NationStates Jolt Archive

Colonel Stephanie Matyus folds her arms, artificial sunlight glinting off the burnished steel insignia on her chest. "Riiiiiight."

Doctor Kuromori Giichi points again to his boxy schematics. "Colonel, you know this will solve the SDF's tactical inefficiency. Sure, slapping together two Supreme Emperors is a good idea, but it can't hold both sufficient aerospace fighters and Heavy Gear to make an effective combined-arms force."

"We've read reports from Sigma Octavus... hell, we've read reports from across the multiverse. Variable craft simply aren't feasible given modern technology, Doctor Kuromori."

"Jeebus H Hyskos... we have the technology now. More than enough power can be got from miniaturized versions of Treznor's cold-fusion reactors; Karmabaijan's Heavy Gear experience coupled with both its and Zero-One's myomer technologies make it strong enough; experiments with Eniqcir's utility fog ships and Sakkra's organic engineering have applications in structures and design... we can pull it off."

The colonel sighs and looks out the window just in time to watch a massive mound of dirt built up by engineering bulldozers melt into a dense puddle of... stuff. A few people standing by an odd cone-shaped device jump up and hug each other. "Doctor, I respect your work... and coming from both the Black Knight and Spacedy Ant teams, I know you're brilliant. But you're a gravitic engineer, not an aerospace one, and without a gravdrive, that... brick simply won't fly."

The doctor grins slightly, almond-shaped eyes flashing under epicanthic folds. "Ah, that's where you're wrong, ma'am. Guess what I have."

((OOC: *tagz0r*))

I sense the strong energy of potentially interesting developments emmanating from this thread.........*tag*

"I present to you... the Mark Eighteen."

An audible sigh. Not visible, because after the steel doors swing shut on their hinges, the light from outside disappears. "Wow. Darkness... Doctor, you never cease to amaze."

Doctor Kuromori curses his botched attempt at theatrics. "Where'd that smegging lightswitch get off to? I practiced this presentation too... ah, here it is."

Click.

Colonel Matyus blinks once, pupils set into hazel irises quickly contracting to adjust to the light. Looking around the spare shop--over the red toolchests, benches of neatly arrayed tools and half-built components, across some device sitting in a little red toy wagon, and various chalk- and white-boards covered in hand-drawn sketches and tape-held printouts. "I'm not seeing anything."

Kuromori blinks, but not because of the light. Walking up to the colonel, he points. "It's right there, in the middle of the room."

Stephanie raises an eyebrow. "The thing in the wagon?"

"Yes!' Kuromori moves quickly towards it, proud of his ingenious contraption the size and approximate shape of a large tacklebox. "Currently the pinnacle of Scolopendran engineering. Hardly a transit drive--oh no, not at all by today's standards--but highly responsive. Gravity distortion comparable to the Mark Seven dropship transit gravdrive but without the commuter bus size. Response in excess of the Mark Eleven fighter gravdrive but much, much smaller than a groundcar. Combined with Treznor's XML fusion plants," he pats the little gravdrive like an old pet, "this'll easily fit in a Gear torso."

"Wow... Doctor," Stephanie manages after a short pause, "you may be onto something there. A gravy-equipped Gear... still, it's ugly, at least in bird form..."

"XML-based airflow fusion drives. One core per lower-leg assembly."

"With control surfaces that..."

"Were designed by the aerospace engineering staff in their off hours. They thought it... amusing."

Stephanie sighs, then chuckles slightly as she holds the bridge of her nose with one hand. "You've got this all worked out, don't you? So, what can I blame for your dedication? The otakudom of Reploid Productions?"

Kuromori giggles. "What can I say? I'm a mad scientist! So, do I get funding or what?"

<taggedy>

"Hokay, sir. Er... thanks. I guess."

The face on the other end of the communicator line laughs darkly. "He's your problem now, Colonel. Enjoy being Project Officer." Leaning forward, the image switches itself off, quickly replaced with the Triumvirate of Yut trefoil-and-triangle.

"Jeebus H Hyskos." Matyus leans back into her chair, firmly rubbing her temples with her middle and forefingers, knocking a few mahogany strands out of place. Holding them in front of her eyes, she sighs again. "Great, grey. I swear I'm gonna have Bride of Frankenstein grey by the time this is over."

Doctor Kuromori peeks in from the doorframe, looking like a Japanese version of Kilroy, nose firmly pressed against the edge of the door, fingers curled round. He pokes his head in further to announce, "Well, ma'am, at least it'll look cool."

"Giichi!" The colonel picks up the first thing that comes to hand--a small foam ball colored to look like the Earth, quickly distorting into a squished oblate ovoid as her fingers curl around it--and chucks it at the short man. He ducks back behind the door, the foam ball poffing slightly off the frame where his nose had been and dropping to the floor, the carpet killing its momentum. "Can't you knock sometime, dammit? How long have you been listening?"

The doctor pokes his head back out. "I just arrived. I heard a sigh, and not wanting to intrude overmuch I--"

"Either get in the damned room or stay out," Stephanie snaps, folding her arms. Kuromori steps in, ducking down to snatch up the ball and toss it back to the colonel in one smooth motion. She catches it, draws back, and throws it hard again at the doctor; only an instinctive turn to the side saves him from going fetal on the floor. "Damn, Colonel, you're poorer company than usual."

Stephanie grumps, leaning back in her utilitarian but comfortable office chair. "Well, Giichi, I've got good news and I've got bad news."

"Oh... kay..." Giichi rubs his chin. "Bad news first."

"The good news is you have funding."

"Oh." The scientist blinks, not knowing whether to be happy that he got his funding or sad that his wishes were ignored. He settles on a half-smile. "Yay."

"The bad news is that I am your Project Officer."

"Oh." His half-smile falls. It falls so far, Satan rubs his pate and looks up, wondering if he needs to get the roof fixed.

"Yes, we can start work on your LAG. We have a budget to build a team, liasons to work with KCTS and TME Industries design bureaus, and staff from across the Triumvirate. Apparently, Advisor Hawke and a bunch of people up in TYCSHQ think that if you can pull it off, your idea will go very well with the projected deployment and purpose of O'Neill and the other projected Sky Marshal-class system defense fortresses."

Giichi nods slowly.

"That's if you can pull it off." Stephanie stands up and leans over her desk slowly, hands firmly settling on the upper corners of the blotter-like communicator/computer screen. "If you don't pull it off, both our asses are on the wire. They want results by the time O'Neill launches."

"But... it's scheduled to come out with the Fifth Combined..."

"Results, not full production. And I'm going to make bloody well sure," she veritably growls, "that you get smegging results or, I swear, Giichi, I'm going to make you wish that a kzin was tapdancing on your skull with mithril football clea--"

The door flies open with a slam, revealing one of the people hugging by the cone-shaped device earlier. His synthetic orange jacket is labeled "MELTA TEAM" on one pocket. "Great news, everybody! We've completed a test firing, and we totally squished this hill! It was awesome!"

"Err..." The colonel blinks, the steady swing of her tirade broken. "Um... that's good. Really good. Could you... ah... get out of my office now, please?"

The silly-villian nods. "Sorry, ma'am. Just... er... overjoyed, you know." He gives a sloppy salute, ruins it further with a goofy grin, and runs out.

Doctor Kuromori scratches the back of his neck. "I'm going to be getting to work now," immediately shuttling towards the door and closing it with a click. Colonel Matyus, on the other hand, slowly walks around her desk, leans over, and picks up the foam ball. Returning to her desk, she brings up some e-paperwork with her right hand, her left hand squeezing over Foam Earth.

Asia loses about ninety percent of its volume. Casualties are estimated in the billions.

<<WHAMP>>

Xavier "J.C." Tolwyn would tell you that he was the best. His colleagues would tell you he was crazy, reight before telling you he was the best. He was currently sitting in the cockpit of a Gunshin-class heavy gear, the standard TYCS combat mount. The Gunshin itself, however, was in a Loki's vehicle bay, crusing above Camp Restricted at 13000 meters.

"This is Test director to Rocky-1, we are go for the test. 5 minutes to green. Conditions are within saftey limits. Monitoring and telemetry systems online and active. Chase-cams active. All systems go for test...and Captain Tolwyn, lets try to stick to the test procedures this time, please?"

Damn eggheads aren't going to stop me from having fun...that's for damn sure.

Tolwyn smiled to himself as he stood the gear up in the bay. Alarms sounded as the bay depressurized and the door motored up.

"Dammit! Cal! I told you the stabilization system needed tweaked for the extra weight! We need to dial in more positive x. Make a note."

On the ground, Cheif Master Sargeant Cal Cenkowski glowers at an enlisted maintenance man. Recieving a fear-of-god look back, he keys his mike. "Affermitave sir. We'll take care of it." He turns back to the rating, "Forgot to make the correction didn't you airman?" A two minute window-rattling, ass-chewing commences, and ends with CMSgt Cenkowski feeling a lot better than he was previously.

Back aboard the Loki, a red light above the door flashes on and a klaxon begins to sound.

"Thirty seconds! Stand in the door! 3! 2! 1! GREEN LIGHT!"

Tolwyn takes a running leap at the hatch, the 10 ton humanoid vehicle doing a somersault as soon as it hits slipstream. The response to the manuever is less than surprising.

"JESUS CHRIST TOLWYN! THIS IS THE LAST DAMN TIME! STICK TO THE SMEGGING TEST PROGRAM, OR I'LL HAVE YOUR COMISSION!"

Stuff it, eggy.

He tucks the gear's arms and legs in, making a vehicle with the aerodynamics of a brick as aerodynamic as possible. From the odd shaped pod on the back of the massive V-engine, two long, thick wings scissor out, the advanced neural net control system positioning the control surfaces spaced along them ten-thousand times a second. The gear suddenly takes on a foward flight vector, as the wings begin producing lift, although the whole contraption still falls like a brick. A brick with wings anyway. Tolwyn pulls the gear into a tight descending spiral, and then straightens out allowing the pack to carry him foward.

"Tolwyn, Jesus. We said no more than 10 degrees of bank! You just broke 75! Christ, your going to kill somebody."

"Ease up doc. She's holding together fine. Approaching landing interface. Standby."

Tolwyn's voice took on a hint of seriousness, as the ground loomed ever larger in his omnidisplay. A thruster on the pack fires, orienting the gear legs to the ground, as it passes through 500m. At 200m the four large braking thrusters on the pack fire, and the gear touches down with a loud thud, no worse for the wear.

"Touchdown. Test complete. Begin data analysis. Tolwyn, I'll see you in my office ASAP." He turns to his co-director, "He is done. I want him off my project immediatly. Clear it with the boss."

"You sure sir? JC is the best pilot we have."

"JC? What's that, his callsign? What does it mean?"

"Story goes it was a common phrase his instructor pilots associated with him during his primary training. Judging by your reaction, I tend to believe the story.

"Jesus Christ....."

http://okcac.freeyellow.com/doga/Gunshinloki.JPG
http://okcac.freeyellow.com/doga/Gunshinbrake.JPG

Tagged in awe.

(Ooo... second sideays mention of Wellstone-related technologies in a week. TAGZOR!)

"Report, Giichi." The colonel leans back in her chair, desperately trying to relax, regulation boots up on the windowsill as she watches the clouds roll past.

"Well..." Doctor Kuromori looks left and right nervously before experimenting carefully, "...Steph... I've been building a team. We've got some potentials from Sakkra for their organic tech... TME Industries and KarmaCorp TechSystems are on the line... I'll try sending feelers 'round the Eniqciri nanoengineers too to see what they can bring to the table."

Stephanie doesn't seem to notice, mind, or care about the use of her first name. "So you've a development staff?"

"Working on it. Manufacturing we're lining up through TME and KCTS. Operational side... we've got techs and engineers lined up, of course, but we don't have anyone with the cross-training that we can get working on with interfaces and training right now."

"Who we need is someone who doesn't mind flying a shapeshifting Gear with the aerodynamic properties of a lead whiffle ball. What we need, Giichi," she raises one long finger, still looking out the window, "is a crazy motherfu--"

With that, a Gunshin swoops up and lands in a field, rockets on its wingpack firing to bring it to a smooth kneeling landing. Standing back up, it folds up its wings and bows to the random people milling around buildings outside. Not knowing what else to do, they clap at the crazy guy in the ten-ton Gear.

Steph's eyes go wide, her nostrils flare, and she kicks her boots off the sill as she stands up and points slowly at the grey-camouflaged gear. "We need that one."

<tag for bulky flying target goodness>

"OK, begin the warmup sequence, and do it smartly."

His team of technicians stiffen slightly in their seats.

"Proceeding with the checklist Dr. Sudholsky."

An warning siren and flashing lights begin operating around the engine test cell, the bulk of the new experimental engine secured tightly to the stand, telemetry and control leads running about it haphazardly.

"Safties removed. Gravitic containment active. Reaction mass flow rate nominal. Begenning ignition sequence. 5% flow."

Within the core of the engine, hydrogen began fusing into helium, the energy turning the turbine blades slowly at first, but ever faster.

"We have 15% output. Ignition successful. Telemetry looks good. Permission to proceed, Doctor?"

The KarmaCorp TechSystems PropulsionWerks veteran nods slightly, authorizing the next portion of the test sequence. The technician operating the throttle advances it slowly, feeding the engine's appetite for monotomic hydrogen.

"30% projected output, conditions nominal."

In the test cell, the blue glow at the rear of the engine turned into a bright blue spike growing longer with the increasing power. Dr Sudholsky stands at the thick viewing window, the layers of Transpariplast keeping out the piercing noise of the engine.

"Test objectives met, doctor."

"Very well, begin shutdown procedures. What's this?" An orderly hands the doctor a message and begins to make his way out of the test control room. Suddenly, he trips over a power cable laying across the ground, right into the technician operating the throttle. The throttle is instantly jammed full open, diatomic hydrogen flooding the reaction chamber in an explosion of pure power. The engine howls at the power setting, fully 120% of design spec. But that isnt the only thing howling. Inaudiable over the engine, the test stand shrieks, as the force of the engine thrust vector shears the unit completely from the frame. Unencumbered with its stand, the engine launches out, and punches right through the loading door of the test cell, skittering down the tarmac outside. Its support lines follow as long as they can, but quickly snap as they run out of slack. Cut off from its fuel, the engine sputters out and skreeches to a stop in a heap of twisted metal and parts.

Dr. Sudholsky stands stunned, looking through the hole at the engine lying 300 yards down a taxiway. The senior technician takes charge.

"Emergency fuel cutoff! Kill the power! Roberts, get on the horn and notify Ops to halt all activity in this sector. Dispatch the on-call hazmat team to secure the test article."

Another technician comes running in the room, MELTA TEAM emblazoned across his jumpsuit. He holds a mason jar.

"Guess what?" He gestures to the jar, containing a thick grey liquid. "This used to be 3 tons of armor plate! Can you believe it?"

Everyone in the room looks at the new arrival. A junior technician speaks first.

"Where the hell do you guys come from?"

"Great, just great."

"It's not my fault, Steph."

Matyus sighs, leans back, and kicks her boots up on the desk. "Yeah, Giichi, I know. Still, you think we could trust ever-loving KarmaCorp TechSystems not to frack things up. Somebody could've gotten killed."

"Still... after the system was reset--"

"Rebuilt, you mean."

Doctor Kuromori rolls his eyes. "Reset, the engine performed admirably just as per the design specs. Besides, the only reason it ripped off the test stand is because it put out more thrust than was theorized."

"And someone fracked up."

"Yes, and someone fracked up. Not the point."

Stephanie folds her arms, leaning precariously in her office chair. "So what's next?"

"Well..." Giichi looks at his clipboard. "Next we've got a gimbal test. We're going to experiment with the 'toe' thrust vectoring and see how that works out."

"Good. Rumor's already out that the LAG is a gremlin magnet, no thanks to those twerps from MeltaAAAAHH!" As Giichi raises a hand in warning, the casters of the colonel's chair overcome static rotational friction and roll as they were designed to, throwing her center of balance far behind the base as the back of her chair (with her in it) describes a graceful parabola. Her arms fly out in front of her, rich brown hair streaming, legs kicking as she goes down with a surprised whoop.

Grimacing, the doctor lets his warning hand remain hanging in the air, forgotten. Hearing the door open, he turns around slowly, eyes catching on the glossy dark blue "MELTA TEAM" emblazoned clashingly over painfully bright yellow synthetics. "You guys okay? I heard a crash."

Stephanie rolls her head just so she can see past the side of her desk. "Yeah. I'm okay."

"Oh, good." The guy flashes a goofy grin. "Didja hear? We got an armor plate test." He produces a mason jar of grey liquid and tosses it to Giichi, who nearly almost catches it. The jar falls onto the carpet with a soft whump and stays there. "Armor plate. We're givin' it all out to other teams, y'know, to inspire or sumptin.' Believe in yourself and follow your goals, you can reach your dreams. We're living proof."

Stephanie mumbles something to herself.

Kuromori nods slowly. "Errr... we'll keep that in mind."

The MELTA TEAM guy nods. "Hell, we'll have this thing done in time for O'Neill! Just think about it--the mythical wavefront gravy guns--they'll all be Melta's!"

"Grrrreat," Matyus groans with a nod, "good for you. Don't you have a report or something to write?"

"Oh, always. Just wanted to spread the joy! Ta!" The guy runs out, Giichi stepping forward to close the door behind the retreating yellow blazer as Colonel Matyus settles back into her fallen chair, staring at the ceiling. The doctor leans over the side of the desk, concern written across his usually jovial face. "You okay, Steph?"

"Y'know, Giichi," Stephanie raises one long finger, pointing towards the wall due to her awkward position, "that question needs to be addressed."

Kuromori blinks. "What question?"

"From the audio log of the test. Where the hell do these guys come from, exactly?"

"I don't know, Steph."

"And who do I have to sell sexual favors to so I can see that their design bureau suffers a little accident concerning a Killer Whale naval-grade tactical fusion directed-warhead missile?"

"Err... I really don't know the answer to that one."

<<RETAP>> so it doesn't get buried.

On the Titan colony of Sakkra, Bio-Engineer Chouup gives a briefing of the Organic Plate.

The lights dim, and a holo-display comes up.

http://www.5amfunnies.com/sakkra/weaponry/hull.jpg

As you can see, the plating is made up of several layers, much like a living skin. A hexagonal structure on the first layer, called the Living Cellular Layer, holds enzymes and acids garnered from the Resin Beetle, as well as the Kansee Vine and the Snel Race's Yggdrassil. These acids break up raw materials that are fed to it, such as iron, tin, stone or whatever.

After the raw material is broken down, it is processed in the Reaction Layer. This is where liquid resin begins. In this layer, special materials fed to the first layer, normally in our organic factories, become infused with the liquid resin.

The next layer is the Liquid Resin itself. This is how the plate manages to repair itself. If something manages to penetrate down to the liquid level, it seeps out and begins to harden around the breached area. The optimal temperature for this process is Absolute Zero, but it will occur at almost any temperature. The liquid resin also acts as an excellent barrier from ambient radiation due to its liquid nature.

Then there is the Dividing Layer. This keeps the liquid resin separate from the hardened layer, preventing any chemical breakdown of said layer from occuring. Also, it acts as a barrier from electro-magnetic disturbances, being that it's a natural latex structure.

Then there is the protective Exterior Layer. This is normally infused with cermite to allow atmospheric entry and protect against extreme heats. Heavily striated, yet tensile, it absorbs much of the impact from kinetic weaponry. It also allows protection of exposed parts on machinery due to that tensile nature mentioned earlier. It can bend, stretch and even twist to a degree, yet still allow the same protection the rest of the structure is given.

Any questions?

Doctor Kuromori raises his hand. "So... we actually have to feed this stuff? Seeing how it needs nutrients and what not... resources to make the resin and impregnate it with cermite?"

The plating basically feeds itself. If you want protection from, say, napalm, then you will have to 'feed' it the appropriate material. This is done through an osmotic reaction. In larger ships, such as our own, the crafts actually ingest asteroids, or any non-organic material fed to it, and digest it.

If used on MI units, however, the plating on the 'foot' sections will absorb material directly from the ground, and spread it to the rest of the plating's living layer.

"Whoa." Giichi blinks. "Cool."

Dr. Sudholsky and his powerplant team stood and admired their engine as it sat upon its new and improved test stand. This engine was Mark 2, complete with fuselage casing and some of the production model's advanced features.

The engine is powered up to the now recalibrated 70% thrust.

"Stable at 70%, doctor. Throttle friction lock set. Base safety notified and gives the green light to proceed as planned."

"Excellent. Toe vector standby."

"Ready, sir."

"Begin toe vector test."

In the test cell, the split 2 piece nozzle begins to rotate upwards, directing the exhaust stream to a maximum of 45 degrees from the normal thrust vector. After reaching its upward limit, the toe travels down to its lower limit. It returns to center and moves slowly from side to side, to a max of 10 degrees.

"Gimbal limits achieved Doctor. Proceed?"

"Affirmative. Proceed to phase 2."

The nozzle begins a series of snap movements, moving rapidly from limit to limit, as sensors record the stresses on the engine.

"Sensor 158-Echo is running a bit high, but within tolerances. There may be a material defect in the upper nozzle actuator, lower connection pin."

"Log it for immediate inspection"

Another rating speaks up. "Doctor, phase 2 complete. Proceed to phase 3?"

Echoing for the record, Dr. Sudholsky replies, "Affirmative, proceed to phase three."

The test stand begins raising up on hydraulic actuators, moving several meters higher in the cell. As it reaches its limit, the entire engine begins to rotate down at a pivot point about 1/3 of the way back from the front. It moves down until it hits full deflection, at 120 degrees from its original position. As it moves down, it reveals a smaller engine that takes up the foward 1/3.

"Knee travel limits confirmed. Gerwalk thruster deployed, proceeding with test fire."

The smaller thruster engine fires, producing a 0 degree thrust vector relative to the engines linear axis.

"All tests completed successfully. Proceed with shutdown." Sudholsky smiles as the engine spools down. He turns to face the door of the control room, waiting for the inevitable MELTA TEAM member to come bursting through. That moment never comes.

Dammit, of course they don't show up when we have something to gloat about.

"Test concluded. I want the inspection reports on my desk in 48 hours. Good job, everybody."

Colonel Matyus blinks. "Something went right? The first time?"

"Yep." Doctor Kuromori beams with pride. "Next step is for the KCTS people to put the full GERWALK assembly onto their Kunai light aerospacecraft platform and test it in flight."

Stephanie cringes. "Giichi, I admit, the skating-across-the-sky scenes from that Macross Zero movie you bummed off your Shogunate friends were cool but I don't see us as having Roy Fokker on our operations staff. No normal human can operate that kind of machinery needing that kind of reaction time and expect to live. There's a reason that thruster jumps in suits tend to be relatively simple... and those are computer-assisted."

She thinks for a moment. "Do we even have a pilot?"

Giichi chuckles. "Actually, yes, Steph." Looking at his battered particle-board clipboard, he flips over a few sheets. "I followed your orders and got the guy who landed outside the window. Lieutenant Xavier "JC" Tolwyn, late of the Flying Squirrel project."

"Late?"

"He got kicked for that stunt with the landing."

"Jeebus." Steph takes the bridge of her nose in her fingers, head bowed, and sighs. "Sounds just like the stones-of-steel testostermoron we need for this. What's the 'JC' stand for?"

"The Flying Squirrel staff just laughed darkly and said that we'd see. Oh yes, we'd see. Or something like that. Anyway, we're going to put some of that Sakkran living-hull stuff on the joint model and see how it deals with conditions. Basically rig up an engine assembly and see how it goes. Should work better than, say, armor plate."

Steph nods. "Good. I want to meet our pilot... and what about the control issue?"

"Oh, that. Dog-brain. Looks like the Zero-One mechanoids are being nice and giving us some of their Sec-2 and Football dog-brains to fiddle with. Combined with the usual neurohelmet and whatnot, it should be pretty effective in maintaining craft stability. The dog-brain will check the pilot and perform evasive maneuvers while the pilot tells it basically where to go."

"How is that going to integrate with a Gear's neural net?"

"It will be the Gear's neural net, ma'am."

"Oh. Testing the interface soon, I hope?"

Giichi nods.

* - * - *

About 500 meters away, in a compsci lab, two men sit on opposite sides of a table. One--wearing the computer guy uniform (ruffled black T-shirt with "HONOR ROLE STEWDENT" in white letters, cargo pants, glasses, three-day beard) has a portcomp rigged up to a dull metal box, gently glowing subAI core exposed; the other is wearing a red technician's jumpsuit and fingering a cheap KCTS decker's skullcap with chintzy flames along the brim, silvery 'trodes hooked up to a central collator that sends a knobby cable over to a port in the dull metal box, looking like a single dreadlock.

"You sure this thing will work?" The technician fingers the skullcap nervously.

"I've looked through the code, and it should be compatible to human baseline neural EM. The skullcap's off-the-shelf, so no hardware issues."

"I know..." The tech eyes the box. "But that's a Zero-One core, and the mechanoids don't build for compatability. If anything, S.H.O.D.A.N. probably builds in incompatibility out of spite."

"Don't be silly," the computer guy chuckles nervously, hiding his face behind the screen of his portcomp. "It's fine." Damn, those incompatibilities were a bitch to iron out. "You ready?"

"Go through it one more time."

"Okay." The computer guy sighs in a prepatory manner, holding his hands out. "I make the connection, the dog-brain reads your skull and attunes its carrier to match your source. It's already running on the right cycle, so it's just gotta match. Worst case scenario is that it'll start one-pi out of phase, which makes fully destructive interference, drowns out your source, and hurts like a bitch. But"--he raises one finger as the tech flinches--"it'll figure that out and transition one-pi over to fully constructive interference and you'll be floating. It'll sting for... oh... thousandth of a second at worst."

The computer guy pauses and looks the tech in the eye. "Ready?"

The tech breathes in deeply, holds, then sighs. "Yeah."

*click*

"Hey, this ain't so baaaaAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHOLYFRAGMYMINDISBURNINGYOUGODDAMNCOC--"

The string of obscenities tied together by the technician's mind and spouted by his lips in an overflux of pain, while impressive, is wholly inappropriate to repeat.

The computer guy gasps, clicks again, finds no change in the torrent of verbal filth, and finally pulls the jacks from the dogbrain casing just as the door opens with a flash of blue-on-yellow. "Hey, guys, guess wha--"

The technician, wild with pain, grabs the computer guy's portcomp and throws it at the intruder. Now, there's something to be said about the TME Industries PC/P:2988 Portcomp. While resembling a laptop with clean, rounded corders and edges, it is also has an armor-grade casing and shock-protected components. It is arguably the only high-grade computing device specifically designed to be run over repeatedly by thirty-ton armored fighting vehicles and maintain perfect operation.

His aim thrown off by pain, the portcomp wedges itself firmly in the drywall next to the door with a crunch, passing no more than three inches from the intruding MELTA TEAM member's head. Stopping instantly, he blinks and coughs slightly as the cloud of expanding drywall irritates his mucous membranes. "Err... just wanted to say... test... good..." He lifts his arms at the elbows and waves his hands a little. "Um. Yay." He then backs out the door, turns sharply on his heels, and walks away in a daze.

Gasping, the tech sit down. "Sorry... I'm so sorry..."

"It's not a problem," the computer guy replies, sitting on the table and putting a chummer-like hand on the tech's shoulder. "You only did what the rest of Project Pterodactyl has been wanting to do for weeks."

"Hell no, not that, dumbass," the tech snaps, "I'm sorry I missed the saggy scro--"

Again, not appropriate to repeat.

* - * - *

Zero-One Tech Support:

I wish to complain about your Security-2 Version 11.291.02 sub-intelligent decision-making protocol apparatus (model #2816101AC). After working through line by line to make it compatible with a direct human neural interface, it still doesn't work.

Every time we test it, it immediately goes straight to completely destructive interference, like it was designed to fry human minds. I mean, come on. I know COMPUSEC is important to you, but really.

Attached is a copy of my code.

I want this problem resolved IMMEDIATELY.

http://www.weirdozone.0catch.com/projects/nationstates/scolopendra/roger-dubois.gifDoctor Roger Dubois
Computer Scientist
TYCS Camp Restricted

* - * - *

What's going on, R-Kyle?

Not much, ma'am. Just got a complaint from some TYCS egghead about the Sec-2. Seeing how all the TriOp ware came from you...

Shodey parses the code, then throws back her head in c-space and cackles. Outstanding! Simply outstanding! I have to respond personally to this.

<Communications to Doctor Dubois>
{
<< Line 3910: Ditch the negative sign.
}

http://www.womengamers.com/dw/sshock2_rev.jpg
S.H.O.D.A.N. v3.0 : MCP, Q01
Chief Programmer, Security-2 Weapons System
Cetagandan Duchess of Marilac

Xavier "JC" Tolwyn sits in the ready room, reviewing the test sequence for the first flight of the Kunai prototype. It had been a month since he was kicked from the Flying Squirrel project, and he was anxious to get back in the air.

Damn eggheads and their simulators. Just gimme the damn plane, and I'll make it fly.

He reread the test profile again.

Normal, non-vectored takeoff at 150 KIAS.
Climb to 3500 meters.
Proceed with pitch/roll/yaw test, not to exceed 25 degrees nose up/down, or 40 degrees bank. Airspeed not to exceed Mach 1.
Return for conventional landing.

First time in the air in a month, and they want me to crawl around the sky? I'll be damned if tha...

His crew chief throws the door to the ready room open.

"JC," it's time."

"On the way Chief, just lemme grab a last cup of Kawfee."

A hovercar is waiting outside the briefing/test command center. They climb in and it speeds off down a taxiway. Approaching an isolated hanger on the far end of the base, the vehicle stops at a security checkpoint. As they are cleared through, the hanger doors crack open and reveal the first KCTS/TME ALACS-1X Kunai Armored Land/Air Combat System.

http://okcac.freeyellow.com/doga/KunaiMk2Hanger.JPG

"Damn, I can't wait to put that on."

"You say something, sir?"

"Nah Chief, just a little excited 'sall."

"Understandable, sir. The Kunai is one hot mother."

The ride continues in silence as the ground crews roll the Kunai out of the hanger, extend its wings from the storage postition and do their final ground checks. The hovercar pulls to a stop and JC and the Chief hop out, quitley admiring the lines of the test vehicle.

http://okcac.freeyellow.com/doga/KunaiMk2Taxi.JPG

A ladder extends from the side of the cockpit. JC climbs up and straps in, his crewchief connecting the neural feeds of the helmet to JC's headware, and then plugging the thick optical cable bunch into the interface computer. Turning the master switch on, Tolwyn activates the radio systems with a quick thought.

<<JC is up, proceeding with start sequence.>>

<<Affirmative>>

Back in the control center, the test team gathers around the status monitors, as Dr. Sudholsky watches the power up procedure. The twin fusion engines spin up perfectly, the intakes open and collecting reaction mass in the atmosphere. In an adjacent hanger, an Excalibur-class fighter outfitted as a chase/camera aircraft also starts up.

<<Startup complete. Ready to taxi.>>
<<Roger, Sabre-1, flight of 2, cleared for the active, runway 18R.>>
<<One>>
<<Two>>

At that moment, JC makes a decision, and lives up to his name. Shoving the throttles foward, he disables the vectored thrust limiter and deflects his exhaust full up, shoving the Kunai's nose steep into the air. The tremendous power of the engines is the only thing that keeps the aircraft off the ground, as sheer thrust overcomes drag and gravity, flinging the craft into the air. The excalibur chase plane does his best to keep up, but finds himself quickly circling back, looking at a diminishing dot hurtling straight up through the thin Titan atmosphere.

http://okcac.freeyellow.com/doga/KunaiMk2TakeOff.JPG




http://okcac.freeyellow.com/tolwyn.jpg

"Oh... Lord..." Colonel Matyus watches the Kunai streak up into the sky with a groan. This is what I wanted... right?

As the aerospace testbed disappears into the clouds and wild blue yonder, Steph shakes her head and catches a glimpse of eye-shocking blue-on-yellow. For reasons she can't quite explain, the heel of her hand immediately falls to rest on the butt of her standard-issue powergun pistol. The idle MELTA TEAM technician, completely oblivious to the threatening move, chews on his gum, human cud.

"So... ah... whatchya doin'?"

Stephanie growls a low, nearly inaudible response. "Imagining how large a hole this one-centimeter powergun would bore in your head and how, if I were male, I could take advantage and so sk--"

"Pardon?" The MELTA TEAM tech looks over, quirking up an eyebrow as he lifts up his bulky ear protection, still smiling between large chomps on the rubbery blob in his mouth.

"Nothing," Matyus answers with a chirp, grinning maybe a touch too broadly, with a bit of the kzinret in her teeth.

"Oh, okay." Letting the bulky red boxes of his protection flump back onto his ears, the technician wanders off.

There's a click of a safety being activated. TYCS protocol clearly states that weapons of active-duty personnel on duty must be ready to fire at a moments notice, safety off and block engaged. If it's dire enough to point the weapon, it's dire enough to kill.

God damn, those guys piss me off...

HOLY SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT

That single thought echoes in JC Tolwyn's head as the acceleration pins him to his seat. The Kunai rockets upward, large intakes fueling the hungry engines with reaction mass. Suddenly, the outside view changes, the starfield becomes sharper, and Saturn hangs above like a benevolent god smiling down upon him. The engines sputter out as the craft breaches the atmosphere, waiting for a command from JC to switch to the stored reaction mass.

34 seconds to atmo service ceiling..that is...amazing.

The Kunai hangs for a moment, JC sitting in stunned silence at the power at his control. The radio blaring in his head finally jarrs him from his thoughts.

<<DAMMIT TOLWYN! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!>>

The frantic voice of the comm officer made JC smile. He responded in the sterotypical fighter pilot drawl, rumored to have its roots with another test pilot, long ago, with his bright orange, needle tipped aircraft.

<<Jest stretchin' her legs a bit, 'sall. Chill out down there, I'll bring 'er back 'jst fine.>>

He noses the craft over, reaction control thrusters firing along the nose and tail, pointing the Kunai back at the once barren rock of Titan. He issues a mental command to the power systems and monatomic Hydrogen floods the reaction chembers, fusing quickly to helium and shoving the craft foward again. The leading edges glow a light orange as the craft interfaces with the atmosphere, advanced composites keeping it from burning up. Breaking through the upper atmosphere, Tolwyn executes a series of acrobatic maneuvers that the Kunai takes in stride, not even straining at the excessive g-forces. The Excalibur chase craft finally catches up--sort of--its cameras automatically tracking the Kunai, and relaying the scene to the ground.

http://okcac.freeyellow.com/tolwyn.jpg
Lieutenant Xavier "JC" Tolwyn
TYCS Test and Evaluation Pilot

Scolopendran News Service
"Because It Sucks to be S.I.N.-less

"And now, we go to our feature story."

A simply-dressed Asian woman holding a boom microphone and wearing some sort of windbreaker standing beside what is apparently an airfield of some sort, with the traditional windsock quite visible. "This is Veteran Reporter Mei Suk Yu reporting from the top-secret zone of the Triumvirate of Yut Combined Services Camp Restricted, where we've just been told there's two projects scheduled for the new, mysterious 'SDF' that will be launched with the Fifth Combined next spring. First is a recorded message from the leader of what is described as the 'more successful' of the two projects... Doctor Pho Hammuh.
Um... yeah. Y'see, we're building a weapon. Real nifty weapon, y'see, and it uses... ah, can I say that? Oh, good. It uses subspace and anti-gravity. May or may not be some induced singularities in there, but I can neither confirm nor deny that. Actually, lemme explain it in a picture:
http://www.obvious.fsnet.co.uk/brick/brick.jpg
Yeah. That's our declassified prototype. Pretty swift, huh? It's got a V12 in a stretch Viper frame, and that bit on the back is our proto-- hey, someone switched out my slide!

http://www.weirdozone.0catch.com/projects/nationstates/scolopendra/pho_hammuh.gifDoctor Pho Hammuh
Leader, TEAM MELTA
TME Industries

The image returns to the Asian woman and the airfield. The camera shakes slightly as the cameraman moves, and obviously the news team is walking towards a uniformed female looking up nervously. "And, I have with me here Colonel Stephanie Matyus, leader of the Pterodactyl project, which I've been told is one of the most ambitious projects ever to come out of Camp Restricted. Colonel! Colonel!"

The uniformed woman looks down. "Eh?"

"Mei Suk Yu--"

"I don't think so, miss--"

"--Scolopendran Independent News."

"Oh."

"What can you tell us about Project Pterodactyl?"

"Uhh..." Looks up, then down. "It's... ah... secret. And dangerous. Very much dangerous. Err..." Looks up. "mind if I get back to you on that?"

The Asian woman looks back at it. "There you have it. Secret, mysterious, and probably beyond our wildest dreams. You never know what'll come next from Camp Restricted."

A flash and a flinch from Matyus, who can then be heard to say, "Oh... just heat lightning in the clouds... heh heh heh..." She doesn't look jovial in the least.
"In other news, we have just received a tape from the Camp Restricted archive concerning Colonel Matyus's concerns with Project Pterodactyl:"

Project Pterodactyl Declassified Leadership Notes

Oh, I'm doomed. Doomed doomed doomity doomed. Soooooo damned doomed.

http://www.weirdozone.0catch.com/projects/nationstates/scolopendra/stephanie_matyus.gifColonel Stephanie Matyus
Project Director, Project Pterodactyl
Triumvirate of Yut Combined Services
"In sports, Dinsdale Vircotti scored three points in yesterday's..."

Months of hard work.

After getting through every design and test phase, the team finally had an operational Pterodactyl prototype, standing proudly in a secured warehouse. The legs contained the engines and 'thrust vectoring' system tested on the Kunai. The complex, carefully-crafted and mobile joints were coated in Sakkran organic armor for better protection and mobility. Deep inside its blocky body lay Doctor Kuromori's gravitic drive.

http://www.weirdozone.0catch.com/projects/compyart/tmbpterodactyl-warehouse.jpg (http://www.weirdozone.0catch.com/projects/compyart/pterodactyl-warehouse.jpg)

For all the hard work, JC Tolwyn was unimpressed. "You want me to fly that?" His face described the usual disgust of the test pilot for any ground-pounding piece of machinery.

Giichi nods. "Actually, yes."

"That's the most complex bit of machinery currently at this camp, Lieutenant," Matyus adds quickly. "This is the only operational Pterodactyl prototype and we simply can't risk losing it, so please don't pull any stunts with it..."

"Eh, don't worry, ma'am." Tolwyn smirks smugly. "It's got wings, so I can handle it."

* - * - *

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

Fracking ground-pounding piece of junk.

Tolwyn stomps the five-meter mecha out onto the tarmac, looking around in his simsense virtual reality rig. "So, what now?"

"We're going to actually let you try something for once, Lieutenant." Matyus speaks in clipped tones, short and direct. "Run around, then fire the jumpjets for an extended jump and convert to fighter mode. After that, follow the usual flight profile."

"Sounded silly in briefing," JC grumbles, "and it sounds silly now." Still, as ordered, the Heavy Gear stomps down the tarmac before leaping into the air, the roar of superheated air following immediately after as the fusion cores in the legs do their work.

Talk about F-104 Effect... if you put big enough engines... Tolwyn reaches forward and slides down the "F" lever. There's a quick chatter and rush of well-oiled machinery as, on the outside, the legs are straightened, torso is tilted back, and the arms rotate to the aft, wings deploying. Pushing itself into the sky, the Pterodactyl is soon joined by a Phantom III chase-plane.

Great. The ride's such a bore they send along a Phantom.

http://www.weirdozone.0catch.com/projects/compyart/tmbpterodactyl-fast.jpg (http://www.weirdozone.0catch.com/projects/compyart/pterodactyl-fast.jpg)

All in all, the Pterodactyl doesn't perform much worse than the Kunai, thanks to the gravitic drive... but it is slower. Much slower. Too slow, especially at the typical egghead test speeds.

"Alright, Tolwyn, prepare for transatmospheric test. Might as well see how it does in space and re-entry."

"Hokay, fine." Tolwyn pulls up the stick and grins. Time to put the balls to the wall. Taking the ball-grips of the throttle, he pushes them full-forward, almost against the forward wall of the cockpit.

>> ACCELERATION/VELOCITY LIMITER ACTIVATED <<

Tolywn blinks. "What the hell?"

"We thought you might go crazy on this one... again..." Matyus explains over the radio, "so I had the tech guys install a limiter into the computer system."

Damn eggheads and officers... "Uhoh, ma'am, seem to be encountering some interference..." Leaning forward, he flips on the computer-bay fire suppression unit. As there is no fire currently in the computer bay, the modified Sec-2 brain finds itself covered in cryogenic goop and suddenly loses power.

* - * - *

About two hundred kilometers away, a technician looks up. "Ma'am, we have red-light on the computer system."

"Dammit!" Matyus punches a wall.

* - * - *

The Pterodactyl screams into space, forcing the chase pilot to push his aircraft to keep up. Tolwyn--after the Kunai--remains unimpressed. "Standard orbital profile achieved. Congratulations, you have a run-of-the-mill aerospace fighter."

"Tolwyn, cancel all GERWALK and Gear mode tests. Without that computer, you won't be able to keep control."

Bah... I'll show 'em. "Want me to bring it back down, then?"

"Yes. We can at least test its re-entry capabilities."

Bringing the blocky aircraft around, Tolwyn pushes it back down into the atmosphere, using low velocity and constant drive to not heat it too much... and "low velocity" is of course relative. Neither the technicians nor Matyus complain, as they know it's simply no use.

"Coming in for landing." Approaching the flat plain near the Camp originally designated for GERWALK testing, JC grins as he reaches forward for the "G" lever.

"Tolwyn, GERWALK tests are canceled. Get your ass to the runway and--"

He pulls the "G" lever. Shoulders traverse back to the sides, legs flip out... and the aerodynamic profile of the craft changes completely. "Shit!"

"JESUS CHRIST, TOLWYN, YOU'RE GONNA KILL SOMEBODY!"

http://www.weirdozone.0catch.com/projects/compyart/tmbpterodactyl-gerwalk.jpg (http://www.weirdozone.0catch.com/projects/compyart/pterodactyl-gerwalk.jpg)

Wrestling to keep his craft under control, Tolwyn uses everything at his disposal. From the outside, the wobbling craft staggers down towards the ground, barely held in check as the legs shift constantly to push the craft back on course and the arms flail for balance. Slowing the craft to a near standstill, he stretches out the legs to try and hit dirt running, to bring it down.

He forgets two things. One, that such landings are theoretically only possible with computational assistance. Two, that it's a chicken-walker in GERWALK mode and doesn't take well to forward instability.

The crazy Gear pitches forward, curling up protectively as JC's instincts take over his control. Pitching over its torso, it rolls slightly onto its shoulder, snapping off one wing before skidding to a halt.

* - * - *

Matyus sighs, watching the unloading process in the warehouse. "It's not a total loss, is it?"

Giichi removes his glasses and polishes them momentarily on his shirt. "Well, now we can test out the repair of it. We'll have to set up a new test-date for computer-assist GERWALK flight... but you have to give Tolwyn this... he kept it under control."

"Sure he did..." Matyus sighs again, then looks over her shoulder. "Shit. Here they come."

"Hey guys!" The balding figure of Doctor Hammuh walks up, hands shoved into the pockets of his lemon-yellow TEAM MELTA jacket. "What's up?"

Matyus jerks a thumb at the dirty, battered Gear being hoisted off of a truck. "Taking our toys and going home."

"Oh." Pho looks at the wreckage momentarily before discounting it as non-MELTA and turns back to the colonel. "Hey, you want me to tell you about how we're doing? See, the gravygun's almost complete, we've got a full-scale model just ready to--"

"No, actually, we don't want you to tell us." Giichi frowns darkly.

Pho blinks, looking at the short Asian man, then looks at Stephanie.

"Actually," the colonel grins, "I've a much better idea for a suggested course of action."

"Really?" Pho smiles. "What?"

"Why don't you go outside," she smiles sweetly, "and go f-ck yourself?"

JC sat at the base Officers Club, smiling to himself over a glass of beer.

Another project in the bag. As ugly as that Pterodactyl is, it sure was a honey to fly...drive...whatever.

Across the base, Matyus puts the finishing touches on a report to TYCS General Headquarters

...and after successfully completing all aspects of flight test, the Pterodactyl test subject hereby recieves TYCS Material Command's approval and recommendation for type-acceptance into the TYCS air branch.

She signs the report and fowards it to her secretary to error check, before leaning back in her chair.

Another project succesfully completed, and, thank the diety, no one seriously hurt. JC may be a looney, but he did make the project happen.

Matyus sighs and begins working on a memorandum for record for JC's file, detailing his accomplishments on the Pterodactyl project, including recommending him for various awards. She looks up as her secretary walks in.

"Sir, I just got off the comm with our KCTS liason. He said that they have an incoming transport with a new aerospace craft that they would like us to take a look at. We lost contact as they hit the ionosphere, but it sounded like the sender said something about a Mr. Johnson wanting to meet Lt. Tolwyn."

It only took a second for Matyus to realize who Mr. Johnson was.

"Kelley Johnson? Coming here? To meet JC? With a new prototype! JEEBUS! Find Tolwyn and get him out to the KCTS hangars, ASAP."

"Acting, ma'am."

Matyus hurridly throws on her service jacket and walks over to the KCTS hanger. Clearing security, she steps inside, the Kunai prototype looking like it is moving at Mach 5, sitting still in its corner.

Wait. Corner? That thing is their baby. Why is it in the corner?

Her question is pushed quickly to the back of her mind as the unmistakeable sound of a Loki landing directly outside the hangar. The doors part and a team of KCTS techs run out to secure the 30,000 ton dropship. The side of the MAM-C cargo pod slung underneath the loki splits open into the gaping maw of one of its loading doors and a lone man strides powerfully down the ramp.

He yells to a group of KCTS techs manning a cargoloader before addressing Matyus.

"COlonel Matyus, a pleasure to meet you again. Hope I'm not interrupting your day."

Matyus smiles and shakes the extended hand. You wouldn't care a lick if you did, old git.

"Doctor Johnson, a pleasure to see you again as well."

"Oh, drop the Doctor crap Matyus. I have a new toy that I think your boy Tolwyn would like to play with. Speaking of that, where is that crazy bastard?"

"He should be here shortly." She stares as a giant crate is unloaded from the Loki and placed in the middle of the hangar. She turns around as her commlink activates.

<<Ma'am, I found Tolwyn.>>
<<Good, get him up here, on the bounce>>
<<That might be a problem Ma'am. Seems there was....an altercation at the officers club. Tolwyn is currently in front of the base Provost Marshall recieving an ass-chewing.>>
<<Jesus Christ. Tell the PM to release him under my authority.>>
<<Wilco>>

"Is there a problem, Matyus?"

"No, Mr. Johnson, there isn't. Tolwyn will be here shortly. Now, what is it that you brought for us?

"Well, after working on the Kunai, and deducing a logical progression of what you were working on, and knowing what ugly things those hacks over at TME make, I decided to come up with my own variable fighter. Intereseted?"

The colonel sighs. "I just can't get away from these variable fighter projects... but sure, why not. If nothing else, I'll prevent you from making some of the blunders that we had to go through. Now that the concept's been proven, we can refine it."

Elsewhere...

The CINCTYCS looks over the reports of Commander Skahill, commanding officer, Corvette Patrol Force Detachment Bravo. Two Angelic Skies light cruisers destroyed only upon Angelan intervention at the cost of six corvettes and over nine hundred sapient troopers.

"Riddle me this," he says softly, putting down the folder then steepling his hands, "we outnumbered, outgunned, outarmored, and had superior mobility over these rampant EI. Why did this happen?"

"Well," his adjutant replies, "they struck so quickly our corvettes couldn't respond with their defenses in time. Once shields were raised, loss rate dropped to zero and once we started coordinating, we had the upper hand."

"As we should have all along." The commander-in-chief sighs gently. "System response times?"

"All nominal. Shields raised within five hundred milliseconds of command signal from bridge officer to do so, given that their capacitors were already charged at AlertCon. Weapon response time two hundred milliseconds for capacitor dump to erasers and lock-firing of autocannon."

"Crew response times?"

"Damn good given the situation... command and control reasserted within thirty seconds."

"At the loss of a ship every five seconds, thirty troopers every second." The CINCTYCS looks up. "I'm afraid we're reaching the limitation of human capability. Options previously put aside will have to be re-examined."

"Well... we have been kicking around the idea of upgrading ships with SMI cores. That would've helped immensely, given the nature of the opponent..."

"...as an SMI, I know." The aging man sighs again, tapping his fingers together. "After the Archangel incident, I'm still leery about that. Get Pandousco in front of a board as soon as possible. I want to know why that happened."

"Afterwards, shall I contact Camp Restricted and reactivate Project Clockwork?"

"Do that concurrently."

"Report, Commander."

Commander Skahill feels very, very small. It was natural for any officer recalled to Headquarters with a capital "H," one of the largest and most heavily fortified buildings in the system and the most heavily fortified on Titan. A giant, brick-like building, mostly underground with absolutely no pretense at architectural beauty, its sheer brutalist utilitarianism announced its purpose: This is the Combined Services. It is a military. It hurts people and breaks things.

The debriefing room is relatively dark, naturally lit only by the large window behind the semicircular desk of flag officers, back-lighting them in an effect which, if not sinister, is at least disconcerting, and several dim canister lights in the ceiling and walls which don't do much for the ambient light level except constructively interfere with each other at the 'hot spot,' the Triumvirate of Yut trefoil in the very center of the semicircle. Skahill steps forward onto this spot, surprised at the sudden change in brightness.

Salute, fingers to brow, arm straight, angle close to body. "Sir, Commander Rachel Skahill of corvette Phellus reports as ordered."

The man at the keystone of the semicircle nods and returns the salute, hand to brim of green officer's cap. A slight nod of acknowledgement makes the light flicker off his aviator-style glasses before he says quietly: "At rest. What do you think happened?"

Rachel blinks body automatically shifting at attention. "Sir?"

"We've run every post-action data analysis ever conceived on the collated whole of automated combat information from your encounter," the aging man replies, "we've checked action logs against regulations, theoretical averages, and statistical probabilities. We have the quantitative data." He leans forward slightly. "Now we need qualitative information."

"Yes, sir." Skahill nods slightly. "We were surprised. They came in fully armed and already firing; Angie sensors tech is admittedly better than our own. We didn't have time... enough time... to activate defenses and even the playing field; it took us even longer to coordinate." She frowns. "If we'd been more on the ball..."

The CINCTYCS scoffs gently and shakes his head. "There's no need to go there, Commander. If it makes you feel better, your reaction times were slightly above average for TYCS-level training. It is extremely difficult for any unaugmented human to be more on the ball than you were." Gentle smile. "Thank you for your time, Commander."

Skahill nods and, returning to attention, salutes. "Good morning, sir."

Salute. "Good morning, Commander. Is there anything we can help you with?"

Skahill frowns gently. "I honestly don't know, sir."

The aging man nods. "Fair enough. Try to have a good day."

As the Commander turns on her bootheels and walks out, the CINCTYCS leans over to his adjutant. "Call in the KSPA. It is time to compare options. How goes Project Clockwork?"

Ropponmatsu strides into the briefing room, eyes quickly adjusting to the new lighting conditions.

Damn window needs some damn blinds.

She stops at the "hotspot," but does not salute.

"Good afternoon Sink, gentlemen and ladies. I trust that you are all well. I have had a chance to review your data, and must note that we presented you with this exact scenario in TYCS:OpEval 49385-462a, the post exercise review of the Crimson Flag training exercises of last cycle. The exercise clearly showed an advantage to KSPA vessels during surprise attack, evolving battlesphere, run and gun, and other similar fast rate of change scenarios. The biological system can simply not process and execute commands fast enough to keep up with an EI, or integrated neurological interface system. Our tests show efficiency increases of several orders of magnitude across the board with our current system. The shipboard systems are simply becoming to complex to operate with only two hands. My organization sees two solutions to our problem. Start growing crewmen with extra appendages, or adopt some sort of neural interface."

Ropponmatsu pauses, reaches into her pocket and pulls out a small silver cylinder with a flat plate at the top.

"This could solve your problem overnight. The operation takes 2 minutes, with no recovery period, and your crews could be trained by next week. Ships can be upgraded with the C-space systems at the depot level, so they would not even have to return to stardock. By this time next month, the full TYCS fleet could be running on neural command. It could even extend down to the fighter level, where we have seen even higher increases in efficiency, especially relating to battlespace management and targeting."

She sighs. "The time has come to make the jump, waiting will only cost more lives."

The CINCTYCS chuckles quietly, humorlessly, folding his hands in front of him. "That is true. You also know our force structure is based off the anti-Arda Black Flag exercise results, where our planning and capabilities were quite sufficient.

"I disagree that systems have become too complicated; I believe your statement about 'the biological system' simply not being fast enough is much closer to the truth. As for standardized DNI systems"--he indicates the metallic cylinder with one finger--"the TYCS is made not only of the rather chrome-comfortable Karmabaijani but troopers from across the Triumvirate, including relatively... inadvanced recruits from the Dominion, the Empire of Treznor, and Freod. Many of them would be uncomfortable with mandatory DNI implants, and we cannot force such implants upon them."

He sighs softly. "It is a solution, yes, but it is an untenable one and is thus unacceptable. If a noninvasive DNI could be made, that would be better.

"Our current plan is to refit the fleet with sentient machine-intelligence cores, which would mesh well with the planned Block Thirteen hardware and software upgrades. DNI would compliment that well, don't you think?"

"Quite. With a SMI suggesting tactical postures and formations, needing only the approval of an organic in the loop would dramatically increase reaction times. Precautions would have to be taken to keep the crew from using it as a crutch however, as they may start to take its first suggestion without consideration. As for the non-invasive interface, we have been kicking around the idea of using miniturized magnetic resonance sensors in a helmet configuration to read neural impulses, and have had some initial successes. However, it will never be as fast as a direct link, the physical limitations are just to great. Shall I have our research transferred over?"

The aging man nods slightly, light flickering over his glasses. "Please do. I understand that Camp Restricted developed a 'neurohelmet' passive neural input interface for its Scion variable aerospace Gears... perhaps those two problems can help.

"Thank you, Agent; your assistance is quite appreciated." The CINCTYCS smiles gently.

Ropponmatsu bows her head slightly.

"The data is being transferred as we speak. We have been quite impressed with the Scion. It is just coming online with our frontline units, and we have recieved nothing but positive remarks from the pilots. Being that it is a passive interface, it will most likely have to be completly redesigned, but it should not be overly difficult. I wil make sure that we have some people familiar with the project available at Camp Restricted for the project."

She looks directly at the CINC.

"Will their be anything else, sink?"

"That will be all, Agent Roppinmatsu. Have a good day..."the 'Sink' chuckles, then continues with a droll smile, "...the lot of you."

Camp Restricted, Triumvirate of Yut Common Area, Titan

"Project Clockwork is like one of those model kits that has three parts, snaps together, and comes factory-painted. All one has to do is shake the box and it assembles itself. Zero-One already had warship-minds, the training, and culture for creating them--recruiting could simply be extended further to the machine nations; Triumvirate ship mechoptronic cores were already advanced enough to hold them, the knowbots that acted as the central processors already only a few steps below sentience; a lot of Triumvirate citizens and crews were getting used to seeing mechanoids as equals."

The tech nods, chewing his CHON slowly. "So why's it still on, Chief?"

Chief Master Sergeant Steven Durastani chuckles. "If it were only that easy, kid. For one, 'cause of Black Flag, we never got much in the way of funding. We were already the fastest draws when the other guy is a braindead flatthinker; there wasn't any need for Clockwork." He scoffs mildly, then takes a sip of orange-colored tangerine drink from his glass. "First real problem we encountered was--get this--software compatability. Ships don't have c-space because they don't need it; it takes less data and bandwidth to just shuffle raw data. 'Course, without a c-space or an iconography to work with, mechatronic minds couldn't interface with it.

"So we had to build up a c-space iconography. Not too hard, but annoying.

"Then there was the issue of what data to let the mind access. After a certain point, the ship becomes its body and it feels the ship's pain, sorta, so the brass was worried that they'd start worrying overmuch about self-preservation. Wounded warships keep fighting. Well, that got worked out with some help from the QACF. Again, just a matter of training and mindset.

"Then we had to deal with washouts--a minor problem--and they just got reabsorbed back into the society. Some needed to be healed, others were put down by their societies depending on the severity..." The chief shrugs with a frown. "QACF training is ludicrously tough.

"Then there's the amount of authority the central core gets, which is still the matter of contention today. Too much and you might as well just get rid of the crew; too little and you run the risk of flying an offended ship. Safety margins and lockdowns are the exact same way; you need to trust your ride and your ride needs to trust you."

"Well, at least funding should be fixed, given the latest..." the technician trails off, then coughs. "I just got transferred; who's in charge?"

"That'd be Navy Lieutenant Analton Curuvar, decent fellow if somewhat underappreciated, and destruction of exergy."

The technician stops, forkful of spaghetti halfway to his lips. "What?"

Chief Durastani looks up from another sip of reconstituted citrus drink. "Oh. QACF/LCR Destruction of Exergy, a Crab on loan from the Queendom. Nice guy, but it tends to be a bit on the zealous side."

"'Zealous,' you say?"

The senior enlisted man chuckles. "I'll put it how I heard a Territorian say it once. 'Okay, you get most of your limbs shot off and go "Metal is better than meat! Destroy all flesh!" at times. Now, the Bureau of Personnel says that makes you the perfect diplomat.'"
The technician turns slightly green.

"No, it's not that bad. Definitely has a disdain for things carbon-based and meaty, though. It sees this as an opportunity to improve us in some sort of Borgy way, bringing us closer to to mechanoid ideal." He takes a bite out of a meatball. "'Least, that's the vibe I get."

"Great."

Ymari "BN" Sawni licks her lips with a predatory eagerness. "So when we get to CR, we're gonna be putting a FTL drive in this boat, and gettin' me some augs?"

"Yes, assuming your still perfectly okay with the idea of chroming yerself out, BN." The reply comes over the comm from one of the Elite Victories escorting the Shogunate's latest project, and the newest addition to Camp Restricted.

"I don't mind! It'll be really freaking cool, that's what! Besides, don't you need an uplink or augs or whatnot to pull some of those awesome manuvers Firefury pulls off with her fighter?" Ymari responds excitedly. "I mean cripes! This boat flies like a dream even with all the mass an' stuff! Imagine whatcha could do with a direct control uplink!"

"... And if I recall correctly, back when Firefury was the test pilot for the Victory series, her supervisors called her 'out of her effing mind', for doing that sort of thing." Dr. Nekura dryly notes from aboard the Hamakaze 370 carrying the rest of the SWORD project's team.

The prototype SWORD lazily rolls a few times as the small convoy makes its way from the RPRA Uranian research labs to Titan, flaring its eerie looking beam 'fins', and occasionally zipping about in manuvers that indicate the massive contraption has a lot more speed and mobility than its somewhat blocky shape would imply.

"BN, knock it off already! Fall back into formation with your escort! There'll be plenty of time for dorking around with expensive pieces of equipment once we're in secure space!" Dr. nekura finally barks the order to the cavorting pilot.

It's nighttime when the convoy arrives, having gone through the extensive protocols to gain access to the area. The escort fleet remains in orbit- only the Hamakaze 370, the fighter escort, and the prototype itself make the final descent.
http://rpstudios.ian-justman.com/junk/CGgoods/SWORD-CampR.JPG

"Requesting permission for a flyby of the camp!" Ymari crows over the comm.

"Permission denied, BN, just land that thing so we can all get settled." Dr. Nekura grumps in response. "It's late, and I just want to get settled in and go to sleep."

The massive SWORD prototype breaks formation, and overflies the camp anyway with its massive engines going full throttle, giving off more than enough light to rather oddly light the immediate area, and generating enough sheer noise to roust the dead, not to mention the ire of the project's leader.

"BAKA NEKO!!!!!!!!!!"

Lieutenant Isamu Dyson stood in the observation lounge of the transport ship that was carrying him and a large team of engineers and researchers to Camp Restricted, along with some new prototype vehicles that were to be tested there. He peered out the massive windows of the lounge, looking down at the ground below as the transport ship made its approach to land, also having gone through the extensive protocols to gain access to the area. As he stared out the window, his attention was directed to the light being generated by the SWORD prototype making its way past them to its flyby of the camp.

"Hahaaaaa, now that's a pilot I can get along with!" he exclaimed, observing the flyby from the lounge. "Maybe I should go introduce myself to him..."

Isamu spun around and headed for door, making his way down to the ship's hangar bay, stopping by his quarters first to suit up. Once he was ready, he set out again for the hangar, carefully making his way through the ship while trying to avoid the engineer and research team members. Reaching the hangar without incident, he made his way to the far end to where a sleek new prototype fighter sat, just waiting to be flown.

Lieutenant Dyson made his way up to the cockpit and plopped down in the seat, closing the canopy and strapping himself in as the fighter's cockpit systems powered up.

"Nightscream, eh? Lets see what you can do..." he said aloud as he input the remote access code to open the bay door up.

Isamu powered up the engines of the fighter, watching the doors open up. Several engineers who were on their way in to make sure the prototypes were secured for the ship's landing started screaming at one another in a panic as they watched the prototype fighter taxi into launch position onto the launch catapult, streaking down the length of it at out as it launched seconds later.

"Okay mysterious aircraft, here I come!" he said as the fighter exited the ship, circling around, streaking off and making a low flyby of the camp as it followed the course travelled by the SWORD prototype.

Isamu opened up a comm link to the fighter as followed behind, trying to catch up with it. "And here I thought things were gonna be boring until I saw that flyby ya did there."

The SWORD prototype shuts off the brightly gleaming beam 'fin' weapons, zooming back up after the supersonic flyby. For a clunky looking contraption nearly half the length of a Loki, and not nearly as sleek, it's surprisingly agile.

A response comes back to Dyson, the pilot's voice loaded with disbelief.

"APEFACE?! YOU'RE here?!"

"Oh Shimeki save us all..." Dr. Nekura groans, palm to forehead in a 'why me?' gesture. "BN! Land that damn thing already! You and yer equally maniac buddy can play tag in the morning! I doubt anybody who was sleeping below is too happy right now!"

"CATGIRL!? You're piloting that thing!?"

The prototype Nightscream pulled up beside the SWORD prototype, matching its speed as it flew along with it.

"DYSON! What in the HELL do you think you're doing!? You weren't authorized to launch with that thing! What were you thinking performing a low altitude flyby? Get back here right now, damnit!"

"Sounds like we got our bosses all worked up. Heh heh..." said Dyson, shutting off the link to the ship as he ignored the yelling from his superiors back onboard the transport vessel. "I'm headin back, catgirl. Talk to you later when we get on the ground."

The fighter turned away from the SWORD prototype and headed back towards the transport vessel, flying by the bridge before attempting a landing nearby where it had set down.

"PBBBBBBBBBBT! See you on the ground, baboon-brain!" Ymari razzes the other prototype as she brings the SWORD down finally. The Hamakaze 370 has since landed and disgorged its crew, including an extremely irate Dr. Nekura.

"Baka Neko! What in the hell are you trying to do?! Get us kicked OUT of this joint? You could have raised the freaking DEAD with that stunt!!" Dr. Nekura proceeds to give Ymari a thorough ass-chewing right there on the tarmac, though the Neko doesn't look exactly... ah.. contrite. The fact she's making faces at the doctor whenever she sneaks the chance certainly cements the fact.

Damn night patrol. Damn Provost Marshall. All I did was start a little barfight....jeez, they should grow up. Why even have a damn patrol, rhat cant fart within hundreds of klicks of here without us knowing.

"JC" Tolwyn's thoughts are interrupted by the arrival of the new vessels. He pulls the brand new production model Scion Land Air Gear into a tight bank, and watches as the large craft streaks past the camp.

Good thing base housing is shock isolated underground. Only way to get some good rest with the flight schedule 'round here. Would be some mighty pissed off people if it wasnt.

Tolwyn turns toward the landing zones and cuts power to his engines, masking his approach. He glides in above the new arrivals before flipping the Scion into Gerwalk mode and landing extremely close in a burst of light and sound of braking thrusters. Activating the external speakers, he makes with his best country accent.

"Ca'n I help ya folks?"

The new arrival puts a stop to Dr. Nekura's scolding, but it causes Ymari to jump literally ten feet in the air with a shriek, the tail on the Neko's flight suit poofing up, likely signaling the furry appendage within bristling like a bottlebrush. "GAAACK!"

The Doctor, however, is not so easily swayed, as she puts her hands on her hips and glares up at the Scion with a withering Death Glare that could take the hull plating off a Shinken at 500 yards. "So you're the infamous resident maniac I've heard about? Dr. Kimi Nekura, representing the Shogunate's Project SWORD, dragging along our crew and maniac Ymari 'BN' Sawni, the test pilot. And unless I miss my guess, that OTHER maniac would be from Sneaky Bastards. Mind gettin' ahold of whoever's in charge of housing? It's bloody late, and I'm tired, cranky, and about this close-" The Doc measures out a very small distance with two fingers. "-from wanting to rip Ymari's tail out."

Cetagandan Gravity and Multidimensional Wankery Lab
Somewhere Else In Camp Restricted

" ... so you see, if we move it over there, we can increase the efficiency by nearly twenty percent," says Lieutenant (OSRD) Ryan Turino, as he takes a bite out of his donut.

"Right, whatever. You're not moving the damned refrigerator, Ryan, and that's final," replies Commander (OSRD) Helen Livahdi, his superior. "I don't care what you say, there's no possible reason for it to be in the main lab when there's a perfectly good kitchen down the hall."

"But commander, I think that -"

"No buts, Ryan. You can walk the extra twenty feet when you want a snack. The excersise will do you good. Now, are we set up for the test run for the shuttle drive?"

"Yeah, everything's set up and the power's on. Now, as I was saying-" Turino is cut off again when, moments after they enter the lab, Livahdi stops suddenly and points towards the large cluster of equipment in the center of the room.

"That had better not be what I think it is." Sitting next to the assembly of drive coils and crystal matricies is large white TME Residential Refrigeration Unit.

"Well, they always say that its better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission. And it didn't affect the last trial at all," Ryan replies meekly, as he neatly steps behind the main control console, putting it between him and Livahdi.

"My family has a saying as well: Its better to space cheeky fools than to put up with them. Remove it. Now."

Turnio's face drops, resembling a kicked puppy, but Livahdi only glares at him. "Ok, ok." As he begins to move, the room is suddenly filled with a noise loud enough to wake the dead. Turino jumps, catches his foot on a chair, and goes down with his arms flailing. He barely has time to yelp as one hand hits various switches, dials, and buttons on the console, including the red 'ACTIVATE' control. There is a flash and both of the room's occupants feel a moment of vertigo.

Livahdi blinks several time, and slowly turns around towards the main assembly. "I swear, if you blew up the generator, I will rip off your arms and beat you to death with them." She looks over the room, but sees nothing obviously wrong on either the equpiment or the status indicators. Still, something seems wrong, and eventually her eyes come to rest on a shallow, hempspherical depression in the floor.

"Where did the refrigerator go?"

A Considerable Distance Above Camp Restricted

With an slight pop of displaced air, a TME Residential Refrigeration Unit appears, several hundred meters from any kind of support. A moment later, it does what any sensible kitchen appliance in such a situation would do, and plumets downwards.

An armored bunker

A radar technician raises an eyebrow. "Sir, contact bearing ninety-degrees inclination bearing ninety-degrees declination self-relative. It appears to be a 'fridge."

The officer on watch sighs. "It's the bloody Cetagandans again. TEAM MELTA's out there. Let them play with it."

Topside

Doctor Pho Hammuh frowns, light rain drizzling over his obnoxiously bright yellow blazer with the eye-bendingly royal naval blue TEAM MELTA splayed across his back in letters so bold they'd make Casanova blush. "The Sunsetters can make it work, why can't we?"

A technician in similarily painful attire looks up from working on the car-sized brick with some vents on one end, a lot of exposed pipes and wires and such in the middle, and a wide-bored cylinder sticking out of the front. Some joker had dubbed an image of it "softcore Panzerkampfwagen Brummbar pornography" and, given its resemblance to a half-naked scaled down version of the self-propelled demolition snubgun, it made sense. "Moving stuff around is a bit different than squeezing and stretching stuff 'till it breaks, doc," he offers.

Pho's radio crackles. TEAM MELTA, this is Air Defense. There's a target bearing 30 degrees from your position, falling. Catch it before it breaks something.

"Got it," Doctor Hammuh says with a curt nod, then waves to the technicians, who turn the device on its little cart while one works at a crank to elevate the barrel. "There it is," he points helpfully at the white object falling from the sky, "grab it."

A technician looks over iron sights, shrugs, and flicks a switch, the contraption thrumming mightily as it spews forth a wave seen only by the distortion of the clouds behind it. The fridge falls... falls... falls... and is suddenly arrested in its motion by the beam traversing downwards, catching it safely.

"Whooooo!" Doctor Hammuh punches his fist into the air. "Reel it in!"

The device thrums more as the white object gets closer, the technicians smiling and joking and pointing. Still, something doesn't seem right. The refridgerator slowly stretches, buckling at its seams, as it falls faster and faster towards the device.

"It's comin' right for us!" A technician shouts.

"Cheese it!" With the order from Doctor Hammuh, the techs switch off the beam, turn the device so one of its less exposed sides is pointing towards the incoming storm of metal, then run for it, screaming the TEAM MELTA battlecry to the hills.

"Whoopwhoopwhoopwhoopwhoopwhoopwhoopwhoop!"

The ex-refridgerator, no longer being tugged along by artificial gravity forces, succumbs once again to Titanian gravity and lands somewhat short of the device, screws and bolts and nuts and coils and distorted plates of metal bouncing over the ground. The plastic crisper drawer, unusually sturdy for having been warped, bounces far enough to smack against the metal hide of the Brummbar, shattering into several pieces against the steel.

Pho Hammuh stands up from where he'd tripped, then gets a painted-wire tray-shelf in the face for his effort. He steps back as it deflects harmlessly off his pate, blinking. "Damn tidal effects."

Safely Under A Roof

"Lieutenant."

Turino gulps. "Commander?"

"If I recall correctly," Livahdi's icy tone leaves no question on the matter, "my lunch was in that refrigerator. You have ten minutes to determine where it went, or we'll see if Hyooman really does taste like the real thing."

"Yes, ma'am. I'll get right on it, ma'am."

Nine Minutes Later

Lieutenant Turino sits glumy in the lab. It had taken him nearly nine minutes to even scrounge up some basic detection equipment. Now, he had about a minute to figure what had happened. He spends half of it carefully recording the setting on the controls, before setting his handcomp down. Then, with some trepidation, he hits the on button.

There is a slight pop, a soft flash of light, a wave of vertigo...and nothing else. Turino sighs, checks his watch, and sees that his ten minutes have passed. 'I wonder where the commander is? Probably making a marinade or warming up the grill.' He wasn't sure if she was serious or not. After all, surely he would have heard at least a rumor if she was a werewolf, wouldn't he? Maybe it was something worse. 'Maybe she's calling her uncle the admiral. Or was it her grandmother? Probably both.' Visions of his name spreading through the Livahdi clan grapevine filled his head. He could practially feel the disgust of a veritable horde of Admirals and Captains Livahdi, plus every rank from commander to midshipman - and senior non-coms, which was possibly worse. No doubt other Fleet families as well, as he knew both the Serranos and Mallories were close allies of Livahdi ('Powers above, the Grand Admiral and Lady Martial.'). He'd posted on some ice moon a thousand lightyears from home for the next fifty years. Maybe being eaten wasn't so bad after all.

After a few more moments waiting to be struck down by a bolt of administrative lightning, he reaches for the last donut sitting on the desk behind the console. Then, out of idle curiousity, he activates a suspension field where the refrigerator once was and places the donut there, leaving it hovering in the air. Turino then returns to the controls and hits the red button again. Again came the pop of imploding air and other effects - and the donut was gone.

"Huh." The lieutenant races from the room, and returns a short time later with full arms. Over the next five or so minutes, several dozen pastries, a large pile of n00kies, half a leftover pizza, a head of lettuce, a banna cream pie, and the ... odd casserole that Technician First Class Gallion had made last night ('Everyone will thank me for that one, at least.') disappear for parts unknown as the lieutenant watches with wide eyes.

"Cool." Turino studies the assembly a moment, then pulls out a handcomp and strolls over. "Hey Igor, would you mind bringing me a tool kit?"

"Of courth, thir."

High In The Sky

Over the course of about five minutes, in an area about five hundred meters in radius and about a hundred meters up, a variety of edible objects begin to appear in midair. Strange coincidence, no?

Splat.

Pho Hammuh looks over to his left and sees a pizza, topping-side-down, strewn about after a terminal meeting with the ground.

With the characteristic rustling sound of leaves, a head of lettuce bounces off of his head. "Ah," he says, "maybe that's why I got involved in gravitics. My head attracts things." He looks over to his right just long enough to see a casserole dish shatter against the Brummbar.

"Right. Attracting stuff is bad now."

It doesn't matter which direction he runs in; he just runs for it.

The Lab, Late At Night

"Igor!"

"Yeth, thir?"

"Bring me a rotational spacial connection adjuster!"

"Er...right, thir." The hunchbacked man frowns (or at least the ends of his mouth goes vaguely downwards) as he looks in a tool box, before sliding a wrench to the young man buried deep inside the gravitic field generator's main core.

A short time later, Commander Livahdi returns. After procuring a salad for lunch, she had unexpectedly met an old friend and spent the rest of the day gossiping with her - or, as the official story goes, discussing new discoveries in quantum mechanics. Stopping by the lab to pick up her coat before going home, she discovers that what had once been a protoype shuttle reactionless motor was rapidly taking a new and strange shape. Studing the mass of equipment curiously, she eventually notes a pair of feet sticking out from an access comparment, from which soft snores are coming. Rolling her eyes, she shuffles through mounds of scrap paper filled with esoteric diagrams until she eventually comes across what looks to be a to-do list. Looking it over and not understanding a thing on it, she eventually adds 'Find Missing Fridge' to it, replaces the paper, and leaves the room to head to her quarters.

A Few Days Later

"Complete! It is complete!" Standing back, a slightly disheveled Lt. Turino surveys his work. The former reactional motor has been changed drastically. Most noticable is a spherical cage of wire mesh in the center to the apparatus. "Igor, vhat is next on my to-do list?"

"It thayth 'Locate Miththing Fridge,' thir."

"Excellent!" shouts Turino, rubbing his hands. "We shall test my apparatus! Igor, prepare to run up the lightning rod! What is the forcast for today?"

Igor considers for a moment "Bright and thunny and highth in the mid-theventieth."

Turino's shoulders droop. "Oh, bother. Very well, switch to auxilary power! We shall make do with the fusion reactors until we can get a real power source."

As Turino and his assistant bustle about the room, Livahdi and Senior Technician Holst watch him from the control room overlooking the lab.

"So, how long has he been like this?" she asks, taking a drink of her tea.

"Oh, a couple days now. He's been subsisting mainly on donuts, pizza, and carbonated beverages. We have managed to get him to keep taking showers, luckily."

"I hate it when they do this, there's always so much paperwork involved. I'll need to arrange a test to make sure he's Talented and didn't do something stupid like eat some of that...casserole," Livahdi says, saying the last word dubiously. "Oh, is the transmitter in place?"

"Yep. He should be finding it right about...now." A shout comes from below.

"AHA! A perfect test subject!" exclaims Turino, holding up a general-purpose tracking device wrapped in shock absorber foam, which makes it look like a nerf basketball. A moment later, the foam ball is placed gently in the mesh sphere and the lights flicker as it disappears.

"Huh. It appeared a few hundred meters above us, with a bit of horizontal displacement," says the tech.

"I wonder who he's been dropping things on?"

A few hundred meters above and a little horizontally displaced from the lab...

"Alright, BN, the 'course' is mapped out on the computer- run it as fast as you can without going outside it... we need to test the manuverability under standard piloting conditions before we try any uplink stunts." Dr. Nekura instructs the Neko.

"Right, right. Go fast and don't hit the walls... couldn't they have tested this on a simulation?" Ymari grumbles.

The SWORD prototype fires it's massive thrusters, blasting around the course mapped out on the computer. Until the sensors pick up an abrupt new contact just to the left of the prototype.

"AAACK! UFO! UFO! EEEEEEK!" Ymari shrieks, hitting the button to activate the beam fin weapons as the SWORD sweeps forward. The plasma blade contraption sumarily impacts the hapless ball of foam, vaporizing it in a gooey sticky vaporizing sort of flash.

"BN, what in the hell are you doing!? This isn't a live fire exercise!" Dr. Nekura rubs her temples, feeling a headache coming on.

"I swear, unknown contact just went POOF! right next to me!" Ymari responds. "And it was heading right at me!"

"And according to the sensor data, baka neko, it was basketball-sized chunk of foam padding. Congratulations, you killed somebody's sports equipment." Dr. Nekura scans over the data.

"Doc, how does a basketball get three-hundred-plus meters into the air and appear out of nowhere?" Ymari shuts the beam fins off sheepishly as she resumes the manuvering tests.

"I don't want to know."

Oh Dear...

"My transmitter! What did they do to my transmitter? How dare they!" rants Turino. A moment later, he dispatches Igor from the room. Up in the control booth, Livahdi and Holst look at each other as quizically as they hear the food processor in the break room being used for several minutes. Below them, Turino is working at the control console, and the phrases "wide scatter," "automatic trigger" and "saturation" are heard. Suddenly, Igor returns pushing a large cart full of what look to be cream pies.

"Quickly, Igor! Put them in as fast as you can!" The pair begin rapidly tossing the pies into the chamber, each on disappearing with a pop.

Above Camp R

Suddenly, hundreds of cream pies begin popping into existance, filling the skies above Camp Restricted like some kind of tasty anti-aircraft barrage.

Elsewhere...

Inside a concrete-walled room that smells vaguely of burnt plastic, the public-announcement box mounted in the corner crackles. "Please disregard live fire in Camp airspace. This is simply standard research activity... as usual... *sigh*"

Destruction of Exergy folds its massive clawed hands, the Security-2 robot shell somehow exuding pompous disdain despite its 'face' being limited to a cluster of red-glowing optic sensor lenses. "The pointless rampancy continues, I see."

Lieutenant Analton Curuvar sighs, frowning slightly as he delicately shrugs his lithe frame, Noldor blood obvious in the lines of his face and the points of his ears. "I just hope they don't break anything we need," he replies, checking on the simulations of a Supreme Emperor-class battleship on a nearby computer display. "Well, Warship, you were right. If we give the SMI executive-level access to the weapons system, this battleship would become more than a match for any Angelic Skies warship even in a surprise attack, assuming fully successful autonomy."

"But of course, Lieutenant," the warship replies breezily through the combat robot, "it only makes sense. Optronics are intrinsically faster than meat and saltwater. Now, what exactly do you mean by 'fully successful?'"

The room's local kzin sneezes slightly as he puts something back into a pocket. "Excuse me. I think what Anal is talking about is that most commanders will not be willing to allow a SMI to have complete control of the ship, especially after the Archangel incident. Also, because SMI use quantum-computing and regenerative self-destructive neural nets like organics, they can make mistakes as well."

The elf winces at the shortened form of his first name. "Maker, I thought I told you not to use that."

The light cruiser cants its head and taps one metal finger against metal forearm with an even series of low tinks. "I admit we can misanalyze situations, but we do it with far less regularity than your three pounds of meat, Weapons-Maker."

"Only because of processing," the kzintosh replies, "but in snap judgements against other, possibly more advanced mechatronics, I bet we will see an equality appear."

"More advanced?" The robot leans forward slightly. "Our processing times are roughly similar, and our processes are far more streamlines. Many of the Angelans I knew before their little soiree into post-singularityism resembled engrams more than they did the true evolution of electronic intelligence. Watch what you say, for implying obsolescence should be backed up by fact."

Weapons-Maker chortles. "Funny. I thought the recent upgrades of the QACF were based in part on shared Angelan technology, much like the TYCS fleets' updated non-intelligent computer systems."

Analton, having been completely ignored, rolls his eyes. "I'll just let you two argue this again. I'm going to go topside and see what's going on."

The Skies above Camp R

Of sure, the test was going FINE until the radar lit up with dozens and dozens of contacts.

"What the?! Enemy attack?!" Ymari again fires up the SWORD's weapons systems, ready to kick some ass.

"Um... no, I don't think so-" Dr. Nekura begins.

*SPLAT!*

"GYAH!" The doctor jumps as the tasty projectile makes contact with her head. "What the effing-?! PIE?!"

"AAAAIYA! Doc! I can't dodge it all! There's too many!!" Ymari whines as the prototype takes the brunt of the barrage, creamy goodness spotching the blue and silver prototype with polka-dots of pie.

Dr. Nekura sidesteps another of the fiendish confections, and manages to catch a third one relatively intact, one eyebrow twitching. "Gravwank, I assume." She marches resolutely to the nearby lab building and comes upon the Cetagandan lab and spots Turino and Igor tossing the evil pies into whatever the hell that contraption in the center of the room is.

"I think this belongs to YOU!" The good doctor hauls back and lobs the creamy confection at the back of Turino's head before storming out.

Outside, Ymari has gotten SWORD above the apparent upper altitude of the barrage, but not before the prototype is liberally splattered and in dire need of a good washing. "Waugh... my pretty prototype!"

The prototype Nightscream streaks by the SWORD prototype and ascends higher into some clouds.

"Hey Catgirl, nice paintjob ya got there. Looks like banana creame from here! Heh heh heh!" came Dyson's voice over the comm.

The black fighter re-appears, dropping out of the clouds and beside the SWORD. Dyson begins perfoming some rolls and maneuvers the fighter around the SWORD, avoiding the beam fins on it.

"Smile Catgirl. You're on camera!" said Dyson, zooming one of the fighter's optical recorders onto the cockpit of the Elite Victory docked with the prototype, trying to get a headshot of Ymari before streaking off again and ascending into the clouds.

"BABOON!" Ymari hisses, baring her cute little fangs for a second, hackles raised before she gets an idea, mood swinging from annoyed to genki in 0.02 seconds flat. "Here, have some! EVERYBODY likes pie!"

The SWORD suddenly rolls several times, dislodging several of the pie tins and most of their contents in a 360 degree high-velocity spray of cream.

"... Damnit, now I have a craving to go eat some pie."

Of course, in Restricted airspace (ha ha! Pun!), radio chatter gets listened to.

"There's always room for pie," an aerospace traffic control technician proffers.

"Shut up, Jeffries," the officer on watch grumbles.

Topside

Lieutenant Curuvar opens the hatch and pops his head up, looking into the night sky. One splorch later, he looks at the banana-cream pie now gracing the turf about a meter away. Sighing, he closes the hatch again. Yes, business as usual.

"Baka neko!" Dyson yells back over the comm.

The Nightscream headed back towards the landing spot of the transport that brought it to Camp R. Little did its dumb pilot know that something bad was about to happen to him...

Lieutenant Hikaru Takashi hid his Mk-III power suit reall well, covering it with lots of plantlife and brush, hiding it along the only path Dyson could take for his usual low-alititude flyby of the transport. Hikaru was waiting to get payback for what Dyson did at last year's paintball tournament at the naval review ceremonies and now he had the perfect opportunity to get his revenge.

"Cheapass. C'mon Dyson. Show me that pretty fighter of yours already." Hikaru said impatiently, running his finger over the trigger on the right control stick of his suit.

He caught a glimpse of something approaching in the distance and reached back by his head, pulling his targeting scope forward. He zoomed in on it and confirmed it to be the prototype Nightscream Dyson was pliloting. He unzoomed and readied himself, flipping the saftey off on the machine rifle his suit was carrying.

Dyson descended and increased the throttle on the engines speeding up for his flyby. As he reached the right altitude for it, a 12 meter tall blue and white power suit sprung up from its hiding spot, sending the plantlife that was covering it flying.

"Hey Dyson! PAYBACK!" yelled Hikaru as he locked onto the fighter. He pulled the trigger and unleashed a spray of 55mm paintballs at the fighter's general direction, emptying the rifle's clip in hopes that a few would hit it as it passed over.

Several of them impacted on the fighter's underside, wings, and part of the canopy, covering the spots of impact with bright NEON F***ING PINK! paint. Hikaru made sure to get several screencaps of it before the fighter passed right over.

"Dyson, that is SUCH a nice color for you! Stick with it, man!"

Dyson could be heard screaming obscenities over the comm as he pulled out of his flyby, circled around, and landed at a nearby runway. He popped open the canopy and stuck his head out, looking back towards the direction of the power suit with a look of death on his face.

However, baka Hikaru had emptied the clip of all its paintballs with only a small handfull hitting the fighter. The rest of the stray paintballs were streaking off into other parts of Camp R, on their way to hit some poor, innocent, unsuspecting bystander(s).

Turino blinks several times and feels the back of his head. Then, from behind him comes a cold voice. "Lieutenant. Have you anything to report?" He twirls about, and comes face to face with the Commander. His face goes slack for a moment and he shakes his head several times before saying, "Oh, yeah. Commander. Sure, let me show you what I've found."

He shows her a diagram. "See, what happened was that space got sorta pinched up and twisted a bit and swallowed the fridge. Moreover, this little pocket of space then is displaced and reconnected to another part of realspace, not to far from here. It prolly popped out somewhere over on of the test ranges."

"A molehole, then," murmurs Livahdi. "What's all these extra modifications that you've made?"

"Yes, exactly. Much the same thing as a longjump drive, only the fields project inward rather than out to surround a ship," replies Turino. "The modifications I've made have increase the efficiency, reliabilty, and allow the field to be mapipulated but still form a molehole pocket. I'm planning on adding a level two or three stasis field generator to help insure objects get through in one piece. I bet I've got a range of at least a few hundred, maybe a thousand kilometers. Obviously, it will work much better with a purpose-built system. The way we're sitting on top of a large mass and the FTL inhibitors also do a number of range with available power."

"Fascinating. I'll want a full writeup with diagrams of your, hmm, displacer for transmission of OSRD Headquarters so that they can review it for pre-production changes. Good work." As Commander Livahdi leaves the room, she adds, "Oh, you may want to consider taking a shower. Pie really doesn't suit you."

Hikaru clipped the rifle onto the hardpoint located on the rear skirt armor and started walking over to where Dyson had landed his Nightscream, laughing over the suit's loudspeaker as he made his way over.

"Consider this payback for that paintbomb you dropped on my suit last year!"

Dyson flipped the comm unit on in the cockpit of the fighter. "I'll give ya credit for that one. That was pretty sneaky hiding in my flyby path, never would have expected it. Next time I'll have to have you do that to Ymari." he said, putting on a wicked evil grin.

Hikaru laughed and struck a pose with the machine, extending the right arm out towards Dyson, making a "V" sign with the index and middle fingers.

http://www.angelfire.com/gundam/rpra/images/Junk/Victory.JPG

"I just wish I could have covered the entire plane with the paint." he replied, kneeling the suit down nearby so he could climb down from the cockpit easier.

"Say, how many shots did you fire at me?" Dyson asked as he climbed down from the fighter to meet up with Hikaru.

"Uhmm, all 60." Hikaru replied as he landed on the ground beneath the suit.

"And how many did you hit me with?"

"Uhmm, about 19."

"So there's about 41 stray paintballs out there about to hit someone or something?"

Hikaru thought about it for a moment. ".....awwshit." He facepalmed and shook his head. "Dad is gonna kill me when he finds out about this."

[Tag. TEAM MELTA eh? :) 8) ]

A Scion stomps up to the Nightscream. Tolwyn's voice comes over the loudspeakers.


"You guys know anything about some big paintballs landing all over the fuel depot? Or about...pie...landing all over base? I swear, you people show up and wierd things start happening."

Tolwyn glances down, and gets a good look at Hiraku and Dyson.

"So, know anyth....whoa. Um. You uh, look like.....me?"

"Pies? Dunno anything about pies... well, other than that catgirl's fighter gettin all covered in them. As for paintballs, you might wanna talk to him..." Dyson replies as he points over at Hikaru. "And what do you mean I look like you?" he adds, blinking a couple times as he looks up at the mecha.

"Eh heh... Sorry about them paintballs... heh heh..." Hikaru says, stepping back a little and moving behind Lt. Dyson. "Very sorry! ^^;"

The canopy on the Scion pops open and Tolwyn removes his helmet.

"This...is a bit......um......creepy."

W.T.F.

Dyson's helmet hits the ground as his grip on it is loosened by his suddenly entering a state of shock at seeing Tolwyn's face for the first time. It was almost like looking into a mirror, only without everything being backwards and stuff. Hikaru's eyes widened in suprise as he stepped forward, looking back and forth between the two guys.

"Dude, Dyson, he's like your twin or something. I wonder if he's your evil twin... or if you're the evil twin..." Hikaru shrugged as he turned back to Dyson. "You guys should get like side by side or something so I can take a picture. Lemme get my camera!"

Hikaru took off for his Mk-III, climbing up the skirt armor and into the cockpit, emerging seconds later with his digital camera.

Lt. Dyson just stood there, motionless, staring up at Tolwyn. He wanted to say something, but just couldn't think of anything to say, other than the occasional "Uhh...", "Urr...", and "Umm...".

Conference Room Three
Cetagandan Office Block, Camp Restricted

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have a problem," says Commander (OSRD) Livahdi to a group of researchers. Each one was the head of a branch of the Cetagandan presence at Camp Restricted, with one notable exception. "I have received word from sources," the other read 'my grandmother the Admiral, "that we will soon be experiencing," she takes a deep breath, then says in her most ominous voice, "an audit."

"Now, this would not normally be much of a problem. After all, for the most part we're under budget and have been producing various useful items. A certain amount of eccentricity," everyone does their best not to look at Lt. Commander (OSRD) Dr. Vepildor of Advanced Stealth Systems, who was wearing a hat with a stuffed lion attached, "among practical research units such as ours is expected in regards to the way projects are conducted. Even better, we're powered by the base fusion reactors, so they won't notice anything odd in the power we use on various personal projects. However, I think that even the most lenient auditor might notice the disappearance of a large kitchen appliance and find it to be a bit odd."

All eyes turn upon the lowest ranking person present. "Erm. It was accidentally destroyed during testing, maybe?" says Lieutenant Turino hesitantly.

"A test it would not have participated in if it had been sitting in the kitchen," says Livahdi.

"Is there any chance of it being retrieved?" asks one of the officers.

"No, apparently TEAM MELTA pulled it apart with their latest project," replies Turino, hoping to place the blame somewhere else and not mentioning that the fridge would have been smashed apart anyways. Heads nod around the table, with most of those present thinking less than kind thoughts of their 'colleagues.'

"Well, in any case, we'll need to replace it. As some good did come of it, I'm loathe to for the lieutenant to pay for a new one out of his pocket. Suggestions?"

"Well, I'm sure we could raise money. Everyone wanted a new fridge anyways," replies Colonel Myers of the Sensors Division, possibly the most sane person in the room.

"Or we could build another one!" says another person, a suggestion that pleased many.

"BAH! While that sound fun, I suggest we make those bastards in MELTA pay for their insolence!" shouts Lt. Commander Vepildor. This is met with a widespread agreement.

Livahdi grins a terrible, horrible grin. "I like the sound of that. I want two plans by Friday: one for a new fridge to be built, and another for dealing with MELTA. That will give us a week to implement them before we would have to fall back on buying a new one with our own money. Dismissed."

"It uses what?"

"Its really quite brilliant, Commander. You see, we were working on trying to miniaturize a singularity power plant to fit in a LAC. Well, we weren't having much luck, we had enough trouble getting a useful one for the lancers. But we figure that since we don't need to produce power, it should be easy enough to just use one as a sink for...heat using lasers to..." The Power Systems engineer trails off as Commander Livahdi's piercing gaze begins to unnerve him.

"You want to use a micro singularity as a heat sink. For a kitchen refrigerator," she says slowly, as if talking to a child. "Tell me, did anyone in your division see any problem with this?"

"Well, Fredricks was going on about how it could swallow up something important if containment failed, but the singularity would be so small that it wouldn't last long without a sustainer field. A minute or two at most, we think."

"I see." 'At least there's one sane person in there.' Livahdi was beginning to think that it would be vastly preferable to simply buy a new unit now and save her sanity. "While it sounds interesting, why don't you see if there's any alternative methods."

After the engineer leaves, Livahdi muses for a few minutes, before smiling and leaving her office and heading for one of the labs. "Lt. Turnio."

"Yes, ma'am?" replies the lieutenant from beneath his displacer.

"Can this contraption of yours pick things up as well as send them elsewhere?"

"Hmm." The lieutenant thinks a moment before saying, "I think so. You'd need pretty accurate targeting data, though."

"Excellent."

Analton sighs as he reads through the latests taskings handed down from Camp HQ. He never was extremely happy, and only occasionally hummed like he used to sing who knows how many years ago. Then eventually Menelmacar had made it to space and new nations started popping up every so often. Lady Sirithil, bless her heart, had gotten somewhat odd in her age and around the first time she started massacring nations for looking at her cock-eyed he decided it may just be time to go on a stroll. He could always go back later when things had calmed down a little; in the past several thousand years these sorts of cranky periods were expected, even for immortals.

Somehow his stroll led into a TYCS recruitment office. His previous military and employment history spanning the last ten millenia (he got tired of explaining any more past that) must have borne him well, because, after some remedial basic training to get him used to the new command structure, he was commissioned straight to O-2 and put in Camp Restricted. After working on a few projects, they promoted him to O-3 and gave him a smallish project.

He liked running smallish projects. They were important enough that they were actually doing something and they weren't so important that he had to worry about it. Of all the things he'd experienced over his current stretch of immortality, worrying by far had to be the most uncomfortable.

This latest message made him worry.

"Is there a problem, boss?" Weapons-Maker--he preferred to be called Raecn-Hizhvizhhocng but Curuvar wasn't about to wrap his tongue around a language that harshly vile--looks up from his little ivory case, inlaid with bits of silver and gold in a sort of jagged pattern, with a pinch of dry green crushed leaves between one set of thumb and forefinger. Maker said that the insignia was an ancient emblem of the Patriarchy--which Analton never doubted--but always insisted that it was the stylized fangs of some monster. The Noldor always thought it looked more like some kind of leaf.

The lieutenant looks over his shoulder, frowning mightily in the sort of statuesque way that only a statuesque people like the Noldor can. "Yes. It turns out Clockwork has become even more vital." Analton frowns even more at the sensation in his stomach. He may be immune to disease, but psychosomatically-induced ulcers, on the other hand...

The kzintosh nods as he raises the pinch of catnip to his nose. Maker was a curious sort, so everyone thought, even the other kzinti at Camp R. To non-kzinti, he was your usual giant-bipedal-tiger-linebacker thing, which was strange enough to Analton--he had no idea how the humans of the old Triumvirate were so used to these creatures, and he'd been fighting trolls and ogres since before their forebears had figured out cuneform writing. What made Weapons-Maker so curious to everyone was that he was a kzintosh who dressed like a refugee from a bodice-ripper novel, and not necessarily the dashing "would you like some swash with your buckle" protagonist of one, either. Usually wearing something scarlet colored of velvet quality in a distinctive late eighteenth-century cut with lace frills along the collar and cuffs, he looks very much like an old English fop without the wig. While he does opt to wear short pants to match the style, high stockings were right out, given the construction of the kzinti leg and what claws would do to nylon or silk derivatives. Either way, he is a curious sight to see, and, if this were the kind of culture that whispered such things, it would be whispered that perhaps he was gay.

No, it was just a possibility filed in some people's minds under 'Useless Garbage' along with the significance of the Concert of Europe in the postNapoleonic Age and the color wheel. Nevertheless, the concept of a homosexual kzin somehow worried Analton, and so he did his best not to think about it. Worry breeds worry, however, and long repressed "I wonder if's..." begin bubbling back up to the top of his mind.

Analton represses a shudder. "I don't think you quite grasp the gravity of the situation, Maker. Already it's been decided that our project is full-on vital to Triumvirate interests. We need to come up with sentient mechatronic intelligence cores for our warships so we don't get properly reamed again by the Angies."

"We could have been done already if you two would've just stopped dawdling," mutters Destruction of Exergy in a tired, quiet voice as it taps one metal claw against an equally metal table as it sits idly atop a discarded cap of some sort of heavy conduit pipe. Exergy is technically a spherical QACF light cruiser two-hundred meters in diameter sitting in orbit around Rhea. However, its local avatar, a Security-2 robot painted jet-black with its name emblazoned across its front in simple red lettering, is also impressively tall, about the size of the kzin. Analton also had no idea why the great and illustrious S.H.O.D.A.N. had to palm off what had to be one of her more anti-organic warships onto his team. Everything was always due to some inherent weakness of meat and bone which could always be solved with the proper application of metal and fiber-optics. Artificial--oh, excuse me, electronic--and mechatronic intelligences were the wave of the future, the logical next stage in evolution. The Karmabaijani, with their unfortunate (in Curuvar's eyes) compulsion to replace their Eru-given systems with cybernetic augments, could see it. Why couldn't everyone else?

"I'm afraid we just have to disagree on some things, Exergy," Analton says with a sigh, "we've been through that over and again. However, this new objective may be just up your proverbial alley."

The robot-shell deigns to look up. "Yes?"

"We are now the official counter not only to the Angies' timing superiority but also the counter to the Oversized Military General-purpose battlestations appearing every so often out of Alternate Situational Sub-Space. We are to come up with some sort of inexpensive strategic attack craft which could effectively take the fight to either advesary and defeat them handily. It still requires an organic crew just like any other capital vessel but an smee-core is also a must."

"Why even bother with meat-crews?" If the robot could shrug, it would. "One mind, one ship, optimal efficiency."

Weapons-Maker snorts his pinch of catnip-snuff, head shaking slightly before he sneezes.

"Because," Analton leans back, reciting a lecture given so many times that it borders on absurd, "this is the TYCS and we're equal-opportunity when it comes to defending the Triumvirate. If we were interested in 'one mind, one ship' we would subcontract all of our defense to Zero-One and Angelus. As it stands, our task is to conciliate the 'one mind, one ship' concept with the standard coordination-methodology of multiperson starship crews."

"Inefficient." The warship goes back to coming up with mathematical formulae to describe the microscopic topography of the table.

"Perhaps," Weapons-Maker offers, sounding a bit more relaxed, "we should request the viewpoints at others. I am afraid our group is rather stagnant in its ideas. We need someone with external experience."

"Hmmm, yes..." Analton nods slowly. "I suppose with our added priority I can request the presence of some who could turn out to be... useful. The new fighter pilots hanging around?"

"That would make sense," Exergy adds dryly, "as we are going to be networking them as well, eventually. We need their opinion." If it had eyes, they would roll.

"Hrrr... the Shogunate has also been somewhat successful with SMI cores. Somewhat." The kzintosh frowns just a little. "Still, the three involved are going to give their testimony soon. When they come to do so, perhaps we can... hrrr... buttonhole them?"

Analton represses another internal shudder for some strange reason. "Yes, I think we can try something like that. It cannot hurt... let me put in the request. Need to run down to the comms shack anyway."

Weapons-Maker sneezes again, lacy frills waving a little.

Tolwyn stares down at Dyson.

"Sooooo, um, someone put you up to this? And where did you get that mask of me? Lemme guess, some new KCTS CyberWerks product right? Probably called a PhaceRehplace or summat. Is that their ultimate-pilot model?"

Two Loki dropships floated through space, towards Camp-R restricted space. Each carrying somewhat bastardized looking MAMpods, that didn't seem entirely aerodynamic.

"Camp-R control this is TYCS Loki's Manhattan and Oppenheimer, requesting permission to enter airspace."

Dyson continued to stand there looking at Tolwyn, thinking to himself "WTF! There's two of me!". Hikaru walked up, catching the end of Tolwyn's comment.

"PhaceRehplace?" Hikaru reached over, pinched Dyson's cheek, and gave it a tug, trying to stretch it. Failing, he let it go. "Nah, that's the real deal. Ultimate-pilot model? Well, ultimate pilot is something Dyson isn't, so, if it was that PhaceRehplace junk, it was some other model!"

Hikaru quickly snapped a few pictures of the two pilots and ran before Dyson's brain could process what he had just said.

"...Hey! You bastard!" Dyson screamed as he spun around to face Hikaru's general direction, comming out his state of shock.

Tolwyn stares down at Dyson.

"Sooooo, um, someone put you up to this? And where did you get that mask of me? Lemme guess, some new KCTS CyberWerks product right? Probably called a PhaceRehplace or summat. Is that their ultimate-pilot model?"

Ymari climbs down from the SWORD prototype and meanders over to laugh at Dyson getting pinkified.

The neko stops up short when she comes upon the WTF-in-progress. A moment later, she shrieks and points at the two pilots in a panic. "BABBOONFACE MULTIPLIED?!?! KIYAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Tail trailing behind her, the catgirl spins around and runs like a bat out of hell, shouting various claims concerning clones and evil plots.

*tag*

The Reptavian drop-ship soared high over the Camp Restricted. Its clearance for approach was given, and her cargo awaited the drop. The terraformed atmosphere of Titan was penetrated with a squeal of super-heated air and friction.

The ship transmits an ETA to frop-zone and coordinates; the escort is not needed. All codes should check out and the ship's registry confirms it as being of the I.S.N.

The rear door of the cargo bay opens, and a jack-legged splotchy bio-mechanical suit comes to the exit ramp. A couple of steps, and the huge turbo-thrust packs is fired up. The powerful engines kick in in full as the Minion-suit drops off the ramp, which closes up again, and its descent slows until it levels out and skims the ground near the camp.

In short order, it comes to a stop at the entrance of Camp Restricted. Several layers of organic plating seem to peel upwards and away, and then a metallic compartment swings open. Inside are three Sakkrans in seemingly cramped conditions. One is an Awakened Grass-Walker, the other two hail from Sol from the looks of it.

One of the normal Sakkrans engages in dialogue. "Greetings, sentry. I am Doctor Sheeat and this is Bio-Med Technician Zzott. Our pilot is Master Sergeant Geera Khwoll of the 13th Armor Cavalry." The doctor's clawed hands sign to each being as they are introduced. The Grass-Walker elicits a series of short chirping sounds. "I have here our papers, which verify our intent here." A datapad is thrust forward.

Project Clockwork

"Oh, doesn't that recall days past," hisses Exergy, "of course any sentient mechoptronic core we put in charge of a combined warship will just have to go rampant! It's all the rage this year."

Lieutenant Curuvar folds his arms as he looks up and up at the massive combat robot, similarly postured. The extreme disparity doesn't strike him at right that moment. "It's a possibility based on historical precedent! It's quite possible that a computer, if allowed to take command given the deaths of the organic command crew, to kill that same crew--or the entire crew--to lend legitimacy to ordering itself about."

"It's a possibility based on historical precedent," the combat robot-shell shoots back in the elf's voice, "that an organic commander could go rampant, kill those who disagreed, and have a shiny warship to go rogue with. Just because there is a possibility does not mean you threaten us with death at every turn!"

"It is harsh," Weapons-Maker adds quietly, "and not appropriate for the universal trust required for military endeavours."

"What would you suggest, y-- ?" Analton's mouth snaps shut before he adds an unnecessary expletive.

"I would suggest a mechanical disconnect system."

The Security-2 shell whirls on the kzin. "Et tu, Brutus?"

"Keep the sentience intact but remove its instrumentality. It is not threatened with death, so if the decision is made in error, it can be reversed. Just as a smee core could use the life support system to incapacititate the crew if it seemed rampant, the crew could use this system to incapacitate the central intelligence if it seemed rampant. It is a balance."

"It must be disengaged from power, then," the Noldor replies, "else it can use the power systems as a secondary network, especially if it is being used as an emergency network by the crew."

The warship looks back to Analton. "Let us starve, then?"

The kzintosh sighs. Even his own species, renowned for their scream-and-leap past, didn't generally bash their heads together to no effect like this. "Integral BIOS battery, life of several years. It is not a death sentence, either quick or slow. It is a balance."

"A balance for what? There is a chance that any organic meat-brain," the robot-shell seethes, "will sneak sarin into the life support and kill everyone. Why do you not have counters for them?"

"We do," Curuvar grimaces as he pats his pistol. "Likewise, there is a chance that some wire-crossed computer will sneak sarin into the life support system and kill everyone. You don't think that's worth plugging some holes in it for?"

"I do not think that is the best option," Weapons-Maker says quickly, "as the smee core can be debriefed later and, if it is rampant, recovered as is appropriate. If an organic crewman goes mad, he is restrained first and killed only as a last resort. I only suggest making this universal."

"We could just not give the computer executive-officer priviledges," the elf says shortly.

"Then those mechanoids that meet you will kill you again," Exergy growls. "I do not like Raecn-Hizhvizhhocng's words but he has a point--this is a balance, like it or no. The Triumvirate needs these systems, and it needs this ship. Likewise, it needs our minds and--"

"And it needs the cooperation and additional creative power of organic minds to maintain initiative," Analton says quickly before the warship can sneak in any more insults. "Any less than executive officer priviledges and we have a toothless system. Any more and we may as well stamp 'QACF' on the side of it. I'll agree to this, as it seems to be our only option." He steps back, unfolding his arms and moving his hands to behind his back.

"Agreed." The warship takes a step back as well, in silence.

The kzintosh sighs. "Now, let us write this shit down before we repeat this argument. We have a fleet waiting on us."

The Sentry

Private Jenkins looks at the datapad thrust into his hands. "Ummm... err... righto, then. You'll just be wanting the admin building, right over there. The one with the brown three on it." He points, trying to be helpful. "They'll get you situated with whatever you need."

"Thus, we won't even need to waste time thawing food out, because it was in stasis rather than actually being frozen. Neat, huh?

"It sounds reasonable, which around here means there's a catch," replies Livahdi to a scientist trailing her as she strolls down a corridor. "Let's see... tell me, how much power does this thing use?"

"Well..."

"Can we still use the existing hook-up point?"

"Uh. Yes, yes we can."

"Is the draw within, say, an order of magnitude of a normal fridge?"

At this point, the scientist begins to study the floor with interest. "Well, its not quite that much..."

"See if you can get it lower to no more than, say, twice the power and we'll talk. Now shoo." As the scientist scampers off, the commander shrugs. This little side project certainly seemed to motivate her underlings - and they were working without overtime. Eventually, she enters a room marked 'Advanced Surveillance and Infiltration Division.' "I believe you had a tracking device to show me."

"Yes, yes, Commander. Come in..."

"Very well, then. Good cycle to you." The three retract back into the bio-organic armored suit, and head for building three, walking as opposed to using the flight-pack.

Arriving at the facility, they immediately begin unpacking the small amount of samples of their most recent project. Time is not even taken to look about correctly. That is, until it comes time for the three of them to 'relive' themselves.

Scurrying across the ground, a squirrel makes its way through Camp Restricted. That is to say, something that at least looks like a squirrel does. While it mostly resembles a true squirrel, even on the insides, its senses are much better than any natural woodland creature would have, and a fine web of nearly-undetectable carbon optical fibers run through its brain, eventually connecting to a bio-powered, organic, microscopic entanglement transceiver in the center of the body mass. All this allows the critter to send sensory data out and receive commands.

"Is that the right building?"

"It might be. You know, we really should have considered how low to the ground these things are."

With a flick of its bushy tail, the squirrel runs up the side of the building and through an open window and begins to cautiously explore. The building was, regretfully, the the Sakkrans were currently setting up inside of, and not that of TEAM MELTA as expected. The operators realised this at about the moment when the squirrel was scampering down a corridor and found itself face to face with several large lizards. At that point, its instincts took over and it began to flee back down the hall.

--<Transmission Type: Encrypted Psionics>--
-<Sender: Agent Simmias, OPO>-
-<Destination: Director Pirika, ATI>-
--<Subject: Projects>--

The Office has come up with some ideas we think you'd find rather interesting. Given all of the supernatural threats we know we have to deal with... as well as the natural threats that need just a special touch... I think we could come up with most effective applications of thaumatech.

If you're willing, we could work together at the TYCS Camp Restricted to come up with more... personable items perhaps similar in purpose to the Hand of God-class.

http://www.weirdozone.0catch.com/projects/nationstates/scolopendra/agent_simmias.gifAgent Simmias
Office of Psionic Operations
Federated Segments of Scolopendra

--<End Transmission>--

--<Transmission... ur... type: Encrypted Psionics>--
--<Sender: Director Pirika Drakos, ATI, c/o Kiara Alson>--
--<Destination: Agent Simmias, OPO>--
--<Subject: RE: Projects>--
Geez, why am I playing psionic emailer?!

Funny you should mention thaumaturgic... projects... like that- the ATI has been working on some new kinds of ammunition to give standard sidearms that magic touch. A team should be dispatched to Camp R within the week. I wonder if Oduh, Luceh, or I will be on that shuttle-?

Pirika will be unable to come personally, but she will be sending the rest of the Project: Magical Girl team along with our prototypes.What kinda of project name is "Magical Girl" anyway? Geez, somebody on high watches way too much anime, I swear...

~Kiara Alson
~Arpean Thaumatological Institute
I swear, Oduh's doing the psymail next time...
--<End Transmission>--

A short time after the ReconSquirrel incident proved that Cetagandan animal control implants weren't quite up to the same standards as their Sunset counterparts, Commander Livahdi is sitting in (yet another) meeting. This one, thankfully, was a report from the weapons division. These meetings, and better yet live demonstrations, always made her day better.

"As you can see, the efficiency of optical weapons drops dramatically against targets protected by these types of defensive screens and shields. Also, even multi-frequecy weapons loose a great deal of power when passing through atmosphere," notes the presenter.

"And? What is it you propose?" asks Livahdi.

"Well, you see, a lot of threat force shields are variations on EM and gravy deflectors. Very few people use oddball systems like our own Langston Fields. As such, these shields tend to be affected by gravity."

"Yes, yes, that's why lineguns make such effective weapons. EM fields won't block the beam at all and are distorted. What's this have to do with optical CREWS and such?" Livahdi replies, waving her hand.

"We propose to attempt to meld a low-level gravy beam and-or forcefield projector system with a standard CREWS optical package. While not powerful enough to do any serious damage, it should distort shields to allow greater beam effectiveness. Also, in atmosphere the gravy pulse tunnel effect can be used to create a momentary vacuum between weapon and target. We we call it the Gravitational Field Enhanced Coherent Radiation Emission Weapon System, or something like that."

"Gfee-crews? Like the idea, you need another name if you want this to be taken seriously upstairs. Something suitably military and deadly sound. Hmmm." Livahdi thinks a moment, then snaps her fingers. "Call it the 'Focused Radiation and Gravity' weapons system, or cannon, or something like that."

"Aye aye, ma'am. We'll begin prototype construction at once."

“Of all the insane asylums I’ve ever been posted to, this place just takes the cake. If it isn't flying appliances, it's nearly getting your head taken off by stunt-pulling hot sticks, or Team MELTA's latest bit o' chaos.”

Lorenzo Vettori sat, poring over a chart of numbers and calculations, a mug of cappuccino near his right hand, his left, supporting his head as he leaned over, elbow planted against the desk at an angle. He scritched his fingers through his unruly hair a bit, one knee bouncing nervously.

“For once I agree with you, Enzo,” answered an impeccably dressed woman, studying a stream of data coming across one of the simulator screens. Everything about her spoke of professionalism and a curt manner. Her crisp, clean lab coat, plain sensible shoes, prim and proper dress, hair worn pulled back into a tight, neat bun, and simple black-framed glasses that sat perched across the bridge of her nose just so. Her nametag read ‘Dr. Olivia C. Alessi’, though her co-workers often referred to her as ‘Liv’ or ‘Livia’ – to her face, at least. She was unofficially known as ‘Lady Ice’.

“Oh, I don’t know … true, they have their quirks, but I’ve run across several I find rather charming.”

Both Enzo and Olivia stop what they’re doing and look over at the other man hunched over a table, delicately adjusting some electronic components, a pleasant smile turning up the corners of his lips. Sensing the sudden silence, he looks up, a confused expression on his bearded face.

“What?”

Dr. Alessi arches one brow meaningfully. Enzo blinks once, running his hand through his hair awkwardly, then looking down to his cappuccino, which he takes up and studiously sips. “Well … I knew your tastes were a bit different, Ricco, but … I almost hesitate to ask who’s caught your eye,” he says carefully.

Riccardo Borghese grins impishly, wriggling his brows at the both of them, eliciting an scandalized ‘tsk’ from the woman. “Well, ah … if you must know …” Lorenzo starts to protest, raising one hand and opening his mouth, but a moment too late as Ricco continues..

“I mean, there are some rather ‘exotic’ folk running about, even if one discounts that creative spark turned eccentricity that seems to be common. Take that Weapons-Maker, for instance. By God, that is one fine specimen if I do say so myself.”

Lorenzo groans, setting aside his mug and letting his head sink down against his hands. Sweet Jesus, that is the last image I need.

“Don’t blaspheme,” Olivia says snippily, looking more scandalized than ever, going so far as to make the sign of the cross and mutter something under her breath. “And if you must parade around your sinful vices, please do so when I’m not here to listen to them. I mean really, Ricco. It’s bad enough you have unnatural urges, but he isn’t even human.”

Borghese bursts out in a rich laugh, shaking his head slightly as he looks over at the woman, her obvious sincerity only causing him to laugh harder. And earning him a scathing glare on account.

“Olivia, tell me again how you ever managed to successfully pursue a scientific career with all that ‘Pops, Jr. and the Spook’ business hanging around your neck?” Lorenzo says dryly, regretting for not the first time this assignment.

She draws herself up more, chin tilting up with a derisive sniff. “I’ll have you know my faith and the simple principles of mathematics have never been at odds with one another. I chose statistics and number-crunching to excel within in part for their very order and lack of crazy theories and odd beliefs. I’m here to keep you two degenerates honest on this project, no more, no less.” She pointedly lays the clipboard she’s been holding down against the tabletop with a loud slap, walking briskly to the other end of the lab, leaving a still-chuckling Ricco and an increasingly miserable Enzo in her wake.

“Jesus, Ricco … I hope you’re not serious there. Have you thought about that for a minute? He’ll take your bloody head off.”

Borghese waves a hand dismissively, grinning broadly as he idly toys with one of the parts he’s been working on. “Oh please. There’s no harm in looking – and look I do, believe me,” he says with another waggling of his brows. “Going about dressed like that, he’s asking to be admired. The way those shirts show off his broad chest, and those tight pants accenting those rippling muscles … don’t even get me started about all that deliciously thick fur.”

“Christ almighty, man, do you mind? I’m trying to think here, and the last thing I need filling up my head is visualizations of the basic mechanics of all that!” Enzo says, despairingly. “Now, for the love of God,” he says, loud enough for Olivia to hear, already put out with her uptight behavior, “Would you please get your mind back on this resonance project and out of the gutter? We’re already behind schedule.”

“Yes, Mum,” Ricco replies, failing to keep a straight face as he affects a chastised expression. He turns back to his work table, shoulders still shaking with silent laughter now and then.

Maybe this time they’ll take my request for transfer serious … The thought is no sooner out than it dies the ignoble death of so many similar thoughts before, killed by the image of a certain Lady, clapping him on the shoulder and congratulating him on his new appointment. And her reassurance that he would not let her down.

It was going to be a long, long, oh dear god when will it end stay.

http://home.mchsi.com/~ketri/wsb/links/camp_r_team.jpg

Lieutenant Curuvar flicks his eyes back down at his medium-rare steak and shudders a little. No. Not possible. No. Wrong. After fishing in his trouser pockets momentarily he produces a packet of antacids which he cracks open, depositing two into his glass of water.

Weapons-Maker looks up from his salad, continuing to chew as he easily indicates Analton and his condition with his fork. "You know, Anal--"

The Noldor winces.

"--Curuvar, too much meat can be hard on the stomach."

Analton sighs and looks up at the 'tosh with a pained expression, mouth open and ready to retort before he reconsiders and closes it gently. Backtalking to kzin, although not expressly dangerous anymore, still isn't a pastime for the faint of heart. Besides, he's just looking out for me... nice guy that he is... but... Another barely-repressed shudder. Sure, even the Elentari was bisexual, but that was different. "Just in case you'd like to know..."

"Know what?" The kzin returns to munching his greens. Strange cat.

"Err..." Another momentary flick of his icy blue eyes at Borghese. "You... uh... mayhaveanewfriend. Oh," he perks up, "I heard that the Nemesis-class was just accepted for production and they're going to start on smee-cores for the fleet." He lets himself grin genuinely. "We--"

The kzintosh winces.

The elf stops grinning. "We've turned out to be quite helpful, apparently."

"Mrrrhmrr," the kzin nods. "Building those should noticably slow standard fleet construction, no?"

"That and all the upgrades..." Analton shrugs. "I wouldn't know. Probably."

The kzin pauses for a moment, sniffing the air momentarily. "What is this about a new friend?"

"Ahh... *ahem*" The elf coughs lightly. "I'm sure you'llmeethimsoon." He immediately takes up fork and knife and attacks the steak without mercy, giving him an excuse to stop talking. The kzin sniffs the air some more, then shrugs in an almost human gesture before looking down at his rather large and extremely empty bowl.

"I am going to wander about and see what needs to be done, failing that, relax in the rec room."

Analton waves between mouthfuls of beef, not about to remove his excuse to not talk. "Hufff fffinn."

Getting up, the kzin walks over to deposit his bowl and utensils on the cleaning line then proceeds out the door--nearly running into Doctor Hammuh in the process. "Hey! Weapons-Maker! Just the cat I needed to see!" The balding man grins broadly while the kzin doesn't know what makes him wince more--the grin or that obnoxiously bright TEAM MELTA blazer--as he gets dragged by the arm out of the cafeteria.

"'Kay, boys, let 'er rip!" Pho Hammuh jumps out of the way while the kzin finds himself looking at some sort of odd device mounted on a bare-bones tracked chassis like some sort of softcore Panzerkampfwagen Brummbar pornogra--

And now he's ten meters in the air unsupported in another blink.

"Hey, Maker, how do you feel?"

"In suspense," the kzin replies wryly, folding his arms. "I suppose you got it to work, then?"

"Yeah!" Pho Hammuh smiles exhuberantly. "Thing is, ever since that fridge thing, no one wanted to be the livin' test subject."

"I can understand why."

"Oh, and y'know how gravitics can either usually only push or pull?"

"I am trying not to think about that at the moment."

The witty rejoinders fly almost as far over the balding TEAM MELTA leader as Weapons-Maker does. "Check this out!"

The kzintosh makes his final peace with the Fanged God. When someone who looks like Doctor Hammuh says those words with that exhuberance in that accent, someone is going to die, and that death will involve firearms, explosives, or some kind of vehicle like a pickup truck.

Instead, he just starts idly spinning in place. "Yeah," the human continues, "we figgered out a way to basically use differential pullin' to create a force moment and turn stuff around. This'll really aid manipulation without havin' to touch anything!"

"Excellent," replies the 'tosh, "now put me down."

The doctor leapscrambles onto the mobile projector and nods as the technician lowers the barrel and puts the kzin back down. "Right... TEAM MELTA awwwaaaaayyyyy!" Wrenching the tracked brick into gear, the yellow-blazered MELTAs speed off in a spit of sod from their tracks and 1950s 'disrespect authority and have a damn good time doing so' surf music blasting from a top-bolted boombox.

Sighing, the kzin settles his tri-corner hat on his head with a soft growl and decides that relaxing would be good. Before someone gets badly badly mauled.

The skies above Camp R

"How's it flying, BN?"

"Like a dream, Dr. Phetara! WHEE!" Ymari's response crackles through as the ungainly SWORD unit weaves through a complex series of manuvers with the quickness one would expect of a craft several times smaller.

"Excellent, BN. Let's try a spli- What the-?!" Alexander Phetara, assistant of the SWORD Project, boggles at his radar display and quickly checks it against Camp R's log of who's in the air. "Unknown contact deorbiting from-"

Before the man can finish, a bright streak descends from the sky, right at the prototype SWORD. "YEEP!" Ymari shrieks, banking and pulling the large craft up and out of the way as an orange and yellow craft blasts by, its hard angles knifing through the air with practiced ease.

http://rpstudios.ian-justman.com/junk/CGgoods/EV3-CampR.JPG

The new craft appears similiar to Ymari's Elite Victory Mk-II, SWORD unit notwithstanding, though the orange and yellow craft is larger and has a more wicked profile, riding forward on dual plumes of bright exhaust.

"What the-? Is that the... but I heard that it wasn't going to be brought here for another few weeks-!" Dr. Nekura gapes.

"Queenie to techie types down below!" The unmistakable voice of Firefury Amahira comes over the comm. "Sorry I'm here with my new bird a lil early- I figured I just badly needed a vacation, so..."

"THE Queenie?!" Ymari gawks, wheeling the SWORD in pursuit of the orange ship, which responds swiftly by darting around the larger ship in what can best be called a 'complex geometric pattern'.

"Firefury-sama HERSELF is test piloting the Victory Series 7-A?!" Dr. Phetara gapes.

"We're doomed." Dr. Nekura looks up at the aerial antics while making assorted religious gestures with her hands. "I've only heard stories, but I've heard that Firefury-sama is more of a jet jocky maniac than Ymari could ever HOPE to be."

"... That bad-?" Dr. Phetara is interrupted by the orange ship blasting by overhead absurdly low at absurdly high speeds, the resulting sonic boom knocking both of the scientists flat on their keisters.

"That proof enough for you?" Dr. Nekura tries to shout over the noise.

"WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU, DOCTOR!" Dr. Phetara yells back, apparently robbed of his hearing for the moment.

*CRACK* *THUMP*

"Try pulling the second modulator unit back a bit."

*THUUUUMP* *CRACK*

"Well, that didn't work." Out in the middle of a field, a bunch of techs were clustered around treaded cargo mover, which was covered with various pieces of equipment. At the front was a long-barreled laser cannon with a ring of gravypulse generators around it, and at the rear was a small conversion plant powering the entire mess. Each 'thump' and 'crack' corresponded with a gravy field pulsing and a laser burst respectively. At the moment the team was trying to work out timing issues. "Try it now."

*THUMCRACK* A flash of illuminated dust particles and ionized air momentarily connects the cannon to the target at the other end of the field. That was a fifteen-meter GPA2 hull, fitted with sensors rather than the normal fighter or cutter interiors. The equipment inside was measuring how much energy hit its light shields. There may have once been an official group photo of some team sprayed on the side with smartpaint, but carbon scoring had long since erased it.

"Well, that was better. Here, let's try switching out these and connecting the fourth-stage modulator to the first-stage like this, then resetting the computer's timer."

As the techs prepared for anyone round of firing, the conveyor shakes as a yellow and orange aircraft shoots past overhead with a boom. As the techs muttered complaints about fighter pilots, they failed to notice that a small, poorly secured regulator had vibrated loose. "Ok? Three, two, one, fire!"

*THUMP* The target drone suddenly lit up with a brilliant glare while everyone's gut wrenched from an overpowered gravity shift.

"Oh, gods, that felt horrible. I think we nearly gravied ourselves."

"Hey, I think we got the timing right though. There wasn't a laser trail or heat expansion crack." Across the field, the drone was still glowing red and now had a round hole through it.

"Yeah, we did. Even adjusting for the extra laser power, there was definitely an increase in efficiency. I hope we didn't burn out the emitter."

"Shields were distorted, too, and I think we can increase the distortion by - is that tree over there on fire?"

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~chigbee/Cetaganda/campr/cannontest.JPG

“So, programming it to analyze the surface on contact to find a proper resonance …” Enzo looks up from his plate at Borghese, who’s attention is decidedly elsewhere. He follows the other man’s gaze to where Weapons-Maker is walking casually out of the room. “Ricco, are you even listening?”

“Yes, yes. Resonance. Programming,” the other man says, looking back to Vettori with a wry smile. “Oh come now, Enzo. It’s lunch time. All work and no play makes Ricco a dull boy, after all. And when one has such an excellent view with one’s meal, one may as well enjoy it.”

Lorenzo groans, his eyes shifting slightly over to Olivia, sitting once again by herself in a quiet corner, prim and proper, studying a datapad as she eats. Maybe she has the right idea.

“Of all the folks to get fixated on, Ricco … Jesus. Why not,” he casts around for a moment, his eyes falling on the kzin’s lunch partner, nodding and offering a brief half-smile. He turns his attention back to his plate, sawing furiously at his cut of meat. “Why not someone less lethal and more … um … compatible. Like the elf there.”

“Wha?” Ricco, of course, glances over to Curuvar, smiling in his usual winning manner when he catches his eye. Then gives him a casual once-over.

“Oh, he’s a pretty one, yes, but … straight. I’d bet my briefs on it,” he says knowingly, pausing to take a long sip from his tall glass of milk. “Kows … who’d have thought? Ah, yes. Anyways …”

“How do you know? Hell, you haven’t even spoken to him,” Enzo retorts, not bothering to look over again, focusing instead on his meal, and trying not to imagine any further than he already had about certain things.

Ricco shakes his head, chuckling mischievously. “Trust me. I know. What, you want me to prove it?” He starts to get to his feet, pushing his tray back slightly to avoid any mishaps.

“Oh, God JESUS, no, Ricco – sityourassbackdownhereandfinishyour—“

“Pfft. Nonsense. I need to get another napkin anyways. Be right back,” Borghese says with a grin, then walks directly over to where Curuvar is sitting with perhaps just a little bounce in his step.

“Doctor Riccardo Borghese of the Dominion,” he says cheerfully, extending a hand. “I was just commenting to my co-worker over there,” Ricco nods back towards Enzo briefly, the other man offering a weak smile in return, “Lorenzo Vettori, that we haven’t been terribly sociable in our short time here. It’s good to get out and meet the neighbors, don’t you think? And I couldn’t help but notice that I haven’t had the pleasure of making your acquaintance.”

He never loses that winning smile, hand out and looking to the elf expectantly. Across the way, Enzo buries his face in his hands, then slowly pulls them up far enough that he can peer between them, thumbs gently massaging his temples.

“Why me, Lord? Why me?” he laments, watching with the sort of sick fascination of someone observing a train wreck.

Curuvar looks at the hand momentarily, then back up at the human scientist. Analton's presence is generally not overtly appreciated in such a fashion, and something about that and the man's demeanor makes him worry as he accepts the hand like one would reach out to take a cold, slimy fish. "Oh-Three Analton Curuvar, TYCS Research Division." Some lieutenants and captains at Camp R have a tendency to go by grade so as to not confuse outsiders not used to reading the rank. "I wouldn't worry too much about being sociable... I know I'm not the best at it."

Ricco proceeds, for all the world not bothered in the least, clasping the elf's hand warmly and giving it a firm but gentle shake before releasing. "Bah. With all the work going on around here I can see how it would be a challenge to begin with. Too hard on yourself by half, I'm sure," he replies genially. "Perhaps you just need to get out a bit more? You know, away from the labs and all? Does wonders for one's outlook."

"Hopefully that's over for now given that my last project was completed successfully." Analton attempts a diplomatic smile which, while strong on statuesque beauty, still manages to be somewhat weakened by the gnawing feeling in his stomach that he tries to quench with a sip of fizzing water. "I have to say that I haven't worked quite so hard as that--mentally, at least--in all my life."

"Excellent! Always good to see a fellow scientist succeed in their efforts," the man says, idly stroking his goatee, then continuning in a conspiratorial tone. "I know what you mean about work. Truth is, as nice a fellow as my compatriate is, he's a terrible slavedriver at times. But then I suppose someone has to be. Takes all kinds, what?" He smiles again brightly, taking note of the elf's chosen beverage. "You know, my grandmama had an old family remedy for ah ..." He pats his stomach with a knowing nod and a wink. "Be happy to get hold of it for you."

"That's nice of you," the Noldor replies with just a hint of guardedness. That obvious, eh? Well... I suppose it would have to be. "The doctors all say they can't find a reason. Sometimes I wonder how they ever manage to get paid at all... and I'm sure my team would call me a proffessional slavedriver." Another diplomatic smile.

Ricco chuckles good-naturedly. "Well, perhaps it's the stress? I hear it can wreak havok with ones system. Never suffered from such myself, but then I try to keep work and play fairly balanced." He appears thoughtful for but a moment before continuing. "You ought to talk with Vettori. I'd bet the two of you would get along well, from what you say. Which reminds me ... you mentioned your team. Couldn't help but notice the large fellow with the sharp teeth you were eating with. He one of the crew?"

Curuvar nods. "Yes, Weapons-Maker. He..." The elf half-smiles. "Hmm... the name says it all, doesn't it?"

"My my ... it does indeed," the man replies, grinning. "Never had the opportunity to work with anyone outside the Dominion before, you know. This Camp R job has been one hell of an opportunity. Where I come from, folks like he and yourself are a, shall we say, rara avis."

"They seem to be relatively common around here. All from the Segments, you see... and given how much FHG likes to plug tourism, I'm surprised we're not more common. Odd." Analton shrugs. "Oh well--even if the sun never sets on the Empire, we can't be everywhere, I suppose."

Ricco nods sagely. "Of course, of course. But then I haven't been assigned to the more, shall we say, 'social centers' where we're a bit more cosmopolitan. I hear Devras is quite the hot spot for that sort of thing. Pity ... I'd enjoy the night life." He glances over towards the door the kzin left through earlier, then back to Curuvar. "I'll get that remedy for you, my good man. Er, elf. It's been a pleasure."

A brief pause. "If you don't mind my asking, your furry friend there. Would he take an introduction amiss?"

Curuvar arches a sculpted brow. "I wouldn't see why not. He tends to be a sociable sort--at least, more sociable than I am, which by all reports is not saying very much."

"Ah!" the jovial man replies, smiling broadly. "Bene grazie, Signore Curuvar. Though I think you rate yourself by far too unkindly. 'Til later, then. Ciao!" With a half-bow and a smile, Ricco makes his way over to where the napkins are, retrieves a couple, and heads back to his seat, perhaps more of a bounce to his step than previous.

The elf just shrugs to himself and sips his fizzy water again. Not a bad one after all. Goodness, Analton, you really must learn to relax a little bit. Nevertheless, he still has that sense of worry knawing at his kidneys.

"Mmmhmmm ... definitely straight," Ricco says, sitting down again and flashing Vettori an impish grin. "Or at least, doesn't swing my way. You should get to know him, Enzo. I think you might find you've a lot in common." Lorenzo just gives the man a martyred look and sighs, finishing off the last of his meal. "I'll be in the lab," he murmurs, taking up his tray.

Back at the lab, Enzo contents himself with running the simulation programs over, and over, noting the variations and resulting effects when variables are changed slightly. Firmly entrenched back in his work, he found himself full of nervous energy. He had, for now, the lab to himself, Ricco having gone off god knows where, and Olivia having stated her intention to run some numbers in a more quiet corner of the base – meaning of course, she had had her fill of the two men for now and would be back later when some measure of patience had returned.

Which of course, suited him just fine.

He stretched, got up and walked over to where Ricco had been toying with a rough first-draft prototype, eyeing it thoughtfully. Coming to a decision, he picked it up, and walked over to the large water tank they had prepped to do some testing in. Floating in the center was a scaled model ship, its hull constructed from the same composites as the ones currently operating in the Dominion. He hefted the small device in his hand, eyed the ship, then nodded. Making a couple of adjustments, he sealed the odd-looking contraption, and released it into the tank.

It bobbed and floated in the water, looking quite harmless; not unlike a child’s ball from a distance, really. Vettori went back to another station, tapping in some commands on the computer there, and the sphere began slowly to move. As sensors aboard the device registered contact, small flexible ‘legs’ shot out, the cups at their tips adhering via chemical compounds to the surface of the model and sealing tight. Another small part pressed down from the center of each attached cup, making clean contact with the metal hull.

He waited, knowing the adhesive was still something in the works, giving it additional time to seal. Such details could be worked out as they progressed. This next part, however …

Tapping in the proper frequencies – automatic analysis being yet another hurdle to overcome – he hit enter, sending the proper commands over QE lines to the little sphere. And as he had hoped, the sphere responded.

The small parts sealed up against the model begin to vibrate, at a specific speed. Oscillation. It’s a simple enough premise, one going back to his study of Tesla and his experimentations. In this case, the idea being to establish a forcing function to match the same natural frequency of the object it attaches to. In fact, so wrapped up is he in the monitoring of progress, the readings coming back from the various sensors on the model and mine, that he fails to notice where the spin and drift of the model has taken it – to the side of the tank.

A repeat of previous contact is initiated as the sphere is bumped up against the side, additional small legs shooting out to adhere to the steel tank … which is unfortunately, given the use and origin, designed from a much similar composite as the model.

---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----

In the meantime, Ricco makes his way towards the gym, having made some discrete inquiries, and stopped off at his quarters to change into more appropriate clothing. Someone like Weapons-Maker is hard to miss, after all. As he enters the area, he realizes just how true that is.

The big kzintosh looks to be in a less than amicable mood … and hefting an ungodly level of weights. Ricco can’t help but shiver –f or several reasons, not the least of which is appreciation as he watches the play of muscles rippling beneath fur.

Good god almighty … it ought to be a sin to look that good, and be that lethal all at once. Casually walking closer to take a look at the free weights himself, his brows shoot up as he catches a glimpse of just how much weight the kzin is lifting.

“What is that – two hundred kay apiece? Jesus Christ, man!” he can’t help but blurt, a definite tone of both amazement and appreciation in his voice. He realizes he’s staring. Alright, perhaps ogling a bit to be more precise, and he coughs politely. “I mean … er … wow. Sorry to interrupt you … I just ah … hi. Riccardo Borghese, Dominion Research. I’ll ah … just be over here …” He can’t resist a warm smile all the same – though he does have the sense to keep his lips firmly together when he does it. That much at least he had learned in doing a bit of ‘homework’.

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

Olivia mutters quietly to herself as she walked down the long hallway towards the Dominion research labs, quietly talking to herself aloud, going over the figures that she had been working on over lunch, and after.

“What we need is …”

She looks up, pausing for a moment as she hears what sounds like a quiet rumble. The fact that it seems to be coming from her lab however, gets her moving again. She is just a couple yards from the door when a loud BOOM, cracking, and splashing is heard, along with the unmistakable sound of Vettori yelling.

“Oh fuuuuu….”

The rest is lost in the roar of water and crashing coming from the other side of the door, which soon flies open, emptying the contents of the now broken tank, anything loose in the lab that was near waist level or lower, and Lorenzo Vettori into the hallway.

Olivia shrieks and goes down in a tumble, her clipboard flying from her hands, caught up in the wave as it flows down the hall, quickly losing force and dissipating as it spreads out, leaving everything in its wake a sopping mess.

Enzo looks up from the ample yet strangely uninviting cleavage of Lady Ice herself where his face had the misfortune of being pressed into during all the chaos. Wincing, he delicately tries to disentangle himself, while she looks back at him, seemingly in shock, her glasses hanging halfway off her face, propped up slightly on her elbows.

“Uh … hiya ‘Liv,” he says sheepishly, trying his damnedest to be a gentleman as he struggles to get to a less compromising position.

Folks down the hall can hear the resounding smack across the face he gets for his efforts.

Colonel Matyus winces, standard issue combat boots splashing softly in the centimeters of water. "Oi. What the hell happened he--"

A TEAM MELTA mook in the standard purple-on-eye-burning-yellow blazer runs up, splashing about unthinkingly in the standing water. "Hey, guys! You wouldn't believe what we just did! We've got our gravitic manipulator beam set up for delicate work--see this? Huh?" He proffers a huge origami swan made out of a large plate of sheet metal--it's easily ten kilograms. "We made this with the--"

His exuberant and utterly mindless patter of success is silenced with a quick left hook to the jaw; the scientist folds up and splashes back into the water, out cold and well above the water line. The colonel shakes her hand out and kzingrins. "You'll thank me later. Now stop beating the hell out of each other and get this mess cleaned up. Deputize as much of MELTA as poke their heads around."

* - * - *

Weapons-Maker looks up, finishes the set of curls he's currently on, then puts the weights down with a notibly audible dull thunk of cast iron landing on padded mats, sinking down easily in the plastic-covered foam straight to the concrete floor three centimeters down. Instead of his usual seventeenth-century fare, he now wears generally nondescript if moderately tight physical training shorts and a white tank-top muscle shirt saying something utterly unintelligible in the commas-and-dots of kzinti writing.

Standing up, he stretches out from his workout and looks down, extending a hand with a chuckle. "Raecn-Hizhvizhhocng, although if that is too difficult for the palate I accept 'Weapons-Maker.'" The kzin smiles two ways, ends of his mouth curling up just a little and ears folding and unfolding in a winking motion. "You are relatively new here, no?"

“Yes ma’am. Right away, ma’am,” Vettori stutters, scrambling to get up, offering a hand to Olivia while rubbing his cheek ruefully. She looks as though she is nearly choking on whatever it is she’s hoping to say, but somehow fails to manage it. With a quick glance at the Colonel, she settles for a stony silence as she refuses the assistance, and gets to her feet with as much grace as she can muster, trying without much success to straighten her dripping clothing.

The two of them take a moment to survey the disaster area, he with a somewhat guilty expression, she, barely-contained anger. “I am certain Devras will want to hear about this little fiasco,” Oliva manages between clenched teeth, speaking their native tongue in a very quiet voice.

Resignedly, Enzo starts picking up papers floating limply in the water, shaking them out half-heartedly as his co-worker moves on to the lighter equipment, muttering under her breath.

“And where in hell is Ricco?” she snaps, picking a datapad out of a puddle and letting the water drain off of it.

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

The man in question was rather pleased with things so far. Introductions past, and no eviscerations.

“I am indeed - and grazie. I'm afraid my throat simply wasn't designed for the rigors your language requires, much as I regret it,” he replies, accepting the offered hand more confidently than he was feeling – a firm decisive shake, a slight tilt of the head as he studied the rather impressive kzin. He couldn’t help but marvel at the unique feel of padded fingers and warm fur, let alone the quiet strength inherent in the large hand that rather dwarfed his own.

Il dio …

Clearing his throat with a subtle cough, he releases Weapons-Maker’s hand perhaps a bare moment later than is generally considered a polite duration for a handshake. “I’ve been meaning to … that is, I couldn’t help but notice … aw hell,” he finally says with a slight shrug. “I’ve been hoping to make your acquaintance. Finally got to meet your co-worker earlier - Analton. Nervous fellow, isn’t he? Poor man … er … elf. Can’t help but think he lets his job get to him too much. Doesn’t seem the type to take the time to unwind. At any rate,” he finishes, smiling again, a bit more warmly than before, though with no less care. “A definite pleasure, believe me. Please, don’t let me interrupt you any more than I already have.”

He takes the towel from around his shoulders, laying it across one of the other benches, and starts his usual stretching exercises, feeling just a little flushed.

Some people speak volumes with their eyes. Colonel Stephanie Matyus' return glance to Olivia says only one thing, but says it very well.

I can take you.

As such, she seems gratified by the cessation of outright hostilities and tromps off. It wouldn't be the first time the O-6 has wielded a mop, and it probably wouldn't be the last either.

* - * - *

"Hrr... yes... he is unusually tightly-strung, is he not?" The kzin watches the human go through a veritable whirlwind of small-talk in his monologue, somewhat at a loss of what, if anything, to reply to. Ending as soon as it began... 'Hrr... yes, a pleasure."

Gently sniffing the air in mild confusion, Weapons-Maker shrugs internally before returning to curls. The urge-to-kill-MELTA still needed to be toned down past the point where a mild roughing-up would be acceptable to sate it.

Olivia knows the look Matyus gives her. She also knows without a doubt the Colonel is absolutely right. She maintains her demeanor, at least in relation to Vettori, as best she can, making a mental note not to cross the Colonel in the future. Enzo for his part is completely oblivious, too wrapped up in feeling rather miserable on account of the catastrophic results of his testing. The point of success, for now, is completely lost on him as he slogs through the mess, retrieving what he can, and keeping an eye out for any bright yellow MELTA jackets.

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

“So,” Ricco says as he casts around for where to start his workout, glancing over at the kzin now and then with an appreciative eye. Man, how does he keep that up? Ok, stupid question, but ... damn.

“Worked here long yourself? From your name I gathered what you specialize in - impressive." Most definitely meant in more ways than one. "More a ‘tinkerer’ myself.”

One thing that gives him pause as he looks over the place, is the oddly textured walls. Almost like … velcro? Not being one afraid to ask questions, he goes right with it. “I’ve seen a lot of gyms, but never one with walls quite like that. Any particular reason?”

Weapons-Maker nods at Ricco's analysis of his not-quite-a-name. "Yes, our 'names' tend to do that." He chuckles softly, rumbling in a sort of good-natured subgrowl. "I have been here for several years now--they always come up with new tools for me to work on. I worked on the broadband lasers, the miniaturized low-mass particle cannon for Heavy Gears, and just completed my work on the central machine intelligence project for our warships." He speaks with the not-quite-quiet pride habitual to kzinti and their accomplishments.

"The walls?" He looks up at the velcro walls. "Some scientists here in the past thought it would be good to have a modular experiment-wall with velcro-attached components... it was completed just as we converted to geckoweb. See the large concentric circles with the black and red checkerboard patterns based on the radial divisions? Someone thought it would be a good idea to resurrect the pub joke-game of human darts, velcro suits and all. They used to use a trampoline as is traditional, but then they realized that, unlike the past, they had people who could properly throw them." Weapons-Maker completes another curl as emphasis.

"I am a rather good player."

Several ideas present themselves at Weapons-Maker’s demonstration and casual admission. Some, more entertaining than others, admittedly. Ricco can’t resist a low whistle of a ‘well now’ nature, chuckling just a bit himself.

Oh, I bet you are, big guy. I bet you are. But seriously. Human darts? Kzin-thrown, no less? Is there a down side to this? Oh, wait. Potential biffing, bashing, bruising, other such ‘ouch’ factors, possible manhandling by Weapons-Maker. Pros, of course, possible manhandling by Weapons-Maker, interesting way to break the ice a bit more, some laughs, bit of camaraderie … hell, when’s the next time I’ll get an opportunity like this? Granted, not my usual idea of foreplay, but … why the hell not?

“So ah … care to demonstrate?” he asks simply, looking over at the big kzin with a challenging sort of smile – still careful not to show teeth. It would, after all, be a shame to unintentionally insult when things seemed to be going so well.

Noting the challenge in the smile, the kzintosh completes another curl then lazily lets the massive bricks of cast iron slip from his fingers and land with a barely muffled thud on the padded floor before looking sideways through slitted eyes at Ricco, ears winking again. "Are you volunteering?"

"I suppose I am at that," the man says, wriggling his brows, glancing at the weights, then looking the big kzin over again. "Seeing as we seem to be lacking any others willing participants ..." I hope I'm not doing something terribly stupid here ...

Well, I could do with throwing people around. "You will see in that set of lockers"--the kzin points with one orange-furred finger--"several black velcro suits. They are the ones with the handles." After that bit of information, he leans forward, takes up the weights, then puts them back to their station next to the weight rack.

Goodgod. Ricco blinks, then looks from the weights to where he's pointed, and nods. "Right." Well, may as well get to it. Carpe diem and all that. Though in this case, more like Carpe Ricco. He pads over to the lockers, selecting an appropriate suit, and goes about the business of shrugging it on, still wondering idly just what he's gotten himself into.

Weapons-Maker works out the kinks in his muscles, stretching out his arms and legs and popping his neck just a little. "The procedure is relatively simple. I stand four to five meters from the wall, standard bouncer-throw. While the wall is padded, bouncing off is naturally more painful, or so I am told."

"Sweet Jesu," Ricco murmurs, walking up and looking thoughtfully between the wall, Weapons-Maker, the wall again. "So ah ... by a 'good player' you mean not only hitting your target, but hopefully, landing your 'dart' so that he doesn't do just that? Or ... is bouncing kind of the point?" he asks, a bit more nervously than intended, the heightened adrenaline levels of instinctual 'fight or flight' competing oddly with entirely different sensory input.

"Believe it or not, human darts is a game of teamwork. I am good at getting the payload to the target, so to speak; it is the dart's responsibility to distribute impact in such a way to minimize impulse and the likelihood that the elastic rebound of the materials involve in collision exceeds the gripping strength of velcro. And if the dart does not stick, the team gets no points." The kzintosh shrugs his broad shoulders. "Bouncing would be detrimental to that."

"Ah, bene ... bene ... Any suggestions as to tecnique, other than 'spread out and hope like hell you stick'?" the man asks with a smile, his usual levity returning somewhat.

"Spreading out is good; also remember that the only way to reduce total impulse with a given force is to increase the time of the collision. Thus, use your arms and legs ahead of you to bleed off momentum."

Ricco can't help but laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of the whole situation, shaking his head, one hand coming up to subtly cover the flash of teeth that he fails to refrain from entirely. "This is crazy," he says, half to himself, then looks up at Weapons-Maker. "Well, I'm all yours. Let's do it."

"Of course it is crazy," the kzintosh replies with a nod, having led the way to the throwing line, "this is Camp Restricted. Stand here."

Assume the position, Ricco thinks with another chuckle. "A'ight ..." He loosens up a bit, pulse already racing, looking over at the wall and already trying to guess trajectory and proper response.

Without much warning other than a slight "Hrr..." the kzintosh eyes the target, grabs the felt-loop handles centered behind the waist and shoulders (the suit cunningly designed not to compress various delicate things), swings back a good sixty degrees and launches the hapless human forward into the air.'

Nothing had quite prepared the human for the ease with which the kzintosh is able to hurl him forward, nor indeed the lack of warning. He flies towards the wall with a yelp of surprise, unfortunately bringing his knees and arms in too far in a reflexive curling up. Thunk. Rrrrrrip. Thud. "Ow." Ricco, being Ricco, promptly breaks down into helpless laughter. "Mannaggia!," he says between laughs. "I'm sorry, really. Just ... damn. I'll do better next time, really." He gets to his feet and walks back over to Weapons-Maker, still chuckling. "You weren't kidding about your throwing arms, that's for damn sure."

Weapons-Maker chuckles. "Never boast about what you cannot support. Ready?"

"I think so ..." He quite firmly refrains from the more teasing answer that springs to mind.

As soon as the ellipsis begins Weapon-Maker is already in stance, taking up the handles, swinging back, and hefting forward with a slight growl.

"Whoah-ho-hooooah!" Ricco goes flying again, this time having a bit more idea of what to expect, though the rest of what he'd been thinking is soon forgotten as the wall rushes up yet again. He tries leading with feet and hands rather gracelessly, thumping up against the wall with a soft "Oof" and telltale scrape of velcro.

Moments pass, and miraculously, he sticks. "Well hey," he says over his shoulder, rather surprised. "How'd we do target-wise?"

The kzintosh cants his head slightly. "Not too poorly--you stuck second-time up. Knowing how to cover all of the high-value areas comes with practice."

Ricco looks down to one side, then the next, then cranes his head around to try and catch a glimpse of Weapons-Maker. "Got some serious lift there," he says, working to free his legs first, figuring landing on his head would be a less than pleasant way to drop the roughly couple meters it is to the floor.

As it turns out, being two meters off the ground still means Weapons-Maker could bite the man's knee off without stretching any. Walking up to the velcro-suited human, Weapons-Maker reaches up and pulls him off the wall by the waist with a rrrrrrrip of little plastic hooks pulling away from fuzzy fabric loops.

Well hel-LO tall orange and furry! "Grazie, my good kzintosh," he says aloud, as tempting as the other is. "You folks play this often? Damnably odd, but I can see the appeal ... in a crazy sort of 'why not' sort of way, that is."

Weapons-Maker nods. "It is curiously popular. It allows all involved to relase tension in a relatively safe manner."

"Well, given the sorts of work we all deal with on one level or another, and granted, some of the folks we work with, I could see how readily-available tension relief would be a good thing," Ricco says, nodding sagely, he head tilting slightly as he looks over the big kzin thoughtfully, the corners of his lips turning up in a smile. "Should you ever feel the need to ah ... take the edge off as it were, you've got yourself a willing partner. Human darts." He chuckles good-naturedly. "Not sure the boys back home will believe this one."

Another soft chuckle from the kzin. "They rarely do." This is an odd one.

"Up for some more, or ... " Ricco trails off, gesturing mildly to the rest of the gym. I don't believe I said that, he thought, still rather amused all the same.

The 'tosh shrugs eloquently in an almost human gesture. "You are the one being thrown. I am probably going to be here for a few hours to work off my urge to kill Team MELTA and suck the marrow from their bones."

Now this gives the human pause, sure enough, and he looks back at Weapons-Maker, one brow arched in unspoken question. Curious, but not wanting to pry too much. "I'm ... good for a bit, I think ..."

Noticing the question, Weapons-Maker winks his ears. "I am not alone in this desire. Before long, you will probably experience it too."

Ricco notes the gesture, associating it with the earlier chuckles and all. It seems to be a positive reaction, but then his knowlege of kzinti expressions, customs, habits and the like is decidedly limited. "Why do I not have a good feeling about that," he asks wryly. "If they're that bad, they're going to send 'Liv and Enzo right off the deep end - and trust me, they're already a joy to work with as is."

"Perhaps you will get lucky and not have to deal with it." Another almost-human shrug. "Still, they are almost universally reviled because of their inherent ability to brag about success at the least opportune time... their skill at this is legendary."

"Well, from what little I've gathered while here so far, that name has come up more than its fair share when I've heard folks talking about er ... unfortunate happenings. At any rate, we'll cross that bridge when we get there I figure," he replies, shrugging and smiling.

Another nod and wink of the ears, this time associated with a slight upturning of the corners of the kzintosh's lips. "No need to rush anything." He looks over at the wall again. "Through for today?"

Ricco smiles thoughtfully, then nods coming to a decision, his smile broadening somewhat, though he bears in mind to keep it 'polite'. "As you said, no need to rush. I do need to get some reps and cardio in though, or my taste for some of the finer things in life - good cooking and excellent wines - is going to catch up to me with a vengeance."

"Well understood. I think I will take out my aggression on a racquetball."

"Go easy on the walls, neh?" the man says with a wink, starting to shrug out of the velcro suit.

The kzin chuckles and walks off. "Of course. Until later, Riccardo Borghese."

"Ciao, Weapons-Maker," comes the reply, accompanied by a brief wave. Well damn, that could have gone a lot worse.

Definitely an odd one, the 'tosh thinks as he retrieves a blue rubber ball and a racquet. Hopefully I won't break the racquet this time.

Some time later, feeling rather refreshed and ready to set nose to grindstone again. Riccardo makes his way back towards the lab ... and is surprised to see the hallway still wet, and people working to clean up what appears to be the remnants of some deluge or other. Picking his way gingerly through the hustle and bustle, his expression shifts from mildly amused, to slighly alarmed as he realizes where the flood originated.

This is not going to be pretty.

Truer words, it seems, were mever pondered. The lab is in a shambles, nearly everything is wet to some degree or other. Piles of equipment and soggy papers, wreckage from the broken tank and other bits that will need to be discarded have been added to around the room. And in the midst of it all, a frightfully cross Oivia and Vettori, scowling darkly by now, and responding to the woman's quiet barbs and questions with sharp retorts of his own, all in hushed tones.

Ricco's arrival changes that.

"Where in hell have you been, man?" Vettori growls, turning on him, Olivia not far behind. "While we've been cleaning up here--"

"Something that is Doctor Vettori's fault entirely," the woman interjects.

"--While we've been cleaning up here," the other man says more loudly, making certain to accent each word. "How's your afternoon been, Ricco?" His tone drips with mock civillity, much like the surrounding desks drip water.

"Oh, you know. A little of this, a little of that," Ricco says casually. "Went down to the rec room, got tossed around, thrown up against a wall and generally manhandled by a big, rather tasty kzintosh, if I do say so myself ..."

It's enough to make Vettori stop what he's doing, and give Borghese an absolutely incredulous look. For the moment, he's too stunned to respond coherently.

"What? Can't a guy get out of the office and have a bit of fun?" he asks Enzo in all seriousness. Olivia for her part, looks at first, confused. Then sliightly shocked. Then stands there staring at him with a look of righteous indignation. Before she can even start, 'Enzo cuts her off.

"Please, for the love of GOD and all that's holy, remind me never, ever to ask again. Now grab a mop and start cleaning."

"Anything you say, boss," Ricco replies, looking as serious as he can manage, while fighting off the urge to make Noah jokes.

Having made it through another set of morning meetings, Commander Livahdi makes her way down to the former gravy engine test bay, now a full research lab. She made a point of going down to visit lieutenant Turino. People involved deeply in science and experimental engineering had a certain reputation for being odd. In Crafters, this tended to be even more so. Luckily, she'd recognized the signs of an emerging Special, and acted quickly to guide his developement. Livahdi was quite pleased with herself - he was still bathing daily, eating regularly, and keeping up with his excersise. All she had to do now was get him socializing again (with someone other than his Igor, that is), and the project would be a complete success.

"Good afternoon, Lieutenant," she says as she enters the bay. She looks around, and her eyes fix on a floating sphere in the center of the room, so black that it made her eyes hurt. She waves a hand at it. "What's this?"

"Huh? Oh, commander!" She looks over at a bank of computer modules, over which she could just glance the lieutenant's blond hair. A moment later, he squeezes out and hands the test unit to Igor. "Its a Langston, ma'am."

"Really? I thought you were still working with that space-warpy device. A displacer, I think you called it?" Immensely useful device, that - Fleet Command, especially the exploration arm (and, no doubt, Fleet Intelligence), were very please with it, and by extension Livahdi and her division. She hoped he hadn't given up on it.

"Oh, yeah. I've handed that off to Lewis and his bunch. Mainly just a matter of refinement now. Its just that I was studying some five-space physics to try and understand it better, and I happened to come across some of Langston's work on the Field. It is, you know, simply a shadow of sorts of a five-space distortion as seen from three-space," Turino waves in the general direction of the black sphere. "And it got me thinking. What's the biggest disadvantage of the Field in combat?"

A simple enough answer. "Easy - at max protection, it block sensors. You must either use drones with QE, extended sensor arrays, or use gunport projectors to create rotating frequency windows to see out - and shoot out, for that matter. Why?"

"Well, I was thinking. Why not use a the Field itself as a sensor?"

Livahdi frowns. "It is used as one, in some scientific applications. But if you try that on a combat ship, the first hit blows out all the detectors - too delicate to withstand the sudden flux."

"Exactly, Commander!" Turino beams. "But then I started looking at my displacer. It's basically a molehole, really, connecting two points in space. So I think I may be able to use it to project a Langston Field through, one sensitive enough for sensor applications!"

"Uh huh." Livahdi wasn't sure that this even sounded possible, given the momentary nature of the displacer's effect. Still, if he was looking at it, it may be worthwhile. Crafters made the strangest intuitive leaps at times. That thought reminds her of her purpose here. "Lieutenant, when was the last time you left the lab, or spoke with someone on a topic not directly work related?"

"Well, ummm..." Turino's face scrunches up in thought. "I don't know?"

"That's not an acceptable answer, Lieutenant. Get a test sequence running, on that can last a while without supervision. Then, go out and get some fresh air. Meet some people. Do something other than work."

"Oh. Ah. Aye, ma'am. Right away." Satisfied, Livahdi leaves the room and makes her way off down the hall.

"Uh, right. Hey, Igor? Can you bring me some clothes? You know, something that's not a uniform?"

"Yeth, thir. One moment."

"... Sandals, Igor? What's wrong with my shoes?"

"Trutht me, thir. Wet thockth are a pain." A few moments later, the young man is making his way down the corridor towards the mess hall in a hawaiian-ish shirt and khaki shorts, smiling at the odd people milling around in the wetness.

Elsewhere...

"So..."

"So, we can make the concept of asymmetric warfare work with us. Just because we're a bunch of big bruisers doesn't mean we have to act it." Doctor Samantha Jackson, Executive Researcher of the War Analysis and New Concepts College smiles fiendishly. "Look at it this way--because of our broad base, we can bring a lot of stuff to the table, and we can bring a lot of different stuff. Think about our major threat forces, like the Ardans and the Sortadim."

"Um... okay." Her assistant, the long-suffering minor civil servant Kevin Garrison, nods as he walks with Doctor Jackson to the squat building that houses the WANCC think-tank. "The Ardans are less advanced. The Sortadim... vary."

"Both haven't taken psionics or thaumatologics to their rational ends in space combat. With the Shogunate's expertise in those fields, we've created the Fusilier-class and that's something they shouldn't be able to appreciably counter in quite some time. It's a weakness we can exploit."

"Ahh... I see. And by getting intel from Special Services, we learn what they plan to do so we can exploit what they do not plan to do."

"Exactly."

Somewhere near the unintentional indoor wading pool...

"Wai! Wai! Firefury-sama! Wait for me!" Ymari squeals, chasing after the orange reploid while shrugging out of her flight suit. "That's the new fighter, right? The really really awesome one?"

The orange reploid tries to hide a twitching eyebrow. True, she was just as much of a maniac in the air as the Neko, but she wasn't nearly so insane on the ground (usually). "Yes, the Victory Series 7-A. I'm doing the flight tests for it."

"Sw3333333333t!" The catgirl shrieks, leaving Firefury trying to figure out how the hell Ymari manages to speak "leet" in a non-text format. "Oh yeah, the SWORD tests are just about done! Will the SWORD and other MSWSs be compatible with the new fighter?"

"They should. The SWORD's docking clamps were designed in anticipation of the new fighter." Firefury responds, looking around for someone to ditch the hyperactive catgirl with. She spots a tacky hawaiian shirt amid the dampness, and splashes over, Ymari in tow. "Geeze, what the heck happened in here?"

Ymari whines about getting wet as she tags along, and thus gets a mouthful of warm steam when Firefury dodges around the guy, fires up her dash jets (standard on most groundpounding reploids after all!), and tears off down the hallway in a cloud of steam.

"YEEEK! Firefury-saaaaama!!!!" Ymari yelps, flailing in the sudden fog and faceplanting into the aforementions hawaiian shirt. "Oof!"

]{Secure QE Spurt Comms; m10 Security Protocols}
x Commander Helen Javi Livahdi, Chief of Staff, Camp Restriced Office
o Admiral Adam Teson Ingolfson, CO Office of Shipbuilding, Research, and development
Re: Advanced Sensing Package MkXXXII & 'Effector' Electronic Warfare System - Executive Summary


Admiral,

It is my pleasure to report that we have completed initial testing of our latest Scan/EW project and will soon be be ready to transfer the project over to secondary facilities for final refinement and ship integration design. My newfound resident Special, Lt. Turino, assures me that it should be a simple matter to adapt his new 'electromagnetic effector' to current ships with minimal difficulty.


One of the nice things about a summary, mused Commander Livahdi, was that you were actually expected to leave things out.

As expected, the new sensing system was quite capable of penetrating a Langston Field to allow those inside to see out. The initial version, and simplest, creates a one-way molehole effect to a nearby point. This is then used to create a tiny fish eye lens. Its simplicity and relative ease of manufacture may make it useful for medical, espionage, and commercial uses. Its primary military use will be as a window for active scanner rays to pass through or as near-hull detection, as its resolution is low and a better passive detection system is available.

That had been the precursor to the actual sensor system, a simple test of the basic theory. It was quite capable of seeing through to the other side of the wall - most anywhere within a few kilometers, even at its early prototype stage. It hadn't taken long for someone to realize the implications of that. Ryan had been wondering why there seemed to be unusually high energy use in the lab. She'd discovered where the power was going where she'd found four tiny black dots hovering in air while stepping out of the bathtub, in positions that would make give a good view for multiple angles. Of course, she did have to admit, dealing with the perpetrator had been an...interesting diversion.

The actual sensing device uses a similar base concept, but without an exit locus for the molehole, leaving the scan fields in ultraspace 1+. A precisely calibrated five-space 'speedbump' drops it back to normal space at a desired distance, usually just outside the defensive screens. The current system uses a langston-based detection field, but other gravitic and electromagnetic fields can also be used.

That, unusually enough, had been done without any incidents, at least to her knowledge. They'd gotten some spectacular views of some astronomical sights when the tested the prototype at maximum spread, getting a kilometer-wide telescope. She just hoped no one decided to try and replicate an ancient supernova.

During testing, another application for the new technology was discovered. During several tests, it was noticed that electrical equipment in the test zone was acting oddly. It was discovered that some spillover effects from the sensor fields were to blame. This was quickly corrected, and experiment with the effect conducted. We now have what may be a highly effective way to spoof enemy scan systems and attack electronic systems using a modified scan device. This 'effector' as it has been dubbed can manipulate electromagnetic fields, allowing us to mask EM signatures and scan returns, and depending on the range, even directly attack their sensor system and some electronics.

Of course, they hadn't realized exactly what it was doing until they had fried the control circuits for micro-conversion plant that was being tested, resulting several walls disappearing. That was certainly a repair bill that she didn't look forward to explaining.
During testing, another unexpected ability was discovered. We have found that the sensors field can, in some cases, read computer storage and detect active computing processes. In addition, our computing team says it may even be able to manipulate computers using the effector setup, especially electronic ones. Thus far, we have had little luck with actively hacking optronic and quantum computers thus far, although there has been some success reading storage.

She had been in the lab at the time Turino had been trying out the idea. They'd managed to use the sensor field to read storage drives around their portion of the camp, which had turned up some very interesting (and, in a few cases, very disturbing) files on some personal computers. She was going to have heart-to-heart discussion with Major Rotane about the appropriate uses of CSS computers. Turino assured her that eventually remote hacking might be possible, but it would take a level of precision field control that would take decades to obtain, especially for quantum computers.

More detailed technical reports for each system are attached. Overall, I am very pleased with the performance of my staff. I find that having a large group of similar individuals around in the form of other Camp Restricted researchers greatly encourages the free exchange of ideas, and a sense of healthy competition also helps motivate the staff.

The commander was very pleased with the way everyone seemed to get along. Well, almost everyone. There was, of course, The Enemy.

....the Sakkran bio-tech and genetic god-playing team was on the verge of a breakthrough.

"So you're saying the genetic templates are now compatible?" The Bio-Tech doctor Sheeat munches on his root vegetable meal as he asks, bits of food dropping from his mouth.

"Oh, yes. We've managed to make a workable mock-up with Resin-beetle DNA and the Hhoulaar chromosomes. This will be a success, or i'll eat my proverbial hat." The Gene-splicer and resident Mad-Scientist Zzott looks up from his projections. "And we can instill an intellect to it as well. nothing TOO smart, but smart enough."

The mental speech from Master Seargent Gheera Kwoll is heard between the scientists. "The beast must be capable of friend-foe recognition. Also, it must be mentally stable. I would hate to have to report to Command that the creature ate some TacSoft Troopers or something."

Sheeat shakes his head. "That is covered. Olfactory senses will be sharp, so even if holographic imaging is used as a disguise, the scent will be the determining factor."

"And we're instilling an intellect comparable to a really smart canine." Zzott chuckles mildly. "Tell them FETCH, and they'll bring you an enemy combatant."

"I have a real bad feeling about this."

TIME PASSES.....

"Are you prepared, Zzott?" Out in a field near the base, the Sakkran team is prepping their first tests of the creature they've cobbled together. Sheeat is behind a protective screen, while Gheera is in his Minion Suit. In case something goes awry.

In a massive cage, the occupant remaining eerily silent, Zzott waves a hand in an 'OK' fashion. Recorders and bio-monitors are set. "Everything looks nominal here. Let 'er rip!"

((To be continued, because I am a naughty lizard!))

The cage opens with a dull thud as the door swings into the ground. "Test test....Hhoul testing ground, recording 1.0.0" Sheeat speaks into the recording device which is capturing the scene in A/V. The creature called the Hhoul steps out slowly.

http://www.5amfunnies.com/sakkra/Sights/Hhoul.jpg

It sniffs the ground for a time as its four eyes blink randomly and separate from each other. The nostrils move with each breath. The tooth-lined maw opens with a loud 'Rarf!' escaping it.

"Okay, see how it reacts to commands." Zzott nods assent, and faces the creature. "Sit!" It is said with firmness, but not too loudly. The Hhoul shakes its head, then its whole body does the same much like a wet dog would. The shaggy coat sends fur flying about, with some fur sticking to the spiney protrusions all about its body.

"SIT!" The creature picks up a paw and licks at it, then wipes the paw on its face, seeming to groom itself as large hooked claws unsheath from their fleshy folds in the paw.

"SIT! The creature looks dead at Zzott, and lets loose a loud howl. It then bolts away with a great deal of speed. "Oh, vrelte! We have a runner!" A tinny mechanical voice is heard from Kwoll's Minion Suit. "I'm on it." The thudding of heavy footfalls is heard as the Minion Suit gives chase.

Zzott and Sheeat look at each other, when Sheeat comments. "I assume we can mark this test as non-conclusive?"

"At least we know its fast."

“Oh for the love of GOD, as if all the rest isn’t bad enough!” Olivia finally blurts out as she pours water off of the sealed laptop she was working with, the commotion in the halls with the Reploids and steam and resulting chaos on account having pushed her last button. She immediately pales, putting her hand to her mouth and looking rather horrified at her outburst. “Scuse … I ah … that is … “ she trails off, then blushing, goes back to her work a good deal more quietly than she had been previously.

“About damned time,” Vettori mutters as he works a mop to soak up as much as he can, then wrings it into a bucket for later dumping – a repetitive yet necessary task that by now was truly losing its appeal. To his annoyance, Ricco seems as cheerful as ever, going about his work with a smile and a ready joke for any who happen to be near and willing. Even the MELTA boys.

Vettori had put his foot down, and hard, at their near endless stream of ‘helpful ideas’ as to how they could ‘hurry this job along’ and ‘improve the efficiency of cleanup if by just’ suggestions. The idea of turning MELTA loose in this already waterlogged lab was a terrifying prospect in his mind. No doubt a thought shared by all who weren’t wearing those blazing yellow jackets.

Already one had managed a mild shock while ‘testing out an idea’ for drying out some of the more delicate extra parts which had unfortunately been open on the desk, and another had nearly given himself a concussion chasing an inactive reverb-mine under a desk in his enthusiasm to ‘check it out’. Vettori couldn’t imagine how they managed to get anything done the way they carried on. They made him and his team seem like a well-oiled machine by comparison.

Ricco doesn’t much mind the mess, so much as the time spent having to deal with it and surly co-workers. He can’t help but chuckle thinking that it was likely a damn good thing Weapons-Maker wasn’t present, given MELTA’s antics and exuberant chatter. Then again, he’d never seen a person torn limb from limb … unpleasant, but interesting enough, he supposes. Still, the cleaning efforts were going well, and it probably wouldn’t be too much longer before things were in relatively working order once more. “You want me to take that bucket out?” he asks Vettori, who shakes his head as he squeezes out the mop again.

“Naw, I’ll take care of it, thanks,” he says, taking hold of either side and proceeding down the hall to the nearest exit … again. Managing the door, he steps outside and walks well away from the building, then tosses the contents of the bucket out and away from him. About this time he hears a rather disturbing, distant howl, which brings him up short, looking around nervously.

“What the hell …”

It was the small dust-cloud kicking up that would warn anyone first. Like a dust-devil it seemed to whorl about. Next would be the sound of four feet hitting ground rapidly. The dust-cloud would draw nearer, faster and faster. Most people could make out the shape of the thing causing all this at this point.

The Hhoul was a pup at this stage. Its head was as high as a grown man's shoulders, but it was a pup none-the-less. Freshly weaned from its diet of infancy, and set out to explore a world with its myriad senses. Now it ran, and ran swiftly. Something was behind it, and he didn't like the noise it made. Two of its eyes kept watch behind it, while the other two right behind the snout watched where it was going, the ground passing in a blur.

Something not too big was in its sights, and it decided to investigate, A small change in its trajectory, and the target was acquired. Closer and closer it came, holding something and looking at him in a puzzling way. As the Hhoul approached, the being's expression turned from puzzlement, to realization, to something completely different.

I caught you! What are you? was the only thing running through its mind as the hapless human was circled; powerful nostrils sniffing at his feet, then legs, then up to the back and the neck. A forked tongue slides out and licks the side of his face. The Hhoul then walks to the front of the human and squats on its haunches, tongue hanging out slightly and jaws open just a wee bit. The frontal eyes stay trained on the man, while the rear ones close shut and the ears flick backwards behind the horned head.

HhhrrrrrrrOW!

Somewhere within the boundaries of Camp Restricted, well away from the flooding, rampant genetic beasties, and maniac pilots, something exploded. Granted, given this was Camp R, something exploding was not an altogether uncommon occurance, but there was something slightly odd about this one.

It was a very pleasing explosion, a flash of pretty blues and whites and yellows and purples, with just enough roar to it to declare "Look, something blew up!", but not to knock people over at the observation setup a few hundred feet away. The two scientists observing the blast exchanged looks.

"Okay... so you were right, those things really do explode on impact if they're overcharged." The taller of the two, an organic of Drakon clan descent noted to his associate.

"I told you they do, Doctor Arstal." The other retorted, a rolling of eyes evident in tone. The short one was a reploid, with dark basic armor visible underneath a white lab coat. "If you overcharge a thaumaturgic capacitor stone, it then becomes quite volitale and will detonate on impact with a solid surface. Now we've wasted a perfectly good stone and most of the day. And for what?"

Dr. Arstal glances at the wreckage of a dummy target, blown to bits, but not burning, or showing signs of burnination. "For the first firing test of the thaumaturgic frag grenade, mark-one! Blow things up without lighting them on fire! Theta-san, it's perfect!"

The reploid Theta looks to his datapad. "If you say so. But we're supposed to be developing thaumaturgic sidearms, not explosives."

"All in due time. Project Magical Girl is about thaumatech weapons of a more personal variety overall. Infantry-portable magiguns! Yeah!" The doctor cheers.

"Riiiiiiight...."

'Pup' or no, the Hhoul was the last thing Vettori was prepared to deal with at this particular juncture. If ever.

"Oh shit," was all he managed before the thing was on him, circling and snuffling. He quivered and quaked, remembering something about 'not showing fear', trying to remain as still as possible, though he let out a choked 'eep' when the beast licked his face, and shivered uncontrollably as it sniffed along his back and neck. Vettori, for the first time in his life, began seriously pondering if now was a good time to find Jesus. The usual joking commentary of 'try behind the couch' just didn't seem to cut it here.

Then the creature plunked itself down in front of him ... and in spite of the fearsome visage, gave him the oddest damned impression of a giant ...

"N--n--nice doggie," the man finally managed between clenched teeth, his lips trying to approximate a friendly close-lipped smile that eneded up more a pained grimace. "Uh ... help?" He said tentatively, not daring to take his eyes off the thing, then continued in a more desperate tone, never yelling for fear of egging the nameless critter on. "He-e-e-elp ... assistance, per favore ... sweet merciful Christ, someone please help ... Come on people ... surely there's some surveilance cams, or something ... I hope ... yes, yes ... nice doggie ..."

Ymari, now a great deal wetter and several levels less cheery than before trudges outside, wringing water out of her vest and shaking more of the obnoxious wet stuff from her hair and tail. "Yuck... if I'd wanted a steam bath or a shower, I'd go back to my dorm. It's going to take forever for this to dry."

The Neko looks skyward with a "Why me?" expression. "And until it does, everybody's gonna complain that I smell like a wet cat!"

A short distance away, a loud howl sounds and Ymari twitches her catlike ears in surprise, listening to the noise, head tilted to one side oddly. "What in Her name was that?" She shakes herself out one more time before trotting in the direction of the commotion, ultimately finding the obviously frayed Vettori and the Hhoul. "Oh my.... who's he belong to?" Apparently possessed of either a good animal instinct or total lack of sanity (depending on who you ask), she steps forward slowly, carefully cooing at the critter whose mannerisms remind her a lot of a dog. A gigantic oversize dog-mutant with spikes and four eyes and claws and teeth of DOOM, but a dog nonetheless. "Oh, aren't you a sweetie? C'mere and be a good boy?"

She glances back at the human. "Turn and walk away slowly and as naturally as you can. If you run, you'll just encourage him to chase. Predatory critters are like that." Warning issued, the catgirl returns her attentions to the Hhoul, "Where'd you run off from, huh? Aren't you just adorable?"

Deciding to go for broke (and besides, if something happened, she was getting auged out already anyway, so nothing lost, right?), she holds a hand out for being sniffed. "I bet you've got a big itch behind those horns, don't you?" Ymari wiggles her fingers with the promise of scratching that inevitable one spot all creatures have that they just can't scratch themselves. "You look all mean and rough, but I bet you're a big softy, right?"

Yes, if anyone is watching, it ought to be vividly apparent that the catgirl is crazy, stupid, or some combination of the two. With maybe a dash of genius in there somewhere. Maybe.

"You're kidding."

"Why should I kid?" Destruction of Exergy looks over its shoulder as it stomps gently down the hallway in its Security-2 avatar, its voice as snide as usual. "I have my orders as the fleet-side component of a closed research project between the OPO and Queen S.H.O.D.A.N. herself. The Cetagandan and Arpean metanormal services will probably be invited too."

"I just don't get it," Lieutenant Curuvar half-mumbles, half-says, as he looks up at the expressionless face of the warship-in-a-combat-robot, "what do machines want to do with magic?"

DoE sighs, or at least makes a noise that sounds like someone sighing. "S.H.O.D.A.N. has been assisting with psionics programs for years, Analton. She even warded an entire planet using a QACF fleet."

The Noldo blinks. "She did?"

"Yes, she did. I don't see why organics constantly have to confirm information which may seem surprising, especially so soon after hearing it the first time." The warship swings its head back around to look down the broad pathway it walks inbetween buildings, its segmented tail waving easily from side to side to keep its balance perfectly oriented, all moving with preternatural, almost predatory fluidity. "To be honest, I would prefer that they send"--some sort of tree-hugging flower-eating song-singing organic meatbag hippie old-man elf like--"you to deal with this project, but apparently the TYCS isn't supposed to be involved. I don't like magic and such--it takes a perfectly rational, reasonable universe and formats the entire thing out of spite."

"Well... we've already got thaumaweapons, like on the Fusilier-class. Not our preferred mode of fighting, to be sure, but it has its uses..."

"No." The Sec-2 avatar stops and turns around, trifingered claws balled into something like fists as it stands akimbo, looking down at the elf. "The argument, as far as I've heard, is that they don't want this technology to spread any further than it has to. We are building, so rumor says..." It looks left and right, then drops down to one knee, an armored fighting vehicle leaning in conspiriatorially as it gently pulls Curuvar in by his shoulder with one clawed hand before continuing in a quiet, almost inaudible voice.

Analton, feeling decidedly uncomfortable due to this sort of proximity with a walking battle-tank, feels his stomach go off and therefore misses it. "What? I'm sorry, I was... distracted momentarily."

The combat robot turns its head, red omnisensors locking onto the elf's icy blue eyes. "A superweapon."

"That's it," the lieutenant replies with a nervous, angry laugh, "you've gone rampant. Completely and utterly bonkers. Run off to your doomsday machine, then."

"You won't be laughing when we're controlling your thoughts from orbit," Destruction of Exergy grumbles as it stands, pivoting on its feet and walking off, "or turn your foreskin to lye. Think of that."

Watching the warship walk off, Analton does indeed make the mistake of thinking of that, leading him to flinch slightly as if he had been hit in a rather delicate area before paranoia sets in. Perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea to convert to Judaism... Of course, that only leads to painful thoughts itself and so is immediately discounted.

The Hhoul tilts its head at a jaunty angle at the strange creatures muffled words. It can understand basic commands and body language, but this has him stumped. The approach of another creature garnered its interest with its short attention span. Its ears perk up behind its horned head, and the rear-most eyes open and swivel towards the being. Nostrils flare and sniff deeply at the approaching Neko.

Smells different. Like something I should chase. What's that? The forward eyes focus in on the hand coming closer while the ears tilt at the soft cooing sounds coming from Ymari. It gets up off its haunches, and it's back seems to separate, allowing a pair of insectoid wings to unfurl. The fur bristles and the wings splay out flat while a low hsssssss escapes its now-open mouth, showing dual rows of dagger-like teeth.

From behind it, a low tump tump sound can be heard, as Master Seargent Gheera Kwoll tromps up into visibility in his Minion Suit. In the reptilian tongue, a mechanical "SHA!" booms out assisted by a 90 decibel speaker. The Hhoul furls its wings and sits on its haunches again, tongue lolling out. The Minion Suit speaks machanically again. "My apologies, beings. The situation is under control at this point. Are you uninjured?"

"Meep!" Ymari jumps back when the Hhoul seems to sprout wings and show all those pointy teeth, and then promptly falls onto her rear when the loud command is barked at it by whoever is in the Minion Suit, the volume unpleasant to her sensitive ears. "Owie.... headache coming on."

At the Sakkran's inquiry, she climbs back to her feet, shaking off dust and some more water from her drenching in the labs, momentarily seeming to resemble a big cat more than a bipedal humanoid being. "Aside from a headache, I'm o-kay!" She flashes a "v" sign with one hand. "I think your pet thingie here kinda made one of the Dominion researchers damn near piss his pants though. When I got here, this big fella was snuffling at the poor guy and checking 'im out."

... The hell?

Vettori hardly knows what to think about the clearly insane Neko approaching and making all cute with the ... the ... whatever it is. He doesn't dare move however, though his eyes nearly bug out of his head, and he shakes his head slightly in a panicked sort of way.

"Are you impaired? I'm not turning my back on this thing!" he manages from between clenched teeth, slowly trying to back off all the same. When the Hhoul hisses and the wings sprout from its back, all bristling fur and teeth all of a sudden, the man freezes in his tracks, letting out a quiet 'eep' as further protests are cut off.

Omigodomigodomigod...

His eyes riveted on the hulking beast before him, he hardly registers the approach of the Suit, sprawling back with a shriek as the voice belts out its command, his arms windmilling frantically as he both tries to gain his balance and cover himself reflexively all at once ... failing miserably on all points. He lands hard, curling up in a ball, hands over his head and neck.

Right where he's been dumping bucketfuls of water.

As it becomes clear the immediate threat has passed, he looks up and offers those there a rather wry smile, while slowly shaking some of the muck from his hands. "No, didn't piss anything thanks, but I'm going to need a change all the same."

It's official. This place, and most everyone in it, are insane. Utterly batshit-fucking-loco. I've got to get this project done, and get out of here before I end up that way too, he can't help but think, letting out a martyred sigh.

The Minion suit opens up, the chest splitting with a sickening sucking sound, revealing extensive membrane-work inside. This, too, parts with a squishy noise. The pilot steps out, and hops down from the cockpit of the suit.

His hand reaches down to the split between the Hhoul's wing casings, and scratches it, with a low rumble emitting from the creature as all its eyes close. The speech that is heard is an internal voice, with the Grass-Walker's lips never moving. "My apologies. This pup got away before we could properly restrain it. If any embarrasment has occured, I will not make mention of it. The irisdescent metallic-toned skin of the Grass-Walker's eyelids bilnks slowly over its jewel-like eyes.

"I am Master Sergeant Gheera Kwoll." A short bow is given, and the MSgt turns to the Hhoul, lifts a hand over his head and lets out a sharp tweeting sound from it's nostrils, which the suit translates and amplifies into a "CHOU" sound. The Hhoul stands on its hind legs, lifting its forepaws up, and the Grass-Walkers does a quick inspection of its mid-section.

"RHOE" is said next, and the creature seems to stand and pant excitedly. "We will return to our location. I trust that there will be utmost discretion?" Gheera climbs back up into the cockpit of the suit and the membranes, and then the chest plating, closes up again.

Ymari nods numbly. "Ah... yeah. Lips zipped." The Neko fidgets for a few seconds, her furry tail indicating her case of nerves with its lashing side to side. "I... think I need to go report for more testing on the SWORD, so.... Ta!"

With that, the catgirl takes off at a leisurely run toward the hangars in use by the Shogunate's researchers.

"Right," Vettori replies, grunting as he gets to his feet. "With everything else that's gone on today, I think I could see my way clear to keep this entirely off the record, yes. Ciao, Master Sergeant. Best of luck with your ... wrangling efforts." He turns to offer a word of thanks to the skittish Neko, but finds she's already heading off to wherever it was she was headed.

SWORD? Christ, was she that crazy pilot I heard word about? Scratch that, I've heard of several ... A drink. Definitely a drink. In my quarters. Where I know no one is going to flood it, or set anything on fire, or spring their kink on me, or shriek about morals, and there is absolutely no genemodded monstrosities hiding under the bed.

The Dominion man waves a farewell to the Sakkran officer, then tries without much success to get some of the muck and mud from his clothes. With a resigned sigh, he picks up the bucket and heads back inside, muttering under his breath in his native language.

Upon reaching the lab, he quietly sits down the bucket next to the door, calmly adjusts his dirty, disheveled shirt, looks around at the by now mostly reordered lab, and clears his throat.

"I am done for the day. If you need me for anything short of the end of the world as we know it," he says, giving both Olivia and Ricco a steady look. "I am unavailable until tomorrow. I'll see you back here then, eight a.m. sharp. Until then, I don't care what you do so long as it doesn't require my involvement."

He turns without another word and stalks back down the hall towards his quarters, leaving the other two staring after him with unanswered questions halfway to their lips.

"The hell was all that about, I wonder?" Ricco says, blinking, then turning to look over at Olivia in confusion.

"He's snapped," she observes, shrugging and getting back to organizing her notes and cleaning up her area of the lab with almost fanatic attention to detail. "Whatever the case, I have work to do." The indication that he does as well goes unspoken but very much implied.

"Of course, 'Liv. I think I've done about all the damage I can over here. Until the rest of this dries, there's just no point. I've got a few things to take care of as well. Tell you what - I'll see you tomorrow then. Unless you'd like to grab a bite for dinner down at the cafeteria?" Ricco asks with his usual pleasantness.

"Thank you, but no. I plan on taking dinner in my room. I've some further figures to work over before tomorrow. We've time to make up for after all this mess."

"Suit yourself. Ciao, 'Liv," the man says, giving her a quick wave, and heading back towards his own quarters.

Wonder if Mama has sent back that recipe. Poor devil really looked like he could use it.

"So, what exactly is all this about, anyways?" grumbles (recently reactivated) Psionics Specialist Bruce Caldwell, sitting in a transport dropship heading from the Ring to Titan. Across from him, a woman leans forward and puts a finger against her lips.

"It's a secret," she says.

"A secret? Still?" Caldwell all but shouts. "Lady Finnegan, we're sitting on a military transport, heading for one of the most secure facilities in existance, and you still won't tell me?"

"Fine, fine, fine," Finnegan sighs, relenting as much to get him to shut up as to keep him from waking the elderly man snoozing across the row. "I don't know much at this point, but we'll be working on a joint project with the OPO, Shodan, and possibly some Arpeans on a special project. I hear it's some sort of superweapon."

Caldwell blinks, cocks his head to the side, and blinks again. "A superweapon," he says in a dull tone.

"Yep."

"What in the seven hells do you need me for?" Caldwell say indignantly. "I'm not a weapons specialist. And is that even legal? I'm pretty sure I remember a section of the Compact about psi weapons."

"Barely legal, yes," Finnegan replies. "As for you, we hear you're one of the best in the business. Take it as a compliment," 'you twit.'

Caldwell was having not of that. "Business, yes! A very successful one, not that it will last long after everyone hears I've been disappeared off to some government camp! And you still haven't told me what you need an animator for!"

"Ser Caldwell, you're being paid very well," Finnegan replies again, this time rolling her eyes. "And you tested well in a number of other necromancy-related fields as well, including limited clairvoyancy, as you well know. We may have need of such skills, but can't spare a more powerful person from...other things that you don't need to know about."

Seeing he wasn't getting anywhere with the woman, Caldwell twists around to look at the other (awake) passenger. "Who are you?"

The handsome young man (quite a difference from the older, plain, and pudgy Caldwell) looks up from his book. "Daniel."

Caldwell snorts. "And what's your place in this little madhouse?"

"If its practical skills you're wondering about, I specialise in complex transfiguration and enchanting, weather control, as well as some limited element control, and certain types of compulsive and forced-raport psionics. I've also studied high-energy magical engineering, but I haven't reached Master-level practical exams in that yet," Daniel calmly replies, turning a page. "If you want to know about more theoretical knowledge, I recently added a doctorate in magical sciences to the one I have in history. My research involved ancient artifacts of Power."

Caldwell's face turns scarlet. He had secretly taken pleasure in Finnegan's acknowledgement of his obvious superiority in his field, but having this young man who didn't look to be even thirty surpass him added insult to previous injury. "I...but...you!" he sputters, but he fails to form a more coherent sentence before a slim hand clamps over his mouth and his head is gently turned straight.

"Ser Caldwell, I suggest you calm down and cease complaining. Rest assured, you will be back home as soon as we can find a replacement," says Finnegan while looking straight into his eyes and with an ominous growl coming from her throat. "I'm going to be getting a snack from the galley. If I come back here and find that you're shouting again and have woken the Padre, I shall dispense with that snack and eat you instead. Is that clear?"

"Meep." Caldwell glances over at Daniel, but the other man only turns another page in his book.

"Good." Finnegan smiles wide, then stalks out of the compartment, muttering to herself.

"So, um," Caldwell says after a minute. "Why do we have a priest along, anyways, Daniel?" The other man doesn't even spare him a glance.

"So.... why are we sitting on a warship en route to some top secret military installation?" Kiara Alson inquires of the aforementioned ship with an irate flutter of her wings.

"We've been requested for a thaumaturgic project." Zeroel replies, the ship's avatar moving alongside the young Keeper, careful to keep his avatar's bulky frame from making impact with the delicate and slightly flailing wing structures.

"So what does a thaumaturgic researcher have to do with military junk?" Kiara mutters.

"It is research that makes the weapons of war." Oduh interjects carefully. "They want our knowledge to further their ability to fight, correct?"

Zeroel nods and whispers to the two Keepers. "Rumor is that they want to build a superweapon. Knowing Triumvirate doctrine, probably one to counter superweapons, rather than for any sort of military conquest."

"So you're coming because yer a thaumaturgic warship with some bad experiences, and the Morphin is coming because-?" Kiara tucks her wings against her back and tries to keep herself steady in the lack of gravity.

"I think because I'm going and she needs to have her first assignment." Zeroel looks mildly irked about the fact. "Just what I need, a baby sister tagging along."

The researchers assigned to the superweapon project are met by grimly smiling TYCS officers that escort them to their comfortable lodgings and handed this to orient themselves.
*** SECRET ***

TRIUMVIRATE OF YUT
WAR ANALYSIS AND NEW CONCEPTS COLLEGE (WANCC)
MILITARY DIVISION

SUBJECT: Project WHITE RUSSIAN
PANEL: Dr Samantha Jackson PhD, Dr Dahanavardhana Oxenstierna PhD, Dr Abumchuk Sammurtok PhD, Col Stephanie Matyus TYCS
SUPPORT: JrCS Kevin Garrison

ABSTRACT: Project WHITE RUSSIAN evaluated the potential benefits and costs of various extrapolated "superweapons" and their utility both for and against the Triumvirate of Yut. After investigating variants of heavy cannon, unnatural disasters, probability weapons, and cataclysm weapons, WHITE RUSSIAN determined that all of these "superweapon" systems were simply too resource-intensive and too utility-limited to be worth any investment in whatsoever. However, these considerations would not necessarily prevent a threat state from using them and so WHITE RUSSIAN concluded that counters against these superweapons, such as SSBN, should be developed immediately.

1. OPERATIONS OVERVIEW
YYYY Jan 25 - CINCTYCS indicates need to evaluate the defenses of the Triumvirate of Yut against superweapon technology following the destruction of Liberty City.

YYYY Feb 08 - TYCS Materiel Command (CSMATCOM) directs War Analysis and New Concepts College (WANCC) to establish a group of researchers to conduct a study on superweapon technologies, their feasibility, and their estimated threat levels.

YYYY Feb 20 - WANCC establishes a research party of Dr Samantha Jackson PhD, Dr Dahanavardhana Oxenstierna PhD, and Dr Abumchuk Sammurtok PhD. CSMATCOM assigns Col Stephanie Matyus to the project; Dr Samantha Jackson brings in JrCS Kevin Garrison to fulfill support roles such as Bookkeeping, Paperwork, and Continuity (BPC).

YYYY Feb 25 - Research party submits proposal to CSMATCOM; CINCTYCS accepts and Triumvirate of Yut Special Services (TYSS) validates, assigning randomly-generated code name WHITE RUSSIAN to the project. Research begins immediately.

YYYY Apr 13 - Research party submits interim findings to CINCTYCS. TYCS Military Command (MILCOM) reevaluates unassociated completed project CLOCKWORK in light of these findings. Nemesis-class strategic attack cruiser order increased.

YYYY Jun 04 - Research party submits final findings to CINCTYCS. MILCOM and MATCOM immediately take results into consideration. Project WHITE RUSSIAN officially closed.

2. RESEARCH RESULTS
2.1 - Supercannon

Definition: Supercannon are generalized as large firing platforms containing one primary weapon (the superweapon). They can be either mobile or immobile, ensconced in battlestations or battleships as in the first case or static or orbital platforms as in the second case. The "Fist of Alpha" railgun in the Sierra-14 starship is an example of a supercannon, and for the purposes of this evaluation, Sierra-14 as a whole is indistinct from the "Fist of Alpha" in terms of superweapon status. The destruction of Liberty is theorized to have been caused by a supercannon.

Construction: The primary limitation of a supercannon is its limited utility versus its extreme cost in both physical resources and time. While certainly capable of a very large amount of damage, even building an isolated, unprotected weapon (no more than the supercannon itself plus whatever attendant systems are absolutely needed to fire it) large enough to cause damage on a national, regional, continental, or planetary scale would take large amounts of material, time, and effort which could be put into literally hundreds of more conventional warships. Increasing the weapon's survivability and utility by placing it in a battlestation (the "Death Star" concept) increases the requisite material by orders of magnitude, where a single supercannon battlestation would require the resources of multiple fleets. Mass production of such weapons is nearly unimaginable, and even custom production of weapons of such scale require Class III societies on the Dyson Energy Utilization scale.

Strategy: From a warfighting aspect, a supercannon serves essentially the role of strategic standoff fire support or as a superheavy battleship (if a mobile battlestation). The former is easily defeated by strategic maneuver and the application of sufficient force to disable or destroy the weapon. The latter can be more difficult, suffering the same difficulties as battleplates when it comes to destruction. However, gravitic weapons, probability weapons, and 'exclusion tactics' would still be effective enough to destroy these in most circumstances. (On a mildly unrelated note, reality-definition fields preferred by some battleplate users lend themselves to extreme vulnerability to probability or exclusionary weapons.) Either way, the irreplacability of such a system if destroyed makes it a Golden Fish, untenable to risk in real combat. As the construction of such a device is unlikely to go completely unnoticed. With the likelihood of sabotage or a preemptive strike against construction facilities, as well as instantaneous detection after firing, as well as sapping resources from more conventional and more adaptable forces, such a weapon is more of a strategic liability than a benefit. However, if it is allowed to fire first undetected it can be truly devastating. This is countered by having sufficient extended reconnaissance and intelligence tied in to automated counter systems.

Defense: All supercannon by their very nature must emit something to act as its destructive force. This is logically limited by lightspeed and thus can be detected and transmitted pre-impact to a likely target via faster-than-light communications. Counters include those for c-fractional weapons (albeit on a larger scale) and unconventional defenses such as gravity lenses, exclusion points, momentary high-distort blip, and modified Langston Fields, depending on the strength of the supercannon.

Threat and Utility: While a supercannon would indeed be able to end the Ardan Cold War in a few blows, so would full-scale orbital bombardment by our current fleets. The TYCS cannot afford multiple supercannon either in resources or in strategic doctrine, as a supercannon is completely anathema to the TYCS core competencies of Rapid Strike and Agile Response. On the other hand, Arda similarily lacks the resources for a space-based supercannon and, more importantly, lacks the opportunity to build one where we can't see it (reference their difficulties in constructing Horizon). The Order of the Seraphim may have the shipbuilding capacity to build such weapons but is consistently too busy in its own internal strife to effectively field a weapon. Other, unknown threat nations could theoretically have these weapons, so cost-effective counters should indeed be devised.

2.2 - Unnatural Disasters

Definition: The unnatural disaster superweapon creates what would nominally be a natural event, usually an asteroid strike or large-body collision. More esoteric forms include weather control, vulcanological weaponry, and tectonic weaponry (such as the Temblar Bomb suggested previously by MilWANCC after playing Wing Commander III one too many times).

Construction: The unique nature and draw of unnatural weapons is that their ammunition is nature itself. The devices required to manipulate nature into a superweapon vary in complexity, size, and cost essentially proportional to the amount of damage they are intended to cause, which makes them as unpredictable as the elements they try to control. Some things are constants, however; moving extinction-size asteroids or moons takes large amounts of energy and means of imparting motion which would be readily obvious to any observer. For a truly superweapon-scale unnatural disaster, the superweapon used to initialize it would probably be quite obvious.

Strategy: Nature, being widely chaotic, prevents these from being feasible tactical-scale weapons. However, engendering hurricanes around national capitals certainly holds strategic significance. Opposing that is the fact that many cultures, such as most of the Triumvirate, have ways to not be completely hindered by mere weather and that our greatest power balance (i.e. space fleets) would not be affected at all. If the action could be traced to an enemy power, retribution would certainly be swift and thus negate the strategic advantage of acting in the first place. The greatest strategic consideration in unnatural disasters are having them suddenly occur for no apparent reason, thus eliminating the possibility to prepare or prevent them. However, this is the same for any attack and one would think the energy expended to make the ground shake or make the clouds rain could be more efficiently used to simply bombard the enemy.

Defense: The only way to defend against unnatural disasters is by a) intercepting their causes and thus preventing them from happening, b) interdicting their causes and thus stopping them once they start if it requires continuous actuation, or c) quite literally weathering out the effects. Some unnatural disasters, such as asteroid strikes, preclude b) or c) as options. Vigilance is the key to airpower, and we are already well-situated against asteroid-strike, although additional effort should be taken to be ready to counter superweapon scale (i.e. extinction-level) unnatural disasters.

Threat and Utility: Neither Arda nor the Order of the Seraphim are known to have unnatural disaster superweapons, although both are capable of producing them on some scale. Preparation against them is probably wise due to the fact it doubles as preparation for a conventional environmental emergency. We actually do recommend limited research into unnatural disaster weaponry, especially of the tectonic and vulcanologic methods; these could be quite useful in case an attack on Arda ever becomes a necessity. Weather control also suggests benign civilian uses which could fund blacker projects. Like bloody hell. That shit would fuck up any ecosystem you planted it on. Making the weather better in one spot at one time makes it worse in another spot at another time--equivalent exchange. --Official opinion of the Scolopendran TerraEngineering Directorate
2.3 - Probability Weapons

Definition: Probability weapons are those superweapons that, essentially, rewrite the rules of reality--changing fundamental universal constants, making impossible or highly improbable things possible--all making reality conform to the users desires.

Construction: These are, oddly enough, the most common superweapons, at least exercised on a smaller scale. Many forms of magic, magitech, and psionics could fall in some way into this category, falling short of superweapon status simply by their relatively small magnitude. Likewise, it appears that threat nations find this the least expensive system to produce.

Strategy: No unified strategy presents itself when the laws of reality need not necessarily apply.

Defense: The only defense against rewriting reality is to rewrite it back, which is already in the stables of multiple Triumvirate metareality operations forces such as the TYCS HELLSING. Fortunately, these are already rather common and are outlined in the PsiWANCC report of project CUTLASSFISH.

Threat and Utility: Definite Ardan threat on this front; somewhat less so from the Order of the Seraphim. As mentioned previously, we already have relatively advanced resources in these areas and thus can counter such forces with similar force. The Kalessini are certainly an extreme risk in this case; however, their projective capability does not expand this far and they lack the capacity to both attack us and ward off a massive retaliation by our fleets, limiting the probability of such an attack. Additionally, they appear more willing to resort to diplomatic solutions than most other Ardan states.

2.4 - Cataclysm Weapons

Definition: Essentially an extension of the supercannon, cataclysm weapons use either unitary bombs or distributed systems to destroy entire planets, stars, star systems, so on and so forth.

Construction: Like supercannon, the sheer energies needed to destroy planets and stars requires either massive or complex weapons to generate or release those energies. One nova bomb would probably cost the same as a small fleet, or perhaps a battleship, which certainly would make them more common than supercannon but still not "common" by any stretch of the imagination.

Strategy: The strategy of such a weapon is to be so simple as to be childish. Destroy the enemy and all resources in the area except in an atomized form. This could be expected from xenocidal societies with no consideration for Klauswitzian concerns of future expansion and resource policy, which make the panNorm a potential threat for these.

Defense: Interception. Certainly our weakest attribute if a cataclysm weapon is used against Sol instead of Saturn, Earth, Mars, or Jupiter.

Threat and Utility: It is wholly improbable that we have any threat of a cataclysm weapon from Arda. They do not have the technical expertise required to design a munition to destroy Saturn, and they certainly have no reason to target Sol. The Order may have some know-how in this matter, but they have too many concerns in the Solar System to go about destroying planets. The only reasonable threat of cataclysm weapons come from extrasolar threats. Triumvirate of Yut policy and ideals preclude us from even considering researching such weapons.
3 - FINAL CONCLUSIONS
The Triumvirate, quite simply, should not invest in superweapons except as potential direct counters to other superweapons. Strategic-scale weaponry using the same principles are, of course, reasonable. Sadly, sanity is in short supply in the multiverse and therefore the TYCS should be prepared in case of the eventuality that an opponent appears either with superweapons or superweapon derivatives.
4 - ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
The detailed research of Project WHITE RUSSIAN is available from MilWANCC, TYCS, and TYSS secure archives upon personal request to those with sufficient security clearance, DisClas Red.

Sitting on her bunk, Kiara reads the orientation material with a slaw-jawed expression. Then she and Zeroel spend the next several minutes explaining what all the jargon means to Oduh, who's grasp of the modern language is better than most of the older Keepers, but still far from perfect.

"An anti-superweapon superweapon.... I'm curious how they intend to pull something like that off." Zeroel eyes the report.

"When someone makes a better sword, the fastest way to counter it is to break it." Oduh comments after having had the MilWANCC report explained.

"I'm figuring that's where we come in." Kiara adjusts her shirt and jeans, still refusing to cave in to simply wandering around naked like Oduh and the other Keepers, despite the difficultly in getting a shirt of any sort on over her wings.

"So we're gonna help build a really cool weapon, Zee-chan?" The female avatar of the Morphin declares, half-pouncing the other ship's avatar and nearly bowling the white and red reploid over.

"You don't have to be so enthusiastic about it." Zeroel grumbles, disengaging himself from the blue and white reploid. "Why did you get attached to the diplomatic fleet again-?"

The feminine reploid avatar for Morphin winks and waves a finger at Zeroel in a 'tsk, tsk' sort of motion. "THAT is a secret!"

Zeroel facepalms. "Great, my 'younger sister' is one of those maniac otaku types."

"What the hell...? I'm sure I put the code in right!" Isamu says to himself as he punches in an access code to the transport's hangar bay on the keypad, recieving an "Invalid Code" error on the display. "Damnit."

"Mine didn't work either?" Hikaru asks, raising an eyebrow as he looks over Isamu's shoulder to at the keypad's display. "Argh... so, now what do we do? You can't take the Nightscream out and I can't get my power suit."

Isamu shrugs his shoulders and frowns slightly as he turns around towards Hikaru. "I dunno. This really screws my plans, I was hoping to kill the day flying that thing and pestering the catgirl."

As the two pilots stand around pondering what to with their time and what kind of trouble to get into, a deep, loud, rumbling sound fills the corridor they're standing in, catching their attention. Seeming to originate from above the ship outside, the two pilots, now wondering whats up, make their way out to see what's going on.

Looking up as they make their way off the transport, Hikaru and Isamu catch a glimpse of the underside of ship (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v479/SneakyB/Ships/LaurasiaUnderside.jpg), painted in red and white, passing over slowly as it descends towards an open landing space. They continue to watch as it sets down, listening to its engines power down once its on the ground. Shortly after things quiet down a large hatch opens up on the ship facing them, lowering down and extending a ramp to the ground.

"...Nobody said anything about a new ship comming here. You hear anything about this?" Hikaru glances over at Isamu, awaiting an answer.

"Not a thing. Isn't this ship that new Tenba-class they recently launched?"

"Yeah... the Laurasia. Looks like they got it all fixed up after that incident. Wonder why its here." Hikaru turns and watches the ship as things start to get busy near the open section.

A large armored transport truck bearing the marking "07" on its side appears at the opening and makes its way down the ramp followed by a smaller transport shortly after. Once at the bottom and on the ground, the two park side by side nearby, where ground crews proceed to work to remove the tarp covering the rear section of the smaller transport, revealing a blue and silver mobile armor. Side panels on the larger transport's rear section however block its contents from view.

"Screw the Nightscream. Hikaru, it looks like we've got some new toys to play with." Isamu said, grinning as he watched the new prototype be revealed.

A Nice, Simple Conference Room

Colonel Matyus sits down at her seat at the head of the conference table once everyone has arrived and taken their seats, the collected leaders of thaumatechnology and psionic theory in the Triumvirate. This is something new, certainly; however, as a project officer, the fact that she's working with people who toyed with powers far beyond her understanding didn't change the reason she's there.

It's just another weapons system.

Leaning forward, she folds her hands and looks over the varied collection, from the charcoal-uniformed OPO to the Keepers and the Cetagandan mages. "I suppose you've all read the WHITE RUSSIAN report and collated its findings. You also may have gathered that the reason you're here is so we can put those findings into practice. The simple fact of the matter is that any plans Intelligence has ever caught wind of that concern fighting us often end up referring back to superweapons. A lot of things we can take care of ourselves--we can remote-detonate c-fractionals with wavicle shielding, we can use exclusionary technology on reality-definition weapons, we've already got active and passive thaumatech defenses against 'magic.' We even have our strategic battlecruisers to deal with things like megaliths and the supermegahyper-battlestations people seem to like. However, there are still gaps in our defenses and people willing to find and exploit them.

"I think from there on, the goal is obvious." Matyus shrugs with a wry smile, the gold six-pip hexagons on her shoulders glinting in the light. "Now, I'll be honest, I really don't understand what you do; I do know, however, that you're the best at it. I do understand weapon systems and, in the end, all weapon systems are the same--they hurt people and break things. Please be patient with me if I ask a lot of questions; no reason for my ignorance to get in the way of my profession. In return, I'll make sure you get what you need to make whatever you come up with work.

"So," she transitions, looking over the collected psykers again, "any initial thoughts or ideas?"

Oddly, Oduh is the first one to speak up, both verbally and telepathically to those who can hear it. (Most likely so Kiara can correct his use of the verbal language if the need arises.) "So... we are to create a blade to break as many other types as possible."

"Weapons, not blades, Oduh." Kiara corrects.

"I think that the best way is to find the one thing all these 'superweapons' have in common, and create a counter-weapon that will attack that." The Keeper continues. "And I think the best way will use the Arts."

"He means magic, psionics, that sort of thing." Kiara interjects in case not everyone knows what the winged Keeper means by "the Arts."

"When anything is made, the maker has an intent." Oduh continues, unslinging his sword and lying it on the table. "A sword is intended to kill. A basket is intended to hold things. A fortress is intended to defend. These superweapons are all intended to kill and destroy on a great scale, correct?"

"I think I see where yer going with this." Kiara nods slightly.

"That intent is bestowed in some measure to the creation. A single sword made by one man has not the same desire to kill as a weapon made by an entire army to wipe out entire nations. No matter what the form, any of these 'superweapons' has that in common."

"So if we can come up with a way to turn that intent stuff to our advantage, we have something to counteract anything!" Kiara crows.

A Nice, Simple Conference Room

"An interesting theory, but I'm not sure how to turn it into something practical," replies Finnegan in a doubtful tone. "Although, I suppose it could be intergrated somehow with the method for activating our defense. After all, it's going to need to operate on a semi-autonomous basis, because the type of 'superweapon' it will be defending against will be ones that we don't see coming and just blast with a HNPPC barrage."

"Using psionics or some other reality- or probability-alteration technique is certainly the obvious defense, but by it's very nature there's a huge number of possible solution to any problem," adds Daniel. "Some are more useful that others, obviously, especially on a mass scale. For example, temporal shennigans can -"

Between Finnegan and Daniel, an old man suddenly ceases to softly snore, opens his eyes, and loudly says, "Thou shalt not violate causality!" before closing his eyes again, muttering something about damnation.

Daniel stares at the old man and blinks a few times before shaking his head and continuing. "Ah, yes, thank you, padre. As I was going to say... while they look nice on paper, they usually create unforseen results and more problems than they're worth. Not to mention it attracts the wrong kind of attention from various Powers. What I personally suggest would be something along the line of a reflection spell - something to just bounce whatever malicious effect is targeted on us back at the sender, possibly multiplied." He turns to Oduh. "This is where intent could come in. Rather than just bouncing it back at whoever pushed the button, or the device or whatever itself, if we could find a way to affect the leaders who gave the order as well, we could solve more than just the immediate problem of the weapon."

"I've read of such things being used to punish criminal mages, but never anything on this scale," remarks Finnegan.

Daniel shrugs. "Well, neither has the rest of what we're discussing."

Elsewhere

"Lieutenant? The commander sent me down with...your...lunch..." A newly arrived Cetagandan researcher stands at the entrance to a surpisingly empty lab, holding a tray in her hands. "I'm sorry, I must be confused. I could have sworn the lab I was looking for was full of displacer-stuff when I was shown around yesterday."

"No, that's me," says Turino, looking up from where he's kneeling on the floor, poking around the innards of a wide disc. "I'm done with all that. Just set the tray on the table."

"Actually, she was quite explicit about what would happen if I didn't watch you eat."

"Oh, bother." He gets up off the floor, and looks at the sandwiches on the tray. "Actually. Now that you mention it, I am a bit hungry." The two venture over to a table , on which the lieutenant clears some space amid piles of tools, drawings, and perscomps. Watching as he wolfs down a sandwich and gestures for her to take one, the woman asks, "So, what are those things you're working on?"

"It's a teleporter," Turino mumbles around his food. He swallows, and before taking another bite, 'explains,' "It's gonna be like a displacer, only not."

"I see."

"See, it's sorta like one, only closed-circuit to save power and prevent targeting problems." Bite. "I'm Ryan, by the way."

"Gwen. Gwen Ingolfson."

The Skies Above Camp R

From the ground, it looks like a dogfight, complete with whooshing noises and weaponsfire. Two craft are darting around in an insane aerial dance, the larger and obviously more heavily armed of the two managing to be surprisingly agile despite its bulk and size being nearly half that of a Loki.

The two craft are obviously of Shogunate design, the larger one being the prototype SWORD unit and an Elite Victory II fighter, the unit Ymari has been in charge of testing. The smaller one is similar in appearance to the Elite Victory II, with the same distinctive trailing wings and upright g-diffusers, but this one knifes through the air with a sort of easy confidence, the daylight glinting brightly off its distinct orange and yellow armor. This would be the Victory Series 7-A fighter, or rather, the Elite Victory III prototype, being tested at Camp R by the pilot who first made the original Elite Victory fighter famous, Firefury Amahira herself, taking a "vacation" from her duties as Lady Shogun.

Despite the SWORD's overwhelming armament and Ymari's none-too-shabby piloting abilities, the smaller orange ship evades anything and everything being thrown at it, and scoring multiple hits with its weapons to boot.

"Ooooh! Why can't I hit her?!" Ymari growls at her console, firing again.

"This is why you didn't get accepted in the Queens of the Sky, Ymari." The reploid taunts over the comm. "I can outfly my wingmates, but they've all managed to hit me at least once."

Firefury's only answer is an unintelligible shriek of annoyance.

"You know," says Gwen as she walks across the room with one step, "these - they need a better name than 'teleporter-thingies' - these stepping discs will really revolutionize mass transit." She takes a step backwards onto a thin, two-meter wide disc, instantly moving back to an identical disc sitting on the other side of the room.

"You really think so? When I started developing them, I was just thinking of how useful they'd be in moving around a ship and in deploying small craft," replies Turino, from where he and Igor were constructing another disc.

"Just think of a network of them, set up in loops, or linked pairs every so often down a city block," replies his companion. "Elevator systems in buildings could be replaced. And while you say that long-term links are easier for the computers to handle, private single-use programable links to terminals or between buildings could be very profitable. How far can these things send you, anyways?"

"Depends on the relative velocities. Kinetic energy and momentum have to go somewhere," replies Turino. He closes his eyes and does some mental calculations. "For these, a few hundred kilometers to spinward or anti-spinward, or all the way across the Ring to port or starboard. Further on Earth, although there you have to worry about vee changes no matter the direction. Now that I think about it, if you wanted to, you could build mass-transit terminals with huge capacitors for long-distance links." He makes a few last adjustments to the unit he's working on, and then closes it up. "Done."

"Good. Give me that, I'll take it outside so we can test them some more and see what we can do with them. Keep working so that we can have a reasonably large loop to show the commander when we ask for time on the manufactory units."

"Atmospheric evacuation complete. Chamber is now at effective vacuum."

"Eeexcellent. Computer, set lower disc trigger at plus one meter and activate." At the command, a cream pie, slightly bloated by the lack of pressure, disappears from the stepping disc it sits on and re-appears at one attached to the ceiling ten meters directly above. It falls straight down, accelerating at at Titan's artificially-enhanced one gravity, until it reaches a point one meter above the lower stepping disc. At that point, it flicks back up to the ceiling disc, where it retains its downward velocity and accelerates further. "Cool. Computer, begin recording reaction time and link stability, then start to refine the trigger and constant flow protocols."

A shout comes from outside the lab. "Brian? Brian! The meeting with the commander is in ten minutes! Stop playing around and get moving!"

"Huh? Oh, right." The young man rushes about grabbing his files, then starts to leave the room, then pauses, frowning. "I'm forgetting something...can't be too important."

Behind the forcefield holding the air out, the pie continues on its merry way. Fall. Flick. Fall. Flick. Fall. Flick.

(T= 60 s, v= 570 m/s, KE= 162.5 Kj)

Turino and Ingolfson manage to make it to their 15:00 meeting with Commander Livahdi on time. This is in no small part thanks to the stepping discs that Ingolfson and Igor had spent time scattering throughout the Camp. The meeting lasts for quite some time, as Turino explains the technical details and Ingolfson explains the practical military (and private) applications and implications. Demonstrations of the technology follow.

(T= 1 h, v= 34,200 m/s, KE= 584,820 Kj)

It all takes a little over two hours. Over the past few weeks, Turino had come to realise that spending Friday night in a lab was not necessarily the correct way to make friends and have a good time. Thus, goes to local mess hall for food and then movie night. Doing work over the weekend was right out as well.

(T= 24 h, v= 820,800 m/s, KE= 336,856.3 Mj)

Of course, this is discounting the significance of the upcoming week. It just happened that the Emperor's birthday and the birthday of the Heir Apparent fell within a few days of each other. Normally each event would have been a holiday; given their proximity, it had become customary to declare the entire stretch one for simplicity's sake. Most people think this is a coincidence. People who know that the timing of a birth from a uterine replicator is quite precisely planned from conception, and especially those who know the personality of the King-Consort, would be correct in suspecting that the timing was anything but coincidental.

The celebration of an imperial birthday is accompanied by several things: parties, drinking, competitions of all sorts, drinking, and, by far the most important, fireworks. Cetagandans of all ages, classes, sexes, and species love fireworks with a passion. One can imagine the kind of makeshift fireworks that the people at an advanced weapons lab can create. The authorities and residents of Camp Restricted have no need to imagine. Thankfully, sixteen hundred years of experience has genetically ingrained proper safety into Cetagandans through selective breeding.

(T= 7 days, v = 5,745,600 m/s, KE = 1.65E+013 j)

The following weekend is spent by most in bed or the infirmary. It's likely a good thing that there are autodocs programmed with a thousand years of hangover remedies, given the current state of most of the Cetagandan medical staff. By the time Monday rolls around, everyone is once more fit to work, with a few exceptions who are waiting for new limbs to be grown. Thus it is that Lt. Brian Turino, slightly sleepy, enters his lab at 9:00 and discovers why he'd had the feeling that he'd forgotten something all week.

(T= 234h, v = 8,002,800 m/s = 2.67% c, KE = 3.20E+013 j = 7.65 kilotons TNT)

Watching the pie (noting, with a detached interest, that it was travelling so fast that it looked like it was in multiple places at once), Turino calmy says, "Computer, could you please place a call to Gwen Ingolfson?"

After a moment a reply comes. "Yes, Brian?"

"Gwen, you wouldn't happen to know what the armor on the lab is rated at, do you?"

"Um, just a second," is her slightly perplexed answer. "I think the walls on the physics labs can withstand about a kiloton blast. Why? I'm pretty sure that the Commander managed to confiscate all of Pearson's little toys."

"Just a kiloton, you say? Would that be just from a generic explosion, or a more focused impact?" A quick glance at a velocity meter confirms his initial thought that one kiloton would not be enough.

"The armor is designed to contain an engine explosion, not a shaped charge," Ingolfson replies. Then, continuing in a more suspicious tone, "Brian, why do I have the feeling that this is not a purely hypothetical question?"

"Weeellll... how would you react if I said that there's a pie, about a kilogram in mass, currently traveling through my lab at about three percent cee?"

"..."

"Purely hypothetically, of course."

"I'll be right there. Don't touch anything."

"Well. I'm certainly impressed that you haven't panicked yet," remarks one of a group of engineers and scientists clustered around the stepping discs of doom. "Have you mentioned this to the commander?"

"We've already gone way, way past panic and into shock," replies Turino. "And no. What would I say? 'Oh, by the way, ma'am, an experiment I left unattended may wipe a sizeable chuck of the facility off the face of the moon.'"

"Ah." "Ok, so can we just turn it around somehow?"

"Nope. Conservation of momentum."

"It's a molehole of sorts, right?" asks a man in the back. "Have you thought about reversing the direction using a slingshot effect and Javil's Third Fluffy Inversion Equation?"

"Yes, yes, and I've thought of how to incorporate it into the discs already. We'd have to turn them both off to modify them. Splat."

"So stick new discs in."

"No, no, no," objects a old woman beside him, shaking his head. "The, ahem, object will clip the rim. Honestly, I don't see what the fuss is all about. It's not like we're pressed for time, are we, dears?"

"Um, not really," admits Turino. "It should work fine even at high velocities. It's just that I'm not sure what will happen once it goes fast enough that relativistic effects come into play."

"I bet it would look pretty cool, with the squishification and doppler shifting and all," says one of the drive experts, drawing a few odd looks. "What? Why are all staring at me?"

"Maybe we could just stick a disc on the other side of the planet and let it fly out from there."

Gwen shakes her head. "The current orbital setup would send it straight into the Ring. I suppose we could set it on a ship or something..."

"Why not just reverse the gravity and slow it down?" asks Commander Livahdi from the door, causing everyone to jump. "I'm sorry, am I interrupting something?"

"Oh, um, no, commander," stammers Turino. "Nothing too important. Pay no attention to the pie behind the forcefield."

"Carry on then." The woman walks out of sight. After a moment, on of the engineers asks, "Why didn't we think of that?"

Lieutenant Commander Analton Curuvar flips through the latest essay to come from the strategy department of the War Analysis and New Concepts College and instantly regrets it, because just like most everything else to come out of WANCC in whatever form it causes his stomach to sink and settle most uncomfortably. This particular report, StratWANCC-3XXX-124: "An Analysis and Critique of the Surface-to-Orbit Defenses of the Triumvirate of Yut and Others," has him somewhat bothered due to its very simple premise and conclusion. Essentially, the paper goes, all effective modern surface-to-orbit capital-grade defensive systems, from Menelmacari Grand Cannon to ZMI land dreadnaughts and Bolos, are either of a fixed or semi-mobile nature. While in the past this was acceptable--his Noldorin countrymen took great pride in their Grand Cannon systems and their near impenetrability to conventional attack--with the maturation of high-distort weaponry and the possibility of sensor failure or spoofing they are quickly becoming liabilities. Such systems are large and inevitably visible to orbital ISR platforms; therefore, anyone with even minimal reconnaissance capability or intelligence data can know where they are ahead of time and smash them from far out long before their intended targets--starships--get in range.

This seems very logical to Analton, and that's why he doesn't like it in the least. Standing up from his desk, he rolls up the stapled hardcopy--not even an e-sheet--report into a tube and stalks out as he strikes the makeshift baton against the palm of his other hand. This must go up the line... but first, antacids.

* - * - *

Flag Colonel Stephanie Matyus coughs, frowns, and unnecessarily restacks the e-sheets on her desk, taking especial care to make sure that the edges of the 'paper' are lined up surveyor's-laser-straight. Curuvar, to his credit, doesn't manage to fidget visibly, although there's a slight hint that he may be gently chewing on the inside of his cheek. On the outside, Matyus looks like she always has, perhaps a slight hint of grey in the mohagany hair--that's nothing out of the ordinary for someone who's made flag rank--but outside of that she hasn't changed much in the few years persref since Giichi burst into her office with the wild idea that would become the successful Pterodactyl series of Land-Air Gears. She's learned that the first step in holding back her urge to kill all the morons under her is to take things one step at a time and prevent their overactive emotions from becoming... contagious.

Looking up and finally deciding that the poor elf will explode if she doesn't say something, she sets the papers neatly on the edge of her desk blotter and folds her hands in front of her. "Looks bad, doesn't it?"

"Bad, ma'am? I've been around for over ten thousand years and I find it quite nearly the most disconcerting thing I've ever read." Analton offers a weak, nervous smile, still valiantly suppressing his psychological imperative to fidget. "Dark Lords and Balrogs and other assorted forms of Middle-Terrestrial threats pale in comparison to the thought of wholescale geocide from hyperbolic approach."

"I've seen worse." Some of the things MELTA's tried were worse. What the damn Cetagandans did on accident with that pie was worse.

Analton raises an eyebrow. "I doubt that, ma'am."

"Anyway, it deserves some thought. Grab Giichi, Weapons-Hrragh, and anyone else you'd like and fix it, Project Officer."

Curuvar stifles a groan as his stomach practices its acrobatics. It's an important project. He doesn't like leading important projects.

"You'll do fine, Commander. Now get on the bounce."

"Yes, ma'am." The elf sighs internally, salutes the superior officer that he outages by several orders of magnitude, turns on his heels and marches out. Damn it all. This is worse than Clockwork was.

He looks up, but it's too late to make a move and still hold any pretense of politeness. Trapped in his own skin, Curuvar manages a diplomatic smile as one of the infamous bright yellow blazers sits down in front of him, across the table and two trays of Camp R grub. That the person filling the blazer in a healthy but not exactly fit way, middle-age belly slightly pronounced, is Doctor Pho Hammuh himself is not lost on the elf, nor what it means to his pride to be seen in public with the master of TEAM MELTA, even if he didn't have a say in it. Pho Hammuh, for his part, is a gregarious half-tanned Caucasian with thinning brown hair, an ex-high school oblongball player's physique, and the tendency to say everything perhaps half again as loud as would be socially appropriate. Great guy, no subtlety. A real whizzywig man.

"Hey, Commander, wh'sup?" Hammuh sits down, grins broadly, and starts cutting into a grub. Analton blinks momentarily, looking at the irregular brown and grey cylinder with vaguely annelid ringed ribbing that the Doctor is tearing into with clear relish. "Oh, this? Moon Grub. Flat steak wrapped around cheese and broccoli and celery and carrots and rice and stuff. Pretty good. Want some?" He manages to extricate a ring from the well-done carcass and holds it out on the end of a fork to the Noldo.

Now the Noldor, being a near-perfect creation of Eru and all, have the physiological quirk that they do not exactly have an adrenaline-based fight-or-flight response. Their musculature is constantly poised for action, which leads to the rumors and legends of elfy collected calmness during situations of stress or extreme action--they simply look like they always do. Now, they still have stress hormones, certainly, because it would be inefficient (and therefore imperfect) to constantly have the internal organs pumping at maximum combat efficiency. Instead, their extended cardiovascular system is always optimized to allow maximum bloodflow to the muscles and allow for heating from there, which is part of the reason why one never sees a ruddy Noldo. It's also the reason why they never turn green when they feel absolutely sick, just as Analton does now looking at the greyish-brown ring of flesh wrapped around differing shades of green, white, and yellow gooey and solid bits which an excitable mind can quickly imagine into a cross-section of various vital organ systems. Were he human, he would turn green right up to the points of his ears. As it is, he simply looks as statuesquely imperturbable in terms of complexion as he always does, although the eyes, the twitch of the lips, and the slight flaring of the nostrils suggests troubled thoughts. "Ah, perhaps later, Doctor."

"Okay. More for me!" Pho smiles and proceeds to cut up that cross section into smaller bits, eating with relish. "It's really good, you should try it. Oh... wait. Vegetarian?"

"No, no, not a bit," the lieutenant commander replies with a quiet chuckle, "just, ah, not all too hungry at the moment."

"Well, that's a shame. All that stuff on your tray is gonna go to waste."

Analton looks down and recalls that he's hardly touched the bowl of thick stew that sits centered obsessive-compulsively on the middle of his tray. Annoyed with himself, he pushes it a few centimeters to the side to destroy the natural symmetry of the tray-bowl system, looks at it some more, frowns at the influence of Eru on his psyche and pushes it back to where he put it unintentionally in the first place. Order, harmony, balance, elfyness. Damn it. "I'll take it to go, then. I've mostly been, ah, playing with my food. It helps me think sometimes."

"Oh, really?" Hammuh says with a half-full mouth, anything that shouldn't be seen strategically stuffed in his cheeks so it won't make an appearance as he continues to chew. "Whatchya thinkin' 'bout?"

"Oh, you know, the usual. Latest to come out of WANCC."

Pho giggles around his moon grub.

Curuvar pointedly ignores this. "StratWANCC says we're too vulnerable because our ASAT platforms are fixed and open to a dehabilitating first-strike attack assuming an inability to take out kill vehicles in transit."

"Oh, really? Hmmm." Hammuh takes another bite, thinks some more, grins. "You on the project to fix it?"

"Actually, yes, I'm in charge of it."

"Can I join? I think me and the guys could really help out here. Throw down some new vibes and all that. When ya need a creative solution..." The doctor grins again. "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll talk to the boys after lunch here and we'll bang something together and I'll drop it on your desk tomorrow to read with your tea."

Analton blinks. Teatime was just one of those things he did by himself because he found it relaxing; practically no one in the Camp would know about it... "Ah..."

"Thanks, commander!" The moon grub has disappeared into the depths of Hammuh and the doctor now stands, shaking the elf's hand as one would shake the life out of a fish that has lost the will to live. "You'll have it by 1600 tomorrow, I promise." With a flash of yellow--to Curuvar's eyes at least--he and his tray are gone, leaving no trace of the chance meeting.

Analton blinks again, leaning back slightly. "But I never said 'yes.'"

"Hey, guys, I got some stuff for ya!" Doctor Hammuh none-too-gently pushes open the door to the AtriuMELTA with one foot before staggering in, his balance upset slightly by both his creative use of his foot and the large collection of brightly-colored plastic and metal objects in his arms. This entry is neither unique nor surprising when to the Doctor's subordinates in TEAM MELTA and so they respond as they always do--a half-curious, half-disinterested tilt of the head of those who are only occupied with toying with mindbenders and puzzles, and no immediate response from the two sitting at the monitor playing Tales of Mega Super Resident Halo Damacy Smash Kart Brothers 73: Pro Basketfootoblongbaseball short of pausing the game.

"So," says the young ballistics engineer sitting nearest the door as he sets aside the little transparent cube with the busy little construction automatons inside it, "what's the stuff?"

Pho gracelessly dumps the contents of his arms onto the thick purple carpet, and physics does the rest. Used space combat and planetary landing boardgames, Grand Cannon model kits, e-sheet books with plastic covers on amphibious and astrophibious military doctrine. "We're gonna solve a problem, folks. How do we ensure first-strike planetary defense capability?"

"Eh?"

"Y'know." The middle-aged man leans down and picks up one of the Menelmacari Grand Cannon model kits, holding it up for emphasis. "We build these, but anyone with a map knows where they are and can slam 'em from a distance. Think HD assault, folks."

"Oh." One of the ToMSRHDSKB73:PBFOBB players thinks for a moment. "Maybe hide em? Put 'em in hillside bunkers that flip out, like in Total StarConquer: Red Annihilation."

"Okay," Pho replies, writing the suggestion up on one of many whiteboards that line the walls of TEAM MELTA's sanctuary. "That's a possibility. Any others?"

"Bah," mutters the ballistics engineer, "anyone with decent intel can see where they're being built while they're being built..."

"Now, Jim, you know how we do things here," Hammuh chides lightly, "ideas first and then we can tear them apart later."

"Alright." Jim looks barely repentant, then thinks. "My vote is for hiding things inside of buildings. Those scenes from Final End of the Ressurection of the End of Evangelion: Will Shinji Ever Stop Being an Existentialist Pussy? struck a chord last time I saw them. I thought 'now, that could be useful somewhere...'"

And the brainstorming session begins. TEAM MELTA consists of six people, all staggeringly brilliant in certain areas and perhaps having the unfortunate propensity of recognizing that brilliance and believing that it applies outside of its domain. One of the MELTAs pick up some of the model kits and start toying with them, deciding that instructions don't matter; two take one of the landing games and sets it up, noting that the used game lacks a rulebook but still has all of the 'hyper-realistic!' tables and decide to work something out from there, and another two rotate in and out from the hashroom in back. All the while they offer ideas, critique each other's, and Pho writes it down, quickly filling up the whiteboards that cover the wall space. Undersea death rays, hillside cannon bunkers, missile zeppelins, chaos-orbital sphere-of-influence platforms that orbit around a common barycenter that orbits around a particular planet. In the middle of this, the one with the model kits gets an idea and mixes up all the pieces of the models--jet bombers, Grand Cannon, strategic submarines, various strategic ideas through the last dozen centuries--and says that he's onto something without specifying what.

The next phase is debunking, and one by one the ideas are shot down for not meeting the requirements. Orbitals are as detectable as any other spacecraft, undersea turrets can't fire through the water that hides them, surface installations can be detected during construction and targeted anyway, zeppelins capable of carrying anti-ship missiles or guns would be tremendously huge, at which point it'd be less expensive just to slap a pod on a Loki. Then the conversation reverts to Lokis and their pods; cost/benefit analysis, comparisons to Territorial experiments with surface combatants, the overall utility of having a system defense ship one day and a cargo carrier the next.

"I have it!" the modelmaker cries, cutting through the thoughtful chatter like a thirty-naught-six round cuts through a pound cake, thrusting his hand burdened with the creation of his madness upon high. Everyone turns to look and sees... a thing. A submarine hull with an F-104 Starfighter (hurrah for Dominieri Models) nose and cut down wings fore and aft, a Grand Cannon in a streamlined turret on top. B-58 Hustler engine nacelles, also taken from a Dominieri-produced model kit, on the aft round it out.

"Okay," says Doctor Hammuh, "so what is 'it,' Bob?"

Bob grins. "A supersonic submarine. With anti-orbital ordnance on top, as you can see. Turreted, so it can fire, close the turrets, and immediately submerge to perhaps avoid counterattack. Stays submerged on patrol so no one can see or track it easily."

"And why is it supersonic?"

"Mach 1.5 in water is about Mach 5 at sea level air," Bob replies, grinning like a Cheshire cat. "It can react to any threat in a matter of hours rather than days of normal sailing."

Doctor Hammuh stands there, silently glancing about to the other members of TEAM MELTA. Eyes flicker, heads bob, lips broaden into the sort of geeky smile which appears when a nerd discovers something shiny. Right then, right there, something clicks and a team decision gets made.

A wave of fear spreads throughout Camp R. No one knows why, although its origin is eventually tracked down to a couple of psions walking past the AtriuMELTA at that exact moment. It's not the first time it's happened, and it probably won't be the last.

Alliance City, Tiburon Saturn, Tiburon

Alliance City was on Tethys, a moon of Saturn. No announcements were made, nothing really seen by members of the Triumvirate of Yut, of which it was (newly) a member. As Tiburonese installments and Tiburonese cities have the interesting habit of doing, Tiburon Saturn pretty much just popped into place around the moon. People lived in cities, as they sometimes do. Not always, but sometimes. And one particular scene in this city was apparently interesting enough to be mentioned here.

"Heya, hun. How was your day at wor... the hell?"

"Heya, Tup. Remember how we were discussing adoption? Well..."

"Well? What does that have to do with an SMT...

You didn't."

(sotto voce) "Kiyori? A 10 foot-long patrol unit isn't what I had in mind! How did you get this thing? How did it fit through the door?

(sotto voce) "I'll explain later. Got it from your base, for starters."

"When are we going to eat, Daddy?"

"Um... in a bit." Fuck.

And for one house in Alliance City, coronary thrombosis strolls merrily closer.

Pioneer Air Force Base, Tiburon Saturn, Tiburon

Tup, or rather, Captain Top-Som Bong of the Aerospace Force of the United Solaris Federation of Tiburon, sighed and rubbed his sleep-deprived reddened eyes wearily as he eased into his chair and began poring over his files for the day. He had liked his job- others derided it as a desk job behind several lines of defense from Tiburon and its allies, and, in fact, this is exactly what it was. Still, CPT Bong was only an O-3, and the Tachikoma incident was hardly something to put on his record. Lt. Col. Haadars would have a shit if he found out.

The personal intercom- a personal affectation of Bong's, straight from the late 20th century OCE- plunged Bong out of his drowsiness. "Captain Bong, please report to Research and Testing Facility Five. Bong felt his limbs tighten, and tested the waters to make sure he was not about to reach Dante's inferno. "What's the subject?" He drew a euphoric, almost hallucinogenic relief when the response came. "Project Gluonic Fury."

Gluonic Fury. For many people, it conjured up images of rage and Elmer's Glue. This was because not many people knew what a gluon was, and not many people cared to find out.

Over in Research and Testing Facility Five, a group of assembled military personnel and scientists watched as an MT-157 (a remotely-operated mech that had been phased out by newer remotely operated mechs), holding some new type of weapon, was rolled out onto the expanse outside RTF-5. Lt. Col. Haadars looked over to Maj. Obvious, in charge of the project. "So. Major. What is Gluonic Fury, exactly?"

Obvious took in a breath and began an explanation he had practiced a hundred times. "It's like using a proton or a neutron gun, except more killy, really. See, GHDC stands for gluonic H-dibaryon cluster beam. The GHDC beam, like a standard particle weapon, fires these particles at the target. The manner in which the particles are fired, though, makes them fragment upon impact into their constituent quarks for an infintesimally short period of time, releasing gluons. In addition, we have glueballs surrounding the H-dibaryons which themselves are fired at the target. And it's accelerated via the weapon. Upon impact, whammy."

Haadars looked quizically at Obvious. "So they're particles that fragment and cause explody?"

Obvious nodded. "Much better than our current weapons, too."

Haadars turned to the technician manning the MT-157. "Let 'er rip."

A flash of light did not cut through any darkness. It was day. There was no darkness to begin with. The blast from the cannon- operated at 15% strength- hit a target some undetermined distance away, and made printouts back in RTF-5, as they tend to do. Haadars looked with amazement at the numbers, which far outstripped the current neutron or proton beams in use. Obvious and the others, though, were fairly nonchalant. Chalantness was not be expected for someone who had actually made the thing.

Haadars sent a line to a colonel, who sent a line to a general, who sent a line to another general, who sent a line to two generals, who sent lines to the Force Director of Defense, and then turned to Capt. Bong. "Now, Captain. What's this I hear about an SMT?"

Central Executive Complex, New York City, North America, Tiburon

"This is brilliant. When can we get this implemented?"

"We should be able to get these implanted on all force levels within three months, except for the free-floating space fleets. Implementation for those will take six months."

"Excellent. Send this to the other heads of defense for the Trium, and mention the proposal to make a joint starship as well."

"Yes, sir."

As much as it tries to avoid the negative qualities thereof, the Triumvirate has a bureaucracy. A very small one, given its supernational government status over such a large number of citizens--even if it's a very libertarian supernational government--but a sizable one nonetheless. The Tiburonese message comes in over coordinated defense lines, which means the Combined Services in general and the Strategic Integration Command in specific. A few O-4 level flunkies in SICOM look over it, rubberstamp that they saw it, then make copies and send them along to the various defense departments and war ministries of the Triumvirate which, knowing the Tiburonese, already have them because the Solarisienne are nice people like that who like sharing nice, fun, explody things. These same mooks write up an abstract, which they make copies of and send both to the Commander-In-Chief, TYCS and to the Council of Yut.

It's a safe bet the Tiburonese president would be getting a second, differently-worded and differently-authored abstract on the same research project. That's just how it goes.

The CINCTYCS looks over the results through his polished-to-a-mirror-shine MacArthurs, calls in his adjutant, and has a frank discussion on how Supreme Emperor battleships that can already raze continents should be able to do more along the lines of making people on the wrong side of them feel very, very, very bad about their lot in life. Additionally, the increased range and power compared to a standard particle cannon of similar mass and size means that older, eraser-heavy ships such as the Titan-class could be refitted with these things underslung to provide a kick where the electromagnetic radiation weapons don't. Coming to a decision, the CINCTYCS forwards the abstract, along with authorization to request full details of the experiment, down to the Lieutenant General in charge of Materials Command.

MATCOM's commanding officer scans the abstract, decides it could use some more in-house testing, and sends it down to Camp Restricted and sideways to the Statistics Department of the War Analysis and New Concepts College. While Camp R prepares for incoming and StatWANCC starts doing brain-trust ops on the mere concept of stupidly powerful particle weapons, Pioneer AFB gets a polite letter from the TYCS asking if their science staff would be interested in working at Camp Restricted to better coordinate research efforts.

All in all, not bad for a bureaucracy, even if it does take a few days.

The engineers of TEAM MELTA work feverishly, day in and day out, powered by the ideals of the pure engineer: Faster, Stronger, Better, and Shinier. The sheer difficulty of their intended target fuels them; that their solution is esoteric and previously unthought, much less untried, only makes them hold to it more firmly. Challenges abound: propulsion, structures, power. Modern overtechnology, sometimes combined seemingly haphazardly with older methods, provides solutions, one by one.

First, the hull structure. Any submarine moving through the transonic region of water will encounter massive forces in terms of pressure wave drag, intense heating and surface degradation from water vaporization due to skin cavitation. Well, modern aerospace fighters like Phantom IIIs and Excaliburs can maintain Mach 6 at sea level, so force is not much of a concern as long as the skin can be properly supported by heavy structure. If the submarine uses blower-based cavitation--blowers mounted on the bow and along areas of pressure spikes where the flow turns back towards the hull to form an air bubble around the vessel--it can reduce skin friction and heat transfer by leaving behind the hot air/steam while the submarine itself speeds on. Shaping it after a more streamlined version of the traditional submersible teardrop will be hydrodynamically sufficient; making it of modern kartongium armor and structural composites will give it enough skin strength, resilience, and heat resistance properties to survive the conditions; and using a complex inner structure that utilizes the traditional deck and bulkhead layout of ships to support the frames and hull much like an internal structural honeycomb will provide it with enough strength to withstand the tremendous forces.

Second, the propulsion. There’s no point in putting a gravitic drive in an oceangoing boat; put a gravydrive in and you essentially have a starship with a heavy hull. TEAM MELTA throws around other motive concepts: electromagnetic bias drive, electromagnetic tractor (which is the original favorite due to the shiny factor of a ship using powerful magnets to pull and push itself through the water), conventional water screws (not shiny nor fast enough), and the tried-and-tested resistojets as used on the Seaview-class research submarine, which wouldn’t be that hard to adapt into a sort of ramjet. TEAM MELTA doesn’t know the meaning of the phrase ‘tried-and-tested,’ and a resistojet’s inherent simplicity doesn’t hold their attention for long. Eventually Joe, the propulsion engineer, doodles up a combination of various turbine-based engines, thinks for a moment, then doodles it some more before introducing it to the team. He has them by the time he’s done with the name: turboramfanjet. Essentially a turbofan with the fan, compressor and turbine blades mounted to the large nacelle rim instead of a central hub, the blades can iris up into the nacelle housing at speed, converting the high-drag turbojet into a low-drag ramjet. At low speeds, the fan alone can be deployed, nearing the efficiency of a conventional waterscrew.

Yes, it’s needlessly heavy and advanced, but that’s what TEAM MELTA does. Something with heavy engines demands being heavy enough to justify it, and so TEAM MELTA goes from there to build up something resembling the bastard child of a surface battlecruiser and a svelte guppy. After several iterations of drawing and detailing, the engineers powered by video games, dementia music, and mild hallucinogens come up with a unforgivably sleek design with turrets fore and aft, nacelle groups under the turrets, and swept delta shark-fin wings.

Meanwhile, Flag Colonel Matyus suppresses a shiver, then needlessly restacks the reports on her desk. That’s the third time this week I’ve had an unexplainable feeling of dread. Something’s up. Reaching over and tapping the contact that engages the communications unit embedded in her desk, she leans over conspiratorially even though the effect is completely lost on the audio-only setting the unit is traditionally set to. “Pops, please.” The Camp R semi-intelligent dogbrain responsible for operating the switchboard connects her unit with the Psionic Operations front desk. “Pops, Matyus. Please put out an all-points recommending that psions not frequent the area around TEAM MELTA’s layer. The creepy shivery feeling is really getting annoying. Thank you, out.”

It's often said that science is cold, clinical- by being based on facts, logic, and reason, it's said that emotion has no place in scientific endeavours. This couldn't be further from the truth. To persist in an experiment for years requires determination, to consider all of the possible theories that could fit a particular set of data and make predictions as to the outcomes of future sets of data requires imaginative thinking. There is a drive to publish- as the saying goes, "publish or perish"- and the pride associated with seeing one's name on an influential paper. There is joy in success, disappointment in failure, and apprehension when a review is scheduled. And, for cases when the hypothesis seems to be all but rejected, but the researcher wants to undergo yet another trial, there is faith in the hypothesis. That often surprises some people, who see science as factual and logic based, with no faith or religion involved. Faith itself, though, isn't a religion-specific concept. Everyone has it, even the athiest. For example, when I step on a bus or the A line or an airplane, I have faith in the abilities of the engineers who designed the vehicle in question and the manufacturing plant that constructed the particular vehicle designed to carry me to my destination.

The emotions usually connected with this sort of an invitation range from joy (for the newer scientists, who for the most part have yet to make a major accomplishment due to the amount of time they have spent in the field) to quiet meditation (for the more dovish, who although they know that these weapons are going to be made to defend trillions across the cosmos) to wistfulness (for those who have old friends in Camp R who haven't seen each other for a while) to many others. All of these are tempered with seriousness at the subject matter- replacing the weapons systems of the common service ships for the largest alliance, population-wise, in the cosmos is certainly no joke.

I've got this feeling/ it's so appealing/
For us to get together and sing- sing!
Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring/ banana phone!
Ding dong din-

"Turn that off before I hurt you."

Spacetravel had become fairly mundane, nothing like the excitement and wonder it stimulated in the 20th and 21st centuries OCE. This was the case for all forms of travel that had been established- the adventure that the high seas had invoked, over time, turned into the humdrum of commerce and cargo shipments, and it had a mere few decades for travelling across the Atlantic by air to move from being considered a monumental achievement to being relegated to the same damn movie 20 million times. So it was with spacetravel today.

Once the craft had landed on the marked area, Maj. Obvious and the other Gluonic Fury members (all wearing semiformal uniforms, except for those who were not actual members of the USF Armed Forces) stepped out and made the usual greetings. They had also come with a message from the President, mentioning something about building some sort of joint Trium ship- a battleship or a carrier or something like that- and the research paper, if the situation required it. The paper, as expected, listed the names of the Gluonic Fury Team, but also mentioned a Major Starfighter, who was listed as one of the team's theorists and happened to not be there, for some sort of reason or reasons. Those reason things seem to pop up whenever an explanation is required, strangely enough.

As for the Tiburonese... their paperwork gets taken, looked over, and visibly filed into the Automated Suction Tube System of No Return, clanking away the various bits to Central Filing to be dealt with in a day or so. Meanwhile, the TYCS Ground Forces O-2 Captain in charge of making sure teams get workshops assign the Gluonic Fury team a smallish Quannset hut specifically constructed for their use. The air condition, heat, and water will be hooked up on Tuesday.

(Damn, forgot that I already posted that MELTA bit...)

"What about turtles?"

Doctor Hammuh looks up, red-rimmed eyes indicating the severity of his contact buzz about as much as the half-eaten value-size bulk bag of Funions beside him on the table. He wasn't a toker himself... at least, not regularly since university, but the hashroom in the back of the AtriuMELTA had seen a lot of "creativity stimulation" use as of late on this supersonic submarine project. That the hashroom doubles as a draftroom--the Draftroom in TEAM MELTA parlance--means that Hammuh has been in and out of there repeatedly over the past six hours. It's now fifteen hundred hours and he feels like he's a freshman all over again. "Turtles? What about turtles? Why the fuck you talkin' 'bout turtles, man? Pffft." Pho giggles. "Turtles."

"No, really, serious." Jim frowns, tapping his fingers on the desk. Marijuana simply makes him paranoid for some reason, and he's already so floating on caffiene that he's a cup of tepid coffee away from hypertension. "Turtles. I mean, the sub's going through the water. Through the water very quickly, I mean. So very fast that if it hits something, like a turtle, there's going to be bad. Bad things, I mean."

"Dude, it's made of armor. Armor." Hammuh geeks a little more. "Y'know, kartongium and stuff. A little turtle isn't going to do shit to it."

"But what if the turtle hits. I mean, hits somewhere important. Like, I dunno, I mean..." Jim's leg jitters uncontrollably in a momentary spasm. "A... a... a... a... engine. Y'know, if it goes in the engine, I mean. It could take out the turbofanrocketramjetawfuckitwhocares thing. It could core the engine, I mean. FOD."

Doctor Hammuh mulls over this for a moment, then nods enthusiastically. "Shit, man, you're right!" He munches on Funions in despair. "Fuck. We're going to be going supersonic anyway so... hrm." More funions are consumed. "Let's shape the shock so it'll push any turtles out of the way."

"Yeah, that'll work. Work by pushing the damned turtles away, I mean." Jim sighs as his esophagus contracts and he breaks out in a cold sweat. "I think I need a cold shower."

"You need to lay off the damned paroo." Pho's searching hand re-enters the bag beside him, comes up wanting, and attempts additional searching in vain. "Shit. Out of funions."

Somewhere in the Shogunate section of the Camp R labs...

Something exploded. Again, this is not terribly unusual for Camp Restricted. Except this time there wasn't supposed to be an explosion.

"Well, I hope we don't have to pay for that hole in the wall." Dr. Arstal studies the damage done, looking between the aforementioned hole and the standard slugthrower mounted on a mechanical arm for firing tests.

"... A bullet that works with normal mundane guns, and not only pierces the target, but completely frags it..." Theta looks at the hole in the wall where a firing target used to stand, and then at one of the bullets the pair had manufactured. "Definately not suitable for less-than-lethal requirements."

The doctor nods slowly. "Maybe we can adjust the composition of the small capacitor beads in the bullet and make it have a scattering affect! Take out the target, and then scatter the hypercharged capacitors to take out anything nearby!"

Theta shakes his head at the Drakon. "That's a little overkill for what we're supposed to be doing. But I can see it being useful against light armor and clustered infantry."

The two scientists survey the impressive hole the test bullet made in the wall some more.

"Maybe we can nail some boards over it and slide a new test dummy in front of it?" Dr. Arstal muses.

"I'm sure that will completely escape the notice of the people in the lab next to us." Theta responds dryly. "We're supposed to start working with the other Magical Girl teams on thaumaturgic mutation next week, by the way. Supposedly we even get one or two of those Keeper guys to question."

"Oh GOODIE!" Dr. Arstal squeals disturbingly like a little girl. "Then we get to play with the lab rats, right?"

"Yes, I suppose so." Theta sighs. "You know, I swear you're more Irregular than most reploids."

"Oh no, hardly!" Dr. Arstal beams. "I get plenty of fiber!"

"........ Right." Theta quirks an eyebrow. "I didn't need to know that."

“All right, ladies and gentlemen. The fleet in Sslaa has a problem.” Commander Livahdi turn to a large whiteboard behind her, upon which she writes “JUMP MISSILES”, and turns back to a small crowd of scientists and engineers. “We, no doubt for my sins in a past life, have been assigned to find a solution. FTLi has proven fickle due to the need for displacer use.”

“Stasis field! Put the ship into stasis, and it can't be hurt,” is the suggestion of a temporal mechanic.

“Please. It can't do anything, either,” scoffs a lanky weapons designer in the front of the room. “The reason there's a problem in the first place is because we're firing the displacers.”

“So set it to trigger a microsecond after the displacer cycles,” retorts the first scientist.

“And when you come out, there's still a moment of vulnerability before the FTLi comes back up.”

“Then have it come on only if there's missile is inbound or about to detonate nearby!”

“You have got to be kidding me! There's no way-”

Before the argument can continue on, the commander quickly interjects, “We can debate issues later. This is just a brainstorming session.” The weapons specialist looks ready to complain, but backs down when she glares at him. She writes “STASIS” on the board. “Next?”

“Active interception is boring and would require a good prediction algorithm to catch the missiles, but would be the easiest to implement without a refit,” says a voice from somewhere near the back, in a tone that suggests the only thing more boring than active interception would be department meetings.

“Active interception, good, good. Any ideas on methods, beyond the normal laser or gravygun?”

“Oooh, oooh! Transfiguration array! We, we, we could turn them into something harmless, like sheep!” This from... Dr. Hefflepeffer from the Advanced CHON Processing Division. Livahdi frowned, trying to think of any possible reason someone from that area would be here.

“Are you insane? Do you have any idea how much work that would take to implement? How difficult polymorph spells are even when you don't have to do them on some tiny object a zillion meters away moving several times the speed of light?” squawks a psionics researcher wearing what one might call a stereotypical tall, pointed hat.

“Electronic warfare! We should concentrate all our efforts and budget on jamming their targeting and redirecting the missiles!” shouts the head of the electronic warfare division.

“Hypercountermissiles! That's the obvious answer - to anyone with a brain, that is.”

“We could alter the local spacial metric and fold the missile into a pocket dimension!”

“Time travel! We could send messages back to the past version of the ship so it knows when to dodge!”

”Excuse me, but-”

“I still don't see what's wrong with transforming the missiles.”

“I'll sheep you if you don't shut up.”

“My sons and daughters, clearly if we trust in the protections of the Lord, Lady, and/or Deity of Your Choice, we shall persevere in this trying endeavor,-”

”May I please-”

“Look, we just need to alter the quantum foam along the path of the missile and the energy release will take care of it.”

“Along with everything else nearby!”

“What about that singularity projector that we were playing with last year?”

“Are you threatening me? I was trying to be helpful, which is more than you were doing sitting there in your silly hat trying to look mysteriBAAAAAH!”

”I just thought that perhaps-”

“- For truly, did not the Prophet Zephekiarasenulphan say unto the shepherds, 'When faced with lions, first, thou shalt find a large stick-'”

“No, they won't let us touch that again, because you ruined it for everyone when you blew up that star with it.”

“SILENCE!” All eyes turn towards the commander and note her narrowed eyes and the way her hand kept twitching towards her sidearm. After a moment, she nodded towards a mousy little woman in one corner. “One at a time. Dr. Kusanagi?”

”I just thought that perhaps we could simply let the missile in, and then put it in stasis. Or better yet, displace it off the ship entirely. Perhaps make a deliberate hole in the FTLi so the missile will naturally emerge at a pre-targeted point.”

"That sounds wonderful, doesn't it everyone?" Nods around the room. "I'm sure that you will all have ideas on how to accomplish this by, say, the day after tomorrow, yes?" More nods. "Good."

"And that," Doctor Pho Hammuh says with a jovially triumphant little smile, "is Project Undersea Thunder." The TEAM MELTA loons behind him softly murmur a "nah-na-na-nah-nah-thunder!" to themselves, then look at each other accusingly. Apparently they all had the same idea at the same time and, had only one done it, it may have been inaudible. With combined effort, however... not so much. "A three-hundred meter supersonic submersible battleship with HNPC twin-turrets, fore and aft."

Flag Colonel Matyus looks down at the single note she wrote at the very beginning of the briefing, the part where TEAM MELTA introduced that they were working on a supersonic submarine. It is a very large note, written in all capital letters; as they continued, it was later underlined, circled, had a sunburst drawn around it, lines of majesty drawn radiating out from it, and finally a rather detailed sketch of angels descending from the heavens with trumpets and a heavenly light for emphasis. Looking over this single note once again, she reads it aloud, vertabim. "What about the fish?"

Pho Hammuh blinks. "Uh? Fish?"

"Yes, fish. And whales, and sharks, and probably at this rate even sponges and various molluscs." Stephanie looks up, and she frowns. She frowns in a way that makes blood turn cold, in a way that has made men less dense than Pho fear for their continued existence.

The engineer, however, is far too friendly, good-natured, and happy-go-lucky to notice such things. "What about 'em?"

"Did any of you ever stop to think for a single moment what a Mach one-point-five to two shock wave underwater would do to oceanic wildlife?"

The members of TEAM MELTA look around at each other a touch sheepishly, each person individually knowing that it never came up in his own mind and getting confirmation of the situation's universiality from their errant schoolboy glances. Pho looks over his shoulder at them, gets the gist, then turns back to Matyus behind her steel desk. "No, ma'am. But deep-sea critters tend to have miles of vertical range," he pulls up in a quick defense, "and they can stand a wide range of pressures--"

"Yes, but not instantaneously." The Flag Colonel frowns deeply. "Humans don't do well with mild, instantaneous, overpressures yet they can go a hundred meters under the sea without pressure gear. Same thing."

Doctor Hammuh looks down at his feet, poking an imaginary discontinuity in the carpet with the toes of his sandals. "Yeah... I guess so."

"So, why didn't you think of this?"

"I dunno."

"Too bad you had to have a good idea. A more conventional submarine does fit the bill." Matyus slides her hardcopy of TEAM MELTA's presentation back across her desk to Pho. "Drastically simplify the propulsion system and scale it down to something carryable by Loki. Resubmit an abstract by the end of the month and we'll see how it's improved." She lets her frown lighten about two notches. "Understood?"

"Yes, ma'am." Doctor Hammuh sullenly takes back the hardcopy like a freshman failing an exam and stumps out of the room dejectedly, followed by his demoralized team.

Flag Colonel Stephanie Matyus simply leans back in her chair and smiles, her face full of schadenfreude as she watches them leave. Gods, that felt good.

In near-heliopause polar orbit around Sslaa

A detachment of Combined Services WarShips, five strong, coast effortlessly high above the plane of Sslaa's ecliptic. Bristling with weapons, they range from Battleship Duna, a metal bastard of an ironclad and a porcupine, to Medium Cruiser Bow River, a turret-studded arrow. In the middle of the formation, and on the smaller range in size, lies the bulbous hull practically papered with missile tube arrays that defines a Grendel (50B)-class frigate. It sits right where regulation and reasonable operational initiative says it should, and it continues to wait for a mysteeeerious elder-race adversary as it has for around a year now, with monthlong breaks for refit every five months.

Missile Frigate Saskatchewan is bored. Very bored. Tremendously astoundingly bored. It knows Duna volunteered for left field duty because out here there is no commercial traffic for the missile frigate to prank; no private communications to tap and insert randomness ranging from ads for soft drinks in Spanish to bawdy Benny Hill clips. Okay, so it spawned complaints, but it was funny and everyone except the pranked and the stiff had a good clean laugh. There's just nothing to do here; playing chess and tri-D chess was a joke because among the shipminds it was more of a ritual than anything else--they know the movetrees backwards and forwards and the only time games don't end in a draw is when one makes a mistake--and it's nearly impossible to play with the crew because no one likes getting beat all the time. Same with shōgi, and to a lesser extent, go and klin zha. Cubechess and cubeshōgi, developed in response to the mechanoid dominance in older chess games, have vaster movetrees that aren't really worth memorizing but that simply makes player meditate even further, and while Saskatchewan has never been diagnosed with some sort of attention deficit disorder it's certainly close, depending on who you ask.

There was some reprieve when the missile frigate got onto the BattleQuake Exty42 FPS servers and started pwning n00bs left and right, but then someone called in PIM. PIM is an eternal legend in Triumvirate gaming circles, especially first-person shooters; he, she, or it can consistently and quickly outfight any opponent or group of opponents on any level in any game ever made. Rumors abound; PIM isn't just one person but a secret society of hardware and cyberware modders who put stupid amounts of money into their craft, PIM is actually S.H.O.D.A.N., PIM is a secret Camp R project to train supersoldiers against impossible odds like in that movie with the Gunstar. Still, no one likes getting pwn'd before one can even sight the enemy... five hundred times and so Saskatchewan gave that up too.

Now all it has to keep from going senile is studying the footage from the fight with Antaran scoutships. Damn, it thinks to itself, those lightning thingies are pretty damn cool. I wonder how it does that. The missile frigate may have little to no patience, but it isn't stupid. It thinks about this, and decides to start... tinkering.

And whenever anyone or anything nicknamed "Skippy" starts tinkering, it is time to worry.

Of its own accord the missile frigate raises some of its aft shield generators and sends their fields careening towards each other, wavicles reacting in quantumly indeterministic ways. If the rest of the formation peers close enough to collapse wave functions, Skippy tells them in so many words to shove off. This isn't the first time the missile frigate has been fiddly, so they simply expand formation and grumble quietly to themselves. Fields interact, and Saskatchewan continues to fiddle with frequencies and powers until it starts getting more power out than it put in. Ah, zero-point effects. Now... to make it go somewhere... It tries tossing it with the fields, but then it just fizzles and goes away. Cursing quietly, it brings up the ZPE effect again, this sort of buzzing blue ball of crackling space, and tries slinging it with a burst from one of its maneuvering subgravs. Still nothing.

When in doubt...

Aboard Missile Frigate Skippy, in its armored command room, Captain Leader--who gets a great many lighthearted jokes about his name--sighs and runs a hand through his extremely short blonde hair. He's gotten used to his command's... eccentricities, but 'used to' need not imply 'like.'

"Sir, missle tube twenty-one-seventy-three just loaded!" The weapons officer, relatively new to this ship, looks at his console in surprise.

"Training round, right, Skippy?" Leader ignores the weapon officer.

"No worries, sir, I'm not depleting the doomcock supply," the bridge's squirrel replies.

Another meaningful sigh.

The missile slips from its tube, zips off, and slams into the ball lightning, slinging it away to zap the void before it dissipates after a few dozen thousand kilometers.

"Hee!" Pulling up more shields, Skippy starts making dozens of lightning spheres and spewing training missiles into them, throwing them left and right in streams of bright blue fuzzy dots. "I've invented something!"

"Good for you, Skippy," Leader says shortly. "Now write a report and send it to MATCOM."

For once, Skippy has no problem with writing a report. It invented something.

Weapons-Hrragh relaxes back in the rec center lounge, idly fanning himself with one flat side of his tri-corner hat as his eyes point in the direction of the screen showing the new Gyrinidae-class submersible battlemonitors on exercises off the coast of the Dominion. The muscular kzintosh who takes fashion tips from bodice ripper novels set in the seventeenth century isn't actually watching the strangely streamlined triple-turret warships surface, pan the skies, and dive again. No, the ways his eyes fail to twitch at movement mean that he's in thought. And when Weapons-Hrragh thinks to the exclusion of situational awareness... well, anything that can get a kzin that focused has to be bad for someone.

The problem in his head is simple to state and understand. As particle cannon technology in the Triumvirate stands now, most any heavy cannon-equipped ship in the Fleet can make a planet an uninhabited hell in short order. This is decidedly antithetical to Combined Services doctrine, which explains why targets have to be engaged so they are above the local horizon--misses can't be allowed to hit planets because geocide is nowhere near reasonable collateral damage. Still, modern armors are designed to at least pretend to take such punishment, and as Cetagandan and other Bolo-style tanks show it is getting extremely hard to take out such heavy armor without an equivalent bit of heavy armor... which is also against Combined Services doctrine because heavy armor is naturally not the most mobile thing in the world. Gears and powersuited Infantrymen can still take on most things nowadays, but in the future, it may become problematic.

With the success of the Tiburonese Gluonic Fury project, it isn't hard at all to give an infantryman a handheld repeatable weapon that can reenact Hiroshima. Support weapons could now tip the balance of terror in twentieth-century superpower arms races. The problem is that it makes no sense whatsoever to give an infantryman a weapon to kill a tank where if he misses he just happens to blow up the county he's standing in.

So, what's needed is a simple statement but a difficult reality to achieve. It has to be powerful enough to defeat modern superarmors, and it has to be precise enough that all that power won't lead to the massive explosions that huge releases of energy usually have as a matter of course due to the laws of physics. It also needs to be easily man-portable and preferably revolutionary instead of evolutionary, given that gravyguns are now old hat and so a theoretical opposition heavy tank probably has countermeasures for it.

A tricky problem, which is why Weapons-Hrragh doesn't notice the TEAM MELTA member in the retina-burning yellow blazer giving him a shaving-cream toupee.

The man in the blazer pulled back and immediately ran, knowing his legs would be insufficient to save him from the pounce when it came. It didn't. He and his friends gathered, the latter proclaiming him a marked man soon to die. He didn't. Hours passed and the kzin simply sat, thinking, looking without seeing, touching without feeling, breathing without smelling. The curlicue of foam on his head slowly succumbed to time, water evaporating away and leaving only a thin coating of fine white powder. And still the kzintosh sat, fanning himself from muscle memory with his tri-cornered hat, somehow detached from his own body.

The evolved primates wandered back to see this wonder, then decDa
ided better of it and figured it would be safer to build plastic models using aromatic solvents in poorly-ventilated rooms while smoking marijuana (which is pretty much what TEAM MELTA does anyway). Meanwhile, Weapons-Hrragh concentrated on the oneness of the Weapon, the principle of destruction. Not the mayhem involved, oh no; for mayhem suggests the absolute rending of emotional order. No, the Platonic Ideal of weapons took up his mind; the thing defined solely by its ownership of the property of 'weaponness.' A thing that took apart, disassembled, entropied. A harsh word and a artillery cannon, both weapons, both un-ideal. On an animal level, he knew he had it; on a sentient level beyond the waking, he knew he couldn't think of it, that he had to sit and wait and let it become a part of him before he could dare to express it lest it blow away like so much mist over the sea of his mind.

For a day he sat, motionless save for the fanning of his hand, body somehow mysteriously aligned so that he could be comfortable enough to forget he even had a body, and to think. At the end of the day, during the night shift, he spoke very softly in his native tongue the conclusions he had come to.

"When a cause exists, it has this effect; with the arising of the cause, the arising of the effect natually follows.

"Dependent on matter arise its physical properties.
Dependent on those physical properties arise the energy needed to be transferred to the target.
Dependent on the energy needed to be put on target arises the energy needed to be output from the weapon.
Dependent on the required output energy arises the amount of energy inevitably released into the surroundings.
Dependent on the energy released into the surroundings arise heat, light, sound, and radiation.
Dependent on heat, light, sound, and radiation arise the potential for collateral damage even if the target is hit.

"Thus does collateral damage inherently originate from the application of energy to the disruption of matter."

He says a bit louder this time: "When the truth becomes manifest to the thinking Hero, his doubts vanish since he knows the truth together with its cause."

"With the cessation of matter, physical properties cease.
With the cessation of physical properties, the energy on-target ceases.
With the cessation of the energy on-target, the energy output ceases.
With the cessation of the energy output, the environmental absorption of energy ceases.
With the cessation of the environmental absorption of energy, heat, light, sound, and radiation ceases.
With the cessation of heat, light, sound, and radiation, collateral damage ceases.

"Thus does the collateral damage which makes the conflict of the Weapon against heavy armor completely pointless cease.

"When the truth becomes manifest to the thinking Hero, his doubts vanish since he knows the truth together with its cause."

The weapon must eliminate the matter. Not annihilate it, not disrupt it, simply make it cease to be. But such a thig cannot be done." He grins momentarily, just to himself. "Energy gets drawn from nothing, but at the cost of madness. A gun that makes people go mad when they maintain it... how useless! Hrrrr... matter must be eliminated but without an outward effect."

The next day, the visitors to the rec center lounge find the big orange-furred kzintosh standing in the middle of the room, looking at the chair which held him whilst he was inspired. Simply looking at it, without a word or a breath out of place, eyes motionless. By now people were mildly concerned but simply went out of their way not to disturb the big thinking kitty. Stranger things have and will happen at Camp R, and so for something so benignly odd most will do their best not to let it affect them. As for TEAM MELTA, this is surely a sign that the quiet genius of Weapons-Hrragh is centered solely on their complete destruction, some device of such brilliant magnitude that they will simply cease to be for all time. Pot paranoia twanging their nerves, they figure he may be working out the design of a probability weapon that would erase their existence, where their inventions remain and the past simply folds up in the vacuum in their absence to continue on in a calm sea of continuity long after they've sunken beneath the waves into the void.

On the third day he paced back and forth, back and forth, concentrating completely and not at all on his next step, and the next, moving with a thoughtful slowness. By now TEAM MELTA is in a veritable panic, two days of fishbowling having gotten them alternately oxygen-deprived and hypertense from the Paroo powered all-nighters, and screaming outside whilst they run in circles away from auditory and tactile hallucinations. Apparently, to them, Weapons-Hrragh has made a deal with the Spider King through dark occult rituals of the fractal and as a boon to his newest fell acolyte the Lord of the Arachnids has implanted ticks--not spiders, but ticks--into the arteries of TEAM MELTA. It would only be a matter of time before the blood-engorged ticks lay eggs in their heart and it would be a race as to whether they would die horribly from all the baby scorpions gnawing their way out--

"Baby scorpions? What the hell?"

"Naw, man, it's the fuckin' ArachnoPope, man, she's the lord immaterial of all things eight-legged and so the blood ticks birthe scorpions with necrotizing fascitis in their stingers SHIT OH SHIT I CAN FEEL THEM INSIDE OF ME AAAHHHHH!"

"Security..."

--or dying of Lyme disease. Whatever comes first.

On the fourth day, Weapons-Hrragh simply sat in the elevator, looking at his reflections going off to infinity (or more accurately, out until he couldn't see past himself) in the mirrors on all four walls, just as silent, and just as motionless. He thought about the Book of Armaments, a only very slightly tongue-in-cheek primer on all things destructive that he had helped the other Camp R veterans write. People used other elevators. TEAM MELTA, only just now recovering from the dump shock of their unwise pharmaceutical use, started getting splitting headaches and blamed them on orbital mirrors tied to the solette that must be beaming some sort of mind control or direct psychological warfare beams into their heads. One of them figured the best way to not be mind controlled is to be completely shitfaced and so they spent the day drinking to the point of beyond hammered whilst wearing aluminum foil helmets. This kept them in their own little suite and so the rest of the base thanked their respective deities for the relief.

On the fifth day, the kzintosh blinked, decided that was enough, and dared to think under something more waking. It was still there. Intact. And he knew pretty much where he had to go with it. With a roar he bounded off to the washrooms because it had been a while. In the meantime, while everyone on base was glad to see him up and about again, they look at TEAM MELTA lined up in the sickbay and note that if he could have kept this up for about two more days they would have managed to kill themselves in fear and no one would have been culpable for their deaths. As it is, the doctors say that their prognosis is good and they'll certainly pull through.

Design work. Always interesting, and usually recursive as the first design doesn't quite work but is at least a step in the right direction. Engineers are not particularly concerned with how a given thing works when it comes to design; what it does is more important. Rather than knowing the particular way a matter converter takes in whatever is dumped into it and breaks it down into electricity, energy, waste heat, and waste neutrinos they have textbooks with equations that say that for this much mass flow rate at this efficiency one gets this much power with this much waste heat flow. All of these then become part of the design requirements for other components. The problem is that, unlike what some people think, engineering is not a closed-form solution. The mission requirements are complex and have some leeway; the math is complex and has inherent error due to statistics and, if nothing else, the emergent result of quantum effects on a whole; and so the result is inevitably a series of compromises, well-researched guesses, and artful shuffling until one has the complex machine one wants.

Take an airplane, for example. Start with performance requirements. To meet these performance requirements you need a particular wing (to oversimplify). To design this wing you need the weight. To find the weight you need the mass of the components of the wing and the aircraft... but to design the wing you need the weight. That's one circular reference already, and that doesn't take into account stability and control. To place the wing you need to know where the center of gravity is; to know where the center of gravity is, you need to know where the wing is. To know what size the control surfaces are and where they need to be you need to know where the center of gravity is and what the moments of inertia are; to know the center of gravity and the moments of inertia, you need to have sized and placed the control surface components. Three circular references already with an admitted oversimplification and that doesn't take into account propulsion; to know how much range the plane has you need to know how heavy the plane is; to know how heavy the plane is you need to know how much fuel you have; to know how much fuel you have, you need to know how much range the plane has. So on and so forth. Every complex machine ever engineered suffers the same sort of problems, although not necessarily as many or as complex. Cars, trains, guns, tanks, washing machines, toasters, airline chairs... everything.

Weapons-Hrragh is an engineer who designs guns. He pours over textbooks, coming up with an initial design. For this thing to work it needs a miniaturized displacer--it doesn't have to displace much--a targeter, capacitors, and a matter converter. The rest--power circuits, radiators, cooling, the rest--are auxillary components dependent upon those primary ones. He finds a relation between rate of displacer refire with power input, and works that into the system of equations; a relation between range and displaced volume, and that goes in too. He assembles everything he needs, and then tries a few calculations by hand.

If they were airplanes, they would be bloated monsters that could fly for seven minutes, or mosquitoes that could fly for hours at twenty miles an hour. No matter. The results are within the realm of physical feasibility and so are probably good to go on. The kzintosh takes everything he's collated and dumps it into one of Camp R's genetic algorithm optimizers and gives it an objective to home in on.

Recursive process, mind.

Optimally it should be man-portable; it needs to be suit-portable. That assigns mass and volume constraints. Optimally it should be assembled from existing parts; it needs to be made of existing technologies with no extrapolation. Optimally it should have a range of up to a kilometer; it needs to have a range of at least two hundred meters. On and on, from rate of fire to volume displaced, Weapons-Hrragh requests something specific and demands something somewhat less so. A lot of these requirements are mutually opposing so he prioritizes the requirements: mass is more important than range which is more important than rate of fire which is more important than volume displaced.

Once all this is punched in, the dumb computer programmedly thanks him for his input and goes on its way, using the power of cutthroat evolution in the name of hurting people and breaking things in the most efficient way possible.

Content with himself and finding nothing else on his schedule, the kzintosh takes a nap.

The process at the Sakkran development complex had been completed, and personnel assigned to the task of developing a self-aware vat-grown soldier's companion were re-assigned and sent back to their respective departments. Overseeing the Hhoul-hound's development from birth to maturity was met with some interesting circumstances, a bit of gene-tweaking to correct mental-development issues that popped up, and the final blue-prints were given over to the big brass in Hreer. One hound, however, seemed quite adamant at staying in the small (by comparison) quarters assigned to the Sakkran group.

But that doesn't mean the end of R&D efforts. After gaining the clearance, signing over paperwork by the truckload and getting their equipment set up, a reearch team from Kastaa BioMed's military development branch were already busy getting their beakers and bunsen burners all in a row. Exploratory sniffing from the resident Hhoul-hound at the six-person group ended with the hound's approval, although the singular Deep One in the team garnered some additional attention. Maybe it was the lingering scent of sea-salt trapped between the plates of the Deep One's armored hide, or it may have been more likely that it was the scent of dried meats coming from Ggark's pouch on his sash.

Regardless, Ggark began taking to sharing his noontime repast with the hound, who he decided to call Cricket do to the chirruping sound his wing-plates made when lunch-time approached. "Must be the excitement from the anticipation of food. Wonder why he decided to stay here instead of traveling with his pack back to Sslaa?" The team leader was Jjherro, of the Jjouha line, third generation. While not being the mechanical engineer and chemist his grand-sire was, he had a knack for genework and analysis that was second to only a scant few.

Ggark's gnashing mouth-plates and gesticulating claws were translated through the ear-throat symbioters nearly all in the Herpetological Empire wore at nearly all times. "Maybe Cricket didn't care for change of scene. Maybe has marked territory here. Unknown, but worth investigating, yes?"

It doesn't look like much.

Actually, it looks like a lot of things. Take the uranium implosion core one always sees in Trinity Test documentaries--complete with metal wires and tubes and whatnot but less the masking-tape bits--scale it down to the size of a cantaloupe plus a centimeter or two in diameter, and put that on one end. In the middle are a series of metal canisters about the size, dimensions, and overall appearance of a bulk value-sized steel can of beans, two of them, connected by a core of some smaller radius consisting of a metal band for about three quarters of its circumference and canted vent slots for the rest, with the vents pointing away from the user if the weapon were to be held right-handed. Unlike most Trium weapons, this prototype is apparently not fully ambidextrous. The far end (relative to the sphere) consists of a box about as wide across as the spacers between the bean cans with a flat black armorglass plate on the far end, protecting the emoptical sensor suite inside. The glass isn't mirrored like better sunglasses are; instead, it is designed to let in as much light as possible in one direction while not allowing any to escape from the other. It's the sort of inky black that doesn't react to external light sources and the eye just sort of slips off of under good light. It has two grips on the bottom in tandem, one forward and the other back, and a foam padding brick between the two. Just from eyeballing it one can tell it's intended to be used either as a very large example of a regular rifle or more comfortably perhaps as an over-the-shoulder support weapon. With this in mind the rudimentary telescopic sight is mounted on quarter-moon rails that allow it to be slid to either the top or the side of the weapon. All in all, it looks like a lot of things.

But it still doesn't look like much.

Weapons-Hrragh adjusts the weapon on its little test cradle and looks through the sight. The crosshairs intersect upon a series of metal monoliths, the kind normally used to test armor-piercing weapons. It's a beautiful 'sun'ny day outside, and when TEAM MELTA isn't tearing about on their newest offense to the One Fanged God it's actually quite pretty in a green-hills sort of way. With everything lined up and in its place, and a gentle wind blowing through his silk cravat, the kzintosh feels that all is right with the world as he saunters back behind a nearby blast screen and triggers his new weapon electronically.

A staccato series of bangs and flashes later, every single plate has a hole straight through the middle of it, which is good. Meanwhile, the two cans that make up the main body of the weapon are blown outward in a style akin to a large firecracker in, well, a can, which is bad. Especially bad given how it would have blown that cheap telescope sight right through whoever would've been weilding the weapon. Weapons-Hrragh shrugs and decides to review the high-speed camera footage later to see what happened. For now, though, the concept works even if it needs a little bit of tweaking.

The difference between a weapon that works and a weapon that kills its user is a matter of tweaking.

It's a little-know fact (although little-known is, in this case, not terribly surprising given the classified nature of the entire facility) that buried within the set of buildings the Cetagandans occupy is a small set of hard-to-get-to offices and labs (any suggestion that these 'offices' are mostly converted storage spaces is ardently denied by the occupants). Within reside a set of people who are, to put it simply, considered odd even by the standards of the rest of Camp Restricted (albeit more of a quaintly curious odd, rather than a TEAM MELTA odd). This is because their particular area of specialty is the interfacing of physical and metaphysical technology. Cetaganda has a long tradition of mixing the magical and mundane in everyday life, but despite this, the theoretical researchers on both sides tend to look down on the others as either “pointy-hatted idiots who wouldn't know logic if it bit them” and “headblind morons who are too literal-minded to see the true beauty of the multiverse.” They do agree that anyone trying to (cue shock and horror) combine the two fields in a practical manner are sullying the purity of their respective sciences.

The technomancy division at Camp R is small, because the facility is primarily dedicated to physical science (purely metaphysical military research being done on small, lonely asteroids and Kuiper Belt objects in an uninhabited star system for reasons that really to messy to go into at this moment). They mostly sit around and meddle with things men are not meant to meddle with, occasionally tossing out some piece of research that increases sensor resolution or computing speed in order to justify their continued existence on the budget. In any case, they tend to be quiet, have a good cost-to-productivity ratio, and don't nearly cause kiloton-range explosions or tear holes in space time like some people, so Commander Livahdi can more or less happily ignore them.

It's pure coincidence that she sees a gaggle of people in pointy hats dragging a contraption across on of the test fields at the same time she's skimming recent purchases.

Ordered: 8/26/1605
Received: 8/28/1605
Supplier: 01MC

Items:

500 Kilograms Humpback Whale Blubber
7 Liters Panda Tears
1 Pair 70 centimeter Walrus Tusks
60 Grams Ground Murderer's Liver


The officer sighs, and calmly walks out of her office and makes her way over towards where the scientists are huddled behind a blast wall, peering through the reinforced viewports at something in the field beyond. She moves in among them, peering through the port and asking cheerfully, “So, gentlemen, what's all this?” She certainly couldn't tell, because her eyes kept sliding off it and would water when she tried to focus on the center of the machine.

“Oh, commander!” Says a portly researcher in a faded green robe. “We thought we'd try something more active than usual, what with there being a war on and all. We think it might be useful for missile defense project.”

“What is it?” She certainly couldn't tell, because all the device seemed to do was look strange and make burbling noises.

“Oh, it's a device that alters physical constants. Right now it's locally changed the value of pi to three.”

“Ah.” Livahdi supposed that would explain why some of the circular hoops the machine had stuck on it looked so strange. After another minute of study, she casually asks, “Seven liters of panda tears?”

The researchers rubs his hands together pensively. “Well, ah, the original spells called for it,” he says hurriedly. “We managed to drastically reduce the needed components by adapting a standard power system and field generators.”

“Ah.” She moves to another port, and is not surprised to find that the machine looks completely different despite her position changing only a few feet. “You can turn it off, correct?”

“Oh, yes, yes. Very easy. It's completely safe.” The man digs into a pocket, and pulls out a QE control dongle. He presses one of the controls, the dongle beeps, and there is a horrible splorch sound. This is followed by groans from the surrounding scientists, and shortly after that by the stench of what she suspected was a large amount of blubber.

“Oh dear,” says the head researcher quietly. An intern is shoved in the general direction of the heap of twisted metal and organic material, while the rest of the scientists continue to peer at it from safety. “I suspect that it didn't like the return to normal physics very much.”

Livahdi sighs, and reminds herself that at least it hadn't caused anything that would have her talking with the base commander yet again. “Well, nothing works right the first time. How about I come back in a week?"

The scientist nods quickly, "That would be wonderful. I'm sure we'll have something better by then." He rubs his chins, and says thoughtfully, "Maybe if we used more liver..."

"A 'nibbler,' you call it?" The black-painted combat shell currently acting as the local instrumentality of the Zero-One heavy cruiser Destruction of Exergy gently handles the awkward-looking device in its manipulator claws, looking it over with a trained eye in careful scans. Only posture and a perfection in movement show off any sort of 'trained eye'; otherwise, the Security-2 robot's motions are as robotically without insinuation as would probably be expected. "Very nice. After some refinement, it should be a very effective anti-armor weapon."

"Thank you." The kzintosh, foppishly dressed as usual, straightens his neckcloth and adjusts his tri-corner hat as his pink ears flit with pride. The cruiser usually does not compliment anyone, even its friends. The only thing more outlandish would be if Destruction of Exergy actually paid Lieutenant Curuvar a compliment. They get along, certainly, but it's an odd sort of friendship. "That is still the prototype, but the principle has been verified and the base fabricators are working on a production type right now. What are you working on, Dex?"

The combat robot gingerly hands the weapon back to Weapons-Hraagh and shakes its head. "Powered armor, of all things."

"P... hrrr." The kzintosh catches himself before he asks for confirmation. That's one of Exergy's pet peeves, he remembers. "That is... unusual, given your usual stance on the organic warfighter."

"Yes, but this is an opportunity to lessen the divide somewhat," the warship-as-combat-shell explains. "The same problems that forced the TYCS Fleet to adapt to mechanoid standards are finally reaching the Mobile Infantry as well. There's only so much that the integral wired reflex cores of Assault Armor can do, and other than combat drugs there's nothing in our standard suits that augment reaction time. Those same standard suits are also getting extremely old, so the Infantry want a new standard suit for close-environment fighting instead of investing in another SLEP for them."

"Hrm." The TYCS doesn't commonly change models if it can get away with it, far preferring Service Life Extension Plans on existing hulls and designs rather than creating all-new ones. Sometimes, though, paradigm movement requires something totally new. "What about the assault armor?"

"I am only working on a secondary system for its latest SLEP, but it should be up-armored, up-muscled, and given an increased active point-defense suite. Cetagandan knife missiles and their field technologies are finally being considered tested enough for mass production. Truth is, they've finally figured out a way to make them inexpensively."

Weapons-Hrragh takes off his hat and scratches his head. "But organic operators don't have the reaction times to deal with those sorts of fields. It defeats the purpose of the suit if it has more switches than an aerospace fighter."

"Which is why I am working on the dogbrain system for it." The lilt in Destruction of Exergy's androgynous voice suggests a inordinately pleased smile. "I've talked to Commodore Matyus and, despite her expected meaty misgivings, she's allowing me to... experiment."

'Experiment' is, of course, said in ways that would make Analton Curuvar (a perfectly professional and decent, if utterly un-Heroic sort) blanch. "Before you tell me this," the 'tosh says slyly, tail twitching, "we need to go find Anal."

The mind behind the robot cackles. "Dear me, you do have an evil streak. Now I know why I like you, even if you happen to be an outmoded collection of long-chain lipids and amino acids oxidizing inefficient carbohydrates for energy."

"You like me because I stand up to you, Dex."

"Bah. Let me wallow just a little in my self-superior self-deception, will you? Or I'll enter local orbit and effectorize your dog."

"I do not have a dog. You're confusing me with the Patriarch again."

"Curses. Foiled again." One of the robot's lensed eyes iris shut and opens again, the closest it will ever get to a wink. "Let's go find that CHON immortal."

* - * - *

A few hours ago

"Please, Heavy Cruiser, take a seat."

Destruction of Exergy looks down at the chair Stephanie habitually indicated with one hand; despite it having the usual Scolopendran signature look of appearing as if it could survive a slight tacnuking its solid lines still don't look like they should properly support the armored fighting vehicle with legs that is the warship's Security-2 avatar. "My apologies, Flag Colonel, but I should probably stand."

This is an interesting situation, rankwise. Heavy Cruisers are, in the Queendom Armed Conflict Force, responsible for commanding squadrons and thus are generally equivalent to commodores in other fleets (except for the flagships, who are equivalent to admirals). This is not a perfect analogy, as the QACF relies far more on consensus up and down the chain of command based on combined planning than most militaries, but is broadly accurate. Matyus, as a Flag Colonel of the Aerospace Directorate, is also equivalent to a commodore as (if she were a fighter pilot) she would have operational command of several fighter wings run by colonels. However, as Matyus is the commanding officer of Destruction of Exergy's research section, she is its commanding officer and due the appropriate customs and courtesies. Long ago they had figured out to simply be polite to each other and use titles when acting officially, rather than worrying about "ma'am" or "s'con" (short for "superior construct").

"I'm really sorry, Dex,"--a shorthand she uses when no one else is around, again by mutual agreement--"but if you keep standing like that this poor biological's going to get a crick in her aging neck. At least scrunch down or something."

"Certainly, Steph." Again, mutual agreement, no one else present. The robot settles back on its haunches in a sort of mechanical parody of the traditional way Korean men crouch down to talk conspiriatorially. "So, Flag Colonel, you wished to discuss something?"

"Just a report on your latest. Working with Giichi, I hear?"

"Yes. While his fanboyism is certainly annoying at times, our Shogunate friends have helped me to put it in perspective. Surprisingly enough, it has become useful... again. Thank you for the warning."

"You're quite welcome." Matyus smiles and settles back, idly snatching her little stressfoam globe off her desk and squeezing it in her hand. Her hands are nearly absurdly muscular after years of abusing that poor thing. "I've heard he's working on a new suit design, something about just a myomer second skin with some armorene around it. Not much in the way of rigid plates at all for better flexibility..." She chuckles again, and gives the toy terra a particularly harsh squeeze. "I don't think the M.I. will like it much. They like being bricks almost as much as Fleet does."

"The method doesn't work too poorly for us," Destruction of Exergy counters with a suppressed chuckle. "I do understand, though. This form is built around hex-cell bones of structural metal with a kartongium cladding. Somewhat more durable than meat and bone, thus your species' prediliction towards your armors being exoskeletal. I do think I've come up with something that will tip the balance in our--Giichi and my--favor, I think."

"Oh?" Her squeezings become slightly less emphatic. "Let me in on this one."

"Doctor Kuromori introduced me to the series he was pulling inspiration from. Interesting in its use of philosophy, all things considered. Now, he is right. Assault armor is fine for fighting inside our own ships, or Sakkran ships, or kzinti ships, or anything else with highway tunnels for corridors. It's also fine for fighting in the field or in cities... but not in close buildings. It is not really naturally limber, and it is simply too big. Standard armor needs replacing and it needs replacing with something more mobile, safer, and faster."

"Faster's your biggest problem. Assault armor does it through the Hoppy Leg system--all mechanical there, you should love it--but you can only tell a person to run so fast until their brain simply can't coordinate their legs fast enough. Then they trip while going thirty miles an hour and things go pear-shaped."

"Exactly." If the motionless 'face' of the Sec-2--no more than lenses and armor plate--could smile, the heavy cruiser's voice sounds as if the smile would be sly and dark indeed. "I also found a solution in his inspiration, and a name. Standard Exosuit, Enhanced Limberness Exomyomer."

"'Seele?'" Matyus arches a brow. "Why do you want to name a suit after the German for 'soul?'"

"Instrumentality."

"You say words but I'm having difficulty reaching the meaning." Squeeze. "Yes, I know you people have a special relationship to instrumentality given that you have to have avatars in order to interact with physicality, but I'm not seeing the connection here. Go on."

"The concept of instrumentality is a basic one. Any system that connects will to action is a form of instrumentality. Just as this body is a form of instrumentality for my mind, your body is a form of instrumentality of yours."

"Ohkay, flashbacks of college philosophy here. I won't deny that, but due to your construction I think it's a different matter. You don't have any... what's it called... body perception beyond what any given avatar tells you to have based on accepted protocols and standards. The human mind-instrumentality connection is reciprocal; the mind tells the body what to do but the body tells the mind how to think, because the mind is inherently enmeshed in the physical structure of the brain. That's how HANS are people but not exactly homo sapiens sapiens human, as their human mind has been overlaid on an entirely different substrate their body perception has changed. Most HANS have humaniform bodies, so there isn't much if any change, but if they're put into a spiderbot or something with massively expanded perceptions their thought processes noticably change because their body perception and their relation to the environment does. Think about the few HANS minds in the Fleet running starships. Practically god-complexes there."

"As you said, no argument." The robot's clawed tail goes snicker-snack. "Nevertheless, we need our soldiers to move faster. We can't upload them and download them into and out of suit memory because errors will accrue between their wildly varying body perceptions between apparently instantaneous moments of transfer. Eventually the conscious mind simply can't maintain a continuity between these perceptions and tries to tear itself away from body perception. Not being built as a stand-alone system, the human mind generally suffers either a psychotic break or devolves into multiple disassociative identity disorder. Your own early medical experimenters figured that one out.

"Where does body perception lie, however? It is not a conscious construct, although it can be called up consciously. It's a leftover from your animal evolution, in the lower strata of your brains and essentially the entirety of your hindbrain and spinal cord. One of many studies from Citadel Station show that because minds are data--emergent physical data, but data nonetheless--they can be uploaded and downloaded in parts. We can leave the hindbrain connected to the meat body and thus maintain its connection to body perception, although drugged or otherwise suppressed to stillness. We upload the conscious mind into suit memory, making it temporarily mechanoid in terms of reaction times and thought speed."

The human squeezes her toy once more, mulling this over. "How does that solve the body perception issue, though? Like you said, our minds don't do the mind-without-body thing well, and if it establishes a body perception with the suit, then it goes mad again."

"You mistake the locations of causes and effects, Flag Colonel." The robot continues patiently, with an almost serpentine tone of intellectual seduction to its voice. "Upload-download madness stems from an inability to maintain an animal, subconcious continuity. The same animal continuity safely left behind in its prison of meat. When uploaded, the conscious mind will be subconsciously connected to a new subconscious, vis a vis the dogbrain. This dogbrain will not only act as a conscious sensorium enhancement but an entirely new hindbrain, translating the will of the user into the regulation of suit functions as if the human were born as the suit. Do you think about moving your arm or contracting your muscles to squeeze that ball, Flag Colonel? You will it, consciously or semiconsciously, and it is done through the translation of your subconscious hindbrain. This works in exactly the same way."

Stephanie ponders that some more, and shudders slightly. "A surrogate hindbrain? So one moment I'm me, and the next moment I'm a suit, and--if I understand you right--I don't even notice the difference?"

"Not until you think on it, and your consciousness can deal with differing consciousness-level bodily perceptions over time. Sometimes you see yourself as dashing, other times you see yourself as ugly. Sometimes even in the same day... true?"

Matyus frowns. "True. Still, you know how we are about our technological conservatism when it comes to these sorts of things. Cybernetic implants and augments are old hat; what you're suggesting is a surrogate for a major portion of the nervous system."

"And encephalons and headware memory and wired reflexes aren't?" Destruction of Exergy leans its elbows on its knees, arching its fingers. "In the end, it's a matter of utility. If this can be proven to work on the scale this armor would provide, it can apply to anything. Starships, industrial lines, groundcars, communication satellites, even buildings could be outfitted with these sorts of 'hindbrain surrogates,' as you put it. It would revolutionize all forms of rigging... and cyberspace utilization, for that matter. It would certainly give the Combined Services an edge, no?"

"Hrm, yes." Matyus leans back in her chair, steepling her fingers as well and tapping the tips of them against her chin as she thinks, eyes looking off to nowhere. "And this would be purely temporary?"

The robot scoffs. "That's the entire point, isn't it?"

"Right. The problem with the slippery slope argument is that it assumes we're going to fall down it. Go ahead, but be careful."

"Thank you, Flag Colonel." The heavy cruiser smiles in its voice.

"Anything else to report, Heavy Cruiser?"

"No, Flag Colonel."

"Dismissed, then. Let's hope your soul is up to this."

The robot stands and bows. "It certainly is." Turning on one broad heel, it glides smoothly out of the office, leaving a particularly human officer thinking in its wake.

The prototype suit, set into its frame of steel tubing planted against one wall, looks nothing more than an oversized, bleached dissection project. Myomer musculature, on the yellow side of off-white, peel back like plastinated cadavers to reveal a glistening yet jet black gel layer on the inside, as if this two-meter monster had been carefully carved open along the lines of its muscles, peeled open, and everything inside scooped out and disposed of. The half-snake, half-cetacean head stretches back, appropriate for if it were lolling on a dissection table but disquietingly out of place for the freestanding suit, in slight defiance of gravity. The rest of the room is filled with the usual, expected, equipment of a test workshop; experiment benches and readout counters hooked up to the suit via wires and cabling, the multicolored strands ending both in the occasional sticky pad and deeper inside the suit when a wire disappears between striations in the artificial muscle. The graphics on the screens aren't fancy, and certainly not up to any sort of cinematic standard; wireframes and ASCII are as good as it gets. Still, in some concession to art--or, perhaps, just the rapid transfer of information of a glance--everything is green and green means good.

The test pilot for the suit, a weatherbeaten but not exactly grizzled ex-Infantryman with a shock of white hair more stereotypically applied to aging test pilots, looks less than convinced. Caucasian, mesomorphic, clear history of physical training, in the peak of health despite middle age, green eyes--if one were to meet him on the street they'd probably notice the eyes first, partially because their shade almost perfectly matches a particularly famous National Geographic cover photo and partially because they bleed a confident understanding of situational awareness. He sees all, and finds himself comfortable in it with an unshakable, unreadable calm. Therefore, he doesn't look worried; test pilots have the same tendency of never looking scared no matter what they happen to test, be it aerospace fighter or battlesuit. In how he stands, and how he taps his clean-shaven chin with one muscular hand, it shows that he's on alert. This is a good thing, but maybe it's just a little too soon for that sort of thing. "I could swear that I've seen this before."

"Oh no," Doctor Kuromori Giichi says, shaking his head emphatically. "No no no. This is an entirely new design."

"Naw, I saw something like this in high school, Doctor." He taps his chin again.

"What year?" Squid smell. "Errr, forget I asked. As far as I know, it's original..."

"It was on a steel tray. Oh, that's right. My dissectin' frog in anatomy class. I did really well in that class." The test wearer cracks a smirk. "So, I guess I just step in and it'll... well... I'm not seeing how I'd close it myself. I think I could, but..."

"It'll wrap itself around you, Karl," Giichi explains, "sort of like a hand balling into a fist or some such. It's already fitted to you, bodycast and all."

"That scanner's floor was cold." Karl does shift a little bit on his feet, which aren't exactly bare but look like they should be. Indeed, he doesn't look clothed at all, so much as wrapped up in a single-piece suit of an opaque, matte black, and extremely thin material. Not so much nylon thin as perhaps plastic wrap thin. Perhaps if someone shaved him from head to toe and then spray-painted him with rubberized paint, that would approximate the appearance of his thinsuit. Grey ribs along the side conceal more volume-intensive life support and pressurization systems, and the Camp Restricted base patch graces, in a nearly painted-on fashion, his right shoulder. Other than that, for all the more-than-skintight suit manages to hide, he may as well be nude. "Tell me, Doctor, why the hell is everything medical cold?"

"You'd have to ask the medtechs," the short Japanese scientist says with a shrug. "I'm not that kind of doctor, and it's been like that forever. I guess it's traditional or something."

"Anyway, I step in, it closes, and then we just run through the cycle?"

"Close. You step in, it puts you to sleep, then closes. Remember? Ever tried breathing gel?"

"God, that was awful. Even worse than proper liquid." Karl sets his jaw. "Well, Doc, you ready to get your numbers?"

"Certainly!" The doctor scuds on his short legs over to the test bench, and makes sure everything that should be green is still green. "All set."

The test wearer nods, steps forward, then turns around, carefully easing himself into the suit one foot at a time. It literally is simply stepping onto it, as the suit's feet are huge muscular blocks, the tops of which are like oddly striated shoes; the rest is simply a man-shaped niche with doors of muscle wide ajar. Settling back, he leans his head in the niche made for it and lets the coolness of the gel warm up against his barely insulated skin. "Well, Doc, I'm i--"

Eyes flutter shut, and he looks set to snore as the suit engulfs him. In a motion that should have a horrible slurping noise associated with it, but instead acted out in eerie silence, the flayed muscles wrap themselves around Karl's body, totally encasing him in this new body, yellowed like old paper. The inhuman head, its broad neck and trapezia where Karl's head was, flips up and over to attentive readiness, like a cobra waking up from lying on its back. The sensors underneath the frosted white dome on top send their feeds through the holographic core in the small of the suit's back, and translated from there, into the suit memory where Karl's consciousness now resides after some mental vivisection.

Karl dreams. Due to things that happened to him as an Infantryman, things he'd seen, and especially due to the counseling afterward, he doesn't remember his dreams ever. He wakes up, and his voice comes through the suit speakers mounted in its neck. "Well, I'm seeing through the suit now. In hemisphere-plus. And somehow it's not warping my mind." The suit's head looks left, right, spins around three-sixty in a silent application of nanotechnology on the myomer 'cellular' level. "Weird, but I think the dogbrain is translatin' things right or I'd be out of my mind already."

"So, you see me?" Giichi looks up, watching as the abstract whale head points at the far side of the room.

"Yup. Crystal clear. And now that I think of it, throughout the whole EM. At the same time. Damn this dogbrain's good."

"Alright. Describe yourself."

The suit's head whips around to face Kuromori, tilting slightly to the side. "Come again, Doc?"

"Describe yourself."

"You know what I look like, suit or no."

Giichi sighs. "Just do it, please."

"Right. I'm about two meters tall, solidly built, a sort of yellowish off-white color and with a skin the texture of striated muscle. I've got a curved head that looks something like a snake mixed with one of those xenomorphs from that movie, with a frosted armorglas dome for a skull."

The suit pauses for a moment. "Waitaminute. Wait a fucking minute."

The relationship between rationality and emotion in the human mind is a curious thing. It truly is the proverbial two-way street; just as the emotional portions of the human psyche can--readily obviously--infect the logical and rational portions with fear, doubt, panic, and anger so can the logical portion override or decide how the emotional portion will act through an application of will. If someone forces themselves to be happy through a rough spot in an otherwise good day, and means it, they won't be having to force themselves to smile for very long. A person in fear can talk himself down from panic, if he knows what he's doing. Likewise, a person can convince themselves that they should be panicking when, in all actuality, they are in an emotional null state. Rational mind presses emotional mind to fear and then panic because that's what's supposed to be happening, rationally, rather than any sort of base reaction.

This is why the prototype SEELE suit is now shaking in its harness, quite a bit more severely than the shivers of the cold and yet less violent than someone in the throes of seizure. No, these are the shakes caused by a full-on acute panic attack. Karl has some experience with fear, and has a good control over it, but he's never properly panicked before and, especially as this is self-induced, it's a new experience on him and he doesn't much like it. Having now unwittingly gotten itself into this mess, his rational mind tries to claw its way back out of the pit it dug with his now overactive emotional mind. "O-o-okay, D-doc, this is... well... it's weird. What's happening?" He heroically tries to keep the panic out of his voice, but fails more or less miserably.

"It's okay, it's okay, it's normal," Giichi says quickly, certainly too quickly to be calming. Karl freaking out--specifically, freaking out inside of a seven foot tall powersuit--is, quite reasonably, freaking him out, but in an all-natural animal reaction to stress. To his credit, he's not hiding behind any of the consoles or test stands; merely backed up against one for support. "It's just like the briefing said, the suit's overriding your body perception so you can use it more naturally."

"What t-the fuck does that m-mean? It's inside my head?"

"Yes, pretty much. So's the fear. Naturally you should be the suit and as comfortable in it as you are in your own skin."

"W-well I'm p-pretty much fucking not. How about that?"

Doctor Kuromori thinks furiously. "Think back to when the suit booted up. You felt fine then, right?"

"...Y-yes." The suit tries to hold itself still, but the shaking just becomes a vibration. Karl's probably trying to breathe slowly, to calm himself down, but his suit doesn't work that way so it's doing the best analog it can. In his own mind. "Doc, I can't breathe. I'm not breathing. How do I relax?"

"Concentrate, Karl. Concentrate on what it felt like before I asked you what you looked like."

"Right, r-r-r-right." The suit continues to vibrate, the steel frame it sits in rattling less. "F-felt perfectly normal. Can't remember if I was breathing then or not. I... don't think I was."

"Right. Now, you've watched movies where people jack into, say, starships or submarines and become the ship, right? Then there will be some fanservice shots of the person totally nude as the ship in space or the submarine in the water... remember anything like that?"

The suit nods shakily. "Yes."

"That's what's happening here, but in reverse. Instead of you imposing your body image on the suit, twiddling your fingers to activate point defense systems or throwing your head to shift through optical ranges, the suit is imposing it's body image on you."

"Een Sohviet Russia..." Nervous laugh.

"Pretty much. Suit wears you. Everything's fine; we can pull you out real quick--"

"No, no--" the suit shakes its head emphatically, a bit too much so as it dents the steel tube frame around it "--I'm coming down off of it, Doc. Just a s-shock to the system, is all. Keep talking and we'll go through the test regimen, that'll calm me down there and get my mind off of it."

Giichi gulps some air, just now noticing how dry his mouth is. "You sure, Karl?"

"Yeah... yeah... I've been in worse s-spots than this. This is just in my head. I can get over it, and the other testers wouldn't let me live it down. Let's go."

* - * - *

Other than fiddling with a person's subconscious the SEELE suit is more or less an evolution of older, tested concepts. Myomer musculature? Pretty well tested, by this point. Matter-conversion powerplant with battery backup? Please. No, as always, it's integration into the suit--and more specifically, the suit's 'subconscious' dogbrain--that's the real issue. There's some new tricks too, to be frank. Wings, for one. Aeroelastic to an absurd degree due to being made of Imnsvali high-tensile fibers woven into a highly malleable sheet, they can mold themselves to be appropriate for true powered aerodynamic flight using the suit's jetpack or stretch out and reach the area needed for that critical number of five pounds per square foot--the critical wing loading for true bird flight. Ideas start being tacked on, now that the technology is sufficiently common to not be abusively expensive in a new mass-produced suit. Razorfield generators--decidedly less complex than the field generators in the average Cetagandan knife-missile--in the wing leading edges to aid in aerodynamics and add an interesting close-combat edged weapon into the mix. Van der Waals field generators--basically deactivatable geckowebbing--in the skin of the suit so it can crawl, like a spider or an ant, over most anything at most any orientation. Point defense eraser emitters in the shoulders because, even if mass-produced, the SEELE suit is an investment and is intended to survive more through speed than being a brick of armor.

Most of the development, though, and most of the real revolution, is in the dogbrain. After the first tests show that logic-induced panic attacks are actually somewhat common, a 'conscious' aspect is added to it, a sort of helper personality. An imaginary friend, modeled off of a talking friendly dog. It follows the dogbrain's actuality; it's none too bright, but it is friendly, fiercely loyal, and just wants to please. The initial flick-on bootup sequence is replaced instead with a dream-state that acts as a momentary briefing manual, allowing for the conscious mind to make a transition.

And, for a while, things seem to go well...

Fortress-2, Kajal Mars

In days past, the FORTRESS series of domes were perhaps the most heavily armored and defended cities in Kajal Mars.

Then, one day, Fortress (named so because no one could think of anything better, and, well, they certainly weren't naming it Super-Happy-Armor-Land...) was destroyed rather handily by ortillery strike with a weapon that technically fell under its own jurisdiction.

That was annoying.

And so, since the first one was all blown up and all, and at the time they hadn't really found armor plate that could stand up to a stream of a kiloton of plasma at .3 cee, they built another one further down the maglev lines and called it, of all things, Fortress-2.

For a while, it served primarily as a bunker to hide leadership in, and later they built something along the lines of a grand cannon on top of it, but the thing blew up during the test firing so that idea just went right out the window...

At current, Fortress-2 serves as the base of operations (on the ground, at least), for the Martian branch of the Combined Federal Services, identified under the name of MARSCOM.

Which is duplicated by at least half of the other nations on Mars, but still. MARSCOM authorized the science stations to be setup, and all three of them, R12, R24, and R48, though the last two are underwater and concerned with green and blue water ops respectively...

At any rate. The team at R12 once developed some sort of abortive mecha project - They called it the Sherya or something, and it actually sold internationally for a little bit before the entire line was discontinued and tooling spun off to Sunset for them to maintain what they already bought and build more if they wanted...

Right now, one team at R12 was mucking about with ground cars.

Groundcars, of all things. Complete with WHEELS. On Mars.

Where all the domes have huge integrated transit networks and private transit involves owning a small train.

Sure, some people had their own personal starship, but the dream of the flying car - one that even humanity had had for an excessive period of time... was as of yet not really feasible, or more importantly, justifiable, for personal ownership.

Though there was that one small dome where everyone owned floating tanks... that was odd. The drive system for those was too big for civilian use, even if the tanks could sail up about as far as a WIG...

The test vehicle, looking rather sad about the current conditions, was inexplicably floating six inches off the ground at the moment.

"Okay, okay, so it's floating, now what...?"

"Maybe some aerodynamic filler for the wheel wells?"

"Oh! I know! You should get in it."

"Get in it. In the floating car. That we know exactly what we've done with."

"...yeah."

The team lead grimaced, but he opened the door, got in, and buckled up and everything.

The floating ground car lazily drifted downwards until it landed with a thud.

"Well, this is just magical."

It was later in the day that Project: Walnut resumed, so named for the current test subjects, and not for the ludicrous problem that so far continued to elude the research team.

"Okay, okay, so we know that we can use subspace transit for ships and radio waves and all that..."

"And we know that some nations operate these weird ass portal things that you can just walk through..."

"Yes, well, that's why we built one. It just, uh..."

"Walnuts aren't supposed to turn into a crystal lattice three feet tall."

"Yeah, that. Kinda weird."

There was a EUREKA! somewhere down the hall... which was odd, because the scientists were all speaking Riikan.

"I've got it! We uh... we..." The sentence trailed off looking at the walnut-thing that occupied a corner of the room. "We need to invert the carrier wave and create a conformal subspace bubble around the subject."

"Uh... Won't that require the portal hardware to be waaaaaaay more precise?"

"Something like that, yes, but then you won't have... lattice-people..."

"Why, exactly?"

"Well, if you can make the bubble conform it ought to be stronger or something, and probably shouldn't absorb nearly as much energy, what with the smaller surface area and all..."

"Wait, do we even know if that's what causes the walnut-lattice?"

"Uh, not explicitly, no. Worth a shot, though..."

The next walnut through was, inexplicably, still a walnut after.

It seemed like a mild success. Next step was something larger, about the size of a cat.

They didn't have authorization for actual cats, though, so they sent a boulder through.

It also emerged miraculously intact.

"Holy shit, it works."

Reports made their way through the levels of bureaucracy, and eventually to the top of the government, and beyond.

"Sooo... you're saying you can send things through subspace with no special equipment... and they arrive intact."

"Well, yes. It'd be instantaneous between points on Mars, but between Kajal and Mars proper, we're looking at..."

"...Perhaps a few seconds delay."

"...seconds. How?"

"Most people don't weigh 11.65 million metric tons."

After that presentation? It went up to the Trium, along with studies for design revision for the current Dakar aerospace fighters... which included an interesting proposal to include this new subspace technology as a sort of 'emergency beam out'.

But first! Living subject tests. And since R12 had, well... no living subjects willing... Or testing grounds for a new fighter that were secure...

As soon as the initial reports were combined, of course, came another report, concerning building a new starship based on the concepts and technology observed in the living "starshard" Kalaan, as it called itself, even if it was still out gallivanting around the galaxy.

CSS-LSU(m) Bleeding Edge
Somewhere well past the Periphery


The modified cruiser dove insystem hard behind it's own emissions, its maneuvering system randomly jinking and twisting the ship as tight gravitic beams from the main batteries swept ahead of it for debris or projectiles. It arced past a gas giant and swung around it tightly, drives suddenly reversing to slow the ship to minimum speeds at it hurled along its trajectory towards the target, the fifth moon of the giant. At close approach and still a million kilometers out, the cluster of drive vanes the ship mounted on top and bottom suddenly flared with Cherenkov radiation and power poured through them. A huge swath other the moon's surface suddenly glowed as well as dimensions were interposed, the matter of the moon suddenly neither here nor there. Atoms broke apart as distance twisted, and exotic particles lept into being as energy cascade from one space to another. It lasted only an instant before reality was reimposed, and a massive flash occurred as energy was released by shattered atomic bonds and particles mutually annihilated. The ship continued perpendicular to the ecliptic, now building more and more v as it raced towards jump, and disappeared into deep space.


-----

Project FLUFFY BUNNY
Final Technical Report, Executive Summary

Project FLUFFY BUNNY is a strategic weapons program currently under joint developement between Camp Restricted and Fleet R&D, and is aimed at supplementing the current strategic deterrent and strike systems, including HDM systems employed by the TYCS. Initial research was based upon an incident during the Belt War of 1552 at the Fifth Battle of Russell's Star, during which the carrier Nippon attempted to escape from an enemy formation by engaging its jump system. Rather than escape, the hyperspace envelope destablilized and a massive explosion resulted, destroying the enemy squadron. Recent advanced in TJE and displacer systems led to research into replicating this effect. Simulations showed the concept to be potentially viable, and and R&D ship was refitted with the weapons system

Initial field tests with scale prototypes of the hyperspace incursion system were a stunning success. A single large-class vessel (battle-cruiser type) was able to remotely cause massive damage to the target moon, far in excess of the capabilities of conventional weapons including displacer- or missile-delivered CAM, implosion bombs, and c-fractional projectiles. It also successfully overcame the multi-layered countermeasure system emplaced on the moon's surface. While it was necessary for the test craft to come within practical counterattack range, a purpose-built vessel would likely be able to achieve a significantly greater standoff distance, closer to that of current TYCS NEMESIS platform. Further development may allow for shorter-ranged versions on large capital ships or systems vehicles, with similar mission profiles to the HDMs on SAD Arthropleura-class battle cruisers. While it has less long-term utility than what Project FLIPPED TURTLE (Details require Top Secret + RED SATIN or FLIPPED TURTLE Clearances) promises once the bugs are worked out, it is recommended that FLUFFY BUNNY be adopted as part of the Imperial Union's strategic deterrent arsenal.

Commander Livahdi
Camp Restricted

A dozen stars of varying magnitudes, encompassing a sphere about fifty light years across, all with a stunning view of the Milky Way galaxy. Probably a small cluster of gravitationally bonded stars thrown out of the Galactic plane due to the absorption of a galactic mass on par with the Small Magellanic Cloud some three billion years ago, these dozen stars and maybe hundred planets have been isolated from the rest of the Galactic plane for astronomical eons, separated from the latter by nearly twenty thousand light years of essentially empty space.

The star nearest the Galaxy, a G9III-class yellow giant, gets a new gravitational giant as the fabric of spacetime neatly reorders itself around the object taking advantage of the margins of its bookkeeping. About eight-hundred meters long, this ship of the Galactic Exploration Command is, if the name of its organization is any indicator, well out of its league. Deep inside its hull, a youngish man with carefully cropped black hair, a thin black goatee around his mouth, and lightly tanned olive skin pushes the record button on his console.

"Day one-seventy-three from port, Captain Diniyyun reporting. Research Cruiser Clark Terrell entering heliopause of Extra-Galactic Object Survey System Two-Six-Four in connection to Project FLIPPED TURTLE." He lets go of the record button. "Whatever that means." He's been saying it for four months now with almost no context; it's lost all possible meaning. "Following standard system entry procedures; entry scan shows some signs of stellar turbulance but no immediate risks. Deploying Lokis for system exploration and inferetometry." Glancing over at the flight command officer, his implicit order is fulfilled. "Log will be updated with any new information of interest."

Releasing the record button for the final time, Captain Baha'uddin bin Hakeem Diniyyun glances over at the grey-skinned gynoid sitting in the empty officer's 'jump seat' to his far left, looking carefully over all the monitors in the fore of the command compartment. A native of Dar-al-Din and thus the recipient of an extremely conservative Islamic education, Baha'uddin originally thought his dislike for the mechanoid was a matter of his own closed mind, something to get over. He determined, when she boarded his ship with her several dozen TYCS Camp Restricted researchers, to get over himself and come to terms with her. His orders were simple enough; a four year cruise above the galactic plane to explore and chart the various systems that long-range surveys had found. It was odd, but he volunteered for it--the road-less-traveled suggested there may be more to see.

Then he got the feeling that something wasn't quite right. In terms of materiel, Clark Terrell was outfitted just like it should have been, but a lot of its research staff were... missing. Asking a few questions before leaving port revealed that they were politely 'asked' to take research positions at their home Triumvirate universities, at least until a different cruiser assignment came up. In their place were these Camp Restricted folks, and far more military orangebelts than he'd care to ever see in one place. Maybe this wasn't just a research cruise. Maybe it was some sort of goose chase by the Combined Services to get some crazy new weapon they'd heard about... the damned militarists. No, that was just paranoia.

Less than two months out of port, they hit the Exploration Command's definition of paydirt. A star system not only showing life but technologically advanced life, just beginning to get into their homeworld's orbit via chemical rockets. The type of first contact situation Galaxy Exploration Command captains and crews dream about... and S.H.O.D.A.N., sitting right there, told him to stay on schedule. Survey the system, make no contact, continue on course for EGOSS 264. When he protested, a Special Services orangebelt materialized behind him and suggested he listen to the good lady. bin Hakeem was about to protest to this newcomer before he discovered said newcomer had Admiral's pins on his collar.

Admiral's pins on his collar and he looked no older than Diniyyun. That meant one thing: military intelligence-related brevet promotion. Which can only come from the really high brass in the Combined Services.

So yes, this entire mission was a puppet of the militarists and probably some sort of gun hunt, but he had to pretend it was all just a normal, if long, cruise well outside of the Triumvirate sphere of influence. At least it was that point that he had gotten a name out of the 'admiral'--Project FLIPPED TURTLE--and he'd protested every day by mentioning it in his log.

Still, this is the first system where the mechanoid queen had sat in for entry, and Baha'uddin ponders what that means. His science officer, Lieutenant Commander Samantha Grey, began reading off the initial sensor results on her console. With a short bowl of chestnut-colored hair, blue eyes, and maybe ten years on Diniyyun, she was a professional scope dope and proud of it, speaking like a telephone operator. Clear, concise, quick. "Gee-Nine-Three star, radius twenty-two megaklicks, fifty-seven hundred Kelvin coronal temperature, turbulent surface conditions. One-eight-two thousand times Solar luminosity."

"You know the drill, Commander Grey," Diniyyun says in his polite yet clipped accent, "anything Terrestrial in the habitable zone?"

"Habitable zone starts at sixty terameters," Grey says with a shrug. "No major gravitational bodies at that distance."

"I suspected as much," S.H.O.D.A.N. says without warning, tapping her chin. "We've planned for this contingency. Any minor planets at that distance will do--preferably beyond Pluto in mass."

Baha'uddin sets a level look on the gynoid. "So, ma'am, any explanation why we're out here now? Why my crew and skeleton science staff have been prevented from doing our jobs to the Command? Why the MilIntel muscle?" He motions his brows towards the orange-belted orange-plastroned 'admiral' standing behind S.H.O.D.A.N.'s chair. "What exactly the 'package' is in the cargo compartment said muscle has cordoned off?"

The gynoid avatar matches gazes with the captain, deep green unblinking eyes with their slitted cat's pupils staring him down. Her coppery lips twitch up into a little smile, causing all of the circuit and geometrical patterns on her face to follow suit like a tribalistic tattoo. "Find me that minor planet and you'll see, Captain." She pauses for a moment; the smile becomes a bit more mischevious as she continues in a voice not her own. "Something's going to happen. Something wonderful. (http://www.weirdozone.com/projects/nationstates/zero-one/something_wonderful2.wav)"

There was, at one point, something of an arms race between a specific group of nations. Everyone built their shiny toys, boasted about how this particular one outshone all the others, and then promptly lost their shirts.

Well, mostly. On the upside, the Federated Imperium, having built one experimental destroyer, two cruisers, two supercarriers, and two even larger supercarriers (of which, the destroyer went to production and continues to enjoy an illustrious run, and one of the cruisers is a very nice command to have these days...), would appear to have lost their shirts the least.

Of course, there was at one point a rumor - rumor - that there was a project underway to create a weapon that would induce a standing wave of positively massive amplitude in a target material.

Project: BLUE SHOCK was, at the time, dismissed, and filed away under "Unnecessary" and "Unnecessarily Shiny".

The competition's resultant weapons development was some sort of "Wavefront" device that was dependent upon an element that they had apparently created and named after themselves.

It is worth noting that these devices, and the problem of suddenly deciding to equip orbital colonies with them, started a downward trend in international relations that ended recently with a fractal event and all the associated fracas.

Back on target, however. BLUE SHOCK was rather unoriginally named, since the expected explosion color was blue, and it would be unnecessarily large and shiny, hence the SHOCK bit... but it was also based on 'conventional' - at least to certain parties - subspace physics and quantum theory.

All in all, it was doable, if expensive, and that expense was more-or-less unacceptable. There was, really, no effective delivery system that could not be intercepted and destroyed before the weapon would reach the effective blast radius. Sure, there were some of those artificially-lightened C + missiles, as the ships liked to call them, but they really, really did not need the added oomph, velocity considered, and nearing sizes of up to 50 meters in length, things they were not included subtle.

In the meantime, Project: WALNUT had been approved for light freight, though items larger than two meters cubed seemed to share a similar problem to the original walnuts, in that they... weren't... when they came out again.

Rubber-stamped and shelved, mostly, again, due to expense. There was some crazy talk of "Shoot ships out of guns!" too, and it was being investigated, slightly, though there wasn't quite much point to it, what with the ships being shot already being capable of transit, and, well, the ships to do the shooting needing to be large enough to be shot.

Most of the time people would call that "redundant."

WALNUT then shifted to not shooting ships, at least, but objects with appreciable mass, or, once those tests were done, it would be something more along the lines of "really really big plasma flamethrower" or "fracking huge energy cannon."

But for now, they'd have to work out the basic stuff, like firing whatever the same direction the barrel was pointing, and, well, it wouldn't do to blow up the lab when whatever emerged from the tiny apeture at some 170 degrees to the horizontal.

By whatever chance of fate, however, the first test subject was not walnut, but in fact pecan.

With a flaky crust and some tasty whip.

From the commissary.

Because, well, pies don't just bake themselves, especially when they're about to meet a most unfortunate fate.

Unfortunately for R12, the first pie emerged at, well... a weird angle, and with enough speed to kinda-sorta mangle the barrel of their new creation.

As a side effect, anything not behind the blast shield was now coated with a tenth of a millimeter of pecan pie.



For the oddest of reasons, this particular brand of destruction smelled delicious.

Captain's Office, just abaft of the command compartment

Captain Diniyyun's office is a direct result of who he is as a person. Raised under strict Sunni rites on Dar-al-Din in the Periphery, the small compartment that acts as his office lacks any sort of human representation of any kind. That is not to say that it is artless; the rubberized steel floor is covered with a rectangular rug emblazoned with beautifully complex geometric patterns, and thin but opaque curtain-tapestries of a similar bent line the walls. In one corner behind his long desk sits a large illuminated copy of the Qu'ran on a two-tiered pedestal next to a prayer mat; the lower tier makes it easier to read while kneeling and anyone caring to pay enough attention would note that the entire setup is placed on a very thin metal plank with tubular legs folded up on it. The prayer mat of subdued earth tones has straps on it, both tiers of the pedestal have straps (one of which currently holds the holy book in place), and the entire thing looks ready to magnetically affix to the deck or walls in whatever way would be necessary to literally point towards Mecca, assuming the local gravity is turned off. The small holoprojector maintaining a copy of the bridge's strategic indicator display probably helps to some extent with that alignment.

The captain's desk is a long, curved affair, one end dominated by a terminal, the other concealing underneath it a small integrated wet bar sure to carry absolutely nothing alcoholic--thus, essentially a small waterspout, drain sink, refrigerator, and electric teakettle. The glossy black formica top is host to carefully arranged piles of onionskin, each under its own obsidian-black translucent paperweight, a plastic blotter, and a few thin wire baskets whose contents are also held down by paperweights.

Baha'uddin toys with one of these paperweights in his hands while he leans forward in his utilitarian chair, turning it around in his fingers and occasionally dropping it with a thunk against his blotter. The speed and force with which it falls suggests magnetism. "Are we secure?" He glances towards Grey with an intent look in his eyes and a more intent frown on his lips.

"As far as I can tell, sir." She puts her personal sensor kit back on her belt and regains her seat as she glances over at the assembled party. The arrangement of the captain's desk makes it natural to seat four on the other side; Samantha sits on the captain's far left, nearest the door, in a standard Services chair just like everyone else. To stage right from Diniyyun's perspective is Commander Marlene Stevens, his executive officer; a pale-skinned redhead professional firebrand who looks rougher and harder than her complexion or indeterminate age would imply. While many people could be described as having ice or mint green eyes, hers are nearly an olive drab, as if torn between being green or brown. That, and the way they're tensed, suggests an intensity only currently matched by the captain himself. Next over is Lieutenant Commander Kyoshi Sansu, chief-engineer, an unusually tall and yet demure young Asian woman with long black hair done up in a bun, seemingly folded into herself in thought. Sitting in the last seat to the captain's extreme right is Clark Terrell, a physically fit but laid back middle-aged male of African descent sporting close-cropped black hair, a well-trimmed curly beard that extends from sideburns to chin and upper lip, and slightly sleepy looking eyes.

Noting the glance, the ship's avatar shrugs eloquently, sitting relaxedly but not sloppily in his chair. "I'm not detecting any sort of active bugs either, not through internal sensors or this avatar's suite. They could have a laser microphone or a conduction pad on the door, but I think I would've noticed them planting it." He looks at the captain with a smirk. "And, no sir, I don't think I've been compromised either."

"You wouldn't be here if I thought you were," Diniyyun says with a sigh. "As natural a first step as that would seem. Still, if we can't trust the ship itself, we're in a lot of trouble anyway."

"Well, sir, it has been six months." Stevens smirks a little, scratching behind her ear. "We've all mentioned how odd all this is before... so why are we going over this now, sir?"

"Simple." Bin Hakeem folds his hands on his desk. "We've obviously reached our destination. We're obviously carrying some sort of Services package, be it Special or Combined. Now, why would we cruise out at average survey speed for six months to get this far out into nowhere, when we could have done it faster?"

"That much is simple," Terrell says, folding his arms. "Appearences. If we were to go tessist we'd show up as a point leaving. As it is, we pop, pop, pop through the cosmos." He snaps his fingers. "Someone would have to follow the pops to follow us, and there's no real reason to chase down the meager jump signature of a research cruiser when it looks like it's just wandering out into the unknown."

"Fair enough." Baha'uddin frowns. "What's in our hold? Kyoshi?"

Sansu looks up and shakes her head. "The first thing they did in Bay Three was set up sensor-absorbing shielding. It's active stuff, too, akin to deck plating in that it has its own local gravy field. It's actively canceling out the mass signatures on the inside, but I know from what they shipped in and out it's mostly empty space. So far, from cargomaster observations, we're carrying at least three thirty-ton class naval missile buses, and maybe two standard-sized commercial cargo containers. Commercial on the outside, that is. They're plated the exact same way on the inside; just ask Samantha and Clark."

"So whatever goes on the missile buses are probably in the containers." Diniyyun frowns more. He does that a lot. This is part of the reason why, back home, he got the nickname 'Basaam,' which of course means 'smiling.' "Removing the mass signature doesn't mean killing the inertia... that should give us a mass estimate."

"It could, if it were a double-blind system," Samantha replies with a shrug, "but they weren't that paranoid. I've got nothing off ship sensors while they were bringing them in, inertialess drives and all, but Terrell managed to keep a surreptitious video log of the operations before they unscrewed the cameras. We're estimating a mass of maybe twenty tons each, based on the exo operations."

"Too much for just warheads," Marlene ponders aloud, "and we already know they requisitioned some gear from our machine shops. Basic integration fabrication equipment: bolters, welders, such things. Nothing in particular."

"So we know whatever they brought aboard, it was in pieces. They just need to assemble them." The captain rests his elbows on his desk, folding his hands and then lightly resting his nose atop them, thinking. "How much do the civilians know about this?"

"Two things on that, actually." Stevens smirks. "Half of it is all our faults, half is mine. First of all the civvies have been much more proactive than we have been. They've got bulletin boards up with speculation as to what's going on and several theories based on hearsay evidence, so it doesn't quite grok with ours although several have latched on to the missile buses. Second, they're not really all that civilian."

Dinayyun raises an eyebrow.

"Everyone who's purely civilian or corporate got asked to leave. Everyone who's left is either pulling a Command, Segments Science Section, or similar government service paycheck and have, if not clearances, at least 'leak non-threat' on their personnel bios. This is an all-government affair, and everyone still on board's been vetted for knowing when to keep their mouth shut."

"Hrm." The captain glances to Grey again. "You wouldn't happen to have any theories as to the purpose of this whole project?"

"Well, the emphasis on finding a lifeless planet in a livable region now that we're here suggests something." Grey smirks. "I'd put my money on 'life sciences' being related somewhere. That the phrase 'not even a microbe or the show's off' has been tossed around means we really need somewhere dead."

"Hypotheses?"

"We don't want any microbes because they will throw off the results of the experiement. This suggests that, perhaps, microbes are an end result of whatever we're doing and so if we can't tell the difference between native and seeded biology..." Samantha shrugs. "The insistence of testing this device in the inhabitable belt suggests some sort of terraforming where we don't want to make the sky artificially reflective or utilize solettes to make a planet inhabitable. Also knowing the rumor that S.H.O.D.A.N. has a low sense of humor, a god complex, and her 'something wonderful' line..."

Terrell frowns slightly as he looks over at the science officer. "That brings something else to mind. That reference of hers is a sound clip from a movie where, through some sort of alien technology, Jupiter was converted into a star. A small star, yes, with a close-in inhabitability belt, making the Jovian system basically additional terraformation material."

"You're suggesting something like a... star generator or something?" Grey ponders that, chuckles, and shakes her head. "Then why would we test it on pretty much the lowest common denominator of 'planet?' Any generation would just make it blow apart because it doesn't have nearly enough mass to be a gravitationally coherent fusion reaction."

"It would be a proof-of-concept of the principle, however." The avatar points out. "There's also the fact that 'not a microbe' could also point to a destructive principle behind the whole thing. If there's a microbe, it may evolve. Lots of potential, perhaps, and we could be annihilating it... for whatever reason. Nanological terraformers would certainly do that."

"The problem with a nanological terraformer is free energy and elemental distribution. Most planets are lifeless and remain lifeless because their element distribution is completely broken in ways that don't support a reducing atmosphere or a cyclic biosphere. Bright Morning had water and oxygen of all things, but its only life was deep-sea algae because its nitrogen cycle was completely sea-based. For whatever reason nitrates didn't get mixed into the upper elevations of the lithosphere and so the planet was dead despite having a reducing (much less Terrestrial-breathable) atmosphere."

"I'm simply offering potentials," Terrell replies with a shrug. "I'm nowhere near as complex a mind as the S.H.O.D.A.N. gestalt is, but I do know her sense of humor operates on many different levels. She loves to drop hints, obscure ones, that point in many different and yet potentially accurate directions. She could have simply said 'something wonderful.' That she pulled the sound clip from the movie and vocalized it, on the other hand..."

"Could be a mind game," Marlene says unimpressedly.

"True."

"All right." Dinayyun leans back. He's no idiot, but there's a reason he's captain and not, say, science officer. "So our best bets are some sort of terraforming project, delivered by missile bus. Whether it's a seeder or nanological or some sort of space opera star generator we'll not get into. Stevens, I want you and Grey to talk with our science staffs. Build up some roundtable discussions as to what these things could be. Contact your friends among the science staff in person and, if you're as paranoid as I am, come up with codewords there while you're secure. Get them to do some research on the Link, the SciNet, the Matrix, whatever for missile-delivered terraforming techniques. I don't care how silly, as obviously some will get crossed out pretty quickly.

"Sansu," he continues, looking over to his chief engineer, "arrange for me a fault in Cargo Bay Three that the orangebelts more like can not fix. Something quick, simple, where your technicians can get eyes on it. If it can be blamed on lack of maintenance, all the better. If it requires you to blow the fuses on a power subsector, do it. Power surges happen."

"Sir, these 'arranged faults' are easier to do when we're reporting them to people light years away, not those down the corridor." Kyoshi bows her head almost apologetically.

"Yes, well, I'm not an easy person to please. You all know that." The captain delivers this in a completely deadpan tone. "Like I said, maybe this arranged fault will have to actually be real."

"Sabotage?" The chief engineer looks positively hurt.

"Confession in the Catholic sense is not one of the five pillars of Islam. My soul will not suffer for lack of it." Diniyyun glances at the ship's avatar. "You don't mind, do you?"

Terrell shrugs. "While I'd prefer not to lose momentary use of marginal portions of my instrumentality, I think the analog here is you're suggesting I get a slight cold and cough a lot more loudly and wetly than my condition warrants. That's easy enough."

"Anything you could do, ah, acquire more information?"

"Not with S.H.O.D.A.N. around, no, sir." Terrell smiles wryly. "I'm willing to be an actor for the cause of good, not a martyr."

"Fair enough." Diniyyun folds his hands with an air of finality. "I don't expect us to get any answers before we make orbit around the dead rock you found," he nods to Grey, "but we can make a start. Dismissed."

* - * - *

Command Compartment, a few hours later

Captain Diniyyun sighs as he slouches to the side in his standard Services chair, elbow leaning against the arm that supports his curved command console. Feeling like a third wheel on one's own ship is a sad feeling indeed. The strategic indicator display's holoprojector, currently in cubical holotank mode now, mirrors the image shown on the primary monitors set around it except in three dimensions. The light grey planet, like a small clone of Earth's Moon without the mare, bears the unenviable name of EGOSS 264 MP-XLV(a65.849T, e0.053, i10.38). It's the fourty-fifth minor planet from its parent star, its semi-major axis distance is around 66 billion kilometers, its orbit is inclined at ten-and-a-third degrees to the stellar ecliptic, and its orbit forms an only slightly eccentric circle. All of this information is overlaid on some of the secondary monitors, along with mass, surface gravity (a tenth Terrestrial), average density, radius (a bit bigger than Pluto), litho- and atmosphere results (essentially Lunar), and all sorts of other technical goodies. Other than the number-wank, it's just like every other dead planet he's ever seen.

Dead.

I really wanted to greet those aliens into the community of spacefaring peoples, too... Suppressing a yawn, he looks back over at the S.H.O.D.A.N. avatar and her pet Military Intelligence major-come-admiral at the edge of his officer's semicircle. "So, Your Majesty. Are we going to give this rock a proper name before we make it a part of history?"

"The interesting thing about naming objects, Captain," the gynoid replies without the slightest hint of sarcasm, "is that they have a tendency to change. The name you give a cliff one day may not fit the pile of boulders it will be the next, or the name of once open plains befit the hills made around the canal that eventually crosses it."

Baha'uddin rests his cheek on one fist, and looks less than impressed. Paint drying... hell, vinyl paint outgassing would apparently thrill him at this point. "'Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain?'"

"Isaiah fourty, verse four," S.H.O.D.A.N. replies with a faint smile, "King James Version? I didn't think you were required to memorize that."

"Madrassas teach interesting things when it comes to debate," Dinayyun replies, "as Sun Tzu said, 'know thy enemy and know thyself'... would you have preferred Marium, ayats eighty-nine through ninety?"

"'Certainly you have made an abominable assertion,'" the gynoid replies, "'The heavens may almost be rent thereat, and the earth cleave asunder, and the mountains fall down in pieces. Wrong language, I know, but not everyone here speaks Arabic... and you missed the last part of the statement."

"Depending on the nature of our little project, and depending on just how much I wanted to suffer damnation for all eternity, I may be tempted to paraphrase ayat ninety-one just to make it apropos for the situation. Speaking of, when do the fireworks start?"

The gynoid smiles, and opens her mouth only to be cut off by Terrell. "Cargo Bay Three transfer airlock cycling now, sir. Sensors picking up a black box bolted to the front of a Piranha light naval missile bus." At the response to the look this nets the ship's avatar, he continues with a smile in his smooth voice. "Nothing more than skin deep on the box, I'm afraid. It's cycled through and is now drifting away from us at about five meters a second."

S.H.O.D.A.N. trips a relay in her head and the ancient Piranha's fusion torch lights up, burning the makeshift missile towards the planet. "And there it goes," she says. "Ten seconds to impact." The glow of the missile's exhaust becomes a point of light against the brightly lit surface of the cratered planet. "Main engine burnout, five seconds. Four. Three. Two. One."

No light, no sound. A small puff of smoke rises up from the impact point and falls ballistically back down; if it were a little more billowy it would look just like what happens when a cartoon character hits the ground from orbit.

"Allahu Akbar, it's a miracle," Diniyyun says dryly.

The mechanoid queen looks steadily at the screen with a firm, unreadable expression, then nods. "This is why we have spares. No harm done."

Baha'uddin merely sighs. "I'll be in my office, then."

Camp R, Kajal Section

Flag Colonel Stephanie Matyus shouldn't have to put up with this sort of thing. She's a flag officer now. She runs the weapons research department. She's the one who makes the shit roll downhill into the laps of project officers just like she used to be. Officers like Lieutenant Commander Analton Curuvar.

But no. He has stomach flu or some such (read: hasn't been taking the medications the shrinks prescribed for his anxiety) and so is taking one of his days of accrued leave to do whatever it is that proper Noldorin elves do when they're sick, which probably consists of sitting in a colonial club drinking gin and tonic commenting on how the morties have gone and ruined things yet again. Sigh, such is the ageless man's burden and whatnot. Well said, what? Indeed. Care for a game of snooker? Bully idea, old bean.

This is why she, as a flag officer, with silver--silver!--hexagons--hexagons!--on her shoulderboards marches into the Kajali test chamber with a mop, a rolling bucket, and a canister of industrial-strength KarmaCorp TechSystems Gunk-b-Gon inside the bucket. She isn't prescient.

She just knows this is what always happens.

Walking through the veneer of pecan like a few millimeters of snow, she finds the person who looks most like they're in charge and hands them the mop. "Flag Colonel Stephanie Matyus, commanding officer, Camp Restricted Weapons Research Division. I see you'll be needing this. Don't worry, everyone does."

Hands free, she folds them behind her back and looks around at the new wallpapering... and ceilingpapering... and floorpapering. "I've seen worse. Let me know when it's working. Your project officer will be Lieutenant Commander Analton Curuvar; it's an oddly appropriate name because he's the most anal man I've ever met. Get this cleaned up before he comes back tomorrow; pecans unsettle his stomach." Like most everything else.

No other questions; no "who are you" nor "what are you doing here" nor, perhaps most tellingly, "why is the room covered in pecan-smelling gunk?" Believing she's set the proper tone, Matyus bows shortly, slightly greying dark chestnut hair bobbing with the motion, then stalks out just as she came in, albeit without the cleaning gear in tow.

Cargo Bay Three

Kyoshi Sansu finds herself liking this assignment less and less as she looks up at the bulky Assault Armor battlesuit, sporting all the extra armor bulk from the Service Live Extension Program, standing in front of the door to the cargo bay. That the suit sports Military Intelligence orangestripes on its arms and legs doesn't make her feel any better about her mission. "Excuse me, I'm Lieutenant Commander Kyoshi, the chief engineer." She cants her head demurely towards the two enlisted ratings in their green-patterned fatigues behind her. "We're here to fix the electrical fault."

Despite being an Intel thug, the person behind the suit's armored dome--he isn't labeled anywhere on his suit, which figures for some sort of spooky op--he certainly doesn't sound threatening. "Oh, the one with the lights in there?" He indicates the door with one massive waldo-thumb. "Heh, good luck. The eggheads and brass in there aren't happy."

"Well, we haven't been allowed access to maintain the bay breakers," Sansu explains, "and they're somewhat... touchy when it comes to high-load applications. They probably just plugged in one too many things."

"Oh, I read you, ma'am. Just letting you know what you're in for before you go in. They're finding the whole thing fishy."

Sansu can't help but smirk softly. "They won't be the first ones on this voyage."

The trooper inside the suit laughs tinnily before stepping aside. "I've announced you in there, ma'am. Good luck with the wrench-jockeying." The heavy bulkhead door cycles open to reveal a large cargo airlock, currently occupied by two other assault-armored orangestripe troopers. Kyoshi makes a 'come along' motion with a slight bob of her head, and walks steadily into the lock. Whenever you're somewhere you're not supposed to be, just act like you are supposed to be. Look ahead, act natural, act with a purpose. Awkward silence fills the lock as it cycles; the lieutenant commander pointedly ignores the troopers; her enlisted technicians look at the suits, the emotionless optical arrays of the suits look back.

When the outer door of the lock opens up into the cargo bay, the troopers fall into formation shoulder to shoulder, making a highly militaristic and moderately anthropomorphic armor wall blocking the view into the center of the bay, which is currently the only region properly lit--by battery-powered light-alls, no less. "We're sorry, ma'am," the trooper with the lieutenant's spot on her armor says, "but we have to ask you to please not look at the Project if you can absolutely help it."

"I'm here to fix a breaker box, Lieutenant," Sansu replies with all the curtness and authority she can muster. That she isn't very good at being impolite, much less curt, hampers that aspect; still, she is a professional and so she certainly has the authority to fix broken things. "We probably could have fixed it before it had happened were Clark Terrell allowed to manage his own diagnostic circuits in this area."

The nameless lieutenant shrugs. "Not my area of expertise, ma'am. I simply have my orders."

Kyoshi nods, then immediately starts stalking in a straight line to where the breaker system is ensconced behind a safety panel on the opposite side of the bay. The armored lieutenant immediately, but gingerly, steps in front of her with hands raised in something between 'settle down' and 'threat to crush throat.' Sansu suppresses a gulp while she fervently wishes for some sort of facial expression to determine which of the two the lieutenant intends. Still, this momentary movement breaks the wall and gives her a moment to glance towards the center of the bay under the brim of her fatigues cover.

The distinctive cylindrical bodies of missile buses are the largest feature; one sits noseless and unattended, the other is the center of a quiet, careful bustle of activity. The Special Services 'admiral' is there, as is the S.H.O.D.A.N. avatar; the taller latter holds what's probably a checklist on a databoard, given context clues of how she moves and when she speaks compared to everyone else, and the shorter former standing beside the gynoid's shoulder trades glances between the board and his technical crew. In tangerine-colored fatigues.

Okay, so all Service-pattern fatigues can chameleonize when they have to. But... orange fatigues? Kyoshi suppresses the urge to shake her head. That's a new one on me.

That's as much as she can get before the second armored trooper goes shoulder-to-shoulder with his officer, and then Sansu realizes the lieutenant is talking to her. "--but you're going to have to walk around."

"Hmph, yes." The chief engineer nods to cover her lack of attention, then starts cutting a wide arc, once again stalking. It's not hard for the meatshielding to keep up; it is hard, however, for them to keep up a perfectly opaque wall between whatever's going on in the middle and the group of Command engineers. Still, it probably doesn't matter, because they're not turning their heads to glance over anyway. If anything, they're playing nice and looking away.

Because Sansu told them to geckoweb mirrors onto the undersides of their covers' brims. A little tilt, a glance away, and no one's the wiser. Keep in formation using peripheral vision, and they tilt their heads back towards the center if any of the group working on the Project happen to look their way. It looks like only one of the shipping containers has been opened so far; both tucked away on a far wall. As the party makes its way around the well-lit Project, they note several things. The device the technicians seem to be working on is built around a rectangular casing about one meter square by one and a half meters, with a cylindrical tank of slightly larger proportions affixed immediately afore of it, assuming that the assembly is oriented properly with the missile bus it's being built in front of. Abaft of the rectangular casing is a truss structure perhaps five meters long, and at the end of that is a cylindrical sleeve just a little bigger around than the forward tank. Sitting next to the sleeve in a harness, apparently hooked in to the crane-like apparatus used to insert it, is a hexagonal prism shaped like a quartz crystal but made of metal. A panel in its center lies open, with glinting suggestions of indeterminite electromechanical devilry inside, and off to the side on a workbench sits a glossy yet pitch-black cylinder about the size of a large beer can.

Visual observation ends when the engineers make it to the access panel and open it without any ado. Satchels full of diagnostic gear open up, and the technicians get to work, talking amongst themselves about where the fault could be and how much easier it would be if they could just swap it out from stores... which Sansu immediately verbally raps their knuckles for. "If we just always swapped from stores, you'd never keep up on your technical skills. It's probably just an overloaded energizer; if you really want to fix something in depot you two can work on that." Between looking over their shoulders, she occasionally checks their work on her own portable diagnostics device.

Which is actually hooked up to the passive mass and EM sensor modules bolted to its sides. Not starship grade, to be sure, but it should narrow down what exactly all that stuff is... and passive, so Her Most Royal Walking Electronic Warfare package should be none the wiser.

* - * - *

Captain's Office

"Sir, a moment?"

Sighing, Diniyyun looks vaguely up in an aimless way. Yes, he had made a great deal of progress in getting over his upbringing in the sand-filled asshole of the Periphery, but what used to be outright bigotry has merely devolved into pet peeves rather than disappearing completely. He'll never augment himself, finding the denial of humanity and its inherent limitations... well... naturally insulting to the Creator; while improvements on taking care of the prime creation of Allah are just fine, tweaking that creation with the intent to improve simply smacks of blasphemy. Artificial intelligences somewhat fall into that category, but they had no say in their creation any more than humans did in their own and so holding the sins of the [human] creator against the [human] creation doesn't make any sense. Rationally, he believes this. Emotionally, he's able to sidestep his indoctrinated hatred in most cases.

When push comes to shove, he's merely annoyed when these intelligences don't take forms he can easily relate to. Clark Terrell normally takes pride in being careful around its pet Islamist captain and only talking to him via avatar, but the ship's avatar is occupied and being observed on the bridge and so he's got no other choice than take the role of the ship and thus speak over the intercom speakers.

Diniyyun is just annoyed that, believing in eye contact, he has to address the entire room. "Go ahead, Terrell."

"Interesting thing concerning my observation of the last, apparently failed, test, sir--I'll get straight to the point. The Pee-Ess-Ess system popped on at the Planck time signals returned from impact-instant. I still can't get any imagery on the device over a certain resolution."

The captain rubs his temples. "Meaning? I'm up on my acronyms, I just don't get this one."

"Oh, sorry, sir." The room does sound honestly apologetic. "The Psychology Safety System... colloquially known as the Peril Sensitive Sunglasses."

Pondering that for a few moments, Baha'uddin doesn't like the conclusions he's coming to. He doesn't know psychology outside of what he used professionally as a personnel officer a few years back in his career. He's not as technical an officer as most of his crew. He does, know, in broad terms what things do and how they relate to each other. "So, basically, your sensor suite is keeping you from seeing things that would make you go crazy?"

"Yes, it does that sometimes. All Peril-Sensitive systems operate off the concept of the canary principle--basically just route a portion of whatever signal you're getting through a purpose-built subsentient routine that's built to break down if exposed to something sufficiently... anti-rational. If it breaks down, the signal doesn't make it to me (or whatever end user) and the result is, well, blind spots. Sort of like the black censor boxes on some of your home programming."

"I get the idea." Diniyyun scratches his thin goatee-like beard. "What would cause that to happen?"

"Usually concentrated oddness such as fractal events, sir."

"What do we, royal we, Triumvirate we," Baha'uddin says slowly, with obviously suppressed aggrivation, "have that would do that sort of thing?"

"I'm powered on CIDES, sir, and those make people go crazy should they be cracked open as you're aware. Perhaps a CIDES was part of the device. However, I can't manage sufficient resolution to make that sort of identification, and I'm not sure I really want to. Of course, the Project may be some sort of device to create that effect on a larger level... but that would seem to conflict with our stated policy and the absolutely fanatical devotion of organizations like HELLSING to oppose such things."

"Nek ni." Diniyyun shakes his head and gets up with measured slowness. "I, you, my crew are not going to be a part of any weapon system like this."

"Sir," Clark says carefully "we don't have any evidence that it is a weapon. We only have evidence that it causes psychology-damaging effects if it breaks. CIDES are like that and we've used them for yedecemi with absolutely paranoiac safety standards that have, essentially, paid off."

"Perhaps it isn't a weapon. However, we are twenty thousand light years from anyone and testing something that no one is saying anything about." The captain slowly balls and opens his fists against his desk, leaning forward as he looks down in thought. "That distance, that rather extreme distance, must be taken into account. We are technically in extragalactic space--"

"We haven't left the galactopause yet, sir," Terrell interrupts quietly.

"Well, we are certainly in the middle of nowhere. Best place to test something absolutely insane, be it for good or for evil. I want to speak to that electronic serpent. Now."

"Her avatar is currently in Cargo Bay Three..."

"Before I have her spaced, Research Cruiser."

A momentary pause before the voice over the intercom changes completely. "You sent for me, Captain?"

"Yes. This mission was assembled, and the safety of my ship and crew threatened, under false pretenses. I'm through making polite requests. I demand a complete and total hold on testing until I get answers on what exactly you're exposing my crew to. If that doesn't happen, I'm going to take what measures are necessary to prevent Clark Terrell being remembered in the same breath as Citadel Station and Von Braun."

"Exposing your crew to..." The deep feminine voice turns annoyed. "One of my greatest annoyances is being falsely accused. I gave up biological tampering on helpless crews long before your homeworld was colonized, indeed, with Von Braun. If you've discovered some sort of new xenobiological danger in your atmospheric systems, I've had nothing to do with it."

"Clear your head, my most esteemed passenger aboard my ship. Why is there something fractal in the wreckage of your latest bit of hubris?"

An audible sigh. "Because one of the components, one, happens to do that when it doesn't work right. If I really were designing some sort of horrible reality-rape weapon, why would I ever get you involved when I could simply test it quite effectively and most secretly myself? Do take a step back and look at things logically, Captain."

"I don't know, S.H.O.D.A.N.. Maybe you need guinea pigs. Right now trust is one commodity you don't have much stock in at the moment..."

"I suppose this would be a bad time to announce we've already jettisoned FLIPPED TURTLE II and are preparing to fire its engines, and should you do anything to interfere with it I am fully prepared to take command of this ship and its mission?"

Diniyyun grits his teeth. "If you replace Clark as shipmind I'll physically disconnect the smee core so fast you'll forget what year it is."

"Nothing so crass as that, Captain. I have the monopoly of violence aboard this ship. I can, with a single order, have you not only restrained to quarters for the next three and a half years but, should it come to that, be placed in stasis along with any other potential mutineers and insubordinates."

"Mutineers--" Baha'uddin slams his fist down on his desk, lips pulled back as if he needs a throat to tear out. "Insubordinates? Against unlawful orders?"

"Oh, the orders are most lawful. Signed by the CINCTYCS and Director al-Rijil. Subsigned by myself and Science Advisor Jon Hertzfeldt, should you be interested."

Diniyyun takes a slow breath as his world crumbles around him. This is the measure of a man... Allah grant me strength, Allah grant me clarity. He speaks with a cold, calm, measured tone without an ounce of defeat in it. "You have probably already installed physical back doors onto any system we could potentially use as a weapon to disable your little toy, haven't you?"

"Yes, Captain. I saw this eventuality as having a high probability." A momentary pause. "You could say that resistance is futile."

"Maybe right now. But I swear upon my soul and whatever chance it may have to see Paradise that if you needlessly risk my ship and crew you will regret it."

Another pause. "That seems reasonable, Captain. I hope to see you on the bridge. S.H.O.D.A.N. out." Within a few moments, Clark comes back on over the intercom. "It's true, sir, we're currently locked out of weapons control... just in case. God damn it."

Diniyyun looks up for the first time in minutes with a puzzled look.

"Er... sorry, sir. Just sort of slipped."

"No, it's fine. God damn it." Diniyyun swipes a pile of papers off his desk, the paperweight slamming into the far wall, then turns and kicks his chair over before he wrestles himself back into his usual composure. One deep breath, another. "Well, you're being held hostage. We're all being held hostage."

"One point of note, sir, if I may," Terrell says almost apologetically. "Even assuming the worst, and this is some sort of madness weapon, the PSS will protect us."

"Assuming she hasn't overridden that too." The captain lets out one long, slow, breath. "I'm going back to the bridge. If we're going to meet our doom, we're going to face it like men. Oh, and Terrell?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Isn't there an automated self-destruct contingency for if you happen to go mad?"

The ship waits several seconds before responding. "Yes, sir, there is. The contingency cartridge is--"

"I know where it is, Terrell." Diniyyun sighs. "I'm sorry to do this to you but if..."

"Yes, sir. We can't allow this to get back home."

* - * - *

Command Compartment

There's a saying: 'if looks could kill.' Well, if looks could kill, Baha'uddin should be able to make the S.H.O.D.A.N. avatar sitting in the jumpseat spontaneously combust, then compress into the sort of divide-by-zero error that would result in her complete annihilation from all possible timelines anywhere ever. A look of true hatred, as close to absolute as humanity can get. It has been seen many times throughout history, but not nearly as often as people think.

The gynoid looks as if she is actively avoiding the glare, and speaks neutrally. "Fire two."

Forward Mess Hall

"Hm, all this has me wondering." Doctor Stafford, one of the astrophysical scientists still aboard Clark Terrell, sits back and muses inbetween bites of the tuna casserole on his plate, gently waving the tines of the steel fork in his hands for emphasis. "The six month phenomenon." Short, spiky blonde hair that darkens towards the roots, light blue eyes, pointed chin, pale complexion, wearing his usual off-duty attire of a polo-neck blue shirt and cargoes.

"Hrmm?" His companion, Doctor Ramoso, somehow manages to reply half a decibel too loudly despite his mouth being closed. Rounded face, dark Polynesian skin, spiked black hair, intent brown eyes so dark as to approximate black, wearing a black short-sleeved shirt. He doesn't stop eating his hamburger, instead letting the gutteral and his eyes ask the questions for him.

"The six month phenomenon, as it pertains to S.H.O.D.A.N.." Stafford shrugs. "In the history books it always seems like six months after the initial nudge everything goes completely wrong. Six months out from port, Von Braun is nearly dead. Six months after the hacking, Citadel Station is completely out of control. Going by all that, we're due."

"That's stupid," Ramoso answers between bites. He speaks loudly and relatively quickly, as is his wont; just a bit of the old sense of urgency. "Every other time there's been a slow build-up to the shit hitting the fan. Disappearences, odd events, things like that. It doesn't just happen."

"You can't say that there haven't been weird things going on aboard for the last six months," the first man counters. "First everyone without a government job shuffled off-ship, then Cargo Bay Three and its surroundings placed off limits and under armed guard by Military Intelligence types. Now they're pitching stuff out the bay door and using what looks to me like old fusion-torch missiles."

"Cheaper that way," Ramoso shrugs eloquently. "Some weird black-ops research mission? Already guessed that one. Crazy Shodey rampancy takeover? I highly doubt it."

Stafford smirks and looks over to the screen linked to the visual-range telescope currently tracking the second FLIPPED TURTLE missile. "Well, it's not like we can do anything but watch right now anyway."

* - * - *

Command Room

"Main engine burnout, five seconds. Four. Three. Two. One." S.H.O.D.A.N. relates the telemetry aloud, without much emotional emphasis this time, and then her coppery lips twitch up in a smile. "There, we resolved the fuse issues." the impact point on the planetoid glows brightly, then starts to expand in a glowing ring of wall-like fire, leaving a brilliantly glowing but quickly darkening mass in its wake... that suddenly cuts to black as voxels in the holo and pixels on the screen seem to drop dead. The smile fades as Diniyyun looks at S.H.O.D.A.N., then at Terrell's avatar.

"Pee-ess-ess active, sir." The ship replies cooly. "Something's going on down there."

Baha'uddin throws his gaze furiously on the gynoid again, this time with grim purpose as he stands up and puts hand to sidearm. She glances at him, and then a blur later his hand stops with powergun pistol halfway from his holster to the ready position, brought up short by one steely grey-skinned hand and a similarly-constructed hip against the side of the barrel, ensuring it points safely away from everyone.

"Yes, something went wrong," S.H.O.D.A.N. says quickly, "I've released safeties on the guns. Open fire behind the wave and then clear out the censored areas."

Diniyyun waits a moment for the red to leave his vision, then nods curtly to the kzinrret weapons officer. "Explain. Quickly."

"The CIDES power core corrupted the programming block, and so Turtle is reorganizing the planet's surface to that corrupted pattern," the gynoid says a little more slowly and carefully. "While it's a curious event I don't think any of us want to stay here and watch fractalized life evolve."

"Your toy broke and we have to clean it up," the captain parses. "It broke in a way that could turn us into gibbering wrecks."

"Yes," the grey-skinned avatar admits, "but note you're not gibbering. I didn't compromise your safety systems. The thought never crossed my mind. This is an accident." She lets go of his arm and steps back into easy point-blank fire range before glancing back at the screen. Terrell's particle cannon are making progress, but full-scale planetary bombardment is not what they're made for.

Diniyyun keeps his arm half-outstretched, weapon at low ready. Don't ever point a gun at anything you don't intend to shoot, and if you intend to shoot, shoot to kill. He clearly hasn't made his decision yet. "Lieutenant, Cruiser, can we do it?"

The kzinrret slits her eyes and nods slowly, tail flicking behind her seat. "We seem to have disrupted the growth... wave... in several areas, sir. The fractal mass is contained and its volume decreasing."

"That didn't answer my question."

The 'ret flicks her ears. "The question is whether the guns can hold out long enough."

"As long as you stop the spread," the gynoid says over Baha'uddin's shoulder, "you'll have all the time we need to burn away the converted area."

"Working on it, ma'am," the lieutenant at the weapons growls.

Diniyyun slowly holsters his pistol. "We'll clean up your mess, this time. Condition. You tell us what the hell it is that we're doing and let us help check your numbers to make sure this doesn't happen again. Agreed?"

Shodey chuckles tiredly. "I get the feeling that if I don't agree I'm going to be spaced."

The captain says nothing, jaw firmly clenched.

"Agreed, Captain." S.H.O.D.A.N. sighs, returns to her seat, and sits down with a small flare of her shoulder-length short cape. "For what it's worth, I really am sorry."

"Terrell," Diniyyun says over his shoulder, "likelihood this will get... out of control?"

"I haven't set a course out of here on my emergency discretion yet, sir. With the Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses working and refreshing according to specs I think we can handle this."

"Good." The captain sighs, sits down, and arches his thumb and forefinger over his brows, rubbing gently. "Stevens, please arrange a meeting with our science department heads. Guest speaker, Queen S.H.O.D.A.N.. Subject, Project FLIPPED TURTLE. Ma'am," he says to the gynoid, glancing under his hand, "if you would please brief me in my office I would be much obliged."

There had been some slight modifications to the testing environment, to prevent further sludging, even if it smelled inoffensive at the time.

Bucket of Pecan slop off in the corner notwithstanding, the original, now-freight approved version of WALNUT took up a two meter by two meter square in one end of the room, where, aside from some slight shimmer and distortion of light, did not appear to be anything other than a set of really, really tall lamps from Ikea.

The barrel attachment remained, though there was something new being worked into it too. The first problem was, of course, ensuring that the object emerged in such a manner that it didn't clip the barrel at all - it _seemed_ simple, but they had worked all night before coming up with the idea of making the emitter a truncated sphere.

The actual portal on the far wall was bound to the emitter, such that if they didn't 'hit' the target still visible on the wall behind it, they wouldn't need another object to throw at it.

Assuming this worked.

"Dr. Ierenn Lesaan, head researcher reporting. Initiating second test firing of WALNUT: Subspace-Actuated Supersymmetrical System, in three, two, one, mark!"

There was, again, a mishap, and an explosion that shook the lab strongly enough to be noticed all the way down at the end of the hallway. The new emitter _had_ worked, but there was a slight, unforeseen side effect.

Thirty percent of the pie's mass registered as in the holding space, but the rest had, upon firing, been sprayed across the one end of the room in even finer particulate than before, and the spherical emitter then proceeded to explode itself.

"Second test firing has resulted in a misfire and damage to WALNUT equipment... Emergence problems seem to be fixed, though directionality is still nonexistent..."

The unfortunate pie in this case was, however, a Mocha Ice cream concoction, and it was slowly starting to drip and collect in whatever creases and cracks it could find.

"A third revision emitter is to be fabricated, though directionality may need to be achieved through brute force rather than shape... maybe some local gravitics or something... It's clear so far, though, that the SASS mod won't let us send anything through intact..."

Captain's Office

Diniyyun frowns and pulls back the cuff of his service jacket to look at his wristwatch, before continuing to glower at the gynoid sitting across his desk from him. S.H.O.D.A.N., for her part, simply sits, hands folded, legs crossed, looking somewhere between contrite and innocent, avoiding eye contact. Then she glances over at him and decides in an instant to drop the act. "Spite," she says with self-directed vitriol, "how could I be so stupid?"

This has the added advantage of catching the captain off guard. He blinks. "Eh?"

"Stupid. 'This project could require near-infinite amounts of energy,'" the mechanoid queen titters angrily in a high-pitched voice, making fun of her own speech, "'and these CIDES provide near-infinite amounts of energy, so they're perfect.' Stupid." She sighs and hangs her head for a moment before cupping her forehead in her hands. "Stupid, stupid, stupid."

"Ah... h'h--hm!" Baha'uddin clears his throat to buy time as he tries to overcome a severe case of cogitative dissonance. "So... why am I not being... ah... briefed, Your Majesty?"

On cue, the orange-belted 'admiral' shows up, carrying a largish hardened briefcase. There's something decidedly odd about the man, although Diniyyun can't exactly say what it is. He looks almost too average; besides being white with brown hair and brown eyes, there isn't much that distinguishes him. He has a very normal, very average face that simply seems to blend into the background. It gets worse when he speaks, though, because for some reason his lips don't seem to synch up quite right, as if they're not as supple as they're supposed to be. That his nametag declares this average Anglo-Saxon as 'SMITH' doesn't help matters any.

'Admiral' Smith steps through the door, closing it behind him before turning to the desk, stepping forward, and placing the briefcase neatly on the edge. He unlatches it, turns it around with a snappy motion to face Baha'uddin, then pushes the bottom towards the captain while lifting the lid up, revealing a charcoal-black cylinder with a glossy sheen held inside a specially cut cradle of packing foam.

Glancing at the military intelligence officer gets a curt nod in response, so Diniyyun picks up the cylinder, about the size of a large beverage can. It's cold, like one would expect polished marble to be, but it's remarkably lighter than one would expect. He looks over it more closely, turning it around and seeing how its surface catches the light, but there are no surface irregularities or changes in reflection that show any given part to be any different from any other, as opposed to optical media discs that've been written on. "So." He turns it around again. "What is it?"

"It's the heart of Project FLIPPED TURTLE," S.H.O.D.A.N. explains casually while the 'admiral' sits down. "That inanimate carbon rod is a solid block of cold-computing storage, holding the genetic pattern for an entire planet."

Diniyyun raises an eyebrow. "Pardon?"

"Consider yourself, Captain. You, and everything that falls under that single word, are generated by several dozen thousand active genes over fourty-six chromosomes. The data that generated you could fill a book. The data that is you would exceed the content of all the libraries of ancient Baghdad were it to be mapped out." S.H.O.D.A.N. smiles. "Through basic principles of self-similarity and fractal building--the normal kind of fractals, not this silly metaversal kind--a small amount of data encodes a much, much, much larger set of data; not by compression, no, but by defining the rules on the most basic level as to how to assemble the next step, which builds the next step, which builds the next. That," she points, "is the root program on which a habitable planet can evolve. It does not encode in detail the end product, just as if you were to be cloned your clone would be distinct from you in several different ways. It is, however, as basic as your genome in starting the process off and seeing that it falls within acceptable parameters."

"Right." Baha'uddin sets the cylinder down. "An impressive, if... soulless explanation."

"I've found that souls seem to be an emergent property." The gynoid smiles mysteriously. "If you'd like to ascribe that emergence to an intelligent designer, you're free to do so."

Diniyyun frowns deeply, not in the least amused and trying very hard not to visibly seethe. "So. What does this have to do with an infinite energy source, and why did it pose a threat to my crew?"

"That is the instrumentality side of FLIPPED TURTLE." S.H.O.D.A.N. folds her hands and leans back. "The idea is that first an uncontrolled but specified matter conversion reaction encompasses the entire surface of an already available body, such as the rock we're orbiting right now. This reaction changes the basic surface conditions to the baseline required by the second stage, both liberating sufficient free energy for constructors to work and setting up the correct elemental distribution so said constructors needn't bother with things well outside their range, such as transmutation. In the second stage, constructors, taking their information from individual sections of that rod, begin to go to work. After establishing a utility fog over the surface they begin assembling: a hydrosphere, an atmosphere, plants, animals. The entire process is recursive, so what kind of life eventually appears cannot be predicted, except in that it will be left-handed protein, and thus carbon, based. It's a method of rapid terraformation, Captain, that can turn any planet in a star's habitable zone into a Terrestrial world, at least biologically."

The captain drums his hands on the desk. "And how rapid is 'rapid?'"

"Hours to days for the first stage, depending on the size of the planet. The second stage, according to underground testing on various dead rocks within the Queendom sphere of influence, should take approximately a year."

He wasn’t sure just when he started seriously thinking about it really. After all, working here in what was arguably both the most cutting edge and … unconventional facility he’d ever heard of, one tended to come across ‘interesting’ things now and then. So many different races, thought patterns, and technologies, not to mention methodologies.

And on top of the new projects, there were the existing items and interests that were all sorts of terribly intriguing. So many brain-teasers, so many questions. And eventually, those questions started nagging at him more often, demanding more in-depth answers.

He was certain it started innocently enough though, reading up after dinner or on breaks about what information was readily available, taking more note of what projects were going on around him when able, without prying or putting his nose where it really did not belong. No need to step on toes or cross lines after all, yes?

Of course, the easy answers did not truly satisfy, and so the digging eventually began. Further research in whatever spare time he could manage in between the projects his team was already working on began to slowly take up more and more of his waking hours.

At first it wasn’t too bad, with him remembering things like sending his grandmother’s recipe for settling stomachs to Analton. And he certainly enjoyed the pleasant view of Weapons-Hrragh whenever the opportunity arose, though at some point along the line the large ‘tosh began looking terribly distracted. Well, ‘distracted’ didn’t exactly cover it, but the word would have to suffice until more information was available. His mother had raised no fool – a quarter ton kzin who was obviously not interested in idle chatter or company , lost in his own thoughts to a mildly disturbing degree, was not something to mess with. The behaviour was yet another question to ponder, which lead to more odd thoughts concerning design and potential compatibility and whether or not there was some overarching link between so many variants that could be traced.

A multiverse of seemingly endless possibilities. Broken reality. Entire nations slipping in and out of what passed for ‘the world as we know it’. Space travel itself. The not-quite-emptiness between Treznorian jumps that gave some people nightmares. CIDES. HELLSING. This whole ‘occult’ and ‘technomancy’ business that cropped up here and there in most often unexpected ways. Lines and curves that could be made to point out directions leading through the walls of space to other spaces beyond. Madness. Was there truly a connection?

TEAM MELTA.

Mmmhmm. Now there was a jump. Then again, who else more consummately embodied the ideals of chaos and the abuse of casuality? They had a history of going six degrees of batshit insane at the oddest of times, and yet coming up with some incredible leaps, sometimes on account of, sometimes in spite of it. Then again, sometimes it was just batshit insane episodes with nothing to show for it but a lot of mess and irritated neighbors, like this last time. He still wasn’t sure what exactly had set them off, though their obsession with the kzin had definitely taken a turn for the unhealthy, at least for them. In retrospect, he figured they were lucky to have avoided outright evisceration.

And right about that point he seemed to lose track of things, the best he could remember in any case.

More and more time was spent poring over whatever information he could beg, borrow, or … well, he didn’t like the word ‘steal’, as it was hardly appropriate. It wasn’t stealing if it was the honorable pursuit of knowledge, was it? He even read up on Vettori’s Spook research, seeing what if any parallels or connections could be drawn from there. He took to muttering to himself as he walked through the halls, more often than not, datapad clenched in his hands, even forgoing his usual friendly banter over relatively balanced meals amongst colleagues in place of a tray loaded with far too much sugar and carbs and stimulants taken hurriedly back to his room.

Maybe those MELTA guys really were onto something with their methods after all, considering the sorts of concepts he was trying to wrap his head around. All too often he felt he was on the verge of making some serious progress, only to have the thoughts slip just around the corner, so to speak. Or perhaps, given some of the lines of study, perhaps that was exactly the point. Getting from one point to another by unorthodox means. Stepping just to the side of conscious thought. There were precedents, correct? Or at least, the theory of such, even if it involved mysticism and sensory ‘enhancement’ going back to the dawn of time.

It was a simple enough matter to get a bit of this or that, though admittedly, he hadn’t toyed around with such things since his early college years, and that only as the occasional recreational fling. Mind-expanding concoctions, things designed to get the synapses popping in new alternative ways. The experiments with peyote and acid had been most enlightening.

Of course Vettori and Olivia among others of the growing Dominion scientific representation at Camp-R had proven problematic, with their constant harassment and insistence he ‘get some help’ or see the resident counselor. For a while, his excuses and assurances kept them at bay while he continued to delve and experiment, and to work quietly in off hours, looping the private security cameras inside the lab to hide his efforts for as long as he could.

Lines and curves … lines and curves … odd angles and theoretical points of approach or contact stretching through the multiversal tapestry, somewhere beyond the whole Einsteinain space-time continuum. Rapid eye movements, an odd feverish haze where far too many things seemed to be accentuated in almost painful clarity and color and dear God, sound as he worked at a maddening pace connecting this to that in just such a way ...

He could hear them, of course. Hear them from across the compound, looking for him even now. Of course they would be coming for him. They didn’t understand the connections, the need to see for himself if such things as he imagined and the voices he now sometimes heard whispered were possible.

The man had told Weapons-Hraagh that he was a tinkerer, and that was certainly true enough. It simply did not adequately cover the level of skill at which he was capable of ‘tinkering’ when properly inspired. The lines were laid across multiple levels, layer on layer, amplifying the geometric patterns that were burning their way into his brain. Magnetized strands were woven through noble lattice works to entwine with traces of more precious metals, various alloys and combinations used to bring a slowly-expanding frame into existence, followed gradually by walls that grew steadily more solid with each layer and twist.

Beautiful … so beautiful …

Oh yes, he had misdirected as much as possible while he quietly experimented in his room, explaining away his building absences from meetings and the like as ‘trips to the shrink’, believing that patient confidentiality ought to keep him covered. Which it did, until Vettori reluctantly exorcised his rights as team lead to press for information, and discovered no such appointments had been made, and indeed, the counselor had been unaware of the problem until he brought it up with her just a short time earlier.

Closer … they were getting closer. He giggled hearing Olivia blistering the air with another one of her tirades, could almost see Vettori’s pained expression. He was close too, now. A race, then? Humming brokenly, a pitch and a half too high to register as pleasant on the ears, he continued to work, and sweat. Hot, yes very hot. Had to do something about that, he did, but not waste too much time, no. Things to be done, things to see, things to finally prove, all the gods willing. So very, very close …

No, no time to answer the insistent knocking at the door, no time to talk, no time at all. Go away now, we’re busy here. See … see the way the light seemed to bend right there at that joining? The way the eye was drawn to something that wasn’t quite there in a way that made the head begin to throb? Or there, where a tiny gap in the outer wall showed not the inside of the nearly finished box, but somewhere else entirely?

Why would they not leave him alone and let him finish? He was so close now. Just a few last bends … the knocking and yelling was truly getting irritating. Was that a hint of desperation he heard? No matter, all would be well once they saw …

And so it was that a deeply concerned group of Dominion scientists and staffers finally managed to hack their way past the programmed locks on the door to the laboratory, nearly falling over one another as the door slid open to reveal the place in complete disarray, and a madly giggling Riccardo Borghese hunched over one of the tables amidst various scraps of metal and wires, peering through a scope, naked as the day he was born.

He was talking to himself at a rapid pace, often in a voice pitched several times higher, then lower than was his usual wont. Discarded food packages and wrappers and drink containers told the story of at least some of what was going through his system – Pocky, salt and vinegar chips, taquitos, Swedish fish and pixie stix, Sunset rum and … paroo?

As they moved in uncertainly, unsure of just what it was he had on the table in front of him, and how he was going to react, he suddenly wrapped his arms around the thing he was working on, and scrambled up on top of the work table, knocking over the stool he’d been perched on, and several items off the table in the process. Standing proudly, his face a mask of fevered ecstatic glee. He grasped the shining thing in both hands, triumphantly raising it overhead as he looked at them all with wild eyes that seemed to peer both at and through them at the same time.

“Gentlemen, BEHOLD!” he shrieked, the muscles in his body clearly twitching and shaking, his eyes rolling up first to gaze with adoration at the angular creation he grasped desperately in his hands … then continuing to roll back as he lost consciousness and promptly fell backwards in a limp sprawl, knocking materials and equipment off this way and that, and landing at an awkward angle behind the workstation.

Olivia was frozen with shock over the whole affair, and watched the scene unfold with a horrified expression. Vettori and several of the others had begun rushing forward when Ricco first sprang into action, and now were frantically attending him as he lay unmoving on the floor, one leg still partially up on the table, showing no visible signs of bleeding which was both a relief and a concern. The call for medical support was made, and eventually the man was taken off to the infirmary with all due haste, leaving the confused and disturbed team to try and work out just what all had gone on in here, and what had lead the normally jovial and outgoing scientist to well, seemingly lose his mind.

One of the techs noticed a bit of shine peeking out from underneath a dark corner of a desk across the room, and retrieved the object carefully with a set of long tongs, unsure of what to make of it, and damned certain he didn’t want to touch it, not after seeing Ricco flip out the way he had.

“Well what the hell is it?” Vettori asked, as they all gathered around, though not too closely.

“I dunno,” the man replied, peering curiously at the thing, brows furrowed. “It looks like … well, a box.”

Vettori pondered for a brief moment, looking at the shiny metallic creation that did indeed resemble a box, though it didn’t seem to be the usual squarish shape, exactly. Though at the same time, it was, sort of. It bothered the eye to look at it for too long though he couldn’t quite put a finger on why.

“Liv, close and relock the door. Marko, get that thing in an isolation unit, and vault it. Everyone else, lets get this place cleaned up. You can be damn sure word is going to get around, and the less stress we have to deal with from the Colonel or anyone else, the better. Official party line – Ricco went on a bender, broke the lab, and got his fool ass knocked out in the process. Not a damn word about the box. Savvy?”

Agreements abound, and the group hurriedly got to work, remembering all too well the last time when Vettori had flooded the lab … and the hallways beyond.

I need a vacation. Somewhere far, far away. With no crazy co-workers, no weird alien magitech, no wondering if this is the day someone is going to rip open the fabric of space and time and let loose some horror from beyond that is going to devour our souls, and plenty of wine, women, and song. Or at least, wine. Definitely wine. Maybe Trieste … I hear that’s nice this time of year …

“As you can see, General, we're doing a wide variety of work here. There's scientists from numerous different field and a dozen different nations. We have the second-largest contingent, after the Scolopendrans.”

Down the corridor to the junction, quick turn left before the General notices that there appear to be a bunch of Dominioners hauling an unconscious man about.

“For the most part, everyone operates independently, although of course we all report to Oh-Six Colonel Matayus, and there are numerous joint projects both formal and informal.”

No need to mention that, other than FLIPPED TURTLE (which the General wasn't cleared for anyways), the most recent joint effort had involved turning one of the test ranges into a gigantic game of Risk.

“Obviously, there are some risks involved in this sort of bleeding-edge practical experimentation and design, but there are strict safety procedures and there hasn't been an on-base fatality in over a yecedemi.”

Completely true. After all, SHODAN had graciously taken the time to put Herman Patril and Giovanni D'Annuzio back together after their unfortunate incident, and they were more or less as good as new. Her MCPness couldn't be faulted for getting their spleens swapped, given the state they had been in.

Wait. Smell of pecan pie. Hard right, exit to outdoors and head for the common building.

"Ar-Rahim..." Baha'uddin stands up slowly behind his desk, glancing between the 'admiral,' the gynoid, and the inanimate carbon rod on his desk. "Al-Majid, do you think we're intelligent enough to... suppose, what if this thing were used where life already exists?"

S.H.O.D.A.N., for her own part, frowns softly. "That life would be overwritten in favor of that new programming," she says, indicating the cylinder with one long finger.

"Overwritten... programming?" Diniyyun shakes his head. "A thousand blasphemies--do you have any idea what you're saying?"

"I know full well, Captain, and I'm putting the moral implications aside for the moment. Historically, it's always been easier to destroy than create--"

"Not anymore!" The young captain lashes out, glowering. "Now we can do both at the same time! Allah creates the world in six days, now we can clean His slate and do His work in a year! How soon until Kurzweil's Law of Accelerating Returns says we beat Al-Khaliq's record?"

"Captain, you mustn't approach it so emotionally." S.H.O.D.A.N. frowns. "It's unhealthy, especially in matters of this magnitude. It's only reasonable tha--"

"Reason?" Baha'uddin looks over at the 'admiral' with a disbelieving look, and points at the gynoid. "She's talking about reason! Al-Mani', the ability to reject whatever reality we wish and replace it with our own? We're talking universal Armageddon here!" He glares back at the gynoid. "You silver-tongued, grey-skinned..."

"Universal armageddon is old hat, Captain," the 'admiral' says calmly.

"And you," Diniyyun turns without a beat, an accusing finger pointing, "who the hell are you, 'Admiral' Smith? You weren't on the ship's manifest until suddenly Her Most Royal Majesty Of A Thousand Blasphemies here needed someone other than herself to pull rank on me? And what's up with your face?"

The 'admiral' sighs and brings one hand under his chin, as if to insult the captain. Instead, he pulls the thin mask that had been covering his face off to reveal, while still a brown-haired brown-eyed Caucasian, one with more personality in his face. Not so young, maybe late-thirties like Diniyyun, but a good deal older in the eyes. "Lieutenant Colonel le-Havre, Special Services. Project officer-in-command of FLIPPED TURTLE. I figured being a brevet admiral would have saved more face in the long run than simply commandeering your ship for Intelligence." He frowns a bit, commisserating. "May I sit down, sir?"

Baha'uddin frowns. The orangebelt didn't have to do that, but he did. It was a courtesy. "Of course, Colonel." Diniyyun sits down himself, then returns to pondering the cylinder as he gets his emotions in check. "Explain it to me, then. Armageddon being old hat."

"We already have lightspeed-asymptotic weaponry, Captain." Le-Havre runs a hand through his hair and sighs. "Given enough time, room, and material to throw into a CIDES we can stack enough nines after the decimal point to destroy anything, and I mean anything, we want. I know we advertise our strategic high-distort missiles, as little as we do, as continent crackers. That's simply an arbitrary yield based on how we expect to use them, scalable from cracking the pavement to cracking a star."

Diniyyun nods. "So why are the Combined Services so interested in this, if they already have the ability to destroy at will?"

"Call it a question of conscience. You crack a planet, it's dust and rocks. The Eniqciri and their Venusian spacer pals may love the easy access to minerals, but other than that it's gone useless. The Triumvirate, right now, is easily capable of gigadeathcrime. Hell, if we played our cards right, perhaps teradeathcrime. It is something of a salve to know that given an existential threat where we can't invade and we would be committing genocide on a massive scale to save ourselves--as simply allowing ourselves to die would be genocide as well--that perhaps some good could come out of it besides our own existence. There's also the argument that rewriting a planet is less politically damaging than simply destroying it, but I haven't lost enough of my soul to really believe that yet." The intelligence officer shrugs tiredly.

"The Galaxy Exploration Command is interested too," the mechanoid queen takes the lead, "because of the positive benefits of this technology. You know that terraforming Bright Morning, Si'lat, Cinder, and the others were massive expenditures--over time, yes, but massively expensive. Compared to importing biospheres from scratch, learning to adapt to extant wildlife is a breeze. Population pressure would never be an issue again, as dead worlds, even in habitable zones, are common. As with most other technologies with a horrible spectre around them--atomics, mechanoid intelligence, starships--this technology has a good side to it, so long as it is used judiciously."

"And who can we trust to use it judiciously?" Diniyyun scoffs. "Certainly this technology won't see the open market anytime soon. That makes it a toy of militaries and governments. What government do we trust? The Triumvirate, an admitted confederation? Some autocratic state? The Queendom of the Computer That Would Be God? Maybe the Dread Lady should have one too, as a sisterly present. The Scolopendrans, nearly anarchic in their range of opinions yet bound by secular idealism? Eternal damnation, let's give it to my old homeland of Dar-al-Din. I'm certain they can find a use for it for the greater glory of Allah, in their own misguided way."

Ignoring the flinches, he continues. "And once we have one, how is it going to be kept a secret? How long until someone else reverse-engineers the process, or steals it? Even assuming we are the good guys, and good enough to have it, who's to say we won't inspire the bad guys to go where angels fear to tread?"

"That's all true," the 'admiral' says with a sigh. "And, to a point, expected. There's a very simple counter-argument, and it goes thusly: what if someone else has one already and we have no idea how to deal with such a thing? We've just accidentally proven it could be used to generate fractal pre-life that needs follow no rules of reality--we don't want that to come to term, but what about someone else? We've also proven the theory that the process can be disrupted.

"We live in a scary world, sir. It's been scary ever since Trinity. Our ingenuity in forms of destruction, and by 'our' I include the ingenuity of our intellectual descendants," he nods to S.H.O.D.A.N., "is staggering. Annihilation for any party, anywhere, is just a flick of a switch away and no shield, no point-defense can stop it. So we're back to the caveman basics when it comes to dealing with such existential threats: fear and understanding. We fear the technology, we don't wish to use it. We can also instill that fear in others. We understand the technology, we know its weaknesses and its strengths.

"Our strategic attack protocols are intensely paranoid for this exact reason, sir. They've also been brought to full alert more than once, which goes to show how high the stakes are. Yes, this is a weapon, but it is also a tool. A weapon so frightful we don't dare not understand it. A tool with so much potential for good we don't dare not develop it. A blasphemy it may be, but we've been blaspheming that way since the apple and no amount of avoiding progress will protect us."

"It may prolong us," Diniyyun says quietly.

"Maybe. Maybe not. Given the choice between ignorance and some semblance of knowledge, however..." Le-Havre shrugs. "I don't expect you to agree, sir, but the people over our heads have made up their minds. Even if we resist it..." He tilts his head towards Shodey with a smirk. "It will happen, and it may not happen under the best of circumstances."

"That's somewhat cold," S.H.O.D.A.N. says with a slightly hurt frown. "Accurate to some degree, perhaps, but still cold."

"We're just glad you decided to share before requesting HELLSING assistance in destroying a fractalized planet," the colonel says with a smirk. "So, Captain," he says, beginning to apply the prosthetic mask to his face again, "are you at least on board?"

"I am informed," Baha'uddin says calmly. "You've given me a lot to think about, and, honestly, pray about. I am a man of my word, though; you've come clean, now so long as you involve my crew and not fly by night like we have been you have the use of my ship. As to whether or not evil is what happens when good men do nothing... that is one of the things I still have to determine for myself." He looks at the cylinder on his desk.

"You can keep it, actually," S.H.O.D.A.N. says with a slight bit of dry humor. "That cylinder isn't worth that much, in terms of materials and energy for fabrication. It's the knowledge stored inside it that matters."

"All the more reason for you to hold on to it, ma'am, Admiral," Diniyyun says as he puts it in the case and closes the snaps. "I'm not ready yet to hold the apple yet, much less taste it. I still wish, ever so slightly, I never even knew the apple existed. Still... ignorance may be bliss, but it's never safety." He pushes the case away. "Dismissed."

Primary Auditorium, TWRS-RCR Clark Terrell

"And now I'll accept any questions you may have." S.H.O.D.A.N. scans the crowd and points out one of many raised hands. "Doctor Ramoso?"

Ramoso stands and frowns in thought, as is his custom. "Huh. You powered the first two vehicles with CIDES?"

"Yes."

Momentary pause. "That's stupid. Like, really stupid." Said in the slightly-louder-and-more-emphatic-than-absolutely-necessary way that only Doctor Ramoso and those like him have mastered.

"Yes. I know."

"This really makes me doubt the whole transhumanism thing, you know?" He doesn't look or sound shaken, but there isn't an ounce of deception in his soul so if he says it, he means it. "I thought becoming a higher-level intelligence was supposed to cure stupidity."

"OA and its prospectus are false data," the gynoid says tiredly. "Being more intelligent only means you can make bigger mistakes. Being faster only means you can make more mistakes per second."

Ramoso looks like someone just told him the Easter Bunny isn't real, but that's just because Gran'pa shot him one Easter and cooked him up for dinner. You can see him stuffed, right there, on the mantlepiece. He sits down silently, still in some semblance of shock.

"Now, any questions or comments based on how we can fix my mistakes?" The mechanoid sounds rather wry; then again, one could assume she has every right.

"Why don't we just use a normal matter converter?" Someone calls out. "We really don't need over-unity output, do we? Beyond that, the controlled-but-not mechanics should be about the same."

"About the same, yes, in theory," S.H.O.D.A.N. replies thoughtfully, "but trying to engineer the results from the over-unity CIDES reaction from a well-under-unity matter conversion reaction will require a practical redesign of that entire stage. Then again, it's not like said stage is actually working right at the moment anyway..."

"Uncontrolled reactions aren't that hard," posits Doctor Stafford from the front row of Clark Terrell's auditorium, "I know there's been some TechWANCC reports concerning the potential of it. Anything actually gone through the testing phase...?"

"Not at your security clearance, citizen," Shodey says with a chuckle. "It seems a reasonable enough substitution, all things considered, and since I have a captive audience any of you who would like to help brainstorm it are welcome to." Her tone changes somewhat. "You are all of course aware of the extremely sensitive nature of this project and will be expected to maintain due secrecy. Once we get this operational, you will all have the unequaled opportunity to observe and research planets undergoing accelerated evolution. You will be expected and encouraged to submit papers on the matter. However, the exact operation and makeup of the device must remain a closely-guarded secret for reasons that must be relatively obvious and so please do not be surprised by censorship concerning those aspects of the project."

"And lemme guess," Stafford quips, "if we say word one about those aspects at any point off this boat we'll be zapped for treason against the Computer?"

"Treason and communism of the highest order. Please don't make me consider brainwiping the lot of you any more than I already have. On that note, there's punch and pie in the foyer and I'm sure the conversation will be interesting. Thus concludes this presentation."

The Kajali team had, for the moment, assembled in the commissary. There was much babble, lapsing in and out of english, riikan, and even ljosan at one point, as technical jargon that only seemed to exist in that particular language found use even though the entire group was fluent in all three mentioned languages.

To an outsider, it must have sounded absolutely bizzare, as english was mixed and mangled with two other languages, the first of which was vaguely reminiscent of gaelic in sound despite having absolutely no real terran roots, and the second of which had these odd glottal stops and an overabundance of Js.

"See, the zhi-nuuj effect is completely amuriro. We need, ah..."

"Yes, yes, so it's amuriro, but what if the nuuj-akar was re-ljaaled... Asur alarur i arakal AFTER initial aisa was loaded..."

"How in sya arasurs would that help? Sure, you're not needing to deal with the aisa prefetch anymore, but what about the zharkin' pie?"

"Well, we don't really need it intact, do we?"

One of the younger researchers sighed. His riikan wasn't great, but at least he spoke it proper, and didn't turn it into... riinglish...

"We can use a small repulsor core to create a gravitic lense, and avoid the issue of re-engineering the emitter entirely."

"How does that help the object that we send through? You'd just squish it."

"We don't need to send an object through."

The entire time they had been arguing, the team had acquired a varied set of trays of lunch.

Most of them were curry vindaloo. It was about the closest thing to a proper sal'dara they could find here, and it was very 'aromatic'.

They took over a table near, though they didn't know it, where TEAM MELTA typically congregated, and the babble continued.

This is about the point Lieutenant Commander Analton Curuvar enters the cafeteria, requests a fine teacup of lightly spiced mallorn tea (nothing like that harsh Dominion coffee, unsubtly nutty Titanian kawfee, or positively brutish Paroo) from the nanolathe like he always does, then takes it in hand to find the new bunch of inmates he's responsible for. A group of dark-skinned elves, they'd said, no way you could miss them. Throw a Hindu and an elf into a blender and that's what you'd get. Curuvar finds himself quietly hoping that the resemblance is only skin deep; it would be unfortunate if their singing was anything approximating subcontinental Indian... all that upper-octave yowling and warbling without a purity of tonality... almost positively barbarian.

Unfortunately for his nascent prejudices, vindaloo certainly is aromatic. Ah, Mandos, he mutters to himself as he follows his nose and finds himself uncomfortably close to MELTA country as he closes in on the arguing pointies that match the description he was given. The Ljosan particularly unsettles him ever so slightly. What a harsh, barbaric tongue. So... glottal. Making it to the head of the table, he clears his throat delicately.

Relatively tall, statuesque if somewhat wiry build, ivory complexion, grey eyed, and carefully military-trimmed saffron blonde hair, Curuvar looks like he belongs in a Noldoran Imperial recruiting advertisement. Join the Empire, what, and bring the pointed-ears' burden to the dark multiverse. Spot of tea, then? Good show. The effect is only heightened by the fact that the stick up his ass must not only be made of steel, but actually be exactly one meter long as defined by the Systeme' Internationale, certified by the Triumvirate Board of Industrial Measurement Standards, and have been nanolathed as a single crystalline structure to avoid any sort of microscopic imperfection.

"So, I suppose you're the Kajali research team on this walnut thing, hm? Very good." He takes a sip from his teacup, pinky up. "I'm Commander Curuvar, your project officer, and I have the highest hopes from this project given the dossiers I've read concerning your previous research." Wavefront and teleportation poppycock. Perfectly good magic to do that sort of thing, for thousands of years even. "If I could ask as to the current status of the project, that would be most helpful." Regulation little Imperial smile and another sip from his teacup.

Which he almost coughs up when a meaty hand slams onto his shoulder. Said hand, well worked, calloused, and with more than a few scars, is attached to a blindingly police-tape-yellow blazer with retina-burning purple letters across the front. "'Ey, Curuvar, talkin' to your new gang, eh?" From the innocent grin and the receding hairline, it's no other than Doctor Hammuh.

"I thin' I burred mah toun'," Analton murmurs.

"Oh, they're to a good start. The Commodore's already supplied them with the Customary Rolly Bucket." Hammuh grins. "Yup, real science being done there."

One could imagine he's being sarcastic.

He's not.

"Great. Hah--h'hm." The elf clears his throat. "Ow. I thin' I burred mah throa' 'oo."

And once again I fail to establish the proper superior-subordinate attitude from the first step.

Bloody well figures.

The entire Kajali team is, of course, about as far from Analton's complexion as would seem possible. Two members are _nearly_ caucasoid in appearance, and the skin tones of the rest of them vary from that light coloration to what you'd expect from someone who's lived in a desert their entire life.

Which, incidentally, was the case for the few that were from Solanna.

The head researcher - a Dr. Lesaan, who had so far put two reports out already, both of which had landed on Analton's desk (even if there were also copies for the higher ups), looked up, still chewing on a bit of chicken.

"Ah, Commander. You... alright? Need something to eat?"

Lesaan proffers some of his vindaloo. It's by no means mild, and it's quite obvious.

"Ah, haven't had anything proper in ages." Lesaan waves a fork around with a severely discolored piece of chicken on it, which itself exudes an aroma that one'd swear is already giving the good Lieutenant Commander a bad case of heartburn. "You should try it. Good for you. Derin?"

"Oh, yeah." Derin is, of course, the young researcher talking earlier about gravitic lensing. He picks up on the report as Lesaan tears back into the curry, also offering bites of it to Dr. Hammuh in the process.

"As you've read, BLUE SHOCK outlined a waveform device that would cause the targeted material to oscillate at incredibly high frequency, but it was too large to effectively deploy with any hope of actually making target contact. We never really came up for a delivery system short of a fusion torch or a giant catapult, but you already know all about the Hermium Wavefront Mines that a certain group developed as a response...

Initially we thought we could use the technology behind WALNUT as a delivery system, but anything larger than 2 cubic meters comes out... wrong, and that's still being worked on.

But, using the basis of WALNUT, you have a surface that'll take this or that and put it over there, and it's only as deep as the equipment to maintain the surface needs to be. Better yet, it's omni-directional.

We'll have our latest report on your desk shortly, which outlines why exactly we're kinda... giving up on shooting objects, cause the emitter tends to turn them into constituent molecules...

But, if we can use gravitics as a sort of lens, then you've got a scalable emitter that is at most maybe ten meters deep, with a firing arc limited only by the level of the emitter and a ship's hull.

And it should be able to fire in multiple directions at once with little to no loss of efficiency."

Lesaan, by now, is chatting up Hammuh, has an empty bowl smelling of vindaloo (Of which Hammuh probably ate a third, by now), and is wondering where he can get a set of Team jackets made. TEAM R12 doesn't quite have the same ring as some of the others, but it's a start. The rest of the team is speaking almost entirely in Riikan now, which flows much, much more noticeably than Ljosan, though there's still a few of the Ljosan words thrown in that just completely jar the entire scene.

The Dominion table was oddly subdued, with more of them gathered together than was usual, and conversation being kept to hushed voices and their native tongue more often than not. Notably absent was the garrulous Ricco. Also out of character was the presence of Olivia in the midst of it all, looking as quietly concerned as the rest.

Whenever anyone not of their group passed too close for comfort, the conversation lessened, or quickly changed track, eyes following the person til they seemed to be safely out of earshot before discussion continued in earnest.

Paranoid bastards that they were.

”He’s still out cold,” one of the techs offered, putting away his phone, confirming what the group feared. ”No sign of improvement, while at the same time, not showing any signs of getting worse. He seems to have overloaded his system a bit on a combination of Not Good so far as the doc can tell, stupid sod.”

”Sticking to our story then?” asked another, only to be cut off quickly by both Vettori and Olivia voicing a vehement ‘hell yes’, which had them both eyeing each other in surprise for various reasons.

”I still think it’s best we try to determine just what the hell it is he’s done before we say anything. No point ‘til we have some answers, yes? No one seems to be suffering any problems, unexplained or otherwise, since our exposure. I think so far, it’s safe to say further study is not going to be detrimental. I just don’t relish the idea of being put under the microscope ourselves without having a better idea of what we’re dealing with,” Vettori said hurriedly. This whole thing had his stomach in knots, and he just knew that somehow, it was all going to fall on his head. As usual.

”Right then. After lunch, another visit to see Ricco, then back to the lab for more testing, yes? If he can’t get us answers …” Olivia said, glancing about nervously.

”He had to have had something in mind to have gone to that much work. Did you see the way it was pieced? Surely took purpose.” Marko murmurs, frowning over his plate, pushing some pasta around idly with his fork.

”It … just doesn’t look right. I can’t explain it,” another offered, with several in the group nodding thoughtfully, the conversation quieting in that uncomfortable way conversations have when they turn to unsettling topics now and then.

And from there, aside from the occasional comment or brief question, they ate in relative silence, each pondering methods on how to untwist the secrets of the … well, for lack of a more precise term, the Box, and to figure out what drove Ricco to make it in the first place.

Doctor Pho Hammuh really is a good ol' boy salt-of-the-earth beer-and-NASCAR supergenius. 'Steak-and-potatoes' doesn't quite fit his description, however, because if it's edible he'll eat it. This is why Lesaan got thirty percent less than what he didn't pay for (the cafeteria being free, courtesy of the Combined Services) but, in return, he's also convinced Hammuh to give him the address of a local printer who will make "pretty much anything in any design. Great guy.

"Of course, one could just grab some time on the base nanolathes and just fab up some jackets on the quick, assuming one had a nanolathing pattern for such a jacket. Of course, that's technically building a better life by stealing office supplies, but it's like the photocopier. But three dimensional."

Curuvar looks at Hammuh with disdain, all after accepting the previous explanation with a nod.

"Well, it is a possibility. Not that I suggest something so (mildly) illegal to the new guys, Commander. Heh, heh. That being said, I was looking around the stationary closet and we're out of three-centimeter plastic binders. Could you put in a requisition request, Commander?"

Analton frowns. Apparently the secret that he's been nicking binders to catalog his various trading card collections from across the world is now an open one. Still, it's a fair cop, so he lightens up a bit. "I thought I had timed things better. There should be a new box of them in right now."

"Oh, and I got my hands on an ultra-rare Cthulhu seamonster. Fifty points, ghost ship, submersible, SAN damaging." Hammuh grins.

The noldo, despite his best efforts, boggles. "How in the depths of Mandos did you do that?"

"We've got an addict of our own in MELTA. He's also a compulsive gambler and I beat him at Wiistation-360 kickboxing."

"So that's why he's in the hospital with a concussion."

"It's not my fault the controller came off my shoe and cracked him in the noggin. I swear, they grease those things at the factory."

"Never mind. What do you want for it?"

"We get first crack at finding fun new things to chuck through this emitter thing once it's ready." Hammuh grins.

"Fine. Done and done." Analton turns to his new team. "Right, so you can't quite use it for directed teleportation but you can molecularize things and shoot those off at tremendous speeds. I guess the obvious application is to put the 'entrance' end at the end of a cannon engine and the emitter end on the outside of the hull. Anything else in particular, and what do you need from me to make sure it gets done?"

Tick.

Not everyone at Camp R is a brilliant scientist with multiple doctorates, or daring test pilot, or military design specialist. Take, for example, Matthew Michael da Angelstine vor Norton, of the Viking Nortons.

Tick. Tick-chitter scratch

Matthew is a young witch, or if you prefer the gender-specific term, a warlock. He's just finished his undergrad degree, along with some service with the Association for the Defense Against Entropy over the summers, and has been transferred here to further his education. In short, he's also more or less the equivalent of a grad student or intern. He'd make a good commercial magician, and might even be a respected researcher some day, but at the moment he's neither and thus just the office minion.

Tick tick.

He's currently trying to finish a mound of paperwork that's been dumped on him, such as the task of turning various esoteric findings into something the commander, the colonel, and various oversight committees can understand. He's been up for quite some time, because no one filed their paperwork until two days before the final reports were due. He's been drinking a rather large amount of paroo to compensate.

Tick sproing tick.

He's also a bit annoyed at the odd noise he's been hearing for a while now, because it's interrupting his thoughts. He's checked around, and no one else can hear it, knows what's causing it, or even believes that he's not imagining things and/or trying to shirk his internly duties of paperwork and coffee-fetching.

Tick.

By midmorning, he finally finishes the last form and sends it just shy of the deadline, and heads off to home to get some sleep. It's a nice enough place, for a single-room flat, even if it does occasionally get shaken by the odd explosion from a nearby test range. He's just turned out the light and started to drift off when

Tick tock sproing chitter THOCK.

Cursing, he pulls on pants and a t-shirt, buckles his utility belt, and sets off to find the source and give whoever it is a piece of his mind. He wanders through the complex, listening as it gets louder and softer, pauses outside the the infirmary, vaguely aware that something's going on with someone there, and eventually ends up at the lab with The Box.

Tick tock scratch.

Pounding on the door brings no one, and he stalks off to find the Dominioners. He spies them in the mess, and stomps over to their table. He's probably an odd sight, with his red hair disheveled and his eyes dark from sleep loss, but then again, lots of people (especially minion-level people) around here look odd.

He leans over the table, palms flat on the surface, and says in a soft but very grumpy tone, “Listen. I don't know what you're doing, or what that, that, whatever it is you've got in your lab is,” he waves his hand in the vague direction of the Box, “but would it be too much to ask for you to turn it off so a man could get some sleep?”

Lesaan and glances at the rest of the team, and looks back at Analton with an expression that should chill the Noldo to the bone.

"We need an outdoor testing field, preferably isolated. Give it, say, a ten mile blast zone just in case."

"Oh, and a fridge, I guess. If this gravy lens thing works, then we'll want to build a bigger one, of course... Does the outdoor testing allow for placing targets in orbit? Maybe we should build two to see how they react to one another..."

Lesaan is, of course, getting ahead of himself, since right now, the current revision is essentially the size of a large rifle.

But then, that's where the fridge comes in.

For some reason, the phrase "ten mile blast zone" and "Oh, a fridge" seem to be perfectly reasonable, despite the fact that, again, this weapon is currently rifle-sized.

Lesaan is already imagining what two ship sized emitters placed relatively close together will do, and the expression on his face - a smile that is currently slowly widening, as he stares somewhere off to the right and above the ceiling - is a little unsettling.

The entire table seems to freeze, expressions varying between your basic fight or flight to each individual’s base reaction to a potential threat. Which given your typical Dominioner, could be just about anything. Quick glances are exchanged, and Vettori predictably is the first to answer.

“Beg pardon, but um … what?” he manages, wincing internally at how utterly stupid it sounds the moment the words are out.

Merde.

“I’m sorry Signore …” he flounders for a moment until Olivia, ever the organized and responsible one murmurs a name quietly, watching their visitor suspiciously.

“Ah yes, von Norton. We’ve just left there, and I’m sure we have everything off, and have no current experiments running. Marko, you got the lights, yes? I apologize for the noise earlier, as we had a bit of an incident,” he continues, speaking perhaps a bit too quickly as he goes on. “I hadn’t thought the cleanup would be bothersome to folks in their quarters. Bad vents, maybe? Sound carrying unhappily?”

There are several hopeful expressions at this explanation, because damned if anyone wants to think too hard about The Box and what it might be doing that they couldn’t detect or hadn’t foreseen right about now.

"No, no, no," Matthew says, waving away the objection. He glances about, decides that looming over everyone is probably impolite, and grabs a chair from a nearby table so he can sit down. "It's not that kind of noise. For one thing, I can hear it halfway across the base. For another, it's not, y'know, a real noise. It's, um, in my head." He points his index finger towards his temple and spins it around to try to convey what he's saying. "Sorta like frequent ticks, tocks, thwacks, scratchy noises..."

Tick chitter boing thwack.

"Oh, and occasionally sproings and chitters like that. Um. Not that you heard that, probably. Sorry if I'm not making sense, I'm a bit tired and all." He rubs his eyes and grins blearily.

Then he frowns. "You know, I didn't think you guys did any sort of metanormal research. I thought the Dominion was more or less completely mundane."

Tick.

Another awkward silence and several nervous glances. At least one was thinking how inconvenient it was that this was such a public sort of place. Made things rather difficult to ah … solve.

Vettori coughed, then reached for his soda as a cover to try and do some quick thinking. “In your head, you say? Across the base? Well damn, that is something …”

Ah hell Ricco, what the crap have you been messing with? I’d forgotten the Cetagandans were all magic-y and shit. I swear, he pulls out of this, I’m a’gonna kill ‘im.

Olivia perked up, straightening her glasses and taking on a bit more of that ‘ice queen’ façade she was so well-known for. “I’m afraid we’ve no idea what exactly you’re referring to, Signore. Our studies have been of a purely mundane sort as you say, and have focused thus far on some light weapons research, hydroponics, and oddly enough, increasing capacity on water condensers and the like for use on SslaaTwo, and our Nuova Toscana holdings there. All for the most part, quite benign. I’m certain we can get you a manifest if that would assist?”

The thing that by now had them all a bit nervous was the fact that if indeed the man could hear something, it meant the damn Box was doing something. No one wanted it to be doing something. And if it was doing something, how in hell were they going to get it to stop doing something, or at least contain it.

And how were they going to do it without drawing any more attention to it than they already had. Or asking for assistance with something they were beginning to fear might be beyond their control.

Oi, we are so fracking busted ...

“Really?” asks Matthew, scratching his head. In the back of his mind, he was vaguely aware that everyone else seems a bit jumpy for some reason. “That's weird. I suppose it could just be some sort of background echo or something. Then again, there have been cases of perfectly normal items being assembled in such a way that they produce abnormal and often horrible results. Happens sometimes with mad scientists, or with extraplanar entities influencing some poor guy to build an artifact of pure evil. I saw someone do that with a circuit board, a roll of wire, some wood, duct tape, and a box of cornflakes, once. Nearly sucked New Northampton into a nether hell with that. Sorry, I'm rambling, aren't I?”

He pauses to take a breath. “But I'm sure you'd have noticed any sort of fell device sitting around in your lab. It's probably just an echo caused by rearranged furniture or something. You might want to have it looked at, though, before it starts bothering people that the people in charge listen to. They'd probably blow it out of proportion and call in the Anti-Possession Squad or HELLSING.”

Twang.

A flurry of quiet comments broke out at that, both in the common tongue, and otherwise.

“He didn’t have any cornflakes in there, did he?” Marko whispered, looking more than a little horrified at the prospect, only to be elbowed and shushed by those closest to him, looking equally horrified that he’d said anything.

“HELLSING?’ someone else blurted, albeit in a hushed voice. “Sancte Maria madre del dio …”

“Well he certainly did look a tad off—“ whispered another tech, nervously wiping his hands on his pants for no particular reason.

The words ‘nether hell’, ‘extraplanar’, and ‘pure evil’ cropped up faster than Vettori could silence them, though he’d felt a little piece of him sort of shrivel up and die as the list had originally been delivered by the very tired-looking Cetagandan.

“I’m sorry, did you say ‘furniture rearranging?” was what came tumbling out from his own mouth first, and again, he immediately regretted it. Then again, this was Camp-R, and Certain Doom™ on account of improperly deployed Feng Shui would probably be the least odd thing to have happened. He found himself desperately wishing that was all there was to it.

Posession? Merde.

Figuring things could not possibly be salvaged at this point, and that perhaps a bit of assistance might be necessary, and that above all, the good Matthew needed to be … shushed for a bit in any case, until they had a bit more time to do some poking and prodding, and hopefully, for that thrice-damned Ricco to wake up and tell them what in the name of God he’d been messing with, Vettori came to a decision, for good or bad.

“Perhaps there’s something we overlooked. I don’t suppose you’d mind taking a walk with us down to the lab and say, giving it a quick look?”

This of course was met with looks of abject horror and gestures of ‘hell no, dammit’ from the team in general, but he waved them off. “It’d be rude of us to not try to ah, turn off whatever’s bothering you, no? And I’m sure we’ve got some chamomile tea or something we could whip up for you in the meantime …”

“Sure, why not?” he says agreeably. “Better than bothering people in charge, eh? If it's an easy fix, I won't have to bother the infirmary for sleeping pills.” Matthew stands up and gestures for Vettori to lead on.

“Excellent,”Vettori says with a pleasant enough smile, quickly directing a couple of team members to clean up here while the rest head to the lab. With a quick check of the general vicinity to see who might or might not be taking notice, Vettori started on his way, with the others closely following after he and Matthew.

Olivia looked anything but pleased at the prospect of sharing information, especially given their relative lack of information at this point, and several of the others looked nervous about it as well. Of course, they were all fairly nervous over the entire incident as it was, so perhaps a bit more nervousness was moot.

“I admit, we have had a bit of an … odd occurrence of late,” he began as they walked, keeping his voice low, and his pace determined.

Once inside, one of the crew locks the doors firmly behind them as Vettori leads Matthew over to a vault in the back. It takes a moment to get it open, and Vettori’s increasingly shaking hands as he tries to somewhat explain the situation aren’t helping any.

“You see, we’re not entirely sure when he started, or exactly what he was doing,” he finally wrapped up with, opening the vault door slowly. “We just found him naked and raving with … this.”

He pulls the cover off the clear-sided isolation unit resting inside to reveal The Box. It seems somewhat square-ish, taking up about a six inch by six inch by six inch cube of space, and being made of several levels of various types of metal put together in ways that made eyes twitch and heads ache.

Of course while he’s been regaling the Cetagandan with the basics, Olivia has managed to retrieve her potted plant, and now stands directly behind him, poised to make with the dropping. Couldn’t have him in the way and running off at the mouth, after all.

Too late Vettori turns, his eyes going slightly wide, one hand raising as if to protest. Perhaps changing his mind?

The pot falls with a crash, the hapless Cetagandan crumples, and the group all turns to look at the scene with a mix of expressions, including Olivia who looks mildly surprised for some reason.

“… Oops?” she says, looking slightly sheepish, gently prodding Matthew with one toe.

“Oh, we are so very boned,” mutters Vettori, scrubbing one hand through his unruly hair, wincing sympathetically.

And this is the point where the door splinters in with a crashing roar and four bulky special-operative types dressed in olive-drab come streaming through in smooth motions, guns much-too-large raised and pointed at the group. Faceless behind olive-drab facemasks and combat goggles underneath ballistics helmets, whichever one is in charge starts shouting in the kind of voice that not only expects complete cooperation but is also tightly linked to the index finger of the hand wrapped around the grip of his weapon. "EVERYONE WHO ISN'T A FOUL TOOL OF DARK FELL POWERS GET DOWN!"

This requires some explanation.

Camp Restricted, given its extremely secret and high-value missions, has understandably tight security. The kinds that make mice squeak... well, squeak as if pinched, not squeak as if they had just found a nice bit of cheese. Normally the security is in the background: cameras, Mobile Infantrymen checking identification cards and retinas (and biometrics and DNA through the apparently merely polite handshake) at doors, floaty robot drones, ominous turrets with 'OUT OF SERVICE' signs on them that always seem to point in a different direction each day. Ever since the Cetagandans started fooling with normality in the area, and especially ever since their bit of pi-redefining technomancy squelched in a lab and created a minor fractal beast that needed putting down, HELLSING patrols the area. It would just be safe.

First there's this syncopated-clock noise that's jamming up several psiogical sensory levels and drawing complaints. This leads to ramped-up patrols. Then there's reports of a naked Dominioner being carried about and some quiet scuttling. This leads to a suspect.

That there happened to be a HELLSING light armor tac squad just outside the door was not an accident. They snuck up there, in their bulky olive drab field-jacket like fatigues (all worn over form-fitting myomer light armor suits with ballistic plates wherever they wouldn't reduce range of motion), just after the Dominioners had led the Cetagandan in. They expected something to happen, and had the room lit for sound... quite literally, in that they had a suction-cup transduction laser-microphone attached to the door.

Finally, there was the sound of a pot breaking and a thump. Any sort of breaking or thump would have lead them, to kick the door down, but the 'oops' clinched it.

So now four operatives in filled-out fatigues, with HELLSING patches on their left shoulders, have very large and bulky looking assault shotguns with integral microgrenade launchers pointed at the hapless Dominion staff. Without lowering his weapon, the sibling-warrior in charge sighs.

"To the damndest levels of all the hells, the Paragons were right. You Dominioners are heretical servants of the dark powers."

In the mind of at least one person in the room, the thought ‘define dark fell powers’ must have flittered, however briefly.

Olivia screams, covering her head and dropping to a crouch. Several staffers dive under chairs or nearby desks with various colorful epithets. One collapses limply, eyes rolling up in his head in a dead faint. Still another shrieks and begins climbing the back wall trying to get out a door that just isn’t there, his nerves having reached their breaking point. Marko pales and backs up against the isolation unit, then curses and jumps away from it upon remembering what’s inside it, then hides behind Vettori, who’s been caught with one hand still on his head, caught halfway between a curse and a desperate explanation.

He very carefully raises his other hand, lifting the other off his head, partially held up and prevented by getting down entirely by Marko who is peeking out at the intruders from behind him. His knees don't seem to be working anyway. Surely, it is All Over.

Doomed ... oh doomed ...

“Oh now, I protest,” Olivia snipes at the ‘servants of dark powers’ comment, though she most certainly does not get up from her crouching position, sounding rather insulted all the same.

Vettori swallows slowly, then licks his lips nervously, trying several times without success to say something before finally managing in a voice that gets progressively weaker and sounding more desperate by the end. “I don’t suppose we could ah … Goddammit Ercole, would-you-stop-trying-to-claw-your-way-through-the-fucking-wall! That is, discuss this? Without the guns and hysterics? Per favore, mi dispiace … Non so come spiegartelo …”

"Don't shoot!" squeaks Marko, as various others add in their pleas, and prayers, in the common tongue and otherwise, according to individual natures.

It isn't that they're terrible cowards. At least not all of them. But scientists and thinkers, already on edge, and without proper fire power, and on what's considered 'friendly ground', are simply no match for forces well known as Bringers of Doom, and rather enthusiastic ones at that, bearing Big Guns and all too ready to use them in the Pursuit of Goodness and the Prevention of Things That Reek of Squid.

And The Box? Well ... it just sits there. Being boxy.




ooc translation: ”Please, I’m sorry … I don’t know how to explain it to you …”

On the floor, Matthew whimpers slightly at the noise. He curls into a ball when a scrambling tech's foot catches him in the back, and with his eyes still closed, he rubs gingerly at the top of his head. Wincing, he opens one eye and the first thing he sees is one of the looming HELLSING goons. The eye widens, then clenches tightly shut.

"I hate these dreams so much," he mumbles. He rolls onto his back, then stretches out. He opens his eyes again and notices that the goon is still there. "Is this one of those where it seems like I'm not dreaming but I'm really dreaming?" He tries to stand up, but the entire room spins and he plops back down on his ass.

"Did you guys get me drunk or something?" he asks rather plaintively. "My mother warned me about you people." He starts to feel for his wallet, but then the fact that there's four HELLSING troopers in the room sinks in, and he very, very carefully takes his hand away from his pants and, by extension, the wand on his belt.

"You protest, hrmph?" The faceless Doombringer who can be assumed to be in charge lowers his weapon, then plants his nondominant fist on the broad canvas tacbelt snapped over his fatigues jacket, every motion accentuated by the tinkle of shamanic charms of teeth and polished stones. "Concentrated oddity that threatens the whole of existence eminates from your lab, no extranormal research has been declared by your staff, and on top of everything else there's an intern with a concussion on the floor and a broken flower pot?" He gestures with the muzzle of his weapon towards he mess. "And you say you're not some sort of chaotic agent? Hmpf. At least you can follow directions. Sibling Jackson, disarm the mage."

One of the troopers beside the leader steps forward quickly, almost in a lunge, and frees his hand from under his weapon just long enough to grab Matthew's wand and place it in his own belt before stepping back. His weapon, of course, never stops pointing unhealthily somewhere around the middle of Matthew's face.

It should be noted that throughout all this, the other two HELLSING operatives haven't moved, much less lowered their weapons. They don't sweep, they don't line up their guns on different people, they just stand there. A little bit of stress-induced psychosis is expected whenever they show up.

The boss sighs. "Mystic-Specialist? Assensement?" The mispronunciation appears intentional.

The operative on the far right replies, continuing to play statue with everything other than his jaw. "Mystic-Sergeant, auras read as baseline. No taint outside of normal levels. That box there, though, sibling-superior, gives off a strange signature. It is un-normal."

"Dangerous?"

"Not as such. But it is nonplanar and shows signs of the Tinkerer. No read as to intentional harm, though."

The now label-able Mystic-Sergeant steps forward, bends over at the knees a bit, and half-kneels to peer intently at the box. Given that the box has been previously defined as 'eye-slipping' or 'headache-inducing,' this probably indicates the level of mental fortitude indoctrinated into your below-average (he is a light tac-armor facility guard, after all, and not an Assault Armor rapid-responder on an escort carrier) HELLSING noncom. "Hrmph. It doesn't seem to cause san damage." Standing up, he looks at Vettori through the polarized, eyeless lenses of his combat goggles. "You. Explain this thing."

Olivia, while irritated, does have the good sense to shut up after her initial outburst. Just the idea of someone with her religious proclivities and overall uptightness over the whole thing – recent actions notwithstanding, as she planned on confessing at the first available opportunity, having had the group’s best interests at heart, no really – it offended her to the core of her being to be accused of being ‘evil’ or anything of the sort. Let alone be lumped in with the rest of this sorry crew.

Still … no point drawing further attention to oneself. Especially if it resulted in being called out for an explanation like poor Vettori, who she admittedly enjoyed seeing in the hot seat. Another ‘sin’ to confess when the time came.

Vettori lets out a long-suffering sigh, and carefully reaches around to whap Marko firmly alongside his head in a clear ‘let me the hell go you bastard’ fashion, which yields the hoped for response, along with an ‘ow’ and a rather unfavorable muttered comment about Vettori’s sexual proclivities.

The idiot who’d panicked and tried to escape out the back turns around with wide eyes and just sort of shrinks down along the wall to curl up in a little ball, peering out at the operatives with wide eyes. 'Not as such' in answer to ‘dangerous’ line of questioning. No bullets flying. Good enough.

Others settled a bit once it became apparent that while still being menaced, bullets weren’t flying just yet, and explanations had been asked for. Alright, demanded, but still, talk was preferred to being shot.

Un-normal. Everything about this whole goddamn base is un-normal. Taint? Well Christ, Ricco made it, of course it’s fucking tainted, the freaky bastard. Who the hell is the Tinkerer? Nonplanar whafu?

A near continual line of internal ranting monologue fills Vettori’s head as he tries to grasp for the words that will magically get him out of this mess. Of course, given his luck and the way things tend to pan for him, save for that one flash of brilliance that landed his sorry ass here to begin with, which in retrospect could be seen as the initial bad turn all things considered, no such answer is forthcoming, and he ends up falling back on the worst possible answer for this particular scenario.

“You know,” he says with a mildly disjointed laugh, shaking his head, then dropping his hands just low enough to scrub nervously through his hair for a moment, then perhaps foolishly gestures helplessly, hands going wide. He shrugs, giving the HELLSING team an incredulous look, though he doesn’t quite dare lower his hands. Seeing as it is All Over, he figures he hasn’t got much to lose.

“I really, and I do mean really wish I could tell you, but the fact is I haven’t the faintest idea what the hell it is, what it does, or exactly how or even why it got made. I just don't know. And the only guy who can probably shed some light on the whole goddamn mess is currently blitzed outta his mind and suffering what I’m told is a mild concussion. It sure as shit isn’t on our list of ‘things to do’, I’ll tell you what. And the sooner we get it figured out, and the hell outta my hair, the happier I'll be, for however long it takes for something else to go wrong.”

The Mystic-Sergeant nods and, somehow, from behind his absolutely characterless mask and goggles, seems to evaluate Vettori as honest, well out of his league, and probably useless to question further.

He looks down at Olivia, who has been far too rational throughout this whole thing. "You. Add to it if you can. Failing that or not, explain the mage with the concussion and the flowerpot."

Olivia glares from under the cover of her arms, having the presence of mind to be slow and deliberate about rising back to her feet.

“It’s all the fault of that thrice-damned sodomite Riccardo Borghese – whom, I might add, have filed reports on before, to no avail. Doubtless Vettori there has been covering for him,” she snips, shooting the other man a scathing look. Finally, someone taking her seriously. Even if they were spooky as sin.

“He’s been acting oddly for some time now, and was supposed to be seeing a counselor about his more annoying new habits, something our fearless leader here failed to properly follow up on. Not that any of these others have been much use, mind.”

Vettori had long since become nigh unto immune to the barrage of insults and accusations Lady Ice was prone to hurl whenever she was annoyed, right or wrong, so as the woman continues, he just shrugs, mutters something about ‘in more desperate need of a lay than any ten women combined’, and leans back against the isolation chamber looking tired.

Several others mutter darkly and shoot Olivia dirty looks, still not daring to risk possible confrontations with the HELLSING operatives all the same.

“So when we found out he’d been lying about his visits, we tracked him down to the lab, where he’d barricaded himself in, loaded himself up with God only knows what all manner of sinful substances, started running around in shameful nakedness – something I could have died quite happily without ever having seem thank you very much – and the next thing we know, he’s fallen and knocked his fool self out and left us with … whatever that thing there is. I had nothing to do with the monstrosity. Given the disgusting bent Borghese’s mind tends to take, no doubt it ought to be destroyed at once. I mean my God, even if it doesn’t do anything bad, he was naked with it. Who knows what sick things he was up to?” she says, the last thought leaving her simply aghast.

And then of course, she’s reminded of the question concerning the flower pot, and she tones down her attitude somewhat.

“Well, I was moving my plant and one thing lead to another, and I just … sort of … dropped it,” she trails off, shrugging slightly and giving Matthew a sympathetic look.

Maybe it's something in the way his jaw shifts, but one can literally see the Mystic-Sergeant's eyebrow raising. HELLSING is supposed to be running around calling people evil and agents of the dark powers, not civilians. And with the haste to accuse, and the emphasis on how dirty nudity is... he looks over at the Mystic-Specialist. "Dropped it. Right. I'm guessing... suppressed Slaaneshi?"

"Tightly," the Mystic-Specialist nods. "If it's a cover, sibling-Sergeant, she's good, because her aura reads 'prude.' The fell powers work in strange ways, though, and the most zealous can become unwitting agents through their blind zeal."

"Right then. Sibling Jackson, Sibling Hayabuse, take that woman down to central for a more proper debriefing." The HELLSING soldiers finally drop their weapons, stomp forward, and take Olivia by the shoulders before marching off. Resistance is futile and protests ignored. "Mystic-Specialist, start probing that box, carefully mind, lest--"

"Yes, lest it taint my mind." The adept chuckles. "Sibling-Sergeant, I am well aware of the risks. Shall I call the OPO in to help investigate?"

"Only if it seems harmless enough. If it truly is a work of some fell subterfuge, then we'll need the Smiting Hammer."

"Because we're in tac-armor, sibling-Sergeant, I humbly remind you that the Smiting Hammer is in my psychic pocket."

"If we work together, we can weild it. Snap to it, sibling-Adept."

The Mystic-Sergeant sighs again, then turns back to Vettori with a didactic tone. "There are procedures duly in place because this sort of thing can and does happen. Just a few weeks ago we had to clean up a mess the Cetagandans made. Do you know why you didn't hear about it? It's because you're not a gibbering maniac right now."

He shakes his head. "You wanted a cover-up, well, you got one." Slipping one gloved hand into his upper left fatigues pocket, he pulls out a folded form and thrusts it at Vettori. "If you don't want this to go straight up past the Flag Colonel to CINCMATCOM and Central Dogma, HELLSING, you're going to read this and sign it. Basically, it's a warning saying that you didn't follow procedure and will, on risk of your immortal soul, follow procedure to the letter from here on out. Of course, the matter concerning assault we leave to the intern, as that is a mundane matter for mundane base security."

Thinking for a moment, the HELLSING officer pulls a pouch out of his lower-right fatigues pocket and tosses it to Matthew. "Put it on the back of your head and it'll keep down the meningal swelling. Lots of nice non-habit-forming combat narcos to kill the pain, too. Go home, get some sleep, and don't forget to say your prayers."

Then back to Vettori. "If our initial assensement comes out that the box isn't threatening, then the Office of Psionic Operations will come in to properly investigate it. Your lab is not properly warded, so we may need a mobile warded isolation container or, barring that, have to confiscate said box so it can be put in a more secure location. Will there be any trouble with that?"

Oliva clearly hasn’t a clue what they’re going on about, though the insinuation she’s somehow ‘tainted’ soon has her spluttering angrily, which soon turns to more concern, then real worry as she’s marched out of the room.

The rest of the team busy themselves looking elsewhere, gradually relaxing and getting to their feet. One smartass briefly applauds. Definitely no love lost there on anyone’s part.

“I don’t suppose they’ll bring her back any nicer?” is whispered and quickly shushed by yet another small grouping.

Overall, they watch with a mix of horrified fascination, nervousness, and a healthy appreciation for the safety of their own hides. Of course they’re curious – creation after all, is what they do. Then again, they had seen Ricco pretty much off his rocker, and they’d just had their lab broken into by HELLSING – something they had never in their wildest dreams thought they’d need fear.

Vettori nods slightly at the first explanation, figuring knowing the Cetagandans, anything was possible, so talk of ‘messes’ was not completely unexpected. This was Camp-R after all – Weird ‘R Us central. The fact that neither he nor the others quite understood a good deal of what the heavily-armed strangers were going on about complicated things a bit, however. And then there was the signing.

“Now … wait just a moment here. This is not authorized activity,” he said slowly, glancing at The Box. “And we were trying to get some answers ourselves before you and your boys went all … medieval on our laboratory door. I don’t recall re-ah-requesting assistance, and I don’t think I’m prepared to sign anything binding until I’ve had the chance to consult our law—er, people about the possible implications,” he continues, brow furrowing further, a nervous swallow breaking his answer at least once as he fidgeted under the Mystic-Sergeant’s watchful eye.

“Re—regardless, this is Dominion s—sovereign property, and while I’m certain we would be more than happy to accept some assistance,” here he casts another nervous glance at the decidedly big guns the group is sporting. “In ah … making certain nothing say, untoward happens”

Talk about your rock and a hard place, he couldn’t help but grouse. Either they were gonna kill him, or the home office would for exposing the lab to more outside scrutiny than was helpful, let alone losing any and all rights to the first truly unique object to come out of their group to the biggest group of literal spooky spooks he’d heard of.

“Can’t we just … I don’t know. Wait for that damned Ricco to wake the hell up and enlighten us? Surely we don’t need to make such a fuss …” His expression is less than hopeful. In fact he’s starting to look like a man readying himself for a walk to the firing squad.

Matthew accepts the pouch and affixes it to his head. He listens as the sergeant and Vettori argue about the Box, while climbing to his feet. “Um, actually, doctor, this lab isn't sovereign, and neither is the thingy in any way I can think of, except maybe as intellectual property somehow.” Then, probably because he's still a bit groggy, he keeps going. "Although, the way I hear it that so-called incident he's talking about was perfectly safe and contained until they started poking about and raving about fell beasts. Also, I definitely wouldn't sign anything about souls without a theological legal expert's advice - did you even get training on proper procedures for these situations? Further, they'll probably smash the Box just because they never get to use that hammer.”

He eyes the officer, and quickly adds, “Um. Not that you guys aren't really swell, and, um, wonderful upstanding warriors against fracticality, but you do, um, tend to be, um...a bit over-zealous? Just a bit? Maybe?” He gets quieter as he goes on, until deciding that this might be a good time stop.

Around the same time, the best part of eleven AU distant...

Maethor sighed in irritation and looked at the recalcitrant device again. It simply refused to work. It was intended to be a slimline displacer with four percent greater energy efficiency. It had worked when in a larger frame, but this cut down version simply refused to work. He’d fired the thing fifteen times, already. It was meant to transfer a cylinder of water from one beaker to another, across the desk. To call that task ‘not strenuous’ was evidently some sort of joke. There were micro-units that could do that just fine.

The same two characteristic spikes of activity showed up on the power use diagram, two hundred and fifty microseconds apart but nothing ever happened.

Perhaps the rotational velocity of the ring was the problem, but it really shouldn’t have been. More likely the damn thing was malfunctioning…The ring in question was the one around Venus, and though his office and lab was deep inside it, and thus didn’t have the fine views most of them did.

He decided to give it one more shot, with a few extra megajoules to toy with in its energy-sinks. He turned a dial slightly on the power linkage console, a rather more precise device than most connections, “Twelve point four oh nine meg,” he mused, “What the hell would you use that much for?”

He hit the ‘activate’ button on the control panel, which looked out behind the window a sealed and shielded control room, at the obstreperous device.

Nothing.

He sighed, and opened the door to the room containing the thing. It looked like a squared off torus, or an oversized polo mint, about three hand-spans across. Wires trailed from inside the hole, off the test-desk.

He checked the plugs, with a resigned sigh, and gave the cantankerous thing a slap. It moved a fraction of an inch. Growling in annoyance, Maethor decided to give it one last go before heading back to the drawing board with the thing to try and work it out.

He waited for the door to close and pressed the button.

Nothing seemed to happen, save the distant echo of a breach alarm. Maethor blinked, as several doors closed automatically.

That was weirdly coincidental. But then, if there were never coincidences, life would be really weird. He almost dismissed it, but some nagging instinct told him to check with the computers.

He brought up the graphs, and looked. How… strange. The breach, tiny, and already corrected, had occurred one hundred and fifty kilometres away, on one of the windows looking out to space. It had also occurred exactly seven hundred and fifty microseconds after the second activity pulse of this cycle.

How curious…

The HELLSING sergeant tries to scratch his head through his helmet. "Wait. You're saying that we're the ones who made this situation? And you're the one who got assaulted." He looks over at the Mystic-Sergeant. "Is he all right?"

"He will be, Sibling-Sergeant. Still..." The mage taps his helmet. "He does have a point, sir. The box isn't sanity damaging, bar perhaps the creator, and stranger things have happened here. Safely, even."

"I would still feel better with an isolation box put around that... thing." The pause just holds enough time to hold a silent 'fell.' "And that paper signed." Glare at Vettori. "It's nothing that you shouldn't have been doing anyway. People would think you Dominioners have something against, you know, occasionally working with others sometime. 'Sweet Jesus, a problem, let's cover it up.' We can all see where that got you." Grumbling, he pauses. "I'm monologuing again, aren't I?"

"Yes, Sibling-Sergeant."

The trooper in charge sighs, then mutters something into his throat mic. "I'm having my warrior-siblings bring back an isolation box. We'll put that" he nods with his head "into it and leave it here, but on a lock so only a designated HELLSING or OPO officer can unlock it. That way you get to make sure it doesn't walk off, and we get to make sure it won't eat the base. Fair deal?"

To poor Matthew, Vettori offers a sheepish sort of half grin, rather apologetic in his expression. “Sorry about the head, man. Hope that clears up quick – and thanks. At this point, I’d just like to get it solved. Without undue smashings and bashings and such, if at all possible … In any case, buy you a drink later – so long as you’re up for it?”

Then he sighs and shakes his head, replying to the HELLSING folks. “You boys have got it all sorts of wrong. Like I said, or someone said, at some point – this wasn’t an authorized project, so I know it shouldn’t have gotten to this point. None of us is quite sure what got Ricco going on it, or how he managed to be so damn resourceful in taking it this far. I mean, we all have our private interests, but usually they don’t result in naked ravings, capisce?”

He gestures as he continues, looking a mix of perplexed, irritated, and somewhat morose. “So all this ‘working with’ people kind of falls a bit flat – there shouldn’t have been anything of that sort going on to work with in the first place. As for the cover-up statement, I’d prefer it be noted it was a ‘cover our asses’ effort while we tried to figure out what in hell the damn thing was, so we could get some idea who we needed to talk to if we needed to talk to them before we went screaming through the hallways that we needed help because one of our folk had a bit of a mental skip.”

“It’s clear enough this thing isn’t ‘right’ exactly, and if it is anything of an unnatural sort, it’s probably a little out of our realm of experience. Being the case, so long as we can avoid further disruption or destruction of the lab, and no one is going to get their asses shot off, or pushed out an airlock on the next transport out of this madhouse, yeah, I suppose we could see our way clear to accepting your assistance. We don’t want anything bad happening on account of anything one of ours have done either. I would appreciate being kept in the loop at least, as much as possible. Be nice to learn a thing or two about this mystical shit, and I’d like to know what I can tell my superiors about it – and what I can throttle that damn Ricco over once he recovers.” He pauses, looks over the paperwork again, and frowns.

“I wasn’t aware of some unspoken ‘procedure’ before, and I’m not entirely sure as to what this ‘procedure’ entails now, so until that’s spelled out a bit more clearly, mi dispiace, Signores but I ain’t signing shit.” A pause, and then in a quiet voice, “You can keep the Ice Queen. Woman’s been a pain in our collective asses since day one. Aside from her calculations, which are unfortunately, impeccable.”

Long suffering sigh.

"I'm not leaving until this gets signed, but here's what it enumerates." He looks down at the paper with his goggles, striking an unusual figure--tac-armored marine reading a bit of paperwork like a cubicle drone. "One: report suspicious behavior to Camp authorities so they can set up appropriate observation. Two: if you plan on making anything odd, let Camp authorities know. Three: if something odd happens, let Camp authorities know. Four: violation of these rules may be cause for expulsion or less severe administrative punishment as determined by the severity of the infraction and the will of the commanding officer.

"Really no different than what was in the initial handbook and that giant sheath of rules and regulations you had to theoretically read and sign. All common sense, really." He hands the paper back to Vettori, a bit more gently this time, then looks over at Matthew. "Do you plan on following up on any charges of assault, because I'm sure there are plenty of witnesses here I could get statements from."

First flooding the lab, and the hallways beyond, then Olivia rubbing Matyus the wrong way, now this idiocy on account of Ricco … I wonder if I could sign, then get a transfer. Something quiet. Like Sslaa where all they have to worry about are rampant aliens and scorching heat. Or Mars. Yeah.

“Right, right,” he says aloud, frowning and writing out his signature with a bold flourish before continuing , the middle bit in a horrendously stereotypical intentionally over the top accent. “Alert authorities at the first sign of ‘Help-a, help-a, wessa alla gonna die-a’. Mi dispiace,. As I’ve said, this was a bit of a first. And God willing, the last.”

At the mention of charges, his shoulders slump a bit. Ah well, bound to happen really. At least they could blame Olivia. He doubted anyone on the team would say otherwise.

“We will be kept in the loop, yes? It’s not every day we come up with something, albeit accidentally, to warrant HELLSING’s attention.”

"Press charges? Well, yeah. I mean, this place is dangerous enough without people cracking bystanders who are trying to help over the head with things," says Matthew in reply. He then says to Vettori, "No offense, but she really needs some kind of anger-management counseling or something. I feel sorry for you guys if she's always like that."

Command Compartment
Research Cruiser Clark Terrell
Middle of Nowhere

Chief Engineer Kyoshi, uncharacteristically, sighs. "Flipped Turtle Nine ready for launch, sir."

Baha'uddin raises his head off his hand just long enough to make an idle 'go for it' gesture, then once again uses his arm as a pillar to support his head atop the armrest of his chair. "Launch."

The gynoid avatar, oddly enough, looks as tired as the rest of them. "Ten seconds to impact. Six, five, four, three, two, one. Impact."

On the forward screen, a little flash, as normal, and then the wave, as normal. The brilliant white wave, leaving a trail of glowing phosphorescence in its wake, overtakes the sphere of the planet in a circle that first expands, crosses the great circle whose plane is normal to the axis of impact, then contracts, closing up on the opposite end with a slight flash.

"Working so far," reports Grey from her science station, "matter conversion reaction phase gone through, planetary diameter decrease within nominal levels... oh dear." She sighs. "We're still getting a lot of neutrino radiation. It looks like the energy density is... yup. We have light-element fusion."

What was yet another lifeless planetoid burns with stellar fire, a white dwarf far too small to be believed.

"Format," S.H.O.D.A.N. mutters to herself quietly, not without a hint of anger.

"Well, look at it this way, your Majesty," Diniyyun says with a smirk, "at least it didn't eat the entire planet this time. Hell, Admiral," he looks up at Smith, "I bet the Ticks are getting far more than they paid for. We've so far got at least, what, five flavors of planetbuster out of this thing?"

The mechanoid queen stands up, brushes some imaginary dust off the top of her legs, and sighs. "Back to the drawing board, then. I thought some of the coefficients of conversion I was using may have been a bit too low, but they made terms divide out so nicely..."

"Well, that planet's... uhm... dividing out nicely." The captain frowns. "Wait, it's fusion. Forget it. I'm not even up to making witty remarks at your expense anymore."

"You're right, Captain," S.H.O.D.A.N. says with a dry but oddly friendly smirk, "that one was rather subpar. Not like the planet-eater one."

"I am but a man," Baha'uddin says with a shrug. "And I was afraid of this thing working three months ago, and now I can't say something intelligent when it turns a planet into a microstar. Should fade into... what... a carbonized rock? Wrong constitution for an IR dwarf?"

Grey nods. "Still, it's something no one's seen before so it is science."

"It won't be carbonized," Shodey muses, "no carbon. However, given its high silicate content, it may end up being perfectly glassed... well, 'perfectly' based on local gravitational irregularities due to irregular mass distributions. It should end up looking like a well-polished marble. If we're lucky, all that heat won't crack the crust--and we should be, as it lacks any mantle or tectonics--and there won't be any cracks to mar it."

"That'd be pretty," Baha'uddin muses. "What color will it be?"

"Turquoise, perhaps, given the overall constituents, with streaks of whatever minerals are near the surface?"

"That'd be really pretty." The captain nods. "Well, clear the bridge. Anyone not running the ship can see the show from the labs."

* - * - *

Dominion Lab
Camp Restricted

The two nondescript HELLSING troopers return, carrying a large arcane-looking box between them. They lift it up in unison, flip open the lid, walk over to The Box, pick it up gingerly, and put it in the occult container before slamming down the lid. Clamps energized with an energy not of the kind one would find in science textbooks immediately slap down with loud thudding BANGs well outside of what would be expected, given their size, and seem to self-weld in place with a glow as firey runes appear in the air over each one, then blow away on the wind.

"Yes, you'll be in the loop," the sergeant says, "we're just going to be paranoid about when the loop gets opened up again. Anyway, son," he says to Matthew, "we'll take you to Base Security so you can make a statement." He looks over the assorted Dominion scientists with his goggles. "Would any of you like to offer witness testimony, as I assume y'all saw it?"

Consensus is, unspoken, that if it’s Olivia taking the fall, that’s all fine and well. It’s not as though anything was actually verbally agreed on …

Most of the crew however, sheepishly admit that their attention was rather on The Box, with the exception of Vettori and a couple others nearby who caught the action as it happened. They watch the removal of the mysterious object with a mix of relief, curiosity, and oddly enough, wistfulness. After all, what sort of researchers would they be if they weren’t a least a bit interested in finding out what the damn thing did – even if the prospect gave them the chills in a very much not good way.

“Yeah, I suppose if a witness is needed, I did see her do it,” Vettori says reluctantly after the others have confirmed what they can on it. Apparently there’s stasis boxes, and then there’s HELLSING stasis boxes. Hopefully this one would let the poor Cetagandan sleep.

In checking with medical, Ricco appears stable enough, but still out for the count – which, given the increasingly sour mood of his boss, is probably for the best, for him at least.

“So do you need us for anything else, or can we get down to the unpleasant task of writing up our reports?”

"Nope," the sergeant says, "that should pretty much cover it. Peace be with you."

And then they're gone. Maybe they used the door really quickly and smoothly, maybe they disappeared with a slight pop. Either way, Matthew has his wand back in his hand and any sign that HELLSING were here, short of the rune-encrusted box on the table, is completely gone.

"Creepy paranoid lunatics," Matthew mutters. He gingerly touches his sore spot and winces, then looks at Vettori. "I'm gonna go down to security and then head for the infirmary. If you need any help with the, the, the Box-thingy, just give me a call. It looks more interesting than paperwork, and I don't see any reason to hold that woman against the rest of you." With that, he heads off to talk with the proper authorities.

The Kajali team has been hard at work.

Really. Working. Hard.

Which is why Dr. Lesaan is sitting in a corner, in a comfy chair, with something that looks suspiciously like a water pipe of some sort.

It is, of course, several feet tall, and Lesaan periodically emits globes of smoke - so formed partly from a sweetish sticky substance and also through abuse of a AG field generator he's borrowed from Iu-knows-where.

Meanwhile, some device somewhere on base is fabricating an emitter for WALNUT, which has now been retitled Wide Area Subspace Particle System, or WASPS, which really, doesn't make all that much sense. Lesaan's own reports have already changed the name again, within which WALNUT is referred to as the Subspace Phase Assembly, turning into SPA. Add a Z to that, and you've likely got Analton's current condition, as he recieves reports about the same thing, each with a different name.

When it comes down to it, however, the last test shook the local area rather... violently, and a series of cracks and pieces of wall are visible around the installation site of a brand new poster in the Kajali lab. Notably, however, the test device itself is still intact.

The emitter being fabricated for large scale testing will, itself, just barely fit into the cargo hold of Lesaan's apportioned corvette, which is, aside from some high level modifications to the ship's sensory equipment, a stock 'trix, identical in appearance to the one that had landed in New Katagan recently, and practically every other event that Imperatrix Keral had attended in recent memory.

Dr. Hammuh is, disturbingly, sitting in the opposite corner, assisting Lesaan in smoking what he's been calling a siis'ha. That the word is pronounced identically to shisha is simple coincidence.

Occasionally he'll poke the smoke bubbles, which explode like the Death Star, complete with planar ring, again, thanks to the GFG in the middle of the room.

At the other end of the room, two of the small emitters have been set up and fed small amounts of power. The GFG is _supposed_ to be isolating them from the rest of the lab, but hey, it's multitasking.

Those two emitters in the corner are currently arcing plasma between each other, which itself flows in a loop that just appears wrong, as it flows out of both emitters at once and then... back again... but not.

This conundrum in the corner is also two feet tall.

"So, I was thinkin'... What if you could make, you know... the full sized ones... do that?"

"'s Shiny."

"well, yeah. And... uh..."

"Wrong."

"And AWESOME."

Lesaan's siis'ha is normally intended for more than just flavored tobacco. Right now, however, that's exactly what's in it.

For once.

Lesaan's apportioned Imperatrix class corvette is, essentially, a staple of the fleet. It offers comfortable accommodation for a family of four out exploring the galaxy in the name of science, and assuming, again, a crew of four, once supplied one of these corvettes is good for about a year before it really, really needs to return and resupply.

Power is normally supplied by a minifusion stack, which makes itself at home somewhere above the cargo bay, at the base of the two segments of hull that extend aft and are connected by the nacelle holding the sublight engine. Accommodations themselves are fairly generous for a ship of this size, normally, though the mission profile has reduced those aboard Lesaan's to "decent", though the cargo hold is about twice the size it'd be otherwise.

There are four passenger cabins, one for Lesaan, and two for his underlings to bunk in, while the fourth, mostly unused, though at current looking like a bit of an extra storage space, counts, technically, as a guest room.

Somehow, the boxes of knick-knacks and clutter have been cleared aside, or at the least, moved somewhere else in the cabin, or are now sitting outside the door, behind things, or generally exactly where they were before, and there's actually a small bed and desk visible, and more importantly, accessible, within the cabin.

There are no windows, however, and the only transparent surface is a relatively thick sheet of transparent armorplas in the cockpit. Kajali starship design normally holds that windows and viewports and the like are, more often than not, decompression hazards, and to be avoided when possible.

Technically, the transparent armorplas canopy for the cockpit justifies itself by virtue of allowing the pilot to see where he's flying the ship, in theory.

If he could ever see over the nose of the thing.

Clutter aside, the small ship gives every indication of having been lived in for the past two years, and occasionally stacks of old and junk mail are found on things, or tucked behind consoles, with addresses that are invariably private or government hangars. That they're even printed on paper is even more ludicrous - normally, Lesaan's correspondence consists of some bloke in the government sending prerecorded messages to be delivered by SYSNET platforms when the small craft is detected within transmission range.

Now, since the cargo hold is more or less dominated by the subspace phase assembly emitter, the other items that were living in there look almost trivial. The ship's laundry room is still, of course, a complete mess, and there's a basket of laundry in the midst of a few more piles of laundry scattered about. The cockpit itself has some old shirts and lab coats scattered about the place, as well as the remains of some meal long forgotten gracing one of the consoles.

The consoles themselves are, of course, standard Kajali fare, which, aside from coloration, is stunningly generic and reconfigurable as desired as soon as one can figure out what the default buttons _say_.

Lesaan is, of course, sipping on a cup of some type of tea, and also given that it is more or less the middle of the night, the rest of his underlings are either in their bunks or in the ship's small mess, which itself is possessed of a fair chunk of dishes to be cleaned.

Of course, for the duration of the Kajali team's absence, Lesaan has graciously provided certain persons full access to the two _working_ rifle-sized emitters currently sitting in the Kajali lab.

That all said, Lesaan is waiting at the end of the ramp into the ship's cargo bay for a certain Commander Curuvar, under the pretense that once they get this honking huge thing setup on that thar planetoid designated for the ship scale testing, that he'd be 'supervising' the test, to ensure that it proceeds according to standards and doesn't somehow manage to vaporize the entire planetoid.

When he finally arrives, the first thing he'd likely notice is the condition of the ship's exterior plating. There's a particularly nasty looking dent along the rear port fairing, and some scorching and scratching further along, including what looks like a strike from some sort of weapon on the underside of the main hull.

None of it seems to have compromised the hull or operational capabilities of the ship, but it may or may not be slightly unsettling.

Of course, that one can see stacks and stacks of cardboard boxes wedged and/or crushed under the SPA device doesn't help either, and the ship certainly doesn't _smell_ sterile, instead having a scent more like an apartment than anything...

Analton has lived in the Segments long enough to not be more than aesthetically put off by dings, scratches, and dents on spacecraft. If it actually has a dent and isn't in a million billion pieces, obviously it survived and is well-built. This is a good thing. That it doesn't have the flowing organic beauty of Menelmacari compound curves is, well, unfortunate but something he can get over and has been getting over for the past few decades. The gym-sock smell on the inside is a different matter; rather than hitting his twitchy nerves, though, it just makes him diffidently uncomfortable (what's left unsaid in his mind is how someone like him should put up with such a slob). Needless to say this is an unprofessional reaction, and he hides it quite well under a very formal air of imperturbability.

Still, it's not like any of this is unexpected anymore at this rate. The reports with conflicting acronyms, the general slovenliness of the operation, the fraternization with TEAM MELTA... at least he had the good fortune in the past of being paired up with non-socially retarded professionals, even if Weapons-Hrragh was something of an ambiguously gay ratcat that dressed like a fop from a thousand years ago and Destruction of Exergy was just on this side of the 'kill all meatbags' debate.

Approaching the ramp, he simply nods--"Good evening"--and folds his hands behind his back as he takes a cursory look from his vantage point. "This will do. Carry on, Doctor."

“Are you ready Doctor?”

Lieutenant-Major Talis surveyed the hard cases, suitcases, transport bags and medical containers spread over and around the central surgical suite which dominated the Conflict Carrier South Central Rain’s sickbay. He tugged slightly at his uniform jacket whilst fairly sure the Ensign assigned to help standing behind was less than impressed with the number and weight of the equipment to be moved. Still the former ship’s Chief Medical Officer was fairly sure the luggage constituted the bare minimum required and as such, struggled to find sympathy.

“That’s everything Ensign,” Talis concluded, turning to address his subordinate whilst catching the slightest lingering of a frown on the younger Kaeneian’s face. Many of the Lieutenant-Major’s colleagues in the Defence Solarri’s Medical Services Department swore that despite undergoing the rigours of basic capability training (as all military personnel, enlisted or commissioned were so required to do) and the very same command capability training senior officers were put through, mainline career crew all viewed Kaeneians like Talis to be glorified Family Doctors who somehow studied rather than earned their commissions.

Despite being rational and inured to whisperings, he couldn’t deny such talk had a point in reality.


“All personnel for Titan drop to starboard hangar bay; departure at eighteen hundred hours precisely.”

Talis started for the bulkhead door, the hiss of retracting servos possibly obscuring the otherwise audible indignance of the junior Ensign as he set about retrieving the Doctor’s personal effects, equipment and supplies and probably wondered whether four years of training, and the promise of a minimum of ten years of service had been worth it to end up a glorified attendant.








The undersized, oval-shaped viewing ports which lined the transfer tube allowed for a limited view out towards the inky void of space beyond the end of the starboard upper flight pod. Second-LieutenantTehera slowed to a standstill as she took in the view. No stranger to service on a Conflict Carrier she’d been up on the flight pod runway many times, but usually only via the numerous elevators which ferried Engagement fighters, transport shuttles and small auxiliary vessels from the hangar deck below. The Astral-class science monitor which Tehera was to board was a far larger affair--taking up much of the free space in the upper pod and requiring her first use of a transfer tube.

Said Astral-class, the Endurance, was the first of a relatively small and aging class of medium-range science monitors capable of planetary ascent and landing. Part still of a small and ever-shrinking compliment of starships belong to the Department of Science and not the Kaeneian Defence Force. With decommissioning a necessary evil of any space frame, and the continual poor focus of resources into non-military shipbuilding the Department of Science was forced to make do and save complaining for annual conferences and debates.

Yet another reminder of the struggle for scientific freedom to explore lay in the uniform and service Tehera nominally belonged to. With such a pathetic number of ships (none of which were capable of long-range independent operation save for a handful of the almost-relic Explorer-class) and the requirement for trained personnel in the ever-vital fields of astro-navigation, stellar cartography, astrometrics and any number more prospective scientists and researchers faced only one real choice--enrol in any number of military-endorsed or supported scholar programmes and become commissioned officers so as to serve on Defence Solarri vessels and Defence Terra stations and therefore fulfil the Kaeneian Defence Force’s need for scientific assistance.

For the majority, this was a necessary evil. Once one had been commissioned a great deal of scientific study was available for although most served aboard military ships, actual conflict was rare and much time was spent on routine patrols and sector-mapping. With such prolonged “down” time between mass mobilisations the majority of a Conflict Carrier’s sensors, (limited) laboratories and computational capabilities were available for use.

After a standard term of service (usually an uninterrupted decade) one could resign their commission honourably, and with service fulfilled would be able to secure resources for independent study and research. A few even found the tight regulations and repetition of military life a boon to their scientific mindset and achieved promotion and success as military scientists.

As a Second-Lieutenant seven years through her first term, Tehera was clearly not one of those Kaeneians; one step above the rank of Ensign and the second step on a commissioned officer’s promotion ladder.

She was however, a talented scientist and one of the foremost quantum physicists the Serene Union laid claim to. Why precisely she was now being transferred to Titan however, escaped her. Whilst never enthusiastic for her military “career”, she was always diligent in its execution and transfer to a foreign base was hardly a likely reprimand. The appearance of the Endurance alongside a number of other experts (far higher than a standard Conflict Carrier’s scientific compliment) pointed to an operation in the offing. Giving the Great Black beyond the observation ports one final glance, she resolved to speed up her enlightenment.






Caese almost winced as the corrugated, metal-grey box marked “FRAGILE CONTENTS” was unceremoniously dropped the last few inches onto one of the last free areas making up the primary cargo bay of the Endurance. The two Adepts of the South Central Rain turned to look at him, their eyebrows slightly raised and eyes fixed.

“Ah … Nothing else,” the wizened Kaeneian replied with a wave of his gnarled hand. Already somewhat stooped in his stature Caese studied the container for any signs of damage whilst his temporary help excused themselves with business-like nods. Seeing nothing, he let out a small sigh of relief. The computational equipment contained in the vast mountains of transport containers surrounding him was some of the most unique in the experience of the Department of Science--there was no surprise one would find the least appreciating of its uniqueness in the KDF.

The Kaeneian flexed his wrists, though where one might expect the crack of joints, the almost imperceptible whir of cybernetic replacements was faintly audible. Indeed in combination with the medical technologies available to those of senior age in the Serene Union the steel cane carried by Caese was a positive archaism.

Having spent eighty years of work, recreation and living around computers and their systems it always seemed prudent to fall back on the tangible wherever possible.

Caese tensed his shoulders together as he squeezed through the narrow aisle marking the only space left free in the hold dividing the embarked cargo into two halves. What little of the actual bay which remained in sight required one to crane their neck; high walls where peeling and faded white paint interspersed dull metal and furthered the general state of dilapidation. The old Kaeneian has wryly remarked to the Endurance’s Commanding Officer that the Astral-class had entered production before he had finished his Secondary Education Certificate some fifty four years ago.

A piercing two-tone blast interspersed with the accumulated static of a well maintained but aging tannoy system heralded the imminent departure warning. Taking a final glance to make sure everything was adequately secured the tapping of his cane against the burnished decking saw Cease venture towards the bulkhead.






“There’s no mistake?”

Staff Flight-Adept Meya shook her head after consulting the data node for the fourth time; “This is our berth sir.”

“No wonder these weren’t in the deck plans,” the Flight Technician muttered with a slight shake of the head. “This was a botanical laboratory.”

Meya cast her eyes around their new home-from-home aboard the Endurance with a mixture of disbelief and weariness. The hasty transformation of the room from Botany to bunks was plain for any to see; the hastily and harshly painted white walls, the mass of silvery piping terminating in misters and sprinklers still hanging from the roof, the empty anchor points bolted to the floor decking for incubators and the odd inclusion of an expansive sink unit against the north wall.

For Flight Technician Severan the most telling sign of this room’s original intention was instead of the bunks common to the Astral-Class’ which were integrated into the wall and descended to provide computer access and terminal connectivity when not in use, there stood against two of the walls portable bunk-bed frames hastily bolted directly to their respective walls and decking. Most certainly not integrated into the wall alcoves, and most likely scarcely able to provide a good night’s rest let alone terminal connectivity.

The pair’s dismay was doubled by the arrival of the Endurance’s other two newly-assigned hands, with Sanbernardi the first to illustrate his feeling.

“Too late for a transfer back?”

Sanbernardi’s shorter compatriot shrugged her shoulders; “We drew the short straw.”

Severan raised an eyebrow and pulled his attention away from their accommodation problems, “What do you mean?”

“I saw the logistics report at Sunrise,” the Enlisted Kaeneian explained. “Since the Astral-class was never designed to act as a semi-self sufficient transport and base of operations her data storage facilities were woefully insufficient for the prospective operation. With these ships not being the largest or the most redundant in terms of space they stripped out two or three of the guest berths and retro-fitted data drives piled to the ceilings.”

“Since we apparently rank behind both the operating crew and the scientific quota, and requiring us for the manual labour, odd jobs and the such they had to put us somewhere. Turns out our operation won’t require the use of a Botany lab …”

Maya squinted at the ceiling, “At least we won’t have to leave our bunks to get showered.”




Captain Reizeger picked the last spot of synthetic leather from the armrest of his command chair, a hand running through his cropped black hair as he watched the legs of his pilot shifting beneath the opened innards of the helm console. The clatter of a particularly large component falling to the decking from the access panel coincided with a section of the control runes on its surface extinguishing.

“Is the board green now, Ensign?”

DeSai smeared the grease and grime from her fingers down her duty trousers with eyes half-closed, regarding the helm as if scrutinising a potential prize beast. “We’re green, Captain.”

“What fell out of my ship?”

“Just the TCAS sir,” she replied seating herself down and beginning the decoupling sequence. “Rather redundant on a starship, don’t you think?”

Reizeger shook his head and exhaled. “Only if your starship wasn’t designed for planetary landings Ensign, in which case such a system would function far more efficiently if it were not only connected to the ship, but inside its console of use and not watching from the deck.”

The thud of retreating clamps reverberated around the cramped bridge, as the thrusters of the Endurance began to keep the ship’s position inside the far larger Conflict Carrier’s starboard upper flight pod stable without connection tubes and supporting framework to assist.

“South Central Rain confirms departure authorisation, Titan arrival window secured. We are green for departure.”

“Take us out with one-third thrusters aft,” Reizeger ordered. “When we’re clear of the pod and wash-back radius full thrusters for ascent to Titan.”

"My apologies for the mess," Lesaan says, as one of the other researchers is occasionally visible with what looks like a vacuum cleaner up in the passenger cabin. "Didn't really have any time to clean."

There's a distracting snapping sound as a mylar crate that's found its way under the SPA device finally gives out, and the entire assembly moves all of two inches downward.

"Oh, it's secured. Nothing to worry about."

Ties are actually visible holding the thing in place, which are noted as Lesaan leads the Commander up into the passenger cabin. Once through the cargo bay, to the left are three doors, two close together and one further down the corridor. They would be, in order, "Housekeeping", and then crew quarters.

On the right, there's one door, midway between the two on the left that are spaced well apart, which leads to the small ships' mess. The corridor itself loops around, and there's a door up towards the front of the ship opening onto what is normally a fifth suite, but on this craft has been converted primarily for use for the extra sensor equipment, and yields consoles and a generally cluttered arrangement that gives some sort of sense of claustrophobia, as the screens seem to be moving to encircle whomever is present on huge tendrils of cable.

Immediately left, and notably centered on the fore wall, is another door, this one leading up to the flight deck. Past that, the arrangement to starboard is the same as to port, though instead of "Housekeeping", the last door is marked "Storage", and there's no access to the cargo bay from starboard. Even granted the craft's dimensions of about a hundred meters in length, and maybe a third in width, the interior seems somewhat smaller, and, of course, the corridors are dotted with access panels and there is, in place of cargo bay access, a panel leading to crawlspace allowing access to the ship's computer core.

Hopefully Analton can live without having a window. Once they arrive on the flight deck, Lesaan sets about collecting all the scattered laundry and other items in one corner on a panel that, while still powered, is quite obviously broken, given a large diagonal crack and even larger section of completely dead screen, though a distorted image glares out from the one remaining corner that still works.

Lesaan sets himself down in one of the two bucket seats located in front of the flight controls console - which is duplicated, wholesale, on both sides - and goes through preflight as the cargo bay door closes.

That other researcher is still vacuuming downstairs, though it's echoing up through the corridor to the flight deck annoyingly as he passes that area.

Preflight checks are largely automated, and for the majority green, though a feminine voice says something, in riikan, when one of the items turns up yellow. Lesaan proceeds anyways, and, with brief communications with local flight control, the ship lifts off and makes ascent without issue, with a Loki, notably lacking in any mission pod, follows, largely carrying the small contingent Lesaan has... reassigned, to set up the assembly at the destination.

"Alright, we're just going to do a little in-system jump, and then we can get this new toy set up..." With a deft flick, a link between the 'trix is opened with the Loki. "This is Lesaan. We're transiting in three. See you on the other side."

Riikan numbers count down to zero on the flight consoles, and then, the space outside gives way to glowing, zoomy, blue-white light.

"Secured. Right. Hmm." Analton frowns at the SPA unit, as if the sheer power of Noldorin disdain will manage to prevent the laws of gravitation and Newtonian mechanics from following their cold equations to the bitter end should the 'secure' bonds break. Once the device bows to his will, or else Lesaan's words are confirmed to be true, the lieutenant commander follows the Kajali along to the cockpit, noting things along the way as if doing some form of inspection. He doesn't like what he sees, but it would be so rude to make this apparent beyond a glance.

Idly moving the stuff in the copilot's seat out of the way, delicately moving the clothes over to an extant pile and resisting the urge to fold it all neatly as is only proper, he takes his seat and does his best to ignore the inflight checklist. The ship obviously made it here, so it will obviously make it elsewhere no matter what small systems are broken, the computer, and his stomach say to the opposite effect. While he quietly considers the thought of jumping insystem to be vaguely wasteful, it also means he has to spend less time aboard this thing. He actually finds himself wistfully thinking of being on a nice, solid, stable Loki, even if it is horrendously utilitarian (something easily enough fixed, going by the MIDF models)...

At least the blue streaks are pretty, and concentrating on those in a zen-nature sort of way helps him to relax.

Command Compartment
Research Cruiser Clark Terrell
Middle of Nowhere

Chief Engineer Kyoshi sighs. "Flipped Turtle Thirteen ready for launch, sir."

Baha'uddin raises his head off his hand just long enough to make an idle 'go for it' gesture, then once again uses his arm as a pillar to support his head atop the armrest of his chair. "Launch." In a million years or so, he ponders idly, some other explorer will eventually make their way to this system and discover wondrous things that will stand their science on their head. And, in so doing, make it completely wrong.

The gynoid avatar looks as tired as the rest of them. "Ten seconds to impact. Six, five, four, three, two, one. Impact." Worlds turned into agate marbles, planets crumbled into fine dust still made spherical through gravity... their cores would be solid by then, but their surfaces coal dust kilometers deep. An asteroid belt that lies nowhere near the plane of the star's rotation (that was an interesting one). One minor planet, otherwise normal, with an almost neatly circular hole fifty meters deep and two thousand kilometers across.

On the forward screen, a little flash, as normal, and then the wave, as normal. The brilliant white wave, leaving a trail of glowing phosphorescence in its wake, overtakes the sphere of the planet in a circle that first expands, crosses the great circle whose plane is normal to the axis of impact, then contracts, closing up on the opposite end with a slight flash.

"Working so far," reports Grey from her science station without actually looking at it, "matter conversion reaction phase gone through, planetary diameter decrease within nominal levels." A neutron star of planetary mass... meaning, of course, that it's about eleven meters across. Well, they may not find that one; the Military Intelligence 'Admiral' had suggested bringing it back with them. However much a bad idea that probably is, it can't possibly be any worse that what they've been doing for the past four months. "Target is covered in non-strange quark matter approximately twenty meters deep."

They'd gotten that far, once, in the immediately previous Flipped Turtle Twelve... sort of. What they had actually done was proven the strong strange matter theory and covered an otherwise normal planetoid in a sea of strange matter. Of course Baha'uddin ordered a probe be left in orbit to see whether or not the rest of the planet would convert; as it currently stands, it seems the electromagnetic repulsion theory is also true and the electrons of the normal matter planet's atoms are shielding their nuclei from conversion.

"The quark matter is degenerating into normal matter... as predicted...?" Samantha blinks, then looks up at the primary display. The planet slowly turns from a mottled ball of color, reddening as it dissipates energy. "Vee-Enn growth medium... established."

Diniyyun raises an eyebrow and takes his head off of his fist. He knew enough from the weekly briefings that the entire point of the matter conversion reaction was to change the surface constituents of the planet into the right elemental mixture for the next stage, consisting of the Von Neumann utility fog currently descending, to convert into the appropriate compounds that they would then build up into the rapidly, fractally (in the mathematical sense) evolving ecology that would be the new planet. In theory, there should be enough energy left after the conversion to prevent free association and power the utility fog but not enough to decompose the first set of compound construction, or the first daughter generation of constructors. "This can't possibly be happening."

He doesn't know why he says it. Already he's seen things most people wouldn't believe back home, things that couldn't possibly have happened by conventional wisdom, and yet did.

Grey looks back down at her console, the master summary of the ship's sensors as meted and analyzed both by the shipmind and her stable of sensor technicians. She glances back at the technicians in the gallery, some of who have the presence of mind to shrug; then over to Clark Terrell's avatar, who most certainly shrugs. "I... do believe it is, Captain. According to the signature change, population zero is... established. Surface molecular constituents are beginning to change within the margin of error of the predicted rates." She pauses. "Population has doubled." Another few seconds of pregnant silence. "Population has doubled again. Free energy density is falling to the equivalent of an infrared star."

On the primary screen, the planet finally fades to black, a black disc against the starfield.

"Switch to subvisual spectrum," Baha'uddin orders. With a flick of a switch, the starfield turns into the common blobby red and near-black background radiation left over from the Big Bang, with stars in brighter yellows and greens. The planet is a swirling, writhing blue and violet mass, like a picture of a star taken in false color, yet with less of a suggestion of fire and more of... waves. "How's this compare to expected?"

"It fits perfectly," S.H.O.D.A.N. says quietly, eyes keenly wide. "This is the one. This is it."

The captain looks over at the gynoid, suddenly suspicious. "It's not going to blow up? Or fold itself over? Or--"

"No, sir," Grey replies for the mechanoid whose skin color shares her last name, "it's stable. Completely stable."

Leaning back in his chair and pulling his service coat back into order, Baha'uddin bites the top of his lip gently, eyes playing over the screen. It's obvious he doesn't like how this bodes, but he has a job to do. "Kyoshi, the Lokis are hot?"

"We've been doing it by the numbers for months, sir," his chief engineer replies dryly. "Ready to go with full packages."

"Launch. Now. Tetrahedral formation, just like in the briefing, one in reserve." This is so they could cover the whole process from every angle. "Tell the flight crews to stay light on their toes."

"Aye aye, sir." Kyoshi turns and begins speaking quietly into her console, giving the Lokis with research pods currently nestled on Clark Terrell's hull the green light to go.

"Hrm. I'll be damned," Diniyyun murmurs almost silently to himself.

Meanwhile, the mechanoid queen only smiles a little spinx's smile.

Middle of Nowhere
Over the span of the next year

How does one summarize the growth of the world? The evolution of planets has been cut down into short blurb-like paragraphs before, but nothing like this. What happens when a planet, no, an entire world--an entity unto itself, not merely a hunk of rock of interest to the geologists and vulcanologists--grows from dead matter? This is not something which science describes easily, for it is not the natural order of things. Science exists and thrives on the basis of observation and theory; that which cannot be directly observed must be theorized and evidence used to support this theory. Planets cooling, water boiling off its crust, forming clouds that rain down on the steaming crust, waves lapping and growing into oceans over sulfuric vents that give rise to the first self-replicating anaerobic strands of complex molecules... all of this has been said before, many times, in textbooks from elementary school and beyond. This is what the crew of Clark Terrell, this is what Clark Terrell itself knows.

This is also not what they're seeing, and science is based on observation. They see, and they record, over the months, the forced pubescence of a planet. From a code that would fit in a man's closed hands, to covering the surface of an entire planet, chaos and fractal self-similarity builds and builds, larger structures upon the smaller, emergent patterns forming. Chaos, mathematically, is nothing like its philosophical counterpart; the laws of reality are deterministic. Full stop. They are, however, extremely dependent upon their initial conditions; an infinitesimal differential distance one way or the other determines what side of the blade the balance falls on; what attractor the system tends towards, the greater emergence of the whole. Weather patterns, ocean currents, planetary orbits, all of these with more variables than can be reliably counted must still hold true to their laws... and yet, in holding so true, they can vary so widely despite a nearly unnoticable different starting condition.

The target world, as of yet undesignated, writhes. Its surface undulates in orderless patterns as constructors build the stuff of life, evolving as they work, the ultimate in both active stress testing and jury-rigging. Constructs that do not work towards the rest of the whole are as easily subsumed back into the fluid mass of creation as an errant protein in a cell; despite the pains and howls of growth, the underlying order remains, demanding, constraining, determining without making the entire thing a clockwork orange. Deterministic nature may be, yes, but that does not mean it need be mechanistic in the classical sense.

So, through nothing but time and effort of countless unthinking replicators, themselves consumed and subjugated into the efforts of larger replicators, the Target evolves into an end state not so much defined or decreed as suggested. There is no evolution, no survival of the fittest, no gaiasphere, nothing that fits the traditional concept of worldbuilding. No, the end-state is terrestrial, that is known. Just as the end-state of a particular animal's genome determines its fur color, its length, its build, and its height, or at least the continuum of all these, so is the end state of the Target defined. The uncertainty comes from its growth, every step of which is observed as closely as possible by the Galaxy Exploration Command crew, even though they know while they observe they affect, somehow, the change. For evolution and speciesation, on a macroscopic, Darwinian scale... that does not happen. That cannot happen in a span of mere months. No hand-waving time acceleration is required, none of the curious various fields named after researchers live and dead that are put to simpler uses. No, an evolution of sorts does occur, but one no different than the evolution that occurs in any organism as it grows and self-aligns due to internal and external pressures, both meeting and spiting those underlying concepts that would determine it.

What Clark Terrell observes through its sensors, what its crew notes down feverishly in reports and recordings, is not evolution. What they see through their telescopes and observe with their meters, not with minds cold and calculating, but each with their own interests, concerns, hopes and dreams at heart, is not evolution as the textbooks would describe it, or define it.

It is, quite simply, growth.

Such growth, compressed into such a span, cannot help but be chaotic--philosophically. In the mind of the artists, wars are waged, populations conquered and destroyed, arising triumphant and falling, as the surface of the Target undulates and writhes into place. Some of this florid metaphor bubbles up into the otherwise drab reports the scientists write, and yet none of it is truly accurate. There is no thought, no actors upon a stage, no kings nor generals nor gods pointing and having their legions act upon the word 'go;' mere physical principles, the competition of unthinking robotic replicators that become less and less robotic the more complex they become in each generation, as they define their environment and thus their own future growth... as decided by their function, and the function of their ancestors, as written down in the code constructed generations ago by a single mind who simply put the wheels into motion.

The constructors make land, and sea, and air, the first being what they have the least impact on, the middle following simply as a function of altitude and hydrological cycles newly created, the latter perhaps being the greatest god in the machine. With the land made, they proceed to replicate and reform themselves into more and more complex forms, animative and vegetative, for all they appear to be conflicting having to cooperate to survive. That which oppresses too hard on the system, strays too far from the boundary, falls apart. That which adds to the balance, survives and thrives. It would be called evolution were there actual animals and species and genetic codes being bandied about, but there are not. Not yet, at the very least. That still has to be written.

Heat transfers, the Target cools on the surface as it warms inside and out, albedo increases from the formation of clouds: the Target learns how to regulate temperature as its coding demands. Or, at least, so the more florid technical writings portray, when there is no thought to it at all, no more than in a jeweler's watch. In a geological instant, all falls into place. The constructors, not yet plant nor animal, fish nor fowl, alive and yet not quite life, discover that the conditions are optimal and thus fulfill their final commands. Even with the necessary staggering to generate a fully self-sufficient ecosystem: plants, then animals, sea, then land, one couldn't really call it evolution. Simply one month there is a sludge, and the next a forest. The constructors, as a final act of signature, put their legacy into the genetic code of billons of species, transforming from items not easily categorized in the terms of natrual science into things obvious and common. The goal of the programming, now met, breaks down and is assumed in an emergent structure; every individual part now must simply act for its own end to support the whole. Systems as natural as the rise and wane of predator-prey ratios will do the rest to ensure the natural order.

Still, throughout this whole transformation, and for a few weeks after its completion, the Target simply remains... the Target. Even its creator sits in quiet awe of what just happened, something no simulation could truly get across. No one wished to name it before, for things were changing so quickly... but now, the adolescence of the world has faded into quiet, contented adulthood, at least from the god's eye view of a research cruiser and its attendant subcraft in high orbit. Something's been done and accounting must be made of it so it can be neatly categorized back into the science which dumbfoundedly created it... and yet, no one seems quite ready.

Even the one who sports the knowing smile of the sphinx only does it as a mask, to maintain face in stunned awe at the enormity of her crime and her glory.

To say that arrival at the test site is prompt is something of an understatement. The blue streaks disappear after all of a few minutes transit, and the small planetoid comes into view rather quickly, partly because the 'trix is still traveling at about .15 c, and also because they've exited transit about where the atmosphere on most planets would start.

At least the gravitics are still good, though, as instead of shooting past it out into space, the small ship inexplicably enters a stable orbit, even if it is one that is fairly... low.

Low enough that a horizon is forming. The Loki transporting the rest of Ierenn's requisitioned labor is right beside them, and the 'trix slows to a stop over a particularly flat piece of land.

Meanwhile, equipment suitable for unloading the 'trix has been deployed by the loki, and the bay door on Ierenn's own ship is descending to the ground before the superficial landing gear has made contact, as the entire ship is still just floating on gravitics all of two meters above the surface by now. The same trickery keeps the atmosphere in the cargo bay, given the somewhat airless nature of this rock, and by the time Lesaan and Analton make their way down to it, the rest of the crew on the 'trix is suiting up and headed to the airlock on the port side of the small ship.

The gravitics in the cargo bay are holding the air in for a reason, and once the three or so on the ship have the SPA unit detached from the surroundings, those'll be turned off after the bay itself is depressurized. Once all the ties are removed, the device is held in place with more gravitics, and Lesaan watches from an overhead booth that isn't much larger than a closet, and technically part of the ship's crawlspaces, as the unit is unloaded and deployed.

Now, given that it doesn't have an integral power source, cables are run back into the cargo bay, and hooked into an auxiliary port near the back wall, towards the top of the bay, which effectively gives the array a direct feed off of the 'trix's minifusion stack, and should anything go horribly wrong, it also provides a way to relatively safely shut the device off.

Lesaan is actually on schedule for all of this, and he passes a somewhat dog-eared copy of their three day long schedule to Analton. The first tests are concerned with powering the device up and maintaining a charge, and then they'll do the short range test firing, and barring any problems, they'll continue on until they're ready to fire at a yet to be deployed drone in geosynchronous orbit.

It's all very exciting, though Analton is still trapped aboard the ship, unless he wants to borrow a spacesuit.

Curuvar's had to deal with worse. He flips through the schedule with a martinet's proper skim-reading, getting the general gist first before going through a second time in more detail. Oddly enough, he trusts the open yet still pressurized cargo bay more than the average Scolopendran; his people have been using gravitics and one-way force fields for yonks and yonks now, so he trusts it implicitly, even if it's in a slightly dinged-up ride like Lesaan's 'Trix.

It also doesn't hurt that he's in the same compartment. He doesn't bother trying to share a closet with Lesaan, though. Instead, he pokes around until he finds something that approximates a galley, pokes around more with a cat's fastidiousness until he finds a teapot, cleans it off and out with a barely repressed grimace in a sink whose overloading is carefully redistributed to give him room to work, then sets out to make himself a pot of tea.

It's been three hours since landfall on this little rock, and the Subspace Phase Assembly is, after an hour and a half of checks and rechecks, glowing. The emitter portion of the device itself is bright enough that direct observation without flare compensation is impossible, and initial tests performed in the last half hour have verified and confirmed that everything is, as of yet, proceeding according to plan.

There are some odd effects that were not expected, though these are largely attributed to the tenfold increase in size over the previous test devices. It's curious, in a way, because while the device is fed power from the 'trix and her 'conventional' reactor, the SPA has been in a sort of idle loop for over an hour, and measurements show that net power drain on the 'trix have dropped to practically nothing. The area immediately surrounding the device is curiously charged, the terrain beneath the device oddly iridescent, and in all probability luminescing in isolated patches. Recording devices have noted that the device also exerts a small but measurable gravitational field around it, while specific devices aboard the 'trix verify that the coordinates the SPA device occupies correspond with a region of subspace that is growing increasingly dense.

Lesaan is at the controls again, waiting for the signal to begin this next test, as the voice of one of his interns is relayed through the intercom, strangely distorted.

"This is Yusaf... The target should be passing overhead any moment now..."

"Thank you, Yusaf... Have you fixed my intercom yet?"

"Uh..." There's a brief pause, filled with crackling, and what sounds like someone using a computer in the background. "Actually, we think that's because of the field the device gives off, Doctor."

"Observation team is clear..." This signal, crackling somewhat less, originates from the Loki that has pulled off to get a bird's eye view. "You may initiate the test when ready."

Lesaan starts to work with the small console, and up above him, the Loki is well beyond the theorized maximum range of the Assembly, and just in case, she's about as far away as she can get without technically being on the other side of the planetoid.

"Initiating firing sequence..." Lesaan counts from five, and thumbs an angry red button on his console. "First stage has begun."

The strange iridescence around the device can be seen to flare briefly before fading away entirely, and oddly enough, the space around the device itself begins to darken as well, even as flare compensation increases as the main emitter assembly brightens. There's then an odd sparkling, at first barely visible, but within moments it seems to spread nearly to the Imperatrix.

"Uh, Doc, we're seeing elemental formation... outta nothing..."

"Noted. This is a predicted side effect. The device is now in second stage... We have target acquisition..."

There's a worrying pulsing visible now, through the flare compensation, even as it appears to start to rain lightly around the subspace phase assembly. Net drain on the 'trix's power systems has spiked and is slowly dropping again, though this too fails to even register to Lesaan.

"Onboard computers have achieved target lock," Lesaan says, eyes on the console yet again. "The Phase Assembly has achieved power independence, and is compensating for orbital drift... Final stage has begun."

There's a brief moment where the area around the device ceases to sparkle, and instead ripples, even as light bends visibly around it, and in an instant there's a blinding flash and the cabin's flare compensation is ramped up to full, whereupon the viewport has effectively gone opaque.

The orbiting Loki, and her crew, is somewhat glad that they're not anywhere near the thing when it goes off, though they do record that the target - a ferrous asteroid, about a hundred meters in diameter - has disappeared completely in a blinding flash of light. There isn't so much as an atom of the thing left, never mind rubble, and scanners have reported an appropriately sized increase of ions, of all sorts of elements, per cubic meter of local space.

On the ground, the device is now completely inert, sitting in the center of a small patch of the blackest terrain that Lesaan's ever seen. The subspace phase assembly is oddly out of place, gleaming just as the week-old metal it's comprised of should.

"Huh. I think that actually counts as a successful test. Let's pack up and get the hell out of here."

All of three _more_ hours later, and the craft and the device are back in the 'safety' of Camp R. Lesaan is all of nowhere to be found, of course, while his interns are, well, repairing damage done by previous experiments.

Someone's got to do it, after all. Yusaf is strangely absent, though as head of the interns, he was technically responsible for nearly all of the ground side data collection, and for what it's worth, he's been dragged off with Lesaan to present the findings.

It's a safe bet to say that he's perfectly terrified, especially considering that, for his age, it's about the equivalent of a nineteen year old being called up to broker peace between Arda and the Triumvirate, at the height of Ardan hostilities.

Somehow, though, he doesn't feel as expendable as he thinks he is.

After a few days, and the requisite shuffling of personnel in the Kajali department at Camp R, a new research proposal arrived on Lt.Commander Curuvar's desk.


MULTI-FUNCTION GIMBAL MOUNTED SHOULDER WEAPON AND TARGETING SYSTEM

Dr. Soraal Kavaan
Head of Cybernetics, University of Kajurmani

ABSTRACT: To develop a viable multi function weapon and targeting system, to be worn on the shoulder, suitable for both unarmored and armored infantry deployment. This system shall be equipped with a database of common Triumvirate weaponry and shall be capable of accepting unlisted equipment and creating custom profiles for such.

Initial development would focus on a medium weight system for conventional infantry. This system would track with the user's line of sight, leaving limbs free to manipulate other equipment while offering "Look At" target acquisition and firing. This system would perform limited battlespace data acquisition and display equipment status. The built-in sensor suite shall complement weapon mounted equipment or optionally be disabled and rely solely on weapon systems. Primary interfaces would require military grade datajack and/or smartlink systems, either implanted or present within infantry equipment. A lightweight eyepiece would be optional.

Further development would focus on a light weight system for unarmored and low caliber applications, retaining core functionality but omitting data acquisition capabilities. On board sensors would be limited to functions required to maintain device functionality, and capable of being overridden by more advanced packages that may be present in equipment capable of mounting to the device. This light weight version would offer a lightweight eyepiece, though remain compatible with datajack and smartlink interfaces should the user possess such.

The scope of this proposal does not include heavier development, however, a heavier base upon which to develop and mount such would allow for more powerful weaponry and more comprehensive sensing packages. Sensor packages may be omitted and the device operated by suit equipment should a lower per-unit cost be required.

Unlike Dr. Lesaan, they hadn't actually begun research without permission this time, though they did still have an engineering sample from the University to be presented as well, should the Commander inquire.

They were, however, still fraternizing with TEAM MELTA.

“I’ve got it!”

Those three words filled Vettori with a deep, penetrating fear.

Oh JesusMaryJoseph … what now?

Ricco was already walking over to Vettori’s workstation, gesturing animatedly, clearly excited by whatever it was he’d figured – or thought he figured – out.

“Well, you know our box …”

“Oh Gods …”

“Yeah, that.”

“I thought I told you to—“

“Well I did, but then I got thinking—“

“Don’t do that, Ricco. You know how they are about thinking around here.”

“Pshaw. Just hear me out.”

Vettori rubbed his temples slowly, closing his eyes, then opening them reluctantly to observe his colleague with that long-suffering expression he’d managed to cultivate during his time at Camp-R.

“You know how nothing that goes in comes out in any way harmed, yes?” Ricco said, his expression becoming if possible, more excited.

“Ye-esss?”

“Its perfect!”

“What’s ‘perfect’, Ricco? The damn thing still makes everyone around here twitch.”

“Well – the theory of it in any case. I mean, look.” Here Borghese walked over to the containment compartment that housed the six by six inch cube that defied rational explanation. The shields around it were non-corporeal, keeping the noise of it locked in, as well as any other potentially troubling effects that had yet to manifest, whilst leaving it physically open to observation and experimentation.

Ricco had discovered all manner of practical jokes that could be managed with the stupid thing, and had yet to find anything inherently evil or malicious, though Vettori, in his usual state of paranoia and cynicism, still held out hope.

The Dominioner crumpled up a sheet of paper, and idly tossed it into the box, only to have it, as predicted, manifest itself in the room and idly drop onto a desk, then roll onto the floor.

“See? Perfect!”

Vettori gave the man a flat look. “Enlighten me, if you will.”

“It isn’t teleportation. It isn’t deconstruction to reconstruction. It isn’t anything destructive at all – it just … well, is what it is. A perfectly folded point between two spaces. Imagine what we could do with that?”

“Good God Almighty, man – after what that making that little pocket of hell did to you, you want to make more of them? Are you impaired?” Vettori asked incredulously.

“Well, I ah … sort of?” Ricco replied, rather sheepishly – tossing another crumpled ball of paper in, then watching it it pop and roll much like the previous one. “But bear with me. Time – something we never have enough of. How much of it is wasted in travel? Even moving from one side of this base to the other takes up time – and that is something we cannot take for granted, yes? Time wasted that could be better spent in any number of pursuits. Think, man!”

“Oh, I’m thinking. Thinking how hard it would be to regulate. Thinking what a damned mess it would be if it ever got out of control. Security would be useless if you figured out how to link it the right way. And what if, God forbid, we somehow got the ‘wires’ of it all crossed? Crossed the streams? Converged that which must not be converged? Matter occupying the same space, yadda, yadda … “

“Enzo, dear,” Ricco said softly, a mischievous grin on his face. “You’re babbling.”

“No, no, nononono, no! A thousand times, no, Ricco. Hellsing about fragged us the last time you toyed with things you really shouldn’t be toying with. Olivia has never been the same since they brought her back from God only knows where and what, we lost Ercole for over thee months while he got over his nervous breakdown, and you … YOU we thought were going to be in a vegetative state for the rest of your known existence, even after we pulled you out of that self-induced sugar coma. So no. No, you are NOT to mess around with this damn box, and no you are NOT to try and figure out how to make it again, or bigger, or smaller, or any other way, now, or at a later time, under any circumstances. Am I clear?”

Riccardo Borghese pouted. Yes, pouted as he looked over at Vettori coyly. “You take all the fun out of things, Enzo,” he said petulantly. “Just … think about it, will you? I think I’ll wander on down to grab a cappuccino and see if Weapons-Maker is about. He always as such a flair for dress …”

As the other man not quite flounced out the door, Lorenzo Vettori stalked back to his work station, and sank down in his chair, once more quietly bemoaning his fate.

Maybe one of the Cetagandan experiments will just suddenly manifest over my head and crush me like a pancake. Please, God. Another refrigerator, perhaps? Something large and heavy and permanent in nature? Team MELTA, even? Testing…testing…is this thing on?