I was rather impressed with Technica when we returned. While she was not personally there to greet us, Robert Glint, who seemed to be one of her main aides was there. And he was not alone, there were about twenty workers, despite it being late on Christmas Eve, or rather, early on Christmas Day. Yet, here they were, having been pulled from wherever they normally worked, or maybe Technica had some sort of storage closet for henchman, who knew. But they were there and some of them already had palettes of goods ready to load.
“Mr. Glint, good. Can you supervise the loading process together with Anath?” I asked, looking over to Sophia who had put her mask back on.
“Galatea, give Sophia the loading-guidelines on her visor. I doubt that what they have is that heavy, we designed the craft with a lot of extra capacity, but better safe than sorry. Unloading later would cost valuable time.” I told Galatea, before they had even a chance to respond.
“Yes, Ma’am.” Mr. Glint answered, making me feel a little funny.
“Thank you. I will need about four hours of sleep before we can take-off. In addition to that, we need information, I assume Technica will provide those. It is not as if we can simply fly ‘there’” I added airquotes to the ‘there’, knowing that the affected area was hundreds of square-kilometers in size, “and start doing something, not if we want to be effective.”
“Yes, Ma’am. The Councillor told me that there will be a briefing for all those involved at eight o’clock in the morning.” he answered, before gesturing to the waiting workers.
“Anath, please keep an eye on things, you can sleep during the flight.” I asked Anath who nodded back.
With that, I went into one of the ready-rooms Galatea had shown me in the past, sending a message to my roommates, just so they would not worry. There was a shower next to the ready-room and after refreshing myself, I tried to force my body and mind to rest. It took a while, and mentally reciting a particularly boring lecture on the history of engineering, but I managed to slip from consciousness.
“Mother, wake up. It is time.” Galatea’s words caused me to rouse myself from my slumber and our connection told me that it was six in the morning, giving me ample time to make sure the craft was ready and have some breakfast before the briefing at eight. After donning my armour, I walked back out to the aircraft where I met Anath who was resting on a nearby chair. While I was unable to see her face, I got a feeling that she was a little frazzled.
“Did everything work?” I asked, not quite sure why she had not retreated to one of the ready-rooms.
“Yes, loading was finished half an hour ago.” I looked around, before gently pulling her to her feet and into the interior of the aircraft, leading her into the back-part through a door only I should be able to open. There, away from prying eyes, I gently undid her mask and took off my helmet, looking into her face. She looked tired, which was to be expected, but that was not all I could see there.
“Love, what is going on. You look…” I stopped, not quite sure how to describe the tension on her face.
In response, she gave me a wan smile, but it only highlighted my worries. “I just worry. I only heard a few words, but it seems the earthquake was one of the worst on record. What if we can’t help? What if we fail?” she asked and I was reminded of the worries I had felt the evening before. I wondered how to express my thoughts, finally deciding simply to speak, hoping that my words reached her.
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“I do not think we can fail.” I said, causing her to look at me in confusion. “At least not in a way I would consider a failure. What happened was a horrifying disaster, of that I have no doubt, but to me, failure would mean that we did not do our best. We will not be able to save everyone, that is simply not in our power. We are Powered, not Gods, even if we use their names. If, to you, success means that we go there, wave our hands and suddenly, all problems go away, we will fail, but how could it be failure if success was never possible?” I continued.
I could see the gears turning in her head as she thought about my words.
“So, you say we will simply do what we can and it has to be enough?” she asked, causing me to smile a little.
“Indeed, if do all we can, how could we have done more?” I retorted, making her nod in understanding. Seeing that she looked a little better, I gave her a gentle, encouraging kiss, hoping to banish her worries. Sadly, what I had told her was only intellectually true, I doubted that either of us would be able to hold to that intelectual truth if we were faced with the situation after the disaster. But it was the only way to help, do what we could. It had to be enough.
For the next few minutes, we simply stood there, leaning against each other, lost in our own minds, until Galatea gave me a slight mental nudge. We still had things to do.
Togehter, we went through the loading-checklist making sure that everything was where it should be, that the trim would not be affected and that we were not too heavy. It was mainly busy work, essentially re-doing what Anath had done during the loading process but it helped to settle our nerves.
Once that was done, we headed out for breakfast. It was strange, on the Island nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary and the normalcy seemed eerie, knowing that around the globe, a terrifying disaster was unfolding. Here, it was just a normal winter morning, no foreboding, dark clouds, no rumbling thunder, nothing that even hinted at the situation, other than a few people running around in a hurry.
After breakfast, it was almost time for the briefing and Technica had sent me a message where to go. It was a mid-sized conference-room in the main Guild-Building and while we were not the last, we were also not the first. Technica was already there, gesturing for me to join her at the front. After giving Anath’s hand a soft squeeze, I did just that and she took a seat in the audience.
“Good, you are here. Did everything work? I asked Robert to look after things.” she asked without preamble or greeting. I could hear that she was worried and hoped that she had rested enough. I did not know the exact workings of her power but I was quite sure that she needed to be awake if she wanted to fly her own aircraft down there.
“The new craft is loaded and I am rested. After the briefing and meeting the people you are sending with me, we can board and take off.” I assured her, seeing her stance relax a little.
After nodding once more, she looked at the time and the room, deciding that it was time to begin.
“Greetings, everyone. As said in the message, you were asked to come here because of a situation unfolding in the Indian Ocean. This morning, at five local time, there was a major earthquake, causing some damage but, more importantly, triggering a massive tsunami. The resulting waves made landfall a couple of hours ago, causing massive devastation in the area. In this room is the first wave of Guild-Responders, similar groups are currently assembled by Fey in Australia and Xian Long in China. This group will be split into two, one will meet with Fey, who is limited in her transport-capabilities, assisting her, the other will be under my leadership.” Technica began, not taking any time for niceties or introductions, simply stating the facts before going into more details. Galatea and I focused on the data, adding it into our own models, until Technica got to our role.
“This is my apprentice, Metis, some of you may have seen her before. She will take the group supporting Fey, using an experimental aircraft. Metanite, Pheronica, Hancock, Liam, Iron Maiden, Steelbender, Fixit, Anath and Tenderiser, you will all join her. Metis, I have sent you the location, Fey will already be there but she is limited in what she can do.” she stopped for a moment, gathering herself.
“New information will be transmitted to you as soon as we have them. For now, Godspeed.” she finished, softly knocking her fist onto her breastplate in salute. I returned the gesture before nodding to the eight Powered she had assigned to me to follow me and Anath.