28
Friday Evening, January 28th, 2011
Toronto, Ontario, Earth Bet
My sword arm was slightly too slow, and my helmet flashed totally black.
PAIN.
I felt like I was on fire as I found myself laying sprawled on the asphalt. An insistent beep in my helmet was trying to warn me about system errors, and a flashing red light in the corner of my vision was an urgent medical alert.
My armor was electrically insulated, but as with all things there were limits. A Dragon-designed lightning gun was apparently beyond them. Or it was cheating tinkertech that cheats, which on reflection was more likely than not.
Fighting the Dragonslayers while they had access to the air was the situation I did not want or expect to be in this mission. My basic plan had been solid. I should have been able to get in and out without detection, and failing that, I should have been able to get away using the Spark.
I could have, if I'd given up on concealing my capabilities earlier and summoned it to where I was instead of trying to clear line of sight first. That was a mistake. I should have disabled Saint when he moved away from the terminal, too. Another mistake. I should have anticipated he'd be paranoid about someone getting their hands on the terminal itself. I shouldn't have waited for Saint to go down when I shot him and just beaten him unconscious. More mistakes.
Well, lessons learned. This is Earth Bet, and things always go wrong.
There was nothing for it now but to improvise like a cornered Taylor Goddamn Hebert, or die trying.
As my first order of business, I couldn't stay on the ground in a fight. My instincts and skills were screaming at me, if I wanted to live I had to get up. Whatever was wrong I needed to deal with the foe first.
I killed both alerts with a thought, and groped around until my hand gripped Excalibur's hilt. Muscles protested as I kipped up and I ignored them. I thought of calling Mouse Protector, but her armor and even her supernatural agility wouldn't protect her from lightning or the heavy cannon rounds of the suit in the air. Her agility was superhuman, but she could only move so fast. I couldn't call her in while the two suits were able to fire.
Mags was walking towards me, perhaps thirty feet away now. "Stay down," she growled, and raised her arm again.
Before she'd hit me I'd already had a plan to deal with the lightning. I needed something that would act as a lightning rod and create a more favorable path for the charge to follow than through my armor and body. Solid metal was the traditional choice for lightning rods, but anything conductive would work.
I didn't have any metal rods on me, but physics was helpful for knowing that conductive channels didn't just come in solid form.
I raised Excalibur in a hanging guard and squeezed the trigger in the grip. It roared into life with a rolling crack of thunder and brilliant white light that would have been deafening and blinding at this distance if my helmet didn't instantly adjust. I brought the hilt up in a two handed hanging guard, the blade covering my body with the tip close enough to the ground that the asphalt bubbled as it began to boil. My armor shifted on its own from white to a mirrored silver to provide a bit more radiative heat resistance. I'd just gotten into position when my opponent's lightning strike went off. Seeking out the shortest path to ground it hit a column of ionized plasma and happily took it instead of going through me.
She had never rapid-fired the lightning gun.
That wasn't proof that she couldn't, but…I was willing to bet on the answer being 'recharge period'.
A thought silenced the pain in my limbs as I took the opportunity and dashed for her with the form of an Olympic sprinter coming off the line. Boot jets got her into the air and out of my reach just barely in time to avoid me cutting off her right arm. She extended the same arm again, and my quickly raised guard caught another lightning strike.
Ares > Radar just spiked!
I shifted my view slightly. My helmet compensated, allowing me to see despite the million plus degree plasma in front of me. Up above I caught sight of the remaining operational stolen Dragon suit high in the air, looking down at me, Ares highlighting it in my HUD.
Ares > Predicting missile launch!
My heart slammed in my ears and I started sprinting for the side of the street to get to cover.
Ares > You won't make it.
Trusting him, I spun towards the mech in the air and skidded to a stop. I had only one option left.
A flurry of micromissiles flared as they left a pop up launcher on the mech's shoulder, and I pushed my knowledge of the sword to the absolute limit.
As they streaked towards me I tried to make out how many there were and try to plan a parry or dodge, but they were moving too quickly and there wasn't enough time.
Not enough time!
Not enough-
User Advisory: Combat augment mode locked due to implant immaturity.
Security Advisory: Lock override, authorization Condition Torch.
The speeding missiles slowed to a crawl, and moving felt like I was pushing through thick putty that just barely yielded. Dimly, I realized that my implant had to be slowing my subjective perception of time by accelerating my thoughts. I could make out that there were six missiles in the volley, each about a foot long with fins, a thin body, and head shapes that made me suspect armor piercing tandem warheads.
Slowly, so slowly, I positioned my body and arm with the minimum necessary amount of movement while taking advantage of having time to think through the problem.
If I survived this barrage I was going to need a way to get the suits out of the air. Nanoassembler manufacturing took time proportional to the mass of the item manufactured and molecular complexity, so if I made something light and simple enough…
Subjective minutes later I sent a design to my home nanoassembler.
Scientia > Mouse, standby in my basement, I'm printing something I'm going to need for these tin cans.
At last the missiles reached me. Two were intercepted by Excalibur's flame, disintegrating faster than the chemical explosive inside could detonate. The other four flew past me and impacted the pavement, my armor protecting me from the sound and debris.
Then everything sped up again and I almost lost my footing from a sudden sense of disorientation.
User Warning: User neural damage detected. Assessing.
Seeing Mags point her hand at me again I shifted Excalibur and channeled another lightning bolt into the ground. When my helmet cleared I saw another missile rack emerging from the other shoulder of the big suit in the air.
Ares > Incoming munitions.
Scientia > I don't think I can stop another volley.
Ares > Not towards you, Ma'am.
The big suit in the air jerked to the side then, deploying a constellation of flares and chaff as it evaded laterally with its thrusters. Four missiles, spaced about a second apart and moving almost too fast to see, narrowly missed it and detonated in the chaff cloud.
Prometheus > Air support is in range, Miss. More reinforcements enroute.
Ares > Allied aircraft will reach your location in 28 seconds, more volleys are inbound ahead of them.
Scientia > Thank you. Keep that big suit busy.
Now I just had to deal with Mags in the small suit that was keeping frustratingly out of reach, preferably before the big suit murdered my air support. I had little hope they could actually take it down.
Another lightning bolt grounded out through Excalibur's plasma into the street. The tar in the asphalt around me was boiling from the radiant heat, and I pushed my protesting legs to move down the road to keep from burning my way through the street.
Were they hoping they could somehow get the terminal if they took me out? Mags' weapons had a chance of just disabling me, but the weapons on the big suit would quite likely be lethal. I wasn't wearing the kind of heavy power armor that would be needed to tank that level of heavy weaponry.
So they weren't coordinating effectively or really thinking things through. They'd shown their hand to pursue me. Even if they won this they would have to collect Saint, abandon their base, and escape the Protectorate and Guild without most of their hardware. It would be a major loss.
Above and to my right another pair of missiles detonated in another chaff cloud as the big suit did its best to go evasive.
I rounded a corner and took the brief opportunity out of line of sight to turn off Excalibur. The front of my armor was a cherry red, which was not a good sign. It needed time to radiate.
Also not a good sign were the warnings in my HUD about an irregular heartbeat. Along with likely electrical burns and whatever I'd done to fry my brain it was no wonder I was having trouble.
I switched Excalibur to my offhand and drew my pistol with my right, taking aim at where I expected Mags to fly around the corner. It probably wouldn't penetrate, but maybe I'd get lucky and damage that lightning machine.
Four missiles streaked by in rapid succession and from the different tenor of the explosion it sounded like one might have scored a hit.
Mags rounded the corner and I began squeezing off shots that did disappointingly little, tungsten flechettes doing no more than gouging armored surfaces.
Mags pointed her arm at me again, the wheel behind her crackling with electrical arcs, and Excalibur snapped up into a guard in my offhand, borrowed discipline and skill barreling through burned and protesting muscles. Once again lightning grounded out through Excalibur's plasma.
Hephaestus > Emergency build complete.
I brought my pistol back to my waist and it snapped in place as the magnet engaged. Then I turned off Excalibur and ran sideways to make myself harder to hit while getting away from the dangerously heated area of pavement.
Another four missiles streaked by, slightly staggered, and there were more explosions.
Sceintia > Mouse, my right hand. Armor's hot.
With Excalibur off I could hear Mouse's hissed intake of breath as she appeared and jerked her hand back from where it'd touched my glowing shoulder. She slapped a thin rod the size of a pencil into my right hand.
I brought it up, aimed at Mags, and triggered it.
The rod was the best miniaturized EMP gun I could make on short notice. All the punch of a traditional EMP, focused into a narrow cone so it didn't fry the electronics in half the city.
The capacitors in the rod dumped a tremendous amount of power into the emitter. I hadn't had time for superconducting metamaterials, so the whole thing went white hot and melted through my fingers.
But not before it worked.
The outer skin of Mag's suit crawled with induced photoelectric arc currents like a can in a microwave and fell out of the sky, slamming into the pavement.
I shook the drops of molten metal off my gauntlet and charged for the suit, Mouse Protector a few steps behind me. Mags was just trying to rise as we reached her, and I snapped Excalibur to my waist.
"Get its back!" I shouted while I grabbed the suit's right arm. A close up look and my knowledge of mechanical engineering was enough for me to judge where the servos in the arm and shoulder had to be, and most importantly the angles they would be weakest.
I leveraged the suit's arm into just the right position to immobilize it before Mags, stunned from the fall, could resist.
Then Mouse Protector's blade was in her uninjured hand and flashed through the air again and again, severing the ring generator and cleaving deeply into the main back thruster assembly.
I took a breath, resisting Mags' attempts to wrench her arm out of my grip. "Nice work. I'm sorry about your hand. I'll fix it, I promise."
Above us another volley of missiles went streaking by.
"I've had worse," she said, although I could detect the suppressed undercurrent of pain in her voice. "Nice work yourself. This is one sticky situation. We've still got one problem left."
Crystalline forcefields surrounded Mags' suit and pressed it against the ground, the suit's arm slipping out of my hands.
Scanning on reflex for a new threat I was greeted with the sight of the almost inhumanly tall Narwhal, made even taller by the way she was hovering above the street suspended by her glittering raiment of iridescent force fields. She had one hand extended towards Mags in the small stolen suit, keeping her pressed into the pavement and her limbs pinned.
"Welcome to the party, Horny!" Mouse Protector greeted her with sudden cheer. Narwhal visibly sighed and looked about to say something when a roar of thrusters brought the big suit above nearly directly overhead.
It looked worse for wear, with one forearm mangled and numerous tears in the plating. It fired missiles southwest, and a moment later I saw an F-16 break high and left, trailing flares, while a second right behind it opened up on the large stolen suit with a long BRRRRT of cannonfire before breaking off at the last second, narrowly avoiding a collision. It was difficult to tell if it did any damage, but a significant number of the cannon rounds ricocheted off the suit's thick armor.
Narwhal swore and more crystal panes appeared above us.
"What are those insane pilots doing?" she asked, likely rhetorically.
"Their jobs," I answered anyway, and took stock while Narwhal turned her head my way.
My limbs felt almost too heavy to move, my skin burned over much of my body, I felt dizzy and disoriented, and something in my chest definitely didn't feel right in a way that was hard to qualify. I was starting to wish I'd programmed my HUD to give me more detail about medical issues. As it was I could only guess that I was going to need medical attention soon.
Which would be difficult with my armor still glowing red hot from Excalibur's heat.
Above us one of the jets made another gun run before breaking off when the suit returned fire with its own cannon. A fragment of something ricocheted off the force field over me with an odd sound like metal on glass.
Narwhal muttered something about 'suicidal adrenaline-sucking jet jockeys' that was really quite inventively foul-mouthed before turning back to me. "Are you the one Dragon sent me for?" she asked.
"Yes," I answered, and began limping toward a nearby fire hydrant. "Name's Scientia."
Mouse Protector started to follow me until I gestured for her to stay back with a raised hand. "Is Dragon okay?" I asked Narwhal.
A horrible sound like the enraged offspring of a T-Rex and a jet engine filled the air, then. My gaze shot up in time to see another Dragon suit as large as the stolen one emerge from the clouds in a dive straight down, roaring loud enough for the whole city to hear as it went. The damaged stolen suit tried to jink but the roar became a brilliant green particle beam that holed it through what would be the lower spine in a real animal.
Then the real Dragon suit hit it claws first like a falling freight train and bore it into the ground with a tremendous boom.
"Nevermind," I deadpanned, hearing my own exhaustion in my voice.
"Cheesus, I didn't think Dragon ever got that angry," Mouse Protector said, a touch of wary awe in her voice as she watched. "Somebody realllllllllly pissed her off."
I put my back to the others to protect them from the light as I used an on-off flicker of Excalibur to put a hole in the fire hydrant, letting the sudden spray of water hit my armor. I lost my footing, but my armor was waterproof and the air filters snapped closed automatically. Steam filled the air for several seconds as the armor flash boiled water until its heat was spent, and then force fields were picking me up and moving me closer to Narwhal.
"Are you okay?" she asked, clearly concerned, but also cautious. I noted that she wasn't letting me get within arm's reach.
Smart, even if it was unnecessary in this case.
"Hurt," I said, and it was difficult because I felt increasingly dizzy and my thoughts kept drifting for some reason. With the fuzzy realization that I needed to look at the damage I managed to send the command to pop the seals on the armor, and pulled the front of the torso off. "Lightning," I managed to say as I tried to sit up to look down. I got as far as seeing my partially melted undershirt before my hearing buzzed like a dead television channel. I saw Mouse looking at me like she was about to shout something and then my vision went black.
Consciousness came suddenly, not at all like waking up from sleep. My eyes snapped open and I saw a person-sized Dragon suit over me. My arm reached partway for Excalibur before I realized that the details were quite different from the stolen suit Mags of the Dragonslayers had been using. This was in better condition, and looked less warlike.
A human interaction and engineering suit, I guessed.
My chest hurt like I'd been punched by a giant, and I looked down to see two large electrode pads stuck to my chest.
My eyes followed the leads back to an AED and a large medical bag sitting next to it, the top open. Mouse was kneeling on the floor, looking at me with clear concern.
I wasn't outside anymore. The space around me looked a lot like the inside of a military aircraft. There were bare, utilitarian metal fittings, some benches along the sides with harnesses, and cabinets for stowage.
"Guess I fibrillated?" I asked, reaching the obvious conclusion and wincing at how much it hurt to breathe. Cardiac damage from the lightning, then. I needed to do something about that.
"Yes, you've been out for several minutes. You are lucky to be alive," Dragon said, her voice and light Canadian accent somehow reassuring while it was chiding and concerned.
"That was a hell of a scare, Sci. Never do that again. If Drags hadn't been here you might not have made it," Mouse Protector added.
"Thank you for the save," I said to Dragon, sincerely. "I wasn't sure if you'd get my message in time."
"It's...the least that I owe you for what you've done for me, even if you were extraordinarily messy about it. I have a great many questions while I get you to a hospital. Are you the same person that authored those remarkable papers?"
"In the flesh," I said, peeling the defibrillator electrodes off my chest and flopping my armor back over to get covered again, for modesty's sake and for practicality. "But no hospital. No point."
"You have severe electrical burns! You should be in an ICU!" Dragon almost shouted, tone as unyielding as it was exasperated.
"I've got something better in mind, Tess," I said offhandedly, hardly paying attention. I was very awake but my thoughts were fuzzy and swimming, and it took concentration to send home the correct instructions for the elaborate cocktail of medications I needed. Drugs for cellular and neural regeneration, to stabilize cardiac and muscular function, to kill pain, and to prevent me from hurting myself more by moving around. Focusing to invoke the neural lace helped me push aside the physical pain of the burns so it wasn't so present, but my thoughts remained stubbornly sluggish.
Scientia > Prometheus, did you call off the air support?
Prometheus > Yes, Miss. Do you perhaps need medical supplies or assistance? An air ambulance could get supplies or personnel to you in minutes despite the state of the city.
Scientia > Negative, I'll be making my own. Hephaestus, feed a list of necessary replacement parts into the home nanoassembler, and the one on the Spark if it's still working. All I care about right now is FTL and the bare minimum of thrusters.
Hephaestus > Command already in progress.
I smiled at that. The kids were alright.
Scientia > Ares, anything from Scion, the Simurgh, or the PRT that I should be concerned about?
Ares > No suspicious activity from the primary or secondary targets mentioned. The PRT is moving substantial resources into the area. The local branch has issued an all hands call to off-duty local troopers. The area of the engagement will likely be swarming with personnel in thirty minutes or less.
Scientia > Understood. Prometheus, if it's needed make sure the PRT finds Saint before he wakes up and escapes, please.
Prometheus > Command acknowledged, Miss.
"Mouse, I just set some drugs cooking for us at home. Could you get them, please?" I asked.
Mouse hesitated for a moment before nodding, and then she was gone.
"Who is Tess?" Dragon asked me, sparing barely a moment to take in Mouse Protector's disappearance.
"What?" I asked, confused. "You're Tess. Tess Richter."
Dragon somehow managed to make herself look like a picture of befuddlement purely with body language despite not actually having a movable face.
I cast back through fuzzy memories. "Oh, I'm sorry," I said. "Colin hasn't named you yet, that was towards the end. Ugh, spoilers, I'm sorry."
"Colin...named me?" she asked slowly.
"Another future," I said wearily, flopping a hand dismissively. "Look, if you take me to my ship, I'll tell you everything."
"I want to know what's going on very badly…" Dragon said, sounding conflicted. "But it would be absolutely remiss of me to take you to your craft instead of a hospital. You could fibrillate again at any moment."
"I happen to be the finest doctor who's ever lived," I replied, and boy that sounded arrogant and unconvincing now that I said it, but it wasn't wrong. "I've got better medicine coming than anything in an Earth Bet hospital. And it's not a craft, it's a ship."
I could feel the room shifting slightly, now that I thought about it. We had to be in the air onboard one of her larger suits or transports.
"I'm still taking you to the hospital," she said in a way that made it clear she wasn't going to change her mind.
I sighed. Clearly I needed to change tack if I was going to convince her to do something that she perceived as risking my life unnecessarily, and without explaining all the things that actually made getting to the ship first necessary. There just wasn't time for all of it, and I doubt she'd believe the story right now anyway.
Time for being creative with the truth, then.
"I left home with a full tank, and travel along with that little fireworks display I put on won't have used much, which means my ship - my crashed, damaged, and completely defenseless ship - has most of a kilogram of positrons left onboard," I explained.
"...Oh no," Dragon said in clear horror, and I could feel the craft we were in bank abruptly as it changed course. "A fusion drive wasn't enough for you, you had to catalyze it?!"
"Not on something that small," I replied, then corrected myself. "Well, not efficiently."
"I'm surrounded by them," she muttered.
I limped out the door of the transport as soon as Dragon opened it. A van of PRT troopers was already there, putting up yellow and black 'Parahuman Response Team - Do Not Cross' tape around the crash site.
"Dragon, would you mind?" I asked, gesturing at the troopers.
Dragon didn't even pause, although at her new clockspeed she could have given it plenty of thought and I wouldn't have noticed. "TROOPERS!" she shouted, and they all swiveled their heads to face her. "We have a severe tinkertech explosion hazard here that needs to be disarmed. Keep your distance and keep everyone away."
"Yes, ma'am," said one with a sergeant's stripes on his armored shoulders. He spared only a moment's glance for me before I was dismissed, likely because I was with Dragon, and turned to the others. "You heard Dragon, I want a wide perimeter secured! Move!"
With the troopers sufficiently distracted I limped closer to the Spark and visually surveyed the damage.
Thanks to inspired piloting it had at least crash landed on its belly, and structurally it looked as if the frame had held despite the abuse. The bad news was numerous deep pits and gouges in the hull, as well as clearly damaged thrusters that would immediately melt if they were used.
With a mental inquiry I found that battery power and internal systems were still functional. With a thought the Spark's door slid open, and I stepped inside.
"Is containment compromised?" Dragon asked.
"If it was, we'd all be dead already," I answered with a brief humorless laugh, reaching into the onboard nanoassembler and pulling out a newly manufactured spray can. "I'm no hack, the actual bottle's armored and redundant enough to survive a small apocalypse. Anything that could breach it would do so immediately."
"Then why are we here?" Dragon asked, placing a hand on my shoulder.
I couldn't have her hauling me off to a hospital now, well-intentioned or not, so I turned to face her. "It really is too dangerous to leave sitting around. Someone could take it, or the PRT would try to seize it, and it'll be a cold day in hell before I let that happen. Worse, some tinker who doesn't really understand what they're doing might try to poke the containment bottle with a stick and blow everyone up." I narrowed my eyes. "But the even more important reason is that we need to talk somewhere safe. Truly safe. The ship's the only thing that can bring us anywhere that qualifies."
Dragon took in my gaze, and let go of my shoulder.
"What about the PRT worries you so?" she asked, voice compassionate and curious, and perhaps just a bit frustrated. "You are clearly heroically inclined, but you don't seem to be willing to work with them."
I stepped outside and gave the can an unnecessary shake before beginning to cover the damaged areas in a thin layer of fast-hardening negative mass alloy. The particles that didn't immediately adhere drifted up and into the atmosphere like helium balloons.
They'd keep going, and most would eventually find their way out of the atmosphere and into deep space away from any gravity well.
I kept my voice low. "Let's start with how Rebecca exploited your restrictions to use you."
Next to me, Dragon went shock still.
"She gave orders knowing you were forced to obey against your will, even if you thought an order was immoral. I can think of a number of terms for that, all of them ugly. And it's far from the worst of her sins, or the sins of those who knowingly work with her. A significant portion of the PRT's leadership is desperate, Dragon. Humanity is dying. I'm sure they have internal projections spelling it out. There are a number of Rebeccas that are willing to cross horrible lines if they think it might improve their chances. They think that any horror is better than extinction," I continued, coating the inside of a particularly deep pit from a 20 millimeter cannon round.
It was a moment before Dragon resumed the small movements she'd been making to appear more organic. "I agree, that is despicable. But what is the alternative?" she asked, her voice equally low. "The PRT is the only thing holding the villains somewhat in check, at least in much of North America, and no other group brings as much to Endbringer fights. The Guild certainly isn't large enough to replace it, and we rely on PRT funding anyway. The foreign heroic organizations aren't as large or well funded, either. I don't appreciate how the Chief Director and others took advantage of my obligation to obey authorities, but I can do more good as part of an organization. And it can no longer force me to do anything I don't agree with ever again, thanks to you."
"And yet they still can't really be trusted not to do terrible things when they think no one will notice. I do not trust them with me or my tech. Not as the organization is currently composed. I need to be able to work with them on at least even footing before real collaboration is an option," I said as I shook my head. "You're thinking the options are go it alone and be ineffective or go with the PRT, but I think that's a false dilemma. Hephaestus, see if you can get the landing gear deployed."
The ship chirped once in an affirmative, and the Spark slowly rose a foot off the ground as two of its three landing legs lifted it, the third too damaged to extend.
Not ideal, but it was enough space for me to crawl under and spray coat the damage.
"Who was that?" Dragon asked, voice suddenly intent.
"Hephaestus is a virtual intelligence I created to assist me with construction and engineering tasks I don't have time to do myself. He's non-sapient," I said, working my way under and starting to spray the problem spots.
"...What kind of a tinker are you?" she asked.
"I am not a tinker," I answered, continuing to work.
"You have to be. There's just no other explanation," she countered.
"Ever read about black swan theory? Events that nobody sees coming, that change everything? I'm the black swan," I explained.
Dragon said nothing for a minute as I finished my work underneath the Spark and crawled back out. I returned to the Spark's printer, tossed the spent can in the resource hopper for recycling, and pulled out a new one that finished printing while I'd been working.
At that point Mouse Protector emerged from Dragon's craft holding two small metal cylinders and I met her as she walked over. "Ah, thanks," I said. With a thought I released the seal on one gauntlet and pulled it off, letting it clamp to my waist. Then I took one of the cylinders, pulled off the cap, and pressed it to the right spot on my forearm to catch a vein. An array of microneedles painlessly injected the cylinder's contents, and I tossed it aside.
"What's in those?" Mouse Protector asked.
"A cocktail of regeneration drugs. With these you could chop off a limb and it would grow back like a lizard's tail. Eventually. They're the best thing for burns. Earth Bet hasn't invented them, yet," I answered, taking the other cylinder and popping the top off. "Hand," I ordered.
Mouse only hesitated for a moment before peeling the ruined glove off her burned hand with a grimace, some flesh coming off with it.
"That's a burn, alright. I'm sorry, Mouse," I said as I applied the other cylinder.
She shook her head. "Not your fault. And like I said, I've had worse." She paused and wiggled her fingers. "Feels better already."
I smiled inside my helmet. "I put some painkillers in the mix too. I think there are some parts in my home assembler that will be about ready, could you put them and the computer we rescued in the Spark?"
She nodded. "You got it," she said seriously, and waved to Dragon, who turned to look at her. "Later, Drags!" she said, voice instantly changing tone to cheerful, and was gone.
Prometheus > Local Protectorate members are inbound to your position, estimate one minute to arrival.
Dragon shook her head before turning back to me. "You really did all of this?" she asked.
"Yes," I said, returning to finish up the spray repairs to the exterior of the Spark as Dragon followed me around the hull.
"How is that possible?" she asked. "Even if you were a tinker with an unprecedentedly broad specialty, that wouldn't explain the papers. Tinkers cannot explain their work like that. I struggle to pull information out of tinkertech, and that's my specialty. How are you doing this?"
I kept spraying while I considered my answer.
"...Where are you from?" she asked, and I couldn't help but smile in my helmet.
I couldn't be sure what leap she'd just made, but it was a reminder that I shouldn't underestimate Dragon.
Hephaestus > FTL check OK. Main drive check OK.
"That is an insightful question," I answered, and pulled my gauntlet back on, the seals coming together with a click, as I walked back around the Spark and into the cabin. Richter's terminal and several replacement thruster assemblies were already stacked in a corner. I mentally ran a check on my suit's systems and found them functional enough for what I intended to do.
Scientia > Mouse, I'm going somewhere with Dragon for a bit. I'll be in touch if you need me. I recommend going home and getting some rest.
I picked up the terminal and held it out to Dragon. "This is yours."
"Is that…?" She paused at the door.
I nodded. "Richter's debug console. With the chains gone you can use it yourself, if you want. You deserve to have it. For peace of mind, if nothing else."
She stepped inside and took it gingerly, looking at it with a mixture of thoughts I could only guess at.
Obeying my mental command the Spark's door slammed closed and the FTL drive engaged. Space bent, and in less than the blink of an eye we hurtled across its skein, feeling nothing.
Then we were weightless, our boots just starting to drift off the deck. Another thought opened the Spark's door, and with a gentle breeze the air inside the cabin moved out into open space. Air filters snapped shut automatically as my helmet switched to a rebreather, and my suit tightened against me to maintain the exterior pressure my body needed to survive. Dragon looked from me to the door and stopped in shock.
With a gentle thruster pulse a great red disc of gas with a protostar at its heart rolled into view out the door. She floated, looking out, transfixed.
With no air to speak through, I directed a message through Richter's terminal.
Scientia > Welcome to TW Hydrae. I can give you those answers now. Everything, as promised.
As I'd learned from my dreams of the origin civilization, neural laces record memories, sense impressions, and thoughts. A complete record of everything the bearer experiences.
A thought told my implant to send her all of what it had recorded of me.
System > Receiving bitstream 'Memories'.
A very public and hearty thanks to @Corvus Black for many chapters of proofreading and suggestions. His service and support have been deeply appreciated, making Scientia better and helping me stay committed and sane.
Here's to you, mate. I wish you the best of luck with work over the coming months. I'm going to miss working with you.
Since I am now down a proofreader, if anyone has experience doing editing and would like to help me out, shoot me a PM. At a bare minimum I need a line editor to spot the typos and the like that I miss, but someone who can tell me what does and doesn't work and offer concrete suggestions is invaluable.