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| Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 3 |
According to a more thorough sweep of The Waycar, it was designed to
accommodate a crew of precisely 89 people. They were assuming that the three
larger sleeping compartments were meant for the captain—or whatever the
leader was called—and their two most executive associates. The other
sleeping quarters varied in size. A few others had their own bathrooms, but
they mostly shared. Four of them were just pods in a hallway behind main
engineering, which was probably for the engineers, who were likely
expected to be ready to work at all hours of the day. This was more than
enough space for the special squadron that the Stoutversians had now filled
it with, but Ramses being the generous type, he had other ideas.
“What the hell is this?” Angela questioned as they were carefully
sliding down the ramp. The topmost level overlooked the level below it,
which stopped before reaching the back wall at about the same distance. It
then dropped off to a slant, all the way down to the same height as the
next level. No, that wasn’t quite how Past!Mateo described it. He
called it a weird-ass slant, which was pretty fitting. Directly under
the floor was the armory, so there was no explanation for why it was
designed like this, except maybe to make it harder to reach the stasis perch
where Cassius was found? The more they looked at that, though, the more they
started to think that that perch didn’t belong there at all, and was an
after-market retrofit. Cassius wasn’t sure. He wasn’t always Nereus
Jolourvedin’s second most trusted advisor. And he wasn’t that anymore
either, but he was the only original member of the crew still standing, so
in everyone’s mind, it was his birthright. The central computer’s records
appeared to support this.
“I believe it’s the hock,” Ramses suggested.
“There’s no door,” Future!Mateo argued. “If it’s dark, or you’re not
careful, you just fall down the slide.”
“It’ll be harder to climb back up,” Ramses explained. “Check out these eye
bolts. I think they’re for shackles.” He tugged on a large metal ring bolted
to the wall, which didn’t budge one bit.
“Jesus,” Cassius said. “We never used them.” They had to remind
themselves that this thing was designed by and for Maramon. That was why the
doors were wider and taller, and explained at least kind of why anyone
thought that an open slope hock made any sense.
“Well, you’ll use this area now,” Ramses claimed. One thing about it, which
they weren’t able to see when it was so dark, was that there was a door at
the bottom of the slope. It was rather far from all the eye bolts, and was
probably expected to be kept locked at all times, and the Waycar was
designed to spend a lot of time in the outer bulk or outer space, but in any
case, it was a security flaw. That was how they felt about it anyway. They
couldn’t match alien idiosyncrasies to human logic. Ramses reached over the
door with a stick, since he wasn’t tall enough, and flipped on the light to
illuminate the door. It wasn’t just a light, though. It was mainly a pocket
dimension generator. It wouldn’t have to be an exit anymore. Then again,
this open-dungeon concept could be ignored no matter what. They could store
bags of rice down here instead. How about that; doing something socially
responsible with the space.
“Do you just, like, have a box of those lying around in your lab?” Angela
asked.
“I build them in my spare time, for occasions such as this.” Ramses opened
the door to reveal the bare, but capacious, magical extra space they had
access to now, well beyond the confines of the Waycar’s hull.
“Oh, wow. Why did you do this for us?” Cassius asked. “I mean, thank you.
And also, what did you have in mind...specifically?”
Ramses stepped halfway over the threshold of the portal. “I didn’t have
anything in mind. I just figured that you would rather have it than not.” He
dropped a fob into Cassius’ hand. He admired his work for a few silent
seconds. “But what would I do with it? I would build a garden.”
“Not a lab?” Future!Mateo questioned.
“I got plenty of those,” Ramses replied dismissively.
Cassius lifted the fob, and pressed a button. The pocket disappeared,
revealing instead the outer door, which would lead them to the deadly
equilibrium of the bulk. “I appreciate the gesture.”
Ramses nodded, and looked back up towards the slope. “It is up to you to
decide who you wanna tell about it, and who you don’t. That’s why I brought
you here while the squadron was asleep.”
“I’m not calling it a squadron. I prefer the term bastion.”
“The Waycar Bastion,” Future!Mateo articulated fully. “I think I like it
too.”
“Plus, The Squadron’s taken.” Aclima was standing at the top of the slope.
“Aclima. We were just making sure that the emergency exit was secure,”
Angela lied, “Wouldn’t want it falling open accidentally.”
“Save it,” Aclima called down to them from over eight meters away. “I know
about the pocket dimension. I saw Rambo installing it. It’s fine. I won’t
tell anyone.”
Angela took Cassius by the hand, and teleported them both to the top of the
slope. Everyone else followed. “Is this your home now? Are you joining the
new mission?”
“A mission is what I’ve been looking for. What could be greater than
literally insulating the multiverse from the cancer that is the Ochivari?”
That was the Waycar’s mandate. Their job was not to fight against invaders,
but to hop from brane to brane, activating the quintessence consolidator to
thicken the membrane that protected each one. This was how they contributed
to the Darning Wars. Cassius was their leader. He chose the title Sentry for
its connotations of protecting others, rather than killing.
“Aclima, I’m glad you’re still awake,” Cassius said.
“Hybrids don’t need as much sleep as humans,” she explained.
“That’s a good thing. I was hoping to talk to you about being my
second-in-command. Now that you’ve just declared your intentions to stay
after we drop off Team Matic, hopefully it won’t be too hard to convince
you.”
“Would you not want someone with more experience,” Aclima questioned, “like
Hadron?”
“I already asked him what he wanted to do, since he was already familiar
with this technology. He’s going to be my Communications Officer, since he
has a knack for languages.”
“And Kineret McArthur?” Aclima pressed.
“Head of Intelligence. She’ll be sifting through the database of known
universes, determining which ones to go to first.”
“Carlin McIver?” Aclima suggested the next one down the line.
Cassius chuckled. “I don’t think he’ll be staying with us for long. I
believe he wants to see his family again.”
“What about Velter?” Aclima either really didn’t want the job, or she didn’t
want to sound too desperate. Velter must have been some random member of the
bastion.
Cassius looked down at his tablet. “I’m afraid I don’t know who that is.”
“My mistake, I’m thinking of something else,” Aclima said dismissively. “If
you...really believe that I could do it, then I would be honored. I mean, I
know where you came from, and I’m sure you’re not too fond of Maramon, so I
just wouldn’t think—”
“I don’t hold anything the Maramon have done against you. I’ll only hold
your own actions to account. That’s one thing Nereus and I could agree on.”
Aclima smiled softly. “Very well, I accept.”
“Great! Now we need to come up with a title for you,” Cassius decided.
“Cassius,” Leona said through comms. They decided to give him a disc
for himself, in case they ever needed to make contact with him sometime
after they parted ways.
He tapped his neck. “Go ahead.”
“It’s done. We’re about to fire the test missile.”
“I’m on my way.”
Angela took Cassius’ hand again, and teleported him down to the engineering
section. Future!Mateo did the same for Aclima. It was odd, though. Why
didn’t the Maramon give the hybrids such powers of their own?
Leona had been working down here since they left Stoutverse. Sealing it up
with an overabundance of quintessence was the test, to see if the technology
was even viable. “I thought you might want to be the one to push the
button,” she said to Cassius. There were only a couple of other people here.
They were the most trusted members of what was now called the bastion. They
weren’t necessarily the most trusted by the government, but by
Cassius and the team. They couldn’t have just anyone understanding how to
thicken membranes, nor knowing how to break through them. It had to remain a
well-kept secret.
Cassius smiled at the thought. “I’m not sentimental. Go ahead and do it to
it.”
“Why are we firing a missile at the universe again?” Angela asked.
“To make sure the consolidator worked,” Future!Mateo answered. “The missile
is specifically designed to harness bulk energy, and travel through the
membrane, but also trigger an explosion that could not propagate back out.
It’s the ultimate shield. You could be meters from your target, but not
suffer the same damage, because the universal membrane of quintessence—also
known as dark matter—will protect you, but not the target. The missile still
has its limits, though. If the consolidator worked as desired, it should not
be able to pierce it.”
Everyone looked at Mateo, except for Leona. “Oh, don’t look so impressed. He
just rote memorized the speech that I wrote when we were pitching the
full plan to the Primus. He has no idea what he said.”
“Yes, I do,” Future!Mateo contended.
“Firing missile,” Leona announced. She pressed the button. The Waycar came
with some great advanced sensors. Despite there being no real viewports in
this room, it was able to generate a realistic depiction of what was
happening in the bulk right now. They could see a missile leave the weapons
array, and fly towards the membrane of Stoutverse. If all went according to
plan, it would be deflected by the quintessence, and explode before it got
anywhere near inside. If they had failed in using the consolidator
correctly, the missile would get through, but it would find itself at least
two light years from Earth, or any interplanetary outpost, so no one should
be in danger. Hopefully that didn’t happen, though.
“It’s off course,” one of the technicians told them.
“It’s fine, it’s still fine,” Leona assured him.
Finally, the missile struck the wall, but was not deflected. It lodged
itself inside, and tried to wiggle its way through, like a sperm to an egg.
“Trigger the explosion now!” Cassius ordered.
“No, it will give up, and self-detonate,” Leona insisted. “Just give it
time.”
“Look at the angle. It’s not off course by accident. It knows that we
plotted a vector towards an unpopulated region. It’s seeking out Earth. It’s
more intelligent than we realized. If it doesn’t work, and it gets all the
way through the brane, people will die.”
“We don’t know that it’s headed for Earth,” Leona argued. “You’re thinking
in three dimensions. What you’re seeing on the screen right now is only an
approximation, translated from hyperdimensional space to something that our
brains can comprehend. It isn’t real.”
“It’s real enough. Blow it up..now!” Cassius repeated.
“I’m in charge of this mission,” Leona reminded him. “You don’t officially
take over until my team and I leave for Verdemus.”
“And if you want to continue to have a positive relationship with the crew
of the Waycar, you will heed my advice,” Cassius urged. “Abort mission
immediately.”
“Detonation confirmed,” the other technician said.
“So it did work,” Leona assumed.
“No.” The tech shook her head. “I followed his orders.”
Leona breathed deliberately through her nose. “I see.” She stood up
passive-aggressively. “Captain Hoffman, it looks like you have command.”
“It’s Sentry Hoffman,” he corrected.
“Whatever.” Leona disappeared.
Cassius turned back to the tech. “Go back to the specs. Find out why the
consolidator didn’t work, or whether it’s as simple as leaving it on for
three point five seconds longer.”
“The specs that my wife risked her life to get for you...while you were fast
asleep in your little pod,” Future!Mateo reminded him.
“Thank you, Mister Matic. That will be all.”
Future!Mateo teleported to one of the executive crew compartments, which was
where they were staying while the Vellani Ambassador was still miniaturized.
“I saw the English screen. The missile was only 31% through. There’s a
chance that it would have detonated itself before making it all the way.”
“No, he was right, I fucked up.” Leona contended. “It’s smarter than we
knew. It recognized that it was dealing with a harder target, and it adapted
to compensate.”
“Then you can program a dumber missile,” Future!Mateo reasoned.
“An enemy would have no reason to do that,” Leona reasoned right back. “The
whole point is to test its strength against all-comers. Let’s face it, I
failed.”
“Okay, let’s say you did,” Future!Mateo began. “Are you gonna sit here and
sulk, or are you gonna go downstairs, and fix it?”
She breathed deeply, and waited to respond. “Good point.” She disappeared.
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