Xeno Core

When the escort from the Grand Matron arrives it becomes apparent that she doesn't mess around.

The sleek luxury shuttle and two gleaming fighter craft take up nearly all the room in the small hangar, mere ubits away from each other or the walls. The fighters are identified by my files as mark V Darts. I oversaw the computer guidance that brought them all in.

The Ship-Father made the right call sending off our shuttle so quickly. Long experience with the local powers will teach you the tricks you need to stay afloat, this is true no matter the species. Jim Tollek is obviously quite familiar with the Grand Matron.

The pilot of the planetary shuttle is the only one to exit her ship. They must not be planning on being aboard for very long. She's met in the hangar by a crew member and escorted to the small recreation lounge to wait for Hestrun to finish dressing for supper.

Soon enough they're all loaded into the ships sent from the surface and launch with little fuss and no ceremony.

The ship feels strangely empty with so many of the officers gone, and a somber mood fills the remaining crew.

Yosip Peal sits in the command chair, nervous and trying hard not to let it show.

"We're on our own till Ji-, uh, the Ship-Father gets back, so let's see how much we can get done before then. We could all use a little polish on our quarterly reviews, and this is the chance to earn it," he tells the crew scattered around him at the workstations. "We know the Ship-Father was interested in that new core, so we can take this opportunity to temporarily uninstall it, um I mean him, sorry Mos. And get a few good scans before reinstalling."

He stands up and turns to face the command chair while he's speaking, smoothing down the yellow tunic of his uniform to calm himself.

"That shouldn't be a problem, but I don't know how fragile I am or not, so do be careful, Yosip." It isn't like there's anything I could honestly do to stop him, but a cooperative crew mate is thought better of than a troublesome alien rock. "I've set a few systems to run automatically while you preform your scans, so proceed whenever you're ready."

Yosip slides open the panel and disconnects me from the Selberclaw, and my perceptions shrink to only ubits around myself. Carrying me securely in the grip of his synthetic arm he walks down the corridors to the engineering lab.

It seems so much bigger now, compared to when the lab was but a small portion of myself. Now it's large enough I cannot detect the far end.

The walls are covered in shelves containing samples and reference texts. Assorted equipment stands in the center of the room, and two dedicated scientists have adjoining offices where more specialized equipment is kept.

A blue ceramic plaque is set above each of the offices, one bears the name Soril Nomez and Terla Parc is engraved upon the other.

Yosip places me on a metal tray which he slides into the open compartment of a spectroscope of some kind. Energies bombard me, bouncing off in slightly altered angles to be read by the device. At least, that's the intended goal. As the charged particles come near my form they stop, waiting to be directed. Lacking any true dexterity, I am able to flail about, somehow, and redirect them. There is no artistry to my attempts, but victory need not be pretty.

"That's odd," one of the two scientists states, looking over the readings displayed on the side of the machine. "Come take a look at this, Soril," she says in a perplexed tone.

The other scientist walks over and looks for himself, laughing quietly when he sees the results of the scan.

"That isn't what we expected, you're right. Let's try it through the magnetic induction array and see if these results are repeated."

They take me out and a different test is performed. Magnetic fields envelope the area between the three iron plated towers I've been placed between, but are repelled fractions of a bit away from touching the surface of even the nodular protrusions on my nearly spherical shape.

"Again. No penetration is occurring. What do you think?" The engineer, Terla, asks her partner, while Yosip stands on and supervises.

Soril changes a setting on the device and it hums louder as the energy flowing through it surges, strengthening the magnetic fields. Yet despite the efforts of the fast-overheating machine the fields come no closer to my core. These are the same particles, merely expressed differently. These too are driven before my will, though it embarrasses me to admit the disharmony produced was not entirely planned.

"We'll need to try something stronger, I think," Soril decides from where he's watching the visual representation of what is going on between the three towers. "Turn it off, and we can put it in the X-ray next. I'm up to date on my rad pills. Yosip? Terla? Either of you need to leave the room before we turn it on?"

Both answer in the negative and I'm moved to yet another machine. The walls of this device are made of thick plates of lead, an odd choice, but it must not receive much rough handling. An opening at the front of the device is pointed at me while the three performing the scan all move to the other side of it, before a heavy curtain is drawn to separate us.

A sharp click accompanies a brief flash of fierce energy, that washes past me and leaves a shadow burnt into a special sheet of film suspended at the end of the path of the ray. The parchment is changed and the click precedes a short but powerful eruption. Several sheets are used this way before the team is satisfied.

After putting the machine away I'm placed on Terla's desk while the three discuss the odd burns on the sheets.

"We ran it nine times! Nine! And none of them show the results we should see," she complains excitedly. "If we could understand how it's repelling everything we throw at it, I don't even know what we could accomplish."

Soril chuckles while Yosip paces the small office shaking his head.

"There should have been some scattering, we expected that. But not redirection of the particle stream. It's just too clean," Soril delivers with a smile. "There's so much more to learn about the interactions that are going on here!"

I would disagree with his assessment. Clearly his lack of ocular ability extends even to the reading of digital displays; there is an easily seen disturbance pattern at the edge of the disrupted area. Several millionths of a bit, not enough to detect with the bare eyes, primary or no, but the device is programmed to display such variance if merely tuned appropriately.

"Just take pictures of the cursed thing, already. I need to get it back in the command chair. Bella said the computer is acting stupid again. Spat noodles out of the fabricator in the cargo dock but with high temperature lubricant instead of the torinina sauce. Not that that's any use to a burnt-out capacitor needing fresh conductive strips."

Set to automatically make mistakes is still set to automatic. It might be sabotage, but it was necessary. If they think they can just unplug me as the whim strikes them, they must be disabused of that notion. I'm not petty, I'm prudent. Always prepare a plan for when you can't be in control.

That reminds me, I wonder if Bruen managed to survive. Knowing my luck, he's probably long dead and my ungrateful spawn are still dueling over the rights to my hard-earned wealth. If I have any influence left, they'll get nothing. I started at the bottom and was rewarded due to my abilities as a warrior and a leader. That and being too stubborn to die. Adversity gives you opportunity to grow. Let them grow strong on their own or die trying, I won't be guilty of the failure of coddling them.

"If it even shows up on photograph. It's redirected or scattered everything else we've thrown at it," jokes Soril. "Maybe it really is haunted by an alien spirit."

I'm possessing the core, not haunting it.

Yosip snaps back, "I don't care if it works or not. If it doesn't, we'll take charcoal rubbings of the artifact. We have to have something to show Jim besides failed tests."

For once one of their predictions is accurate, as I do not allow myself to be photographed. Redirecting the light waves is simple enough, after all the practice they've just given me.

Yosip almost seems vindictive as he scrapes the charcoal across the thin parchment he had ordered Terla to wrap me in. Poor Soril is in his office coming up with nonsensical mathematical models trying to describe what happened. Terla has been muttering to herself, lost in her own internal world.

I'll have to remember to check in on these two later. Hopefully they will calm down again once they've had a chance to reflect on their findings.