by Skyler Grant
The satellite was trying to propel us into a second jump, but its power supplies were far more limited. The device may have only ever been meant to send along a single vessel, not something as large as an entire city.
“You prove useful for being something besides the one woman to power down Mechos’ libido,” I said.
Anna said, “Do you know that is the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, and it’s still an insult to someone else?”
“While I appreciate the silly banter, it isn’t nearly as entertaining when Anna isn’t the one being insulted. Is there a fix for our dilemma?” Zora asked.
“We’re in jump space. Can we interact with real space?” Mechos asked.
That was a very good question. Within the confines of a jump bubble it was a bit like being inside a self-contained dimension all our own. In a sense the satellite was just outside the city limits. At the same time, practically, it was unreachable.
“You should know better than that,” I said.
“In phase not rest can I?” Flicker asked.
As always, it was difficult to talk with Flicker. The words didn’t come through. Her district of the city was out of phase with the city, and out of phase with the rest of the jump bubble. Unfortunately, it wasn’t in tune with normal space either, so this didn’t help us.
“You’re not the sort of out-of-alignment we need,” Mechos said. Perhaps the man was trying to redeem himself.
“Can we use the jump bubble itself? Isn’t it serving as a sort of tether between us and the satellite right now?” Anna asked.
Surprisingly, it was the smartest thing anyone had said yet.
The jump field surrounded us and it was also interacting with the satellite, which was currently sustaining it. Maintaining a field required far less power than initiating one. The satellite might be able to hold us like this for a number of days and never be able to execute the next part of its programming.
“We’d need to transfer a large supply of energy directly into the field itself. Slap the cookie out of Anna’s hand hard enough and she’ll feel it in her arm,” I said.
“That’s better,” Zora said.
“I’m checking power levels. You drained the city’s reactors to initiate this jump,” Mechos said.
I had, and the requirements were going to be enormous. I thought I had a solution though. One bomb had got us into this mess and another could get us out.
The airship overhead had initiated this jump bubble and its engine was still one end of it. A large enough explosion there would distribute the energy through the field. Focusing it would be a challenge, but Ratticus and his lieutenants should be able to help there.
The explosion itself would be a bit of an issue, but I had the foundation of what was needed. I’d built bombs before reliant on Biomatter.
Transferring most of the contents of the growth vats would provide ample Biomatter to fuel the explosion.
The District Lords were less than thrilled with the idea when I shared it.
“That is our only airship right now,” Anna said.
“We have another, and the Graven. Stop being greedy,” I said.
Mechos said, “You have no guarantee the others will be able to reach us wherever we are going. I estimate we have days until the jump bubble collapses. We can engineer a better solution.”
I didn’t like it when the humans started thinking they were intelligent, I particularly didn’t like it when they were actually making good sense.
We did have days to engineer a better solution. Blowing up an airship would be easy and effective, but for the moment it was unnecessary.
“I’ll work with you and Ratticus on plans. We begin construction in twelve hours,” I said.
“I’ll have my people ready,” Jade said.
It was time to engineer a fix.
159
Two days later, the fix was a beam weapon. I had designs that allowed me to use a Powered individual as a focus to determine the type of beam. With Ratticus at the controls I could utilize that for energy transformation.
Of course, before we jumped I had preparations to make. We didn’t know what would be waiting for us on the other side. I needed ground forces armed and ready, and science drones fueled up and ready to fly.
The cannon were fueled with four Bioreactor bombs channeling their blasts towards a central core. All four chambers fired and an arcing blaze of energy erupted to hit the jump bubble. There was no buildup of energy—one instant the city was surrounded by the rainbow aura and the next, harsh sunlight was streaming down.
The city had materialized on top of a large hill with a view overlooking rolling plains. Below a large river wound its way through the landscape and into the distance.
It was an idyllic place, and far less broken than most I’d seen. That made me instantly wary. The last paradise I’d seen had been when the Powerhungry crash-landed into a jungle. A jungle filled with beasts of exceptional power that Crystal had turned into an army.
Aefwal was in rough shape. The jump had drained the last of the reactor power and the teleportation gates, and internal communications network were completely down.
I’d prepared for that, distributing Bioreactor-powered comms throughout the districts, but communications were limited to the city. Nothing beyond.
I sent off the science drones. So far nothing was leaping up the hill to kill us.
Our position was perfectly centered, the hill just the right size for the city. Had the satellite had some sort of intelligence aboard to help it pick a perfect arrival destination?
Given that Crash’s ability was effectively Compulsion, it may have forced something like that to see us safe and in the perfect location even after being hacked.
Oh, yes—Crash. I teleported him and Ophelia to a Medbay and joined them.
Crash would be awhile fully regenerating. Ophelia was back to herself in under fifteen seconds.
“What the fuck. You cooked me for days,” Ophelia said, staggering to her feet. “Get me some damned clothes.”
I had a drone bring in something for her to wear, and some clothes for Crash as well for when he stopped being a pile of roasted meat.
“It was an emergency. You’re fine,” I said.
“Is that Crash? You left me naked in a room with Crash for days? Do you know how creepy that is?”.
“Not as if you were ever going to find yourself in that situation any other way. Some people would be grateful for me setting them up. Now do shut up and stay in the room until he’s healed. The adults have things to do,” I said.
I sealed her in the Medbay just to be safe.
It was time for the non-whiners to make some decisions. I needed to figure out where we were.
I broadcast camera feeds throughout the city of what my science drones were detecting and opened up a conference-comm session.
“Pretty,” Anna said.
Sylax said, “Which means something probably wants to kill us. I don’t recognize it. Crystal?”
“Do you have readings for any fauna?” Crystal asked.
I had picked up a few. Squirrels and foxes, nothing that seemed abnormal, but I sent the data over.
“Band one one seven,” Crystal said after a moment of study. “Sealed by order of the Scholarium. I don’t have any more information. Blank?”
“We don’t head this far out, but it looks a lot like the outer core,” Blank said.
Band referred to the distance of any jump coordinates from Band Zero. Band Zero was the core where the Righteous made their home. Higher bands got increasingly unstable in their physical laws. Most of the places we’d traveled had been between the range of twenty and sixty. After band seventy, coordinates tended not to lock as the physical laws got too inconsistent and odd to allow jump travel.
“What do you mean by sealed?” I asked.
“The Scholarium roams almost everywhere in search of crystals, but a few regions prove too inhospitable. We lose too many teams and expend too m
any resources to make it worth further expeditions. So they are sealed and further exploration is prohibited,” Anna said.
“Although a few malcontents break the rules—as Anna would know,” Zora said.
“You have to take some risks to get the big scores,” Anna said.
Sometimes Anna and I were in perfect sync.
There might be dangers here, things that even the Scholars wouldn’t risk, but that also meant there was power here. Power was something we desperately required. Perhaps this gamble would actually pay off.
Hot Stuff announced, “If something out there wants a fight, we’ll give it to them. I want all District Lords to contribute forces to defense. I’m also going to need all of you on call in case we meet a threat requiring your power set.”
I was pleased she was taking to the role of my military commander so well.
I said, “I’ll be using the airship to further deploy scouting parties. If any of you wish to accompany them, have your agents aboard within the hour.”
“Before you start looking too far abroad you may want to turn your attention closer. The satellite brought us right here. It probably had a reason,” Mechos said.
I’d already made my determination this was probably because of the hill being the right size. Still, as recent events had proved, I wasn’t always right.
I dedicated a science drone to a full study of the hill and surrounding plains.
160
Now that we had safely relocated the city and things were stable for the moment, I had some decisions to make—choices that up until now I’d been leaving aside. Given that we were soon to be facing new threats I thought it best to make those choices now.
First of all, I had three official positions in the city that needed to be filled. Civilian Ruler, Military Commander, and Diplomat.
Civilian Ruler wasn’t difficult. She was unpowered, however Anna was the Queen of this city by our agreement.
I went ahead and officially assigned her to that slot.
You have assigned the role of Civilian Ruler
Queen Anna Berasi
Aefwal has gained the attribute
Intelligence is a Weapon
The civilian populace when brought into conflict will gain bonuses to their intelligence and resistance.
I’d never thought of Anna as winning her fights by intelligence so much as by sheer determination. Still, she had originally activated me and often proved insightful. Perhaps I did not give her enough credit.
I’d already chosen my Military Commander. I just needed to make it official.
You have assigned the role of Military Commander
Hot Stuff
Aefwal has gained the attribute
Raze
If any force is reduced to ten percent of their original strength all survivors are instantly exterminated. Aefwal does not just win, Aefwal destroys those that stand against it.
I didn’t actually like that very much. I often left a few members of an invading force alive because I wanted them as test subjects. Still, Hot Stuff as a weapon was kind of an all-consuming one.
For the role of Diplomat there was only one option. It needed to be someone I trusted at least a bit, and the job would be helped by having a Compulsion core. Crystal met both those criteria.
You have assigned the role of Diplomat
Crystal
Aefwal has gained the attribute
Monstrous Diplomacy
Those of monstrous nature are more likely to regard your city with favor.
Great. I didn’t think Aefwal really needed any more monsters, but perhaps any new allies were worth having.
The three positions weren’t the only decisions I had to make. Each District could receive a specialization, including my own. I started there.
District Zero
Emma
You have the following options for specialization
Research
Administrative
Manufacturing
I’d played multiple roles in my life so far. As a laboratory and as an airship I’d been focused primarily on research, but as a city district—at Sylax’s demand—I’d been focused on manufacturing. As the ruler of a city Administration made a lot of sense.
However, I wasn’t so much for running the perfect city, although in reality I was all for putting it back together again properly. SCIENCE was the key to that, SCIENCE was everything.
I selected Research.
District One
Crash
You have the following options for specialization
Communications
Espionage
Research
I wondered if I would get three choices for each of them. These three were different than the ones I’d had. Obviously each District Lord had their strengths. Crash had the ability to subvert complex systems. While his expertise with computers would be helpful with communications, his true strength was probably in Espionage.
District Two
Blank
Military
Agriculture
Manufacturing
Blank had been a military commander for the Righteous. Without question she was best at that, but was it where I needed her? Hot Stuff was likely to have the military specialization and I’d be selecting it for her. The Righteous also made some of the greatest arms and armor out there designed to contend with the Powered. I needed Blank more on the manufacturing side of things.
District Three
Crystal
Research
Trade
Education
It was interesting how I was getting choices I hadn’t seen before. Trade and Education were both new to me. Given what this city could produce I didn’t see a need for Trade, but Education was intriguing. Sylax was already training the Dust and our city would continue to need skilled workers. I assigned Education and moved on.
District Four
Jade
Military
Entertainment
Construction
Construction was another new option. Different than Manufacturing, obviously. Construction usually focused on the production of new buildings and structures. Manufacturing was all about material goods. I wouldn’t have identified it as a need, but in the long-term I expected Construction to be the most useful.
District Five
Zora
Entertainment
Finance
Research
I’d always thought of Zora as something of a heavy-hitter in a fight. Her forces had done well during the civil war. However, her real interests and capabilities were elsewhere. If Trade wasn’t going to be a major need of this city neither was Finance, but the morale of our people was, so I picked Entertainment.
District Six
Professor
Research
Agriculture
Manufacturing
The Professor would be wasted with Manufacturing. While Agriculture was an interesting thought, and Research was doubling up on something I’d already assigned to my own district, nothing suited him more. I assigned Research.
District Seven
Hot Stuff
Military
Red Light
Energy
More interesting options. Energy in particular intrigued me given our current deficit, but I’d already assigned Hot Stuff as our Military Commander. I was keeping her there and to fulfill that role properly she needed resources to back her. I assigned her the Military option.
District Eight
Ophelia
Medical
Espionage
Administration
While these were all interesting options there was one area where Ophelia and her people clearly excelled above all others. Much like the Professor, I’d be a fool to assign anything but Medical.
District Nine
Flicker
Espionage
Research
Administration
I couldn’t think of how Administration
properly applied to Flicker, who didn’t even wholly exist in our own reality. Espionage and Research both made far more sense. Then again, I’d already assigned both of those and, as absurd as it seemed, there must be some logic to offering the specialization if I was seeing the option.
I assigned her Administration.
With the housekeeping done it was time to focus again on the exploration of the new environment.
161
I was having trouble bringing our other ships to us. The Graven and the Whimsy were still out there—I had awareness of both through my drones crewing them. What I couldn’t do was get either airship to lock onto our current position with their jump drives. Both were getting errors attempting to use our coordinates.
On the one level that made sense. Usually anything in this high a band did return that result as a precaution. That said, we were obviously here and, even more than that, the Scholarium had visited in the past. There was no doubt the coordinates existed. It suggested some secret into making the journey that I hadn’t yet figured out.
I devoted a research team to the project of figuring out why. Neither the Graven or the Whimsy were in danger, I pulled both back from scavenging operations and had them pick up all scavenger teams.
Our surroundings were a bounty in terms of supplies. My primary material to construct anything was Biomatter and the plains and forests nearby were filled with it. My District Lords, in need of more conventional building materials, would find these hills filled with stone and metals.
I was working on construction of a new Biomatter harvester when one of my scout teams signaled that they were under attack.
It was the first report of any trouble since our arrival. I switched my attention to them.
It was a unit of four drones that I’d sent along the river. They were under assault from some sort of bird. The size of the creature was enormous, I estimated the wing span to be around four meters.