Post by Lorpius Prime on Feb 7, 2011 2:30:51 GMT -5
"Reginald, do you think you could sneak in through the front from the roof?"
"No."
Molly looked over to her uncle, but he just shrugged. Reginald was the expert here; Archimedes certainly wasn't going to be able to get him inside. Not quietly, anyway, the archaeologist thought. He glanced over to Newt.
The Nav Drone had ditched the military officer's costume and was back to his unadorned, metallic self. Three delicately carved figurines—Mellurian prayer icons—were spinning inside the Drone's gravity field. The Mellurians had given them to Archimedes as a gift after he saved them from a passing herd of mildly intelligent but vampiric bovines. Archimedes didn't really like Newt playing with them—the Drone had already broken one or two—but at least they were preferable to some of the more dangerous artifacts stored on the ship.
"All right," Reginald's voice crackled over the radio, "I'm going to see if I can get in through the vents."
"Good luck," Molly told him.
"So what are you going to have him do when he can't access the computer?" Newt asked. It was never easy to tell, but Archimedes thought the Drone was talking to him. "You know, because you had me fry everything."
"I'm going to make you go down there and physically cut the thing free for us to take," Archimedes told him.
Newt spun around a few times, "That's the best idea I've heard all day!"
"With nothing but a spoon glued to your chassis."
The Drone sent one of the prayer icons arcing through the air towards Dr. Slawson. Archimedes caught it, but it was closer than he would've liked to admit.
"Some day, Doc, you're going to actually try to give me an order like that. The lesson in who's really in charge around here will be fun. For me, not for you."
"I'm pretty sure Molly's the one in charge around here," Archimedes jerked a thumb at his niece.
Newt tossed the other two prayer icons at Archimedes, then floated over to settle into Molly's lap with a metallic plink. "Sure," the Drone said, "but she won't mind when I dangle you beneath the ship for a few orbits. She wants her stifling, oppressive uncle to get his comeuppance just like I do."
Molly chuckled and brushed the Nav Drone with one hand like he was a furry pet. "You two play nice."
Archimedes sighed and shook his head.
After several minutes, Reginald's voice came back over the radio.
"Okay," he said, slightly winded, "I've managed to break my way through and climb down. I'm in a hallway between two rooms; one's full of rubble and has a pool of water in the middle. The other is very large, with a big stone block."
Archimedes sat up straighter on the couch. "You want the bigger one," he said. "Walk towards the big cube and tell us if some holograms appear."
A few seconds later, "All right, I'm touching the stone, but no holograms."
Archimedes frowned. Then Molly spoke up, "And uh, did anything try to shoot at you?"
"No…" Reggie's voice was slightly accusatory.
"Good," Archimedes told him. "I guess Newt's EMP worked. Go around the cube, there should be an entrance to another room on the far side."
A few more seconds. "I think I see it, but it's blocked. Covered by another large stone."
"Er, it doesn't slide up when you get close, then?"
"No."
"I guess Newt's EMP worked," Newt said in a falsetto which sounded nothing like Archimedes.
He ignored the Drone, "All right, Reginald. If you can't use those vents to crawl around, you're going to have to blast your way through. The doors are pretty thick and they go up a ways. Molly and I had to spend a good while clearing rubble after breaking one of them."
"Understood."
The next few minutes passed in silence. Eventually, Archimedes got up from the couch and foraged for some snack food. He was just sitting back down when Reginald's voice appeared again.
"All right," Archimedes' nephew said, "I'm ready. Any more alternative suggestions before I do this? The explosion will almost certainly alert the Spikers. Could make extraction difficult."
Archimedes waited for Newt to make his usual quip, but for once it didn't come. Molly shrugged her metal shoulders, "I can't think of anything."
"Sorry," Archimedes shook his own head.
"Acknowledged, I'm moving back to the previous chamber, this will make quite a blast."
And then Newt did say something. "Fuck!" it screeched.
"Gah!" Molly shouted as the little Drone rocketed up out of her lap.
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" Newt hollered. It barreled towards the lounge door, which barely whipped open in time to let the drone out into the hall before slamming shut again.
Both Molly and Archimedes stared stupidly at the door. "What the…" Molly trailed off.
"What happened?" Reginald asked.
"Nevermind," Archimedes stood up, brushing his snacks aside. "Molly, watch Reginald. I'll go see what's gotten into him."
"I hope he's all right," she said as Archimedes opened the door.
He jogged into the hall, wondering where the Drone might have gone, and why. Newt had always said it could control the ship from anywhere on board, or even several kilometers away. There was no control room, and maintenance was handled by a platoon of remotes. Whatever Newt's problem was, he shouldn't have needed to physically leave to handle it.
Except, of course, that the ancient Nav Drone seemed to have developed a rather eccentric personality after millennia.
Archimedes found it hovering in the middle of the hall, just a few meters away.
"Newt!" he called. "What happened?"
The Drone spun and zipped back down the hall to float just beneath Archimedes' chin.
"I'm calling this one, Doc," it said. Newt's tone was much flatter, more serious than usual. "We're finishing this now, and we're doing it my way."
"What? Why—"
"There's a Toleranderite warship in orbit. I don't know how it got there without me seeing, and I don't like that one bit."
"Warship?"
"Yeah, I'm calling it an Assault Carrier. It just dropped two armed shuttles. I'm already taking us down, ETA five minutes."
"Wait a—"
"No. We've got maybe ten minutes or less on those shuttles. I've already told Reginald, we're picking him up and bugging out."
Archimedes turned on his heel and ran back into the lounge, "Reginald!"
Molly turned around, and Archimedes could imagine the worry on her face.
"I've already heard, Uncle," Reginald said. "The explosives worked, but I guess I didn't need them."
"I guess not. Did you find the computer? Can you access it?"
"Trying now," came the reply. "…no. Nothing happens."
Archimedes slammed a fist into the back of the couch. He really wanted to know what was going on with that computer. His mind raced desperately.
"All right, can you find where it is? Break open the case and take it with you?"
A pause, "There's a lot of electronics down here."
Archimedes growled. "Newt!" he spun around.
But the Drone was already back in the lounge, floating just inside the door.
"Two minutes," it said. "Reginald, clear back out of that chamber. I'm going to blast the end off, let you right out the back.
"What about the computer?" Archimedes pleaded.
"What about the Spikers?" Molly cried.
"None of them are in range," Newt said to Molly first. Then it turned towards Archimedes. "What do you want me to do, Doc? I haven't actually got that spoon glued to my chassis."
Archimedes fumed, "Can't you do something?"
"Yes," the Drone said. "Firing laser batteries."
"I'm clear," Reginald's voice said.
The lounge got very quiet. Every time Newt fired the ship's laser cannons, Archimedes tried to hear the sound of outgoing destruction, and every time he was disappointed. There was no sound, no shudder of recoil, nothing.
Nothing from Archimedes' perspective, anyway.
"Firing again," Newt said.
"Is it work—" Molly started to ask.
"Yes," Newt told her. "Just making sure."
Silence again. Then the speakers crackled and Reginald's voice spoke up over a background of roaring noise.
"—to do that again. I thought the temple was going to collapse."
"Reginald!" Molly called. "Are you all right?"
"Yes…" he said, though Archimedes did think he sounded a little shaken. "It looks like half the forest is on fire out there."
"Newt!"
"He exaggerates," the Drone said. "And we need to go. Those shuttles are definitely coming this way."
"Can't you shoot them, too?" Archimedes demanded.
"Sure. Would you like me to bring them down right on top of the Spiker village?"
Molly glared, and Archimedes gritted his teeth. "I really don't think we should leave without finding out what we can about that computer," he tried to sound calm and reasonable.
"Uncle," Reginald said, "if I had a little more time, I think I could use the plasma torch."
"Stand back, Reginald," Newt said.
"What?"
"Firing."
"N—gyah! Hey!"
"That's for making me blow out three gravity nodes instead of using your parachute," Newt said icily. "See if you can get to the device now."
Reginald swore profusely, but then after a moment said, "All right, yes, I think I've got it." A straining grunt, then, "Yes. Yes I do. This thing is much heavier than it looks."
Archimedes opened his mouth, but couldn't actually think of anything to say. Instead, he flopped back down on the couch, relieved.
"We're parked right outside the back door," Newt said. "Watch the hot rocks on your way, but hurry. Toleranderite shuttles are no more than five minutes from weapons range."
"I'll be aboard in two," Reginald said.
Five minutes later, Reginald was panting in a shuttle bay while the ship dashed for high orbit. Newt was right; the Toleranderite shuttles had made directly for the Spiker village and its now-wrecked temple. But they had landed and were making no attempt to follow. Later, Archimedes supposed, he would want to see what Newt had recorded of the Toleranderites on the ground. For now, however, he had different concerns.
"Are you all right?" he asked his nephew.
Reginald's nodded calmly, then continued gulping for air. Next to him was a large black box, the computer he'd lugged out of the temple onto the ship. Reginald had said it was heavier than it appeared, and Archimedes thought it looked rather heavy to begin with.
Molly and Newt followed Archimedes into the shuttle bay. That was what Newt called the room, anyway. It was a large space with retractable doors covering of the exterior wall, so it could have served shuttles, though none were currently docked inside. Presumably, there had had been shuttles at one point, but Newt was always coy when it came to the specifics of his ship's history.
"Are you all right?" Molly asked her brother. Again, Reginald nodded; his breathing had slowed somewhat.
Archimedes looked a question to Newt. "We're clear," the Drone said. "The carrier's staying put, no sign of anyone else. I'll hyper in another minute or two."
"Okay," Archimedes allowed himself a small sigh of relief. He walked around Reginald to look at the temple computer the boy had hauled up.
"So what've you got, Doc?" Newt asked.
"Mmm," Archimedes responded. He squatted down in front of the device. It was a rectangular prism, about three quarters of a meter long, metal and quite solid looking. He put his hands on either end, but couldn't turn it around, it was much too heavy. He shifted around to look at the other side.
"Oh, now this is interesting," he said.
"What is?" Molly asked. She got up from kneeling by her brother to follow Archimedes.
"I think this was made by the first Empire of Man," he said. Archimedes ran his finger along several access ports for power and data, including several ones like he'd noticed earlier.
"Ooh," Molly said from behind him.
Archimedes tried to lift the device, but had no more luck than before.
"How can you tell?" Newt asked him. The Drone had bobbed forward to hover over Archimedes' shoulder as well.
Archimedes thumped a small symbol engraved into the metal casing above some serial numbers or other markings.
"That's the Imperial insignia," he said. "The second Empire went with a much more complicated one based on the Hadjiyanakis family's coat of arms."
"And it couldn't be a coincidence?" Molly asked. "What if the Toleranderites use something similar?"
"Nah," Archimedes shook his head, "at least, probably not. The Hegemony uses a red lightning bolt for their symbol. Besides, this explains why all the ports are human standards." He rubbed the plate with the serial numbers again, "I wonder if I could use these to figure out where this came from."
"That's the insignia of the First Empire?" Newt asked after a moment.
"Yeah," Archimedes looked over his shoulder at the drone.
"These are the people famous for brutally exterminating any aliens who stood in the way of human expansion, right?"
"I suppose so, yes."
"Oh, that is too rich," Newt said. The Drone spun around once, then floated back towards to the exit, humming as it went. Archimedes and Molly watched it go.
"You know," Archimedes said, "one of these days he's going to convince me that he's not just messing with me, but actually knows something."
"He's the puppet master," Molly said. "You think you have free will; but really it's just Newt, tugging on your strings."
"With Uncle Archie, it's not really that hard," Reginald said. He stood up and brushed himself off. "I'm going to get something to eat."
"No."
Molly looked over to her uncle, but he just shrugged. Reginald was the expert here; Archimedes certainly wasn't going to be able to get him inside. Not quietly, anyway, the archaeologist thought. He glanced over to Newt.
The Nav Drone had ditched the military officer's costume and was back to his unadorned, metallic self. Three delicately carved figurines—Mellurian prayer icons—were spinning inside the Drone's gravity field. The Mellurians had given them to Archimedes as a gift after he saved them from a passing herd of mildly intelligent but vampiric bovines. Archimedes didn't really like Newt playing with them—the Drone had already broken one or two—but at least they were preferable to some of the more dangerous artifacts stored on the ship.
"All right," Reginald's voice crackled over the radio, "I'm going to see if I can get in through the vents."
"Good luck," Molly told him.
"So what are you going to have him do when he can't access the computer?" Newt asked. It was never easy to tell, but Archimedes thought the Drone was talking to him. "You know, because you had me fry everything."
"I'm going to make you go down there and physically cut the thing free for us to take," Archimedes told him.
Newt spun around a few times, "That's the best idea I've heard all day!"
"With nothing but a spoon glued to your chassis."
The Drone sent one of the prayer icons arcing through the air towards Dr. Slawson. Archimedes caught it, but it was closer than he would've liked to admit.
"Some day, Doc, you're going to actually try to give me an order like that. The lesson in who's really in charge around here will be fun. For me, not for you."
"I'm pretty sure Molly's the one in charge around here," Archimedes jerked a thumb at his niece.
Newt tossed the other two prayer icons at Archimedes, then floated over to settle into Molly's lap with a metallic plink. "Sure," the Drone said, "but she won't mind when I dangle you beneath the ship for a few orbits. She wants her stifling, oppressive uncle to get his comeuppance just like I do."
Molly chuckled and brushed the Nav Drone with one hand like he was a furry pet. "You two play nice."
Archimedes sighed and shook his head.
After several minutes, Reginald's voice came back over the radio.
"Okay," he said, slightly winded, "I've managed to break my way through and climb down. I'm in a hallway between two rooms; one's full of rubble and has a pool of water in the middle. The other is very large, with a big stone block."
Archimedes sat up straighter on the couch. "You want the bigger one," he said. "Walk towards the big cube and tell us if some holograms appear."
A few seconds later, "All right, I'm touching the stone, but no holograms."
Archimedes frowned. Then Molly spoke up, "And uh, did anything try to shoot at you?"
"No…" Reggie's voice was slightly accusatory.
"Good," Archimedes told him. "I guess Newt's EMP worked. Go around the cube, there should be an entrance to another room on the far side."
A few more seconds. "I think I see it, but it's blocked. Covered by another large stone."
"Er, it doesn't slide up when you get close, then?"
"No."
"I guess Newt's EMP worked," Newt said in a falsetto which sounded nothing like Archimedes.
He ignored the Drone, "All right, Reginald. If you can't use those vents to crawl around, you're going to have to blast your way through. The doors are pretty thick and they go up a ways. Molly and I had to spend a good while clearing rubble after breaking one of them."
"Understood."
The next few minutes passed in silence. Eventually, Archimedes got up from the couch and foraged for some snack food. He was just sitting back down when Reginald's voice appeared again.
"All right," Archimedes' nephew said, "I'm ready. Any more alternative suggestions before I do this? The explosion will almost certainly alert the Spikers. Could make extraction difficult."
Archimedes waited for Newt to make his usual quip, but for once it didn't come. Molly shrugged her metal shoulders, "I can't think of anything."
"Sorry," Archimedes shook his own head.
"Acknowledged, I'm moving back to the previous chamber, this will make quite a blast."
And then Newt did say something. "Fuck!" it screeched.
"Gah!" Molly shouted as the little Drone rocketed up out of her lap.
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" Newt hollered. It barreled towards the lounge door, which barely whipped open in time to let the drone out into the hall before slamming shut again.
Both Molly and Archimedes stared stupidly at the door. "What the…" Molly trailed off.
"What happened?" Reginald asked.
"Nevermind," Archimedes stood up, brushing his snacks aside. "Molly, watch Reginald. I'll go see what's gotten into him."
"I hope he's all right," she said as Archimedes opened the door.
He jogged into the hall, wondering where the Drone might have gone, and why. Newt had always said it could control the ship from anywhere on board, or even several kilometers away. There was no control room, and maintenance was handled by a platoon of remotes. Whatever Newt's problem was, he shouldn't have needed to physically leave to handle it.
Except, of course, that the ancient Nav Drone seemed to have developed a rather eccentric personality after millennia.
Archimedes found it hovering in the middle of the hall, just a few meters away.
"Newt!" he called. "What happened?"
The Drone spun and zipped back down the hall to float just beneath Archimedes' chin.
"I'm calling this one, Doc," it said. Newt's tone was much flatter, more serious than usual. "We're finishing this now, and we're doing it my way."
"What? Why—"
"There's a Toleranderite warship in orbit. I don't know how it got there without me seeing, and I don't like that one bit."
"Warship?"
"Yeah, I'm calling it an Assault Carrier. It just dropped two armed shuttles. I'm already taking us down, ETA five minutes."
"Wait a—"
"No. We've got maybe ten minutes or less on those shuttles. I've already told Reginald, we're picking him up and bugging out."
Archimedes turned on his heel and ran back into the lounge, "Reginald!"
Molly turned around, and Archimedes could imagine the worry on her face.
"I've already heard, Uncle," Reginald said. "The explosives worked, but I guess I didn't need them."
"I guess not. Did you find the computer? Can you access it?"
"Trying now," came the reply. "…no. Nothing happens."
Archimedes slammed a fist into the back of the couch. He really wanted to know what was going on with that computer. His mind raced desperately.
"All right, can you find where it is? Break open the case and take it with you?"
A pause, "There's a lot of electronics down here."
Archimedes growled. "Newt!" he spun around.
But the Drone was already back in the lounge, floating just inside the door.
"Two minutes," it said. "Reginald, clear back out of that chamber. I'm going to blast the end off, let you right out the back.
"What about the computer?" Archimedes pleaded.
"What about the Spikers?" Molly cried.
"None of them are in range," Newt said to Molly first. Then it turned towards Archimedes. "What do you want me to do, Doc? I haven't actually got that spoon glued to my chassis."
Archimedes fumed, "Can't you do something?"
"Yes," the Drone said. "Firing laser batteries."
"I'm clear," Reginald's voice said.
The lounge got very quiet. Every time Newt fired the ship's laser cannons, Archimedes tried to hear the sound of outgoing destruction, and every time he was disappointed. There was no sound, no shudder of recoil, nothing.
Nothing from Archimedes' perspective, anyway.
"Firing again," Newt said.
"Is it work—" Molly started to ask.
"Yes," Newt told her. "Just making sure."
Silence again. Then the speakers crackled and Reginald's voice spoke up over a background of roaring noise.
"—to do that again. I thought the temple was going to collapse."
"Reginald!" Molly called. "Are you all right?"
"Yes…" he said, though Archimedes did think he sounded a little shaken. "It looks like half the forest is on fire out there."
"Newt!"
"He exaggerates," the Drone said. "And we need to go. Those shuttles are definitely coming this way."
"Can't you shoot them, too?" Archimedes demanded.
"Sure. Would you like me to bring them down right on top of the Spiker village?"
Molly glared, and Archimedes gritted his teeth. "I really don't think we should leave without finding out what we can about that computer," he tried to sound calm and reasonable.
"Uncle," Reginald said, "if I had a little more time, I think I could use the plasma torch."
"Stand back, Reginald," Newt said.
"What?"
"Firing."
"N—gyah! Hey!"
"That's for making me blow out three gravity nodes instead of using your parachute," Newt said icily. "See if you can get to the device now."
Reginald swore profusely, but then after a moment said, "All right, yes, I think I've got it." A straining grunt, then, "Yes. Yes I do. This thing is much heavier than it looks."
Archimedes opened his mouth, but couldn't actually think of anything to say. Instead, he flopped back down on the couch, relieved.
"We're parked right outside the back door," Newt said. "Watch the hot rocks on your way, but hurry. Toleranderite shuttles are no more than five minutes from weapons range."
"I'll be aboard in two," Reginald said.
* * *
Five minutes later, Reginald was panting in a shuttle bay while the ship dashed for high orbit. Newt was right; the Toleranderite shuttles had made directly for the Spiker village and its now-wrecked temple. But they had landed and were making no attempt to follow. Later, Archimedes supposed, he would want to see what Newt had recorded of the Toleranderites on the ground. For now, however, he had different concerns.
"Are you all right?" he asked his nephew.
Reginald's nodded calmly, then continued gulping for air. Next to him was a large black box, the computer he'd lugged out of the temple onto the ship. Reginald had said it was heavier than it appeared, and Archimedes thought it looked rather heavy to begin with.
Molly and Newt followed Archimedes into the shuttle bay. That was what Newt called the room, anyway. It was a large space with retractable doors covering of the exterior wall, so it could have served shuttles, though none were currently docked inside. Presumably, there had had been shuttles at one point, but Newt was always coy when it came to the specifics of his ship's history.
"Are you all right?" Molly asked her brother. Again, Reginald nodded; his breathing had slowed somewhat.
Archimedes looked a question to Newt. "We're clear," the Drone said. "The carrier's staying put, no sign of anyone else. I'll hyper in another minute or two."
"Okay," Archimedes allowed himself a small sigh of relief. He walked around Reginald to look at the temple computer the boy had hauled up.
"So what've you got, Doc?" Newt asked.
"Mmm," Archimedes responded. He squatted down in front of the device. It was a rectangular prism, about three quarters of a meter long, metal and quite solid looking. He put his hands on either end, but couldn't turn it around, it was much too heavy. He shifted around to look at the other side.
"Oh, now this is interesting," he said.
"What is?" Molly asked. She got up from kneeling by her brother to follow Archimedes.
"I think this was made by the first Empire of Man," he said. Archimedes ran his finger along several access ports for power and data, including several ones like he'd noticed earlier.
"Ooh," Molly said from behind him.
Archimedes tried to lift the device, but had no more luck than before.
"How can you tell?" Newt asked him. The Drone had bobbed forward to hover over Archimedes' shoulder as well.
Archimedes thumped a small symbol engraved into the metal casing above some serial numbers or other markings.
"That's the Imperial insignia," he said. "The second Empire went with a much more complicated one based on the Hadjiyanakis family's coat of arms."
"And it couldn't be a coincidence?" Molly asked. "What if the Toleranderites use something similar?"
"Nah," Archimedes shook his head, "at least, probably not. The Hegemony uses a red lightning bolt for their symbol. Besides, this explains why all the ports are human standards." He rubbed the plate with the serial numbers again, "I wonder if I could use these to figure out where this came from."
"That's the insignia of the First Empire?" Newt asked after a moment.
"Yeah," Archimedes looked over his shoulder at the drone.
"These are the people famous for brutally exterminating any aliens who stood in the way of human expansion, right?"
"I suppose so, yes."
"Oh, that is too rich," Newt said. The Drone spun around once, then floated back towards to the exit, humming as it went. Archimedes and Molly watched it go.
"You know," Archimedes said, "one of these days he's going to convince me that he's not just messing with me, but actually knows something."
"He's the puppet master," Molly said. "You think you have free will; but really it's just Newt, tugging on your strings."
"With Uncle Archie, it's not really that hard," Reginald said. He stood up and brushed himself off. "I'm going to get something to eat."