"What do they need?"
"Direct presence. They refuse anything less"
"We both know I'm not traveling 7118 light years for a meeting"
"They're willing to compromise if you agree to use a resonator"
"That depends. Where is the nearest? They need to give me additional guarantees if I have to leave the system"
"You don’t need to. There is a resonator in the same system. It’s undocumented" Brenvalo brought up a map of the Netheris star system. He zoomed in towards the m-dwarf star at the center and located a small structure in orbit around it on the opposite side from Ephistome III. It was 2.3km in diameter, a negligible asteroid.
"That's convenient," She remarked.
An entangled resonator was a massive dish that enabled real-time communication across interstellar distances. These were expensive even in the golden age. Some colonized star systems never met the production output targets to justify the building cost. This was especially true for the galactic frontier where most colonies had to rely on the few resonators that were operational. Realtime communication was a luxury. Most colonies used other short to medium-range signal technologies to bounce their transmissions to the nearest resonator, allowing them near-real-time with an acceptable level of latency. The D-Council was insisting on zero latency. For this, both parties must be inside resonators.
“Why is it undocumented?” A hidden resonator was unusual, it was critical technology that benefitted all citizens.
"It was abandoned by the progenitor fleet 2600 years ago but AUM managed to complete its construction in the last 6 years"
"The fleet, they built it while they were seeding the planet? That's unusual" A resonator was a gift a colony had to earn for itself. One that usually took a few centuries of prosperity.
"They predicted the dome reactor to raise the production output of this colony. They intended for this system to support others nearby" Brenvalo zoomed further in to show her the unfinished part of the dish. "But it was abandoned and fell to disrepair"
He closed the display.
"This is the decrypt key for the resonator, It will be completely isolated and we'll escort you to 2300km. We're not allowed to breach that radius while you're using the resonator. The D-Council looks forward to your arrival"
“Sineul” Liera walked away from Brenvalo. "Eject him"
L-98 Vellek opened the side dock and let Brenvalo join with his 3 interceptors. Liera walked the battle-frame to the lower deck cargo section and sat in front of the closed hatch.
"Do you trust them?" Sineul asked as he primed the Vellek's reactors for slip drive. He selected the second mode of propulsion to hop the distance between them and the resonator.
"You're authorized to kill them if they try anything other than what they said"
He arrived at the battle-frame, carrying a salvaged component with the ball. Calan followed the ball because he had nothing else to do.
"This place is huge" he looked at everything in the cargo bay. It was full of boxes and things. He saw the display on the cargo door. "Is that the outside?" He asked, appreciating the view.
"Why is it getting brighter?" He squinted looking at the star in the middle.
"We're heading towards the sun" Sineul answered.
"Someone stop that!" he cried. "W-we're going to get burned!"
"That is impossible! Calm down child" Sineul told him. He had meticulous control over the ship and he would never make such a ridiculous mistake.
"What do you mean! It's getting bigger!" the fireball was filling up the screen at an alarming rate.
"We're not crashing into it, Calan, don't panic" Liera replied, reassuring him. Nevertheless, he kept his eye on the screen. He was paranoid about his well-being. He didn't want to explode, he didn't want to burn. Lately, his life was full of such dangerous opportunities.
Ephistome III orbited the Netheris star closely at 0.12 AU. The Entangled Resonater was located in an orbit further away, on the opposite side at 1.13 AU. It took 8 minutes for the Vellek to slip drive its way to the agreed 2300km limit to the resonator. It completed the journey in a wide arc around the Netheris star. Calan relaxed when the sun grew smaller. Convinced of his safety, he turned his attention back to Sinel and Liera.
“Where are we going?” He asked curiously.
“We have to meet with some people. By we, I mean you and me” Liera pointed at herself. Showing him the hollowed-out interior of the battle-frame.
"I'm going in there!? But what if you want to fight people?"
"I need you in here to use this properly. We'll fight them together"
The battle-frame was built to work with a body inside it. It was stiff without being 'worn'. With the port now added to Calan, she could pick and choose what she wants to control when her body is connected to the battle-frame. Calan didn't need to be told any of this. He was still young enough to naively believe that he was in control, just like when he assisted with the makeshift brain surgery. This would lessen any possibility of neurobit damage.
Sineul finished adding the components. They were disassembled parts from the reintegration mechanism. The battle-frame had to be modified to interface with the makeshift port that was added to the body.
"Are we going to punch them?" Calan asked, showing her his best punch. His knuckle brushed by a pillar and he howled in pain.
"Be careful with that body!" Sineul yelled. The child was too careless with the sacred relic.
"Its fine, Sineul. Don't scare him every time something happens" Sineul’s outbursts were uncharacteristic edges of his personality. He was always obsessed with her biologics. "And no, Calan. If it comes down to punching and kicking, I think we're in a bad spot"
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"Then how do we fight?" He sucked the new red bruise on the back of his hand. This body was paler than what he used to be and it got bruises and blemishes very easily.
"You'll be using the finest unmakers we have" Sineul floated over to a huge crate nearby and used his spindly arms to open it. It was a white box wrapped in a plastic shell. The white box opened with red lights illuminating its contents. Calan walked over, curious to see the contents of the box.
"That's a huge gun!" He knelt, trying to lift it out of the box. But it was almost as long as he was tall and it was made entirely of metal. It had a long rectangular barrel. In the next box, he saw a bunch of other weapons that he didn’t know the names of. They looked less impressive in shape and size.
“You should get ready, go with Sineul” Liera hurried him along. They were approaching Commander Brenvalo and his interceptors.
L-98 Vellek landed smoothly on the Entangled Resonator space dock an hour later. It was pitch dark when they arrived and it remained pitch dark even when they landed except for very small guidance lights that directed them to the landing pad.
Liera walked out of the cargo door. The resonator had no gravity generator. She used the mag pads on the soles of the battle-frame to stay grounded.
> L98 BFrame: field generator enabled
- all systems operational
- base frame [custom configuration] applied
Her custom configuration worked flawlessly. She used the makeshift port on Calan to take control of her body while he maintained control over everything else. He wasn't aware of her intrusion, her impulses went through his brain as his own. This added some latency to her actions but it was quite usable. While this was nowhere close to her default configuration, she was much more agile by simply having her biologics in the battle-frame.
Calan wore the emergency space suit that she had never used before. She didn’t know what it felt like to be in the space suit and Calan made sure she knew exactly how uncomfortable it was.
“It’s salty! eugh” He complained as soon as the Vellek fired its engines behind them.
“It should get better in a bit, don’t worry” Liera reassured him. He wasn’t warned about the space suit. He panicked when the suit filled up with the stable fluid. He held his breath as long as he could, he went purple and passed out before he believed a word Sineul had to say about it. When he woke up, he found the fluid was breathable. It also kept vibrations to a minimum and maintained his body temperature at a steady level.
Sineul took off to guard the perimeter. The Vellek was armed to its last warhead and he had the authority to kill anyone that showed the first sign of malicious intent.
“Why is it so dark?” Calan asked, watching the pitch dark ahead of him. He couldn't see anything if it wasn't for the flashlight.
“This place is a secret. They don’t want anyone else to know it's here” The Resonator was still working. She confirmed it before landing with a scan from the Vellek. Deeper layers were masked from penetration scans but the surface layers seemed to be in proper working order. They found the door that led to the lobby. It required the decrypt key. The door slid open, revealing the dimly lit interior. All lights intensified after it closed behind them.
> L98 Bframe: transmission received
- welcome to ER-Madec
- please proceed to your designated chamber
> Navigation: path mapped to [chamber 01]
- 870m
A small maglev platform made its way out of a nearby corridor. The platform took them towards the center of the Resonator with all the communication chambers. Lights on the sides of the corridor illuminated their path as they approached.
"Wait it's all dark!" Calan felt danger when the lights no longer worked like they did before. They were suddenly back to the flashlight. "I can't see anything!"
Liera already knew before it happened. Calan didn't have any way to access the battle-frame's sensors but she saw what lay ahead with the dark vision overlay.
"AAAH!" he screamed as she switched the mag pads off, detaching the battle-frame from the moving platform. She jumped to clear the railings of the platform, making sure it couldn’t drag them with it.
A complete mess lay in front of them. Metal plates floated about as wires lay tangled. The ground itself was gone, leaving a gigantic hole in the middle of the corridor. The platform that carried them lost its magnetic tracks and floated into the darkness. It hit something deep in the hole, bounced a couple of times, and vanished.
"Who put a hole in the road!" Calan shouted angrily. He almost crashed into the metal beams in front of him.
"Looks like this was caused by a bomb" Liera used the flashlight to show him. She didn't have a way to know what happened. The battle-frame had no scan or analysis function. It just fed her the data stream from all of its various sensors.
"Th-there's a foot! ew! There's a foot! Lira I wanna go home!" Calan cried. He noticed it before she did. It was indeed a severed foot with a shattered femur.
"Don't panic, Calan. We'll be fine. We have a gun" She reassured him, hoisting the gun towards the darkness, making sure it stayed within his field of vision.
"This place is scary!"
"It is. Looks like we were lied to, he said this place was repaired" She considered. "War it is, then"
"We should go back!"
> L98 BFrame: transmission sent
- Sineul, kill the commander and release the broadcast
She didn't know what this was, but she knew he lied. L-98 Vellek received her order and responded immediately.
> L98 BFrame: transmission received
- Sineul: This is an ambush!
L98 Vellek only made it 500m away from the resonator before it detected the first movement signatures. They came from behind the disc, on the opposite side where it couldn't get a visual lock on them. But they underestimated their opponent a bit too much. The first interceptor that peeked from the edge of the disc received a 6m diameter klin beam to the face. The beam carved a cylinder through the mid-section of the interceptor, and some large pieces of debris from the resulting explosion hit the ER-Madec and bounced off into the void.
The second interceptor saw the underside of Vellek as it passed by them at slip speed. As it passed overhead, The orange bubble that it had around it expanded momentarily. The interceptor buckled under the force of the klin shield. The pilot ejected, only to get tossed away by a massive explosion resulting from the reactor explosion.
The third interceptor managed to pin a high-power laser canon on the Vellek but the klin shield refracted it easily. The interceptor managed to peel away to the opposite side of the resonator dish. Sineul changed course mid-flight at slip speed and rotated in place using smaller thrusters. He chased the third interceptor around the dish as it tried to keep as close to the surface as possible. They already knew his priestess was inside and they knew he wouldn't take any risks battling this close to her.
He noticed the cylindrical ship of Brenvalo dashing away, trying to use the distraction caused by his interceptors.
Abandoning the last interceptor, L98 Vellek changed the trajectory again and spun in place before firing the slip drive to catch up to Brenvalo. It caught up in seconds and he slammed it off its trajectory with a powerful shield pulse. The cylinder lost nearly all thrusters and entered into an uncontrolled spin.
As Sineul ramped up the canons to vaporize Brenvalo's ship, he saw severe warning signs cascading from the sensor array, a massive energy pulse.
An AUM Galactic destroyer warped out of nowhere and fully materialized in seconds. The Vellek broke off all targets to get away from it.
> L98 Vellek: transmission sent
- We have company! They sent a destroyer
He reported to Liera, deploying a strong klin shield around the ship. Two huge laser beams erupted from the canons on the destroyer and landed on its shield. They weren't powerful enough to pierce but their impact force pushed the Vellek off trajectory. Sineul steered the ship to bounce off further in the nudged direction, losing the target lock.
> L98 Vellek: transmission recieved
- L98 BFrame: Can you kill them
> L98 Vellek: transmission sent
- I can
> L98 Vellek: transmission recieved
- L98 BFrame: Good
He counted seven more energy pulses around the destroyer as more interceptors and smaller ships materialized in the same direction.
> L98 Vellek: transmission sent
- Never mind, They sent half the fleet! I'll be back!
Vellek’s slip drive carved a path through the fleet in front of him. He pulsed the klin shield as he passed it, damaging some ships that just arrived here seconds ago. He retreated 7000m away from the Resonator as the newcomers gave chase, trying relentlessly to erode the klin shield with their laser canons.
The interceptor directly behind the Vellek fired a projectile weapon, it was a flat pillar with a miniature slip-drive thruster. Vellek’s scans already knew the make and payload.
The missile detonated in a bright white flash as soon as it hit the shield. In the aftermath of the nuclear explosion, the Vellek was gone.