Frontier Fantasy - Age of Expansion - Chap 129 - Training / History
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Edited by /u/Evil-Emps
- - - - -
Javelin lurched over and fell to a knee. The cold grass offered support that her legs could no longer supply. She huffed and sucked in as much air as her lungs would allow, choking with every new breath.
The weight of her armor fought every inhale, and her blasted gas mask suffocated her!
She reached to yank it off, but another hand gripped her wrist like a vice. Paladin Shar’khee’s deep voice rattled through her mind.
“You are not done here.”
Javelin glared up at the squad leader, her vision swaying from gasps and weakened muscles.
Shar’khee’s chest heaved just the same as hers, but she did not falter. “The abhorrent will not give you time to breathe.”
The massive warrior gestured widely to the formation behind them, and the captain slowly turned her head around to face them. Two formations of spears stood awaiting orders, struggling to catch their breath but still maintaining their positions.
“If you are to lead, then you must truly lead. If you are exhausted, then lead while exhausted. You must never stop, for if you do, they will too.”
Shar’khee held out two hands. Javelin stared at them through the blur of exhaustion… A flutter of a memory from Tracy’s anime emerged in her mind; what would Kamina say?
‘Believe in the Kamina that believes in you.’
…Javelin swallowed.
She believed in the Shar’khee that believed in her.
The captain gritted her teeth and clasped hands with the paladin, letting her greater pull her to her feet. She gathered herself for a moment and tightened the straps of her rig. “It is as you say. I shall lead while exhausted.”
The paladin nodded once, turned to face her formation of spears, and raised her intent. “Two more laps around the perimeter, and one more armored dive! Persevere, and your dinner awaits you!”
And so Shar’khee was off, ever the stalwart image of a warrior. Javelin turned to her squadron, slammed three fists to her chest in a salute, and shouted, “Strength and perseverance!”
She followed her greater in their jog, pushing herself and her spears forward until they were side by side, enduring together.
There was much she had accomplished, but until she stood as tall as Shar’khee, fought as naturally as Cera, and labored as hard as the Creator, there was desired improvement.
She had her own training arc to complete.
- - - - -
Javelin’s arm was strapped down to the workshop table and entombed in numerous metal fittings. Myomer muscle had been socketed between the alloyed bones, and wires ran through it all like veins.
She grinned as she pulled a test bar attached to a load cell again, distending the wire as far as it would allow. She struggled and fought with all her strength. Her entire arm trembled as the myomer squeezed her very bones until the fibers—
‘SNAP’
The test wire gave in, and the captain staggered. The attachment to her elbow barely kept her locked onto the table but held strong as she straightened herself once more.
Javelin stared down at her arm, frantically checking every muscle within the contraption to ensure it was still there.
Tracy giggled in delight as she turned around from her desk, stealing the captain’s attention. She pointed a single digit at the large number on her computer screen.
MAX LOAD: 214.2 KG
"Ho-ly shit!” Tracy shouted. “No way that one didn’t hurt! How’d sixty percent feel?”
Javelin twitched her arm in the metal and myomer cage. The residual pain of the machine clenching on her forearm quickly began to flare. Tendons throbbed and her bones felt… sore. She winced and shook her head.
“It is quite reactive, but I cannot imagine this being the setpoint for use. I felt as if the myomer wanted to rip my arm off as much as it wished to rip the load cell apart.”
“So back to fifty percent?” Tracy asked.
“I would have to agree. Perhaps it would be best to save seventy percent for emergencies. For going all out for a time when it was needed… like Goku.”
Tracy snorted. “Right, like Goku. Yeah. We can put a no-limit function.”
Javelin vehemently nodded. “If the load wire had not snapped, I fear I might have dealt real damage to my arm.”
“Shit, actually?”
“Actually.”
“Alright, yeah, let’s not push any further.” Tracy leaned over and looked toward where the mech pilots were working before raising her voice. “Hey! Max! Can you grab me another load wire?”
[“Yes, Grandmaster Tzu,“] came from the mechanical warrior, his projection still so… cold.
“Thanks, bossman!”
Javelin raised a brow. “…Why do you call him ‘bossman’? Are you not his superior?”
Tracy shrugged. “I am, but it’s more a term of… I don’t know. Endearment? Nah, that’s too fancy. It’s like, uh…” She threw her hand out. “It’s just a nice way to refer to someone, I guess? Just to improve a friend’s confidence.”
“Should I call you ‘bossgirl’?” the captain asked playfully, a smirk curling her lips.
The Artificer snickered. “I don’t think that’s got the same ring. Artificer’s cooler anyway.”
“So true, Artificer.”
“Mmhmm, so do you wanna start the sensitivity training on fifty percent strength, or try fifty-five first and see how that goes?”
“Let us start with fifty.”
- - - - -
The sensitivity training and subsequent testing were rather… dull to Javelin. Much of it was testing sensors, current flow, and applied force. There were many calculations required, in which the star-sent script ‘variables’ were far beyond the captain's understanding. Even more unexpected was that they confused the Artificer as well, requiring the Creator to join her and assist with ‘test engineering’ from time to time.
After the initial setup and the spark of fascination in the new test, the repeated motions of pulling the new load cell at certain weights and certain times were not so interesting as pulling as hard as she wished. She would pull the wire a few centimeters, hold the position for a few seconds, and then slowly let go until the myomer stopped reacting to her movement… And then repeat…
And repeat again… Over and over and over again.
Javelin was tempted to request that Tracy play the next season of their current anime on one of the monitors. Yet, both fortunately and unfortunately, the mechwarriors had finished part of their direct-thruster project and joined her. Or, only Talos and Rei decided to join out of the eight total pilots.
Naturally, with the four of them together, any conversation quickly devolved into fantastical speculation of the most explosive kind.
“Now, I’m not saying we can’t build jet fighters; I’m just saying that it’s not as easy as asking the vehicle fabricator to just print one,” Tracy explained, typing away at her laptop while Javelin continued the testing.
Rei, who sat off to the side of the testing table, crossed her arms. “Why not? >:( We can make an army of mother drones as big as sea eels. You are a star-sent, a being from the skies! What makes sky fighters so difficult?”
“Have you not investigated the manufacturing required for such high-end military equipment?” Talos countered, sitting opposite the juvenile.
“Can it not be done with additive manufacturing?”
“Absolutely fucking not,” the Artificer scoffed. “Outside of the fact that this planet has completely different atmospheric values than Mars, the shit we need to make basic scramjet engines is psychotic. People still think that we, humanity, only got the technology by reverse engineering alien equipment.”
Javelin raised a brow, letting go of the load wire. “I thought you said humans never encountered aliens?”
Tracy held a hand out wide in emphasis. “Yeah! We haven’t! But the technology was so advanced and so fundamentally crazy at the time that people genuinely thought it was impossible. The heat and stress of supersonic flight engines are basically the same as some of the crazier anomalies on this planet. I mean, for single turbine blades, they were growing superalloy crystals into shape to minimize every material deficiency. The invention of COMPUTING came from the shit we were doing during the Apollo program.”
The star-sent looked toward the captain. “Jav, I showed you some of the space shots and details about early spaceflight when we were watching Knights of Sidonia, yeah?”
“To explain orbital maneuvers, yes.”
“Yeah, that shit was nearly half a millenia ago.”
“So how was it done without the assistance of aliens?” Rei asked.
“Cocaine and LSD, I’m pretty sure.”
Talos tilted her head. “What is ‘cocaine’ and ‘LSD’?”
Tracy waved her hand dismissively as her attention returned to her laptop screen. “Stimulants and hallucinogens. One to get you completely focused and energized, and the other to get your creativity outside of the box.”
“Why do you not use stimulants and hallucinogens?”
“I mean, I do. Harrison does some stimulants too, actually. We just use ones that don’t fuck you up after you use them…” The Artificer sucked in through her teeth and bobbed her head side to side. “Well, Harrison does, but I just use caffeine.”
Rei chittered. “Harrison uses cocaine?”
“I bet he wishes he could, but no. He, uh… He uses ‘safer’ amphetamines to get shit done around the settlement and some other shit I don’t wanna know when it comes to blood-moons. If he went any further, I think I’d have to step in.”
The younger mech pilot nodded but still crossed her arms over her chest as if she was not convinced. “You said star-sents have been manufacturing these turbines for five-hundred Sol winters, how come it is not so easy now?”
Tracy sighed. “Girl, that is exactly what I was fucking saying. We can do it; we just have to set up all the manufacturing for higher-level components. And, if you haven’t noticed, Harrison has his hands full of work with the nuclear reactor and quarry mining.”
“You cannot show us videos of fighter jets and tell us to have patience,” Rei deadpanned.
“I agree with this statement,” Javelin added. “You show us all these star-sent war machines and expect us not to want to see them in action?”
“You know what, that’s kinda fair. We’ll see where the next few months take us,” the Artificer resigned before pointing a finger at the captain, smirking. “But you can’t complain. You’re getting power armor, so I don’t wanna hear it. Get back to pulling. I need ten centimeters of wire distention.”
The yellow-skinned spear nodded and got back to testing. But as she continued, she could not help but think about the star-sents as a whole. She recalled thoughts from many blood-moons prior. Thoughts of how the banished were so lucky to be blessed by humans. How the gods delivered two beings that could provide exactly what they needed.
Sustenance, warmth, and war. Mountain Lord, the more Javelin learned about the star-sents, the more enraptured she was with the human war machine. So many inventions came from war. So many advancements for the pursuit of its perfection. It was as if their entire kind revolved around it.
How could she not admire it? The very fundamentals of the cosmos had been broken down into their base physics, in which they exploited and abused every facet to sharpen their talons ever more.
The very boundaries of their knowledge shot people across the stars. The deepest resentment and the passion of competition pushed limits further than ever.
Javelin wanted nothing more than to see the height of their art.
= = = = =
Harrison quietly approached Tracy’s corner of the workshop with a very special gift in his hands. The pretty lady herself looked bored out of her mind, sifting through graphs and data sets on her laptop. Her messy hair and a slumped back told of a long day.
He couldn’t fight the smile pecking at the corner of his lips. There couldn’t have been a better time for this.
His footsteps came a little slower, each rolling softly from heel to ball to be as quiet as his boot could possibly allow. Every second, he made it just a little bit closer. He crouched a little as he rounded the myomer-testing table, bringing him lower toward her sitting height.
The clacks of her keyboard only got louder and louder, giving him all the confidence in the world to make the final stretch. He held his breath, leaned his head just over her shoulder, and—
“Hey.”
Tracy jumped near perfectly into his embrace with a little yelp, her entire body tensing up into a ball atop her chair. Her wide eyes relaxed when she saw him before quickly sharpening into a glare.
“You fucker!”
“That’s me,” he laughed.
“Oh, fuck you!” she yelled in a half-groan with a smile.
Harrison leaned in for a kiss, suppressing the technician’s anger. A soft ‘tunk’ sounded out as he placed a warm, metal canister onto her desk.
She pulled away and gave him an unimpressed look. “You really didn’t need to scare me for a kiss.”
“I disagree,” he countered, standing up fully but keeping his palm on her shoulder. “It was imperative.”
A low sigh left the grease bunny. “I know you didn’t just come here for that. What’s up?”
“You never know. I could’ve.” He shrugged and tapped the canister. “Buuuut, I figured you’d want something to drink tonight.”
She raised a brow. “You brought me alcohol?”
“Nope. Better.”
“Lean?”
“Just try it.”
“Shark milk?”
“Just try it.”
Tracy, for all the time she had spent with him, slowly reached for the drink with all the suspicion of a stray cat. She brought it close and unscrewed the lid. It popped open, and the smell of mint immediately wafted out.
Her eyes went wide as she sniffed it. There was complete shock in her voice and a wide grin on her face. “You did not.”
He nodded and smiled right back. “Try it.”
She held the canister with two arms and brought it up to her lips, taking a short sip of the mint tea. The look of sheer glee in her eyes shined brighter than the sun itself. She slowly curled up into herself with renewed excitement.
“Well? Is it just the same as at home?” he asked.
“Yeah!” she answered in a way too cute for this world, slamming the drink down and jumping onto him. He caught her, trying his best to breathe as she damn near squeezed him to death.
A string of unintelligible words rattled off into his neck, with only a few audible ‘I love you’s and ‘thank you’s being clear. He just softly swung her side to side as she got her love-aggression out. Her reaction melted his heart right through—
‘Clunk’
A loud noise cut right through the moment, causing both of them to glance around. A slow trickling sound clued them into the steaming canister on the ground, leaking all of its contents.
Tracy gasped. “Shit!”
He softly let her to the floor and picked up the bottle. It had already released most of the tea, at least leaving a nice smell along with the mess.
The technician looked up at him, holding her elbows. “I-I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“You’re alright.” He squeezed her shoulder. “I’ll go grab something to clean this up with and get another drink.”
“A-Another? How much mint do we even have?” she asked worriedly, eyes watering from the various emotions flooding through her.
“Enough to make a tea bag factory line,” he assured.
Another whiplash of emotions struck her as she stared at him. “No fucking way.”
He raised both brows in a wordless ‘yes way.’
“T-That makes no sense!” she argued despite the grin pulling at her lips. “A whole factory line? Are we growing mint? I thought we had to maximize the space we’re—”
Harrison placed his palms on her cheeks, shutting her up with a peck to the lips. “It’s already done, and it’s one hundred percent worth it. Consider it a ‘thank you’ gift for all the work you put in. Especially for all the late nights you pulled for the networking.”
She pouted through her blush, fumbling with some sort of excuse about her tea not being worth it.
He shut it down with another kiss, this time a bit longer to get across the fact that he meant it. “It’s really the least I could do. I’m just glad I could get it to you before we head out to the cargo bay. Now gimme a sec to get you another one.”
The engineer did exactly as promised and returned with another canister and some pads to clean up the mess. Tracy hadn’t moved from where he left her, looking small and timid.
“Thank you,” were the first words she said after he handed her the tea. “I… I don’t really know what else to say.”
He smirked.
Her flush grew redder, so she hid her face in his chest. “Don’t just stare at me, dumbass.”
“I love you too.”
The two of them cleaned up the mess pretty quickly after. When all was said and done, he excused himself to get back to work, but she was glued to his side.
“You’re just going back to your desk, right?” she asked.
“Yeah. I won’t be far.”
“Can’t I just sit with you?”
He raised a brow. “Don’t you need your computer?”
“Laptop and data pad,” she corrected, leaning further onto him.
“I don’t see why not.”
- - - - -
It was late. Harrison’s eyes felt dry and worn as he stared at the screen. Tracy had long since passed out with her arms around him and chin nestled into his neck. Shar, not wanting to be left out, fell asleep just the same, wrapping her arms around both humans and claiming the other side of his shoulders with her snout and acting as a little pillow for him to lean his head on.
The engineer glanced at his technician and smiled. Her reaction made every second he spent on the tea worth it. It was a shame that he wouldn’t be able to see her reaction to the noodles tomorrow, though. He’d probably get a message or a call from her around dinnertime, and hopefully he’d be able to answer it on the boat.
He knew he’d miss her, even if the cargo bay trip was only intended for three days. Until then, he’d appreciate the sleeping beauty’s presence while he wrapped up the last of the to-do list for the night.
After finalizing the quarry expansion and subsequent rail line, he only had one thing left to do. A wave of dread washed over him when his mouse hovered over the folder.
‘Observations: Phase 4’
Tracy had told him everything Max told her. She didn’t leave a single detail out about all twenty-two square kilometers of infested tunnels. These text files had the rest of whatever the exterminator could find in his database. His sore eyes scanned the humming screen as the sound of machinery dulled into white noise.
Most of the documents were general advice he’d heard Max give before. Some detailed notes made by the exterminator’s CPU were in there. But a few text files… A few of them were different.
The first one he opened was a string of letters and numbers several pages long. He ignored it and sent the information off to Sebas in case it was a code instead of a corrupted file.
He went to click on the next document, but Sebas had already translated it. A message was reattached to the converted text.
Sebas: ‘Sir, the file you sent was encoded with a basic encryption. Here is the translated version. Would you like me to offer further details on the specific encryption used?’
Harrison didn’t answer, opening the file now named ‘freezing.txt.’
‘Temperature set to [-45 C]. Node still attached. Node tendrils begin to curl.
Temperature sensor reads [-45 C]. Node tendrils frozen. Heat near core radiating [5 C].
Team D is incapable of severing veins from subcutaneous tissue with provided equipment. [ ] delivered a laser cutter to team D.
Temperature sensor reads [-40 C]. Veins are not retrieved. [ ] ordered team to continue.
Temperature sensor reads [-32 C]. Unrecognized noise of [30,000 Hz]. Team D unaffected.
Local anomaly exceeded temperature set. Cooling is overclocked. Warning sent to operator.
Warning bypassed by operator.
Team D retrieved first set of vesicles. Veins not retrieved. Heat near core radiating [30 C].
Warning sent to operator. Operator is missing. Warning sent to Ecologist regional command.
No response.
Temperature sensor reads [0 C]. Node tendrils loosen. Team D requested leave. [ ] ordered team to continue.
[ ] is pinged for 2-stage order redundancy. No response. [ ] is missing. Warning sent to Ecologist regional command. No response.
Team D pinged. No response.
Temperature sensor reads [30 C].
Team D is pinged.
No response.
No response.
No response.
Team D is missing.
A distant bell chimes four times.’
A cold shiver ran through Harrison’s nerves. His wide eyes were locked on the screen as he sent the next file for translation.
‘Response.txt’
’Classified document. Unrestricted for [Master] and higher positions.
Notes: physical document scanned and transferred to digital formatting.
From: L.Yu_F@SecAdmin.psy
Sent: July 12, [ ]
To: A.Walker_F@EcologyR&D.psy
Subject: RE: Parasitic Interference of Traditional and Psychic Information Transportation
Dear Dr. Alice Walker,
The House of Security will not concede to your request. Psy-lanes are vital for Security communications and logistics, and wireless communications are the backbone of any organization. Our IT personnel have been critical of the proposed functions, as without asymmetric encryption within the proposed cables, ‘interference’ of any kind is possible from any bad actor. Additionally, unless the House of Ecology is willing to foot the manufacturing of outdated fiber optic cables and the requested monitoring stations, the change of information transportation does not fit into the material allocation budget of Security.
Furthermore, on behalf of the Security Administration, we find it appalling that you would attempt to retract gifted equipment from your R&D group. It is especially unprofessional to cite a failed experiment for the reasoning after claiming self-reliability in safety. We have been lenient on Ecology R&D’s autonomy as per the House of Administration’s request. However, if your parasite is found to be a pressing danger, Security has the duty to claim ecologist sites as ‘lost’ and will act accordingly.
Please choose your petty attacks more carefully next time.
Best,
Liwei Yu.’
Harrison took in a slow breath. ‘Parasite.’
What in God’s name did the original email discuss? And what the hell did psy-lanes have to do with the flesh? Fiber optic cables?
He had more documents translated, but never found what he was looking for. All he was given was more questions.
‘urban_exploring.txt’
’Notes: archived forum post.
User: “NotACloneFucker” on “SiteZeroHorror.psy”, Aug 15, [ ]
Title: “never visit residential district 5!!!” 12 likes, 2 comments
Holy shit!!!! Long time lurker, first time poster. I just saw some of the most inexplicable shit ever. I had to post. So, you guys remember a few months ago when RD5 had that huge fire by the west gate? Then there was all those conspiracy theories about ecologist spooks hovering around the place and now they wont let us use the tram system there, right? The missing people, the mind-control tests, and all that? Those are fake. There’s something way worse in there.
To preface this, I know a group of clones (that I am NOT fucking) that said they used to hang around in the walls by the west gate where all the psy-lanes and pipes were. Apparently it has a lot of unused maintenance tunnels and ladders that lead to all sorts of cool places… even the ecologist’s anomalous materials department. And like, one day, one of the girls of the group doesn’t show up to our workplace at the factory, right? I went to ask one of the guys in the group and he doesnt respond either. I’m thinking ‘this is pretty weird’ so I went to where the third one lives and I knock on his room. When he opens it, he’s all white in the face and speaking really quickly and quietly. Doesnt even give me any information but says something about the west walls.
So me and another buddy decide to investigate in our time off. There’s a bunch of ecologist guards around the place. The tall robotic ones with plasma casters. They look like they’d disintegrate us if we even looked at them, so we snuck around to some other entrance the clones mentioned. Its nestled pretty deep between some buildings around the walls but the hatch is big enough for us to squeeze in. Now, I’ve never actually went into the walls but its exactly like they described with all the pipes and psy-lanes between staircases and ladders and more concrete walls. Like a literal maze! Except, these psy-lanes aren’t humming and the lights are all off. Theyre DEAD dead. The place is completely quiet and our flashlights barely do anything in the dark.
As we walked through the walls, we started hearing this dripping noise echo through some of the rusty catwalks. Not like a water leak but like, thicker or something. We weren’t really spooked at this point so we followed it down into one of the lower areas below where the RD5 floor is. There’s this weird white, cloudy goop that starts clinging to the walls and ceiling and everything. I think I made some joke to my buddy but we both thought that it must’ve been a fire suppressant leak or something else.
Here’s where it started getting… weird. We walked through the covered area, trying not to let it get into our boots, when we started hearing weird shit. Some of the metal groaned down black hallways, and there was a clicking noise, like clacking bones or metal. A cold shiver ran down my spine and my buddy called me a bitch for wanting to turn around. So we kept walking through the goop. There wasnt anything else around besides more pipes either.
And then I heard it. A bell rang from deep in the tunnels and rattled through the pipes and metal. And then it rang again, chiming four times. We froze there. I don’t know when we looked at each other, but we just stared, wondering if we both just heard the same thing.
I opened my mouth to speak but I couldnt say anything. The pipes above him started dripping like the goop, but it was RED, trailing down his cheeks. I flicked my flashlight up and there was this… BLOB of flesh and bones. It had teeth and a nose and almost something like a person but there werent any eyes. I grabbed my buddy by the arm and bolted out of there. I barely knew where I was going.
Every turn looked the same and we could hear something skittering in the walls. The goop sucked our boots in and it felt like we were going nowhere. Distant clacking came from every direction. Faint bells rang in my ears. Moans of pain echoed from the floor. I started worrying about getting lost or running head first into whatever the hell it was, but we somehow found the staircase out.
We sprinted all the way to our places. I helped my buddy wipe the blood off his face… and then I went home.
I havent seen him since. He wont pick up his data pad. I think im gonna visit him soon, though.
Don’t go to the abandoned walls of RD5. Whatever’s there, its not worth it.
User “BigBadEvilGuy14” Aug 15, [ ] comments: “Add another conspiracy theory to the ecologist board. I swear, one of you idiots are gonna break into their R&D and tell me they’ve invented time travel.”
User “DX6882d9h” Aug 16, [ ] comments: “Roots grow deep beneath sickened pores.”
‘Four chimes of distant bells.’ Four stages… Four.
Harrison had heard the bells before. He’d seen those sickened pores. He knew where that number came from.
He pulled his keyboard a little closer and opened a messaging app Tracy had made to communicate with Max directly. The subtle motion caused the technician herself to stir.
She let out a soft mewl and stretched before nestling herself back into place. He ran his fingers through her hair to coax her back to sleep, but only then noticed the subtle tremble in them.
The engineer drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He typed out a short message to the exterminator, hoping to invest in future answers.
‘Max, are you busy right now?’
[‘No, Grandmaster Walker. Your last order is completed. The voyager-type shipping vessel is fully stocked, and I have finished the requested mapping. I am currently with the pen animals, ‘hyena-boars’,’] Max responded near-instantly.
‘I’ve got a new task for you. I need you to take on the reception code of my data pad and monitor all communications on it within your core. Come see me if you need help setting it up, otherwise Trace can help you tomorrow.’
[‘Understood. I already have your data pad reception code from within the current network. Is there a specific message you want me to keep track of?’]
‘You’ll be looking for the number ‘5’. Trace where it comes from.’
- - - - -
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