Wavering Hunter
In her own private room, Kori took a deep breath in preparation for what she was herself about to do. None of this was going to sit especially well with her, but it needed to be done regardless.
“Hello?” “Hey Nick.” “Oh! Kori, thanks for calling, I…” “I’m not calling to speak with you, please don’t make this any more difficult than it already is. The matter is strictly professional. I know you’ve been cruising around with a certain high ranking executive recently, and I’m hoping she’s still there with you.” “Oh, yeah.. I’ve still got Aerospace Command pressing upon me at every working hour. She’s aboard here too, in the private room like most customers.” “Great, then please let her know that I’ve got a message from a colleague of hers. The matter is of important business, so I will need to speak with her privately right away.” “Alright then, please hold.” Nick was more than a little disgruntled at Kori’s seriousness, his hopes shattered by the persistence of reality. Velvet quickly fell for the same feint, herself in high hopes that Kori was actually calling about a sudden change of heart.. but Kori wasn’t calling to give up there either. Instead, after Velvet had settled down in the private comfort of the shuttle’s passenger room, Kori fulfilled Mheridz’s request by repeating the same truth behind their unexpected advantage, brought about.. thanks to true chaos. After that, Kori also presented Mheridz’s predictions about the impact such would present, even if there were a few ideas Kori has still been disputing.
“Well, I guess that’s why everything had been screwing up. In honesty I had noticed the whole shady arm deal, but Rosa had made plenty of excuses about it.. so I had dismissed the idea. I guess that was foolish, considering things went strange starting there and the whole shady arm deal never stopped being shady. Mari is right though, we now have no idea when they will attack next. Having not had a confrontation in a while, it’s pretty obvious the next rush will be intense. We’ve only ever been seeing scouting parties in this timeline, nothing half as major as the nightmares from my timeline.” “That’s not all, but we’re suspecting that both planets may already be under attack.. at least the other side. Our enemy may have taken to a stealth advantage so that they could harness a better position. I’m wondering if our world here is being just as indirectly assaulted.” “Wait, stealth? They.. they’ve never done stealth. Sheer power had been more than enough.. maybe some tactical use of it.. but.. everything was always an obvious in-your-face problem.” “Your timeline did not have chaotic weapons designed to target chaos.” “Mari is right about that too. Not knowing about such a serious distinction.. could have.. all sorts of trouble.” Velvet sounded very flustered, a tone Kori recognized from the girl’s mother as signs of panic.
“Calm down, there’s no point in worrying about what has happened, we should instead focus upon where this leaves us.” “Says the woman who can outright go back in time and change things for us. Why exactly are you so hesitant in doing so, anyway? Being able to go through time could only ever be a good thing.” “Says the woman who wants to go back to ensure I never learn to control time. Slowing and stopping time is much more reasonable, but I’m still convinced that there remains an incredible responsibility in manipulating timelines. At one point, the whole timeline ordeal is certain to come back to bite us eventually, I would rather mitigate those sorts of problems. Think of it this way, how would you feel if I let you go back in time to fix things.. and then went back in time to make sure that didn’t happen.” “Wait, did you do that already?” “No, I haven’t, but it’s already bothering you. There is so much to worry about when it comes to timelines.. so I would rather work with variables I’ve adjusted to than go back and lose track of where I’m going.” Kori had an assuming air to her in this statement, a clear recognition of her own responsibility and power, leaving even Velvet uncertain in a suitable retort.
“Let’s think about it, you’ve even lost track of your sworn enemy because things have changed too much. Considering that, instead of letting more stuff change for us, let’s just figure out what we have right now. Knowing that the enemy may have adopted a more stealth approach, what could you assume would be a viable direction of concern?” “Yeah.. the problem is still trying to figure out how they would even hide. Aerospace has eyes all over the place, and the singularities DMA generates stand out like a sore thumb. They wouldn’t not do so, because their goal is to simply do that more, it’s their fundamental design. Even the idea of stealth would involve trying to find a way to stealthily create more singularities. Things would be failing all over the place if they were just hiding among us, which in turn would have raised countless alarms.” “What about a timebomb approach, then? Preparing singularities that were self contained, but ready to go off at a later time. You said they have numbers, and it would be far more in their advantage to have more distributed problems in a greater area than to have one significant problem in a single area.” “How? That would require a chain-reaction approach, DMAs themselves aren’t exactly prone to making their anomalies self-sufficient.” Kori was starting to get frustrated at how much Velvet was just complaining and not actually being constructive. The woman wasn’t even interested in trying, not so far, leaving Kori feeling like she was just wasting her time.
“If you can figure anything out, that would be really helpful. Otherwise, I’m going to go and do some research on my own. Much like with Mheridz, I’m certain you could contact us at any time if you ever felt the need to do so.” “But how would…” “The first step would be to calm down, and the second would be to actually look. You learned something new, something that probably hasn’t happened since you showed up on our timeline. Go use your new knowledge and see if anything can cause it to make sense. Your mother would have also been really creative, go see if you could make any use of that creativity for yourself.” Kori then abruptly ended the call, not even wanting to hear Velvet’s next retort. To think the woman was supposedly older and wiser than either of them were, Velvet was honestly falling behind in areas even Rosa had grown to excel in. The woman was even a person of responsibility, actually seated in aerospace command, to think…
Kori then realized what she had done. She had just snapped at a high ranking human with a very established position of authority, one she was completely undermining. This wasn’t just irregular for her, this was irregular for any conduit. Maybe then her comparisons weren’t exactly fair, Rosa and herself had actually reached heights few could have ever achieved. However, she had still done the right thing, there was no way Velvet would learn from this experience if no efforts were made in that process. This was something she would herself have to come to terms with too, given the path of her own future. Being a teacher was going to involve investing in the learning experience of countless others, people with far more holding them back. Such was due to become something of a lesson in others she would also have to come to terms with.
“Great, you’re done whatever it was you were doing. Holi told me to wait. We’ve already discovered something useful, Ruixse’s concerns were spot on. Somehow, chaos has been draining this world dry by slowing everything down at a molecular level, actually taking away molecular energy. The effect is so widespread that we can’t even pinpoint a direction or anything, the world is just gradually freezing more and more.” “Really? How?” “No idea, like I said, there are no traces of the cause, only the effect. Except for areas with devices compensating for the change, pretty much everywhere is colder than it should be.” “Except any civilized area has something compensating for the cold.” “Yeah, that’s why people haven’t noticed yet. Hypertech’s engine however is having trouble adjusting, so this has actually been causing unexplained problems for Tristine. In reality, not only is the engine having problems running with all the cold, but it also needs to run harder to protect us from the cold. Holi and I have been working to try and pinpoint any cause, but neither of us are getting anywhere. Drew didn’t have anything either. We were hoping you would have something, or at least have learned something from what you were doing.” Rosa had been keeping busy, not wanting to just stay idle while waiting for Kori. However, in the process, she hadn’t discovered anything new. She still carried with her a bunch of reports she had been putting together after having done most of such work in the planning room, fibre sheets being a prominent thing for trying to organize a compiled view of ideas for her with everything she could put together. It was fortunate that such sheets were completely reusable, otherwise she would have felt guilty for having wasted them.
Kori at least noticed all the effort and started looking over the notes for herself. She was far more used to tracking things either in her head or virtually on a holo, so she wasn’t very used to depending on the notes of others. Overall, the whole thing was a giant mess, quite similar to how all the written records Jhez had been working with were just a physical clutter. Both threatened to grow in an unorganized sprawl, taking the trees they would have come from and forging a wild growth as spontaneous as the forests of their origin. Actually, reflecting on that scene triggered a memory for her, something she couldn’t quite place. She set the idea partly aside as she followed the records out into the yard, gazing out at the starless night sky. It certainly looked cold, but not visibly colder. It didn’t even look visibly like there was much of a source to such a cold either. The shimmer of the barrier probably didn’t help, such light and energy was why the night sky looked like it was devoid of stars. They were still there, but unseen. The energy around them was making it too difficult to spot what might be denying it’s presence. While searching though, she found herself suddenly the recipient of an unexpected holo call.
“Kori, right? Glad that worked.” “Hello again, Velvet. Have you uncovered anything?” “Possibly. You know how I’ve always had an interest in thermite, right? Actually.. that would be more the future you, but yeah. Anyway, I went to get a big picture, taking data from ATALS.. and it seems something has been leaking away our energy.” “Well, I already knew that. I’m sorry, we’ve had a couple of power failures here, Holi sort of got us some backup power to…” “I didn’t say our reserves were dry, I mean production is down. No one ever checks that sort of thing, because thermite plants generate some of the most incredible quantities of energy, no one would particularly be concerned about it. Even if our own was low, other relays could supplement the loss, making it a very stable system. Every relay is even connected, I can totally see how production is going across the board if I really wanted. Every single relay is producing less than normal, down at least ten percent.” Velvet clearly had accomplished something, Kori was rather impressed with Velvet’s work. This even tied into the work Rosa had been working on too, the both of them discovering a widespread power drain. Rosa knew it was caused by the cold, but this.. Velvet was saying that the reason why it was so hard to pinpoint an origin was because the entire planet was being affected.
“So.. what would cause that?” “A cause? For all of them? I highly doubt the thermite core was damaged or influenced, that wouldn’t have such a widespread even result. However, that’s also the main source that causes the entire thermite reaction in the first place.” “Energy can’t be created, only converted.. at least according to our principles. Where does that energy come from? Is it something originally drawn from underground?” “What? No. Thermite is especially vulnerable to ultraviolet radiation, making it very reactive. We just need to tap into the solar winds to get the jumpstart we need.” “Wait, it’s solar powered?” “Well, no.. not completely. More of a solar radioactive reaction, though solar heat does give that spark. Thermite is basically condensed heat gathered during the diatal solar season, because we then live in an inferno. Trapping the heat somewhere makes it easier to keep cool. Then we just need to make use of all of that energy during the noctal solar season. However, trapping it still means we need to expend energy to have it released, otherwise it just stays inert.” Kori was starting to see how some things were adding up, Velvet was actually being very helpful right then. Supposedly, coming from a time where thermal energy would have been very handy to attempt to weaponize, the girl knew her stuff.
“So.. what would happen if the solar winds were directly being drained?” “The heck? Messing with suns? I mean, I heard that DMAs on the other side managed to wipe out a star back in the day, but that required most of the place being wrought dry before it could even be achieved. Even then, it was just a small star like Proma, the Proma they used to have. To have any impact at all right now, they would have to mess with Kenta.. which is rather incredibly unreasonable. If the DMA were already strong enough to take that star, the entire Centri System would already be lost.” “Then.. what would happen if they simply intercepted that energy on route?” “You mean.. if they had any orbital presence? They would still need a foundation to work from, even scattering anomalies to the solar winds would need a nest.. and they aren’t exactly good at creating stable foundations.” “… but solar winds aren’t exactly the most energy-intensive process, far easier to tap into than the raging might of Kenta itself. We’ve even noticed things are getting colder, and losing some of the solar winds could explain that. We get heat from Kenta, it’s the only furnace we have during noctal, even if the heat barely counts as a candle in comparison to the flame of…” Kori froze, mid statement, even causing Velvet to worry for a moment in the sudden silence of revelation.
Kori set the messy stack of papers she still carried aside, the clutter completely in her way right now. The clutter of paper, a forest of information that missed the value of the trees it came from. Instead she looked upon the night sky that itself too missed the stars they remained blind to. Beyond the night would be the candle of kenta that waited to provide its flame that missed their world. For between Aestus and Kenta lay the dual orbits of Aluna and Zwena, the unassuming moons of the world. ‘Don’t miss the forest for its trees, don’t miss the candle for its flame, don’t miss the night for its stars’.. the randomness of that message suddenly came back to haunt her.. and its meaning.. so eerily fitting right now. For not only were Aluna and Zwena prominent outposts from which to besiege the world’s supply of heat from the three suns, the same outposts were parallel to places apparently also of value to Ruixse. Mheridz had only just told her that the foundry made great use of their two candle moons for backup elementals while such was naturally scarce, a place which provided a proximity ambience to the planet by sharing its own reserves. On both sides, the moons were a significant resource for exactly the sort of thing chaos hated.. and neither side really put much consideration into occupying such vital grounds. It would be the perfect place to hide.. because no one was watching.
“Velvet, stay on the call will you. Feel free to listen at least. Holi, come over here, I need you for a bit.” “I’m here, what do you need?” “I need to do thermal tracing of our lunar orbits. Can you hack into an orbital installation and acquire that information?” “I could, but I fail to see how that would measure anything. You do know that space is really really cold, right?” “Yes, but if I’m right.. you won’t get any thermal data back at all. The signal will be intercepted and drained, leaving the place to more resemble a black hole in thermal composition than an actual physical body.” “That wouldn’t.. uh. It appears you are correct. I found an orbital center that has been doing thermal mapping for a month now, but hasn’t been able to identify the presence of the moon at all. By my calculations, it should be fully capable of a thermal trace of the moon right now, but the signal appears instead to be fading into deep space.” Kori nodded, her theory having been itself proven by Holi’s report. This explained everything.
“Wait, so.. the moon? Both moons, possibly, it really wouldn’t matter much.” “Chaos likes to spread equally, and Izheelq provides much more promise than Hyxeelq would during our noctal. That makes Aluna a more viable outpost than Zwena, but they could rightfully have both.” “Kori, you do know this is ridiculous, right. The moons aren’t just some tiny rock in space, they make this colony look tiny. How exactly do you expect to cover the entire thing.. two of the entire things? Actually, that’s not everything either, you’ve even got a second set of the same problem.” “They have so much ground because we’ve just let them take it. We did predict they would be waiting in no small numbers, right?” “Four bloody moons, four… This is outright insane, there is no way you could deal with all of that.” “Not on my own, no. But I’m hardly the only one trying to keep my home safe. I seem to recall that your entire reason for existence right now is to worry about the same thing. So.. I’m not really alone, am I?” “The timeline solution is a billion times easier than this, I hope you realize that.” “I still like having solutions where I can count on more people, it feels far less selfish that way. Anyway, I’ve got things to organize on my side, I trust I will be seeing you next on the moon.” “… I’ll make sure Command gets the update. Take care of yourself, please. Tell Rosa to do the same.” “You too.” The two waited a moment before ending the call, Velvet audibly sounding overwhelmed.. though Kori couldn’t assume to be the beacon of confidence either. This really was pretty insane, a horrible mistake for not having dealt with things sooner.
“So I take it that we’re going to want Drew to learn about this right away?” “If you will. However, Rosa and I are going to be leaving immediately, we need to get things going on the other side too. Where is she, anyway?” “She’s currently checking on Tristine in case the girl has any new information. I suspect though that such won’t be required at all. I can let her know that she should return promptly?” “Yes, please, and make sure she is also updated. That will save a lot of time. I’m going to go get our combat gear ready, we will need to make sure we have it on hand before we set off on the other side. I’m going to then need to leave you to get the ball rolling here. Drew will be important to the process, this is his business after all. He would even have to make the call on how much he wants to devote to the cause, considering we’re mostly a defensive outpost.. and no one here is a fighter. You however.. you I might need up there. Try to keep a presence with Velvet, I’ll be reaching out to her to get everything in order.” “I’m already on my way with that as well. Best of luck on your side, Kori.” “Best of luck to us all.” Holi then promptly vanished towards her growing list of responsibilities, leaving Kori to her own devices. Fighting on the moon, now that was going to be a new one, she would have to make sure she had everything she needed to be ready. Rosa would fortunately be there to help as well.
Once the two of them felt confident in their preparations for a parallel lunar conflict on this side, the two began their shift to the other side. The night was still fresh, but it seems Ruixse would need to be available for another long night.
Luminaeris 