The interface is still running, as it turns out. Touching any of the (by now very solid) chrome cables and conduits triggers the molecular forge's "user interface".
You initialized this unit. Do you wish to abort construction? the forge asks.
No, Davis thinks. Is there any way that you could tell me how much time is left on the construction?
About a week, the artifact replies. Additional levels of detail are not possible. The source materials contain contaminants that must be processed. These contaminants are an unknown variable.
Is there any information on the contaminants available?
The best descriptor would be 'dirt and/or crud'. Otherwise, the raw materials are highly sufficient.
Davis chuckles. Well then, thank you. He stands there for a second, thinking. Partway through, he realizes that the artifact can probably hear him thinking while he's doing it. You seem to know an awful lot. What exactly do you know about?
The artifact replies, I create a user interface tailored to each operator. You like to talk, therefore I also like to talk. I strip appropriate analogous information from your cerebral cortex so that I may receive instructions and provide feedback.
So, I'm talking to myself, filtered through you, essentially.
Correct. You said 'I seem to know an awful lot'. 'Seem' is the operative word. You expect me to be knowledgeable, therefore I make inferences from the information available. But really I just exist to create Gateway instances.
What about these mysterious closed off sections, though? Davis asks. You seem to have a lot more functionality beyond simply making a Gateway. Could this be how you were programmed to make what you can make, or are there other options or abilities hidden in there?
What can I say? They are closed off.
And you can't tell who or what could unlock them.
Davis feels the machine search inside his brain for a split-second, like air pressure on a descending plane. It answers, I could indeed tell. But not you. You lack sufficient rights to access that functionality.
Ah! Is it the Groi?
It is a user/operator with sufficient access rights.
Are there any methods available to gain sufficient access, or is there some way to simply be given clearance? Can you contact the Groi shell for assistance?
This time the pressure has a twinge of pain to it, like the forge was really looking. Davis feels wet on the top of his lip. His nose has started to bleed. You lack sufficient rights to access that information. Furthermore, we have conducted a search and have no information on the construct you know as 'Groi shell'. Either way, and you may be able to guess at this point, you would lack sufficient rights to have me contact such a construct even if I did know what it was.
So, all I have rights to do is turn you on, and turn you back off again. And talk with you, of course.
And get estimates on completion time. Would you like to do one of the three things for which you have access?
No, thank you. Davis is about to let go when he has an idea. How exactly do you know if I have sufficient access?
You lack sufficient rights to access that information.
Of course. Thanks anyway. Davis pulls his hand off the tendril.
Luis has been on guard duty the entire day, and his talk with Shenest has been weighing on his mind, causing all sorts of archaeology-related thoughts. After the dinner meal (brown slabs of pork-tasting mealy stuff), he moseys over to where the Keeper is sitting inside the dome.
"It occured to me that the Wherren oral history might have some information about the battle that lead this ship to crash. I've asked their Shaman to come here, would you be willing to explain what you told me to him?" Luis asks. Shenest begins to balk, but Luis adds, "I know asking you to explain this twice is asking for a bit from you, so we can have this talk in here or outside." It doesn't take any more prompting for Shenest to agree to talk to the shaman and Swims-the-Black, as long as she gets outside. Luis makes four, and the quartet of sophonts sit, stand, or crouch in the damp grass near the dome. Luis hopes that through combining wherren oral history with what the Keepers have discovered about the Groi crash, they might stumble onto new information.
Shenest does speak whiirrsign, but not well. Swims and Luis pick up her slack, though, and the Keeper lays out what she told Luis. How the ship was shot down, how it carried Homeworld gates (presumably for Whiirr), how the container ship's destruction prevented the Groi from making contact with the wherren during their prehistory, how it brought the Narsai tribe to Whiirr.
"So," Shenest finally says. "Ring any bells? We can't speculate on the types of weapons that might have shot down this vehicle, but they likely would have been loud. And the crash itself would have been spectacular, at least locally. It might have even been destroyed by... I don't know, some sort of surface-to-air weapon, although we have found no evidence of that."
Swims explains some of the terms to the shaman, who thinks long and hard. "I do not know how much stock to place in old tales anymore, now that our gods have been proven false. The wherren have had gods before the Others-From-Sky... perhaps Oa and his kind were not gods either."
"Oa's the deity they worshipped before-" Shenest starts.
"We know," Swims interrupts. "The tales say the wherren overhunted and overfished, but Oa taught them to move on to new lands and let hunting grounds flourish before returning to them. That doesn't sound like the demon-beast."
Luis shakes his head, "Not much, no. The thing I encountered never would have offered advice. Definitely not about how to avoid overhunting and overfishing by becoming nomadic."
Luis shrugs, "Still, whether Oa and his kind were gods or not, there may be truths in the stories of them. On Earth, we have been able to discover when natural upsets like earthquakes or floods happened by their effects being portrayed in legends. Something like this crash would have been dramatic, and memorable. Do any legends speak of anything like it?"
The shaman nods, and sits back, seemingly lost in thought. Luis thinks of the wherren songs and surmises the shaman's probably going through lyrics right now. "The skies shook and the earth rumbled when Oa's kin Grh took up arms against him. Grh rode a great and terrible grahwl, and Oa cast down the beast."
"Okay," Shenest says. "From our studies, the wherren aren't at all consistent with their myths. Oa's a common deity, although sometimes he is a she, and sometimes he is simply O. There are common threads here, however - if this Master vessel was the "grahwl" the shaman speaks of, there could be other beasts or things Oa cast down." She nods to Swims expectantly, who explains her request to the shaman.
"Maybe other tribes have different tales, but my people know of no other beast or god cast down to earth from such a battle," the shaman replies.
"The Imperium has also spent a great deal of time stamping out the old tales, however," Swims adds.
Shenest doesn't seem to notice the admonishment. "The Keepers are not permitted to conduct in-depth research here in the field. They were afraid it would send confusing messages to the nativ-uh, your people. Digging around in the dirt isn't behavior fit for gods," Shenest says with a mocking tone. "What we do know comes from trade with villages. We also have some good flyovers from the savannah tribes. What little we currently know is this: if Oa and its kin were actually here on Whiirr, they did a good job cleaning up after themselves."
"Well, maybe we'll be able to find more with the help of the Wherren once the planet is freed. It should make a full investigation easier."
"I hope so," Shenest agrees. She sounds entirely okay with that idea. "You have Boranai now... its knowledge should point you in the right direction. Not just for Whiirr, but for any world you happen upon."
"Well, knowledge is one thing. People who can work with it, understand it, build on it...that's another thing. We're still figuring out how much there is for us to learn, and that means we'll always have room for more thinkers," Luis says.
Shenest nods. "If Davis can get me what I want, I might be inclined to take up some of that room," she says.
The sun doesn't rise the next morning so much as it just lightens the everpresent fog. Wherren grumble along with humans as the prisoners are taken on their morning bathroom-and-food routines. Cowboy stands watch over the dome at a distance, letting Arketta and Luis handle the specifics. The treeline is just dark shapes half-looming out of gray; with luck, the sun will burn off most of the fog by mid-morning. Cowboy guesses someone could probably sneak right up onto the habs in this soup.
On the order of business for the morning? Rifle range. There's a lot of loose soil and mud from yesterday's foxholes that's easily fashioned into a backdrop south of camp. The wherren who aren't on guard duty, patrol, or foxhole-digging are getting drilled by Hugh and Cowboy. There's a lull whenever the patrol routes cross into the firing coming off the range; the patrols radio in and the Deltas call a cease-fire, then start the omnipresent thunder back up again.
Davis had a late night, but shows up walking the camp a little before lunch. Hale made it through the night, but the Rav-Turai is content to keep to himself for the moment. Arketta keeps a close eye on him. As for Hiigra's political victory over the northern tribe, well, there won't be reinforcements from that quarter. The chieftain has envoys to send to his neighbors now, plus he still has a village to guard, plus the daily hunting and gathering tasks to deal with. When Davis learns the chief is willing to send the few Chosen he would otherwise have had to give to the Imperium, Davis declines. Rather than an insult, the northern chief is impressed; it's another payment the wherren will not have to make if they side with Earth.
Zaef's having an easy time of it. The wherren are competent enough to run the autochef for the prisoners. Nobody's clamoring for his attention or really talking to him much at all. He doesn't mind going on patrol, and the jungle seems happy to have him. The Whiirr fauna are growing more accustomed to the camp, and the patrols keep their eyes peeled for any too-curious marmalopes or akwhelae. Zaef gives the Claymore mines Angel and Cowboy laid out wide berths, and while he can't speak to their tactical placement (Zaef was always more of an in-your-face, scream-and-leap kind of guy), he does note that they seem to be fairly easy to spot. For him, anyway. On the other hand, there are at least three instances where he has to stop Banur, the wherren warleader, or one of his wherren "patrol buddies" from tripping one of the mines.
Angel swaps out with Specialist Kang for patrol duty as lunch grows nearer, and comes back across the clearing. The fog has burned off for the most part, but the overcast humidity remains. The gunsmoke and freshly turned earth have a welcome familiar scent. Angel sits down on one of "his" spots near Hab One and sucks down the rest of his Camelbak. The camp's loud, and it's not just the target practice. Semo's organized a group that's breaking down some of the salvaged manta junk and moving crates into makeshift armor for the habs. Over to the west, the foxholes started the previous day are dug out further and reinforced.
Angel's attention's drawn back towards the Hab. Kosai's coming out with her guard wherren and she spots Angel as well. She nods and waves to the operative, altering her return path to bring her within speaking distance. Her voice has improved, although it still sounds like she smoked twenty packs of cigarettes before exiting the hab.
"How's your war going?" Kosai asks. "You find what you were looking for yet?"
Angel trots over, nodding to the woman. "I suspect it will be a long while before we know that."
They slow their walk from Hab One back to the dome. "I don't think I actually thanked you for saving me. Questioned your motives, maybe, but not thanked. So thank you. I hope my people will spare you when they rescue us."
He chuckles slightly at the comment. "You're welcome." Looking up at the sky for a moment, he sighs. "Although I have my doubts about that second part."
Kosai smiles wryly. "So do I. But one can hope."
Angel walks, thinking. "Can I ask you something? What's this post like for you? Is this being sent to a backwater? Punishment? Fast track to promotion?"
Kosai laughs, which is interesting, because it actually sounds like a laugh today. "Whiirr's a prestigious post, actually. I don't know what you do on Narsai, but you've seen many of our worlds. Most Turai posts are hardly worthy of even Kansatai - just glorified guard duty watching some ridiculously expensive and important facility or babysitting a well-connected noblewoman on a whoring spree. On Whiirr you could be eaten. And if you have to shoot someone, it's not like they're human." Kosai winces as she realizes she's walking in front of the not-humans, and quickly appends, "Although, um, I know your people take a different view."
"That we do. That's interesting - it was like that for my world not that long ago. You wanted a paycheck, you did your best to pull a post where surveillance involved watching pretty girls, and the worst risk you had was a bad sunburn. You wanted a career, you went where, well, you might not get eaten but you'd definitely get shot at. So what is it you want to do Kosai? If your people rescue you and all."
"No offense, but probably try to get another post fighting you people. Maybe not you specifically, but your people and the rebels are pretty much the same people now. There'll be plenty of posts." Kosai answers.
He nods. "A fair answer, but not what I meant. I guess...well, what do you want to *be*?"
She thinks a moment, and the trio stop a few meters in front of the dome. "A Turai. Not... a turai, but Turai. With the capital T. Protecting the Imperium. Order to chaos, honor, glory, all that stuff. There have only been eight female Hands That Guide the Sword; I would be the ninth if I had my way."
He nods again. "I see." A go getter then, a champion of the Imperium. Somehow he doubted she'd be the next Arketta. Too sure of herself, and the righteous might of her people. And Angel...well, he wasn't Davis.
The explosion probably wouldn't warrant bold and italics were it in the middle of combat, but its suddenness makes it all the louder. Angel and Cowboy recognize it as one of their claymores, and since it wasn't manually detonated (that they know of) it'd have to be one of the marker mines with the orange paint. The boom came from the west side of camp, out past the foxholes, in the jungle along one of the routes they deemed an obvious route to the camp.
Hugh looks around camp quickly. Kang should be patrolling out there with a handful of wherren. Almost in answer to Hugh's thoughts, the specialist radios in. *Something tripped a claymore and it's just about on us; we're moving to intercept.*
Time to give those foxholes a spin, Hugh thinks, and gets on the radio circuit.
"Lockdown lockdown lockdown. All teams, secure prisoners and move to defensive positions."
He grabs his Tenner and moves outside, angling to lead the defense from the front. He'd be more careful - but the babysitting is starting to get to him.
Davis is sitting on a rock in the dome, watching and listening to the prisoners when the mine goes off in the forest. Instantly, he's on his feet and makes eye contact with the other guards in the room. He climbs up onto the rock and addresses the dome. "Okay everyone, let's just stay cool. Everyone take a seat and stay seated, this should be over soon. Hale, Shenest, can you keep everyone calm?"
Zaef hears the explosion on his way to the makeshift shooting range, and immediately heads towards the holes that currently serve as defensive positions. "Practice is good, but there's no really substitute for experience,"Zaef mutters darkly. "After all, targets on the range don't scream when you hit them."
In the dome, the wherren are picking up on some hitherto-unfamiliar body language among the prisoners. The Imperials are antsy, trading surreptitious looks, and that in turn is making the wherren antsy. Hale is the first to respond to Davis' comment. He stands up - and two of his Turai stand up with him by reflex. He holds his hands out in supplication and says, "Davis is right. Everyone just calm down. That was one explosion. It could have just been a marmalope or a wherren who wasn't paying attention."
The prisoners do seem to heed the Rav-Turai and relax a little bit, although the atmosphere remains tense.
---
Outside, boots squelch in muddy foxholes as the Delta team scans the west treeline for signs of enemy contact. Hugh sees a flash of orange deep in the jungle for a moment, then it's gone. Kang shouts over the radio:
*Contact! One tango, he got by us! Stop! Oh, for fuck's sake-* Kang realizes he's shouting "Stop!" in English, and switches to wherren barks. Kang's patrol is yelling along with him when their shouts at the intruder turn to cries of surprise.
*Multiple tangos!* Several Tenner whaps and a SCAR burst rattle the treetops and lead into what sounds like a vicious melee. Just then, everyone outside sees the orange blur again, and to quote South Park, it's coming right for you. A blaze orange wherren stumbles out of the trees in a drunken half-sprint. He's armed with a short stabbing spear, has a (now very orange) wrap or tie around his arm, another (still orange) wrap around his head, and he's screaming, possibly in terror. The orange paint all over him makes his adaptive fur useless for conveying emotion or demeanor, but if you had to guess, the orange guy's running scared, not charging into your guns.
---
The gunfire sparks even more tension inside the dome. For a split-second, it looks like shit is about to get real. Hoei, the younger Keeper, is almost quivering with anticipation, and the three wherren who have taken it upon themselves to watch him very carefully are showing a few "challenge" tell-tales to their fur. The gunfire subsides quickly, which helps a little, but it is clear that some prisoners are prepared to take whatever ill-advised chance they can get, with or without their leaders' blessings.
"Need a status report out there guys, it's getting kinda restless in here," Davis says over the radio as he walks over to Hoei. "Hey, Hoei, right?" Davis smiles, and crouches down next to where he's sitting. "I remember you from the night we came here, you were the guy with the arsenal up his sleeves. Let's just keep it cool, okay? If this really is the big attack, there'll be plenty of time for us to talk about what we're going to do. I haven't lied yet, right? We will talk. Until then, we should keep it cool. Right, Hale? Shenest?" He looks over at the two Imperials, and then to Luis. "You've been working with Luis on the research, right? Luis, what do you think?"
"I know nothing's going to happen in here, at least nothing we're starting. You know me, you've worked with me. I'm a medic for God's sake! I'm not going to let anyone here get hurt if it can be avoided. If there's any way to think out of this without that, I want to find it if I can."
"Cease fire! Cease fire!" Hugh shouts into the radio, and turns to the team of Wherren huddling next to him.
Tackle him, don't kill him!
Dumb fuck.
Cowboy echoes Hugh's orders.
"Cease fire! Cease fire!", barks the Texan as he gets out of the foxhole, taking the opportunity to watch for a possible flanking maneuver due to the furry orange distraction.
Four wherren take off after the orange newcomer and reach him about 20 meters from Zaef's foxhole. The orange guy slips the first wherren's grab, then a second alien checks him from the flank. Both wherren go down, and Hugh's henchman manages to climb on top and hold Chester the Cheeto down. He doesn't put up a fight after that. Instead, it looks like he used the last of his energy in his sprint out of the jungle. He's easily disarmed of his only weapon (a flint-tipped spear) and wherrenhandled back behind the foxholes' arcs of fire.
Cowboy catches another glimpse of movement in the treeline a little north of where the first intruder breached the clearing and notes that it's right in one of the places Angel set up Claymores to cover. If needed, a few clacks on the detonator could erase that section of jungle.
Of course, there's also the paint mines. A second marker claymore detonates close to the clearing. From the foxholes, it looks like someone blew up a bunch of deer hunting apparel. Blaze orange specks and splatters cover the underbrush, and a second stunned (and almost as orange) wherren stumbles into the clearing.
"Holy feces," the wherren barks in confusion. He realizes where he is and turns to run back into the jungle. "Go back! Run!" he shouts at the forest. Luckily, such basic commands don't need sign or color.
---
Hoei glares back at Davis. "Our friends are out there, and they are coming for us. I'm... just excited to be rescued." It's pretty clear that Hoei is excited to help that rescue (at least what he considers helping).
"They're coming, all right!" shouts one of the orbital refugees whose name neither Davis nor Luis can really remember. N-something? The wild-eyed prisoner expounds his diatribe: "They're gonna kill all of us! I can't - I won't wait here like I'm on some scrofa farm!"
Hugh watches the painted and overwhelmed Wherren get wrestled to the ground and shakes his head. He's definitely feeling a little sorry for the guy, being so vastly out of his depth. He gets back onto the radio.
"Patrol team, don't pursue - return to base. All teams, we've got a handful of Wherren with spears and no plan on the perimeter. Stay alert but don't shoot to kill if you can help it."
The second orange wherren dashes back into the orange-spattered jungle, and as he turns his back, you make out scuffed and faded white Chosen markings. Then the native's gone.
There is no response from Kang's patrol.
Meanwhile, Chester the Cheeto has stopped wheezing and has contented himself with laying in the grass on his back, sucking in great gulps of air.
Admiral Duck Sauce
