The next morning, Tessa joins me and Naomi at the Penbroke Pavilion, to see a bit of a mixed bag of results.
Gateway Blank 3MEA Made from enchanted ceramic in a single piece. Requires engraving and power source to enable gateway travel.
Luckily, this expensive blank also comes with some rudimentary engraving instructions, which I definitely appreciate. If I don’t sleep for a few days, I might even be able to finish it before I need it. Before I start engraving, which I desperately want to do, I need to plan out the runes and spellwork I need to do on each side of the blank.
“There’s not much I can do here is there?”
“Nonsense. You can figure out how we’re going to shield this platform, maybe inside an armored shroud for the arch?” I don’t love the idea that the ceramic body would be left to the elements, even if its enchantments make it more robust.
“yeah, I can start on that. Do you have enough batteries and ink for this?”
“It’ll delay our next ship of the line, but yeah, I have the batteries made. My ink supply is lower than I’d like. With enough aether replacement food and drink, I should be fine.” I wasn’t so sure, actually, but I wasn’t about to say that out loud in front of Naomi. Tessa could, of course, read my thoughts, but she can deal.
Tessa immediately frowned and thought better of bringing it up now.
As soon as I set up my refreshment table down within the prone archway, I tell my assistant to take notes on the last day of the Forum for me and apologize for missing the end of the proceedings.
You know I don’t like it when you sacrifice yourself like this.
My laugh is borderline maniacal. You wanted go get-‘em Penny, this is her: Science above all else. I appreciate you having my back, Tessa, you don’t get to dictate my behavior, however. You don’t get to dictate what’s important to me. I need this to help pay back the lives I took when I killed 73 million sick people with the swarm, and I’d like you to understand that.
I do understand. But I’d also like you to understand that people care about Penny the person too, not just Penny the Scientist or Empress Astoria.
It’s hard to see my engravings when I’m crying, Tessa. Cut it out. There’s a sad chuckle that follows—I can’t tell of it’s me, her, or both.
Without another word thought in that direction, I continue planning my engraving while Tessa transfers a fabricator to the platform and starts printing stainless steel sheets. The knowledge I read starts spooling up in my parallel minds and conveniently lets me process the data they provide at the same time, lets me understand what they’re telling me at the same time. With the notes on keying portals and safeguarding the material stream from the research paper, and the multi-gateway setup from the space manipulation modules and the instruction manual from this blank; I understand that most of the spellwork and runes will be the same on both faces of the blank and that the encoding and safety can be engraved on the spine. Well shit.
“Hey Tessa? Can you bend those sheets over a scaffold? I need something to climb to engrave the spine of this thing once we stand it up. “
“That’s two whole extra steps before enshrouding the gateway.”
“Yes, hon, but it also provides us a way to pour the Osmete feet without a trying to mar the ceramic further.”
“I’m calling for a welder and a shuttle. If you have some extra ink, I can engrave these plates as well.”
“Uhh, I’m not sure I do hon. Buy some A-powered ink if you think you need to engrave now. We should be able to afford a couple bottles before it gets too ruinous.” Tessa nods at the recommendation, but I can tell she doesn’t like it.
I start with the space manipulation framework. The central runic and the embellishment border framework make a basic, portal-opening spellform. I search my Empire Interface for this location’s relative anchor ID and it tells me that the ID for the Borough of Penbroke was enough. I then look up the ID for Bikini Atoll and decide to hard-code it to this far face of the gateway. The other side of the gateway, facing the admin buildings, can be the general in-out portal. I make sure to include the power lead and the overflow conduits in both feet to feed into the not-yet prepared magitech interface.
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Ensuring that I have the desired runes and embellishment work laid out, I simulate with the Astorian Satellite Construct what kind of power loading and supply I should expect and need.
The simulation takes a minute or two while I input the various crystal sizes I have available. The Satellites feed one of my minds that the spellform needs 7% overcharge to complete, but also bleeds 5% at the end of the form. So, I design in a few capacitance crystals that feed back into the feed line. I let the simulation run again with the new configuration while I diagram the forms for the other side of the portal.
The admin and reception side should just have a network ID, or an open gate to connect with any Host-ranged gateway. I do some digging in the Empire interface to find that the Empire assigns system and planet ID’s as a matter of course, but the Empire ID isn’t publicly available. I query my Sector host on if there is a group identifier for Astorian systems. The system IDs line up exactly with the exception of a lead digit and a trailing digit. I query the Host for the system ID and there is just the ID. I ask for an Empire ID and they tell me there isn’t one. In a moment of frustration, I ask for my ID.
The Matrix comes back with as many IDs as I have titles, and the leading identifier matches the leading character of the Astorian Systems, but the trailing character of the titles are all different. Maybe that’s a group identifier for a ruling title? One of my parallel minds has finished analyzing system IDs and tells me that the checksum is shifted by a static amount. That amount matches my ‘Empress of Humanity’ title’s trailing character. Well, shit, my systems do have an Empire ID, but it’s not the Empire, it's the Ruler it’s coded for. Meaning that this gate won’t work if I stop being Empress—not this side at least.
I’m fine with it. I change my plan to hard encode on gate to the far side and go with the newly identified group ID, and decide to leave the admin side open to the Sector Host accessible gates. Or they would be open if I had not decided to encode the spine of the gate to restrict access.
The simulation comes back with the data compared to the data from the Alaris gateway in that the arch reaches an “optimal” temperature and starts using less power to maintain. This lends that the arch steals power to reinforce itself while operating. The simulation split off another set of data based on Alaris data and both results were available. Alaris numbers come in far more efficient, saying my proposed spellform only loses less than 1% instead of the 7% startup overfeed or the 2% sustained loss. The other simulation peaks at 10% due to a lack of cooling. Just to confirm no introduced errors with my slightly modified design, I run the changes for the group IDs just to make sure I don’t cause the need for a second blank.
I take a brief break to eat and slurp on my aether-infused juice while working on transfiguring my engraving tools. I leave the inks in the crate in the warehouse on Mercy as I plan to deplete my stores to 50% before delving into the ink.
My index and middle fingers form a v-shaped chisel made out of my aether-forged bone matter and it slides through the enchanted ceramic as though it were firm cheese. Once the main form of this rune is cut, I form my ring finger into a smaller, semi-circle channel cutter that cuts a small reservoir at the bottom of each “v”. Once that’s finished I run the v-chisel backwards over the rune while pushing aether ink out of tiny holes on the bottom to evenly smear ink on the walls of the rune and enough to fill the reservoir in the valley. The guide for the gateway blank then recommends coating the shape in a clear substance to protect it from the elements while not impeding the flow of the aether working.
I send a note to Francesca asking how much resin she has.
I hit fifty percent reserves on my aether stores after only a few shapes. I look at the rest of the blank space and realize how much I have bitten off. Before I switch to ink bottles I take another break at the food and drink table and break out the small chill box with four galaxy fruit in delicate holders. I cut one in half and put the other half back in the box and stow it. Then I dig into the fruit, skin and all, and lose myself in the resplendent flavor and the euphoric amount of aether in the fruit.
A young man runs forward with what looks like a surveyor’s range-finder and sets it up between the feet of the arch and taps at an attached console for a few seconds before shuffling back to a table where I see Tessa fiddling with some dials. The boy swats her hands away, and I’m about to go over there and toss him across town, when a projection of the archway shot up from the table. Ah, kits a tech savant. Tessa’s a big girl, she can set her own boundaries. They start chatting and throwing ideas onto the arch model I immediately see a problem.
“Attention the model table, you should not be using the arch as a load-bearing support. I’mma send you the projected heat production I simulated earlier, please consider dissipation schemes.” I set one of my parallel minds to find the signal that the range finder was sending to the table and use that frequency from my tablet to their table. As much as I hate the idea of tech modding my body, the mod my wife and Tessa lobbied for me to install so I can remote pilot the shuttles was a good call. Super useful.
Any other pertinent data?
You know what? I don’t love your tone, but sure. I’ll send over my power plan too. I also recommend being able to support the shield generator and a hundred kilos of batteries on that scaffolding. I send over the estimated size and shape of the Osmete feet I want to pour around the bottom of the archway once we stand it up. The dense aggregate pours like concrete, but weighs more than four times as much and is at least twice as hard—it should keep this massive arch in place.
When my condition improves from well-beaten rug to mildly ruffled feathers I figure it’s time to get back to work. I use my transmutation skill to grow an interlock for my ink bottles, transfer some scrap steel to test the new ink connection on and then face the arch with a crate of ink and renewed vigor.