Chapter 25
Slider Zero
Not too sore, are you?
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The city of Houston, Texas, has seen many an up and down over the years. Everything from natural disasters to those of a more man-made dint have graced the city over the years, as well as some of the greatest wonders to have been seen by anyone at any time.
Many of these have only grown in their legend over the years, such as the famous "eighth wonder of the world" the Astrodome. This continued even through the Parahuman age, to the point that Houston was home to arguably the most powerful member of the Triumvirate, Eidolon.
But none of these compared to the facility that sat next to Clear Lake, out in the southeastern suburbs of the city.
For here was the site of the legendary Johnson Space Center, home of the equally storied National Aeronautics and Space Agency's Mission Control. This building alone had earned Houston the moniker of "Space City USA".
It was here that all space-based activities of the United States of America were conducted and controlled, all funneled through the equally famous Mission Control center.
And so, it was here that the nation, and by extension the entire world, learned of the newest occupants of the Moon.
"This is Technical Sergeant Satori Green, United States Air Force. How you guys doing down there?"
The uproar in the control room would later be said to have been heard through the entire building.
After everyone had somewhat calmed down, the on-site controller, an old hand of the glory days of the space program (before the Simurgh had appeared and dashed all their dreams), found himself in the position of having to fudge things.
He took a moment to calm his own nerves, running a hand through the mohawk he'd had for years, before responding. "We're doing good, Mr. Green, though we do have some questions as to how you got up there."
The entire room heard the nervous chuckle come through the speakers. "Well, mostly cleaning up and expanding the old Pytheas Moonbase up and repurposing it for my own ends, among other things…oh. If Transtar tries to get on your case about this, tell them I call salvage rights, as the place was technically abandoned."
A bevy of hushed conversations broke out at that comment, and it took a bit to get people to calm down before a return transmission was sent out. "Well, that would be a little difficult, Pytheas, as there is no Transtar corporation in existence that we know of, and they definitely do not have a facility on the moon. That being said, we'd love to hear about the place since you are obviously there anyway."
A distinct sound of shuffling and movement was heard across the transmission, and everyone in the Mission Control center quickly came to the amused realization that Green had left the mic hot. The bits of commentary that followed from the other side were more than worth it.
'Somebody hit the archives for me!!' 'We already did; nothing there!' 'Still looking for it, boss!!' 'Can't we just rig something? It's NASA, right?' 'They still need receiver hardware, dummy!!' 'What about the Talos Relay?' 'Won't work, too busted. Need at least ten minutes to fix it right…'
Someone started snickering in the corner, and it spread and grew to full on laughter at someone else knowing their pain of dealing with everything that could go wrong in space.
Soon enough, though, Green came back to them. "Err…sorry about that. Had to do some digging to see what data transmission sources you guys had left…and from what I'm seeing it's not much, really. I think I can do a tightbeam transmission to you but…kind of a bad angle at the movement."
Again, the controller had to stifle his own chuckles. "Well, we're more concerned about how you managed to get up there in the first place, son. Must've been one hell of a rollercoaster to get past Ziz, now…"
There was a distinct pause, followed by a series of muttered curses, and something about needing to find a flyswatter. "Err…it's complicated, Houston. Also, potentially related to other issues you're having down there, so I can't go into details just yet. Short version is that we are possibly from a different dimension."
The general excitement level increased exponentially at that. The only other contact they had with alternate dimensions (at least prior to this mess) was Earth Aleph, and that was information only. The possibility of a traveler with space-faring technology to share was a major point, one that needed to be capitalized on as quickly as possible.
The operator kept his cool all the same. This was old hat to him, after all.
"Well, I can see why that would complicate things, then. Let's switch topics. You know why we were trying to contact you, correct?"
"I can guess it has something to do with there being an actual receiving station up here for once?"
The operator had to hand it to Green: he actually tried. Got a good laugh out of the crew, too. "Sorry, but no. We were more concerned with the light show that was happening up there recently."
There was some more muffled cursing, this time feminine. Still, it was Green that responded. "Of course you would be worried about that…right, so the incident has been resolved. I can tell you that much. As for what it was…call it cleanup. There was something weird up here that decided we would make a good target…and we dealt with it. The lightshow and explosions were part of that. Apologies for the fuss."
Another voice was suddenly heard over the comms, shouting excitedly. "BOSS!! WE CAN KILL THE STUPID BIRD!!"
The entirety of the control room froze. They couldn't mean…
'Wait, what? Without destroying everything? Send it here…holy fuck, it can work. This can actually wor–MIO WAIT DAMMIT!!'
More confused shuffling happened, and there was the distinct *whumpf* of hard contact as something got hit by the mic, hard. A louder sound of a whine of sorts echoed slightly before fading.
'Well, fuck. She's going after the bitch solo. Mandy, help me out of these!!'
There were more sounds of jostling. Followed by a resigned sigh. 'Just make sure they stay in contact, please. Need to make sure that this gets done right.' Another jostling sound, before a different voice, this one female, got on the mic. "Sorry about that, Houston. Had some things happen up here that needed to be dealt with. Anyway, back to the meat of the discussion. The base is more than available for anyone who wants to come up and take a look, and we definitely could use some permanent staff up here for things we are planning. The Boss isn't sure if we need to go through the idiots in D.C. or not, though. Any thoughts?"
Nobody could respond, as one of the girls from down in space tracking suddenly ran through the door. "We just caught sight of something happening in orbit!! We think that Ziz is–"
The poor tracking tech was silenced by a solemn control supervisor, his face clearly showing the severity of the situation. By being in a state of pure shock. "We know. We're talking to the people who are doing it."
"Hey…Houston, you guys there? Need to inform you of something real quick." yet another voice came back through the transmission. He sounded…resigned, somehow. And suspiciously like the legendary 'Buzz' Aldrin.
Many in that room right now were there, back then. He even thought he'd heard someone in the back muttering something along a question of 'Aldrin, that you?'
As always, even with the prospect of the Bitch of Feathers being removed from orbit and the path to space opening again, the operator was cool and collected, though he was now scratching at the Star designs in his haircut, a nervous tic he'd picked up years ago and hadn't quite broken yet. "Go ahead, Pytheas. We're listening."
The next words out of his mouth would be replayed around the world for years to come.
"Well...it's a bit sooner than expected…and definitely unplanned…but we're about to–excuse me, have just taken care of your orbital psychic pigeon problem."
There was pure silence. Nobody even breathed. "Can…can you repeat that, Pytheas?"
"Yes. Yes I can.
"The Simurgh is dead."
A second tech came racing into the room, holding a sheet of paper in his hand and screaming about something. Nobody paid him any mind, too lost in their own thoughts…until what he was saying registered.
"Orbital Tracking has confirmed that the thing headed this way is outbound to the Moon…and the Simurgh is GONE!!"
He said other things, the operator knew. Other words that were meaningless after that were not worth repeating. But the message was all the same.
He thought he heard someone sobbing in the background before the first cheers broke out.
Well, that could have happened differently.
As it turned out, NASA was rather enthused by the sudden and unexpected windfall of having the Bitch of Feathers killed off in real time by people who would be more than happy to give them access to new space technologies and even experience on a Moonbase.
I think they were happier about the Simurgh getting offed, though.
And that was the weirdest part, too. Apparently the endbringer dimensional BS was not strong enough to compensate for being drawn into an active impeller storage, and the core connection was even more fragile despite the amount of protection the physical antenna had to the body. It had created a bit of a mess when the whole dimensional overlapping thing had fallen apart without the focal point of the technique, though, and had resulted in both myself and Mio ending up playing super-quick cleanup of the orbital space before the leftover corpse pieces could vomit endbringer chunks into the atmosphere.
We did deliberately miss more than a few pieces, however, just to drive the point home that the bitch truly was dead and not coming back. At least, not without something exceptionally stupid happening, anyway.
Now, after cruising back to Luna and properly disgorging the mess from our impellers into the recycler systems of the hanger (which yielded a bunch of exotic materials of a new type and composition from the Typhon stuff, and merited further explanation) We were busy examining the leftover core.
And…it wasn't much to write home about, as far as I could tell. Sure, it had the receptors for whatever oddball technique was getting used for the standard endbringer bullshit to work, but without an active connection to work with it had jack and shit to use, and was just…there. Our attempts to pull usable data from it so far had failed to yield fruit, as well. Which was frustrating after the rather grand success of dealing with NASA.
So, we tabled it and instead got to putting together the care package that we'd be sending to them now that the orbitals were clear of interference. It was nothing too special in our books, but the contents were absolute game changers for an early 21st century world: countergrav and repulsor tech theories (and a few simplified working designs), advanced power generation systems (including workable fusion reactors) Superconductor theory and practicals, stuff like that. Of note was the one thing that Mio had insisted be included in the set, a brace of varying Imperial Lasgun Power packs, both standard issue and modified by us in varying stages.
It was enough to cause a total technology revolution the instant the science and engineering teams got a hold of them, even without the advanced material science to go with it. I'm sure that they would be thanking me for a long time to come.
Of course, aside from hearing that Jeb apparently sounded like Buzz Aldrin (there were a few people in the control center who were hardcore NASA vets, and had been there for the first landings), there was the whole 'getting the base ready for actual cohabitation' thing. Everyone was working everywhere they could to spruce the place up and make sure it was as good as it could get for guests.
The fact that we'd managed to get the bloodstains out of things in multiple areas helped.
Still, there were a few things that felt a little unnerving to me. For one, despite the fact that an endbringer had been outright erased from existence not an hour ago, the word had yet to properly spread around. And considering just how many people tended to watch the psychic chicken as she ran around, that was concerning and stank of a coverup.
Then there was the issue surrounding Pytheas (still pending rename) itself. Apparently some idiots in the government had caught on to the fact that I was Enlisted military, and wanted to use that as a means to exert pressure on me, or even outright claim the base for themselves through sending up an officer of some kind to assume command.
There was already a search underway for potential candidates, from what we were getting out of the official communications. And considering that the presence and even existence of Pytheas as they knew it wasn't even in its second hour of life, that was moving blazing fast, especially for something that would heavily impact the DoD. I could already see the beginnings of the backlash forming from those who were getting stepped on and/or leveraged to do the dirty work of some dumbass politician.
That being said, not everything was bad news. The issues on the ground were not as severe as they initially appeared to be: the originium patches that were dotted all over the place were actually rather self-contained and showed no signs of either the normal catastrophes or general spreading that was normally associated with the material, and the various terrestrial invasion attempts by demonic(?) powers were running into even harsher interference than we'd first estimated, meaning that most of the big boys were being occupied and only the minor stuff was getting through.
And people were adapting to the new normal in ways that were still being investigated properly by the various authorities. Most of the exact means of doing so were still in super-preliminary stages, but I could feel the difference just by directing my senses to the planet for a moment. People were, somehow, awakening to their innate supernatural talents. And they were using those newfound talents to take the fight back to those who would prey on them.
It was something that would need to get addressed sooner or later, especially with the parahuman wildcard still in play, but we had a bit of time to work with, at least for the moment. No need to rush things even more than we already were, after all.
The care package had been assembled, the base had been cleaned p, and now we were just trying to decide on a new name for the place. Naturally, this prompted both the Kerbals and the Fairies to chime in.
"Kaguya!" "NO!! ARE YOU TRYING TO GET US KILLED!?!" "How about Selene?" "But she's not even up here, it won't hurt…" "Aldrin sounds good. You know, after the astronaut..." "Just pick something else." "If we're going there, we can call it–" "No, it won't work right. Besides, that name is reserved for the other base." "Well, maybe we could call it Nokomis?" "How about Artemis?" "You really want to name the place after her?" "I vote Yue." "Nah, Io." "But isn't that already being used for a moon of Jupiter?" "Like that matters. And it's Saturn, not Jupiter." "No, it's definitely a Jovian moon…"
Yeah, the discussion was heated.
"Still can't decide?"
Mio had, of course, managed to corner me perfectly without so much as trying, her presence being entirely too comforting for me to resist allowing it.
"Nah. Not really. It has a lot to do with the fact that most of the names are actually really good, and not just crazy stuff I can reject out of hand."
One of the Kerbals, who had taken a rare step for the non-command crew and introduced herself to us (Silmeria Kerman was her name, and daredevil piloting was her game) stopped after hearing my gripe.
"Why not just put everything into a hat, then? That way you don't have to crush people for picking a favorite."
Her fairy countepart-slash-tagalong, by the name of Lenneth, quickly voiced her agreement. "Yeah! It'll let all of the other crazier ideas filter in without stuffing people for being stupid, and then we can just agree that the name was chosen at least somewhat fairly, right?"
Mio gave me one of those nudges. The ones she usually has on hand for when she thinks that I have a good idea that I need to just shut up and implement. Being a wise husband with a wife worthy of the title, I heeded her silent counsel.
"Alright. Get everyone to toss their suggestions in a hat for us to pull out of. One name per person, whatever comes out is the new name."
The both of them were off like rockets, quickly informing the relevant people of the happenings. It wasn't much later that we had a freshly-made stetson hat of shockingly good quality for something that neither my wife nor I had participated in creating, the article flipped upside down and filled with slips of folded paper.
I quickly got everyone's attention. "Alright, guys…and girls, there's enough of you here now." The fairies got a good snickering in at this slight dig. "Time to rename the moonbase. Whatever comes out of the hat is what we get. Now then, let's see what we got going for us, eh?"
The name I pulled out kind of surprised everyone, especially as it was kind of an obscure name in most of the cultures represented here…but it was nothing that we didn't like.
"Alright then. From today forward, this base shall henceforth be known as Miakoda station!!"
The general cheering was worth it, in my opinion, even if the activity itself really wasn't that much of a big deal.
Still, with that particular formality settled, it was time to prepare for our departure down to the planet below.
At least, it was. Mio apparently had other plans, and informed me of them in her usual manner.
Whatever. They can wait a few hours…
Mio found herself slightly dreading heading down to Earth. It would be the very first time she had ever set foot on the planet in any sense, after all, and the sheer significance of the event for her was not to be understated. Even the fact that this was technically not her Earth, the Holy Terra of the Imperium of Man, did not remove the jitters.
Fortunately, she had her Satori with her, and he was more than enough to act as a rock for her to steady her nerves on. She'd done it enough times for him, after all.
Besides, it wasn't as if he wasn't excited himself. Being able to get direct access to the people that were effectively his personal heroes, those carrying the dream of a Humanity expanding to the very stars, was kind of a big deal for him. She could feel him all but radiating his eagerness even without their link, and the feelings were acting as quite the effective anchor for her to ground on.
It was also helping going over the recent update log for the forge, this one having come from Watts' still mysterious wife. The basic summary wasn't too much to look at, some precursor-level architectural knowledge and a bit of unusual thread being the things that stood out to her the most. Still, it was something, and from the looks of it, the update was still processing, so it would be a bit before they saw everything anyway.
That being said, both of their moods were being tested by the Air Traffic Controller, who didn't seem to have gotten the memo about their visit.
"Moonrider, I say again: You are to divert course and stand by for further instructions. Failure to comply will result in severe penalties. Confirm compliance immediately."
"As I was saying, stuck-up ATC. I knew the type of old from back in the day. They were the guys who were nearing the end of their ropes in the career, on the verge of burnout for the most part. Not all of them finally hit the flames, but enough did that it was something of a stereotype in the community."
Satori was explaining the phenomenon that they were currently being exposed to, in the form of a petty bureaucrat being faced with the rather abrupt uselessness of their jobs in the face of the unknown. Especially considering that Satori had constructed a standard IFF transponder for use to be 'seen' by the local airspace control so that there would be no accidents, and yet somehow still was getting bitched at despite coming in on a near vertical like straight towards our landing zone.
And he was not happy, as he then explained to the poor bastard in the hot seat.
"I already told you, We have special clearance for an expedited landing at Ellington. So unless I am clogging up an air lane somewhere, please leave me the fuck alone and let me set down already, you dumbass. I will be assuming a VFR profile as soon as I can shed enough speed and altitude."
"Moonrider, you are to–"
Mio couldn't take it anymore, immediately reaching out and shutting off the radio. "We aren't going to be getting any help from them at the moment, and there is no reason for you to stress yourself trying to do so. We are too new and unknown to the system for them to know how to deal with us. Let's just get on the ground, shall we?"
As much as her husband wanted to complain (and she could feel it quite clearly from him), he eventually acquiesced to her request. This was, of course, made easier by the fact that Mio was the one doing the flying. "Fine. But you get to tell the guys on the ground why the FAA is wanting to murder us."
Mio had no clue what this "FAA" was, but the fact that Satori seemed very much resigned to facing them made her assume they were some kind of government functionaries. The most she could think of was to give token platitudes to them for trying to do their jobs despite not being in the loop on their arrival, she supposed. If nothing else, it would allow for some soothed egos over what was to come next.
Landing was a very subdued affair, despite the fact that she has intentionally put their craft down in a full vertical landing on the parking zone of the flight line instead of using the runway like everyone else. It was yet another intentional flex of their capabilities, meant to show off just a hint of what was possible with the goodies they were bringing along.
Personally, she thought it was just at bit too overengineered for the task at hand, but it was meant as an example of what could be done with the tech…and they'd needed an actual transport anyway unless they planned on teaching everyone magic and such before they got back to Miakoda station.
As it turns out, despite the constant badgering from the Air Traffic Controller, there was still a small delegation waiting for them as they landed, a mixture of suits and military uniforms prominent among the small crowd, along with the rapidly expanding security cordon of soldiers that had appeared as more of the regulars noticed what was going on and tried to get a better look. Of note was the odd assortment of varied and colorful uniforms on display as well–likely these were the so-called 'capes' that tended to be about.
Personally, she was not really in the mood to try and hide from anyone, but if the locals felt it was necessary, she would allow it…for now. The instant she thought otherwise...well, the planet had a rudimentary if oddly developed global infonet, and she could make use of it if it came to that.
But that was for later, if that later came. Right now, it was time to meet the brass, as Satori would put it.
The rear hatch had been angled to face their greeting party, and a simple control on the door itself allowed for the hatch to open, complete with the standard center division allowing for the bottom portion of the hatch to act as a cargo ramp. The two of them awaited on the edge as the ramp lowered…
"Huh. I was expecting something a bit different, you know?"
The comment had come from one of the capes in the back, a man in a white outfit that featured metal points on his shoulders…and head, for some reason? And a mask covering the upper half of his face. Mio had Minerva catalog the appearance for analysis later.
Satori, for his part, merely laughed it off. "I said I was Air Force. Dunno what you were expecting aside from this." The 'this' in question was a standard olive drab Flight suit, complete with a name patch and, for him anyway, a specialty badge denoting his Military occupation. Her own flight suit was the same, but her name tag lacked the specialty badge.
Ice being broken, the pair stepped off of the (jokingly named by Satori) Owl transport and onto the planet Earth for the very first time. The Suit Delegation stepped forwards as well, and the pleasantries began, with the capes in the back attempting to be subtle about shuffling around to maintain a proper presence. As she was unfamiliar with most of the early M2 social protocols, she leaned a bit harder on Satori for support through their bond, from which she got back nothing but warm encouragement.
One of the military men, a solidly-built, dark-skinned fellow with graying, close cut curly hair similar to her husband's own and a slightly receding hairline, stopped in front of Satori, who offered him an old-fashioned salute. A closer inspection on her part confirmed that this was a US Air Force Colonel, what was nominally termed as a 'full bird', mostly due to the rank insignia worn (which was itself a bird). The colonel returned the salute while introducing himself.
"Good afternoon Sergeant. I am Colonel Nathan Gibson, in command of the Air Guard post here. With me are Majors Grainger and Parker," the colonel motioned to two others who stepped forward at being mentioned, the first a ruddy-faced man with obvious laugh-lines on his face as well as minor marks of sunburn, the second a blonde woman with oddly stern gray eyes and a professional demeanor, "As well as representatives from the Johnson Space Center down the way. I'll let them introduce themselves in a moment." There seemed to be an air of good cheer here from both the colonel and the NASA people, all of them clearly eager to learn more about what was in store.
"Also present, at the request of the Parahuman Response Teams Houston branch, are the Protectorate Members Dispatch, Grey Knight, Hawkwind, and Frostbite." Unlike the others, this introduction was rather clearly stated with a slight strain to the colonel's voice, easily heard with her enhanced senses. Her guess (which was backed up by Satori's own observations) was that the capes had more or less muscled in on the affair and everyone else was forced to accept their presence.
Mio immediately dismissed two of the four from her mind right off. Frostbite and Hawkwind were clearly not worth any further attempts at interaction from her outside of studying the parahuman phenomena in more detail. Dispatch was a different matter, as Minerva had pulled up a relevant entry on the infonet that stated that he was the second-in-command of the local Protectorate Branch, under someone who named themselves Eidolon.
The last, Grey Knight, was a completely different issue entirely and needed to be handled with care. Mostly because she could literally feel his powers from where she was standing, his internal mana flowing easily throughout his body in what looked to be a passive reinforcement technique. The relatively light and archaic armor he wore seemed to have similar mana flows attached to them, and she found herself curious as to what process was used to create the items in question, as well as if he was interested in an upgrade.
The colonel continued onwards. "That's about it for the current personnel that you will be dealing with, though I have been informed that there are some high brass en route to debrief you regarding certain information. As well, several of my colleagues, across all the services, have been given some rather hasty TDY orders to get down here ASAP, and…well, you can understand the madhouse that usually brings."
She noticed Satori visibly flinch, and a quick glance at his surface thoughts explained why: Somewhat similarly to Imperial formations, having a large number of high-ranking officers appear at a station all at once, especially if said officers were of flag rank, was almost universally seen as a bad thing by all services and ranks. Unlike an Imperial formation, however, the increased reliance on Non-commissioned officers for mid-level tactical thinking meant that having a sudden increase in officers in general was a bad thing, and made worse the higher ranked the officers got.
Which boiled down to the fact that the poor sods stationed at this airfield very suddenly and unexpectedly had an otherwise backwater post become the center of a very large amount of official attention and scrutiny. Which generally ended badly for everyone.
To his credit, the colonel was seemingly very sympathetic to the plight of those around him, and apparently didn't actually want to be disrupting things to this degree as it was…but as with all things, you didn't always get what you wanted.
Satori chose to address the issue directly. "About that, sir…why the hell are so many people getting shuttled around so fast for this? I thought that I'd made it clear that I was willing to come to you."
The colonel shrugged. "There lies the machinations of the Pentagon, Sergeant. I have no more insight on their motivations than you do. Your guess is as good as mine."
Mio decided to interrupt. "Excuse me, but you mentioned the people from NASA would be introducing themselves. I would like to know them so that we can get other things rolling, colonel."
One of the men from the NASA delegation stepped forward. He was clad in a simple dark blue business suit that had clearly seen better days, and seemed to be chewing on something as he walked forward. "My name is Scott Langley, Director here at Johnson Space Center. Alongside me are my deputies: Director of Mission Operations, Kenneth Wineland, and Director of Engineering, Lauren Johns. We also brought along Mr. Omar Hayes." The last person was somewhat unique among the others in that he was weaning a simple flight suit, and had a rather unique hairstyle that was accentuated by the (colored!) star patterns shaved into his head.
Satori took one look at him before smiling. "I take it you were the one in Control when we called in?"
Mr. Hayes returned the smile with one of his own, if a little wilder. "Yeah. The only reason I'm not out partying with everyone else is because you mentioned you were coming down." He extended a hand, which Satori immediately took. "I just had to meet the guys who finally took out the damned Simurgh, you know?"
Judging from the flinch that Director Wineland had only barely suppressed, along with the sudden interest from the cape contingent, Mio was forced to conclude that this was not meant to be public knowledge just yet, at least not to certain groups. The rather abrupt push by the one named Dispatch was proof enough, as he quickly moved himself to the front of the group, stance threatening.
"You are the ones that killed the Simurgh?" It was a demand more than a question, and Mio found her power rushing to the fore, preparing to remove the annoyance from her presence before her Satori responded.
"And if we are?"
The change in demeanor was instant. Dispatch and his subordinates were suddenly super tense, as if they were preparing for a struggle of some kind, though they hid it well…from normal people. For her, spotting the tells was pathetically easy. "I am going to have to ask you to come with me Immediately. The Protectorate will be needing a statement from you."
The commotion was immediate.
"Now wait a minute–" "Who the fuck do you think–" "You can't just do that!!--"
"QUI~ET!!"
The shout silenced all complaints, and it was with some surprise that the rest of the group noted that the shout had come from Satori himself. Worse was the deceptive calmness that he was displaying both in body and mind.
Though the Colonel seemed unsurprised. Worth looking into later.
Senator turned towards Dispatch. "So, you say that I need to go with you so that your people can ask me questions. Is this correct?"
Dispatch nodded. "We–"
Satori was immediately inside of Dispatch's personal space bubble, his hand in a knife shape and pointing directly at Dispatch's helmet. ""DID I SAY YOU COULD TALK?"
When Dispatch failed to respond, Satori repeated the question. "I said, DID I SAY YOU COULD TALK."
Mio heard a gulp come from dispatch as he steeled himself. "N-no."
"Then remain silent until otherwise instructed." Satori waited for a moment to ensure that his command would be obeyed before stepping back and continuing. "As I was saying, you wanted me to answer some questions. My question to you is just as simple: why did you think I am required to answer those questions?"
Silence reigned for a moment, and Satori smirked. "You may speak."
"We are empowered by federal law in handling all parahuman authorities. And as you have displayed a clear usage of said powers, or technology derived from the same, you are under our authority and purview."
Mio barely resisted gutting him where he stood, and restraining her aura from affecting the environment was all but impossible at this point, as was made clear by the sudden thermal spike and minor tremors. The statement was a clear and unambiguous attempt to place them in the power of the Protectorate, especially as even a cursory search revealed a particular tidbit about the nature of parahuman powers.
Satori, on the other hand, was doing his damnedest to not burst out into uncontrollable laughter. He did let a few chuckles escape, though.
The others were mostly staring at Dispatch in sheer awe, likely at the naked power grab inherent in the statement.
Satori had stopped his not-laughter at this point, though, and just from his emotions alone, she could tell that the fool was going to regret his words. "And what, if anything, makes you think that I am in any way, shape or fashion a parahuman?"
"You and your companion are rather clear cases of a Case 53." He was, of course, referring to the rather distinct and unhidden extra bits that they had, at least compared to a baseline human. The same traits that everyone else had been polite about not mentioning due to wanting to have a solid impression with the potential gold mine. "As such, you will be–"
Satori cut him off with a vengeance. "No, no, I will not. And you will shut the fuck up before I grind you into dust." And Satori was no longer happy. In fact, he was downright furious on a level that she had seen maybe once, and that was in a fucking memory. She could feel the very air around him threatening to lash out, and there had also been a distinct temperature drop in the area as well. A surreptitious mental nudge from her was enough to get him to reign in his power, but only just.
"Do you have any idea of the concept of "chain of command', Dispatch? Of having to answer to proper authorities of any kind?" Satori asked, mockingly. "I believe you do not, or else you would not be trying this little stunt of yours."
And suddenly he was in Dispatch's face again, complete with the knife hand, but now including a dramatically raised voice. "You know damn well that we are not Parahuman, or at least should have known, simply based on where we came from and the exact incidents that played out over the last few hours. And you STILL try to pull this shit?"
What followed was one of the most brutal things that Mio had ever witnessed.
Satori proceeded to, in completely unnecessary and dramatic fashion, completely tear Dispatch apart in every way possible, verbally critiquing everything from his parentage and lifestyle to his choice of occupations and even his fucking underwear. And all of it while screaming so loud that he could probably be heard across the entire base. Hell, the man she loved had somehow managed to even duplicate himself just so he could be screaming at Dispatch from no less than five different directions, each one going after a different topic, and all at the maximum possible volume.
And then he reached into Dispatch's mind for the worst things to use against him and started going after those, hammering in on every possible fear, anxiety, and even mild annoyance the fucker had with a precision and ruthlessness that was terrifying to behold.
For other people, that is. The Military contingent seemed to be doing the best they could to not laugh, and Mio herself was only just barely avoiding going in herself to tear a strip out of the asshole's hide. They were also drawing a crowd, as various onlookers came to see exactly what all the noise was about, only to see a parahuman getting chewed up one side and down the other in vivid detail.
One of the other civilians outside the security cordon mentioned something about a Smokey hat, which brought down uproarious laughter from his entire group, and that section of the security cordon as they shared in a joke of some kind.
Dispatch, for his part, tried to talk back, only to get knife hands from every direction and even more screaming. A field of some kind appeared, cutting the grouping off from the rest via some kind of twisted barrier in space-time. Minerva had some interesting things to say about the effect, at any rate…for the three seconds it was active, after which everyone came back out, the screaming (and now wild gestures) completely unabated by whatever had happened. If anything, Dispatch was the worse off for it, now attempting to curl in on himself but being prevented from doing so by Satori propping him up into a standing position, so he could yell more.
And adding critiques on that, as well.
It was quite hilarious, and most of the others watching were getting more than a few laughs out of it, even some of the NASA people.
Of course, the other idiots were not idle. The twin Idiots of Frostbite and Hawkwind were both attempting to position themselves for maximum effect, specifically to block off access from the military contingent and to curtail any "escape" attempts, respectively. Something that had fallen apart when Satori started his "counseling" session with their leader. They were now staring in shock and awe at the man getting reduced to a crying wreck before them, only prevented from intervening by the fact that Mio was psychically holding them in place, mostly so that she would not have to kill them for trying to harm her beloved.
Grey Knight was the outlier, looking extremely tense at the building atmosphere, and giving both Mio and Satori wary eyes. Mio's guess was that she felt the surge of power when their emotions rose, and realized what he was dealing with long before his bosses did. And, much like many a good subordinate, he had no way to stop the trainwreck that didn't involve falling on his own sword to save the idiots creating the mess in the first place. Which, from his body language, he was not about to do.
Mio considered him extremely wise for that. And kept him out of the stasis as a subtle reward.
Still, the situation begged a question. She stepped towards Grey Knight, who looked like he would be the most amicable towards answers. "Tell me, exactly what did you hope to accomplish by being here?" she asked, at least somewhat politely. Which was an interesting thing to do, seeing as she still had to be heard over the screaming.
"Our mission was supposed to be as a liaison and meet-and-greet for some high-priority VIPs that Director Danners had informed us about. Past that, we were supposed to listen in, attempt to confirm parahuman involvement, and if so, contact the PRT for further instructions if friendly, or capture and subdue if hostile."
Mio considered it for a moment. "And this was not supposed to be a massive powergrab by your PRT in an attempt to solidify their position? Especially since it is known that parahuman powers do not persist beyond the atmosphere? Let alone on the moon itself? The transmission we were using was not exactly encoded in any way, and any receiver could have picked it up when we were transmitting. You know full well that we were operating in space. We made no secret of it, and this is, in fact, why the NASA people are here in the first place. So why did your leader attempt to strong-arm the situation on a known military serviceman who is completely outside of your jurisdiction?"
Grey Knight, for his part, shrugged. "I honestly don't know, ma'am. The way things were working out, I was taking cues from my team to be ready for a fight, I seriously didn't want one with either of you, but…"
Mio chuckled softly. "Don't worry, I'm not going to hold it against you. Besides, there were some other things that I needed to talk to you about as well, most pressingly about the fact that you are not a parahuman at all, at least not by the legal or medical definition."
Grey Knight looked like he had seen a ghost. "I have no clue what you are talking about, ma'am. I am very much a parahuman–"
"No, you are not. You do not possess either of the specialized brain tumors that the others have. Your powers are a direct result of your awakening to something else entirely, and is the reason why your power are so wildly divergent from the norm for most. Especially in the fact that you have been getting stronger over time. I'm sure your theorists are going nuts with that, by the way."
Grey Knight only nodded, somewhat defeated at the ease in which he was being dissected.
Mio nodded to herself. "Very well, then. In the name of cooperation, I would like to invite you to be an attendant crew member at Miakoda Station."
There was a wave of shock that rippled across the representative delegation, even as Satori continued his merciless berating of Dispatch.
Grey Knight hesitated for a moment. "Do you…mind if I think about it for a bit? This is a major decision, after all, and well…"
Mio considered the most obvious issues for a brief (for her) moment, and quickly moved to remove the worry. "If you are thinking about your family, don't woory too much. We can bring them along too, if you want." Mio turned to the others. "The same goes for you guys as well. Anyone who is accepted for heading up with us can, if they choose, bring along their families. I think it would be a good experience for everyone, after all. If you don't want to, please let one of us know as soon as possible."
Col. Gibson broke the shock. "This Miakoda Station, is…?"
"The new name of what you probably are referring to as Pytheas. We renamed the place, since we'd done so much in the way of renovations. We'd intended to explain it, along with some other things, after the introductions were done, and we'd gotten to somewhere where a proper meeting could take place, but…" Mio waves a hand at the still restrained capes and the now openly bawling Dispatch, who is still being screamed at by Satori.
The colonel merely nodded in acknowledgement. "I am assuming that we will receive more details later on, then."
"That is correct, colonel. If you are ready," this last part was pitched to include the others as well, "we can begin now."
Col. Gibson took one last look around, before nodding his assent, which was mirrored by Director Langley. Grey Knight accepted as the de-facto Protectorate liaison, seeing as his comrades were still incapacitated.
The group then proceeded to move to a previously designated meeting space, leaving behind two capes still held in a stasis field (that would wear off…eventually) and a thoroughly traumatized Dispatch, who was only just now getting out of getting smoked into the floor by Satori, who left the wreck of a man to his own devices as he followed the group.
No one in the surrounding crowd paid the parahumans any mind.
The meeting space was a simple office nestled inside one of the secure hangars on site, and was fully equipped with teleconferencing equipment to get the rest of the important people who couldn't be there in person. There were enough seats for everyone involved, even Grey Knight, whom Mio insisted sit with us for the meet, despite his not having formally accepted her offer.
Of course, we both knew better. Grey Knight was about as close to a complete shoo-in as we were going to get, crew-wise, and would be quite useful in the training programs we'd want to implement as well.
Still, that was something for later. Right now, we had to deal with the usual politics and other BS.
There was a delay while a few fiddly bits got set up regarding connections, but eventually the various video calls were connected, revealing the images of several key personnel, notably of the type usually based in Washington.
Still, it was basically my meeting, so I'd have to start things off. "Alright, ladies and gentlemen, we all know why we're here, so let's get to it. I'll cede the floor to the Colonel for now, unless anyone else has something pressing to add?"
There were no objections, so Col. Gibson took center stage. "Very well, sergeant. I'll start off on our end. You have been introduced to everyone here in this room, but there are several others that could not make the trip down in person, and requested to be involved.
"First is the President, Raymond Gillen, who wished to speak to you regarding matters. With him are the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Blake Cummins, as well as his support staff. The Secretary of Defense was unavailable to participate, though he does send his regards."
I perked up at the mention of what was effectively the top end of the chain of command sitting in personally instead of letting the colonel handle things. I suspected there were other things at play for this, but kept my curiosity for the moment.
"Also with us are the Chief Administrator of NASA, a Ms. Wendy Hearthstone, who requested to be here as an observer. Something about history and whatnot." There was a general chuckle shared across the room and beyond, considerably lightening the atmosphere, before the Colonel continued. "Alongside we have Donald Anderson, Chief of DARPA, and Art Renner from the NASA Jet Propulsion Labs, who both requested to be present for any technical demonstrations."
"Finally, we have the Chief Director of the Parahuman Response Teams, Rebecca Costa-Brown, who I am informed insisted on being present. I apologize for the late addition."
I waved it off. "No issues. I was going to need to make a few points anyway. Might as well do it to her face, so to speak." My tone was deceptively mild, but those of us who had (or were still) wearing uniforms caught the meaning all too clearly: I was aware of the reasoning behind Costa-Brown butting her head in, and was not amused.
At all.
"Introductions complete, I now hand the floor to the President. Mr. President?"
President Gillen nodded, his face taking up the majority of the viewscreen. "Thank you, colonel. Sergeant Green, Mrs. Green," I could distinctly feel Mio's happiness at hearing that, "On behalf of the United States of America and the world at large, I would like to formally thank you for your contributions today. You have ended a threat long in its shadow, and as a result the world can now sleep a little safer, knowing that no more of the Simurgh's machinations haunt the future. We are in your debt." There was a solemn pause at the end from all parties.
I filled the silence after a moment. "You are more than welcome, Mr. President. I am just glad that the method we used was so effective in dispatching the feathered bitch. I was worried we'd have to break out the big guns for that one."
Several heads perked at hearing that, the interest in the weapons capable of damaging an Endbringer clear to see. "I'll elaborate on those later, however."
The President barked out a short laugh. "I'll hold you to that. Sergeant, but first, I believe that General Cummins had something to add in."
The General took focus on the screen. "Thank you, Mr. President. Now then, sergeant, it was mentioned that you may have had some technology that was of significant military import. What exactly were you referring to?"
Mio was already pulling out the Box, having retrieved it from her storage before we began the meeting. I motioned to it as I spoke. "Well, most of what I have at the moment is primarily meant for NASA to play with, but there are indeed things there that could see some use if developed in the appropriate directions." I gestured to the DARPA chief, who nodded back at my notice that they would inevitably be involved in whatever gets cooked up. "That being said, what we did bring down as demonstrators were…significant. Most of it is either propulsion systems or power generation and batteries technology, but I do have a project that I'm working on that is a fairly streamlined form of quantum computing, though it's in the early stages at the moment. It's based somewhat on an extension and expansion of the old holographic storage concept, for those of you in the know."
The various nods from the more technical minded confirmed that they had been still exploring the concept even here., so I moved on. "As for the propulsion stuff, it's primarily a form of relatively cheap and energy-efficient counter-gravity technology, along with a similarly developed repulsor system that could be potentially used as a thrust mechanism with a little work. We already have a variant design in the works for that one that is still in testing, so we'll get back to you when we have results."
The NASA people were staring googly-eyed at me as if I had just said Santa was real.
"Also included are notes and technical schematics on several forms of power generation, with a focus on fusion power, including a variant that, while a bit difficult to implement, allows for power generation well beyond anything that conventional fusion is capable of. We would have brought a demonstrator, but the size factors involved precluded this. The other stuff, like the collar cells and the theory behind them, are included here, along with some samples."
"As for the battery tech, well…this shit has to be seen to be believed."
I pulled out the portable holoprojector and set it in the middle of the table, then set the playback to the battery tests we'd run on the Imperial Power packs. Included very prominently was the practical examples of the packs being able to gain significant charge from damn near anything up to and including a goddamn campfire, and still function. Also included was the differences between the 'base' specification of the power pack as implemented on Necromunda, the actual STC standard version (which was superior in all ways), and the variants that Mio and I had cooked up, that were varying levels of superior in certain categories from the STC counterpart, clearly showing what could be improved and how.
The looks on people's faces were priceless.
"Also in this nice box here is some stuff related to superconductor theory, along with practical examples thereof. I am well aware of how much of a pain in the ass those are to work with, and the designs here are meant for multiple applications, including three designs for RTSC's and at least one that I'd worked out that is workable in more…hostile environments. I leave it to you to determine how to work with that."
"The final contents of this nice box here is a grab-bag of various alloys and compounds that might be useful, along with notes on the composition and possible methods to create them. Note that this may take some time due to industrial needs, but aside from that feel free to go nuts."
The room was deadly silent. NASA and the DARPA reps were completely starstruck, and Ms. Hearthstone was all but vibrating in her seat even through the monitor. JPL's reaction was even more amusing, as the feed there was visibly muted, and there was obvious shouting and celebrations going on as the mere existence of some of this stuff solved so many issues they'd had prior to now.
General Cummins had somehow managed to keep his cool, despite his subordinates on his end of the screen (and the Colonel and Majors on ours) all but gaping at the implications involved in just that box alone. He somehow kept himself a very cool customer, even in the face of massive technical advancement staring them in the face, and his own clear excitement at the possibilities inherent within, which I considered quite the achievement.
I liked the guy already.
The one holdout was Costa-Brown, who had a distinctly neutral expression on her face, one that was completely at odds with everything going on in this meeting. Mio noticed it as well, and was almost immediately on guard for shenanigans based solely on the fact that she wasn't celebrating.
I set Thoth into research mode to figure out why, before continuing. "I believe that these, with a little R&D work, should be more than sufficient for you to work up something interesting for use, particularly in reviving the space program. Past that, the sky is the limit."
"Please excuse me, but there is reason to believe that this may be some form of Tinkertech, and thus needing your personal involvement in the maintenance and upkeep thereof. We at the PRT would have to do thorough testing to ensure that this is not the case before allowing–"
"Lemme stop you right there, Costa-Brown." I cut in. "I know you head me mention that the technical schematics were included with all of this, and on a personal note, my own background as a technical specialist completely precludes me from trying to hoodwink people on this scale. Take your attempt to butt in and kindly stuff it. If you want access to the tech, talk to NASA or the DoD. I'm already pissed off enough with your organization as it is. Do NOT make it worse."
My glare at the screen now having Costa-Brown's face on it was NOT kind in the slightest. Costa-Brown, for her part, stared right back as if nothing was amiss. "Regardless of your statements or feeling on the matter, we at the PRT are directly responsible for all matter parahuman and as such will need to vet all technology applications to ensure that they comply with relevant federal law. This is non-negotiable and you will comply."
I stared at the screen, barely containing my shock at the sheer gall being displayed here, before changing my line of sight to the window displaying the President. There was no change in his demeanor, though it seemed very forced. I then glanced at Gen. Cummins, who subtly shook his head.
And a picture painted itself in my mind. This Costa-Brown Character, despite only being the director of a law enforcement agency covering a very specific and equally well-defined category of persons, was somehow able to amass enough political capital that she was able to completely step on the turf of the second most important governmental department of the United States with no repercussions whatsoever.
Mio, as always attuned to my moods, was already working with the agreed-upon contingency and contacting the appropriate people. I stalled for a brief moment to let her do her thing, before continuing on.
"Costa Brown. I do believe you are out of line."
The whipcrack that went through the room was almost audible at my response, and I noted several people moving to speak all at once, including the President.
I did not let them.
"No, all of you shut up. I don't want to hear it. I just watched this woman here completely steamroll every last one of you with a single sentence like she was entitled to it, despite it being blatantly clear that I nor anything I have to offer should not fall under her purview. Last I checked, Mr. President, The PRT was a federal agency and under your final command, correct? And the Department of Defense in general held primacy over enlisted and officer personnel?"
Of course, Costa-Brown refused to back down. "Regardless of what you think, this is what will happen. I will also require you to speak with the local PRT branch as soon as possible regarding your contact with the Simurgh, and to undergo Master/Stranger protocols as appropriate. Otherwise, we may be forced to brand you as a potential threat vector, and respond appropriately."
Mio finished her setup, and the holoprojector image immediately changed again, this time to an office occupied by a man in a suit.
A Mexican Flag was clearly visible in the background.
"Buenos Dias. I am President Julian San Marcos. You mentioned you were having some trouble with our American counterparts?"
Mio smiled at the man. "Some trouble with the PRT regarding jurisdiction and control. I trust you have reviewed the packet we sent?"
The Mexican President brightened noticeably. "But of course, señora. We would be more than willing to host you and yours if the PRT insists on turning you away. We can implement anything you need as you need it, just let us know."
You could hear a pin drop in the room, the gauntlet clearly having been thrown down in regard to the PRT interference. Most of those present were looking at us with shocked (and in one particular case, downright terrified) eyes, all but watching their big score walking out the door because one of their number couldn't accept that she would not be the one calling the shots.
President Gillen tried to regain control of the situation. "Sergeant, I do not think that will be necessary–"
I cut off the President of the United Stated of America. " I believe it is, in light of the continued insistence of the PRT, and it's leadership, to assert authority in a situation where they have none."
"I came here with the intent to spread around the good news about the Simurgh, and to provide technology and opportunities for NASA to get back into the space exploration gig. I had also intended to liaise with the Department of Defense regarding their participation in this matter, as well as access to certain potential technologies that they would find interesting. I intended to do this solely out of goodwill, with my only requested concession being a favorable recommendation for setup of certain business ventures relevant to these ends."
"As things are currently, I am being forced to consider alternatives to my previous plan, and instead set up in a favorable location in Mexico, complete with offering them whatever they need to meet my standards of approval for housing personnel on Miakoda Station."
Thoth pinged me back with a blurb of information that I assimilated instantly…and brought me a bit of surprise as I considered the implications of the data. It did give me an idea to use, however.
"But, since it is clear that not even the President of the United States is capable of reining in his own Chief PRT director, I will offer a compromise." I turned back to Costa-Brown. "You say you are worried about our exposure to the Simurgh, correct? I will agree to undergoing your screening under two conditions:
"First, all of the tech contained within the Box will be studied and vetted by non-PRT sources as to their usability and reliability, and their status as tinkertech. They are literally the most knowledgeable people in the world regarding the subject, and can farm out to other agencies as appropriate."
Costa-Brown seemed to relax a bit, and I smirked. Gotcha Bitch.
"The second stipulation is related to the exposure limits of Simurgh engagements, which I have done some research on. The standard for exposure is…20 minutes, correct?"
Costa-Brown nodded.
"Then I propose that your Triumvirate, specifically Alexandria, be held for time proportional to their exposure to the Simurgh as well. And before you start thinking to be smart, I will note that our total exposure to the range of the Simurgh is six point four two one seconds. I will be requiring that every Hour of holding for screening be measured against that chunk of time and applied to the total exposure for your people."
"Oh, and before I forget, this applies solely to American agencies and organizations. The Mexican government is its own entity and will be treated as such with regard to any tech sharing prospects."
For the first time, I finally understood the concept of silence being violent. It was very much the case in that room at that moment. My smirk only got more vicious as I saw Costa-Brown suppress the normal motor functions that would indicate her shock…and her rage.
Thing is, the Force is bullshit, psionically amped up force stuff even more so. Focusing on her, even with us being so far away, allowed me to get a good read on her mental state, and all the confirmation I needed for the conclusion that Thoth had come to based on the available data.
'Hello, Alexandria. So nice to meet you, too.'
The message got through as intended. The bitch was pissed as fuck, but she knew I held all the cards and was more than willing to burn every bridge to see her burn if it came to it.
So, of course, she quickly changed tacks. "I see. In that case, in light of your…protracted engagement time, I see no need to subject you to Master/Stranger screening at this time. We would still like to speak to you regarding the Simurgh and the details of the encounter, but understand that you have other priorities."
General Cummins burst out laughing. It was a jolly thing from such a man, but was welcome all the same. It was nearly a full minute before he calmed enough to speak. "See, that is the backbone of an NCO right there. Any doubts I had that you were one of ours, regardless of where you came from, are gone. Good job, Sergeant."
President Gillen finally managed to pick his jaw up off the floor (metaphorically, anyway) to regain some semblance of order. "Very well, if that has been settled?"
Mio decided to twist the knife, "One more thing, Mr. President. In light of recent events, I feel that we must now insist on a total cooperation in terms of technical advancement and resource sharing between the United States and Mexico considering the Box. To prevent international incidents, of course." She added, almost as an afterthought.
President San Marcos could not have been happier.
The nitty-gritty of the meeting had concluded, with us having turned over the Box and it's contents to the local NASA personnel, along with a formal request for volunteers for stays at Miakoda Station. The same had been pitched to Gen. Cummins, who noted that he would get his people working on it ASAP and have a list ready to use.
Shockingly enough, the separate listing of potential replacements for me on Miakoda seemed to vanish overnight after word of how poor Becky got handled spread. Seemed that nobody wanted to risk my ire, especially when I'd made it clear that I played international hardball.
That being said, the response to our having formally requested Grey Knight (and only Grey Knight) as a Protectorate Liaison was…muted. People probably suspected ulterior motives, but nobody could prove anything., nor did they actually want to.
And so, meeting over, I found myself standing before Colonel Gibson at his request regarding a matter he said was sensitive. Mio was leaning on a wall nearby, doing some people watching, while she checked out Bet's internet and set up the initial sites for the manufacturing bases in Mexico.
"Alright, Colonel, what's so important you had to get away from the PRT oversight to ask about?"
Gibson snorted out a laugh. "Thought you would pick up on that. Anyway, there are two matters that I needed to address. The first is regarding a hunch of mine that I need confirmed: Your abilities…you can teach them to others, can't you?"
I actually blinked at that question. God DAMN this man is good.
"...I won't deny it, but how the hell did you even come to that conclusion in the first place? Especially with the preponderance of parahuman BS going on?"
A small smirk spread across the Colonel's face. "General observation and experience, son. Also, I overheard your wife speaking to Grey Knight, and put some pieces together. So…second point is somewhat related, as the brass has tapped me on this subject to ask what it's going to take to get access."
Now it was my turn to smirk. "Well, aside from waiting a bit for me to make the offer, that you have now beaten me to? I need to screen the recruits. Not everyone is going to be qualified for what I have to teach, Colonel, and I fully intend to create an instructor core out of these guys so that they can teach everyone else."
I waited until I saw the full implication of what I had just said had sunk in. "This world… parahumans have taken over entirely too much to be safe, and they are unstable at the best of times. My dressing down of Dispatch is proof enough of that, really. I got worse than that in Basic, but he all but shattered under the strain. Do you really want those people having power while the rest of the world does not?" It was a rhetorical question and we both knew it.
"Besides, there is a second factor. Grey Knight was kind of unexpected, but it proves that people can awaken their own latent talents and use them without any formal training, and most will think that it was just a nonstandard trigger. These people both can and will be invaluable in stemming the tide of parahumans later on, especially the crazy fucks rolling around."
Gibson could only chuckle to himself. "Damn. This is excellent. More than I could have asked for, really. Makes what I am about to do all the more justified."
And, to my shock, The colonel came to attention. "Attention to Orders."
It was pure reflex that I obeyed the command. I felt Mio' attention shift over to me for a moment, curiosity in her mind.
"Technical Sergeant Satori Green, it is with great honor and humility that we recognize your accomplishments and contribution to the Armed Forces, both in word and deed. Your skills have been proven to the satisfaction of the President and the Joint Chiefs, to such a degree that an exceptional merit is required."
He then pulled out a very familiar piece of paper, along with a small box, "Please raise your right hand and repeat after me: I, state your name, having been appointed a Warrant Officer in the United States Air Force…"
This…this changed a lot.
The US Air Force had done away with its Warrant Officer corps back in the sixties, citing a lack of need due to having the senior enlisted ranks of Senior and Chief Master Sergeant. It had held for decades, despite having a distinct crisis regarding availability of pilots and the lack of commissioned officers to fly them.
And yet, here, on Earth Bet, the Air Force was willing to reinstate the Warrant Officer Corps, starting with myself, as a means of both retaining my awesome technical expertise…and as a note for the future corps of those who would follow in my footsteps as wielders of their innate talents.
I was literally being asked to create and train a corps of combat mages for the Air Force, along with my other duties in all areas technical. It was kind of surreal, but I was getting over it quickly.
"So, what does this mean, exactly?" Mio asked me, lightly draping herself onto my shoulder.
I took a moment to steady myself before answering.
"It means we have our jobs cut out for us."
She was silent for a moment.
"Very well. I will activate the Tower, and get started on some training plans. You, on the other hand, have to go through a service school, I believe?"
I shrugged. "Supposedly there is a waiver in place or similar due to the circumstances, or at least while the rest of the Air Force absorbs the change and figures out what the hell a Warrant Officer School is supposed to look like. In the meantime, I'm kind of just here, and only a mere WO1 instead of the intended rank that had been authorized for me, but that is bureaucracy for you."
Because the Military definitely had bureaucracy, even if it was far more efficient than it's normal governmental counterparts. This, of course, meant that my actual rank of Chief Warrant Officer 5 was being delayed until I checked off the boxes, despite the general agreement that I had more important things to be doing and the fact that this was coming directly from the President and the Joint Chiefs themselves, with the Secretary of the Air Force being read in even now, and Congress being rustled to put their required stamp of approval on the decision.
The thought brought a light peal of laughter to my lips. Some things truly never changed.
That being said, what Mio was suggesting activating was kind of a big deal: it was part of the ongoing updates in the Forge log that Watts was still crunching through, and based on the notes was the equivalent of the same facility seen on SR388: a Chozo-made Weapons and technology testing center complete with automated test robots to perform all the work. The interesting part was that this version came fully stocked with all the modifications that we would have wanted to be applied already effected, and would be ready for anything we could throw at it from day one.
This didn't add in to the other thing that came through the pipe that changed everything.
Because included in the update was the distilled knowledge of a true and fully-trained Device Meister…along with everything that meant. We were going to have to redo the Computation orb designs again, but this time it would be worth it–
An error message popped up in my HUD before a spike of pain burned itself into my back. It was bad, but not horrible, so I was more than capable of keeping my wits as it burned itself into my back. A light gasp from Mio confirmed she was feeling the same pain, and was equally handling it.
I quickly forced myself into the forgescape to figure out what was going on, only to be met directly by a woman I assumed was Watts' wife. At least judging by looks.
"No time to explain, just PUSH!!"
I pushed, and a malicious black mass of something was summarily ejected from the forgescape, leaving behind an odd residue that was quickly cleaned up and contained…but it was clear that it had left its mark. Parts of the forge seemed to be glitchy, and inactivated nodes were looking downright corrosive compared to their normal cheery counterparts.
I turned to the woman to ask for an explanation, but she beat me to the punch.
"That thing was a remnant from your run-in with the big black mass that tried to corrupt you before. It acted like a sort of trojan horse, seeking out and attempting to destroy the forge itself through corrupting your soul. We were able to isolate most of it, but then some kind of failsafe activated and, well, this happened. The damage…we'll have to get back to you on that part, but you should be able to activate at least one more set of nodes before we take things offline for a bit to do some cleanup. Shouldn't affect usage of things already on and imprinted, but the rest…I'm not sure what we can save, if anything. We'll let you know."
She quickly stepped towards me, and then gave me one of the most intense kisses I'd ever gotten from anyone that wasn't Mio–wait a minute–
"Take care of her. And don't forget to take care of yourself as well. I'll see you soon."
And I was gently pushed out of the forgescape and back into normal waking reality, but with a very weird question on my mind.
Why the hell was Watt's wife kissing me that hard…and why was she Mio?
Yep. This actually happened.
No, I am not sorry.
For those of you confused by events, this is a nice way of letting me get a perk out of my queue and slow down rolls for a bit while I focus the story on other things going on. It's about to get Crazy, yo.
Many of these have only grown in their legend over the years, such as the famous "eighth wonder of the world" the Astrodome. This continued even through the Parahuman age, to the point that Houston was home to arguably the most powerful member of the Triumvirate, Eidolon.
But none of these compared to the facility that sat next to Clear Lake, out in the southeastern suburbs of the city.
For here was the site of the legendary Johnson Space Center, home of the equally storied National Aeronautics and Space Agency's Mission Control. This building alone had earned Houston the moniker of "Space City USA".
It was here that all space-based activities of the United States of America were conducted and controlled, all funneled through the equally famous Mission Control center.
And so, it was here that the nation, and by extension the entire world, learned of the newest occupants of the Moon.
"This is Technical Sergeant Satori Green, United States Air Force. How you guys doing down there?"
The uproar in the control room would later be said to have been heard through the entire building.
After everyone had somewhat calmed down, the on-site controller, an old hand of the glory days of the space program (before the Simurgh had appeared and dashed all their dreams), found himself in the position of having to fudge things.
He took a moment to calm his own nerves, running a hand through the mohawk he'd had for years, before responding. "We're doing good, Mr. Green, though we do have some questions as to how you got up there."
The entire room heard the nervous chuckle come through the speakers. "Well, mostly cleaning up and expanding the old Pytheas Moonbase up and repurposing it for my own ends, among other things…oh. If Transtar tries to get on your case about this, tell them I call salvage rights, as the place was technically abandoned."
A bevy of hushed conversations broke out at that comment, and it took a bit to get people to calm down before a return transmission was sent out. "Well, that would be a little difficult, Pytheas, as there is no Transtar corporation in existence that we know of, and they definitely do not have a facility on the moon. That being said, we'd love to hear about the place since you are obviously there anyway."
A distinct sound of shuffling and movement was heard across the transmission, and everyone in the Mission Control center quickly came to the amused realization that Green had left the mic hot. The bits of commentary that followed from the other side were more than worth it.
'Somebody hit the archives for me!!' 'We already did; nothing there!' 'Still looking for it, boss!!' 'Can't we just rig something? It's NASA, right?' 'They still need receiver hardware, dummy!!' 'What about the Talos Relay?' 'Won't work, too busted. Need at least ten minutes to fix it right…'
Someone started snickering in the corner, and it spread and grew to full on laughter at someone else knowing their pain of dealing with everything that could go wrong in space.
Soon enough, though, Green came back to them. "Err…sorry about that. Had to do some digging to see what data transmission sources you guys had left…and from what I'm seeing it's not much, really. I think I can do a tightbeam transmission to you but…kind of a bad angle at the movement."
Again, the controller had to stifle his own chuckles. "Well, we're more concerned about how you managed to get up there in the first place, son. Must've been one hell of a rollercoaster to get past Ziz, now…"
There was a distinct pause, followed by a series of muttered curses, and something about needing to find a flyswatter. "Err…it's complicated, Houston. Also, potentially related to other issues you're having down there, so I can't go into details just yet. Short version is that we are possibly from a different dimension."
The general excitement level increased exponentially at that. The only other contact they had with alternate dimensions (at least prior to this mess) was Earth Aleph, and that was information only. The possibility of a traveler with space-faring technology to share was a major point, one that needed to be capitalized on as quickly as possible.
The operator kept his cool all the same. This was old hat to him, after all.
"Well, I can see why that would complicate things, then. Let's switch topics. You know why we were trying to contact you, correct?"
"I can guess it has something to do with there being an actual receiving station up here for once?"
The operator had to hand it to Green: he actually tried. Got a good laugh out of the crew, too. "Sorry, but no. We were more concerned with the light show that was happening up there recently."
There was some more muffled cursing, this time feminine. Still, it was Green that responded. "Of course you would be worried about that…right, so the incident has been resolved. I can tell you that much. As for what it was…call it cleanup. There was something weird up here that decided we would make a good target…and we dealt with it. The lightshow and explosions were part of that. Apologies for the fuss."
Another voice was suddenly heard over the comms, shouting excitedly. "BOSS!! WE CAN KILL THE STUPID BIRD!!"
The entirety of the control room froze. They couldn't mean…
'Wait, what? Without destroying everything? Send it here…holy fuck, it can work. This can actually wor–MIO WAIT DAMMIT!!'
More confused shuffling happened, and there was the distinct *whumpf* of hard contact as something got hit by the mic, hard. A louder sound of a whine of sorts echoed slightly before fading.
'Well, fuck. She's going after the bitch solo. Mandy, help me out of these!!'
There were more sounds of jostling. Followed by a resigned sigh. 'Just make sure they stay in contact, please. Need to make sure that this gets done right.' Another jostling sound, before a different voice, this one female, got on the mic. "Sorry about that, Houston. Had some things happen up here that needed to be dealt with. Anyway, back to the meat of the discussion. The base is more than available for anyone who wants to come up and take a look, and we definitely could use some permanent staff up here for things we are planning. The Boss isn't sure if we need to go through the idiots in D.C. or not, though. Any thoughts?"
Nobody could respond, as one of the girls from down in space tracking suddenly ran through the door. "We just caught sight of something happening in orbit!! We think that Ziz is–"
The poor tracking tech was silenced by a solemn control supervisor, his face clearly showing the severity of the situation. By being in a state of pure shock. "We know. We're talking to the people who are doing it."
"Hey…Houston, you guys there? Need to inform you of something real quick." yet another voice came back through the transmission. He sounded…resigned, somehow. And suspiciously like the legendary 'Buzz' Aldrin.
Many in that room right now were there, back then. He even thought he'd heard someone in the back muttering something along a question of 'Aldrin, that you?'
As always, even with the prospect of the Bitch of Feathers being removed from orbit and the path to space opening again, the operator was cool and collected, though he was now scratching at the Star designs in his haircut, a nervous tic he'd picked up years ago and hadn't quite broken yet. "Go ahead, Pytheas. We're listening."
The next words out of his mouth would be replayed around the world for years to come.
"Well...it's a bit sooner than expected…and definitely unplanned…but we're about to–excuse me, have just taken care of your orbital psychic pigeon problem."
There was pure silence. Nobody even breathed. "Can…can you repeat that, Pytheas?"
"Yes. Yes I can.
"The Simurgh is dead."
A second tech came racing into the room, holding a sheet of paper in his hand and screaming about something. Nobody paid him any mind, too lost in their own thoughts…until what he was saying registered.
"Orbital Tracking has confirmed that the thing headed this way is outbound to the Moon…and the Simurgh is GONE!!"
He said other things, the operator knew. Other words that were meaningless after that were not worth repeating. But the message was all the same.
He thought he heard someone sobbing in the background before the first cheers broke out.
Well, that could have happened differently.
As it turned out, NASA was rather enthused by the sudden and unexpected windfall of having the Bitch of Feathers killed off in real time by people who would be more than happy to give them access to new space technologies and even experience on a Moonbase.
I think they were happier about the Simurgh getting offed, though.
And that was the weirdest part, too. Apparently the endbringer dimensional BS was not strong enough to compensate for being drawn into an active impeller storage, and the core connection was even more fragile despite the amount of protection the physical antenna had to the body. It had created a bit of a mess when the whole dimensional overlapping thing had fallen apart without the focal point of the technique, though, and had resulted in both myself and Mio ending up playing super-quick cleanup of the orbital space before the leftover corpse pieces could vomit endbringer chunks into the atmosphere.
We did deliberately miss more than a few pieces, however, just to drive the point home that the bitch truly was dead and not coming back. At least, not without something exceptionally stupid happening, anyway.
Now, after cruising back to Luna and properly disgorging the mess from our impellers into the recycler systems of the hanger (which yielded a bunch of exotic materials of a new type and composition from the Typhon stuff, and merited further explanation) We were busy examining the leftover core.
And…it wasn't much to write home about, as far as I could tell. Sure, it had the receptors for whatever oddball technique was getting used for the standard endbringer bullshit to work, but without an active connection to work with it had jack and shit to use, and was just…there. Our attempts to pull usable data from it so far had failed to yield fruit, as well. Which was frustrating after the rather grand success of dealing with NASA.
So, we tabled it and instead got to putting together the care package that we'd be sending to them now that the orbitals were clear of interference. It was nothing too special in our books, but the contents were absolute game changers for an early 21st century world: countergrav and repulsor tech theories (and a few simplified working designs), advanced power generation systems (including workable fusion reactors) Superconductor theory and practicals, stuff like that. Of note was the one thing that Mio had insisted be included in the set, a brace of varying Imperial Lasgun Power packs, both standard issue and modified by us in varying stages.
It was enough to cause a total technology revolution the instant the science and engineering teams got a hold of them, even without the advanced material science to go with it. I'm sure that they would be thanking me for a long time to come.
Of course, aside from hearing that Jeb apparently sounded like Buzz Aldrin (there were a few people in the control center who were hardcore NASA vets, and had been there for the first landings), there was the whole 'getting the base ready for actual cohabitation' thing. Everyone was working everywhere they could to spruce the place up and make sure it was as good as it could get for guests.
The fact that we'd managed to get the bloodstains out of things in multiple areas helped.
Still, there were a few things that felt a little unnerving to me. For one, despite the fact that an endbringer had been outright erased from existence not an hour ago, the word had yet to properly spread around. And considering just how many people tended to watch the psychic chicken as she ran around, that was concerning and stank of a coverup.
Then there was the issue surrounding Pytheas (still pending rename) itself. Apparently some idiots in the government had caught on to the fact that I was Enlisted military, and wanted to use that as a means to exert pressure on me, or even outright claim the base for themselves through sending up an officer of some kind to assume command.
There was already a search underway for potential candidates, from what we were getting out of the official communications. And considering that the presence and even existence of Pytheas as they knew it wasn't even in its second hour of life, that was moving blazing fast, especially for something that would heavily impact the DoD. I could already see the beginnings of the backlash forming from those who were getting stepped on and/or leveraged to do the dirty work of some dumbass politician.
That being said, not everything was bad news. The issues on the ground were not as severe as they initially appeared to be: the originium patches that were dotted all over the place were actually rather self-contained and showed no signs of either the normal catastrophes or general spreading that was normally associated with the material, and the various terrestrial invasion attempts by demonic(?) powers were running into even harsher interference than we'd first estimated, meaning that most of the big boys were being occupied and only the minor stuff was getting through.
And people were adapting to the new normal in ways that were still being investigated properly by the various authorities. Most of the exact means of doing so were still in super-preliminary stages, but I could feel the difference just by directing my senses to the planet for a moment. People were, somehow, awakening to their innate supernatural talents. And they were using those newfound talents to take the fight back to those who would prey on them.
It was something that would need to get addressed sooner or later, especially with the parahuman wildcard still in play, but we had a bit of time to work with, at least for the moment. No need to rush things even more than we already were, after all.
The care package had been assembled, the base had been cleaned p, and now we were just trying to decide on a new name for the place. Naturally, this prompted both the Kerbals and the Fairies to chime in.
"Kaguya!" "NO!! ARE YOU TRYING TO GET US KILLED!?!" "How about Selene?" "But she's not even up here, it won't hurt…" "Aldrin sounds good. You know, after the astronaut..." "Just pick something else." "If we're going there, we can call it–" "No, it won't work right. Besides, that name is reserved for the other base." "Well, maybe we could call it Nokomis?" "How about Artemis?" "You really want to name the place after her?" "I vote Yue." "Nah, Io." "But isn't that already being used for a moon of Jupiter?" "Like that matters. And it's Saturn, not Jupiter." "No, it's definitely a Jovian moon…"
Yeah, the discussion was heated.
"Still can't decide?"
Mio had, of course, managed to corner me perfectly without so much as trying, her presence being entirely too comforting for me to resist allowing it.
"Nah. Not really. It has a lot to do with the fact that most of the names are actually really good, and not just crazy stuff I can reject out of hand."
One of the Kerbals, who had taken a rare step for the non-command crew and introduced herself to us (Silmeria Kerman was her name, and daredevil piloting was her game) stopped after hearing my gripe.
"Why not just put everything into a hat, then? That way you don't have to crush people for picking a favorite."
Her fairy countepart-slash-tagalong, by the name of Lenneth, quickly voiced her agreement. "Yeah! It'll let all of the other crazier ideas filter in without stuffing people for being stupid, and then we can just agree that the name was chosen at least somewhat fairly, right?"
Mio gave me one of those nudges. The ones she usually has on hand for when she thinks that I have a good idea that I need to just shut up and implement. Being a wise husband with a wife worthy of the title, I heeded her silent counsel.
"Alright. Get everyone to toss their suggestions in a hat for us to pull out of. One name per person, whatever comes out is the new name."
The both of them were off like rockets, quickly informing the relevant people of the happenings. It wasn't much later that we had a freshly-made stetson hat of shockingly good quality for something that neither my wife nor I had participated in creating, the article flipped upside down and filled with slips of folded paper.
I quickly got everyone's attention. "Alright, guys…and girls, there's enough of you here now." The fairies got a good snickering in at this slight dig. "Time to rename the moonbase. Whatever comes out of the hat is what we get. Now then, let's see what we got going for us, eh?"
The name I pulled out kind of surprised everyone, especially as it was kind of an obscure name in most of the cultures represented here…but it was nothing that we didn't like.
"Alright then. From today forward, this base shall henceforth be known as Miakoda station!!"
The general cheering was worth it, in my opinion, even if the activity itself really wasn't that much of a big deal.
Still, with that particular formality settled, it was time to prepare for our departure down to the planet below.
At least, it was. Mio apparently had other plans, and informed me of them in her usual manner.
Whatever. They can wait a few hours…
Mio found herself slightly dreading heading down to Earth. It would be the very first time she had ever set foot on the planet in any sense, after all, and the sheer significance of the event for her was not to be understated. Even the fact that this was technically not her Earth, the Holy Terra of the Imperium of Man, did not remove the jitters.
Fortunately, she had her Satori with her, and he was more than enough to act as a rock for her to steady her nerves on. She'd done it enough times for him, after all.
Besides, it wasn't as if he wasn't excited himself. Being able to get direct access to the people that were effectively his personal heroes, those carrying the dream of a Humanity expanding to the very stars, was kind of a big deal for him. She could feel him all but radiating his eagerness even without their link, and the feelings were acting as quite the effective anchor for her to ground on.
It was also helping going over the recent update log for the forge, this one having come from Watts' still mysterious wife. The basic summary wasn't too much to look at, some precursor-level architectural knowledge and a bit of unusual thread being the things that stood out to her the most. Still, it was something, and from the looks of it, the update was still processing, so it would be a bit before they saw everything anyway.
That being said, both of their moods were being tested by the Air Traffic Controller, who didn't seem to have gotten the memo about their visit.
"Moonrider, I say again: You are to divert course and stand by for further instructions. Failure to comply will result in severe penalties. Confirm compliance immediately."
"As I was saying, stuck-up ATC. I knew the type of old from back in the day. They were the guys who were nearing the end of their ropes in the career, on the verge of burnout for the most part. Not all of them finally hit the flames, but enough did that it was something of a stereotype in the community."
Satori was explaining the phenomenon that they were currently being exposed to, in the form of a petty bureaucrat being faced with the rather abrupt uselessness of their jobs in the face of the unknown. Especially considering that Satori had constructed a standard IFF transponder for use to be 'seen' by the local airspace control so that there would be no accidents, and yet somehow still was getting bitched at despite coming in on a near vertical like straight towards our landing zone.
And he was not happy, as he then explained to the poor bastard in the hot seat.
"I already told you, We have special clearance for an expedited landing at Ellington. So unless I am clogging up an air lane somewhere, please leave me the fuck alone and let me set down already, you dumbass. I will be assuming a VFR profile as soon as I can shed enough speed and altitude."
"Moonrider, you are to–"
Mio couldn't take it anymore, immediately reaching out and shutting off the radio. "We aren't going to be getting any help from them at the moment, and there is no reason for you to stress yourself trying to do so. We are too new and unknown to the system for them to know how to deal with us. Let's just get on the ground, shall we?"
As much as her husband wanted to complain (and she could feel it quite clearly from him), he eventually acquiesced to her request. This was, of course, made easier by the fact that Mio was the one doing the flying. "Fine. But you get to tell the guys on the ground why the FAA is wanting to murder us."
Mio had no clue what this "FAA" was, but the fact that Satori seemed very much resigned to facing them made her assume they were some kind of government functionaries. The most she could think of was to give token platitudes to them for trying to do their jobs despite not being in the loop on their arrival, she supposed. If nothing else, it would allow for some soothed egos over what was to come next.
Landing was a very subdued affair, despite the fact that she has intentionally put their craft down in a full vertical landing on the parking zone of the flight line instead of using the runway like everyone else. It was yet another intentional flex of their capabilities, meant to show off just a hint of what was possible with the goodies they were bringing along.
Personally, she thought it was just at bit too overengineered for the task at hand, but it was meant as an example of what could be done with the tech…and they'd needed an actual transport anyway unless they planned on teaching everyone magic and such before they got back to Miakoda station.
As it turns out, despite the constant badgering from the Air Traffic Controller, there was still a small delegation waiting for them as they landed, a mixture of suits and military uniforms prominent among the small crowd, along with the rapidly expanding security cordon of soldiers that had appeared as more of the regulars noticed what was going on and tried to get a better look. Of note was the odd assortment of varied and colorful uniforms on display as well–likely these were the so-called 'capes' that tended to be about.
Personally, she was not really in the mood to try and hide from anyone, but if the locals felt it was necessary, she would allow it…for now. The instant she thought otherwise...well, the planet had a rudimentary if oddly developed global infonet, and she could make use of it if it came to that.
But that was for later, if that later came. Right now, it was time to meet the brass, as Satori would put it.
The rear hatch had been angled to face their greeting party, and a simple control on the door itself allowed for the hatch to open, complete with the standard center division allowing for the bottom portion of the hatch to act as a cargo ramp. The two of them awaited on the edge as the ramp lowered…
"Huh. I was expecting something a bit different, you know?"
The comment had come from one of the capes in the back, a man in a white outfit that featured metal points on his shoulders…and head, for some reason? And a mask covering the upper half of his face. Mio had Minerva catalog the appearance for analysis later.
Satori, for his part, merely laughed it off. "I said I was Air Force. Dunno what you were expecting aside from this." The 'this' in question was a standard olive drab Flight suit, complete with a name patch and, for him anyway, a specialty badge denoting his Military occupation. Her own flight suit was the same, but her name tag lacked the specialty badge.
Ice being broken, the pair stepped off of the (jokingly named by Satori) Owl transport and onto the planet Earth for the very first time. The Suit Delegation stepped forwards as well, and the pleasantries began, with the capes in the back attempting to be subtle about shuffling around to maintain a proper presence. As she was unfamiliar with most of the early M2 social protocols, she leaned a bit harder on Satori for support through their bond, from which she got back nothing but warm encouragement.
One of the military men, a solidly-built, dark-skinned fellow with graying, close cut curly hair similar to her husband's own and a slightly receding hairline, stopped in front of Satori, who offered him an old-fashioned salute. A closer inspection on her part confirmed that this was a US Air Force Colonel, what was nominally termed as a 'full bird', mostly due to the rank insignia worn (which was itself a bird). The colonel returned the salute while introducing himself.
"Good afternoon Sergeant. I am Colonel Nathan Gibson, in command of the Air Guard post here. With me are Majors Grainger and Parker," the colonel motioned to two others who stepped forward at being mentioned, the first a ruddy-faced man with obvious laugh-lines on his face as well as minor marks of sunburn, the second a blonde woman with oddly stern gray eyes and a professional demeanor, "As well as representatives from the Johnson Space Center down the way. I'll let them introduce themselves in a moment." There seemed to be an air of good cheer here from both the colonel and the NASA people, all of them clearly eager to learn more about what was in store.
"Also present, at the request of the Parahuman Response Teams Houston branch, are the Protectorate Members Dispatch, Grey Knight, Hawkwind, and Frostbite." Unlike the others, this introduction was rather clearly stated with a slight strain to the colonel's voice, easily heard with her enhanced senses. Her guess (which was backed up by Satori's own observations) was that the capes had more or less muscled in on the affair and everyone else was forced to accept their presence.
Mio immediately dismissed two of the four from her mind right off. Frostbite and Hawkwind were clearly not worth any further attempts at interaction from her outside of studying the parahuman phenomena in more detail. Dispatch was a different matter, as Minerva had pulled up a relevant entry on the infonet that stated that he was the second-in-command of the local Protectorate Branch, under someone who named themselves Eidolon.
The last, Grey Knight, was a completely different issue entirely and needed to be handled with care. Mostly because she could literally feel his powers from where she was standing, his internal mana flowing easily throughout his body in what looked to be a passive reinforcement technique. The relatively light and archaic armor he wore seemed to have similar mana flows attached to them, and she found herself curious as to what process was used to create the items in question, as well as if he was interested in an upgrade.
The colonel continued onwards. "That's about it for the current personnel that you will be dealing with, though I have been informed that there are some high brass en route to debrief you regarding certain information. As well, several of my colleagues, across all the services, have been given some rather hasty TDY orders to get down here ASAP, and…well, you can understand the madhouse that usually brings."
She noticed Satori visibly flinch, and a quick glance at his surface thoughts explained why: Somewhat similarly to Imperial formations, having a large number of high-ranking officers appear at a station all at once, especially if said officers were of flag rank, was almost universally seen as a bad thing by all services and ranks. Unlike an Imperial formation, however, the increased reliance on Non-commissioned officers for mid-level tactical thinking meant that having a sudden increase in officers in general was a bad thing, and made worse the higher ranked the officers got.
Which boiled down to the fact that the poor sods stationed at this airfield very suddenly and unexpectedly had an otherwise backwater post become the center of a very large amount of official attention and scrutiny. Which generally ended badly for everyone.
To his credit, the colonel was seemingly very sympathetic to the plight of those around him, and apparently didn't actually want to be disrupting things to this degree as it was…but as with all things, you didn't always get what you wanted.
Satori chose to address the issue directly. "About that, sir…why the hell are so many people getting shuttled around so fast for this? I thought that I'd made it clear that I was willing to come to you."
The colonel shrugged. "There lies the machinations of the Pentagon, Sergeant. I have no more insight on their motivations than you do. Your guess is as good as mine."
Mio decided to interrupt. "Excuse me, but you mentioned the people from NASA would be introducing themselves. I would like to know them so that we can get other things rolling, colonel."
One of the men from the NASA delegation stepped forward. He was clad in a simple dark blue business suit that had clearly seen better days, and seemed to be chewing on something as he walked forward. "My name is Scott Langley, Director here at Johnson Space Center. Alongside me are my deputies: Director of Mission Operations, Kenneth Wineland, and Director of Engineering, Lauren Johns. We also brought along Mr. Omar Hayes." The last person was somewhat unique among the others in that he was weaning a simple flight suit, and had a rather unique hairstyle that was accentuated by the (colored!) star patterns shaved into his head.
Satori took one look at him before smiling. "I take it you were the one in Control when we called in?"
Mr. Hayes returned the smile with one of his own, if a little wilder. "Yeah. The only reason I'm not out partying with everyone else is because you mentioned you were coming down." He extended a hand, which Satori immediately took. "I just had to meet the guys who finally took out the damned Simurgh, you know?"
Judging from the flinch that Director Wineland had only barely suppressed, along with the sudden interest from the cape contingent, Mio was forced to conclude that this was not meant to be public knowledge just yet, at least not to certain groups. The rather abrupt push by the one named Dispatch was proof enough, as he quickly moved himself to the front of the group, stance threatening.
"You are the ones that killed the Simurgh?" It was a demand more than a question, and Mio found her power rushing to the fore, preparing to remove the annoyance from her presence before her Satori responded.
"And if we are?"
The change in demeanor was instant. Dispatch and his subordinates were suddenly super tense, as if they were preparing for a struggle of some kind, though they hid it well…from normal people. For her, spotting the tells was pathetically easy. "I am going to have to ask you to come with me Immediately. The Protectorate will be needing a statement from you."
The commotion was immediate.
"Now wait a minute–" "Who the fuck do you think–" "You can't just do that!!--"
"QUI~ET!!"
The shout silenced all complaints, and it was with some surprise that the rest of the group noted that the shout had come from Satori himself. Worse was the deceptive calmness that he was displaying both in body and mind.
Though the Colonel seemed unsurprised. Worth looking into later.
Senator turned towards Dispatch. "So, you say that I need to go with you so that your people can ask me questions. Is this correct?"
Dispatch nodded. "We–"
Satori was immediately inside of Dispatch's personal space bubble, his hand in a knife shape and pointing directly at Dispatch's helmet. ""DID I SAY YOU COULD TALK?"
When Dispatch failed to respond, Satori repeated the question. "I said, DID I SAY YOU COULD TALK."
Mio heard a gulp come from dispatch as he steeled himself. "N-no."
"Then remain silent until otherwise instructed." Satori waited for a moment to ensure that his command would be obeyed before stepping back and continuing. "As I was saying, you wanted me to answer some questions. My question to you is just as simple: why did you think I am required to answer those questions?"
Silence reigned for a moment, and Satori smirked. "You may speak."
"We are empowered by federal law in handling all parahuman authorities. And as you have displayed a clear usage of said powers, or technology derived from the same, you are under our authority and purview."
Mio barely resisted gutting him where he stood, and restraining her aura from affecting the environment was all but impossible at this point, as was made clear by the sudden thermal spike and minor tremors. The statement was a clear and unambiguous attempt to place them in the power of the Protectorate, especially as even a cursory search revealed a particular tidbit about the nature of parahuman powers.
Satori, on the other hand, was doing his damnedest to not burst out into uncontrollable laughter. He did let a few chuckles escape, though.
The others were mostly staring at Dispatch in sheer awe, likely at the naked power grab inherent in the statement.
Satori had stopped his not-laughter at this point, though, and just from his emotions alone, she could tell that the fool was going to regret his words. "And what, if anything, makes you think that I am in any way, shape or fashion a parahuman?"
"You and your companion are rather clear cases of a Case 53." He was, of course, referring to the rather distinct and unhidden extra bits that they had, at least compared to a baseline human. The same traits that everyone else had been polite about not mentioning due to wanting to have a solid impression with the potential gold mine. "As such, you will be–"
Satori cut him off with a vengeance. "No, no, I will not. And you will shut the fuck up before I grind you into dust." And Satori was no longer happy. In fact, he was downright furious on a level that she had seen maybe once, and that was in a fucking memory. She could feel the very air around him threatening to lash out, and there had also been a distinct temperature drop in the area as well. A surreptitious mental nudge from her was enough to get him to reign in his power, but only just.
"Do you have any idea of the concept of "chain of command', Dispatch? Of having to answer to proper authorities of any kind?" Satori asked, mockingly. "I believe you do not, or else you would not be trying this little stunt of yours."
And suddenly he was in Dispatch's face again, complete with the knife hand, but now including a dramatically raised voice. "You know damn well that we are not Parahuman, or at least should have known, simply based on where we came from and the exact incidents that played out over the last few hours. And you STILL try to pull this shit?"
What followed was one of the most brutal things that Mio had ever witnessed.
Satori proceeded to, in completely unnecessary and dramatic fashion, completely tear Dispatch apart in every way possible, verbally critiquing everything from his parentage and lifestyle to his choice of occupations and even his fucking underwear. And all of it while screaming so loud that he could probably be heard across the entire base. Hell, the man she loved had somehow managed to even duplicate himself just so he could be screaming at Dispatch from no less than five different directions, each one going after a different topic, and all at the maximum possible volume.
And then he reached into Dispatch's mind for the worst things to use against him and started going after those, hammering in on every possible fear, anxiety, and even mild annoyance the fucker had with a precision and ruthlessness that was terrifying to behold.
For other people, that is. The Military contingent seemed to be doing the best they could to not laugh, and Mio herself was only just barely avoiding going in herself to tear a strip out of the asshole's hide. They were also drawing a crowd, as various onlookers came to see exactly what all the noise was about, only to see a parahuman getting chewed up one side and down the other in vivid detail.
One of the other civilians outside the security cordon mentioned something about a Smokey hat, which brought down uproarious laughter from his entire group, and that section of the security cordon as they shared in a joke of some kind.
Dispatch, for his part, tried to talk back, only to get knife hands from every direction and even more screaming. A field of some kind appeared, cutting the grouping off from the rest via some kind of twisted barrier in space-time. Minerva had some interesting things to say about the effect, at any rate…for the three seconds it was active, after which everyone came back out, the screaming (and now wild gestures) completely unabated by whatever had happened. If anything, Dispatch was the worse off for it, now attempting to curl in on himself but being prevented from doing so by Satori propping him up into a standing position, so he could yell more.
And adding critiques on that, as well.
It was quite hilarious, and most of the others watching were getting more than a few laughs out of it, even some of the NASA people.
Of course, the other idiots were not idle. The twin Idiots of Frostbite and Hawkwind were both attempting to position themselves for maximum effect, specifically to block off access from the military contingent and to curtail any "escape" attempts, respectively. Something that had fallen apart when Satori started his "counseling" session with their leader. They were now staring in shock and awe at the man getting reduced to a crying wreck before them, only prevented from intervening by the fact that Mio was psychically holding them in place, mostly so that she would not have to kill them for trying to harm her beloved.
Grey Knight was the outlier, looking extremely tense at the building atmosphere, and giving both Mio and Satori wary eyes. Mio's guess was that she felt the surge of power when their emotions rose, and realized what he was dealing with long before his bosses did. And, much like many a good subordinate, he had no way to stop the trainwreck that didn't involve falling on his own sword to save the idiots creating the mess in the first place. Which, from his body language, he was not about to do.
Mio considered him extremely wise for that. And kept him out of the stasis as a subtle reward.
Still, the situation begged a question. She stepped towards Grey Knight, who looked like he would be the most amicable towards answers. "Tell me, exactly what did you hope to accomplish by being here?" she asked, at least somewhat politely. Which was an interesting thing to do, seeing as she still had to be heard over the screaming.
"Our mission was supposed to be as a liaison and meet-and-greet for some high-priority VIPs that Director Danners had informed us about. Past that, we were supposed to listen in, attempt to confirm parahuman involvement, and if so, contact the PRT for further instructions if friendly, or capture and subdue if hostile."
Mio considered it for a moment. "And this was not supposed to be a massive powergrab by your PRT in an attempt to solidify their position? Especially since it is known that parahuman powers do not persist beyond the atmosphere? Let alone on the moon itself? The transmission we were using was not exactly encoded in any way, and any receiver could have picked it up when we were transmitting. You know full well that we were operating in space. We made no secret of it, and this is, in fact, why the NASA people are here in the first place. So why did your leader attempt to strong-arm the situation on a known military serviceman who is completely outside of your jurisdiction?"
Grey Knight, for his part, shrugged. "I honestly don't know, ma'am. The way things were working out, I was taking cues from my team to be ready for a fight, I seriously didn't want one with either of you, but…"
Mio chuckled softly. "Don't worry, I'm not going to hold it against you. Besides, there were some other things that I needed to talk to you about as well, most pressingly about the fact that you are not a parahuman at all, at least not by the legal or medical definition."
Grey Knight looked like he had seen a ghost. "I have no clue what you are talking about, ma'am. I am very much a parahuman–"
"No, you are not. You do not possess either of the specialized brain tumors that the others have. Your powers are a direct result of your awakening to something else entirely, and is the reason why your power are so wildly divergent from the norm for most. Especially in the fact that you have been getting stronger over time. I'm sure your theorists are going nuts with that, by the way."
Grey Knight only nodded, somewhat defeated at the ease in which he was being dissected.
Mio nodded to herself. "Very well, then. In the name of cooperation, I would like to invite you to be an attendant crew member at Miakoda Station."
There was a wave of shock that rippled across the representative delegation, even as Satori continued his merciless berating of Dispatch.
Grey Knight hesitated for a moment. "Do you…mind if I think about it for a bit? This is a major decision, after all, and well…"
Mio considered the most obvious issues for a brief (for her) moment, and quickly moved to remove the worry. "If you are thinking about your family, don't woory too much. We can bring them along too, if you want." Mio turned to the others. "The same goes for you guys as well. Anyone who is accepted for heading up with us can, if they choose, bring along their families. I think it would be a good experience for everyone, after all. If you don't want to, please let one of us know as soon as possible."
Col. Gibson broke the shock. "This Miakoda Station, is…?"
"The new name of what you probably are referring to as Pytheas. We renamed the place, since we'd done so much in the way of renovations. We'd intended to explain it, along with some other things, after the introductions were done, and we'd gotten to somewhere where a proper meeting could take place, but…" Mio waves a hand at the still restrained capes and the now openly bawling Dispatch, who is still being screamed at by Satori.
The colonel merely nodded in acknowledgement. "I am assuming that we will receive more details later on, then."
"That is correct, colonel. If you are ready," this last part was pitched to include the others as well, "we can begin now."
Col. Gibson took one last look around, before nodding his assent, which was mirrored by Director Langley. Grey Knight accepted as the de-facto Protectorate liaison, seeing as his comrades were still incapacitated.
The group then proceeded to move to a previously designated meeting space, leaving behind two capes still held in a stasis field (that would wear off…eventually) and a thoroughly traumatized Dispatch, who was only just now getting out of getting smoked into the floor by Satori, who left the wreck of a man to his own devices as he followed the group.
No one in the surrounding crowd paid the parahumans any mind.
The meeting space was a simple office nestled inside one of the secure hangars on site, and was fully equipped with teleconferencing equipment to get the rest of the important people who couldn't be there in person. There were enough seats for everyone involved, even Grey Knight, whom Mio insisted sit with us for the meet, despite his not having formally accepted her offer.
Of course, we both knew better. Grey Knight was about as close to a complete shoo-in as we were going to get, crew-wise, and would be quite useful in the training programs we'd want to implement as well.
Still, that was something for later. Right now, we had to deal with the usual politics and other BS.
There was a delay while a few fiddly bits got set up regarding connections, but eventually the various video calls were connected, revealing the images of several key personnel, notably of the type usually based in Washington.
Still, it was basically my meeting, so I'd have to start things off. "Alright, ladies and gentlemen, we all know why we're here, so let's get to it. I'll cede the floor to the Colonel for now, unless anyone else has something pressing to add?"
There were no objections, so Col. Gibson took center stage. "Very well, sergeant. I'll start off on our end. You have been introduced to everyone here in this room, but there are several others that could not make the trip down in person, and requested to be involved.
"First is the President, Raymond Gillen, who wished to speak to you regarding matters. With him are the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Blake Cummins, as well as his support staff. The Secretary of Defense was unavailable to participate, though he does send his regards."
I perked up at the mention of what was effectively the top end of the chain of command sitting in personally instead of letting the colonel handle things. I suspected there were other things at play for this, but kept my curiosity for the moment.
"Also with us are the Chief Administrator of NASA, a Ms. Wendy Hearthstone, who requested to be here as an observer. Something about history and whatnot." There was a general chuckle shared across the room and beyond, considerably lightening the atmosphere, before the Colonel continued. "Alongside we have Donald Anderson, Chief of DARPA, and Art Renner from the NASA Jet Propulsion Labs, who both requested to be present for any technical demonstrations."
"Finally, we have the Chief Director of the Parahuman Response Teams, Rebecca Costa-Brown, who I am informed insisted on being present. I apologize for the late addition."
I waved it off. "No issues. I was going to need to make a few points anyway. Might as well do it to her face, so to speak." My tone was deceptively mild, but those of us who had (or were still) wearing uniforms caught the meaning all too clearly: I was aware of the reasoning behind Costa-Brown butting her head in, and was not amused.
At all.
"Introductions complete, I now hand the floor to the President. Mr. President?"
President Gillen nodded, his face taking up the majority of the viewscreen. "Thank you, colonel. Sergeant Green, Mrs. Green," I could distinctly feel Mio's happiness at hearing that, "On behalf of the United States of America and the world at large, I would like to formally thank you for your contributions today. You have ended a threat long in its shadow, and as a result the world can now sleep a little safer, knowing that no more of the Simurgh's machinations haunt the future. We are in your debt." There was a solemn pause at the end from all parties.
I filled the silence after a moment. "You are more than welcome, Mr. President. I am just glad that the method we used was so effective in dispatching the feathered bitch. I was worried we'd have to break out the big guns for that one."
Several heads perked at hearing that, the interest in the weapons capable of damaging an Endbringer clear to see. "I'll elaborate on those later, however."
The President barked out a short laugh. "I'll hold you to that. Sergeant, but first, I believe that General Cummins had something to add in."
The General took focus on the screen. "Thank you, Mr. President. Now then, sergeant, it was mentioned that you may have had some technology that was of significant military import. What exactly were you referring to?"
Mio was already pulling out the Box, having retrieved it from her storage before we began the meeting. I motioned to it as I spoke. "Well, most of what I have at the moment is primarily meant for NASA to play with, but there are indeed things there that could see some use if developed in the appropriate directions." I gestured to the DARPA chief, who nodded back at my notice that they would inevitably be involved in whatever gets cooked up. "That being said, what we did bring down as demonstrators were…significant. Most of it is either propulsion systems or power generation and batteries technology, but I do have a project that I'm working on that is a fairly streamlined form of quantum computing, though it's in the early stages at the moment. It's based somewhat on an extension and expansion of the old holographic storage concept, for those of you in the know."
The various nods from the more technical minded confirmed that they had been still exploring the concept even here., so I moved on. "As for the propulsion stuff, it's primarily a form of relatively cheap and energy-efficient counter-gravity technology, along with a similarly developed repulsor system that could be potentially used as a thrust mechanism with a little work. We already have a variant design in the works for that one that is still in testing, so we'll get back to you when we have results."
The NASA people were staring googly-eyed at me as if I had just said Santa was real.
"Also included are notes and technical schematics on several forms of power generation, with a focus on fusion power, including a variant that, while a bit difficult to implement, allows for power generation well beyond anything that conventional fusion is capable of. We would have brought a demonstrator, but the size factors involved precluded this. The other stuff, like the collar cells and the theory behind them, are included here, along with some samples."
"As for the battery tech, well…this shit has to be seen to be believed."
I pulled out the portable holoprojector and set it in the middle of the table, then set the playback to the battery tests we'd run on the Imperial Power packs. Included very prominently was the practical examples of the packs being able to gain significant charge from damn near anything up to and including a goddamn campfire, and still function. Also included was the differences between the 'base' specification of the power pack as implemented on Necromunda, the actual STC standard version (which was superior in all ways), and the variants that Mio and I had cooked up, that were varying levels of superior in certain categories from the STC counterpart, clearly showing what could be improved and how.
The looks on people's faces were priceless.
"Also in this nice box here is some stuff related to superconductor theory, along with practical examples thereof. I am well aware of how much of a pain in the ass those are to work with, and the designs here are meant for multiple applications, including three designs for RTSC's and at least one that I'd worked out that is workable in more…hostile environments. I leave it to you to determine how to work with that."
"The final contents of this nice box here is a grab-bag of various alloys and compounds that might be useful, along with notes on the composition and possible methods to create them. Note that this may take some time due to industrial needs, but aside from that feel free to go nuts."
The room was deadly silent. NASA and the DARPA reps were completely starstruck, and Ms. Hearthstone was all but vibrating in her seat even through the monitor. JPL's reaction was even more amusing, as the feed there was visibly muted, and there was obvious shouting and celebrations going on as the mere existence of some of this stuff solved so many issues they'd had prior to now.
General Cummins had somehow managed to keep his cool, despite his subordinates on his end of the screen (and the Colonel and Majors on ours) all but gaping at the implications involved in just that box alone. He somehow kept himself a very cool customer, even in the face of massive technical advancement staring them in the face, and his own clear excitement at the possibilities inherent within, which I considered quite the achievement.
I liked the guy already.
The one holdout was Costa-Brown, who had a distinctly neutral expression on her face, one that was completely at odds with everything going on in this meeting. Mio noticed it as well, and was almost immediately on guard for shenanigans based solely on the fact that she wasn't celebrating.
I set Thoth into research mode to figure out why, before continuing. "I believe that these, with a little R&D work, should be more than sufficient for you to work up something interesting for use, particularly in reviving the space program. Past that, the sky is the limit."
"Please excuse me, but there is reason to believe that this may be some form of Tinkertech, and thus needing your personal involvement in the maintenance and upkeep thereof. We at the PRT would have to do thorough testing to ensure that this is not the case before allowing–"
"Lemme stop you right there, Costa-Brown." I cut in. "I know you head me mention that the technical schematics were included with all of this, and on a personal note, my own background as a technical specialist completely precludes me from trying to hoodwink people on this scale. Take your attempt to butt in and kindly stuff it. If you want access to the tech, talk to NASA or the DoD. I'm already pissed off enough with your organization as it is. Do NOT make it worse."
My glare at the screen now having Costa-Brown's face on it was NOT kind in the slightest. Costa-Brown, for her part, stared right back as if nothing was amiss. "Regardless of your statements or feeling on the matter, we at the PRT are directly responsible for all matter parahuman and as such will need to vet all technology applications to ensure that they comply with relevant federal law. This is non-negotiable and you will comply."
I stared at the screen, barely containing my shock at the sheer gall being displayed here, before changing my line of sight to the window displaying the President. There was no change in his demeanor, though it seemed very forced. I then glanced at Gen. Cummins, who subtly shook his head.
And a picture painted itself in my mind. This Costa-Brown Character, despite only being the director of a law enforcement agency covering a very specific and equally well-defined category of persons, was somehow able to amass enough political capital that she was able to completely step on the turf of the second most important governmental department of the United States with no repercussions whatsoever.
Mio, as always attuned to my moods, was already working with the agreed-upon contingency and contacting the appropriate people. I stalled for a brief moment to let her do her thing, before continuing on.
"Costa Brown. I do believe you are out of line."
The whipcrack that went through the room was almost audible at my response, and I noted several people moving to speak all at once, including the President.
I did not let them.
"No, all of you shut up. I don't want to hear it. I just watched this woman here completely steamroll every last one of you with a single sentence like she was entitled to it, despite it being blatantly clear that I nor anything I have to offer should not fall under her purview. Last I checked, Mr. President, The PRT was a federal agency and under your final command, correct? And the Department of Defense in general held primacy over enlisted and officer personnel?"
Of course, Costa-Brown refused to back down. "Regardless of what you think, this is what will happen. I will also require you to speak with the local PRT branch as soon as possible regarding your contact with the Simurgh, and to undergo Master/Stranger protocols as appropriate. Otherwise, we may be forced to brand you as a potential threat vector, and respond appropriately."
Mio finished her setup, and the holoprojector image immediately changed again, this time to an office occupied by a man in a suit.
A Mexican Flag was clearly visible in the background.
"Buenos Dias. I am President Julian San Marcos. You mentioned you were having some trouble with our American counterparts?"
Mio smiled at the man. "Some trouble with the PRT regarding jurisdiction and control. I trust you have reviewed the packet we sent?"
The Mexican President brightened noticeably. "But of course, señora. We would be more than willing to host you and yours if the PRT insists on turning you away. We can implement anything you need as you need it, just let us know."
You could hear a pin drop in the room, the gauntlet clearly having been thrown down in regard to the PRT interference. Most of those present were looking at us with shocked (and in one particular case, downright terrified) eyes, all but watching their big score walking out the door because one of their number couldn't accept that she would not be the one calling the shots.
President Gillen tried to regain control of the situation. "Sergeant, I do not think that will be necessary–"
I cut off the President of the United Stated of America. " I believe it is, in light of the continued insistence of the PRT, and it's leadership, to assert authority in a situation where they have none."
"I came here with the intent to spread around the good news about the Simurgh, and to provide technology and opportunities for NASA to get back into the space exploration gig. I had also intended to liaise with the Department of Defense regarding their participation in this matter, as well as access to certain potential technologies that they would find interesting. I intended to do this solely out of goodwill, with my only requested concession being a favorable recommendation for setup of certain business ventures relevant to these ends."
"As things are currently, I am being forced to consider alternatives to my previous plan, and instead set up in a favorable location in Mexico, complete with offering them whatever they need to meet my standards of approval for housing personnel on Miakoda Station."
Thoth pinged me back with a blurb of information that I assimilated instantly…and brought me a bit of surprise as I considered the implications of the data. It did give me an idea to use, however.
"But, since it is clear that not even the President of the United States is capable of reining in his own Chief PRT director, I will offer a compromise." I turned back to Costa-Brown. "You say you are worried about our exposure to the Simurgh, correct? I will agree to undergoing your screening under two conditions:
"First, all of the tech contained within the Box will be studied and vetted by non-PRT sources as to their usability and reliability, and their status as tinkertech. They are literally the most knowledgeable people in the world regarding the subject, and can farm out to other agencies as appropriate."
Costa-Brown seemed to relax a bit, and I smirked. Gotcha Bitch.
"The second stipulation is related to the exposure limits of Simurgh engagements, which I have done some research on. The standard for exposure is…20 minutes, correct?"
Costa-Brown nodded.
"Then I propose that your Triumvirate, specifically Alexandria, be held for time proportional to their exposure to the Simurgh as well. And before you start thinking to be smart, I will note that our total exposure to the range of the Simurgh is six point four two one seconds. I will be requiring that every Hour of holding for screening be measured against that chunk of time and applied to the total exposure for your people."
"Oh, and before I forget, this applies solely to American agencies and organizations. The Mexican government is its own entity and will be treated as such with regard to any tech sharing prospects."
For the first time, I finally understood the concept of silence being violent. It was very much the case in that room at that moment. My smirk only got more vicious as I saw Costa-Brown suppress the normal motor functions that would indicate her shock…and her rage.
Thing is, the Force is bullshit, psionically amped up force stuff even more so. Focusing on her, even with us being so far away, allowed me to get a good read on her mental state, and all the confirmation I needed for the conclusion that Thoth had come to based on the available data.
'Hello, Alexandria. So nice to meet you, too.'
The message got through as intended. The bitch was pissed as fuck, but she knew I held all the cards and was more than willing to burn every bridge to see her burn if it came to it.
So, of course, she quickly changed tacks. "I see. In that case, in light of your…protracted engagement time, I see no need to subject you to Master/Stranger screening at this time. We would still like to speak to you regarding the Simurgh and the details of the encounter, but understand that you have other priorities."
General Cummins burst out laughing. It was a jolly thing from such a man, but was welcome all the same. It was nearly a full minute before he calmed enough to speak. "See, that is the backbone of an NCO right there. Any doubts I had that you were one of ours, regardless of where you came from, are gone. Good job, Sergeant."
President Gillen finally managed to pick his jaw up off the floor (metaphorically, anyway) to regain some semblance of order. "Very well, if that has been settled?"
Mio decided to twist the knife, "One more thing, Mr. President. In light of recent events, I feel that we must now insist on a total cooperation in terms of technical advancement and resource sharing between the United States and Mexico considering the Box. To prevent international incidents, of course." She added, almost as an afterthought.
President San Marcos could not have been happier.
The nitty-gritty of the meeting had concluded, with us having turned over the Box and it's contents to the local NASA personnel, along with a formal request for volunteers for stays at Miakoda Station. The same had been pitched to Gen. Cummins, who noted that he would get his people working on it ASAP and have a list ready to use.
Shockingly enough, the separate listing of potential replacements for me on Miakoda seemed to vanish overnight after word of how poor Becky got handled spread. Seemed that nobody wanted to risk my ire, especially when I'd made it clear that I played international hardball.
That being said, the response to our having formally requested Grey Knight (and only Grey Knight) as a Protectorate Liaison was…muted. People probably suspected ulterior motives, but nobody could prove anything., nor did they actually want to.
And so, meeting over, I found myself standing before Colonel Gibson at his request regarding a matter he said was sensitive. Mio was leaning on a wall nearby, doing some people watching, while she checked out Bet's internet and set up the initial sites for the manufacturing bases in Mexico.
"Alright, Colonel, what's so important you had to get away from the PRT oversight to ask about?"
Gibson snorted out a laugh. "Thought you would pick up on that. Anyway, there are two matters that I needed to address. The first is regarding a hunch of mine that I need confirmed: Your abilities…you can teach them to others, can't you?"
I actually blinked at that question. God DAMN this man is good.
"...I won't deny it, but how the hell did you even come to that conclusion in the first place? Especially with the preponderance of parahuman BS going on?"
A small smirk spread across the Colonel's face. "General observation and experience, son. Also, I overheard your wife speaking to Grey Knight, and put some pieces together. So…second point is somewhat related, as the brass has tapped me on this subject to ask what it's going to take to get access."
Now it was my turn to smirk. "Well, aside from waiting a bit for me to make the offer, that you have now beaten me to? I need to screen the recruits. Not everyone is going to be qualified for what I have to teach, Colonel, and I fully intend to create an instructor core out of these guys so that they can teach everyone else."
I waited until I saw the full implication of what I had just said had sunk in. "This world… parahumans have taken over entirely too much to be safe, and they are unstable at the best of times. My dressing down of Dispatch is proof enough of that, really. I got worse than that in Basic, but he all but shattered under the strain. Do you really want those people having power while the rest of the world does not?" It was a rhetorical question and we both knew it.
"Besides, there is a second factor. Grey Knight was kind of unexpected, but it proves that people can awaken their own latent talents and use them without any formal training, and most will think that it was just a nonstandard trigger. These people both can and will be invaluable in stemming the tide of parahumans later on, especially the crazy fucks rolling around."
Gibson could only chuckle to himself. "Damn. This is excellent. More than I could have asked for, really. Makes what I am about to do all the more justified."
And, to my shock, The colonel came to attention. "Attention to Orders."
It was pure reflex that I obeyed the command. I felt Mio' attention shift over to me for a moment, curiosity in her mind.
"Technical Sergeant Satori Green, it is with great honor and humility that we recognize your accomplishments and contribution to the Armed Forces, both in word and deed. Your skills have been proven to the satisfaction of the President and the Joint Chiefs, to such a degree that an exceptional merit is required."
He then pulled out a very familiar piece of paper, along with a small box, "Please raise your right hand and repeat after me: I, state your name, having been appointed a Warrant Officer in the United States Air Force…"
This…this changed a lot.
The US Air Force had done away with its Warrant Officer corps back in the sixties, citing a lack of need due to having the senior enlisted ranks of Senior and Chief Master Sergeant. It had held for decades, despite having a distinct crisis regarding availability of pilots and the lack of commissioned officers to fly them.
And yet, here, on Earth Bet, the Air Force was willing to reinstate the Warrant Officer Corps, starting with myself, as a means of both retaining my awesome technical expertise…and as a note for the future corps of those who would follow in my footsteps as wielders of their innate talents.
I was literally being asked to create and train a corps of combat mages for the Air Force, along with my other duties in all areas technical. It was kind of surreal, but I was getting over it quickly.
"So, what does this mean, exactly?" Mio asked me, lightly draping herself onto my shoulder.
I took a moment to steady myself before answering.
"It means we have our jobs cut out for us."
She was silent for a moment.
"Very well. I will activate the Tower, and get started on some training plans. You, on the other hand, have to go through a service school, I believe?"
I shrugged. "Supposedly there is a waiver in place or similar due to the circumstances, or at least while the rest of the Air Force absorbs the change and figures out what the hell a Warrant Officer School is supposed to look like. In the meantime, I'm kind of just here, and only a mere WO1 instead of the intended rank that had been authorized for me, but that is bureaucracy for you."
Because the Military definitely had bureaucracy, even if it was far more efficient than it's normal governmental counterparts. This, of course, meant that my actual rank of Chief Warrant Officer 5 was being delayed until I checked off the boxes, despite the general agreement that I had more important things to be doing and the fact that this was coming directly from the President and the Joint Chiefs themselves, with the Secretary of the Air Force being read in even now, and Congress being rustled to put their required stamp of approval on the decision.
The thought brought a light peal of laughter to my lips. Some things truly never changed.
That being said, what Mio was suggesting activating was kind of a big deal: it was part of the ongoing updates in the Forge log that Watts was still crunching through, and based on the notes was the equivalent of the same facility seen on SR388: a Chozo-made Weapons and technology testing center complete with automated test robots to perform all the work. The interesting part was that this version came fully stocked with all the modifications that we would have wanted to be applied already effected, and would be ready for anything we could throw at it from day one.
This didn't add in to the other thing that came through the pipe that changed everything.
Because included in the update was the distilled knowledge of a true and fully-trained Device Meister…along with everything that meant. We were going to have to redo the Computation orb designs again, but this time it would be worth it–
An error message popped up in my HUD before a spike of pain burned itself into my back. It was bad, but not horrible, so I was more than capable of keeping my wits as it burned itself into my back. A light gasp from Mio confirmed she was feeling the same pain, and was equally handling it.
I quickly forced myself into the forgescape to figure out what was going on, only to be met directly by a woman I assumed was Watts' wife. At least judging by looks.
"No time to explain, just PUSH!!"
I pushed, and a malicious black mass of something was summarily ejected from the forgescape, leaving behind an odd residue that was quickly cleaned up and contained…but it was clear that it had left its mark. Parts of the forge seemed to be glitchy, and inactivated nodes were looking downright corrosive compared to their normal cheery counterparts.
I turned to the woman to ask for an explanation, but she beat me to the punch.
"That thing was a remnant from your run-in with the big black mass that tried to corrupt you before. It acted like a sort of trojan horse, seeking out and attempting to destroy the forge itself through corrupting your soul. We were able to isolate most of it, but then some kind of failsafe activated and, well, this happened. The damage…we'll have to get back to you on that part, but you should be able to activate at least one more set of nodes before we take things offline for a bit to do some cleanup. Shouldn't affect usage of things already on and imprinted, but the rest…I'm not sure what we can save, if anything. We'll let you know."
She quickly stepped towards me, and then gave me one of the most intense kisses I'd ever gotten from anyone that wasn't Mio–wait a minute–
"Take care of her. And don't forget to take care of yourself as well. I'll see you soon."
And I was gently pushed out of the forgescape and back into normal waking reality, but with a very weird question on my mind.
Why the hell was Watt's wife kissing me that hard…and why was she Mio?
Yep. This actually happened.
No, I am not sorry.
For those of you confused by events, this is a nice way of letting me get a perk out of my queue and slow down rolls for a bit while I focus the story on other things going on. It's about to get Crazy, yo.
Perks for this Chapter (note: not all of them are mentioned yet)
-Bonesinger (Warhammer 40K - Craftworld Eldar Jumpchain) (400CP)
Dear child, the Eldar do not simply build their wondrous technology. Instead, they rely on the power of song to shape their creations into being. This is a very demanding process, which requires a unique mix of artistic and scientific knowledge. Most importantly of all, a strong mind is necessary for this process. Bonesingers sing a psychic song, and its melodies form a psychoactive material from the warp itself, called Wraithbone. This lightweight material is stronger than titanium but is far more flexible and weighs less. Additionally you can psychically grow crystals that are the basis of their laser & lance technology. You have the knowledge and ability to sing any Eldar technology and any technology you know into being and more than that, eons of experience in doing so. Even so, the more complex an item is, the more time it takes to create said item. A whole choir of Bonesingers is required to create large and complex items such as starships and Eldar Titans unless you are willing to sing alone for years. With enough time, perhaps, you could even sing forth a brand-new Craftworld but how and where would you acquire that much time? Even an Eldar is not immortal.
"Minor" Infection (Special)
You came to Ragol aboard Pioneer I, and you were one of the first to be exposed to Dark Falz. You were able to escape, but not before being infected by DCells. Thankfully, your situation wasn't quite as bad as poor Heathcliff's, and you avoided telling anyone about your issue. The signs of this encounter are obvious to anyone who knows where to look—it could be anything from a curious tattoo to a festering wound, but it won't significantly impact your life.
That doesn't mean you escaped unchanged, though. You find yourself capable of working powerful illusions over an area. You can convince people there is a spire where nothing stands, or that they're walking on green grass as they step on a field of crushed skulls. As soon as the world fails to match up between two of their senses the illusion will break, though, and you can't do much about touch. You get additional effects based on the other perks you've purchased.
(this is a capstone booster).
Walk Towards the Light Dr. Osto's Successor
You've gained an unnatural understanding of how D-Cells interact with other organisms and technology, in large part because you yourself are now something of a D-Cell organism. Creating Mags, alternate lifeforms, D-Cell based weaponry, Artificial Intelligence, all these things are within your grasp. Given enough time and effort, you might even be able to surpass Dr. Osto himself and create Mags with greater limits, or none at all, or lifeforms surpassing anything seen on Ragol. Just reaching Dr. Osto's level will require a lot of work though, and surpassing it much more. Perhaps you can find his notes, to help you along?
-Nullspace Computer (Megas XLR) (100CP)
You have a computer tower you can summon from and banish to nullspace. allowing you to upgrade it but otherwise keep it safe. You may summon a holographic interface for it at will.
* Massive upgradable supercomputer that can be kept safe by existing outside reality and simultaneously be used due to its holographic interface making it an extremely useful item which benefits from all abilities which improve its performance while being entirely tamper proof.
-Neoalchemist (The Glass Scientists) (200CP)
Invisibility serums, subtle poisons, superspeed formulae, if the Victorians ever imagined it could be done with chemistry, you can do it.
-Tenebrium Basics | Tenebrium Mine (Divinity - Original Sin) (800CP)
Tenebrium Basics (200CP)
Tenebrium is an odd mineral. It grows like a crystal, but can be melted and forged like iron. It is easily enchanted, but highly resistant to other kinds of magic. In addition, it is highly dangerous and inflicts a disease known simply as Rot upon all those who handle it in any form. Worst of all, Rot cannot be cured by simple magical spells, requiring rare and powerful artifacts to cleanse the infected. Most cannot afford such things and slowly wither over the months following handling a single chunk of crystal. But with this perk, you have come to understand how to safely handle Tenebrium without infecting yourself.
Tenebrium Mine (600CP)
Tenebrium is an utterly useful material, for all that it is also incredibly dangerous to handle. Still, considering all its uses, one can hardly be blamed for desiring to have a steady supply of the crystal on hand. The Tenebrium Mine attaches directly to your Cosmic Warehouse and takes the form of a traditional mining tunnel about a hundred feet deep. Inside one will find a few dozen crystals of Tenebrium growing, each large enough to produce a single ingot when smelted. Once harvested new crystals will slowly grow in their place over the course of a week. The mine is also capable of producing other metals, crystals, and even gemstones if given a sample of such material. These will form in veins along the walls of the tunnel, but grow much more slowly. Exotic metals will form at a rate of one ingot every two weeks and crystals will produce roughly the same amount. Gemstones seem to be easier and the mine will produce a collection of small stones that will fill a cupped hand in a week. Normal metals, like gold and silver, can also be produced at a rate of one ingot per week. An ingot here refers to enough material to forge a traditional longsword with.
-Bonesinger (Warhammer 40K - Craftworld Eldar Jumpchain) (400CP)
Dear child, the Eldar do not simply build their wondrous technology. Instead, they rely on the power of song to shape their creations into being. This is a very demanding process, which requires a unique mix of artistic and scientific knowledge. Most importantly of all, a strong mind is necessary for this process. Bonesingers sing a psychic song, and its melodies form a psychoactive material from the warp itself, called Wraithbone. This lightweight material is stronger than titanium but is far more flexible and weighs less. Additionally you can psychically grow crystals that are the basis of their laser & lance technology. You have the knowledge and ability to sing any Eldar technology and any technology you know into being and more than that, eons of experience in doing so. Even so, the more complex an item is, the more time it takes to create said item. A whole choir of Bonesingers is required to create large and complex items such as starships and Eldar Titans unless you are willing to sing alone for years. With enough time, perhaps, you could even sing forth a brand-new Craftworld but how and where would you acquire that much time? Even an Eldar is not immortal.
"Minor" Infection (Special)
You came to Ragol aboard Pioneer I, and you were one of the first to be exposed to Dark Falz. You were able to escape, but not before being infected by DCells. Thankfully, your situation wasn't quite as bad as poor Heathcliff's, and you avoided telling anyone about your issue. The signs of this encounter are obvious to anyone who knows where to look—it could be anything from a curious tattoo to a festering wound, but it won't significantly impact your life.
That doesn't mean you escaped unchanged, though. You find yourself capable of working powerful illusions over an area. You can convince people there is a spire where nothing stands, or that they're walking on green grass as they step on a field of crushed skulls. As soon as the world fails to match up between two of their senses the illusion will break, though, and you can't do much about touch. You get additional effects based on the other perks you've purchased.
(this is a capstone booster).
Walk Towards the Light Dr. Osto's Successor
You've gained an unnatural understanding of how D-Cells interact with other organisms and technology, in large part because you yourself are now something of a D-Cell organism. Creating Mags, alternate lifeforms, D-Cell based weaponry, Artificial Intelligence, all these things are within your grasp. Given enough time and effort, you might even be able to surpass Dr. Osto himself and create Mags with greater limits, or none at all, or lifeforms surpassing anything seen on Ragol. Just reaching Dr. Osto's level will require a lot of work though, and surpassing it much more. Perhaps you can find his notes, to help you along?
-Nullspace Computer (Megas XLR) (100CP)
You have a computer tower you can summon from and banish to nullspace. allowing you to upgrade it but otherwise keep it safe. You may summon a holographic interface for it at will.
* Massive upgradable supercomputer that can be kept safe by existing outside reality and simultaneously be used due to its holographic interface making it an extremely useful item which benefits from all abilities which improve its performance while being entirely tamper proof.
-Neoalchemist (The Glass Scientists) (200CP)
Invisibility serums, subtle poisons, superspeed formulae, if the Victorians ever imagined it could be done with chemistry, you can do it.
-Tenebrium Basics | Tenebrium Mine (Divinity - Original Sin) (800CP)
Tenebrium Basics (200CP)
Tenebrium is an odd mineral. It grows like a crystal, but can be melted and forged like iron. It is easily enchanted, but highly resistant to other kinds of magic. In addition, it is highly dangerous and inflicts a disease known simply as Rot upon all those who handle it in any form. Worst of all, Rot cannot be cured by simple magical spells, requiring rare and powerful artifacts to cleanse the infected. Most cannot afford such things and slowly wither over the months following handling a single chunk of crystal. But with this perk, you have come to understand how to safely handle Tenebrium without infecting yourself.
Tenebrium Mine (600CP)
Tenebrium is an utterly useful material, for all that it is also incredibly dangerous to handle. Still, considering all its uses, one can hardly be blamed for desiring to have a steady supply of the crystal on hand. The Tenebrium Mine attaches directly to your Cosmic Warehouse and takes the form of a traditional mining tunnel about a hundred feet deep. Inside one will find a few dozen crystals of Tenebrium growing, each large enough to produce a single ingot when smelted. Once harvested new crystals will slowly grow in their place over the course of a week. The mine is also capable of producing other metals, crystals, and even gemstones if given a sample of such material. These will form in veins along the walls of the tunnel, but grow much more slowly. Exotic metals will form at a rate of one ingot every two weeks and crystals will produce roughly the same amount. Gemstones seem to be easier and the mine will produce a collection of small stones that will fill a cupped hand in a week. Normal metals, like gold and silver, can also be produced at a rate of one ingot per week. An ingot here refers to enough material to forge a traditional longsword with.
