Nino holds one glassy, many sided object aloft while she scowls at the enlarged schematic floating before her eyes. She squints in frustration, and rotates both image and object once more. Beyond her shoulder, Aleksa, bent over at an awkward angle, cocks her head, examining a glowing formula with brows furrowed with dismay, then throws up her hands.
"Chert, I think I understand these, then I don't! Vladie, stop," she snaps as Vladie tries to snatch the mystery piece from Nino's outstretched palm. Beside her, Stinger's hand shoots out, grasping Vladie's wrist while his other wags an index finger in rebuke.
"Ok," Vladie whines, backing up. Stinger's proffered conspiratorial grin tugs at the corner's of Aleksa's own lips, and her mood lightens, even as she feels the heat rising up to flush her cheeks. She is relieved at the interruption of Caine's impatient growl. He slides his piercing gaze from the control console upward to the view screen glazed with streaks of starlight, then back down.
"We're running out of time."
"I don't see how we will complete this," Nino sighs, setting her piece in place among the growing objects of blue metal and hazy crystal. "This," and she stabs a finger at one line of the schematics, "specifies a control module to be seated, just so." She mimes laying an imaginary piece among the imaginary, glowing instructions.
"Why can't we just make it," Vladie pipes up.
"Net," Nino shakes her head. "I think this piece was so very common, the designer didn't believe its making needed explained."
"And then there's the equations which must be programmed." Aleksa pipes up stretching, before she becomes overly conscious of Stinger's eyes following her every move. He looks hurriedly away, chagrined. She thinks his cheeks, too, are rather pink. "I don't see how any of this would work. Reference to gravitational constant, here, and again here."
"Gravity," Nino nods sagely, stretching her arms over her head, then pointing to one of the diagrams, "like these force lines connecting everything. For a moment, her eyes grows misty, her voice husky with emotion. "Like gravity connecting everything, everyone, in the universe."
"What is the purpose?" Aknet turns from monitoring their course, looking over the myriad of half constructed parts. "Is it a new molecular disrupter?" Vladie perks up at the thought of an ultimate weapon, almost smacking his lips, before his face falls at Caine's reply.
"If it's a weapon, it's like nothing I've seen before." He moves around Aknet and Vladie, coming to stand and read over Stinger's shoulder. "But you said it mentions disintegration, so maybe? What could mark Seraphi Abrasax for death?"
"It does mention cells quite a few times." Stinger reads swiftly through the documents yet again. "Transmutation? But I think it is something totally different."
"Than what?" Aleksa pauses from her work to glance at him, intrigued by the hope in his voice.
"I can't be certain. Not yet." His wings rustle briefly across his back, capturing the room's attention.
"Something," Caine says low, his eyes glittering with an intensity that foretold intent, or danger, "that could change everything?"
Stinger looks up from beneath his brows, grinning from ear to ear, and nods.