Ravens of Eternity

Chapter 297

297 Grand Horizons, Pt Both Eva and Miko turned to each other with eyes wide open. Complete surprise was etched on their faces by what the Admiral had just said. The last time they had seen her, she had still been utterly consumed by her experimental core and its code.

“That’s quite an apology,” Eva said. “I mean, isn’t that court-martial territory? You’re literally giving a Naval prototype weapon to a bunch of felons and defectors.”

“I won’t lie,” the admiral replied. “What I’m doing is a huge risk to my own career. Like you said, a court-martial for sending technology to a hostile actor. They’d isolate me out on some planet somewhere, for the rest of my life. But there’s a whole lot of reasons why I’m doing this.

“The first is that I feel truly guilty about my brother. You warned me about him and his... obsession with you. I should have taken you more seriously. I should’ve... I should’ve done a whole lot more back then.”

“What’s done is done,” Eva said. “There’s no going back now, and no point dwelling on what should’ve been.”

“I understand. Doesn’t mean the guilt isn’t lingering. I won’t try to make excuses for myself – I was fixated on my own projects and experiments too much.”

“I’m sure your promotion didn’t help either,” Xylo added.

She looked the admiral up and down the moment her holo appeared on the call. And noted that the pips on her collar had changed since the last time they all talked. Now she wore the pips of a High Admiral.

Chase scratched the back of her neck in humility.

.....

“Yes, definitely that as well,” she said. “Which leads me to the second reason. The promotion means I have to take ownership of all other research teams and their projects. I can’t just focus on my own. Not any longer.

“I can’t stand the idea of having to shelve Prometheus. I worked so hard, and put in so many years into it... Seeing the entire thing take a back seat to everything else absolutely breaks my heart. So I’m hoping that by giving it to you, specifically to Raijin, that the work will continue.”

“Why not give Prometheus to your assistants?” asked Miko. “They were always there with us when we tested it. They surely know enough to continue development.”

“Not as much as you,” the admiral replied. “I have absolute faith that you can perfect Prometheus. And by all that’s holy – please keep the technology with only the Ravens. If it gets out to the greater galaxy... or if the Drogar get their hands on it... I can’t even imagine what they’d do with it.”

“I understand. I will do my best to, at the very least, protect your work.”

“Thank you, Raijin. I’ll be transmitting my files through this comms, straight to your DI. And Freya, I apologize very deeply again. I promise that if anyone on my team comes to me with something like what you brought to me, I’ll act on it immediately.”

“Thank you, Amiral.”

Once the transfer was complete, High Admiral Chase bowed to the two of them, then winked off the communications console.

Miko quickly turned to Eva with absolute excitement in her eyes as she pored through the Admiral’s project files.

“I wish to integrate Prometheus into our cores as fast as possible,” she said. “At the very least, I need to study the code and turn it into a full-fledged intelligence. Imagine piloting your experimental core with Prometheus installed.”

Eva immediately began to drool. She imagined the energies of a Promethean Merge, but combined with the absolute agility of her spherical core.

“Yes, please,” was all she could say.

“What the hell’s Prometheus,” asked Lucifer. “And why’re you two acting like it’s the best thing ever?”

“Imagine flying Eris’ core,” Eva answered.

“Okay.”

“Now imagine flying it using only your mind. It’s tough, but you can, uh, directly control whatever chassis the core’s attached to. Kinda like thinking “left thrusters full”, and then all your portside thrusters would go to the maximum. Not exactly how it works, but it’s kinda like that.”

“Our biological minds are connected to the Prometheus Core’s circuits directly,” Miko continued for Eva. “We can communicate directly with its intelligences, and issue commands through conscious thought. It is like having a second body on top of your biological one.”

Lucifer began to imagine what the two of them were talking about, and easily became enraptured with the idea. Even though ze had no idea what the experience actually entailed.

“So when do we get our cores installed with this Prometheus thing?” ze asked.

“Of course, I cannot do any work on the code, much less do any core integration without my own laboratory,” said Miko. “Much like Azrael needs one of her own for research and development. I cannot simply take this code to any public hackerspace or hangar.”

“Plus there’s other issues that come with the code,” Eva added. “Specifically the whole Godeater aspect.”

“Godeater?” said Kali. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“Imagine a sentient black hole,” Miko told Kali. “That is my personal understanding of Godeater, though my understanding is admittedly incomplete. Although I do not have any scientific parallels, the best way I can describe it is simply: using Prometheus ‘touches’ the Godeater’s consciousness.”

“That’s a hell of a thing to dangle in front of us,” said Xylo.

“We’ve gotta be careful with it, no matter what,” Eva said. “When the admiral said she didn’t want it leaked across the galaxy, Godeater’s the reason why.”

The words settled into the Ravens, and the weight of Prometheus started to fall on them, even if some didn’t fully understand what it was.

“You said you need a lab, right?” Lucifer said eventually. “Why not convert the Spirit of Amelia into your lab? Or the Accursed Bootlegger? They both have tons of room in their cargo bays.”

“That is certainly a possibility,” Miko answered. “But I am not the only one who wishes for their own personal space. Certainly Azrael does as well.”

“Let’s go through what everyone wants,” said Eva. “Now’s a good a time as any. Azrael? Wanna go first?”

“A medlab would be really beneficial for us,” Amal followed up. “We’d have more meds and stims to use. I could develop a more robust IFAK we can take for when we’re out on foot. Really, I need a center where I can do my research and development.”

“I could really use my own office,” said Claire. “My own terminal, my own databank, and my own bunk. Not that I don’t like the shared one we’ve got. But I spend so much time on it that I feel like I’m taking away from everyone else. And I’m filling up our ship’s databank with our records pretty fast.”

“I definitely want my own private quarters, too,” Xylo said after. “Amelia’s great, but bunking like a crewmate gets old after a while. And it would be nice to have some kind of training room, for sparring and whatnot.”

“Ooh, yeah,” said Eva. “I’d like that, too. Sign me up for that. But all this means getting a bigger ship – a frigate probably. And a crew to help keep her running on top of that. It’s not a bad idea by any stretch of the imagination. Bigger fleet, bigger jobs, bigger pay.”

“I agree,” said Kali. “But maybe we can always get a third corvette instead. Keep things small. I mean, if we start getting crew and a larger ship, then we’ll need things like more food and supplies, too. And then there’s the tools and weapons and armor.

“Also, I’ll want my own quarters too. I’m not keen on living that commune life ever again.”

“Do we even have the money to get a frigate?” asked Lucifer. “Much less the wages needed to pay the crew. We can want more space all we like, but if our income doesn’t match, we’re gonna end up broke.”

“Great point,” said Miko. “Let us review our assets.”

The Ravens grabbed their datapads and began to pore through everything they owned. They quickly sorted through everything they had that could be sold, though set aside all their personal properties and equipment.

They lost a good chunk of their belongings to the Federation, but were at least able to keep the most valuable assets. Not that they wanted to sell any of it.

Among their list of possessions were the two corvettes: the Spirit of Amelia, and the Accursed Bootlegger. They also had their mecha and their primary loadouts. They were certainly valuable, but all were hesitant to sell them. Eva especially.

Lucifer also had hir personal fighter chassis, Locust, which was a highly nimble scout craft. Ze was certainly unwilling to part with it. It had all hir favorite parts and was highly customized.

And then there was an assortment of other chassis and cores that they were able to smuggle out bit by bit while Eva was still missing out in the galaxy. They had three D-ranked fighters and two D-ranked mecha, and their loadouts.

It wasn’t much, but they could all easily be sold off for something better.

And although their combined ledgers seemed large, it was a far cry from being able to afford a quality frigate.

–

Aggregated Balance Report

Sol Federation Credits: 17,029,102.53

Hegemony Ducats: 2,942,773.36

Drogar Krohn: 8,530,040.88

–

“Even if we sold all our extraneous equipment, and pooled all of our liquid assets into one currency, we’d still be short by a whole lot,” sighed Claire. “Maybe ten or twenty million. Could maybe go for a used frig, though.”

“We’ve got my experimental core,” Eva chimed in. “It’s worth a whole lot. If we sold that, we could get more than enough to get ourselves a destroyer if we wanted.”

“Absolutely not,” said Lucifer. “That thing is literally priceless. At most a thousand of them in the galaxy. That’s less than all the people in the galaxy who have Ultra Rare traits. Trading it in for just a destroyer... it’s criminal.”

“I agree,” said Miko. “If I can get a lab, I wish to copy and recreate its technologies. Or at the very least, reverse-engineer it and build an all-new version. We cannot sell it until I have a full understanding of it.”

“Understood,” said Eva. “Consider it off the table, then.”

The Ravens were suddenly interrupted by a chime that echoed around the room. It was quickly followed up by the sound of a door opening with a SWISH. Eris walked into their suite not a moment later, and with a few officers in tow.

“Hey there Ravens,” she said. “Sorry to come in unannounced, but I wanted to let you know in person that my team’s ready to do a final go-over of our Trade Agreement. And if you’re ready yourselves, I say we start immediately.”