Chapter 65 - Anomalous Materials

Notes :

Gods the construction here is driving me nuts. I have people using power tools all day literally a meter away from my desk. I'm amazed I even have EARS left. And the fucking architects of france (psychotic bureaucrats who basically can impose whatever construction they want in certain areas with no real oversight or checks, and who have been going on a power trip these last few years) are screaming and demanding MORE. I hate these scumbags so fucking much.

Chapter 65

Starborn Mountains, Mount Nebula

Crash Site

"Interesting."

Sapphiria twisted her fingers, making the scan image rotate within the simulation. She was distantly aware of her android sitting on the floor, back to the pod, as her armor was being repaired. It made her feel...naked. Which she wasn't, though the undersuit was extremely form fitting.

"It's structure registers as standard matter. A mix of iron and silicates. But it is bound together by exotic energy fields which are not in the database." Said Cia. "This gives it a degree of cohesion far beyond what its own molecules should enable it to."

"So it's more resilient?"

"Impressively so. It is impossible to know for sure without direct testing, but I predict that it could survive repeated impacts from a high energy weapon."

"Hence why these abominations can eat plasma blasts and keep going. Ramina said you could harvest 'ichor' from them, and I doubt she meant their blood. I'm going to guess it has similar properties, and has something to do with the forcefields holding their cellular structure together." Honestly, with their active camouflage and everything, these abominations seemed to be equal parts physical material and energy, which was...profoundly disturbing. "Any idea what it does?"

"That was fairly simple. The item itself is emitting a constant stream of energy, primarily electromagnetic radiation. Analysis of it showed it reacting to movement within the module."

"It's a sensor?"

"To some extent. Passive only. It...is strange. The data it outputs seem to correlate to mass, but there are variables I cannot fully explain."

"So it didn't zero in on me because it couldn't see my sensor emissions, and didn't consider me much of a threat since mass wise. After all, I'm not much compared to the riotbots in that department."

"That seems to be the most logical explanation."

"Interesting...so...you said we could detect these emissions, right?"

"Yes."

"Can you give me the wavelength? Because if you can..." Sapphiria looked at the unassuming yet faintly wrong looking rock. "I believe I can make an interface. And get ourselves an experimental sensor system."

*****

Of course, that was easier said than done. But designing it kept the AI occupied, even as her armor was spat back out of the fabricator and put on.

That was until she received a ping, and blinked.

The new weapon was ready? She hadn't-

She watched as a massive gun was pulled out of the fabricator.

Oh.

Right. She had scheduled an autocannon for a test run. To make sure the weapons could be mounted on turrets and used before she left. She planned to make Astralis' defenses after the snowpiercer was complete, but it would be better if she had reliable turrets worked out before she went North.

She grabbed it, and smiled at the weight and sheer size of the weapon.

She was a practical woman. But she hadn't gotten into the navy because she lacked a love for big guns. Hell, it was the entire reason why she had her plasma carbine in the first place.

"Ma'am?" Said Cia, as she realized the AI was no longer working on the interface design.

"Let's take a break. Just for a bit." Said Sapphiria, as she reverently stroked the weapon. "We need to...test this."

"Test it?" Cia looked at her with a raised eyebrow, and the AI's cheeks colored.

"Okay! I want to take it for a spin. Let's call it today's entertainment. Didn't you say I should spend more time relaxing?"

The simulacrum hesitated, and sighed.

"Very well. Where should we test it?"

The AI looked at the tunnel leading to her testing ground, about to make a sharp retort, before realizing what the simulacrum meant.

The room she used wasn't small, but it wasn't exactly 'fire a high explosive shell safely' large either.

"Let's go up to the mining hub. We can use some of the old storage tunnels." Well, the tunnels she had used as storage. She had little clue what some of those were for originally. Especially as some of them clearly hadn't been digging down. There was a lot about this site she didn't fully understand, now that she looked at it. The ultimate goal of getting into the PDC was very clear, but that wasn't the only reason it was there either. "And get the ammo flowing from the chemical plants. We have plenty of the other calibers."

"Understood."

*****

Ramina tilted her head as Sapphiria came out of the tunnel.

"Well...you look happy. And disheveled." She leaned to the side, as if trying to look past the AI. "Did Kalia sneak up in there while I wasn't looking?"

The AI blushed.

"W-What? No! I was testing a new weapon." Her mood sobered up almost instantly as she saw the rapidly forming bunker around the entrance, as her bots assembled it. The militia were looking mildly disconcerted at a building just coming up around them, but they weren't protesting. Which wasn't surprising, given that they'd been attacked just yesterday. "For obvious reasons."

"Yeah...Ready to continue? We're about done with the internals, right?"

"Yep. Then we can move onto the hull." Or more accurately, they could move onto the hull once they were done with enlarging the tunnels, which was almost complete. The mining bots were slated to come out of the tunnel early the next day. "Sorry I'm late. I kind of forgot to check how much time was passing."

As in, Cia hadn't warned her, which meant the simulacrum had wanted to let her have her fun. It was a bit eerie how much she'd come to rely on her already for such mundane things as keeping to a schedule. She could have just set a timer, but...

She trust the simulacrum. More than she trusted herself, in fact.

That wasn't a very comfortable thought to have, especially for someone...something that wasn't sapient.

...was she?

"It's okay. Your golems are hard at work already." The artificer grabbed the AI's arm. "Come on, you promised to show me the steering!"

Sapphiria chuckled.

"Alright, alright. Stop tugging, I'm coming!"

*****

She wasn't going to admit it out loud, but working with Ramina was...relaxing. Therapeutic, even.

Not just as a baseline 'interacting with squishies is helpful to my mental state', but the artificer was genuinely brilliant in her own right. She was the kind of people the Federation would use to drive them all forward.

She was also the exact same kind of person they would keep a tight watch over.

It reminded her of her days in the fleet's ship design bureau. Supervising and helping brilliant squishies.

"So...I gotta ask." Ramina looked over the pile of parts they were working on. "Will I be able to use some of this stuff on the rolling fortress? Actually..." She grimaced. "Should I even bother? Even if we couldn't just slap guns on the snowpiercer, you can probably make something a lot better."

"The snowpiercer's hull isn't made to take weapons fire. Even armoring it up won't help." That wasn't entirely true, but just like with starships, a civilian vessel converted for military use would still be a lot less effective than a purpose built vessel. There were just too many fundamental differences in internal architecture, materials and design philosophy. And the snowpiercer was made to survive the harsh environments of an ice moon, not the hellish superheating enchanted thermite arrows or whatever the hell the Bane used. "And I could make something better, but it would take a lot of time and resources that, thanks to you, we can instead use to improve it."

"If you say so..."

Sapphiria smiled.

"I do." She paused. "Would you like to come down the tunnels today? I have something to show you."

The artificer perked up immediately.

"Do I get a ride?!?"

Sapphiria opened her mouth, then closed it.

The minecarts would probably be better. But she was actually starting to miss racing up and down the mine.

She smiled.

"Sure! If you can handle it."

"Oh I can."

"Good. Then let's get back to work. We don't want you having to spend the night here."

"Why? It's not bad. And we have heating!" She thumped one of the nuclear batteries. "Plus the militia is out here."

"Perhaps, but Kalia will most likely have my head."

"Your head isn't what she's after." Muttered the artificer.

Sapphiria tilted her head, then felt her cheeks color as she realized what the young woman was saying.

"What was that?"

"Nothing!" She coughed. "Nothing. Did you hear about the volunteers?"

"Volunteers?"

"Yeah. Tramistres volunteered to go on the expedition."

Sapphiria stopped in horror, and Ramina grinned.

"Yeah, Malry blew a fuse. It's rare, but it is so ho-I mean impressive when she does that."

"Uh huh. I assume she managed to make the good huntsmarshal abandon that little project."

"Yeah." There was a short silence, as they continued working. "Kalia told me Paul wanted to join. She said he brought the topic up with you."

Sapphiria set down her tools.

"He did." She tilted her head. "Is that a problem?"

"I..." She sighed. "Look. I'm not big on the guy." She shifted as the AI stared at her. "Okay, I know, that's an understatement. He tried to kill me, and almost succeeded. But it was never personal. And we might...we might need him. He's a magehunter. Most mages make a beeline for Convergences when it's time to lay low. They're hellish to go through, you always have mana close at hand, and generally the traders don't give a crap who gathers the crystals or condensate, so long as it keeps flowing. He probably has more experience trudging through these hellholes than anyone but me."

"Let me guess, because you did go to lay low in one?"

Ramina looked away, refusing to meet the AI's gaze.

Sapphiria sighed.

"Alright. If you're okay with him coming along, I'd like to bring him. I can keep you separate if needs be. There are some options for compartments..."

"No, no it's fine. I'll deal with it. I'll go talk to him. Get some things straight, try to...bury the hatchet, I suppose."

"Alright." There was a modicum of privacy built into the snowpiercer. There had to be, had it been a military vehicle those would have flown out the window, but they were meant for civilian personnel that you usually had to convince to do this job instead of picking up anything else. Hell, most likely those would be highly qualified techies and engies. Er, squishy technicians and engineers. Not easy people to convince to trudge through the hellish surface of a frozen moon, even if it was for critical infrastructure. But privacy or no, they'd have to live together for a bit and if there was bad blood it could get pretty bad pretty quickly. And throwing someone into the brig wasn't an option like on a starship. "Was there any talk on the rest of the crew?"

"Nothing definitive yet. We'll definitely have a couple of Gregor's gendarmes. Plus you, me, Paul, that's already half the slots. I'm guessing Kalia will fill the rest with people to do the grunt work. Collecting the crystals, that sort of stuff. Probably a medic too."

"I-" Can heal you. Could she? She had her medikit, and it was effective, but she didn't really have any medical knowledge. She knew implant tech very well, but that was a whole different ballpark and generally that was more concerned with removing the fleshy bits over preserving them. She wasn't a professional in any way, shape or form, and there was no room in the interior or the power budget for a full medisuite, and there was no way she could make a field autodoc. "-Think that might be a good idea."

"Yeah. Which pretty much means Truvan, since Malry is staying here. You know, the elf?"

"I remember who she is." Interestingly enough, there hadn't seemed to be any other belters -which the people here insisted on calling 'elves'- in Astralis. "She definitely has some experience going on perilous expeditions."

"Yeah. Speaking of...have you been exploring the mines? In case there's another way in?"

"I haven't had the time to follow every tunnel. But there doesn't seem to be any other surface access ones that I can find. Which...makes sense, I guess? One tunnel for the pass, or at least that's where I assume the Bane one goes, one tunnel for the mining town, one for the outpost."

"Why bother making three? It's not like you can bring much ore through the one here."

"Redundancy. And I'm managing to send plenty of stuff through it, aren't I?" She gestured at the workshop around them.

"True. Very true." Ramina sighed. "I don't know. It just looks weird is all I'm saying. I swear I saw some ore veins last time when I saw your storage tunnels. It's almost like they barely even mined this place at all!"

Sapphiria twitched internally. That was a dangerous logic chain for the squishie to pursue.

"Well, they did get kicked out."

"That's true." There was a small pause as they worked. "Soooo...what do you want to show me down in the tunnels ?"