“We arrived safely and being so close to the core meant it was too unstable a place to safely make a home. That being said, it was perfect to test. Steven loaded titanium alloy into the Gravity Forge and we sent it out the airlock. Jacob sat and maneuvered it for twenty hours away from our ship. Jess, I forgot to mention, continued to build on the program you made.” Stephanie told Oliver who slid the blade back and handed it over to Renee. “When all safety parameters were set I put a normal knife under a scanner to map out an accurate design. Jacob initiated the sequence and for a time we all held our breath. We all sat on deck watching the cameras inside and out of the Gravity Forge. The forces were astronomical and we are glad you found its weakness.”
Jessica nodded slowly. “My original calculations were way off for practical application. It would have failed in under ten seconds had you not been aware. Now that I have Jacob’s engineering program it sure has helped a few other ideas I’ve been working on.”
“Back to the Forge, we all knew practical application using gravity to fold and cut metal has been around ever since the gravimetric strip and dampeners were invented for safe sublight and FTL travel. But now it is more efficient and practical than ever before. Jess’s program allowed for the metal to be folded into shape before full pressure was applied. The exerted force generated so much heat the titanium turned molten in an instant, but remarkably the temperature got so hot it inverted in on itself to shrink and compress. When the molecules fused completely together an explosion of heat flew out the relief chamber you invented without compromising neither the inner or outer shells. All we saw was a relief of heat reminiscent of a neutron star’s beam. But it was over in an instant. After the flash we all saw a one kilo dagger sheathe.
“The ship and remote operated Gravity Forge flew back together to save time. We brought it aboard and Jacob worked to find any form of stress while Jess and I took the sheathe and first checked that it fit with the blade of a knife to find the compression was denser than expected. It fit too loose so Jess modified the program with the new data’s result. I meanwhile went about testing the durability and discovered the metal is as versatile as your weapons, Oliver. But not to the same degree. Your metal is still unknown in composite.
“My new knife couldn’t cut it, but a powerful laser focused on a point for twelve continuous hours was able to bore a hole through the thin titanium. But afterwards I tried painting it, but the surface is so smooth that nothing sticks. It’s frictionless. Only the rippled shape keeps it from flying out of our hands.
“Remembering all the clean colors on the other Star-sabers got me thinking how they were so vibrant without paint when the metal is near identical to yours. So I decided that the metal must be colored before being formed in the Gravity Forge. Running with the idea, I took another titanium composite and melted it down to be mixed with corundum and aluminum oxide to give it a light blue tint.” Renee passed it back and as the handle touched Stephanie’s hand it lit back up, but she tapped a fingernail against the sheathe. “When it finished and cooled I returned just as Jacob was filing the report that only minor stress was added to the prototype. Since it was able to be used again I sent out the kilo sheet and scanned my knife.
“A few hours later I was returned this. I was right in adding trace coloring to the metal beforehand and adding a crisscross texture and Jess was correct in refactoring precise dimensions to the forging and forming processes. It still weighs a solid kilo from before so there was nothing gained or lost other than all the heat it absorbed was expressed so quickly it didn’t have time to warp or burn the metal itself. And as you can tell, the fit is perfect. And also of note, the temperature is held stable at near to above human temperature somehow. It neither gains or loses, but I have yet to learn how your weapons adjust to gravities.”
“Let me see now that I’ve got a chip to fully integrate into my Valek.” Oliver jerked the dagger from his outer left calf and let the vambrace do its thing with the intent to learn how the dagger adjusts weight. They had all gone silent as his eyes shifted through holograms they could not see. “Hmm… strange.”
“What is?” Stephanie asked.
“It’s hard to explain, but the grip has a hollow area filled with a semi-organic and metallic substance. Netul had once told me about Solarian weapons degrading into useless metal dust when their host dies. The metal reacts to touch… the semisolid organic material in the handle runs up through microscopic coils in the blade itself to create a field of gravity it can sense through the surroundings. It keeps its balance perfect… so that’s why we felt pain…”
“Idiot, you lost us.” Renee playfully smacked his chest.
“Oh… er sorry.” His gaze snapped back to focus. “Remember how my Valek crushed our hands on the items?”
“Don’t remind me.” Stephanie unconsciously flexed her fingers.
“The pain was actually from forcing our unique psionic energies as well as our genetic code into the handle where the semisolid material waits to be activated and linked to a single host. Think of our bodies as the key and the weapon is a locked treasure. Without our unique and individual touch, no one can access its features. It required tremendous force to shove our essence into the material nothing can normally penetrate. It is why it hurt so much.”
“Makes sense.” Jessica commented. “What else did you find out? Does this semisolid stuff manipulate gravity like gravimetric strips?”
“Similar concept, but the organic components is the driving force. My people were obsessed with living technology as is well documented… The metal stores a limited amount of energy… is why it twinkles like stars… the only other things I can find out is that the coils I spoke of in the blade directs psionic energy to the edge to release a slicing wave based on the host’s intent, but also erects a dulled barrier if the edge gets too close to the host’s flesh and also erects one immediately when separated from me… unless I intend to throw it.”
“Interesting. Can you tell what the compounds are made of?” Renee asked.
“The blade itself is made up of some form resembling as best I can tell to be similar to tungsten carbide, but not exactly…” He was no longer looking at them as the beige dagger’s readouts were visually displayed to his eyes. “It’s not naturally occurring for a metal for certain. It’s tough, heavy and can take levels of extreme abuse while maintaining flexibility. Jess, take out your tablet and I’ll flash you the metal’s molecule composition.” As she dug it out of her pocket he went on. “The organic part is some kind of packed in, non-living bacteria that forms a solid chain to make the coils and is under extreme pressure. Like a spinal cord of nerves. It makes it all seem as if the dagger was poured and formed in one piece.”
“Alright, I’m ready.” Oliver’s chip connected to her handheld crystal and a moment later a three dimensional creation of the metal’s composition and atoms were put on display. A nucleolus surrounded by many moving electrons. “I see what you mean. Hold on…” Jessica’s eyes narrowed as she zoomed in on an unassuming electron to breathe “Those aren’t electrons. Those are gathered and compacted neutrinos. Solarians could capture neutrinos and combine them with a metallic nucleolus… No wonder.”
“Damn… they are so far technologically above us and that is just to make such a basic knife. Why did they bother making such weapons?”
“Because many warriors were too strong to fight without them… like me.” Oliver spoke as he watched the moving atom. He also knew humanity had still been unable to capture neutrinos properly. They could detect, but couldn’t hold on as the energy particles flow constantly through all manner of materials.
“Care to explain?” Stephanie asked.
“Well I asked the same thing. When Netul and Callier helped me out I asked something similar to what you said. Why would I need a sword when I could demolish planets and yawn doing it? Apparently Solarian warriors were restricted similar to the Zeelin in that those able to harness extreme power be limited in how much the
y could legally exert. It is why swords and shields were common. The basic weapons had precise control that made sure the host didn’t go overboard. You have no idea how difficult it is to control my power. I’ve not mastered it by a long shot.” The three women seemed to swallow at the same time. “But with a sword to limit the amount of devastation I can unleash, I don’t need to hold back. The sturdiness of these weapons ensure that even if I funnel one hundred percent of myself, it won’t explode in my hand. It isn’t often my needs will ever require to crack open planets so simple weapons are ideal for conflict. You wouldn’t cut down a tree with a starship’s forward cannon. You would use a simple handsaw. These tools are invaluable for restraint if someone such as me got carried away.”
“When put that way… I agree.” Stephanie chewed her bottom lip. “I can see the use why Creelin often fight with Psi Blades when they have superior individual prowess than humanity. It would be necessary to restrict those of power… just like we do with Phantoms. But we diverted from the subject at hand.” She put the knife back behind and hid it beneath a shirt. “The Gravity Forge prototype worked for another eighty three tests before Jacob correctly said the next was going to fail. We had to measure just how bad a catastrophic failure was and moved much further away and readied FTL just in case… and I’m glad we did. It failed and the sudden pull of gravity jerked us faster than the speed of light it took for us to receive back the subspace transmission from camera relays. We got the hell out and returned ten hours later to find it had made a micro-neutron star that was heading deeper into the center of this galaxy and would reach in approximately ten thousand years. You were right about it being able to self sustain.”
“Not good. I originally calculated three thousand minimum uses and the potential that gravity wouldn’t dissipate was less than a billionth of a percent. It shouldn’t have had enough matter to self-sustain.”
“Yeah, the prototype sure opened up our eyes to the reality of danger.” Jessica agreed, but then smiled. “But then it also gave me an idea too. If we can find a better means to regularly produce those forces and reduce stress then it can become a viable product, especially to the space industry. What if we could take a meter thick panel of steel and flatten it to half a hair’s thickness? It would free up more room and be infinitely harder to be destroyed. Imaging a battle cruiser facing off against a Goliath without need for a whole armada? It would save lives and be easily repaired since my program can push gaping holes punched through a membrane and seal the gap in an instant if the ship was metal. Living ships like ours aren’t capable of doing so.” Jessica leaned forward. “My idea was to add a third and maybe a fourth shell.
“The innermost of the failure test showed it imploded first to drag the outer shell of the prototype into itself. Instead of the outer second shell simply shielding and regulating the inner sphere doing all the forging… what if we task the outer layer to pull with equal force on the inner? Logically the extreme forces would negate each other and save the inner shell’s hull integrity. The innermost shell sucks in to forge and compress. The secondary shell pulls the inner, outward. While those two essentially fight, the third sphere shields. If we add a fourth protective covering to push itself into FTL subspace to go to a predetermined and safe location, should the process fail, using your compacted FTL drive you used on the Flare, it would theoretically have time to contain the micro-neutron star and get it far away before it does any real harm to lives… if you give me the schematics of the FTL. I won’t mess with the Flare without your permission, but it would help.”
“A genius idea. I just ran a preliminary simulation to what I memorized and the safety margin for collapse dropped four hundred percent minimum… and can be resized according to industrial applications. And you have my permission, but I’ll dedicate some time to think of something better than the drive to my fighter.” Oliver smiled right back at her.
“Thank you. I’ve rechecked my numbers five times and with minor maintenance we can mass produce ships twelve percent faster and nine hundred percent more durable. But I want to add your name to the patient we’ll loan Galicom. It’ll send us a lot of credits, but since you were invaluable to these ideas I feel like I’m cheating you out of acknowledgement at least. It was originally Stephanie’s idea after examining your Star-saber, but you and I made it a feasible and workable solution for real world application for the Gravity Forge.”
“I’ll think about it, but before we get ahead of ourselves we need to make a second prototype for this four shelled system. We can discuss monetary gain and patent signatures later.”
“Agreed.”
“Were you able to make sheathes for Steven’s…”
“The Gravity Forge failed before we could input his new spear and flail. Jake did say that with your certainty of safety that he could carry the weapons and Stone could get bound to those hatchets and a battle axe he’s been eyeing, since those weapons are not ideal for sheaths like the knives and swords are.” Stephanie said.
“I’ll see about it… tomorrow.” Oliver said with a roll of a shoulder. “Send me version two of the prototype you’ve thought up and I’ll go over it tonight if I get the time.” Jessica tapped away and he saw an incoming file to quickly save it to memory.
“Anything else?” Renee asked.
“Oh, almost forgot!” Jessica paused after uncrossing her legs. “Oliver, your old room across the hall has been redone as a trophy room. My brother put all the skulls and skeletons inside it and framed them all.”
“I want to see that.” Renee got up too and was the first of them to cross and enter the room. The bed, sofa and table were gone, but the barren idea of their absence was mistaken. Situated artfully around stood proud and deadly Beasts. Some hung from walls while those few that were small and retained whole skeletons were immortalized and displayed. Displayed on lacquered wood were polished and glossy skulls hung around the walls while frames were erected to hold up the few Beasts Oliver kept their entire skeletons of those exceeding current held records. Renee was floored along with her jaw of the magnitude of fangs and snarling postures. She thought How the hell did he survive half of these things? Many would swallow me whole… “By the stars! What in the universe is that skull?” Renee went up to one resembling a gorilla who’s skull was twice normal size, but the bone pattern looked as scaled as a snakeskin.
“Oh, that was a silverback Joint Ape. Squeeze its face between your hands.” Oliver’s smirk was wolfish to say the least.
“I thought Joint Apes were myths. Like Bigfoot and Yeti.” Renee said as Jessica and Stephanie came in to watch out of curiosity. She went up to the skull displaying fangs twice as long and thick as her finger. An omnivore, but preferred meat judging by its pristine teeth. Very carefully Renee placed her palms to either side of the skull and brought them together. It at first was resistant, but a little more and the skull began to collapse. “Eww. It feels weird… like a beanbag cushion.” As she let go the skull filled back out, barely crinkling, but her pointy ears easily picked it up.
“And he damn near killed me more than any Beast in this room.” Oliver admitted. “He made the Cerberus and Thunder Lizards seem like cuddly pets.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.” Jessica voiced.
“Wish I was.” He came over and took her hand, looking right into the empty eye sockets. “It came eleven days after my first confrontations with two Cerberus’ spaced six hours from each other. It was as tall as me, had black hair except for white down it’s back. It had long arms that reached down to its knees with fingers like humans. And its feet had hands which allowed for solid gripping… but it’s skin was stronger than metal and had strength aplenty.
“I was sleeping at the time I heard a faint scraping sound and my dear Creelin friends kept attacking me in my sleep so I was hyperaware and rather cranky. I sat up to find them gone and the fire in my cave hadn’t been tended for many hours. But that slight shifting sound had me look up through the ventilation shaft and saw
something squeezing down a hole no larger than my head.
“The Joint Ape’s skeleton isn’t fixed. Its bones can collapse and allow it to squeeze through the smallest spaces. It had hunted me right to my cave. I went for my weapons, but sensed them far away as Netul and Callier took them, knowing it was coming and not forewarning me.
“So I start seriously Gathering and I expected it to drop straight down, but it reached out and dug finger grooves in the cave ceiling to keep itself off the ground. Seeing it extract and grow thicker was very disconcerting. Knowing it could destroy the Flare I ripped it telekinetically off and threw it out the front. I flew out after it and saw for myself how dangerous it was as its hard body broke fully mature trees.
“Next thing I know is it jumps like a damn flea and crackled with electricity like a Thunder Lizard. You need to know that gravity was like Zerika so jumping high as the mountain I camped in was a feat I could never copy. I was so shocked of its strength I didn’t get away in time as it shattered my shin in a crushing grip and opened its mouth to shock and bite my leg clean off. It would have had my armor not gotten harder, but its bite shattered my femur like a cracker.” That was saying something since his bones were nine times denser than a normal human. “The pain broke the shock of its jump and I stiffened a finger to poke out one of its dark brown eyes. It let go and fell with a scream, but it too got more angry and even missing an eye it came back as I flew.
“Kinetic blasts and streams did nothing except burn off its hair. His tough hide and electrical gathering made for a perfect psionic defense. Add to it his bones being so pliable and you begin to see he was impossible to cripple by breaking its bones. Without my sword’s slicing wave I was unable to cut it in half like I normally did. I was relying too heavily on my weapon I realized. Having blades so sharp nothing could resist limited how to improvise. I hated Netul, but I saw the wisdom in his motives while being jumped at so fast and accurately I couldn’t stand still. Relying on my sword had blinded me to use what laid around me.
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