Pax Elysia Chapter 28: Potentia

The twin suns of the Carthis System burned white in the void, their light scattering across the barren surface of the fourth moon. There was no wind, no air, no sound—only the shimmer of the distant stars and the reflection of an artificial structure built in perfect harmony with the lifeless terrain. A sprawling dome of silver alloys and shimmering wards stood against the glare of the suns and withstood the heavily radiated surroundings of the lifeless moon.

They had chosen this spot as this particular moon was the least troublesome celestial body in the star system. Though the system hosted planets and moons with abundant rare mineral resources, the accessibility or viability of extracting those minerals was problematic. After all, it was not easy to traverse through an ocean of acid, gigantic thunderstorms that could pulverise miles of land and blow away mountains twice the size of Everest. These were not conditions even magic, with its great power, could shield against for long without incurring crippling cost in some form. The power expenditure alone would be a huge loss for any material gain.

Therefore, the team selected this particular star system and a moon relatively normal compared to the enormous death traps the rest of the celestial bodies were.

The air inside the research complex hummed with restrained energy. Magical containment fields pulsed faintly blue, merging seamlessly with energy barriers created by shield emitters of Elysian design. Deep within the core of the base, a single device rested in a containment cradle of enchanted crystals and rune-enforced plating—the culmination of relentless magical research and reengineering of the ALteran power module.

The newly built prototype of the Potentia stood inside the layers of protective barriers under the watch of the best researchers and mages Elysium could offer.

Harry stood in the observation gallery, hands clasped behind his back, his emerald eyes reflecting the light of the containment chamber far below. His coat bore the insignia of the Elysian fleet – a golden phoenix.

With him, several officers of the fleet bearing the same gold phoenix pin stood at the ready as they observed the Unspeakables and scientists prep the Potentia for the test.

“Marshal Potter,” came the voice of Elizabeth Thane, chief of the Department of Energy. “We’ve completed the stabilisation sequence. The Potentia has reached operational coherence and all control parameters are in order.”

“You’re ready then.”

“Yes, sir.” Elizabeth nodded.

“Good. You have the go-ahead.” Harry said with a nod.

Elizabeth gestured quietly to her subordinates to start the experiment.

The first phase of the experiment began with the Potentia plugged into the base's power core while the naquadah generators were shut down. Instead, the naquadah generators were rerouted to keep the stargate activated. The stargate would remain activated for the duration of the testing as an extraction path to safety. The stargate connected to the one on Svoriin, where emergency teams stood at the ready to intervene should anything go awry.

The glass before Harry polarised slightly as the containment field surrounding the Potentia power module flickered to life.

“Begin the powering sequence.” Elizabeth ordered from her station.

The chamber inside hummed with energy as the shield emitters around the base began to hum with power. Suddenly, the base was enveloped in an enormous bubble of energy, shielding it from all external stimuli.

“The shield is steady. The spectrometers outside are reading lower levels of incoming radiation from the suns on the moon’s surface.” Elizabeth reported.

For the next half an hour, the Unspeakables collected data and conducted tests on the energy barrier protecting the base. Harry and his officers sat patiently as the Unspeakables and the scientists endlessly tinkered with their spells and devices.

After a long half-hour of endless testing, Elizabeth declared that the shield was holding steady, and they collected all the data they needed by studying the Potentia.

“Phase 1 has been completed. Stand by for Phase 2.” Harry declared.

Harry turned his sights on Fleur, who was sitting behind him, and nodded. She immediately began issuing orders to the Starfire and the Avalonian crew to proceed with Phase 2 of the testing.

As the Potentia was a power source that eclipsed a naquadah generator's output by a hundredfold, testing its limits was difficult. But they could still put some pressure on the Potentia. That was where the Starfire and the Avalonian hanging in space near the moon came into play.

“It’s done.” Fleur said.

Harry nodded and stared at the energy readings on the shield covering the base. He applied the sonorous charm so that his voice reached every corner in the base.

“Everyone, brace yourselves.” Harry said. “Phase 2 starts now.”

Harry gave the people at the base a moment to gather themselves. Magical shields were erected within the base as an additional layer of protection. The aurors standing with him put up barriers around the observatory room where Harry was sitting. When the aurors were done, the comm lines with the two dreadnoughts were now directly linked to Harry’s arm device, waiting for the command.

“Spitfire, Avalonian, launch the fireworks.” Harry gave the go-ahead.

The Spitfire and the Avalonian, floating in space, suddenly came into being as their energy levels spiked. They spat out multiple waves of Alteran drone weapons from their launchers. The scanners inside the base picked up on the trajectory of the first wave of drones, and warning lights blinked away like crazy in deep red.

The next moment, several massive explosions happened, but the base remained untouched.

“Confirm hit of the first wave. Shields are steady.” Elizabeth reported after looking at the energy readings on the shield emitters.

Wave after wave of drone weapons bombarded the energy shield powered by the Potentia. The base weathered the relentless assault of the Spitfire and the Avalonian. The shield remained intact even after fifteen minutes of multiple drone waves.

Harry looked curiously at Fleur and the other charms specialists who were keeping an eye on the base with their wards and charms. They assured him that not a single drone had managed to get past the shield and that the base had suffered no damage.  

“You can pause the assault.” Harry ordered the two ships.

The assault stopped immediately after his order reached their command bridges.    

The next few minutes were spent by the Unspeakables monitoring the Potentia for any variation in its performance. They determined that the sub-space containment fields were holding steady and that there was no threat to the safety of everyone inside the base.

After receiving the confirmation from the Unspeakables, Harry announced the commencement of Phase 3.

In Phase 3, the shield surrounding the base was expanded. A sixty-mile radius of the moon’s surface from their base became enveloped by the energy barrier projected using the Potentia. The Avalonian and the Spitfire resumed assault on the shield with Alteran drone weapons. After 10 minutes had passed, they stopped the assault and checked the shield's status.

Similarly, the shield was expanded over larger areas during different phases of the experiment to put pressure on the Potentia module. But so far, the module functioned seamlessly. The shield powered by the Potentia remained impenetrable even for the Alateran drone weapons.

So, Harry went with the last phase of the testing.

“Commence Phase 7.” Harry ordered.

The shield emitters in the base hummed with energy as they became energised under the new parameters. A massive dome of energy expanded outwards from the base, covering the entire surface of the moon.

It took some time, but an energy dome enveloped the entire moon.

Harry took a deep breath and marvelled at the display of the shield’s status inside the base, confirming it was covering the entire moon.

“Wow.” Harry muttered under his breath.

He shook his head and contacted the Avalonian and the Spitfire.

“Ready the ion cannons. Bring the rain.” Harry ordered.

The fleet officers in both ships relayed the orders to their subordinates. The ion cannons swivelled and selected multiple target areas spread across the sphere of energy, shielding the entire moon.

“Lock in targets! Fire!”

Harry heard the commands through the comm link. His eyes went to the telemetry tracking the shield integrity.

The ion beams started bombarding across the shield surface. Consequently, waves of Ateran drone weapons were also used to bombard the barrier surrounding the moon.

There were some excited murmurs from the Unspeakables and the scientists keeping tabs on the Potentia. Harry observed their activity and saw them poking and prodding the containment fields with their wands.

He turned his head around and looked curiously at Fleur.

“Anything interesting on your end?” he asked.

“Both the Avalonian and the Spitfire report their cannons have not breached the shield.” Fleur said with a look of amazement on her face.

She was not the only one in the observatory to be amazed by the display of power put forth by the Potentia. To be capable of shielding an entire moon from orbital bombardment by the best of weapons in Elysium’s arsenal was something of an impressive achievement.

“Spread out the targets by launching the fighters. Look for any weak chinks in the barrier.” Harry ordered.

Both ships released their fighter fleets, which swarmed around the moon and launched drone attacks across the energy barrier surrounding it. The bombardment was relentless and fierce. There was enough firepower in the weapons, both the ion blasts and the drones, to turn a planet into a wasted crater. There was enough power in the bombardment to push a thriving advanced civilisation into the Stone Age.   

Yet, Harry needed to conduct one more test. It was more of a test for the Avalonian than the Potentia at this point since the Potentia had proven its mettle. There was enough data on the Potentia’s performance and energy consumption across the different testing phases to analyse the power source in detail in the coming days.

“Captain Volkov. You are cleared to use your primary weapon.” Harry said through the comms.

“Yes, Marshal.”

Harry took a deep breath and rerouted one of the telemetry streams, which was tracking the shield integrity, to lock in on the Avalonian. Captain Volkov was someone Harry had personally recruited into Elysium from the Russian Federation. The man was a serving Navy captain aboard one of the Russian Navy's battlecruisers. He had brought the man to Elysium with considerable monetary offers and the promise of a blanket ticket to all his family and extended family. It had taken him considerable effort to wipe Captain Volkov and his family’s presence from the Russian Federation.  

Captain Dimitry Volkov and his officers in the Avalonian immediately turned the ship around and activated a weapon unique to the ship.

From the side panel of the Avalonian, a large crystal post extended into space. The beam broke into several crystal panels, which quickly interlocked, piece by piece, to form a large dish antenna.

“Engage tractor beam.” Captain Volkov ordered.

Harry got the real-time readings of the Avalonian’s sensors into his feed. Through the feed, he watched the whole process.

The tractor beam was a technology they developed purely by accident. The development occurred through their efforts to build their own stargates. Their research into event horizons and the properties of light and matter as they pass through them helped Remus and his people create this particular weapon. The theory behind the technology was simple light manipulation, bending it into a triple-helix solenoid using enormous energy, thereby generating a pulling force on an object, animate or inanimate.

Of course, they’d never use the weapon on a living creature, as the power used could tear apart organic life. Research into organic-friendly tractor beams was still underway in Elysium. But this particular weapon was built with the purpose of pinning down enemy ships.

“I didn’t know tractor beams were ready.” Fleur whispered from behind.

He supposed he ought to have informed her of this development, considering Fleur was shaping up to be the weapons specialist in his fleet. She was in charge of keeping track of the different weapons, both magical and non-magical, mounted on the ships of the fleet.     

“It was a last-minute addition.” Harry admitted with an apologetic look. “Remus rushed the retrofitting on the Avalonian just before the tests began.”

“You mean to say Remus is aboard the Avalonian?” Fleur asked with wide eyes.

“I’m afraid so. He and Cedric as well. They’ve been working on it without sleep for the last two days while the Avalonian was en route to the Carthis system.” Harry explained.

“They‘re both on that ship?” Fleur asked, staring at him in disbelief.

The affronted look on her face as she asked that question was obvious to Harry. But he didn’t want to make a scene there, so he leaned closer.

“Later.” He whispered.

Thankfully, Fleur settled back in her seat, but she looked the least bit happy.

An alert suddenly popped into his interface, catching Harry’s attention. When he looked at the projected imagery, he saw the Avalonian had pulled a meteor out of a distant orbit and brought it closer into the cislunar space.

“The weapon is working, Marshal Potter.” Captain Volkov said excitedly from the command bridge of the Avalonian.

“Good.” Harry said, relieved that the weapon was working as envisioned. “Now, launch it.”

The Avalonian positioned the meteor between itself and the moon while also pushing the meteor into a closer orbit.

“Is this really necessary?” Fleur whispered from behind.

“Not really.” Harry whispered back. “But it’s fun.”  

The Avalonian started the countdown to a repelling charge using the tractor beam. When the countdown ended, the tractor beam switched polarity, and instead of holding the meteor, it repelled it. The meteor was pushed into a trajectory straight towards the moon's surface.

Harry closely observed the tracking feed, patched into his hand device from the Avalonian, as the meteor impacted the energy shield protecting the moon. The meteor crashed into the shield at high speed, and a bright flare momentarily obscured the video feed. The meteor struck at a portion of the shield far away from the moon base, so they couldn’t see with their own eyes what was happening.

But when the feed cleared up, they saw the meteor had broken up into tiny flares of light here and there, forming debris. The shield remained intact, and its integrity remained stable across the moon’s contour. Even the meteor debris that remained after initial contact was burned away by the shield whenever they made contact.

“It looks like the meteor is fully destroyed.” Harry commented as he climbed to his feet. “Congratulations, everyone. We’ve successfully finished the testing.”

Harry made his exit from the observation chamber after having a quick word with the Unspeakables managing the Potentia. Since the testing had so far borne fruit and the Potentia remained operational, the next step was to analyse the collected data and build more Potentia modules if everything checked out.

At the same time, Harry paused and put up a secure ward around a room before gesturing at Fleur for their talk. Getting a nod in return from his budding weapons specialist, they moved to the corner of a hallway.

“You broke the rules.” Fleur accused with a sharp look once they were inside the warded area.

“For a good cause. Now we know the tractor beam is functioning splendidly.” Harry reasoned, but Fleur only rolled his eyes at him.

“You told me the rules in the fleet have to be strictly enforced for safety and security reasons. Then the first chance you get, you broke the rules you yourself implemented.”

“Only slightly.” Harry added, earning a glare from Fleur.

“Bringing Remus and Cedric into an active mission when they’ve not been cleared for active duty in the fleet was wrong on my part. It was a violation of the existing norm we established. I can only strive to do better in the future.”

“You'd better, because most of the officers serving in the fleet are not going to follow the rules you set if you are breaking them in broad daylight. At least, you could’ve kept them better hidden from the crew of the Avalonian.” Fleur said with a huff, flicking her silver blonde hair over her right shoulder.

“I was otherwise engaged to think that far.” Harry admitted. “There won’t be a next time, and I’ll keep in mind to keep you in the loop.”

“Good. Because there are people in power who’d love to discredit you and covet your position. Please don’t give them an easy win.” Fleur warned.

“Really? They wouldn’t happen to be the Veela clans now, would they?” Harry asked with a bemused look while Fleur merely shook her head and marched away without giving a verbal confirmation.

Harry shook his head at her antics and turned his attention back to the activities in the base. With the testing a success, their research base in the Carthis system would continue to operate as one of their secure offshore base for testing dangerous and secretive technologies.

Now, the challenge ahead would be manufacturing more Potentia modules and building a planetary defence grid for Elysium. It was a challenge Harry wholeheartedly embraced.