Ti was of the essence. Ves imdiately entered the comm center and sent a priority ssage to the ch Corps through the hardline connection that ran from the Whalers.
His ssage passed on to the Blood Claws, who didn’t dare to delay its transmission in any way given the import of the claims that Ves had made.
Just a couple of minutes later, Ves received a receipt from the base commander herself. He had to sit tight and wait for transport. They wanted to bring him over to verify his invention with their own eyes.
Since this might be the last ti he’d stick with the Whalers, Ves quickly sought out Walter and filled him in about his breakthrough.
"You really did it? That’s great news!" Walter laughed and embraced the ch designer in a aty hug. "We won’t get to blow up anymore!"
Ves didn’t have the heart to hide the designs for the undercharged energy cells from Walter. He passed the gang leader a secure data chip that contained all of the technical specifications.
"You can hand that over to any decent ch technician. They’re easy to fabricate but it will take so ti before you’re able to replace all of your existing cells."
At least they solved this pervasive problem. Ves also granted the Whalers an opportunity to butter up to the Blood Claws by presenting the designs to them a little early. The sooner everyone replaced their energy cells, the safer everyone would be.
Ves and Walter quickly discussed so logistical matters. The Whalers dearly lacked so technical expertise, but this ti Walter actually listened to the critique.
"I’ve been thinking about that as well. Our chs fared worse than the others in the pirate base assault. We’ve got a lot of shaping up to do. If I hand over your invention to the Blood Claws, I can probably get them to lend us so of their senior technicians. Heavens know we need soone who can take over what you’ve done for us so far."
They parted with each other on amicable terms. Ves quickly packed his ager luggage and sought out Lucky who’d been digging for exotics near the mines. His gluttonous cat must have eaten tons of the stuff already, but he hadn’t gained any weight at all.
"You must be chock full of energy right now." Ves grasped hold of his silvery chanical cat. "We might be moving to the red zone soon. Don’t run around randomly, okay? There’s a whole bunch of military n running around there so you might be spooking them if you’re trespassing into a restricted area."
"ow!"
His cat appeared to look forward to entering the red zone. As for tripping alarms and alerting the guards, Lucky didn’t seem to be worried about that. He only had more exotics in mind.
Fadah and the rest of the Whalers who raided the pirate base hadn’t returned yet, so Ves couldn’t say goodbye to the inheritor of his Blackbeak in person. Ves composed a quick ssage and addressed it to Fadah’s comm, which would receive it as soon as it returned to the local network.
The only complication that remained was that Ves had to leave lkor and his Stanislaw behind.
"It’s fine, Ves." lkor replied as he leaned against the foot of his ch. "The ch Corps and I aren’t exactly buddies since they cashiered . It’s best I stay away from their premises in order to avoid any misunderstandings. I’ll stick with the Whalers and try to help out Raella whenever possible."
Ves felt reassured that lkor didn’t bla him for bailing out. "That sounds good. Don’t forget the contingency plans. I strongly suspect this base won’t hold against a determined attack. More and more pirates are descending upon the Glowing Planet. It’s going to get awfully crowded soon."
They both heard the news that trickled down from the Blood Claws. Tens of thousands of ships had appeared in the Glowing Zone. Most of them didn’t seem to acknowledge any authority except for their own. Even Ves could tell that the ch Corps had no way of holding back the sheer number of pirates on their way to the Glowing Planet.
They said their goodbyes before Ves left for the landing on the surface in his hazard suit. He only had to wait a couple of minutes before an armored shuttle escorted by a couple of aerial chs descended on the pad. A uniford officer appeared from the hatch.
"Mr. Larkinson, please step inside. Do you have the samples?"
"They’re over there." Ves pointed at the bots holding the pair of energy cells that fared best in his previous test. "I’ve already drained their charge, but it’s best to handle them with care."
The shuttle sent out their own set of bots who grabbed hold of the samples with extre care. They carefully placed the cells into purpose-built boxes before closing them up with an abundance of locks.
Once Ves and Lucky stepped inside and the boxes had been stowed away into the shuttle’s cargo compartnt, the shuttle lifted off.
Neither the officer nor the guards appeared talkative, so Ves remained in his seat and stroked his apprehensive gem cat. Lucky must be feeling apprehensive at being stuck inside a shuttle full of ard guards and counterasures. It beca clear to Ves that the ch Corps treated his invention with utmost importance.
It didn’t take too long for the shuttle to arrive at the center of the sprawling fortification in the middle of the red zone. The closer they got to the center, the more Ves beco more uncomfortable.
"Over thirteen energy fields are being projected from the red zone." The officer comnted when he noticed Ves having trouble keeping himself together. "As far as we’re aware of, they have minimal effects on human physiology, but it will take so ti to get used to them. The side effects will fade within a day."
Sohow, Ves didn’t think the regular rules applied to him. His main source of discomfort ca from his recently-diminished internal energy cycle. For so reason, sothing underground exerted an attraction on the energy. Like a magnet pulling tals from their place, Ves found that the unknown attraction field attempted to pull his internal energy away from his chest.
It hurt quite a lot.
He groaned a bit and tried to flex his body to cope with the changes. His energy cycle had beco deford, and it took quite a bit of effort for his body to get used to the new configuration.
"I’m okay." Ves waved away the officer when he approached to lend a hand. "I’m not a baseline human. My enhancents are going a little haywire from the energy fields."
"You should visit the dbay."
"It’s okay. Let’s get my eting with the base commander out of the way first. I don’t think she’s patient enough to wait for to recover."
An entire squad of ard guards took away the boxes that contained the undercharged energy cells. anwhile Ves received his own honor guard who firmly but briskly led him down to the underground city the ch Corps had dug up with their advanced mining equipnt.
The base was a veritable hive of activity. The ch Corps constantly shifted n and chs back and forth. Even though the overcharge phenonon had turned every ch into a deathtrap, their pilots hadn’t been deterred from doing their duty at all. Ves missed this sense of professionalism. The Whalers looked like toddlers in comparison.
The officer led Ves straight through a series of elevators before leading him to a command center which coordinated the Republic’s presence on the Glowing Planet. Ves only got a tiny glimpse of the projection with the disposition of every force before they reached a guarded checkpoint before the office of the base commander.
Once Ves got scanned yet again, he was allowed entry, though he had to leave Lucky behind again.
"Rember, don’t crawl off, Lucky. Stay."
After he made sure that Lucky understood the import of staying in place, Ves walked through the hatch and took a seat in front of a simple alloy desk.
The base commander appeared to be a typical veteran from the ch Corps. The woman looked hard and she didn’t bother to apply any costic procedures to work away the wrinkles she gained from reaching middle age. Her short black hair had been bound up in a ball, thereby exposing Ves to the base commander’s piercing eyes.
"Mr. Larkinson. It’s not every day I see one out of uniform. It’s a pleasure to et you."
"Likewise, Colonel Ilos."
"When I heard you developed a special set of energy cells that claim to mitigate the overcharge phenonon, I couldn’t believe how fast you ca up with them. The full weight of the ch Corps has bent around the problem for weeks. We’ve put entire research teams on the issue and we’ve even contracted half-a-dozen different energy cell developers to present us with a better solution. You cannot imagine the amount of resources we’ve devoted to coming up with a solution."
Ves was very surprised to hear how much effort the ch Corps put into their own research. "Has it paid off, then? Did you already develop a better solution?"
"Not... exactly." The Colonel admitted freely. "Efficiency has been low due to the relative lack of expertise among our own research teams. As for the developers, they’re constrained by the fact that they have only heard about the problem second-hand. They claim that the overcharge phenonon is such an impossible occurrence that they’re having difficulty figuring out a direction for a viable solution."
It sounded like the energy cell developers might have other concerns in mind. Perhaps they planned on dragging their feet, thereby extracting more concessions from the ch Corps.
Maybe they even signed a secret agreent with so other faction like the Vesia Kingdom’s ch Legion.
Ves was curious about the progress they had made so far. "What’s the best solution your researchers have co up with?"
Colonel Ilos handed him a data pad that contained a classified docunt of a different energy cell design. Unlike the design ford by Ves, this one adopted the sa conventional structure for the energy storage portion. The only difference was that the various conductors consisted of newly developed alloys ford out of exotics extracted from the ground.
"As you can see, our researchers suspect that one or more of the exotics underneath the red zone is responsible for the overcharge energy field. By incorporating these suspect exotics into our energy cells, they believe that they can block or interfere with this energy field."
"Looks like your research teams are onto sothing. It’s pretty impressive to limit the overcharge to two-hundred percent of max capacity."
"That’s not as impressive as reducing it to a hundred-and-thirty percent. Even if your energy cell design is under capacity, at least my pilots won’t be having nightmares about piloting death traps anymore."
An energy cell that contained twice as much energy still risked being blown up. With the amount of charge such a cell normally stord, the explosive discharge would have definitely been powerful enough to set off any other energy cells in the vicinity. What the ch Corps had produced up to this point wouldn’t be sufficient to negate the problem.
Only Ves had accomplished the goal that every research team assigned to the problem had been trying to figure out. While he didn’t doubt that the energy cell developers would have co up with a similar solution, even a week’s delay could lead to another disaster on the battlefield.
The next wave of pirates and fortune seekers were about to descend on the increasingly crowded Glowing Planet. Battle could not be avoided any longer. The sooner the ch Corps switched their energy cells, the faster they regained their confidence.
"As you know, I didn’t present you with these energy cells for free." Ves laid out his intentions. "Can you grant a couple of favors?"
The colonel considered his request. "We can’t promise you anything, but I’ll do my best to satisfy your wishes."
So far, Colonel Ilos had been remarkably friendly to Ves. He chalked it up to offering up his energy cell design upfront without any delays. That action alone bought him a lot of good will.
Still, Ves sensed his family na helped a lot as well. So people in the ch Corps respected any Larkinson by their lineage alone, while others hated their family to the bones. Colonel Ilos probably fell into the forr group, which happened to be very convenient at this mont.
"You see, I have a couple of things in mind, ma’am."
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