Saw a sig, an idea sparked. Couldn't help it... :)
Armsmaster watched as Ianthe and Metis took aim at a large cleared plot of former Ship's Graveyard land. It was badly contaminated with oil, fuel, heavy metals, and all the other detritus of more than a century of being used as a marine dumping ground.
The DWU and city hall had been discussing how to clean it up for some weeks, most of the standard options being very expensive or very slow to act. Kaiju had suggested simply digging it out, then eating the result, but even she didn't look like she actually wanted to do that.
After a while, Ianthe had gone off and thought in a corner, then had a long conversation with Metis and Saurial, as well as the Dallon girl on the phone. She'd finally smiled widely and said she had a cunning plan.
Colin had been visiting at the time and had exchanged a glance with Danny Hebert. Both of them had looked a little worried, as that statement usually preceded something that made Director Piggot reach for the small bottle of brandy she thought she had hidden in her desk, and caused Hannah to go pale and then go for a long walk.
However, the reptiles seemed pleased with their ideas and he'd discovered it was normally best to just go along with it under those circumstances. So far everything had worked out, even if the side-effects tended to make visitors to the city look askance at the locals, who were becoming sufficiently blasé that he wasn't himself sure if there was anything that would actually surprise the average Brocktonite by now.
He frowned slightly. Brocktonian? Hmm. Sooner or later someone was going to have to settle that.
"Take aim!" Ianthe called in a commanding voice, raising her arms, both forearm launchers pointing into the middle of the cleared area. Metis did the same from beside her, as did over a hundred people they'd borrowed from the DWU, all of whom were armed with some weird organic looking weaponry which made his eyes ache a little when he inspected them. There was no actual technology in the things that he could detect, but they undeniably were very effective weapons.
"Ready explosive shots!" About a third of the armed union people stepped forward. "Ripple fire, scan the field. FIRE!"
A huge wave of popping sounds followed her command, almost instantly being drowned out by an almost continuous roar of small but vicious explosions as the small darts penetrated the soggy ground and detonated, churning it up into a pretty decent approximation of a plowed field in seconds. The DWU people panned and scanned the guns, steadily ripping up several acres of ground in a demonstration of worrying competence.
In under a minute she raised a hand, having been firing as well. "CEASE FIRE!" she yelled, all the guns immediately stopping. Looking pleased at the results, she nodded, then issued another command.
"Bioremediation squad, ripple fire, wide spacing. FIRE!"
The remaining sixty percent of the DWU people stepped forward and started shooting, the pops this time only followed by a pattering sound as the ammunition disappeared into the mud. A couple of minutes later she once again called a halt.
"Great. Everything's set. Saurial, the catalyst, please."
The lizard-girl, who had been watching with interest, nodded, then moved to the front. She pulled a small hard to look at cuboid from a belt pouch, before impossibly sticking her arm into it, then pulling out the biggest fucking gun Colin had ever seen other than 'Athena'. Handing the cuboid to her cousin, she took aim.
"Firing!" she called, then pulled the trigger on the wildly outsized device, which caused an earth shattering KABOOOOOM! sound to echo around most of the bay, thousands of tiny projectiles coming out of the foot-wide barrel at high speed and tearing up the field yet again.
Colin ducked, the sound being extremely unexpected, while Mayor Christner who had been watching from nearby hit the deck in a very impressive demonstration of reflexes he wouldn't have expected from the older man. Interestingly, the Hebert man who was standing next to him barely flinched, he noticed as he straightened.
"Wonderful!" Ianthe grinned. "Now we wait. Any moment now..."
Everyone watched.
Twenty seconds later, Metis pointed. "There."
"Yep. Working perfectly." Ianthe smiled a very toothy smile, watching as small green shoots started coming out of the ground, at first being just a barely-there fuzz, then quickly growing into plants that became steadily taller at an absolutely insane speed. There was something deeply disturbing about actually being able to hear plants grow from a hundred yards away, Colin thought uneasily.
They kept watching as the things grew, then started putting out leaves, which looked vaguely familiar. The plants matured in minutes, small white flowers appearing by the million, tipping over then enlarging, before in seconds falling away to leave green pods behind.
The pods swelled and grew, the whisper of hyper-accelerated plant growth rising to a crescendo before slowly dying away.
Eventually the field of plants stilled. Everyone watched as Ianthe walked towards the nearest edge, reaching out and plucking a few pods, then coming back while examining them closely. She stopped next to Danny Hebert, Mayor Christner and the two other reptiles joining her, as did Colin. He looked at what she was holding.
"Impressive," he commented, reaching out with an armored hand and picking one up. Slight pressure made it split open, revealing a number of small spherical seeds. "These contain the heavy metals?"
"Yes. The plants themselves have broken down all the hydrocarbons and toxins, while sequestering the non-bioavailable elements into the pods, which makes them much easier to dispose of. This was only a proof of concept, I can tweak it to color-code them and have each one only take up a specific metal. It might have other applications in mining, for example, but bioremediation of Superfund sites is the most immediately helpful use. The plants die off and can't breed, so there's no risk of environmental escape."
"We can even use the biomatter for natural gas digesters, or simply cattle feed," Metis added, looking pleased.
"Very impressive. I think I can report to the PRT that this was a total success." Popping one of the little green spheres out of the pod, Colin held it up between thumb and forefinger. "Can I ask why the rather dramatic method of planting, and also why this specific plant?"
"Well, it was quick, fun, and that species is very easily modified," Ianthe smiled. "Actually, it was an old human saying that sparked the idea, so I ran with it."
"Saying?" Danny asked curiously.
She smirked, shucking another pod of green balls into her palm.
"Yep. It's not a bad one," the giant lizard chuckled, looking around at the others.
"Peas through superior firepower."