Chapter 371 (2/2)
”See, 117 agrees with me. He's looking at the drone mapping scans,” Fights said.
117 had it now. The angles on the door hatches, the slight shifting that the second drone mapping scan had found, some striation in the metals, and other damage. He moved to and spun the outside mapping, stopping at a single section. There were two mapping drones moving across a section. He reached out, took control of them, ran a firmware and software update, ordered its creation engine to run off two pieces of equipment, and installed them remotely.
It took 117 all of six and a half minutes to accomplish.
He moved in close, dropping down to the crater. The drones inside had gotten to that section. There was serious spalling from where the inside corridors had flexed inward, gone past the tensile strength, and shattered into fragments. He ignored the shredded dessicated corpses. He couldn't care less, they were meat and meat was someone else's problem.
He took three samples with the external probe, then backed out, having the probe drone run for the main ship.
It took eight minutes for it to arrive in the lab. He was already hooked in to the software, and quickly ran the tests on the scraping he'd done.
Dreams was looking at the boarding party examining what was left of the machinery. It was all fused together, unknown eons of exposure to vacuum, deep space cosmic rays, and more had led to molecular bonding. She saw 117's icon pop up.
”Yes?” Dreams asked as the ship's primary engineer for materials handling was tied into the call.
The formula was thick, intense, and Dreams frowned.
”What is it?”
The ship's material engineer stared at the formula then obviously looked at something on his terminal.
”Phasonium. Psychically active metal alloy, can retain phasic energy, mainly used by your people up to the Human-Mantid War, Madame Diplomat,” the Engineer said. ”Your people discontinued use of it during the War because it turned out to be less than useless against Terran military forces.”
Dreams stared at the formula.
”You're saying that our people were involved?” she asked.
More formula. A quick animated picture of a green mantid firing a gun a quick sketch of the facility, the facility tumbling away, going cold and dark.
”So we attacked this station?” Dreams asked.
117 summoned up the picture of a warrior caste.
He then used a crude sketch of the creatures in the station, as well as the crystals. He then poured in the formula.
Dreams waited for the engineer to finish looking at what 117 was putting up.
She had to admit, she had never seen the engineer caste mantid that excited.
As she watched, more and more greenies joined him, all of them looking at materials being brought over.
”Uh, I thought we were going to tag it for archeologists?” Fights said, pointing at how one of the boarding party got in a tug of war over what looked like might be a sidearm before another drone zapped him and the first sped away.
Speaks voice startled both the mantids as he stepped out of the shadows. ”117 invoked technological security protocols. He, and the other green brethren, believe what we have found here is vital to the war effort and to our mission.”
”Huh,” Fights said.
The ship's Chief Engineer came on the call. ”The Engineers are all excited. It looks like this is more than just a random extinct species wreckage.”
Dreams nodded slowly. ”Yes.”
”According to the engineers, the crystals are phasically aligned, can store phasic energy as well as drain it. Apparently your people used to use them before Phasic Energy Stabilization Systems were created,” the Chief Engineer said. ”According to the Engineers, the armor with all the crystal is Phasium-Phasonium-Warsteel alloy with phasic aligned crystals.
He stared. A trick of the light showed the red fire in his eyes. ”They say it's combat armor.”
”What's your opinion, Rack? Pinion?”Dreams asked her two guards.
They both were still for a long moment.
”117 is correct,” Pinion said.
”Heavy psychic combat armor,” Rack said.
”Thank you, gentlemen,” Dreams said.
”PPW alloy? How combat effective is it?” Speaks asked.
The Chief Engineer shook his head. ”An adult Terran who was a little annoyed could rip an inch thick plate of it like it was nothing. A Terran child who was happy and excited could damage it by accident. Worse, in the presence of an Enraged One, it combusts both physically and psychically.”
Dreams gave a 'snerk' sound. ”So, it's about as effective as lighting one's self on fire?” She laughed out loud. ”The Warrior Caste must have been in for a rude shock.”
”That's why a year into the war and the Battle for Terra, your people didn't wear that armor any more and most of the time the Warrior Caste and Sub-Warrior Caste went naked,” the Chief Engineer said.
Speaks started laughing. ”Behold, Mankind!” he laughed.
--------------------
Dreams of Something More sat quietly in her glade, holding Mr. Rings and petting him. The Engineers and Navigation crewmen had determined, based on speed and apparent age, where the station had come from.
The more interesting fact was from the ship's anomalous materials handling and engineering section.
She understood some advanced physics. Not much, mind you, just enough to know if someone was playing with her.
But 117 had explained it to her.
Using simple icons, simple formula, and short bursts of code.
The 'Phasic Armor” and the majority of the equipment, as well as the matter that made up the cells of the dead creatures, all had a problem at the subatomic level.
She knew that particles vibrated and moved. That many of them carried potential energy within them, but beyond that she was lost.
But apparently, the atoms and sub-atomic particles, all the way down to sqwarks and boojums (or whatever it was 117 kept calling them, she wasn't sure) that made up much of the material on the facility were nearly 'depleted' to use 117's phrase.
--dead mass-- he had insisted. --not like deadspace electrons but dead dead dead--
It had taken him a long time to explain it to her and the Captain.
The matter, all the way down to the tiniest particle, was almost exhausted.
It was more than the kinetic impact of a near C velocity shell that had fragmented on the battlescreen and somehow gotten the penetrator round through that had damaged the station. It was the transfer of energy and potential energy from highly excited matter to the nearly dead matter of the station.
According to 117 it would have caused the entire station to twist as matter rearranged, adjusted, and in some cases, fundementally changed.
According to 117 it would have been accompanied by a massive surge of radiation as the dead matter could not have absorbed all the energy and it would have been converted to high energy radiation.
It would have been accompanied by a sleet of phasic energy like the psychic shockwave of a Queen's deathscream.
Which explained the cranial vault fissures and pressure cracks that the scanners had detected inside the conical heads of the creatures, the cracking of the crystals, and the damage to the station.
So we have an unknown xenospecies, a damaged space station, and direct evidence of a munition type my people preferred prior to meeting the premier primate of the known galaxy, and evidence of psychic warfare, Dreams thought. She sighed, petting Mr. Rings slowly.
She looked up at the display.
Nine days to where the green mantids were positive that the station had come from.
This is indeed a dark and twisted path we find ourselves upon, Mr. Candlebearer, she thought to herself, quoting a classic work of fiction from nearly three thousand years before.