85 and 86 The Search for Celeron

It had been a busy few days. Rescue the township of Celeron from the Shard, rally the damaged and broken citizenry to clean up and rebuild from the mess of the old. Nox was worn ragged, bamfing between Celeron and Tiltspire with help, and messages to loved ones. Jaden and Marius were busy organising the community leaders, and Fureva-Yung was helping with repair and cleanup. Eventually, the militia of Tiltspire was organised to start clearing a path through the Endoval forest in the direction of Tiltspire. At the same time, Yiti, Orv and a couple of Militia from Tiltspire started driving the truck towards Celeron. Guided by colourful sandbags dropped by Nox, they worked their way towards each other in order to get the truck that could transport the crystal prison back to Tiltspire.
 
People fed, clothed and taken care of, the Crystal’s return to the Spire underway, it was time to think about the other Celeron.
 
Nox took the compass she’d found out of her knapsack and showed the others the insignia of Celeron engraved into the base.
“It seems to point somewhere in the datasphere,” she said, and showed them how it pointed towards the datasphere portal in the first basement of the Temple.
 
There was little discussion on the matter. They knew Celeron had been tricked into the datasphere by who would become the first of the High Priests to Erinai. If there was any chance at all of finding Celeron alive, they had to take it.
“Besides, she was there at the town’s founding. It’s little more than that now. She could be very useful to the new community.”
 
All four allowed themselves to be drawn into the datasphere back to the room where Marius and Nox found the compass. It was a small trapazoidal chamber with pictures on three walls and two doorways. One picture was an image of the solar system they were in, something they’d seen before in the Tilted Spire’s datasphere. What was different, however, was that another object was orbiting the central star in a different plane to the small planet and its moon.
“An artificial satellite?”
 
On the other side, a static image made of dots, dashes, crosses and circles that didn’t make a lot of sense until it was paired with the third image. This was a screen full of changing data. It Ferrian it talked about frames, nodes and doorways spread over the vast distances of space. Some nodes were down, blocking information transmission through the whole system for a hundred years.
“See, the link is down close to us,” Marius said, pointing to some information Nox had just translated and moved across to the dot and dash image and pointed to a broken line with an ‘x’ through it.
“And this here seems to indicate it's not working.”
“We have a map of the whole datasphere? I wonder where it goes?” Nox said, scribbling the dot and dash image into her biology book.
“Fix that link and you can find out.” He replied.
 
 
 
 
There was a gentle tug of a breeze from both doorways, and neither seemed to indicate where they were going. Nox looked at the compass to determine which of the two doorways to go through. The needle flickered wildly between the two of them.
“It seems either will get us to our destination.”
 
Excited to be exploring again, they dashed through the left-hand doorway, trying to be first. Marius dashed through, only to find himself alone on the other side.
Here we go again, He said into the network and received a patchy and distorted reply.
Where are you? Jaden asked.
“Here,” he replied unhelpfully.
 
Describing the room, they worked out they were in a different instance of the same space. Jaden, Fureva-Yung and Nox noted that their incidence was far warmer than the room they’d come from.
“What could that mean?” Jaden thought out loud as the room around them flickered. There was a buzz like static in the air, and suddenly Jaden disappeared.
 
And reappeared beside Marius in his instance.
“Look, the compass points back, maybe we should just follow it and see,” Nox said to her larger companion. They followed the compass back out of the room and found themselves back in the same space, now with Jaden and Marius.
“What the hell is happening?”
“I don’t know,” Jaden turned to the gates, one at each end of the room, only to find them locked, “But I don’t like it. It smells like a trap.”
 
 
On mentioning smelling, Fureva-Yung was reminded of her nano-senstive proboscis and started sniffing the air of the room.
“Yes, nanosphere, here,” She pointed out an area, and Nox scanned it for clues. Hidden behind this room was another, a construct made as a trap, for whom none could say.
“It was what we were stuck in, but it’s so worn out that it's not working as it’s meant to.”
“That’s what locked the door,” Jaden deduced. Going over to where Fureva-Yung and Nox told her, she found the device and disarmed it, unlocking the doors.
 
Moving through the second doorway, they entered another trapezoidal room. This one had two exits like the first, but also a column at its centre pulsing with painfully bright light. With a clever grin on his face, Marius walked over to the column and embraced it, allowing his shielding to absorb the power in the column. The pulsing light dimmed to more acceptable levels as Jaden felt herself sinking through the floor. The rest watched as a section of floor below Jaden disappeared, and she slipped through to a space below. Marius stepped away from the column. Full power returned, and the floor appeared, trapping Jaden on the other side. Nox bamfed across the divide and joined Jaden.
“Hey, neat trick. How did you do it?”
“He did it. Jaden pointed up at Marius, who shrugged his shoulders in complete innocence.
“Never mind, I’ll bamf…” Nox stopped mid-sentence, frozen in place. From Marius and Fureva-Yung’s perspective above, it looked as though Nox was paralysed and Jaden was moving slower than usual, as if trapped in time.
 
From behind Marius, a black shadow dropped from the ceiling. So fast it could have been instinct, Marius put up a force cube, trapping a huge bat-like creature inside. On the other side of the floor, however, a similar bat-like creature appeared around Nox, reaching out for the slowly moving Jaden. The bat swung a wing out and smacked Jaden in the body. Above, Fureva-yung used her nose to find a weakness in the floor to go down and help, and Marius shot at the bat he’d caught in the force cube.
“I can’t get through to them, “Fureva-Yung bellowed, frustrated she could do nothing to help her friends. Marius turned back to the column and embraced it again as he watched the bat he trapped siphoning energy from the force cube itself.
“We don’t have a lot of time!” He yelled back as Fureva-Yung slipped below the floor to where Nox and Jaden were.
The bat below the floor swiped at Jaden again, missing spectacularly, giving even the slowed Jaden a chance to hit in response. Beside her, Nox unfroze. She was cold, sapped of the energy that heated her small body. Without another thought, she bamfed back above the floor, behind Marius, and out of harm's way.
 
Fureva-Yung, falling through the floor, pulled out her chain and swung it double-handed at the giant bat below her. The attack missed, and she landed heavily beside Jaden. Above, Marius tried his Molecular Rearranger on the floor above Jaden and Furvea-Yung. Instead of making the floor evaporate into butterflies or melt away, the whole room pulsed with multi coloured lights and went back to normal.
 
The bat with Marius and Nox continued to siphon energy from the force cube as the bat below the floor tried to grab Fureva-Yung. Instead, Fureva-Yung grabbed hold of it and, with one hand, started smacking the beast. Jaden shot the bat with her heavy laser rifle as above. Nox scrambled around in her bag for a useful cypher. Finding only a pleasure cypher she’d been holding onto, she bamfed back through the floor behind the bat and planted the cypher on the creature’s back. A screech of surprise became a purr of pleasure as the bat was distracted for a moment.
 
Above, realising the force cube was about to collapse, Marius pushes the Molecular Rearranger to full.
“Here! Have it all!” He cried as the beam hit the bat, melting it into a puddle and a cloud of perfumed gas. Below the floor, the second back came round and struck out at Fureva-Yung, who became frozen in time. The bat screeched as Fureva-Yung’s ablative electrical field sent electricity coursing through it. From above, Marius could do nothing but watch.
“Nox, bamf me down there!”
“Are you kidding!” She cried back, pointing at the two doors on Marius’s side of the floor, “We’ve got to get them up here!”
In frustration, Marius embraced the column once more and disabled the floor. Seeing, it now had potentially four enemies to fight, and its mate destroyed, the bat creature pulled itself into a tiny ball and disappeared from the space with a pop!
 
Nox didn’t waste any time. Grabbing Fureva-Yun,g she bamfed up to one of the doors indicated by the compass and pulled her friend through.
 
 
 
Marius and Jaden found Nox drawing a moustache on a thawing Fureva-Yung. This room was also trapezoidal, but with two corners nibbled out. In the centre, a hologram of a planet and its moon circled a large yellow sun. Orbiting perpendicular to the planet was a small artificial satellite. Two doors led out of the room, the compass pointing to the right, the door that seemed to lead to the broken connection.
“It seems that the connection break could be out at that satellite,” Jaden pointed to the spinning model and consulted the map they’d taken in the first room. “If the connection is to the right, I guess we need to go left to see what needs fixing.”
 
Together, they stepped through the left portal and were transcribed out of the datasphere.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
And back into a real space, but no longer on the ninth world.
 
It was a small control room, ringed by control panels with two sets of stairs heading down to another level. One wall was glass, looking out into the vast black view of space, a small blue planet in the distance and a giant yellow sun.
 
“Oh! This satellite must manage the connection in the datasphere!” Nox exclaimed, flitting over to the control panels before the windows and tried interfacing with the system. Alarms and red flashing lights, and a countdown in Ferian, warned of dire consequences if they did not identify themselves. Fureva-Yung leapt across the room and placed her magic arm on a scanner. One console responded, recognising Fureva-Yung, but the second didn’t, and the countdown continued. Plunging into the network and systems of the control panel, Nox tried hacking her way out of this mess. The countdown stopped, and the red lights and alarms ceased.
 
The console lit up and displayed a map of the station as well as a list of errors. The station had two transmitters, one connected to the ninth world through which they had just translated. The other…broken, damage unknown. Nox bussied herself, allowing her mind to travel the lines of information in the system. Marius and Fureva-Yung quickly headed down the stairs to see what else the station held. The stairs emptied to a small open area and two corridors surrounded by six doors, none labelled. With no better idea than just picking a door a random, Marius chose a door behind the stairs that responded to Fureva-Yung’s tattoo.
 
Space suit storage from Fureva-Yung’s era, in as many different shapes and sizes as there are different peoples of the Ferrian Compact. Amongst the neatly stored suits, Marius found two cyphers.
“Here, this looks interesting,” He said, handing one to Fureva-Yung before stepping out of harm's way.
Boof! The cypher exploded, sending a cloud of neon green into the air and onto everything in the immediate area. That, of course, included Fureva-Yung, who was now glowing bright green from almost the top of her head down to the tops of her feet. Her back and shoulders received a light dusting of green, and she left a shadow on the wall where she blocked the cloud.
“Oh! Did that go off! Sorry about that,” He snickered, quickly integrating another cypher.
 
They next picked a door to what looked like a large room to the left of the stairs. As with the first, it opened without question to reveal three floor-to-ceiling cylinders glowing dimly blue. As usual, Marius went rummaging in the corners looking for cyphers. He passed between two cylinders, causing a bright flash. Next thing Fureva-yung knew, he was gone.
“Not again!” Marius’ regular axiom echoed off the hard surfaces of the room, but when he went to speak to Fureva-Yung through the telepathic link, there was nothing there.
“Now, where did you wander off to?” He complained and continued with his searching.
 
Fureva-Yung, having watched Marius disappear, went in search of a read-out or control panel that could tell her what had happened. It seemed to her that the readouts monitored the level and condition of energy supplies, supposedly the blue cylinders. She silently cursed all those Engineers who would never let her into their spaces for her lack of skills at reading the screens. At the same time, Marius too had made it to the control panels. His wasn’t a lack of engineering knowledge, but only a very basic knowledge of Ferrian. He stared at the control panels as if hoping they’d make themselves known to him. With little idea of what he was doing, Marius flicked the first switch.
 
On the other side, Fureva-Yung was still trying to interpret the readouts when the first panel lit up, seemingly by itself. She watched for a moment, waiting to see if anything else happened before turning on the second panel.
 
Marius jumped as the second panel turned on. Eureka! He turned off the first and waited.
 
Fureva-Yung was confused when the first panel turned off. Was it on a timer or was there something messing with the panels? She turned on the third panel.
 
Marius was sure his message was now getting through. He excitedly turned off all the panels and waited for the next move from the others. Surely Jaden and Nox were putting their heads together to solve this little problem.
 
Fureva-Yung bored with the control panels and turned her attention to the three blue cylinders. Wth the back of a hand, she knocked on the surface of the nearest cylinder and noted the thrill as waves of energy emanated back.
 
Marius heard the solid thump of a heavy hand against thick glass and turned to the cylinders as waves of forces billowed out, interacting with his energy field. He poked the surface of the next cylinder…
 
…Fureva-Yung knocked against the second cylinder. This time, as well as the thrill of energy through her hair, she thought she felt someone poking her in the back.
 
They played this game with the third cylinder. The only things that Fureva-Yung hadn’t done was run through two cylinders like Marius had. She charged through the last two cylinders. There was a flash of light and they were together once more…but were they in the same room?
 
“Furry! Hello!” Marius exclaimed, his cry of surprise being heard in the room above.
“What are you two up to?” Jaden called down the stairs.
“And you wonder why I like machines better,” Grumbled Nox, her head still deep in electrical connections.
 
As good as it was to have Marius back, Fureva-Yung wasn’t finished ‘experimenting’. She liked electricity and didn’t see what all the fuss was about. She put herself between two cylinders and closed the circuit with her own body. There was a flash, the lights dimmed all over the station a smell of burning hair and bacon slowly filled the space. Fureva-Yung was now bright orange, and slightly out of focus, burnt on the edges and glowing green.
 
“Er…I’m getting error readings in the power plant, up here,” Nox called down, “Can you guys check what’s happening?”
“Yeah,” Marius grinned, “ Fureva-Yung’s on it.”
“What is it? What’s the problem?”
“Ah…Fureva-Yung.”
 
“Yeah, I’m all over it,” Fureva-Yung agreed, putting out a patch of hair that was still smouldering.
“I must be hungry,” Nox shook her head. “Can you guys smell bacon?”
 
Fureva-Yung bent down and conspiratorially whispered to Marius, “Now I understand why my last Engineering Officer banned me from Engineering.”
“Jaden did?” Marius asked, knowing how cranky Jaden could get about what she considered “hers”.
“The one before,” Fureva-Yung shook her head, thought a moment, then added, “And all the ones before.”
 
They moved across the landing to the door to the right of the stairs. As before, the door opened to Fureva-Yung’s touch and revealed two pedestals, one on either side of the door. Each had a glowing creature inside, something like insectile-like dogs, frozen in stasis. Across the room, more control panels. Marius bounded over, but this time only looked and did not touch.
 
“This is a science station, “ Fureva-Yung glanced around, recognising the standard layout from her military days, “I wasn’t allowed in here either.” Between the two of them, they worked out that the control panels were linked to the two stasis pods. Error messages were getting more adamant about the drop in energy levels. Turning to check on the two stasis pods, they both realised the shields around the two individuals were a little dimmer.
“ I think we'd better leave and lock the doors behind us,” Marius decided that he didn’t want to meet the insectile dogs when they woke up. They quickly did as he suggested and locked the door behind them.
 
They moved to the next door, next around to the right. In this room, three panels rose up from the ground, just short of the roof. A large sphere was suspended from a pole behind the three panels. By this time, Jaden was getting suspicious of what the other two were doing. She walked down the stairs, only stopped by the sight of a bright orange and green, and slightly out of focus, burnt and bacon-smelling Fureva-Yung.
“Do I want to know what went on?” She asked Fureva-Yung, who had the good grace to look embarrassed. She turned sheepishly to Marius.
“She’s going to think it was my fault.”
“It was your fault!” Marius replied, forgetting his own part in the Powerplant.
 
Jaden shook her head, “ I don’t have time for this. There’s an error with the transmitter to the rest of the network. Have you found it yet?” Jaden turned to read a control panel, just as Marius felt a little curious and threw one of his tools through the three panels at the sphere. Before Jaden could call out in complaint. The heavy metal tool swung through the air unhindered until it reached the panels, where it froze for a moment before dropping to the ground.
“Do you mind not destroying the hundreds of years old technology before I get a chance to look at it?” Jaden complained, happy that at least this tech had a safety feature against idiots with spanners.
“Weird shit! I love it! Do it again!” Marius cried, and Fureva-Yung was about to rush inside the panels.
“No! No-no…out!” And Jaden ushered both out of the room and around to the eastern end of the corridor.
 
This door, like all the others so far, opened under Fureva-Yung’s tattoo. This was clearly a transmitter control in good working order. This must be the transmitter connected to the datasphere back on the planet. Jaden, nonetheless, checked the room and its technology carefully. She wanted a working example of the transmitter to help determine what was wrong with the damaged one. While she did, Fureva-Yung and Marius moved to the last door. When it wouldn’t open under her tattoo, Fureva-Yung touched the door and found it cold.
“Ah, Nox, come down there and tell us what’s behind this door,” Marius called. She flittered down, put out that she could do nothing to repair connections from the main control panel, and she grudgingly scanned the door.
 
And found a great big nothing.
 
Much of the control room beyond the door was gone, though what had caused the damage was unknown.
“I think the door wouldn’t open for safety reasons. Not much past the door. Nothing but space.” She told the others, including Jaden, who had joined them.
“We’re going to have to depressurise the whole station to get in there,” Jaden said, “Nox, can you go find out how to do that through the master controls?”
“Space suits, again,” Nox complained, but bamfed away to do as she was told.
 
As everyone found spacesuits to fit, Nox found procedures for releasing the atmosphere from the station. Once the hissing of escaping air ceased, the door to the final room unlocked, and they could see the damage first-hand. Much of the floor and part of one wall were gone, little more than space debris sparkling outside the station. There was nothing left of the transmission device, and almost nothing left of its control centre. Even with Bellyache, this was a huge job, and Jaden moaned at the amount of damage.
 
Across the space station, Marius was keeping himself busy with his helmet against the door of the Science Lab he and Fureva-Yung had locked. From the other side, he could hear scratching and tapping in a decidedly orderly and intelligent way. The creatures were no longer in stasis and were testing the door and its surroundings for a way out.
 
“Ah, Nox. Do you think you can talk to a couple of giant monster dog things for us?” He asked through the telepathic network, gaining Nox’s attention.
“Giant monster dogs? What have you done now, Marius?” She bamfed over and scanned the door, looking for anything moving beyond it. Two medium creatures prowled back and forth in front of the door.
“Admiral. Do you want me to open friendly relations with the giant monster dogs you and Marius found?” Nox asked Fureva-Yung, who was looking over Jaden’s shoulder and getting in the way.
“Ah…yes?”
 
Nox opened a connection to the two minds she found on the other side of the door, Hello, are you friendly or do you want to eat us?
Greetings, Nox. We do not eat you, Came the unusual reply.
You know my name?
Yes, you told us your name, Said the voice sounding as friendly as a growling of a dog can sound, You tell us before we leave for home. We are Hick of Miraad.
Nox translated the conversation to the group.
You do not live in linear time? She asked, Ur…events don’t follow each other one after another in your frame of reference?
Something like that. With your help, we have found our way home.
Home. Nox felt bad. It was clear these intelligent creatures had been captured and taken from their homes somewhere connected to the wider datasphere, The connection to the datasphere is broken.
Will be broken. Have been fixed. Was their only reply.
 
“Hang on,” Jaden came over, drawn by the unusual conversation, “If they live outside of linear time, do they know what caused the damage? Do they know how we fix it?”
Nox translated Jaden’s question to the two behind the door.
It is fixed. It will be broken. We helped.
“Do you give permission for the door to be opened, Admiral?” Nox deferred to Fureva-Yung, who, as usual looked surprised to be asked. Nox stepped aside to let her unlock the door.
The Hick of Miraad (for Nox was unsure if it was one or both creatures) waited patiently by the door.
I’m Nox, Nox waved.
Hick of Miraad bowed in return, and Nox connected them to the larger telepathic network with the others.
We would like to have left this place. We have found a way home. You have helped up leave this place.
Oh! We fix the transmitter, and you go with us! Nox exclaimed, pleased to at least feel like she was understanding the group’s new friends.
Yes, assisted by a capable engineer, Jaden. They replied, acknowledging Jaden’s presence.
 
“Good to know I can be of use,” Jaden replied dryly before stepping aside and allowing Hick of Miraad to head towards the damage transmission room.
 
As the group watched, broken pieces of the space station began to reassemble. A huge jagged rent in the room began repairing, leaving a thin seam. Slowly, bit by bit, the room started pulling itself back together as Hick of Miraad reversed time for the room. When it was complete, the room itself was intact, and most of the electrical connections were back where they needed to be.
 
As they watched, Fureva-Yung, Marius and Jaden all saw an explosion in the transmission at the end, but it was Jaden noted a saw a shadowy figure in the room just before the explosion.
“I saw the High Priest deliberately destroy this transmitter,” Jaden said, “But for what purpose?”
“To keep Cerelon out of…Cerelon?” Marius asked.
 
Nox was confused. She’s not seen the explosion inside the transmission room, seconds after the room had been put back together. What she’d seen was an asteroid, just outside the walls. She scrambled back to the main control room and rolled back the sensor readings at the time of all the error messages. For a flash, she picked up the asteroid again and was now convinced she’d seen something the others had missed.
 
Before she could show the others her findings, the electrical system faltered again, wiping the sensors' memory banks.
“I’m sure I saw a meteoroid outside the satellite. We’ve only minutes to do something before the whole transmission room is destroyed again!”
Jaden ignored Nox’s concerns. She’d seen the High Priest and seen the explosion they’d created. Nox could believe what she liked. Fureva-Yung was more interested in messing with the Plant room again. Marius leapt up, somersaulted and landed in front of Fureva-Yung, climbing to her head and chest like a baby monkey.
“Don’t touch!”
“Yes, get the hell out of here so I can play with the high voltage,” Jaden said, once more shooing Fureva-Yung away.
“Why are you all messing about when meteoroid is coming!” Nox yelled, wondering why the others weren’t taking her seriously.
 
When Fureva-Yung gave up touching the high voltage columns, Marius turned his attention to the distraught Nox.
“Show me the evidence,” He said.
“I can’t, an energy surge broke the sensor memory. It’s all gone, but I know I saw it!” Nox was close to tears now. She was so used to being heard, so used to being right. Why did no one believe her?
“Okay. So, you’ll put on your suit and we’ll go out there. Now.” Marius nodded and helped Nox back into her suit before she bamfed them both out into space before the transmission room.
 
Now that the debris was cleared away, the space around the station seemed very empty. Nox searched around the station. Marius spotted a meteoroid nearby, but it wasn’t going near fast enough nor at the right trajectory to hit the station.
“Can you see the meteroid you saw?” He asked kindly enough, but Nox could feel his patronising question. Still, it was better than being ignored. She had to admit, he was going to make a good dad some day.
“No…maybe Hick only reverse time for the space station not the meteroid?” She said in some vain hope that he would agree. Without argument, he put up a force cube anyway.
“Well, that will catch it, if it comes back,” He said and Nox bamfed them back inside.
 
Jaden was kept busy reconnecting small things that didn’t quite return with the rewind. She went through everything seeking out each broken connection, each small gap. Nox reinforced the damaged wall and floor, smoothing out the jagged seam across the room. When Jaden thought it looked good, she turned it on, and the transmitter booted up and connected to the Earth-based datasphere.
 
“Just before we repressurise the station again,” Fureva-Yung said, stepping into the room, she shook off some of the glowing green dust that tinted her fur. The fine dust settled without being sucked away into a small crack or a missing piece of wall. She jumped, clanging firmly against the floor. She nodded her satisfaction. She may not know much about engineering, but she knew a good job when she smashed into it.
 
We have explored and found our way home. We have left now, Hick of Miraad said and moved to leave.
Hey, if you know the future, do you have anything to tell us? Marius asked
Hicks turned to Fureva-Yung, You will be Admiral.
How about me? Nox asked cheekily.
You will be a scared girl.
What has I? Marius tried, thinking if he could put it in their terms, he might find out something useful.
You have been pregnant and are a father.
“And me? What have you got to say about me?” Jaden joined in.
You will be a community leader…and have become one again.
 
With nothing more left to say, Hick of Miraad translated out on the newly reestablished connection to the datasphere.