My hand traced along the forward-most ring of the ship, a faint trail of a blue circuit pattern following my fingers before fading out on the metal. As I did information danced across the back of my mind, patterns of hyper advanced circuitry and components. I was slowly understanding just how each part worked with each other, how the elaborate fitting of each complex bit fit into the whole. Laying on my back underneath the vessel, my whole vision was taking up by the machine I was studying. While I couldn't speak for the Psions' aesthetic tastes, I had to admit they could build a well-functioning ship.
I had analyzed the ship once before, but this was the first time since I had gotten my technomancy. And already I had learned so much more than what I had before. For starters, I figured out just what the ship was meant for. Near as I could tell, the vessel I had 'acquired' was a surveying ship, meant to go to planets and comets to get geological data. As such it mostly consisted of scanning equipment, and a few other things. There was a single forward facing laser cannon, along with some sort of tractor beam for dragging materials into the ship proper.
It was pretty bare bones for a space ship, to be honest. I had learned basically all I could from the ship's interior systems, this time finally cracking their holographic technology. At least their hardware. It would take a bit to learn to use it properly, but I already had a few improvements made to my own stuff. Everything else, from computer systems to life support, were things I already had or things that weren't immediately useful.
So for the moment, I was trying to make sense of what I had come to call the ship's 'gravity impellers', the things that let it, well, move. It was clear that it worked via precise manipulation of gravity waves, but exactly how was… difficult to discern. All of the Psion tech I had analyzed focused on manipulation of electromagnetism, and these rings were no different. And yet somehow they were using it to do something to electric fields, which affected spacetime in some way, to affect gravity too.
I suppose that's yet more confirmation that Electro-Gravity interactions are a thing in this universe, at least down on the quantum level, I thought to myself I as I recorded the internal schema of the rings on a hard drive next to me. After all, I had confirmed that both Starfire and Superman flew via gravity manipulation, and they did so by absorbing sunlight. Probably not the exact same mechanism, but it showed that it was possible. Still, I had only been studying quantum mechanics for about a month. Understanding this technology well enough to replicate it would take a while.
I supposed I could skip all that by just assimilating it, but I was very reluctant to damage the working space ship. Building a small scale replica and assimilating that might work, but I could already tell that the construction required a number of exotic metals and compounds I couldn't easily get or replicate. This would take some time.
"Everything all right down there?" I heard a voice echo across the Watchtower's hanger. I slid out from underneath the craft to see the Flash looking at me, his eyebrow arched behind his mask. "Not to tell you how to do your mad science, but you're awfully quiet down there. I expected some mad cackling, or at least you taking the thing apart."
While I was allowed on the Watchtower to study the ship, I still needed to have a League member chaperone me, and today the Flash was that chaperone. I was mildly annoyed by lack of trust, but they were probably just following protocol. I folded my arms across my chest. "First of all, I don't need to take this thing apart to figure out how it works, so I'd rather not risk it. And secondly, who are you to lecture me on mad science? You made a super-speed serum in your workplace lab because you were bored one day."
"Exactly! So you know I'm an expert on it." He said it with a grin and point. "Only reason I didn't indulge in the maniacal laughter is because I didn't want to wake up the neighbors."
"Yeah, that was what the following explosion was for."
"It wasn't that big…" he grumbled before he shrugged. "In any case, you've got a call incoming. Tune in the Watchtower's long comm frequency."
I wondered who would be calling me as I did so. I formed a holographic projector on my shoulder, and a moment later a familiar head was floating in the air next to me, though I was a little surprised to see who it was. "Lantern Stewart. What can I do for you?" I said. As far as I knew the man was still on off-world patrol. If so, this was a hell of a long distance call.
The Green Lantern nodded. "Machina. Calling to get confirmation on something." A second later a new image appeared next to his head, this one causing me to freeze. "Is this the device you said gave you your powers?"
I stared at the image of the insectile object for a long moment. It resembled a cross between a beetle and a spider, with a central chitinous body and ten long limbs. It was a dull grey in color, and looking closely I could see small ridges that lined the carapace, very similar to the ones that plagued me if I wasn't paying attention. "…Yes. I mean, I only had a couple of seconds to look at it, but that could definitely be it. Where did you find this?"
"The records of a salvaging company, in a sector close to the Vega system." He said. "Psions don't get out of Vega often, but when they do they have a few places they like to frequent to pick up interesting specimens. This one was purchased by a Psion a few months ago."
"Well, what is it? Where did it come from?"
"Not sure, the scavengers had no idea either," Stewart said, and I felt no small amount of disappointment. "This particular piece had been bouncing around from scrapyard to pawn shop around the sector; I'm still trying to hunt down where it was first scavenged from. The people who last had it didn't even know it was that valuable until the Psion showed interest in it, after a scan from its own device. If I had to guess, the Psions were the first people with advanced enough scanners to realize it was more than just a trinket."
"Well, any leads on who made this thing then? There has to be a short list for nanotech this advanced."
"A few candidates, but… most of them are dead," he said. "Nanomachines are pretty common among space fairing civilizations, but most of them only use them for isolated, specific things. The ones that don't tend to get destroyed by their own creations. The Corps has seen a number of those come and go. And considering this thing was in the hands of scavengers it's very likely the people who made it don't exist anymore."
"Fair enough, but what about Bleed-tech? The intersection of that and nanotech has to at least narrow the field, right?"
John was silent for a few moments. "Maybe. I don't know about the dead ones, but there are a handful active powers that use both. Coluans, the Reach, Qwardians… I think Kryptonians made use of Bleed technology at one point, but that was long before they turned isolationist."
My thoughts drifted to the Phantom Zone projector, and I made a mental note to ask Superman about that before I asked "What about the Guardians? Do they not use it?"
"Well, not outside of specific uses. You have to understand, there's a limited number of things you can safely do with manipulating the Bleed membrane. Power generation is the easiest one, and for all its uses there are other ways to get the same amount of energy."
"Well, considering that I could be reasonably said to be partially made out of Bleed portals, I think I'm going to find as many uses for them as possible. I'm still trying to figure out how to access my dimensional storage for something other than my own nanomachines."
"Those portals you make are only a few dozen molecules wide at most, I think that's going to be difficult." Stewart grunted. "And that's not going into the other difficulties of Bleed storage. If you ever mess up the harmonic anchor, everything gets lost between universes. Lantern Rings prefer dimensional folding for a reason." A beat. "You're not going to try poking at that stuff anyway, are you? Because you're just as liable to 'lose' yourself as anything else."
"No, no, at least not anytime soon." I said as I waved my hand. "I just want some avenues of research to start down when I get my compiler up and running. One of the biggest limits I have is my mass limit, along with my dimension storage limits. It would be nice if I could use it for other things."
"Hey, Machina!" I craned my neck back to see Flash a short distance away. "I gotta run, the Hawks will be here in a sec to take over."
I gave him a thumbs up, and an instant later he was gone in a red blur. I looked back at image of Stewart's head. "In any case, don't you at least have a guess of who made the device?"
He grimaced. "Maybe… but I don't want to talk about it just yet. Not until I'm certain. And you should be careful who you talk to about this, too."
That gave me pause. "Wait, why?"
He didn't answer immediately, instead looking to the side for a moment. "Tui, I can't just-" he cut off and grimaced, before looking back to me. "Just keep your eyes and ears open. Earth isn't as isolated as you might think." And with that the call ended.
I was left staring at the empty space with a frown on my face. Well, that was ominous, I thought. John usually was pretty straight with me, but he got a bit cagey at the end there. That said, I didn't really know what to do about it considering he didn't give me much to work with. Out of the few races he mentioned, the Reach seemed like the most likely candidate from what I remembered (the fact that I had several aesthetic similarities to a Scarab Warrior had not eluded me), but I was pretty sure they were nowhere near Earth at the moment.
With a sigh I slid myself back underneath the ship, resolving to see if there was anything I could do about a possible Reach incursion later. I still hadn't talked to Ted about whether or not he was holding on to a Scarab because, well, I wasn't supposed to know about it. Hell, the League didn't know about it until I told them. And what would I even do with it if he had it? Khaji-Da was fully sapient as far as I could remember, and I didn't want to get into the habit of eating things that could think. I did have the upcoming trip to Rhelasia with Ted, maybe I could… no, I decided to let it lie until I learned more. Wanted to keep my meta-knowledge from getting me in trouble.
There was a loud crash near my head, and snapping my neck back revealed the tip of a heavy mace resting near a pair of booted feet. I hesitated before I slid back out from underneath the ship, and found myself staring up at a female form framed by a pair of tan wings. Her outfit was a mix of blacks and tans, with pieces of armor here and there. Her masked face stared down at me, small wings going back from her head. "We haven't properly met." She said. "Shayera Hol, Thanagarian Police Force." I noticed her husband Katar standing a short distance behind her, but my attention was dragged back to the woman as she crouched down next to me, her bird like eyes boring into my own. "So, with that out of the way, what's this about me betraying my people to stop them from blowing up the Earth?"
Oh boy.
Thanagarians weren't exactly just humans with wings when it came to their physiology. Oh it was close, you could be forgiven for thinking so if you had never been closer than ten feet to one. But sitting across the table from a de-masked Shayera and Katar Hol, I could see all the subtle differences between them and humans. The avian eyes were the most obvious of course, but their features were also just that bit sharper and leaner than a normal human with their build.
They could also sit perfectly still when they wanted to, which was a tad unnerving when you're getting grilled by one about details of an event that paints them in a questionable light (never mind that it hasn't actually happened in this universe). It seemed that while Shayera had read Batman's report on my meta-knowledge, she had a few more questions regarding what I knew about her and Thanagar. Which wasn't much, quite frankly. Still, we had adjoined to the cafeteria so that I could tell her what little I knew.
"…So, yeah, Thanagar's War with the Gordanians went so bad, they were willing to sacrifice Earth to win." I said. "The League, with that Shayera Hol's help, managed to kick them off the planet and stop them from turning it into a Hyperspace Express Route. Though for both betraying her people and spying on the League, she was ostracized by both of them. And… as a result, Thanagar was destroyed."
Shayera stared at me for a long moment, her gaze still intense as she judged what I had told her. Finally, she spoke. "That's bloody stupid."
That… wasn't the response I was expecting. "What?"
She gestured with her hand in front of her. "There's no such thing as a wormhole generator that destroys the planet it's on, that sounds like the worst way you could possibly make one. And even if it did have to make enough gravitational waves to tear apart the surrounding area, why couldn't you just make the structure in space? And even if you had to put it on a planetoid, why Earth? There are plenty of other rocky places to put the thing, a few astronomical units aren't going to matter for the distances this thing was supposed to cover. Didn't you say Mars as uninhabited in that story?"
Her husband gave her an amused look. "I think the writers were more focused on drama than logical consistency."
"Drama is stupid."
She's… taking it well. I think. I had been worried that the very intense woman would have taken more umbrage at her fictitious betrayal of her people, but it seemed she had a more pragmatic view. Of a sort. "So, that's basically everything I know. Is… there going to be a problem?"
Shayera snorted. "What? Because of what you told me? No, of course not. Alternate versions of me can make whatever choices they want, and it doesn't affect me. And it doesn't mean I'm going to start acting like her anytime soon."
"I don't know, Shayera," Katar said with a slight smirk. "I've seen you casting a few looks at Lantern Stewart when you think I'm not looking."
She turned to her husband, face set in a scowl. "One, you're paying for that later. And two, that's just window shopping, it doesn't count."
Aw, they do love each other, I thought to myself. I most certainly didn't say it out loud because I was afraid Hawkwoman would use that mace of hers on my head. What I did say was, "So, if you don't mind my asking… if you don't really care about other versions of yourself, why did you want to know more about it?"
She looked back at me. "I was worried that you might have had a few Thanagarian secrets I'd have to pry out of that mind of yours, but it's clear that even if you did know something, you wouldn't know if it was true or not." She hesitated before she shrugged. "That or you're a better liar than I thought. In which case, if I ever found out, I would drag your ass back to Thanagar and let our scientists pull you apart bit by bit."
"…I'll have you know I'm a terrible liar."
She snorted and go up from her seat. "Well, anyway, sorry about using up your remaining time on the Watchtower, but you need to head back planetside soon. And I need to go fill out some paperwork…"
Katar arched an eyebrow. "I thought you finished that already. We've been gathering everything together for the fledglings at Outpost-Thrul for the past week."
"No, this is for Batman. He insisted that I get it done before the meeting tonight." Shayera looked down at Katar, confusion plain on his face. She elaborated. "It's been moved up to accommodate some other members. Scheduling conflict. The League meeting is tonight."
Katar sighed in exasperation. "We've put off the check-in for too long, we can't skip one this one too." He looked at me for a long moment before he looked back at his wife. "You know my opinion. You can speak for me at the meeting. I'll go the check-in."
Shayera nodded, and one of her wings extended to touch Katar. The two remained still for a long moment before she retracted her wing and walked away. As Katar looked back at me, I asked "Check-in?"
He paused for a moment before he said, "Routine status update to my superiors back on Thanagar. They assigned us here to keep an eye on Earth after all. Once a month or so we go to a Thanagarian outpost to report in."
"Why can't you just send a message?" I asked.
"The transponder in our ship isn't powerful enough. And this," he gestured to the space station around us. "is not a Thanagarian facility. Communications can't be considered secure or verified, so we have to go to a nearby outpost to send our reports back."
"I wasn't aware there was one nearby."
"Well, 'near' in relative terms." He leaned back. "It's a trade world. A Thanagarian protectorate… roughly speaking. It's the closest outpost we have to Earth, so we check in there every month or so. And it's useful for picking up supplies."
That piqued my interest. "Really? What kind of things can you pick up there?"
Katar made an odd motion with his ears before he replied. "Just about any common goods you can think of, plus some extras. Ships, medical supplies, weapons, cultural artifacts and media. I think robotics have seen an uptick in the past few months too. A large number of species both comes through and lives there, so it's something of a… I think the Earth term is 'melting pot'." He tilted his head. "Why?"
I hesitated for a moment longer before I said "Can… I come with you?"
Katar gave me a quizzical look. "No, but also, why?"
"I want to buy something that I can't get on Earth. I've been wanting to for a while now, but I can't really fly my ship yet, or know where to go. But this trade world sounds like just the place I'm looking for."
"Kid, this isn't a field trip," He said as his wings spread out a little behind him. "This is official Thanagraian police business. I don't have time to babysit you while you go shopping."
I ignored the 'kid' comment and said, "You don't need to 'babysit' me, I can figure it out on my own. I know for a fact the League has translators with a whole host of alien languages in case one of them decides to make a surprise visit to Earth. And I have plenty of rare metals and metamaterials, and I'm sure there's some place on a trade planet I can exchange those for local currency. I just need a ride there and back."
Katar was not impressed, folding his arms as he leaned back. "You think you can navigate an alien planet without help?"
"Well, just a city." I shrugged. "I'm not looking to get sidetracked. And unless there's some completely wild cultural elements I need to be made aware of, I would think that a trade planet would be at least a little facilitating of someone wandering around looking for something."
He paused. "Maybe, but that doesn't mean you won't also run into trouble."
"…Do you really think I couldn't handle myself?" I asked.
He scowled. "No, I think recent events proved you can 'handle yourself' quite well. That's what I'm afraid of. The last thing we need is for you to cause an incident." He shifted in his seat and gestured. "Why don't you just ask Lantern Stewart for help? I heard you talking to him earlier, and I know you've asked him for help with things before."
"Because I don't want to just keep asking the Lanterns for favors. I want to do this myself."
"So, is your pride that important to you?"
That brought me up short. I was silent for several seconds before I sighed. "I… no. No, if it came down to it I would ask someone else to get it for me rather than getting it myself. I wouldn't like it though."
Katar hummed and leaned forward. "Really? And you'd risk potential harm, chaos, and worst of all my ire, to get whatever the Old One-damned thing yourself anyway?" I nodded, and he let out something between a laugh and a grunt. He then gave me a critical look. "Not saying yes, but you've got my curiosity now. Just what is it that is so important to you that you need to personally travel to an alien planet to get it?"
So, I told him.
=====A=====
Interlude coming up next. Sadly, I will not be doing a chapter about Jacob's adventures in space, because I didn't feel it would progress the plot much for what I had in mind.