vi. At the Shrine of the Eclipse Cannon
"Look above you, Shadow," Gerald instructed the hedgehog. He heard his granddaughter gasp beside him as she also looked up. Hanging above the replicated shrine was a massive stalactite of machinery. Gerald regarded the object pensively as he continued. "This, my dears, is the focusing chamber for the Eclipse cannon. This unit has the ability to draw energy from the Chaos Emeralds and with enough power behind it could probably blow up the planet. I designed it to be used in case an asteroid or comet comes too close to Earth, though, and most of those would only require the energies from one or two Emeralds. This chamber is really just in case something comes up that would require the full energies to be used, as the shrine is designed to concentrate the Emeralds' energies on the focal point of the altar, and the tip of that machinery you see.
"As for the Biolizard - come on down Shadow - she's over this way." He'd caught Maria's hand when she started to step up on the lower stairs, now he guided her back across to the opposite end of the cavern. Shadow quickly joined them, questions clearly written across his face, although he remained silent. Maria reached out her other hand to clasp the hedgehog's; she didn't like this strange place. As they approached the force field, Gerald slipped his free hand into his pocket and fingered the device he still had there. The barrier became transparent, revealing the massive shape slumbering beyond. Maria saw the change first, and with a gasp, hid her face against her grandfather's sleeve. Although perhaps it was not so surprising, since Gerald realized that Shadow had never before seen the Biolizard.
He picked up the problem quickly though. "What? Professor, are those metal pieces grafted onto her? I thought the life support system was a separate thing-"
"It's supposed to be. It was yesterday. Somehow between yesterday afternoon and when I caught up with her in the hallways after she went berserk - her hide has melded with the metal. I don't know if the Chaos Emerald did that, or if it had to do with the sample of Black Arms blood I gave her, or what, but the metal pieces truly are a part of her now."
"You mean you can't take them off?" asked Maria, raising her head to stare at him in horror. "Her eyes..."
"Not at the moment, love," confirmed Gerald. "But it's not going to matter for now. She's become far too dangerous to have confined with so many people on the ARK. She'll have to remain in stasis until I can figure out what to do about her." He looked again at the end-product of his initial chao-DNA experiments. In addition to the life support system now intimately attached to her back and the tubes that led from there to her mouth, short sections of the tubing had somehow grafted themselves over her eyes and another now crowned the top of her skull. It did make for a rather macabre sight. "And she can still see, the pipes are just like binoculars; they protect her eyes and let her focus better," he reassured the distressed girl. The latter part of the sentence was a complete fabrication, and Gerald wasn't honestly certain that the beast could still see. But she'd certainly had no trouble finding her way through the corridors or tracking her prey, whatever senses she was utilizing. "Over that way," he waved into the darkness, "is a set of doors we used to get the construction supplies and equipment down here to build the shrine and cannon. Dr. Jansen and I lured her down through them, and then I activated a stasis control I'd built into the life-support system in case of emergency."
Gerald and Ilya had alternated as decoys to lure the Biolizard gradually down to the depths (fortunately the doors had not yet been permanently sealed, though it had been scheduled to be done months ago). They could never had brought the Biolizard down the lift, she was simply too big even if she hadn't been out of control. For all her bulk and inability to stand, she was shockingly fast to strike with jaws or tail. Luckily she couldn't slither as fast as she could lunge. Once they had her in position, Gerald had triggered the stasis-lock on the life support system, while Dr. Jansen ran to fetch the force field generator. Gerald intended to come down later with some repulsor units and actually "hide" the Biolizard against the ceiling, to prevent anyone seeing her or freeing her accidently. And I'd better go on and get that recording made for later, he thought. I don't dare tell Shadow too much, lest Black Doom detect a plot in 50 years, but he'll need to know the cannon's true purpose when the comet returns. At least I can go on and show him how to work it. And Maria, better that two should know.
"Come on," he said to the pair as he returned the field to its opaque setting. Slipping an arm round Maria's shoulders he steered her towards the lift. "Let me show you the control room for the Cannon." Shadow cast a last look at his predecessor's resting place and paced silently alongside, still holding Maria's hand.
The trip up the elevator shaft was silent except for the faint hum of machinery. The hum was finally superceded by the rumble of the doors opening as the lift stopped. "Watch your step," warned Gerald. "There are no rails." And he led the way out of the car.
The control "room" was actually nothing of the sort - "control ledge" might have been more accurate. The narrow walkway led across the darkness of the upper cavern to a bank of computers built around the stalactite that was the power conduit of the Cannon and encircled them in a narrow band. Above the unit, seven depressions marked an otherwise smooth X-shaped plate, each shaped to hold a Chaos Emerald. Shadow noticed this at once. "But if the shrine is down there, why do you have sockets for the Emeralds here, Professor?" he asked, waving into the darkness below them.
"Because the precise placement of the Emeralds is crucial to ensure proper function. Actually, with just one or two Emeralds, you can activate the Cannon from the sockets, but if you have three or more, the altar is required to balance the energy flows properly. The machinery linked to that plate will ensure that they are properly positioned and oriented." Gerald was pleased that Shadow had recognized the sockets' purpose, and more pleased to note that the hedgehog grasped his explanation. Shadow nodded to himself, mumbling something that Gerald didn't catch. The Professor rested his hands on Maria's shoulders as they watched the black hedgehog walk cautiously around the computer bank, reading the controls and occasionally boosting himself on his hover shoes to get a better look at a component. When Shadow had completed the circuit, Gerald reached forward past his granddaughter to key on the cannon's computer.
"Now look, Shadow, and you too, Maria. This is the power switch, obviously, and then you need the password - one you should both be able to remember - 'Maria'." He keyed the letters in as he spoke. "It's really not likely that the cannon will need to be used," anytime soon, he inserted mentally, until the Black Comet returns. "But if I'm not around when it does, then you should both know how to activate it." He ran through the steps twice, Shadow nodding slightly as he committed them to memory, and Maria lightly touching the pertinent keys without actually pressing them. After Gerald fell silent, she repeated the motions again, ghosting her fingers across the controls. She would remember, Gerald knew, she was his granddaughter after all, and as intelligent as her parents. And the Ultimate Life Form had, if not an eidetic memory, as close to one as made no difference. Anything he was told once, he remembered; anything he saw or heard, he could describe in detail - if you could get him to say anything at all. Gerald had actually been asked by a few people if the dokan was a mute, he spoke so rarely when out and about the colony. (Most people thought he was a dokan, knowing nothing about the Project: Shadow.) Of course, he was generally out and about with Maria, who would provide whatever conversation was required. She wasn't excessively chatty, but she liked people and liked talking to them. Gerald called his thoughts back into order.
He showed them the controls that would adjust the ARK's position to aim the cannon. Its size and the precise alignments required for powering it with more than two emeralds meant the weapon itself could not be turned; thus the entire space colony would need to be swung towards a target, then returned to it's proper orbital position. He showed them also the commands that could access the weapon even from Earth, although those were unlikely to be needed, as someone would still have to put the emeralds in the cannon before it could be used. He didn't bother to show them how to access the ARK's main computer from the cannon's, as they had full access to that already. Nor did he show them how to activate the rock shield, although he did show them how to deactivate it if necessary. The shield was a feature he had added during the installation of the cannon; if activated, it would fold in the "whiskers" that stabilized the colony during the cannon's firing (and were solar panels when the cannon wasn't needed) and generate a force field that would attract and hold meteors, asteroids and other space debris. The accretion of rubble would disguise the ARK as an ordinary asteroid again. In the unlikely event that the ARK was shut down for some reason before Black Doom returned, that might provide a surprise to him when Shadow or Maria threw off the shrouding debris and activated the cannon. Finally Gerald was sure they had down everything they needed to know to use the cannon. Maria had even forgotten her nervousness while focusing on learning the controls.
The professor flicked the power off again and led the way back across the bridge. Maria followed closely behind, keeping to the center of the narrow span, but Shadow paused in the middle and when Gerald stepped into the lift and turned, he saw the black hedgehog leaning over the unguarded edge, staring down into the darkness. He stopped himself from calling to him - it would not be a good idea to startle him, and Shadow was an adult, after all - presumably he knew what he was doing. However, it wasn't until Maria took a tentative step back onto the bridge that the hedgehog stood up straight and skated the rest of the way across. Gerald asked "What did you see?" but Shadow merely shook his head and remained silent.