72. And the next step...

After a week of work and the successful transfer of two malignant shards, the group gathered to discuss their next step. The big goal was freeing Celeron with a whole string of minor miracles to achieve along the way. The first on all their lists was the repair or creation of a crystal cage for the Celeron shard.
 
As much as Jaden had spent time studying the crystals used in trapping the shards, she had no plans, just vague ideas on how they should be made. She’d worked a number of broken ones, seen one spent good one and created in the Eastern depot a mini crystal. The outer cuff of technology she was confident in replicating. It was the crystalline structure of the cage that stumped her. If there was even one flaw, the entity could escape, and they’d be back to square one…or worse.
 
The group spent days trawling through the information sources they had:
The Star Gate Station failed to provide anything useful
Tiltspire was combed with no results
The Eastern Depot Foundry was scanned, with only what they knew already in the database.
 
Aboard the Illustria however, in files marked for the Admirals-eyes-only Nox found a document outlining the proposed use of Crystaline structures to hold the shards of the malignant A.I. Though more of a theoretical discussion, it did describe the creation of the crystals and different facilities (in other solar systems) where they could be manufactured.
 
“The second problem is we probably don’t have all the parts required to make this thing,” Jaden added after an inventory of Bellyache.
The Sions knew of no convenient depots of parts they could raid and scans of the local area around home proved unfruitful.
“There’s always the downed freighter,” Marius offered, and it was agreed, once the Star Gate Station and Illustria were fully operational, that would be the party’s next stop. Jaden could have repaired the Stardrives on the Illustria on her own, but it would have taken three times as long so Ivasha and No-dir were teleported from Tiltspire to help. What could have taken a month, with their bickering help, took a week. Ivasha had by now come to respect Jaden’s expertise, if not her methods and No-dir was kept in line by the hovering presence of the Admiral.
 
At the same time, Jaden was getting to grips with the Star Gate and its Sacristan technology.
“It is an interdimensional gate powered by the sun. I was concerned that after a few hundred million years, that would be a problem…”
“You’re worrying about the quality of your work a hundred million years from now?” Marius asked with concern for Jaden’s sanity. Surely, any jail that had held for that long had exceeded expectations. But Jaden wasn’t finished.
“However, after thought on how the gate works, once the star goes cold, the gate will no longer open, and the malignant A.I. will be shut of this universe, permanently.”
“Naturally.”
 
Before leaving, there was one more thing Fureva-Yung wanted.
“I want to leave a record of what we found when we came here and what we did, for those who come after us,” Nox quickly organised and uploaded all the ships' logs and daily activity files from the Ilustria to the Star Gate station.
 
It was time to say goodbye to the Illustria…at least for a little while. Jaden did a last walk of engineering, imagining where the engines could now take her. Furvea-Yung (having swapped the Captain’s chair with the one on Station) gave one last Captain's log.
“Captain’s log, stardate…computer, what is the stardate?”
Marius may have made one last visit to the ship’s armoury.
 
Nox was the only one who wasn’t sorry to see the back of the Illustria. She could bamf back whenever she liked and had been doing so for weeks. On one trip, she teleported back to Akavel and the Patchwork Dream to see Tilly.
“I found this,” She handed over the artefact she’d asked for in the datasphere foundry, “I think it will help when it’s time to get the seed out of Raffi.”
Tilly’s eyes bulged from her sockets as she realised what the artefact could do.
“Er…well, will certainly come in useful,” She said diplomatically.
“And this goop,” Nox handed over the dulling gel made by pods in the Eastern depot, “It dulls pain.”
“Ah, now this can always come in handy,” Tilly announced with more assurance.
 
After six weeks across the other side of the universe, Tiltspire looked pretty much as they’d left it. More of the building projects were completed, and the residents looked more at home in their surroundings. Marius was surprised when he sought out Temila and found a pregnant woman. It was no longer a secret that Tiltspire was expecting its first new resident. Marius harboured more than just a little self-recrimination for not being around for Temila, no less mollified by the knowledge that Yitti had been looking out for her while he was away.
“That’s what friends are for, right?” Yitti asked, slapping the father to be on the back.
“Right,” Marius replied, a little stunned for words.
 
The group didn’t stay for long. Parts were their next priority, and there was a chance of something really tasty on the downed freighter to the north. The next day, they teleported out, Nox landing them on a spot on top of the hull, nearest a door she’d spotted during her last visit. From their vantage point, the group did a general survey of the ship. The rear portside was wedged into a cliff face, with the whole starboard open to the elements. In the forward portside, several escape capsules were mounted. Two blank windows and a closed door showed where a third was missing.
 
On the starboard side, two door, one smaller, one larger stood closed and locked. Fureva-Yung tried opening the smaller and most aft, with her magic arm. She was greeted with the enthusiastic sound of grinding mechanisms, but the door did not open. It did, however, open to her crowbar.
 
Marius walked in and peered around the corridor turning right, Fureva-Yung close behind. Nox took her familiar place up near the ceiling while Jaden stood behind the formidable bulk of Fureva-Yung for protection.
 
At first, nothing. The corridor seemed to run through the centre of the freighter, engineering to the rear, storage to the right and at the end, the command deck. What energy the ship still had lit the corridor. As Nox passed a door leading to what Fureva-Yung had thought was engineering, the light above her head flickered. Everyone turned to watch the light as her senses picked up a new sound, metal scraping against metal from behind the wall. In the flashes of light from the faulty blub, Nox could see a tall shadowy creature, almost as tall as Fureva-Yung standing just behind the two leaders. Taking out one of her crystals, she reshaped it into dust and sprinkled it over the area where she’d seen the shadow.
“What’s up?” Marius asked, brushing the fine powder off himself.
There’s someone here, Nox shared telepathically as she watched the crystal dust settle, but no creature was revealed. The dust fell to the ground where small eddies of air picked it up, making tiny tornadoes of sparkling dust. As the group watched, they could see the dust collect in spots around them before, one by one, being sucked through a crack in the wall of engineering.
Though curious, Marius refocused their thoughts on the mission, “Where ‘s the storage?” He asked Fureva-Yung quietly.
“There’ll be two,” Fureva-Yung gestured to closed doors, “One in the aft just here and one further forward, to the starboard.”
Marius started striding down the corridor to the forward storage. Nox’s attention was drawn to a vibration coming from a panel by her head. Pulling the panel away, half-chewed circuit boards, hanging by wires, swung back and forward. Past them, she had a view into engineering as a metal part slid across the floor before her. In a far corner, there was what looked like a pile of parts covered in a black ichor.
 
She gestured to Jaden to take a look. Jaden instantly noticed the hole had been made by something “chewing” its way out or through. There was no doubt now that something was living in the derelict. Fureva-Yung closed her eyes and allowed the sound around her to paint a picture of the inside of the freighter. She heard a buzzing from the engine room that seemed to accompany one that made a chewing sound. She too could hear metal sliding across the floor and well as the oddly behaving wind. She identified a cave going from the ship and into the rock wall to the port.
 
The storage bays were forgotten for the time being as Fureva-Yung convinced the door of engineering to open. Inside, the room looked like something had been ‘tasting’ parts of it. Bite marks on the two engines' cowlings at the rear of the room as well as several holes like the one Nox had looked through, spoke of diamond-hard teeth and ironclad digestive system. In random places around the room, there were more of the piles of metal parts in black goo. The ever-curious Marius went to investigate the closest.
“They look like they were pooped out,” Nox complained, wrinkling up her nose in anticipation as Marius sorted through the scraps.
“Hey, one creature's waste is another one’s treasure,” He replied triumphantly, pulling out a few io.
 
Crunching, heavy footsteps echoed through to the group from the rock cavern, accessed via another chewed hole in the wall. Carefully proceeding, Marius and Fureva-Yung headed through the hole. Jaden handed a broken cypher to Marius as bait, and Nox disappeared into the ceiling of the cavern behind a stalactite.
 
In the gloom of the cavern, something big moved. Its skin was metallic, it walked on four spindly spider legs attached to a huge round body, a mouth at one end. Backlit from the light from the ship, the creature spotted Marius and Fureva-Yung and charged. Marius threw the broken cypher, and the creature snapped it out of the air and kept coming. From her hiding spot, Nox tried a psychic burst, missed. Jaden stayed back, readying a healing cypher as Fureva-Yung pulled out her purgespitter and fired. It smacked the creature dead in what looked like a face and started screaming.
“Oh, buddy,” Marius said with some sympathy, “I know how that feels.” and took his chance to smash it with his fists.
The creature squealed in pain, slurped down the purge, silencing it, and stepped back warily. It seemed it had some intelligence.
 
Fureva-Yung made her subsonic rumbles that quaked through the cavern rock. Holding out her hand, she stepped forward. Intimidated, the creature stepped back even further. Jaden watched the creature, noting its intelligence and ability to be trained as Nox made a telepathic link with the thing.
“It eats the metal, but it much preferred the purge,” She told the group, Do we have anything else for it to eat?”
Jaden handed Marius the jar of grub armour.
You’re safe, be calm, She projected as the grubs were emptied out for the creature to eat, You will be Quattro, that is your name.
 
By the time the creature had finished the bugs, Marius had had time to sort out any useful scrap for nearby waste piles, and the creature had learnt its name.
“You shall be called Poopsorter,” Said Fureva-Yung.
“It already knows its name, Quattro,” Nox complained before noting Fureva-Yung’s cheeky look.
“Not the creature, Marius,” she said, quickly dodged a handful of black sludge from Marius.
 
Now with Quattro in tow, the group continued their exploration of the rest of the ship. They passed the two remaining escape pods. Fureva-Yung opened the door to the cargo hold to reveal two heavily armoured wheeled vehicles. She held at the door as her keen hearing picked up something from the closest of the two.
“There’s a buzzing sound,” She said, pointing as she stepped into the room.
 
Suddenly, the whole side panel of the vehicle burst out into a thick swarm of metallic bugs. Thinking fast, Jaden caught one in the grub armour jar and tucked it away safely inside Bellyache as the swarm flew around Fureva-Yung. Marius made a concussive bomb, as Fureva-Yung just stood stunned by the swarm. The cloud started condensing, forming two humanoid figures. Nox cast flash on both figures as Marius threw in his bomb. The metal weevils reached out to attack Marius and Nox, but both were ready and dodged aside. Dropping her chain, Fureva-Yung swung at the humanoid form closest to Nox. Without resistance, the chain went further than she expected and first hit Nox before swinging around and smacking herself in the face. Stunned by the chain, Nox’s next attack went wide, and she hit the vehicle wheel, which exploded and flew towards her. As a reaction, she absorbed the kinetic energy of the blast. The wheel fell to the ground. She landed with a thump in front of the two humanoid swarms.
 
Jaden, who was also in the blast area of the explosion, dodged aside expertly, stunning the bugs. She hit the nearest with an iotum ray. Marius punched his nearest bug body, rewarded by the crunch and the escape of the rest as the figure fell apart.
“I am so sorry!” Fureva-Yung said as she tried again to hit the second figure. This time, her chain found purchase, and hundreds of tiny bugs fell to the ground. The bugs dispersed into their swarm again, looking ready to make another attack, before the lights flickered again, and all the bugs fell to the ground dead.
 
Jaden checked on her jarred bug. It clattered against the glass, safe and sound. She swept up the remains and fed them to the eager Quattro.