort of.. is that there is some risk in the weapon then becoming its weapon," Remiel explains. "From a historical analysis of the kaiju attacks, we've got an idea of its range and what it reacts to.. and it doesn't seem to react to Confederate or Silent-Ones technologies. It's more attuned to electronic and radio emissions."
"So, you think that a Silent-Ones Titan carrier loaded with my bioroids can reach this monster?" Vasterlion asks.
"If we can come up with a way to neutralize its gravity defenses, then yes, such a group may be needed to deliver whatever will do that," Remiel says, looking to Tasha afterwards.
"Which is why we're here," the Cadet emphasizes. Her nose wiggles; she doesn't want to reach up and scratch it right now. "But a few bioroids won't be enough. It can crush a bioroid by moving slightly, and regular weapons alone probably won't hurt it. It can manipulate gravitation and can probably shield itself even if it fears to use too much of its power. So it will be a compound, uhm, a complex attack." She relemnts, finally reaching up to scratch. "I had a few ideas. The Seraph probably could have done it, but we lost the Seraph to it -- and we almost lost me to it too. Except now we know how to shield a very limited number of machines from its control, so another Seraph might work. We also have some very, uh, arcane? Esoteric? Why are there so many-- Nevermind. Strange, strange instructions that might not be instructions. They may build something useful. Or not. Either way my idea is to upgrade Mel for the assault and to try and use magic to counter its gravitational powers. Once we're clo
se we can probably disrupt it further."
"Except we don't have the capability of modifying the Titan, which is an issue," Remiel points out. "Or obtaining Sifran crystals. Or using them. We're pretty much in the dark. We've got a material that might be able breach the shielding, if we can figure out how to use it. It could potentially shunt the gravitational forces into some other form of energy, or produce anti-gravity. We've used it for the Picnic Basket successfully, but it requires the same sort of energies that this being is sensitive to."
Tasha thumbs herself mouthing, 'my idea,' and grinning a little before she elaborates futher. "Any weapons made from that stuff will have to remain inert until used. I was thinking of something like javelins for the whole squad of Titans, or spears. Find a weak spot -- a energy source, a battery, a gravity-blood flow point -- and stick the weapon in. With automation we could have its systems tune it properly. That way it's just end up being killed by its own enormous power. See? We can also steal power." She winks, then spreads her hands. "That's if it works anyway. I plan to try a combination of Harmonia, the Silent-Ones, Mages, you and your people, and whatever we can scrape together to get all of this working. We may even want some Knights."
"You need a non-electromagnetic energy source, then," Vasterlion says. "But which has the same sort of output. Plus a large scale military mobilization over considerable distances.." The Eeee pauses and begins taking notes. "Have you been to the new Imperial Lifedome?" he asks.
"I've barely been to any of the cities let alone the life dome. I'm always in the act of leaving," Tasha replies, sinking further. "I just got home and left half a day later!" She sighs, rubs her face, then shakes her head. "Um, no. No I haven't. But, yes about the pwoer source. I probably can't even use Mel's stator, so for me I need the carrier or else I need to stray us to a big old rocket assembly and have Bellerophon shoot me at it."
"I've been there, though we didn't stay long once the mission was over. I'm always in the act of leaving," Tasha replies, sinking further. "I just got home and left half a day later!" She sighs, rubs her face, then shakes her head. "Um, yes, yes I have. And yes about the power source. I probably can't even use Mel's stator, so for me I need the carrier or else I need to stray us to a big old rocket assembly and have Bellerophon shoot me at it. And that reminds me. Remember that starfish-thing you got from my clone? Does it look familiar?"
"It looked more like a sea urchin I thought," Vasterlion notes. "But the reason I ask is because the Imperials have some new form of power, similar to what their Holy Seeds produced. You'll need to test your exotic material with that. In fact, you need to give every faction a sample of it, whether they can learn anything from it or not. Except for the Kampfengruppe, of course. But I'm advising you to look into the power source of the Imperials. It may be compatible with my bioroids, or not, but it could also be invisible to this monster and provide the power needed to use your power-converter material."
"We'll do that." Tasha looks down at her datapad, eyes it, then picks it up and makes a note before looking up again. "One more thing before Remiel gets to the exciting shows-you-the-data-and-paperwork part and I fall asleep in this chair part or try and talk you out of a cigar or a drink or both part: Hawve you ever heard of a legend, or old record, or anything that suggests Vartans have any sort of special ability against something like this?"
The Viceroy's brows raise again. "Vartans? They're effective against canal monsters, yes.. because they are big and strong and stubborn. If there is something like this in Vartan mythology, I'm not familiar with it. I don't even know if Vartans have mythology, for that matter. They just seem so.. straightforward.. about everything."
"They can be small too!" Tasha insists, looking particularly short slumped in the nice comofrtable chair. "I am a Vartan, canine head aside. On Sinai there are a lot of susperstitions about magic and soul eating, but nothing about how to deal with it all. It's all avoidance of magic, which would be a big pain right now, if I were a better Vartan." Her head shakes. "A lot has changed over the years and a lot more has probably been lost. The only thing I even have from back then is a sword, and while I'd like to stick it in Ka-- In that thing, I don't think it'll help much. But it's a god, or at least a demigod, so why not magic and myths?"
"Well, magic at least is real.. now," Vasterlion notes. "And it's supposed to be related to the Sifras somehow, so if this monster is afraid of them it should be afraid of magic as well. I don't know about weaponizing magic however - the mages here from Sinai seem very adamant that that is a bad idea. But then I also hear rumors of magical battles in New Zion, near the Silent-Ones embassy, but they seem.. mythical."
Tasha raises her hands in a shrug. "If it was just Abaddon and its people, or just Sinai, or both I'd agree. But it's not. There are great powers at work that eclipse us and our tiny little part of the galaxy. If we weren't on a Sifran power base, we'd be very inconsequential." And her hands fall, fingers wihggling towards the Eeee business man. "So we can't be afford to play that safe. That thing has been manipulating and spying and undermining for countless years. Things are changing. It's tried to kill you, it's tried to kill my family, it tried to kill me and it wants a lot more than that. We have to beat it somehow." Besides, it's in the way. We can't risk approaching Arcadia with that thing at our backs.
"Tell me more about this mystery material," Vasterlion asks. "It's not from the Expedition Era, I take it?"
"Which one? The topogoric -- folded and compressed space time? It's from the volcano creatures, who may have arrived through what we can only guess is a rift. A Forbidden Zone. A rift to where, when, or what reality we don't know. But where-ever it comes from, it can convrt energy and do many strange things. Remiel knows more than I do," explains the young woman.
The hybrid's face then scrunches up, ears going askew. "This is going to sound a little crazy, but I once had a dream -- a nightmare really -- that topogroic was used to upgrade a Titan to have similiar abilities to the creature itself. I also saw an upgraded Mel, a 'super gryphon' variant. We can probably make the, uhm, what is it-- later, the later design, but the ... former? Former, that's just a guess."
"Are those creatures still around?" the Viceroy asks. "They must have been able to use this stuff, and generate whatever power it required. Even a dead one may tell us something. I don't suppose you've already left a sample of this toporgic back at the Sandbox?"
Tasha nods. "We did, I have another sample with me in my pocket for the others to examine. As for the creatures they might still be out there just, um, floating around and eating rocks and like that. I planned to ask Eli be assigned to investigate them but he's busy. Poor Remiel here is just helping us because we're stretched so thin, so it may be me that has to look in ot them and I'm already too busy."
"Well, I suggest you make the time," Vasterlion says with a grin. "Knowing how they use or produce this material will accelerate things greatly. Imagine if we could tame them as mounts for the Titans?"
The young woman wrinkles her nose. "They're very ugly though. Yes I know that's being picky." She sucks in a breath, holds it, then exhales and sinks further to the point of looking rather uncomfortable about it. "It looks like I'm going back to the wastes, then. I'm really not qualified for biological research, but maybe Harmonia can help. Or Remiel." She turns to eye the man.
"The creatures respond to radio signals," Remiel points out. "The monster could be able to control them. And Melchior is the only one with the range to get there, unless you want to reassign Harmonia's flight path, which would just leave Ajax for transport between here and the base."
Tasha reaches up to rub her face all over again. "Mel doesn't have much left over if I go here myself, though. It can be done but it'll be close, like last time. Alright I'll do it." Her hands slide down, stretching her face. "Make sure you have anything I need on my datapad before I go, for upload to Mel. Expert systems, data, anything. It'll just be Mel and I and neither of us are scientists. If I can I'll try and come back with parts, or, um, one of them. All of them?"
"You need to use Melchior's maser to try and.. leash one of them," Remiel suggests. "Get it to follow you. If it suddenly drops dead after a certain distance from the Forbidden Zone, then we can see about using Harmonia or a Titan carrier for picking it up. Hopefully you can drag it back to the Winged Citadel were it can be contained."
"Droving. Well, droving I can do. Me and my microwave whip," the young woman agrees. She sits up now, hunching forward and more alert. "Try and be ready to recieve it if you can be. It's probably not a good idea to let it near the city or any infrastructure areas, like the railraods or water storage areas. We don't know how safe they are."
"The Citadel has a radar dish," Vasterlion notes. "If you figure out the frequency needed to pacify the creature, they should be able to hold it for study. So.. be sure to experiment when you find one."
Tasha flicks her ears. "Shoot strange creature with random electromagnetic effects. It sounds like something Gab- The Captain would warn me about not doing." She grins. "Poke things, drove things, fly a long way and back with cargo. Well it's my speed anyway." She glances at her clock. Less than a day. "Well it was nice to be back for, um, half a day. Again."
"I eagerly await the results of this excursion," the Viceroy says, clapping his hands together. "I will speak to the Knights about preparations. I assume you will be staying at the Council headquarters while in town?"
"I'm thinking of moving my quarters to the cockpit, I'm just in town too much these days. I could save time by living in my vehicles." Tasha wigglers her ears and smiles. "Yes, in town. In my bed."
"I'll have word sent when a containment option is available," Vasterlion says. "Is there anything else you need from me.. that I can actually do in the immediate future?"
"Did you find anything strange about my blood samples?" Tasha asks, head tilting.
"There isn't much difference between Karnor and Vartan blood, so.. nothing surprising," Vasterlion says after looking up something in his notebook. "You've got several antigens not found on Abaddon, but that's normal for someone growing up on a different planet with different disease vectors. Your blood type is Vartan A though, which makes you compatible with Karnor O-type. Your doctor probably already knows that though."
Tasha eyes Remiel. "Don't steal my blood," she warns him shaking a finger his way before turning back. "Well, I think that's it for me. Remy will want to share all his interesting numbers with you, but I'll just be in the way for that. So, I'm going to get going and try to enjoy some time back in the Pit while I can."
"Don't forget to collect Shojo on the way out," Remiel notes, and the Viceroy comes around the desk to shake Tasha's hand.
Tasha's brows raise at theapproach and show of respect. She immediately stands up and returns the hand shake, right back to formal attention. "Thanks for helping, Mr. V. I hope it'll be profitable as well as safe, for all of us. I'll just go rescue Shojo now." She turns to Remiel and perks her ears. "Have fun, Remy. You know how to reach me if you need me."
Both men get a nod before Tasha turns around and sees herself out. Back and gone again, one after another. Deal with Katha-hem, or make a run for Arcadia? And now the snail-things. I hope you can hold out a little longer, Adam. Even the complications are becoming complicated.
Several minutes later, Tasha emerges from the odd building with Shojo. There's a vehicle waiting, probably to take them back to Elamoore, but their way to it is blocked by a shiny black motorcycle. And leaning on it, also wearing a shiny black jumpsuit, is Katherine Vesuvius. She doesn't look very happy though.
"Save me Shojo." It's supposed to come out as a joke, but the whispered tone and flattened ears betray her words. Katherine Vesuvius can scare Tasha on levels she didn't even know she had and lead her around by the nose on levels she did know she had. And now, she's mad. No giggle this time, but the young woman still stutters her greeting just the same.
"H-h-hi Katie."