Chapter 4: Endeavor, Familial and not
Eight days later...
Location: Utopia System; Eden Prime; Yggdrasil; Monzae's.
Professional irritation lingered in the back of his thoughts as he beheld that which hung nakedly in the middle of the haptic canvas. At first glance it was on the brink of completion, a spaceship shaped roughly in the Tenjo's image. A more keen eye could however see that this 'brink' was akin to a chasm, its final completion kept at bay by the continued inability to construct the systems critical to its purpose. Every attempt so far had only ended in failure when the time came to run it through simulations.
I'm missing something... If I could only find out what...
Frustrated yet determined, he tried again... before a youthful voice cut in.
"Dad?"
Pardonner blinked in startlement, and was mildly dismayed and embarrassed to discover that he was daydreaming without noticing it. He was not in the Tenjo's Engineering Core, but in a fairly decent ice cream parlor located in the northern outskirts of Yggdrasil. It was pleasingly clean, well-decorated, crowded and busy, he found no fault in the customer service, and the weather outside was beautiful.
Last but not least it was where his youngest offspring, Hikari, started to work after he left his father's side. It was a pleasant surprise that somewhat mitigated the humiliation born from those days ago when Service at the end of his duel with Désir proceeded to carry him bridal-style deep into the most heavily populated settlement in the system.
"My apologies." Pardonner groused as he rubbed the length of a claw across his eyes, and tried to ignore the position Hikari had chosen to take. Rather than sit in the chair like the vast majority of those of his lineage would, Hikari once he delivered the ordered strawberry-flavored parfait went and hoist himself onto the table and all but lounged across its length. Most would find very little to complain about that due to the great beauty he was renowned for already early on in his childhood. But being his father... Pardonner only found the borderline sultry positioning extremely awkward. "I was a million miles away for a moment. What did you say?"
"I was asking if you like the parfait." Hikari smiled.
"Ah," he mused at the pink-tinted cup of ice cream between them, "I must say it's quite good."
"Given how many the Aspects Service and Désir had you eat that one time, I thought you'd get heartily sick of them."
"On the contrary, it provided me a slight new appreciation. Don't tell those colleagues of mine though if you happen across them."
"My lips are sealed, dad. Still, it was fun to watch. You must have eaten a hundred parfaits."
"Not nearly that much." Pardonner corrected with a sigh at the memory, at how he in resignation let the perhaps overly excitable fellows feed him, "Though if our respective duties did not call, the number would have surely risen close to it." as he chopped of a large piece of cold goodness and briefly enjoyed how the ice-cold flavor spread as he consumed it.
Hikari's smiled broadened a little more, as if in wonder, "It's awe-inspiring to hear you speak of it so simply."
"We have different power requirements." he shrugged and indulged himself some more, "That's all there is to it."
"I understand."
Pardonner licked his lips as he finished half of the parfait and briefly reclined against the backrest. "Speaking of exposure to plenty." he inquired softly, "Are you adjusting well to every day life?"
"Well, I'm getting used to it." Hikari shifted in place, his left leg hoist onto the other, "Everyone in the neighborhood's been really nice to me."
"Being considerate of your youth, I assume?"
"Aye." the youth squirmed, "All of them seem to have at least a few decades on me."
Pardonner mused, "So long as they're not coming onto you I'm satisfied. You are nowhere old enough to where a close relationship is appropriate. Given how you've chosen to position yourself all the times I've been here, I hope you're not already trying to look out for a mate."
"It's just part of the job, dad." Hikari insisted softly, "Monzae said we'd attract more customers if I took advantage of my looks."
Oh, did he now? The Aspect of Patience gave an oblique glance in the direction of the store's owner who stood at the cashier, a diminutive Son of Avaro who immediately broke out in cold sweat and ducked in behind the counter – fully understanding on how thin an ice he tread.
His son continued, "I did not quite know how to best present myself to our customers, so I went and asked the honorable Aspect Désir as he came by one day, who was willing to show me the ropes."
Pardonner's thoughts turned frigid, and on the far side of the planet where a large-scale military drill was fully underway... Désir froze in the middle of an order and felt a most immediate urge to flee.
"Dad?"
"Yes?"
"Do you have plans for later?"
"Feeling lonely?"
"A little." Hikari admitted.
Pardonner glanced down at the parfait and found what remained partly melted, "Well, I can make room to accompany you. Any particular place you want to go?"
"Um," the youngster hesitated, "I've been wanting to try out the whole bowling thing."
"Oh? I feel there's a 'but' in there."
"Yeah, the bowling alley's crowded by more the rowdy sorts of clientele." he squirmed, "I dare not go alone."
Pardonner smiled warmly, "Let's bowl then."
"Okay." Hikari looked most relieved, and excited, "Would a five hours from now be fine?"
He provided a nod, "It's fine."
"Oi, Hikari!" Monzae managed to weakly pipe up, "Break time's over!"
The youngster blinked and pushed himself off the table, "I'm sorry, dad. Duty calls."
"Of course." Pardonner returned to the parfait, and idly looked forward to the future distraction from his frustrating dilemma as he watched his son hurry to the tables indicated by his boss, where he under the wrapped attention of several dôji struck a graceful pose and took the orders.
Two hours later...
Location: Imir System; Korlus; Salvage Camp #22.
"Careful now. A little further to the right... Easy... Easy... There. Stop there!"
Tali hurried down a floor from where she had directed Prazza and Kal's effort to wedge the small element zero core into place. Every wreckage had to be made functional with a bare minimum of components, something that takes a fair bit of effort and precision. It was good then that they are up to the task. Now if only Prazza could pull himself together.
"H-hey, don't leave it!" Kefila called to Prazza as she approached to start fastening the machine, "Keep it steady!"
Prazza growled as he sat on his knees, exhausted, "Keelah... just give me a moment."
"Get back to it!" Tali shouted urgently. She did not like to put pressure on, but this simply could not wait as the ship lay at an awkward angle. One wrong move without proper support and they would have to reposition the core again, "We'll take a break once this thing is secured!"
"Damn it." the male cursed, but followed through so she and Kefila could make the round and bolt the thing into place. It was far from the appropriate method, but quality was not an overt consideration in this venture. All of the wrecks made space-worthy are going be perforated soon enough.
Every salvage crew had to make do with limited material, and do it cheaply.
Tali nodded in satisfaction once they finished up, "Done! Good work everyone."
"Finally." Prazza slumped onto the floor.
"You need to train more." Kal dismissed in mild chagrin as he with more dignity leaned on a wall, "This is nothing."
"Easy for you to say."
Tali activated her omni-tool, "Nao, what's your progress?"
"Almost done." the older quarian replied with a sense of preoccupation, "This engine got a few calibration errors I need to straighten out."
"Okay. Come up when you're done, it's time for lunch."
"Aye."
It was best not to interrupt Nao too much, something Tali found out quickly on their very first day on the junk-riddled face of this planet. One prod too much and Nao was liable to heft the baton kept in her boot-mounted holster. One of the batarians they worked with on a heavy cargo vessel learned that the hard way. Tali recalled the little incident with mixed exasperation and mirth as she closed the connection and went to where she left her bag a couple of rooms distant.
She retrieved a package of MRE and without a beat made her way out through the nearest airlock. Beyond it lay a vista not particularly stunning, but full of life and activity. Tali admitted quietly that she was in slight awe of the scale of it. Hundreds worked within the wreckage spread out before her, and hundreds more moved between them to reach their work places. Those are just the number she could see. Thousands more worked elsewhere for many miles around.
From a beam she decided to use for a seat, Tali unpacked her meal carefully.
"How many ships do you think have been rendered space-worthy so far?"
"I have no idea." Tali replied as she looked up at Kefila who very carefully drank a portion of her MRE through her mask's induction port, "Last I checked, there's seventy work camps like this one out there."
"Going by that, I wager there's at least a couple of hundred up and on their way to the Dôji Front."
"And we haven't found a suitable craft yet."
"We'll find it." Kefila said after she downed another mouthful, "Or if we can't, the others will."
To make greater the chance of operation success, several other groups out there affiliated with Admiral Zaal'Koris had been tasked with the look-out for a vessel that would most suit their needs. But so far there has been no word. Tali wanted to maintain a positive outlook, but it's been eight days. The window of opportunity threatened to close on them, especially as it would only be a matter of time before someone back home discover that something's amiss with her substitute.
Kefila picked up on her glumness and applied a slap to the back.
"Ow!" Tali yelped so the MRE almost flew from her grasp, "What's that for?"
"Chin up." snapped the engineer, though the tone implied her smile did not fade, "If you lose hope, how are we supposed to go on. Most of us just came along – risking our lives – to find if there are truth to your claims about the dôji. I for one aim to see the most if they can truly dance."
Tali blinked in complete astonishment, "Is that truly all you need to know?"
"Dance, Vala'Mal," Kefila replied pointedly, "is an important part in every culture out there. Even for the krogan. It's an expressive art far beyond the capacity of the cold and unfeeling geth. My decision on whether these dôji are truly what you say depend entirely on whether their groove is empty, or abundant with passion."
"Convince me, and I'll be in your camp entirely."
To say Tali was surprised would be an understatement. She was aware that every one of her kind required proof to put the metaphorical meat on the bone of her claims, but was amazed that all this one needed was to know of the synthetics' passion. Tali still more than remembered her one time in that night club during her stay on Earth, and the excitement that hung in the air.
If only her family could be as easily convinced.
"Looks like we got ourselves a visitor."
Tali started from her moment of deep thought and stood to look the way her colleague currently peered. The question on whether it was the overseer died in her throat as she saw a dark-suited male quarian make his way to them through the haphazard terrain with notable purpose.
"I need to speak to 'Vala'Mal'." he grunted once close enough to not turn their conversation into a shouting match, "It's important."
"You're looking at her." Tali replied indicatively, "Who's talking?"
"Mar'Fra. Q-Team #56."
"Allies of ours." Kefila flatly confirmed.
"Personally I don't care much for this vaunted mission of yours, but I'm not the one making the decisions. Now if you would be so kind and come along..."
"Is there a problem?" Tali asked.
He shrugged, "None, I was told to come here and bring you with. We've found something."
She started, "A ship?"
"Come and see for yourself." Mar'Fra said grouchily, "I was hard at work patching up an engine compartment when he decided to split us up even more than we were."
That rather explained his less than cheerful disposition.
"I understand. Give me a moment." Tali replied evenly as she brought up her omni-tool and quickly typed in a message for Kal. A note that she would be away for a bit. "Done." she succinctly announced, "Show us to him."
It occurred to Kefila that the 'us' included her. Being close enough to read the message she wrote also aided in the conclusion. She folded her arms but made no complaint. The man shrugged again and motioned for them to follow, quite eager to get himself back to work.
Tali was worried that their trek would be noticed by any number of the overseers that might be in their way, but those she could see as they made their way through the ship graveyard were luckily preoccupied in their business. The nearest of these was an elcor who had settled into a more or less aggressive posture as he tried to harshly berate a mixed gathering of dirt-covered salarians and batarians who made good their every effort to look distinctly bored with the situation. What they did was unknown to Tali, but supposed it was best not to find out and risk pulling more attention at themselves than would be wise.
Thankfully it did not take long before their arrival at the half-buried remains of a ship entirely devoid of fanciful aesthetics, as is typical with ships of volus make. For entirely economic reasons the rotund aliens preferred simplicity in their vessels over any other considerations. Such a sight however dipped Tali briefly into memory as for a moment the devastation she beheld on Earth overlapped this vista. Her blood ran cold as a fear primal in its intensity rose from the bottom of her gut as any moment now she expected a swarm of mechanical monstrosities to billow from every crevice and race to rend her body apart.
It was truly eerie a sensation.
"Tali?" she heard Kefila's voice from somewhere incredibly far away, the persona they're supposed to stick to completely dropped in concern. A hand that promptly landed on her shoulder woke her from the sudden stupor.
She blinked and found their guide to be gone, replaced instead by a taller man clothed in an all-red environmental suit caked in dust and scattered flakes of rust. "Are you alright, ma'am?" he gently asked.
"Fine... I'm fine." Tali replied slowly, tone numb, in wait for her thoughts to properly clear, "You're the leader of this team?"
"I am." he replied in confirmation, "Chief Engineer Aahlun'Tirram, at your service."
"Have you found us a possible ship candidate?"
"More than that. It is the ship candidate."
"That good?" Tali arced a brow.
Aahlun smiled from behind his light-red visor, "I can guarantee it, ma'am. You remember the body they found three days since?"
"How could anyone forget." Kefila muttered incredulously, "The corpse of a batarian, his body crushed almost to deliquesce by debris. It was estimated his time of death was eleven days ago."
"The very same." the Chief Engineer said with a nod, "When I heard of it, I wondered why he was alone in the middle of this wasteland and did some snooping around."
Tali frowned, "That ship you found was his..."
"Just right. Found it hidden a short way from here." Aahlun quietly told them, "It's late owner, we discovered, was of the Merchant Caste. And his finances were in the red."
"He landed out here to stay low and buy himself some time." Kefila muttered in distaste. Considering what the Hegemony do to those perceived as failures, his death by deliquesce was arguably more merciful than the alternative. The harshness of batarian penalty system is infamous and horribly unmatched among the space-faring species. Yet another dark stain on their perpetually black record.
Aahlun agreed, "Our thoughts exactly, though it is all irrelevant. We got a ship, and that's what matters."
Tali grimaced, "You're right. Show us to it."
The Chief Engineer complied and took them on a kilometer-long walk that terminated in a broad crevice topped by a hulk of such size it would have been ideal for salvage was it not for how crumpled it was. Just a pile that could do no more than wait for the recycling crews to come and take it in.
Within it sat a bulky but small freighter coated in hull visibly thicker than the average. "A blockade runner." Kefila whispered as they approached its side, and walked up to rub a palm across its rugged surface, "Built to take punishment and swift enough to outrun frigates."
"In other words," Tali smiled in approval, "perfect for our needs."
"Truly it is. Almost tempted to run off home with it myself." Aahlun noted in dry humor.
"Likewise, but we have a mission to undertake." Kefila looked it over critically, "Unfortunately, it's really too pristine. We're gonna have to ruin the paint job, remove emblems, give a few scrapes here and there... install the control package, and make a few interior adjustment."
Tali nodded at each detail in agreement, "Don't forget the heat-concealing insulation. We don't want to be found out after all."
"Keelah, how could I forget?"
"Much need to be done, and we can't put too many people at work here at any one time. Aahlun'Tirram, could you get the word out to the other groups?"
"Hm, I'll see what I can do." the Chief Engineer implied a frown as he thoughtfully replied.
"Every day from now on, one from each of teams must come to give this ship the workover it needs, and make sure it's ready for the next convoy in a week's time."
Tali looked up at the old blockade breaker with much anticipation, her smile brilliant in its intensity. Now all that remained was proper caution and execution, and their entrance into the dôji realm would be all but guaranteed.
Five hours later...
Location: Utopia System; Eden Prime; Yggdrasil; Rocka & Pops Bowling Alley.
Jealousy stared at the pint, and its contents stared back at him... a match for the ages his drink was doomed to lose as he took a long sip that saw the pint emptied, and upon its completion sighed pleasantly. Of the many new products introduced to the market using native resources, the perhaps indecently named Gas Bag Ale was by far his favorite.
It hit like a shotgun blast, but left in its wake such a distinct sense of purification.
He quietly sighed, "I feel alive..."
"And here," Rocka, the mohawked owner of this establishment, chuckled, "I hoped it might just twist your shoes off, sir."
"Not bloody likely." Jealousy replied as he put the glass down and unfurled her claw from it, "But it was really good, even better than last time."
"I always got an eye out for superior products. That never changed with time. Never disappointed you before, have I?"
"Not at all, though I must say I did not expect you to include a bowling hall. The one you had back in the Western Dome sure as hell did not have one."
"I've always had a deep love on bowling besides. Call it good influence. My old man used to operate a bowling hall before he went and died during the last battle on Earth, so when I started this place, I chose to pick up his business too." Rocka smiled as he gestured to the bowling lanes, "Great thing, isn't it? Follows the spirit of bowling nicely."
"Heh." Jealousy hummed as he half-turned to look at the collection of ten lanes, eight of them currently in use by a loud bunch who raucously competed in who could score the most points, "I'm sure there were no such thing as thirty-pin bowling. Especially not ones where the pins are little robots programmed to try and dodge the balls."
"A necessity." the owner shrugged, "Ten-pins' the most strenuous type of bowling the humans had to our knowledge. For dôji, it require no effort at all. Adjustment had to be made to make it a mite challenging. Thirty pins, only one ball roll per turn, etc."
He raised his shoulders, "No arguing against it." and nudged the empty glass forward, "Another fill, please."
"Coming right up."
With a nod, Jealousy leaned back on the stool and relaxed while Rocka went and prepared another bottle, until his attention was attracted by a momentary commotion at a couple of arrivals. Jealousy blinked at how unlikely it was to see Pardonner present in a place like this, was it not for the young adult next to him.
Given a lack of opportunities, he had only seen Pardonner's newest son a few times in the past. Hikari had truly grown well, with a lithe figure, long golden hair trussed up in a ponytail, and similarly golden eyes. It was unusual for a dôji to have identically colored iris and pupil – Service's the only one among the Aspects with this trait – but Hikari got it and looked positively exotic for it. And predictably, some of the more or less drunk dôji among the bowling lanes engaged in catcalling toward the youth who in response nervously hid behind not his considerably taller father. Pardonner in due turm cowed them to silence with no more than a stern glare.
Jealousy smirked. Though he did found Hikari's eyes quite pretty... they could not hope to match the beauty of Pardonner's pristine blue and black eyes that of all the aspects appeared the most human.
Having provided a quick halt to the catcalling, the father and son went to the most distant lane and briefly studied its score panel.
"Rocka." he whispered, "One more of it, and a soda – Coke if you will."
"Here you go." Rocka complied.
Jealousy nodded his thanks as he plucked up the three drinks and made his way over to the kid and parent's lane. "Got room for one more, Pardonner?"
There was no reaction of surprise from the Aspect of Patience, who shrugged as he half-turned, "We might. Did you pick those drinks with us in mind?"
He put up a wry grin, "I entirely did." as he went and put the pints down on the table adjacent to the lane-specific bench, then handed the Coke over to the youth who hesitantly accepted it.
"T-thank you." Hikari mumbled shyly.
"Be a little more clear when you're thanking people, Hikari." Pardonner told his son evenly as he added the Aspect of Envy's name to the score panel, then fed in the coins requested. "It wouldn't do if people misinterpreted you as ungrateful."
The youth floundered, "Y-yes!" and watched as the lane was set. A full thirty pins was lowered onto the lane, followed by the appearance of nine different bowling balls as the lane's conveyance rails activated.
Jealousy approached the nervous kid, "Ever played bowling before?"
"I... I haven't."
"Want me to teach you?"
"Um..." Hikari cocked his head confusedly.
"Feel free to accept." Pardonner said dryly as he took a seat and sipped from the supplied pint with practiced aplomb, "It's okay."
"Alright then..."
"It's not much you need to know, but every little counts." Jealousy said as he reached and bent a claw into a bowling ball customized for dôji with few digits to their name. It weighed some fifty pounds to his estimate, and he swung it back and forth tryingly, "Most basic to know is that this is thirty-pin bowling. Those pins will try and dodge your shot, so aim well and apply force to your delivery. If your shot travel any slower than a hundred and fifty kilometers per hour, it will miss."
Hikari nodded quickly, "O-okay." The kid probably expected his father to be the one teaching him.
"But while you put force to the shot, you must time the release. Release too late in your swing and you'll send the ball flying. That is a bad thing, and you could damage the lane."
"I understand."
Jealousy nodded and took up position a good few feet behind the yellow line that made up the boundary, "Good. Now watch closely." before he held the bowling ball up in front of him, positioned to take aim, then swung his arm back, took a step forward, swung forward, then released just past halfway.
Quickly, at about two hundred kilometers per hour, it closed the gap. The pins reacted to try and pull themselves out of the ball's way. A motion partially unsuccessful as fully seventeen were bowled over.
"Like that." he continued, "Got it?"
"I think so." Hikari replied as he went hesitantly for a red-colored bowling ball.
Having gotten the kid well on his way, Jealousy sat next to his colleague who still savored the drink. "Looks like you've tried this ale before."
"Désir brought a bottle of it once." Pardonner replied flatly, not keen to remember, "My son wound up getting a taste of it. Not long after he got more independent."
"Ouch. Should I go get something else?"
"It's not a problem."
Hikari had by then completed his aim and swung the arm. Even without his Noh active he knew the kid would fumble the shot, and shot out a claw for the full ten feet when the ball was accidentally thrown and snatched it before gravity could overtake it. "Careful." he muttered during its return to the youngster's arms, "Try again."
"How considerate of you." Pardonner smiled slightly.
"Ah? He's the kid of yours," he retracted the claw to instead take his drink, "and this place's owner's a friend of mine. Can't have this place wrecked... it'd look bad."
"I see." the fellow aspect nodded before his gaze noticeably darkened, while his kid busied himself with some swinging practice, loath to repeat his prior mistake, "So how is it out there?"
"About the front line you mean?"
"Yes. I've for a long while been cooped up in the Tenjo."
"Not much to say as the aliens stopped attacking almost right on the dime when my most recent shift was done with." Jealousy recalled with the lazy wave of a claw.
"Sounds like the quiet before the storm." Pardonner commented, his very human-like eyes Jealousy privately wouldn't mind to get lost in narrowed speculatively, "Isn't the Kunato making the rounds?"
Kunato... Jealousy thought of the lone Kurma that regularly traveled to and from the relay to send probes through. "It sure is, but the aliens have tightened up their security. Consequently because they're shooting up every probe almost the moment they come through, the intel we get for the effort amounts to bits and pieces."
"Ugh, exactly what I needed." the Aspect of Patience winced, "Yet more pressure to develop stealth technology we have no idea how to make."
Jealousy chuckled, but cut it short and focused as Hikari made another attempt. This time he managed to release the bowling ball just on time, though he failed to apply some proper force. Distantly, the pins almost appeared to snort at how slow it was and merely held their ground. And soon enough, the bowling ball trailed off its course and wound up in the gutter. "Aw." the youngster groaned.
"You are making good progress, Hikari." Pardonner said comfortingly as is suitable for a father onto his son before the youth could further delve into self-pity as he put his pint aside and rose to go pick a ball for himself. Predictably it was a blue one he chose. "Keep trying and you'll be knocking those pins down soon enough."
Those were just the right words, Jealousy observed, as Hikari stopped his sulking with a sniff and returned a nod of measured cheer. Without as much as a complaint he took his father's spot on the bench and watched attentively as Pardonner took up position and went through the motions with a focus equally as serene as it was razor sharp. He aimed, swung his arm back, forward, and released the ball at the last instant.
By Noh and long association both, Jealousy noticed how his colleague held back. Pardonner pulled on just enough of his skill to knock down a full twenty pins, but performed weakly enough that Hikari would not believe there's too wide a skill gap between them, and thereby heightened the youngster's enjoyment of the game.
"And there we go." Pardonner applied a gauntlet to hip and looked onto Jealousy, "Your turn."
"Okay, but how about we spice up this game a bit between the two of us?" Jealousy offered as he rose, "Loser buys the next round of drinks."
Pardonner sighed and looked more than ready to refuse if it was not for how his son beamed at the prospect, "Have at it then."
"With pleasure." he replied, and was about to retrieve the ball he previously used when an additional thing came to mind, "Hikari, would you like to provide a time limit for how long we can take to shoot?"
"Sure." the golden-eyed youngster replied without hesitation, "Five seconds. I'll count down."
"And here I was hoping for a relaxing evening." Pardonner rolled his eyes, exasperated, "So much for that."
Jealousy chuckled as he took up position and held the ball up, Hikari having counted down to 'three' by then, "Nothing wrong with having a fun evening instead."
"Two..." his colleague's son chimed, "One...!"
He took the shot, and so a few hours worth of hectic bowling and drinking action commenced. In the midst of which he briefly pitied two other aspects who at the time busied themselves with something far more tedious far away from Yggdrasil's hustle and bustle, even if the importance of their task outweighed some rounds of bowling by an order of magnitude.
Location: Utopia System; above Nirvana; Maginot Line Terminus; Brahmastra-class Dreadnought "Endymion"
"Now this is just atrocious." the giant Aspect of Pride, Orgullo, hissed in rough distaste at the haptic display before them, a rough and grainy image of the system just beyond the relay, "This the best those guys on the Kunato can do these days?"
"Considering how the aliens have become so apt at shooting down all our probes, you should commend them for being able to piece together this much." Sophia, the far more diminutive Aspect of Wisdom, replied placidly as he attentively regarded what information the admittedly shoddy map could provide.
Orgullo folded his massive arms and snorted gruffly.
At first glance it seemed like a single comprehensive map, but was actually several hundred that overlapped one another. With such little time to do a scan, they focused on one little part of the system at a time with each dispatch, and patched the information onto the map. But it went without saying that much of the information pieced together so far are nothing new. Within the alien-named Atapo System there are somewhere between six and ten thousand warships, tenders, and freighters at any given time.
What they needed to know was physical hints as to their next course of action, cause surely they aren't planning to just sit there and play containment.
"Nothing here stands out." Orgullo growled impatiently, strong in his dislike for incredibly vague information, "Either they're not planning to up the ante, or the bunch of 'em are doing it somewhere else."
"Either way, this is something we must do."
"Pf, as if I'm not aware of that."
"You know better than to complain then."
Orgullo grunted, "Yet I am well in my right to… Oh fuck it. Are you sure we can't hack them?"
"In such a narrow time frame?" Sophia brushed a claw through his golden mane and asked, slightly amused, "No."
"Gr..."
…
"Sirs." the Captain's voice crackled in through the PA, "We have a new intel package from the 'Kunato'. Says it's urgent."
"Relay it to our workstation, Captain." Orgullo growled, "Snap to."
Sophia waited a split second for the package to arrive on the haptic display and opened it with a firm prod. The existing map vanished and was replaced by the image of the most distant relay. And round it floated a fleet of thirty immense vessels escorted by fifty comparatively diminutive cruisers.
"… What the hell are those?"
"I'm not sure, but they're huge." Sophia inclined for a closer look, surprised that the Citadel got ships like these up their sleeves. Each of them at least five times the size of an Atrin. "Orgullo, do you know why ships usually aren't built to be over a kilometer in length?"
Orgullo let out a grunt of annoyance, "No idea. I did not bother to study up."
"Usually it is because they require such large amounts of Element Zero in order to reliably envelop their ships in mass effect fields that they are impractical for mass production. Consequently those that end up huge include either an oversized Element Zero core – as is the case with the Tenjo, Chakravartin, and Brahmastra – or a number of standard ones."
"So what?"
So flippant... "My point is, such ships are often built solely to fulfill very specific purposes." Sophia looked up at his more bulky colleague and concluded the explanation, "Now the question is, what purpose were these designed for? Are they juggernauts? Bulk freighters? They can't be carriers."
"Doesn't matter which. We now know for sure they're just catching their second wind." Orgullo interrupted irritatedly, "Now are we going to the Grand Aspects and recommend that we issue a recall?"
"Of course." Sophia nodded firmly, "If there's going to be another major battle soon, all Aspects in a position to be recalled need to be the soonest possible."
Author notes: A lot of talk, not much action this time around. I considered having Adrien partake in the chapter, but could not do it without it resulting in an early reveal of certain parts of his battle plan I'd rather wait with till a more appropriate time. I'll see if I can push for there to be more action next chapter.
