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 Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2025 6:09 pm
Aquamarine wasn’t used to being the reasonable one between himself and Jet. If he ever held Jet back, it was for Jet’s safety, not because he cared what became of anyone else.
But he kept his hand on Jet’s arm, which grew more tense the more agitated Jet became. Aquamarine’s grip tightened—a comfort as much as it was a warning. He wasn’t the type to trust these aliens either, but at the moment they were their best source of information. They should take what they could get and use what seemed feasible, and if it came to light later that Lyndin or his little Commanders were being deceptive in any way, they could deal with it then. Aquamarine would certainly have no second thoughts putting them to the sword.
For now, he felt almost charitable, or as charitable as Aquamarine could ever be about anything. Maybe he wasn’t entirely right—there was still much they didn’t know—but he might not have been outright wrong in his assumptions either. Aquamarine liked being told his ideas weren’t bad.
“At best there are five of these in total,” he said, regarding the spike. “At worst this is the only one remaining. We can confer with our own people and find Kerberos to get a more accurate count. Either way, we’d need more, assuming six are necessary. Between yourselves and the Mauvians, would we be able to recreate these? And this energy, assuming it originally came from the ******** serpent itself, could we use it to engineer a way to track its approach to Earth?”Vyn read the results on Aliez’s ComTech.
He read them again.
He nearly said something, even opened his mouth to let the words spill out, then realized he had no idea what he was actually going to say and shut his mouth again with an audible click of teeth.
A conductor made of Astricite. A sample of energy so pure it had a similar reading to a supernova. A shard of ceiling dated approximately thirteen hundred years, somehow connected to the Moon. A creature capable of devouring worlds, captured and imprisoned, potentially with the use of its own energy. Six walls, six hallways, six spikes. A hexagonal prison.
Harvestable energy…
And a conductor.
Vyn held himself very still. He kept his gaze locked on Aliez’s ComTech like he found the information there endlessly fascinating. He wanted to catch the Commodore’s eye, wanted to look into his face and piece together what the Commodore might be thinking between words Vyn suspected might not be as revelatory as they could be. That was how the Commodore had handled the White Moon. That was how the Commodore had once handled the Cadets. Surely that was how the Commodore would handle the Negaverse, too. Give them enough. Don’t reveal everything.
Vyn wasn’t used to having flashes of inspiration so he wasn’t well versed in containing them. The Commodore, on the other hand, was 1) vastly more intelligent, 2) immensely more experienced, and 3) far better at controlling the tone of his voice and the expressions that crossed his face than Vyn had learned to be in one hundred and fifty-three years. The Commodore probably had many thoughts he wasn’t sharing without giving so much as an indication that there were things he wasn’t sharing.
Vyn forced himself to breathe, slow and even. Unable to look at the Commodore without giving himself away, he looked at Aliez, then Andreiya. He held their gazes intently, like he could somehow get them on the same wavelength if he stared hard enough, though he couldn’t quite untangle his own thoughts quickly enough to convey anything that might make sense.
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Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2025 7:58 pm
Lyndin glanced at Jet but there was no clear emotion on his face. It wasn’t his first time interacting with the General King but it was his first time seeing him like this. It wasn’t Lyndin’s first time dealing with a world-ending catastrophe. He didn’t fault the humans for navigating these emotions. But he wasn’t here to coddle them. He had more than one world to save. “Vancorium,” Lyndin said crisply, and as he knew this was undoubtedly unknown to their human guests he explained, “A highly versatile ore you won’t find this side of the galaxy. I’ve been looking for years. One of Velenia’s major exports.” Maybe there was a hint of bitterness in his voice. Maybe he held the ComTech a little tighter. Maybe his eyes were a little colder. “There are slight traces of organic material in this sample. I’d need to run more tests to isolate it but I’ll get a program started. I don’t know the likelihood of replicating these but I’ll pool resources and see what our options are. I’ll reach out to Velencya to see if they can send me some readings but it shouldn’t be too hard to scan for similar energy signatures and track where it is based on these readings.”
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Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2025 10:42 am
The hand against his arm was hardly a deterrent. He knew what Aquamarine was doing, and he knew he was getting more pent up as they continued to navigate barely enough information to work with.
Jet watched Lyndin's blank expression as he looked at him shift just slightly when the Commodore started explaining what the spike was made from.
He looked at the spike that Aquamarine had presented, and then looked back up at Lyndin.
Something in Jet’s demeanor shifted as well.
There was fire in his eyes. A burning of disdain and hate. But the rest of his expression had softened with sympathy.
“Did you know that the Moon Kingdom was using your world’s resources? Or is this the first time you’re finding out that they betrayed you, at least twice now?”
Jet didn’t take kindly to disloyalty, so he could understand the tension from the Commodore if that was the case. The prison, created from the materials from the Moon, but had the energy harnessed by resources from Velenia.
He’d heard of the Velencian history, knew they’d been forced from their home and made to create Velencya. Those who had forced them out…
“Do you think the Moon Kingdom didn’t help your world because they wanted your resources?” Aliez glanced curiously over at Vyn when he heard him shut his mouth with a click of teeth. He spared a look at Andreiya to see if he also thought he was missing something. Vyn looked like he was trying desperately to stay calm. Maybe the humans wouldn’t notice because they didn’t know Vyn’s mannerisms, but the way he was gazing at both he and Andreiya was almost unsettling. Like he needed to say something.
Was there something that Aliez had missed?
Hearing that Vancorium was used, and the General King’s hypothesis, was distracting enough. His heart felt heavy, and he looked curiously up at the Commodore to see if it was something he knew, or if the Moon Kingdom really hadn’t been their friend.
He wanted Lyndin to make these Negaverse officers leave. They shared enough information about their home. He didn’t need more heartache on top of the threats headed their way.
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Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2025 5:40 pm
Aquamarine was satisfied—almost pleasantly so, considering people tended to disappoint him at best and exasperate him at worst. Of course he doubted the Commodore was being as forthright as he could be. Aquamarine trusted him about as far as he could throw him; considering the Commodore’s size, that wasn’t very far at all. But alliances could be built on practicality more than trust. As long as both sides got what they wanted out of the arrangement, Aquamarine saw no reason to push.
Yet.
Some of the tension in Jet’s arm eased. Aquamarine took his cues from him.
“Difficult to know who to trust,” he said. Unlike Jet, Aquamarine’s voice lacked sympathy, but the conversational tone of it kept the usual scorn away. “Those Moon Kingdom bastards must’ve been very convincing to have so many in alliance with them. I wonder how many others they ******** over.”Vyn tensed. He turned ever so slightly to look toward the Commodore, drawn to do so by the subtle thread of bitterness in his tone.
The General King made his assumptions.
Vyn didn’t know if they were entirely correct.
He gnashed his teeth together to keep himself from saying anything, mouth pressed into a straight line. His thoughts spun wildly, from Astricite to Vancorium to the ball of energy in General Aquamarine’s possession, back to the shard of ceiling from a hexagonal prison.
Maybe it was true. Maybe the Moon Kingdom had taken their resources. They’d been powerful in their own right. What was to stop them? Honor? They’d had little, as far as Vyn could tell. Maybe they’d taken what they’d needed and trapped the creature themselves.
Or maybe we helped them, Vyn thought, only for them to turn around and refuse to help us.
His heart raced. Vyn breathed as steadily as he could, half expecting the General King and the General to turn on them at any moment.
He wished he knew what the Commodore was thinking.
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Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2025 7:21 pm
Andreiya caught Vyn's gaze, but only after a few seconds of his eyes boring into him, and quickly looked between him and Aliez. He’d been transfixed by the conversation, frozen in place as if by being statuesque he might process information more quickly.
He didn’t know what the others knew, he only knew that this information made his head and heart hurt. It was no small effort to keep his breathing even, to keep his eyes from darting around anxiously. He glared at the spike as inconspicuously as possible.
Andreiya didn’t know if there was actually any tension in the room or if he was just imagining it while trying to navigate the implications of the conversation.
There was too much that he didn’t know on a good day. On a bad day? Even less.
He hadn’t wanted the Negaverse Agents to be there in the first place, and now he wanted them gone more than ever. He wanted to know what was going on–what was really going on.
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Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2025 7:25 pm
Lyndin remained quiet for a moment but at no point did his posture change. He carried himself tall, and proud. His face was stony again, maybe a little tired. His eyes fell to the ComTech once more, perhaps as if he willed the information to change. It didn’t, so he passed the spike back to Aquamarine. To Jet, and maybe in part to Aquamarine too, he answered, “I don’t know. But I would be interested to find out.” He lowered the ComTech and the energy reading device he’d been using, and as they had served their purpose he set them down on his work table. “I will see what information I can uncover. If there’s anything I can put into production, I’ll prioritize it. Shall I contact you first or does your Queen expect me to report to her?”
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Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2025 7:51 pm
Jet watched Lyndin. His eyes followed the spike he was handing back to Aquamarine, and then as Lyndin lowered his scanners down. For someone who knew a lot, Lyndin sure didn’t know much, Jet noticed.
For a few moments, his gaze shifted to the other three that stood mostly quiet behind the Commodore, as if trying to hide in his shadow.
Shadows certainly were good places to hide things…
“Thank you,” Jet said after he looked away from the three and their peculiar expressions. “You can contact me if you uncover anything. I’ll be awake,” he insisted, ignoring the sharp glare from Aquamarine.
“Try not to keep us waiting. The Earth… and possibly your world… depend on it.”
He took a step back, turning to exit the small house with Aquamarine in toe, his expression sharper now that he had information for the Queen.
Fin!
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