by Vowron Prime
MC scratched his head. “Yeah, well, best intentions tend to pave the road to hell. I’m really sorry for your losses. Your leader sounded like a good warrior. We could’ve used him.”
“They say that where you are from, do they?” It paused, vibrating slightly, something MC guessed might have been a laughing gesture. “But you are correct. Vorien was the very best of our best. I lost not only my commander on this day, I lost a true friend.”
A series of pings prompted MC to glance back at the ship’s piloting console. “Looks like we’re coming up on your destination. Who among you will accompany us back to Sanctuary?”
“Myself, Sarek—our lead scientist—and one other. As much as we would like to trust you, we have seen too much to take such matters lightly.”
MC nodded. “I get it, I really do. No offense taken. You’re just trying to do right by your people. I respect that. I’d do exactly the same if I were in your shoes—er—sphere?”
The alien went silent as it tried to process MC’s idiom. “I thank you. I shall impose upon you no longer.” Krar’eaks wobbled again, then spun and left for the aft cabin.
What an odd experience, MC thought. To think he’d have a polite conversation with a hovering metal sphere, even empathized with it. Kelruhn sure was chock-full of surprises.
Somehow, he got the impression that their surprises had only just begun.
Thirty-Four
MC had seen much in his time on Kelruhn, from jungles to deserts to arctic snowfields, but the present surroundings might take the cake. Utopian. Trees—so large that they defied reason—soared several thousands of feet in height, their trunks easily hundreds of feet wide. Gargantuan vines draped over their great boughs, hanging hundreds of feet.
More sanely-sized trees decorated the majority of the forest to form a lush, dense canopy far below their oversized brethren. Wild Sykenlings soared in the air, shrieking their mating cries as Reaver flew in formation with them. Maybe they saw the gunship as one of their own.
Nova stared longingly at the creatures.
“It’s highly unlikely that we’ll find Eiga like this, Nova,” MC said.
“I am aware, but I miss him greatly. I hope he is safe. I feel so bad that we had to abandon him.”
“Safe? C’mon, Nova. That guy has no natural predators. You seriously think he’s in any danger? Even the chariots have a hard time against him.”
“Still!”
“I know, Nova. I miss him too. We’ll get him back. You have my word.”
“You better!” Nina joined in. “As cool as Reaver is, I dunno if it compares to riding on a badass dragon. Does life get any better than that?”
Krar’eaks and the others observed their banter in apparent fascination. MC felt like a test subject under a microscope.
Hanging bridges of impossible lengths connected the World Trees. Some spanned almost a mile in length, suspended high off the ground—the Matriarchy’s magical engineering at work. They’d built entire cities within the hollowed interior of these great trees. MC wouldn’t mind visiting them. With the way Nina ogling their surroundings, it was safe to say that she felt the same.
They set down in a clearing under the shadow of a World Tree. Reaver’s scans didn’t detect technological structures of any kind, but then the facility’s entrance decloaked, revealing a futuristic sliding door that materialized out of nowhere.
Several Zevan-type and Qephyx orb-type Dyn walked and floated out. MC never thought he’d see a humanoid walk up and hug a floating metal sphere, but sure enough, several aliens found themselves in the embrace of other aliens. It got him thinking about whether they indulged in interspecies relationships, but he quickly banished the thought. Best not to dwell on such matters.
Once they’d offloaded the survivors, the door shut and disappeared, leaving just Krar’eaks, Sarek, and another Zevan-type Dyn he’d not yet spoken with. Apparently, Sarek didn’t feel the need to introduce himself, immediately breaking eye contact to stare at the surroundings. MC could already tell that the guy was going to be a pain.
Still, it was good to have more people around whose facial reactions he could actually read. If he’d spent any more time around the Zevan, his head might very well explode—Nina excepted, of course.
The fantastical forest eventually gave way to sandy shores and endless seas. Sarek stoically kept to himself as MC and Krar’eaks chatted it up, trading old war stories that kept the girls entertained.
Krar’eaks reminded MC of himself from his younger days. Always striving to prove to himself and the world that he was made of something real. That his actions actually mattered to someone. Surprising, considering how different they were. Yet there were also areas where the alien’s thought processes seemed, well, alien. Krar’eaks, for example, seemed entirely unable to consider the Zevan his equal.
“So you’re telling me that you’re actually organic under all that metal?”
“Indeed. This planet’s atmosphere is not at all suitable for the Qephyx. In fact, the air is downright poisonous. We are fundamentally aquatic organisms. The interior of our shell is filled with a carbon-monoxide-rich liquid that is kept fresh by our onboard life support systems.”
“Don’t you ever worry about it cracking or failing? It’d be like having to live your life inside a spacesuit.”
“No, we are quite used to it,” Krar said, wobbling. “The Dyn’s terraforming operations made our homeworld inhospitable several centuries ago. I have lived my entire life within my shell, apart from the few times I was able to enter a larger tank. We look forward to such opportunities, though they are sadly rare.”
MC locked eyes with Nova in an unspoken question; she nodded her assent. They were already picking up on each other’s nonverbal cues, despite having known each other for less than a month.
“Krar, buddy. If this alliance thing works out, I think we may be able to provide Resistance Qephyx a tank like that at Sanctuary.”
Krar vibrated his excitement. “That would be a luxury, but I do hope you understand our caution. We will need to objectively ascertain whether or not your base is as secure as you say. I have lives resting on my shell, after all.”
MC barely suppressed his grin.
Several hours later, the gunship broke back under the cloud layer and descended into Sanctuary’s crater.
“Odd location for a base,” Sarek murmured.
“Or perhaps the perfect location for a base,” Krar countered. “Between the mutated animals and the natural protection of the craters, few would think to look for you here. Though, I am slightly concerned that those feral creatures swarm so close to your home.”
“You and me both. We’ll get rid of them when we need to, but for now, they’re helping to conceal our presence.”
MC took over manual control, maneuvering the gunship through the tunnel with surgical precision. A feat that elicited shouts of glee from some of his crew—namely Nina—and yelps of fright from others.
Sanctuary picked up Reaver’s signal and opened its massive bay doors ahead of their arrival.
“Welcome to Sanctuary. My own little slice of heaven,” MC said, shutting down the flight systems once the gunship had settled on the floor of the hangar.
“How does one come by such a place?” Krar asked, taking in the cavernous space as he stepped out.
“Long story. I’ll fill you in some other time. Suffice it to say, no one from Earth’s going to miss it. Even if they did, what could they possibly do about it?”
He led them first to the armory, stepping through the airlock doors. Sarek’s jaw dropped at the array of weapons lining its walls.
“It may only be lowly human tech, but there’s enough in here to arm a small military. Not that we’ll ever get that large, but when it comes to guns, the more the merrier.”
Sarek walked over to one of the rifles to examine it up close. “Magnetism-driven. Powered by a chemical cell, from the looks of it.” He hurriedly put it back against the wall.
<
br /> Nina chuckled. “Not like it’s gonna blow up on you, you know?”
“Primitive technology, all of it! I see only fragmentation explosives and ballistic projectile weapons here. These energy weapons are a disgrace to the name,” he scoffed, handling one of the laser rifles. “I feel as though I am visiting a museum. This is prehistoric!”
“Yet they work,” Krar said. “All of these weapons would be effective against the Dyn, if deployed effectively. We need only the right tactics and information.”
After giving them the lowdown on the various mortars, rocket launchers, grenades, mines, and combat drones that were housed within the armory, MC led them back out to the hangar. Sarek remained unimpressed, but Magnus didn’t care a whole lot about that asshole’s opinion. Luckily, Krar’eaks seemed to have a good head on his shoulders—or orb, as it were.
“We have five land-based high mobility wheeled vehicles equipped with machine guns, one M4A4 Abrams main battle tank, one XAM130 experimental mobile artillery system, and ten powered suits that would give your Ultimators a run for their money. Then there are the satellites, which I think you will find especially interesting.”
The group walked over to the corner of the space where Nova had deposited the satellites they’d stolen from Earth.
“Back on my world, this was a top-secret military superweapon. It is fortunate, then, that this base was originally designed to uplink with this very satellite network. With your advanced alien tech, you ought to be able to get them up and running in no time. Maybe make them even better than before.”
“And? What functionality do these satellites provide? We would need a delivery vehicle, regardless. Getting satellites into space is a tall order, even for the Resistance. I don’t suppose you would have one of those?” Sarek asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Yeah, actually I do. Pretty easy stuff for me, so don’t worry about it. I’ll handle getting these bad boys into orbit. That’s all I can say about that for now, but I can tell you that their purpose is twofold. The Eye in the Sky satellite network provides global satellite-based communication and tracking. We only managed to snipe ten sats in time, but these should be enough to give us localized coverage over an area. We can reposition them wherever needed.”
MC gestured a thumb back at the armory. “In addition to the guns, we have helmets. Equipped with comms systems that can all interface to this network. Now, I’m sure you guys already have a kickass comms system, but I’ll go out on a limb and guess that it’s not satellite-based.”
“You are correct.”
“Right. We took out all of your existing sats when we downed your station, so space is ours for the taking.”
“I admit, having a satellite system will give us more communication options. We lack the infrastructure that the rest of our kind have to accomplish that, so this has always been a pain point for us. You mentioned a secondary function earlier. What would that be?” Krar asked.
“That would be the orbital mass driver,” he proudly declared, walking up to an especially oversized satellite that hogged most of the space. He slapped its smooth, matte-black hull. “This baby can launch a one-ton projectile at supersonic speeds with surgical accuracy. I’d bet good money that your people have nothing on this planet that can stop the sheer kinetic force of such a weapon.”
Sarek’s eyes went wide. Krar shivered. It was Sarek who spoke first.
“H-how much ammunition do you have?”
MC grinned. “For all intents and purposes? Consider it infinite. We’ll have to improvise once we run out tungsten cores, but I have some ideas about replacements once that happens.”
The aliens stared at each other in disbelief. “Nova, is everything he says true?”
She nodded. “Indeed, it is.”
Krar spun. “This changes everything. With such a superweapon, even the Tensa capital ships stationed on this planet would pose no threat!”
“I was kinda hoping you would say that. Now, let me show you one last thing. Our fusion generator.”
He led them to the generator’s control room but was somewhat underwhelmed at their lack of reaction. Apparently, nuclear fusion didn’t have the same appeal to them as it did to humans back on Earth.
“Still, we could modify this ancient junk to produce several times its current output. At the very least, it would be enough to power any matter fabricators and stealth systems we bring over,” Sarek said.
“Wait. Did you just say, matter fabricators?” Nina asked.
“Correct,” Krar replied. “We have a few in our possession. Given enough energy, they can turn energy into most matter. Unfortunately, they are extremely inefficient. The power consumption can be prohibitive.”
“I’ve got a few other tricks up my sleeve. I don’t want to say too much at this time, but trust me, with the powers at my command, we will be unstoppable.”
“It appears that our two peoples have much to offer each other,” Nina said, deftly guiding the conversation. “Shall we move to the conference room to discuss the particulars?”
“Yes,” the alien orb said. “Yes, I do believe that this could be the beginning of a very beneficial partnership.”
Thirty-Five
Sanctuary had become a far livelier place these past several weeks. Thanks to Nina’s masterful prowess, Resistance members had already begun migrating over. If she was supposed to be a junior aide to a diplomat, MC shuddered to think of what she’d be capable of once she truly came into her own.
The base’s remote location meant that conventional means of transportation—namely via Reaver—had quickly grown tiresome. To speed the process along, MC had created a portal large enough to move the Resistance and any equipment they wanted to bring in. Maintaining several active portals seemed to be paying off, despite the persistent headache they brought on. The relocator’s ability sphere had filled at a rate he’d not seen in a long time, and the next breakthrough was imminent. He only hoped it did something to ease the pain.
Though Sanctuary now featured a matter fabricator, Sarek hadn’t been kidding about the energy consumption. It took hours to craft a single rifle using most of the generator’s output, and that was after Sarek, Nova, and a team of Dyn engineers had gone to town modifying the bejeezus out of the reactor, boosting its output thrice over.
The upgrades didn’t stop there, though. The Resistance erected a basic illusion field around the entire crater. The rim itself was still visible, but Dyn engineers were actively working on that. Even as-is, they were now free to clean up the mutated monsters that roamed the crater floor. The enormous illusion field perfectly duped any EM radiation that entered, and it also masked any of their own emissions. To external sensors, they’d only see a crater and simulated beasts. It also provided perfect optical camouflage—a capability that MC’s own abilities sorely lacked.
The influx of people led to another problem: there was simply no space left. Sure, Sanctuary had crew quarters that MC had converted to guest suites, but those could only quarter a small handful of Dyn, not the dozens that now occupied the facility.
Not to mention that some of the aliens had truly bizarre requirements for their living spaces. Besides which, Sanctuary was his home, goddammit. His personal retreat from the world. That meant keeping the world outside, outside.
Luckily, he had a handy ability that enabled him to hollow out living spaces, and the subterranean nature of the base made home-building trivial. Using the relocator, he had hollowed out vast tunnels that all led back into the hangar.
The Resistance engineers came up with the floorplan, and he built the tunnel network according to their specifications. They designed a configuration that was both extensible and efficient. It was far superior to anything MC could’ve designed, so he was more than happy to function as their human excavator.
A single main tunnel two stories tall and twenty feet wide now extended from the hangar wall. It ran for several hundred feet into the rock before terminating at a large sphe
rical room—a commons area where the Qephyx would install antigravity generators to create a zero-G environment. Odd, but then, who was he to comment on alien preferences?
From there, he’d created a dozen smaller tunnels that all jutted out from either side of the great room, forming a ring that allowed for spherical expansion. He hollowed out a hundred rooms, with the smallest being the size of a spacious single-bedroom apartment.
Here again, he deferred to the Dyn engineers who encouraged him to create cookie-cutter floor plans that ranged from a single room on the small end to sprawling five-bedroom subterranean mansions, some of which had two or three floors. Their imaginations had really run wild after witnessing the ability’s incredible efficacy. While he wondered whether such extravagant abodes were really necessary, it wasn’t like they cost anyone anything. He was happy to oblige if it made their lives a bit easier.
The eventual plan, once they’d brought over Zevan and amassed something akin to an army, was to continue expanding into the crater walls in an upwardly direction. Someday, the entire wall would become their stronghold, but that was still a ways off. What they needed right now were stealth and defense. The Resistance’s centuries of staying hidden from the Dyn helped. MC was delighted that he wouldn’t need to rely on his own stealth field in order to keep Sanctuary hidden—the Resistance’s own solution was far superior.
“You can’t hide it forever, you know,” Nina said as the three of them convened in private at his dining hall. To date, only Krar was cleared to enter and exit Sanctuary’s habitation deck, apart from the two girls.
“But what the hell am I supposed to tell them? ‘Hey, y’all! I’m a human from Earth, but oh, by the way, I’m stronger than your Ultimators. Just ignore that, will ya? Nothing to see here!’ They already freaked out when I bullshitted about my hollowing capabilities.”
