Menseio Station, orbiting Veria
Jonuth Kidravia’s Ship - Abi
00:17 Ship Time
September 12, 2019

(Abi)

While cargo ships had been coming and going to hangar 11A almost constantly for days, people had to be wondering what was going on, though no one knew, exactly. Even those aboard Abi didn’t know that there was an entire factory that was cranking out many different items and components. That was including millions of rounds of ammunition for the mass drivers and the ball turrets.

There were a few different types of rounds, but all of them had the same crystal that made up Abi and the Grasshoppers incorporated into them somehow. Some rounds were almost entirely crystalline with the only metal being the ferrous core, while others only had a crystalline tip for better penetrating power and were otherwise made out of a dense ferrous metal.

Though there was about one mass driver round and several hundred ball turret rounds being produced and stored every second, that operation only took up a miniscule amount of space that she had to work with. A section was dedicated to building the generators that would greatly increase the amount of power that the flight crews of the Grasshoppers had to work with. Since she was already building the generators, she saw no reason why she couldn’t build more Grasshoppers as well.

They would be different--they had to be--because they wouldn’t have a small piece of Abi’s mana core built into it like the other six had. That also required some alterations to the design, as the mana core was incredibly small for the amount of power it allowed the crews to access. The generators would take up much more space in comparison, they also wouldn’t come close in terms of power generation.

She had a way around that, however, as the rear of each of the new ships would be widened by about forty percent to fit two of the generators side by side. Each of the ships would also come equipped with the same system that she was currently working on for the six Grasshoppers. If the shit hit the fan, then up to two additional generators could be removed from the ships’ dimensional storage, making the relatively small ships greatly overpowered.

None of the aforementioned projects were what she was focused on, as the machines were basically on autopilot. What she was working on was more hands on, as she needed to test and tinker before testing again. While she didn’t have hands of her own in the usual sense, she did have dozens of different mechanical arms that were all positioned around a large table in the center of a room. A room which didn’t have a single door or vent, but was brightly lit up.

On the table that the mechanical arms were crowded around were many different pieces, but they were positioned in a specific order. There were two feet that were detached from the lower part of the legs, which were each separated into three pieces, the lower leg, the knee area and then the upper part of the leg. Above that was a torso with arms laid out beside it, also in pieces and with the fingers not even being attached yet. It wasn’t the new suits that she was working on for Jonathan and his friends and sisters--those were nearly done already--but was instead something else entirely.

There was no head to top off the crystalline and Warvynium construct, though that was what Abi was working on now. One of the arms reached towards the table, and as it did, a rounded piece of Warvynium appeared on it. It was clearly part of a skull, but it didn’t have teeth, a lower jaw, or any holes for the eyes, ears or nose. It was just a rough shape, but one she immediately went to work on.

As the arm it appeared on held it securely, two of the other arms were moved, both of which had lasers attached to their ends. With incredible precision, they began carving away at the skull, shaping it as some metal was removed, while also creating the openings needed to see, hear and smell. It didn’t take long at all, and soon the skull was placed above the shoulders. With it in place, the beginnings for a body were complete. A body of her own.

---

Menseio Station, orbiting Veria
Jonuth Kidravia’s Ship - Abi
08:00 Ship Time
September 12, 2019

When I had awoken in the morning, it was to an alarm that started off quietly and slowly got louder. I knew it wouldn’t stop until I actually got out of bed, and one look at Vixa made me do exactly that. The moment the alarm turned back off, Vixa tucked her head back under her tails and went right back to sleep.

Just after I was done showering, Abi asked that I join her down in the factory after I was done eating, stating that she had some things to show me. I had no idea what she had in store, but it would give me a good opportunity to tell her about another idea I came up with, it would just be up to her to tell me if it was feasible.

Though Vixa probably would have liked to continue sleeping, there was no way that she was going to avoid some really good food. We made our way there and while there were people present, there were nowhere near as many people there as there usually was. The result was that there wasn’t really a line to get breakfast, but instead people just took what they wanted and moved on.

We didn’t see my sisters or my friends while we ate, and I knew the dragons and my parents were off the ship, so as soon as we were done, we headed down. While I knew the layout of the ship pretty well thanks to the information being downloaded directly to my brain, everything was new to me. It was also completely empty, as the area was only accessible via teleporters located around the ship, and very few people actually had access.

The factory was extremely loud when we arrived, but thankfully Abi had anticipated that fact. Two pairs of earmuffs were waiting on a table just inside the door, so I put them on and she took us on a tour. She couldn’t really lead us in the usual sense, so instead the floor lit up directing us where to go.

While I knew it was massive, hearing length and width and square or cubic meters just didn’t do it justice. The ceiling wasn’t terribly high, but it was so long that I couldn’t even see the other side of the room. Part of that was because there was machinery in the way, but also because it was just that big.

The machinery looked pretty normal, too. I had expected it all to be made out of crystal, and while much of the housing was, the majority of it was all made out of metal. New, shiny metal, so it seemed as though much of the machinery had been built and installed recently, though they were all churning out various things. I couldn’t recognize the vast majority of the things that were being made, but there were some that stood out.

In particular, the barrels for some sort of gauss cannons were easily identifiable as they were being installed in a four barrel gatling-style set up. They were quite a bit bigger than the ones on the Grasshoppers, and they looked as if they would be installed as they were, rather than be installed in a ball turret. When I asked what they were for, Abi said that she would be making some changes to the layout of the ship so she could incorporate them before we headed back to Earth. With the limited amount of people onboard for the return trip, the least amount of power draws, the better.

Further along, we came across the three machines that were pumping out mass driver rounds at a pretty impressive pace. One of the machines was encapsulated in a forcefield since it was dealing with depleted uranium, and while most of the radiation was gone, there was still some remaining.

It seemed that there would be three different rounds, for both the mass driver and the considerably smaller gauss cannons used on the Grasshoppers, as well as the new ones being built for Abi herself. The first type was a pretty standard round and was made out of a solid chunk of depleted uranium, formed into a cylinder. There wasn’t even a point on it as both ends were perfectly flat, so it would be like lobbing a heavy brick at incredible speeds, allowing the mass and velocity of the round to do all the damage.

The other two looked pretty similar to one another as both had crystalline tips, but one of them was made almost entirely out of crystal, while the other was primarily tungsten, purely to add more mass to the round. Both needed to have a core of iron inserted so they could be fired, and we watched that part for a few minutes before continuing on. True for all three of the rounds was that an electromagnetically shielded explosive was inserted as well. If a round from the mass driver was fired but didn’t connect with the target, then the explosive could be detonated manually, or automatically once it had traveled a certain distance away. That distance was apparently one million kilometers by default, but it could be changed on the fly, if necessary.

There was another shielded area that we walked through, and that was the foundry and forge that took up a good portion of the available space. On one side, raw metal was melted down in massive crucibles and then poured into castings of all manners, while the other side is where some of the metal was worked when it was cooled.

Most of the metal produced by the foundry was simply cast into bars to be used later on, while a smaller amount was moved over to different machines to be worked. Not being familiar with working metal at the slightest, I had no idea what was being made. I recognised industrial hydraulic presses and lathes, but not much else.

Towards the end of the tour, she stopped me in front of what a large rectangle that seemed to be made out of crystal. The edges were rounded and it was featureless but for the screen and keyboard embedded in the front of it. As I looked it over, I realized that the dimensions were pretty exact for both the lounge area and the area where the Watchdogs would await deployment.

“The reactors you were talking about?” I asked.

“That’s right. This is the first one, capable of generating more power than a Grasshopper should ever need for most situations. If a Grasshopper has two of these installed, then they’ll be even more capable, and could even take a few shots from my own mass drivers. That should make Suna quite happy.”

I nodded. “This is a perfect time to bring up that idea I had then. So last night, the six Grasshoppers spread out in a formation around the stadium to keep an eye out so the events from Ercan’s house couldn’t be repeated. With the Grasshoppers spread out like that, would it be possible to sort of link them together and act as shield generators to create a massive dome-like shield? It would be sort of like the heavy transports, but each ship would be able to lend its power to the shield, increasing the size and strength of it.”

“It could, but not in the way you want it to. Not yet, at least. Until the method of what is essentially beaming power from one location to another is discovered by another species, the only way to do it would be to connect the ships together. At that point, all the power generated would be directed to a central ship, and then that ship could use that massive increase in power to form and sustain a much bigger shield. I’ve got something like that in mind, but I didn’t think about it for the Grasshoppers.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Well, as well as carrying a large amount of troops or vehicles, the biggest plus for the heavy transports was the possibility of landing them on a planet to act as mobile bases. With the shield being active, it would create a large safe zone that could be a kilometer in diameter, if not a little bit bigger. Now with the majority of the troops or vehicles off the ship, that would open up a lot of space to have more of these reactors installed to power the shield.”

“Say you add one hundred of them, with each of them being able to increase the diameter of the shield by about ten meters, on average, while maintaining the same level of strength. That would double the diameter of the safezone, but give you over four times the amount of space to work with. With how small these reactors are, I would estimate that several hundred of them could be installed on a heavy transport, but you end up running into diminishing returns pretty quickly. It would be more efficient to just drop off a reactor or two here and hook them up to a shield generator at that point. Instead of having one massive shield, you could have dozens of smaller, but equally powerful ones.”

“So how many reactors would you be willing to install on one of the heavy transports before adding more wouldn’t be worth it?”

“I’m not entirely sure, and I won’t know until I run some simulations, but it wouldn’t be anywhere near the one hundred in my example. It might only be two or three dozen, which would still increase the diameter of the shield by a lot. Talking about this does give me an idea of my own though,” she said.

A beam of light shot from the ceiling, which quickly formed a hologram that floated in front of me. On it, was what looked like a five ton military truck from Earth, though this one was a little bit longer and had one of the reactors in front of me installed on it. That’s not all it had, however, as there was a smaller square device that was sandwiched between it and the cab.

“So Oya could probably work up a better design, but something like this would probably be very effective. It would essentially be a mobile forcefield and would allow friendly troops and vehicles to advance and hold a position much more safely and easily. Enemy fire could be pretty much ignored at that point and spells wouldn’t be very useful either. Unless the shield was overtaxed and the shield generator was fried, a shield could stay up indefinitely with one of these reactors hooked up to it. Provided there is a steady supply of fuel, of course.”

“What is the fuel, anyways?” I asked.

“Hydrogen pellets. This is a fusion reactor, though it is much more efficient than anything you’ll find in this galaxy. The Pygmaeans could easily create a reactor with the same amount of power, but it would be many, many times bigger, and it would go through fuel a lot quicker as well.”

“So how fast can you produce these things?” I asked.

“It depends on what changes I need to make, if any. This is the prototype version, but if it passes all my tests, then I can probably make two of them per day. The most time consuming part is already done, which was designing it and then creating the molds for the metal to be poured into. If everything goes to plan, then I think I’ll probably have enough made for the Grasshoppers in a little over a week. Anyways, let’s continue with our tour. There is one more thing I want to show you.”

The lights came back on, and after walking for about two minutes, it seemed like they led right into a wall. It wasn’t until Vixa and I got right up to the wall that it essentially melted in front of us, creating an entrance we could walk through. The room was pretty bare, with the only things in there being a mannequin with some sort of harness attached to it.

“What is it?”

“Watch and see! You have Oya and her people to thank for this, by the way.”

With that, the small device in the middle of the harness activated and I was mesmerized. Spreading out from the harness was a wave of blackness that quickly covered the chest and continued on to the extremities, but left the head bare. It was very similar to the suit that I had seen Tamara demonstrate and that Vixa wore on Yrranth and Zokyrth, it was clear that this was very, very different.

For one thing, Vixa’s suit was made out of the same advanced textile that my clothes and original set of armor had been made from, while the suit that I was looking at was almost entirely metal. At least until the plates of crystal appeared, adding an additional layer of protection. With Abi’s mention of Oya, I quickly deduced that I was looking at a suit made up mostly of nanites. It reminded me of a suit in a certain superhero movie, but I definitely wasn’t going to complain. It was still odd that a helmet wasn’t formed as well, but I knew there had to be a reason for it.

“Is this what you’ve been working on?” I asked as I circled the suit and Vixa sniffed it.

“Nope. That’s still a work in progress and is more time consuming that I first anticipated. This was actually much easier in comparison. As you’ve probably already surmised, the suit is made out of nanites. The small device attached to the harness is the initial power source for the nanites, as well as the dimensional storage that they’re contained in. Now this isn’t exactly a mech like Oya’s, but it is a powered suit that will offer you good protection, roughly on the same level as the new suits that you and your friends received recently.”

“It’s meant to essentially be something like a ballistic vest, but much more advanced. It is meant to be worn under your everyday clothing, and the nanites can make it seem like nothing is there at all, even if you’re wearing a thin t-shirt. If you come under attack like you did at Ercan’s home, then in seconds you will have an extra layer of protection.

“What’s with the crystal though?”

“Unfortunately, while my crystal is very strong and durable, it is quite impossible to make it into nanites. I had to get creative in that regard, and each of the plates you see located around the body are actually being held in place by the nanites, which are acting almost like thread. They’re also stored in the dimensional storage, along with many spares, and can quickly be swapped out as they get damaged or destroyed. As an added bonus, they also protect the nanites from being damaged or destroyed. Now, how about trying it on?” she asked as the plates disappeared and the wave of nanites receded back to the central device.

“Okay,” I said, walking up to it. “How do I do this?”

“Simply remove it from the mannequin and hold it over your chest. The straps going over your shoulders and around your chest will do the rest.”

The fact that it sounded very much like a bra wasn’t lost on me, but I did as she said. The two straps weren’t really straps, as they were more like hooks that anchored themselves on my shoulders. The two lower ones weren’t much different, but as soon as it was in place, things began to change. The device didn’t activate, but soon I could feel movement on my back, and then the harness tightened up. I reached to my lower back to feel smooth, cool metal that went both across my back, and up to my shoulders.

“Okay, so when it is on like that, it’s basically on standby. The nanites just keep it secured to your body and don’t offer any protection at all, really. For that, you want mode one.”

As soon as she said that, the device did activate and nanites did come pouring out. There weren’t a whole lot of them though and looking down, it looked like I was wearing a vest, though one made entirely out of metal, rather than kevlar or some other material. It didn’t cover my entire torso, and only focused on the vitals; the heart, lungs and most of the spine.

“You’ll notice that it is very thin and smooth. If you were wearing it under a suit at say a formal dinner, then it would be impossible to see that it was there at all. While you would probably get thrown back from the force and might break a few ribs, that thin layer would easily absorb a round from a lower caliber gauss gun. Then, you have mode two.”

The device activated again and even more nanites came crawling out. They didn’t yet venture off my chest, and instead formed a full vest that covered the entirety of my torso, including the armpits as the nanites didn’t lock together as tightly in that area. I moved my arms around and found that my range of movement wasn’t really impacted at all.

“Did you notice that the vest is a little bit thicker than it was before?” she asked. “It’s not that much thicker, but it’s still a fair amount which offers more of an increase in protection than you might think. It stops just above your pelvis and you’ll notice that it isn’t as rigid as it was in mode one, and this is because while it covers a larger area, I wanted to make sure that you were still able to move as you usually would. Let’s take a look at mode three now, which is the final mode.”

Once again, the device activated and nanites came pouring out. It was weird this time, as the nanites that had already formed during mode two had unlocked and moved down my arms and legs, but that was probably to transition over as fast as possible. Within six or seven seconds, every part of my body was covered by nanites except for my head, and the crystalline plates were in place, greatly increasing the protectiveness of the suit.

I rotated my torso, lifted my legs up and even did a few windmills with my arms and found that while I didn’t have the same range of movement, it was pretty close to normal. I had to admit that it was pretty nice, especially since it was made out of metal that was skintight, even if that metal was actually tens of thousands of small machines. I did finally realize that there was a reason that they didn’t cover my head, so I removed the Beacon from my own dimensional storage and retrieved my new helmet. I was about to put the Beacon back, when Abi told me to hold off.

“You’ll see why in a moment. Anyways, put on your helmet.”

I let go of the Beacon and held it up with telekinesis while I did as she asked. It turned on immediately and then went about cataloguing everything in the room, though there wasn’t much at all so it took less than a second. The moment that was done, I felt more movement out of the nanites around my neck, but I couldn’t tell what happened.

“So I didn’t bother with a helmet because your new one is quite good for what it does, and it was also more trouble than it was worth to program the nanites to do what I would need them to do. While Oya and her team are on the right path, they’re only scratching the surface when it comes to nanites. Until she or someone else has another breakthrough, I’m stuck with what I have.”

“I worked around the restrictions imposed on me instead and programmed the nanites to completely cover every part of your helmet except for the faceplate. The covering is only three millimeters thick, but even that small amount adds a lot of protection. You’ll find that the suit works the same way with the helmet as your other one does, though it does have one disadvantage that I’m still trying to rectify.”

“What’s that?” I asked as I grabbed the Beacon out of the air.

“It’s not airtight, so you can’t take it out on a spacewalk and you would get soaked if you tried to swim in it. When you’re working with hundreds of thousands of tiny metal machines, it is hard to close all the gaps. Especially when the person you’re making it for needs to be able to walk around in it. At this point it isn’t designed to replace any other suit and is simply a safety net when you’re just in casual dress or are at an event where you can’t wear a suit of armor.”

“Like the opera?”

“Like the opera,” she affirmed. “I’m going to keep working on it, but I don’t know how far I’ll be able to get. Anyways, there is one last thing. Place the Beacon over your chest, roughly where the center of the device is.

I moved to do as she wished, and as the Beacon got close to the nanites, they actually moved out of the way and created a little crater for the Beacon to sit in. As it contacted the device, four streams of nanites formed and wrapped around the beacon before connecting together, holding it in place. Once they locked together the Beacon started giving off a soft glow, just like it did when it was interfaced with one of the Grasshoppers.

“The nanites are now drawing power directly from the Beacon rather than the small power source in the harness, which allows them to do some interesting things. The least of which is the ability to activate the forcefield or hardshield functions of the Beacon, allowing you to move around with it, rather than it remain stationary,” she said as a blue bubble appeared around me briefly before it disappeared from view entirely.

I reached out and my hand passed right through it, but I was sure that it wouldn’t work the same way from the outside.

“The nanites activating those two functions also allows you to do the things I just told you that you can’t do normally. That is the ability to take the suit out into space without dying, and into the water without water finding its way in.”

“What else can the nanites do with the Beacon interfaced to power them?”

“In addition to activating some of the Beacon’s features, the nanites are able to project powerful electromagnetic pulses outward, and even discharge electricity all around you. Now the jolt won’t be strong enough to kill anyone since it affects such a wide area, it should be able to buy you some extra time, assuming Mana Shield or Lightning Shield aren’t being used.”

“Aside from that there isn’t anything else, really. Consider the suit a functional prototype. I’ll be working on it further as I said, but it should be good enough for now.”

I nodded, knowing she could see me. “So if the Beacon is essentially taking the place of an arc reactor, does that mean that I could have repulsors, too?”

She laughed heartily. “While I hadn’t planned on doing anything like that, maybe some exploration is in order.”

I laughed myself and then looked around the largely featureless room. “So what else are you working on in secret?”

“You’ll see soon enough, and you’re not getting any hints,” she chuckled. “Anyways, your friends have been trying to get ahold of you for the last ten minutes or so, but this area of the ship is blocked from all outside communication. Remove the Beacon from the harness and then speak ‘standby’ aloud. That will cause the nanites to retract back into the central part of the harness, though it will still stay attached. To remove it completely, speak ‘disengage’ aloud, and the straps will do just that. When you have time, I would suggest removing your shirt and putting it on underneath.”

“And the nanites will do their thing without any issues?”

“Only the fact that your shirts could end up being ruined if you need to activate mode three. They’re designed to deploy as quickly as possible, and a shirt would be an obstacle in their way. Rather than go around it, they’ll just cut themselves through it and then form normally.”

“Well that sucks. I guess I won’t be wearing any of my favorite shirts out in public anytime soon. Also, just to be clear, the nanites will deploy whether I am wearing the helmet or not, right?”

“They will. There is a microphone built into the harness that is keyed to your voice, so someone else saying ‘mode three’ or ‘standby’ won’t cause the nanites to act without your authorization.”

“I’ve got it then. Now how about making one for Vixa, too?” I asked.

That question got me an immediate dirty look from Vixa, and Abi burst out laughing again as I turned around and headed out of the factory to meet up with my friends.