Alright after some technical difficulties this was posted a bit later than I wanted on the 20th of October. But here it is nonetheless.

"How much longer until this thing's operational?"

Noric felt like an idiot having to ask this question, but since he decided to arrange his stuff instead of going through the briefing this is what he had to resort to.

He wasn't sure which response he should have reacted to, the irritated sigh of the Gem before him or the smack to the shoulder that he received from Gyrum.

"Hey."

His one word of outcry earned him another smack from both of them.

The goal of the mission, this end of a communications system that would be able to link the two civilizations together, finally finished.

Why wasn't it turned on?

The dark screens of the machine remained as dark as when they were brought out from the ship, as were all the rest of the lights.

"According to the blueprints provided, the one component that is currently missing from this monstrosity is a power source."

"That seems logical enough," Noric thought to himself, but the tone that the Gem used made him feel more annoyed than informed.

This conversation was cut off as the doors behind them opened to reveal the rest of the crew, bickering over something that the occupants of the room chose to ignore.

The two beings of varied colors that had accompanied the two seemed to be relieved that they finally were able to transfer them off to someone else. This look wasn't missed by Ferric, nor was it missed by the several Gems that also occupied the room, guarding various doors and equipment.

"Alright then." Hyden started, "Ferric this is where your assistance is required."

"Yes sir." Noric replied, twisting his hands around each other in a circular motion.

A whirring sound accompanied the flickering of lights of the machine. The flickering soon turned to flashing as the device began to power up.

"What is he doing?" The gem asked, looking confused at the occurrence before her.

Hyden moved to the secondary portion of the machine to begin tuning the dials, flipping various switches to ignite certain lights. All the while flipping his head back and forth from the screen to his workspace.

"I'm seriously going to need an explanation of-"

That was able to exit her mouth as the internal portion of the machine roared to life with an explosion of sound and light from the primary portion of the machine.

"Primary ignition successful, dual flywheels spinning manually at 70,000 revolutions per 1.2 kiloticks and holding steady for the switch to automatic." Hyden's words were just loud enough to hear over the grinding sound that had suddenly erupted from the machine.

"One of the gears is out of alignment." The general stated, "Nikolai, replace me here at the station. Stens, run primary inspection procedure. Steele, make sure the generator is steady and prepped for transference."

Noric had honestly forgotten about the inspection, shoving it back into his memories as just a pre-launch procedure. He probably should have been more aware of it when he was asked to contribute to it.

The other two members of the crew rushed to the machine to complete their orders, both incidentally brushing past the gem to do so. Noric of course just kept to what he was doing, not that he really needed to do anything else, those gears usually just needed to get up to speed or timed better.

Hyden had stepped aside as the two got to work, looking over Volfram's shoulder to view the test.

"As heading Gem of this project, I demand that I be properly informed of these occurrences."

The tone of the Gem's voice drew Noric's attention from the station, and it seemed like it did the same for Hyden. As when he looked over he could see that the general had straightened and was beginning to turn around.

"Our mission here is to establish a proper communications rig here in the hopes that it could serve as a method of removing the possibility of being enemies in the future." Hyden started walking closer to the Gem as he said this, "From our observations the machine itself is able to operate efficiently within this atmosphere due to the mix of coatings on the exterior and certain interior parts, the same coating that our suits are coated in."

Hyden was now half an arms length away from the Gem when a beep sounded, followed by Volfram's voice, "You're clear for disengagement sir."

Since his back was turned, Noric couldn't see his face but he was sure from the sound that the mask underneath his dome was off.

"We couldn't be sure of how our bodies would react. The test was to see how samples of our bodies would react."

Hyden suddenly dropped. His body crumpling underneath itself. The thunk of his helmet accompanied the slight hiss that came from the now pile of leadership.

"Gah!" The sound escaped from the closest Gem. The others around the room were in between various stages of shock, confusion, and alarm; not knowing really what had transpired.

The rest of the crew continued on with their work. Not wanting to be the one that had to explain anything, Noric continued on as well.

"What just happened?" The pointed headed Gem questioned.

"Just spreading my form a bit, that's all."

"That was fast." Noric thought to himself.

Standing next to the ship was Hyden in his civilian form.

"Wha- how?" Seeing that Gem stutter and try to process what happened was definitely something that Noric would remember later.

"To be clear with you guys I hated that suit the minute it sealed. Volfram. Any other results come in yet?"

"Still waiting on Steel's sample. Other than that we're clear."

Hyden walked back to pick up his suit, making weird sounding footsteps along the way. By the time he did make it to his suit the green Gem had finally slowed down enough to ask some questions that they could understand. But that didn't happen. Hyden had already started speaking before she got her solid words out.

"Sorry for the scare, really hated the suit and couldn't wait till it was off." He started, "My form is naturally a liquid and I was able to stretch myself into a fine film underneath the floor. And by the way, your floor has weird cracks in it."

The Gem seemed to have absorbed all of that, "So why were you at your ship?"

"Sealant." He answered, pulling out a soldering iron and wire, "Had to make a hole in order to get out of that thing. I'll fill you in later."

Just as he finished the main screen lit up.

With that damn Zolto being the first thing it showed.

The next chapter will be posted on the 7th of November.