Day 13 A.F.
“Hey Michael, Xavier said you wanted to see me about something,” Darius called out as soon as he entered the E-Tech automotive workshop.
“Yeah man, also, call me Mike. I think we got something here. You know how you wanted us to figure out how those Essence engine things ran?”
“I remember. What did you come up with?”
“It’s some weird shit, you know? It acts like an electric car for the most part, but instead of copper, it uses this weird alloy. The motor part was easiest. You apply power, it turns the drive shaft like normal. The tricky part is the Generator. Even after I bought a low-grade generator blueprint, still cost me five grand. I still can't make heads nor tails on how it’s supposed to work.”
“Can you build it, though? Make one of those generators from scratch?”
“That’s the easiest part, really. I uploaded the blueprint to the fabricator. As long as it has all the materials, it can basically 3-D print the damned thing. Hell, I already made one. Here, let me show you.” Mike led Darius through the massive shop. It had to be two to three times larger than even the greenhouse, and that put Ethan’s enchanting shop or his uncle’s ceramic shop to shame.
Sitting on one of the workbenches, a black cube with silver lines running all over it hummed faintly. It was about a foot to a side and had a few round plug ports for some kind of cable-like connection. “That’s it?” Darius asked.
“That’s it. I had to get some of those metals you got stored away in that chest, but Xavier authorized it.”
Darius nodded. It made sense, and since he’d appointed Xavier Johnson the Village mayor the other day, it was his responsibility to see to the day to day running of Zuri and he had full authority to divvy out the crafting materials as needed. He’d offered the job to his uncle first, but the man didn’t want it. He was happy making bricks, cups and whatever else he was churning out in that shop of his.
“Good,” Darius said, bringing himself back to the conversation at hand. “Being able to make vehicles or something to increase our soldiers' mobility is a top priority. I’m glad he gave you what you needed.”
“I bought the cheapest blueprint I could find. I was hoping I could study it and figure out how it works. If I was able to manage that, then we wouldn’t have to buy more expensive copies. We’d be able to upgrade it on our own.”
“But no luck?”
“No damned luck.”
“So, what kind of Power output are we talking about here?” Darius asked. “And did you figure out the energy storage?”
“Well, this unit here only produces about one Energy Point every ten minutes or so. If we were to try recharging one of them drones off of this, well, it would take days, not hours. Well, a day and a half, anyway. As for the Power Bank. It looks like it’s some kind of crystal matrix of some kind. Again, I don’t really know how they’re made, just the materials needed to fabricate one. Xavier gave me the creds to buy a simple blueprint for one of them as well. It only holds ten Energy Points, so it isn’t really good for much as it is. I can build the frames, the body, even the engine, pretty much everything that goes into a car, except for that damned generator and Power Bank. This shop has a damned fine CAD program at that terminal over there. So I can design damn near anything you want, except the Power systems.”
Darius nodded, then opened the research tab on his interface as he spoke. “I’ll talk to David about getting a research primer for E-tech. He’s working on Ki Formations at the moment and… Damn, we’re still a little under half way to completing the current rank. How much are the Engines, anyway? And the Power Banks. If necessary, we could just buy a couple, so you can get us a couple of troop transports built.”
“Yeah, I looked them up too.” Mike pulled out a pocket notepad and flipped past several pages before he stopped. “luckily, the generators are much cheaper than the blueprints. This generator here would have cost me about five hundred credits. It was basically listed as a camping generator, meant to charge communication devices, and stuff like that. Nothing big. Now something that would run something like that van Carlos has, costs about four grand. It this, Essentrix-100X Energy Converter version 2.3 can draw in enough Ambient Essence to convert to about a hundred Energy points per hour. That’s just under two per minute, but with a big enough Power bank, it’ll do the job.”
Darius hissed at the cost. They still had just under fifteen thousand credits in the Village bank, but they were working out how much to pay people for doing jobs for the village. The ten percent Income tax helped, but at the moment it barely offset the food costs and similar expenses, like that battery blueprint. He ran his hand over his freshly shaven scalp and tried to think. “What about the Power Bank?”
“That’s where things get more pricey. These little ones don’t cost much, only a hundred credits each for the ten E.P capacity ones. Up to the first twenty Energy point capacity, they seem to run at a stable ten credits per point in capacity. But that price doubles between twenty and fifty. Fifty to a hundred, they’re fifty credits per point.”
“So you’re saying a hundred Energy point Power bank costs five thousand credits? Seriously?” Darius’s thoughts turned to the Power bank in his Power Armor, his had a capacity of seven hundred fifty and regenerated twenty-four Energy per minute… “Hold on, I just had a thought. What if someone wearing Power armor was driving?”
Mike looked confused. “Then… They’d be a well-protected driver?”
“No, well, I mean yeah, they would be, but that’s not what I meant. What if we had someone using their power armor to provide the Energy needed for the car, van, whatever!”
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“Is that something you can do? I mean, if you can hook yourself up to the power system, then sure, that could work.”
“Let me check. Just a minute, alright?” Darius asked.
“Sure, do what you need to do,” Mike answered.
“Pax, were you following that conversation?”
“Yes, Darius. I regularly monitor your surroundings except for when you need Private time with Miss Evelyn-”
“Okay, enough,” Darius cut her off quickly. “Can we use our Energy generators and Power Banks to power a vehicle?”
Affirmative. The Mark 42 Series Adaptive Power Armor has standard Power Port connectors that can, in an emergency, connect to a vessel to provide Energy to a failing system, or to connect to Power Armor specific Modules.
“Wait, did you say Power Armor specific Modules?”
“Um… Darius? Who’re you talking to?” Mike asked.
Yes, Darius. The Interstellar Combat Solutions catalogues contain many options for modular configurations that are designed to connect with their Varius Combat suit designs, from FTL craft to such equipment as your Skyblade attachment and everything in between.
“Huh? Oh sorry Mike, I was talking to my Power armor’s AI.”
“I thought you could only do that when you had it on?”
“I got chipped. It lets me use some of my systems and upgrades without having to have a tin can wrapped around me at all times.”
“Darius. Your Power Armor is not Made of tin. It is an Orichalcum alloy specially designed for maximum defense with minimal weight for the material.”
“Yeah, yeah. I got it, it was a figure of speech. God, I need to upgrade my Neural link. I miss talking to your regular self.” Darius shook his head. It was difficult keeping conversations straight when he was the only one that could hear one side while talking to other people around him at the same time. At least with a cellphone, people know you were talking to someone on the other end. It reminded him of when he was younger and Bluetooth were still a new thing. “Okay, Mike, it looks like if your cars use standard Power hookups, we can attach them to our Power Armor to run them. We all started out with a capacity of five hundred Energy points and an energy generation of ten a minute. I don’t know if the others upgraded theirs, but I put out twenty-four a minute and have a seven fifty capacity.”
“I think that can work, especially if these are supposed to be troop transports. Hell, with your kind of energy output, I could even add in some armor plating. It’ll increase the weight, but if you pump enough energy into the engine, then it shouldn’t get slowed down too much.”
“Good, I need them off-road capable. So do what you need to do. Expect a driver, the commander, and nine other troops, maybe one extra spot for the sergeant.”
So you want it to fit twelve people? It’s going to be more of a mini bus than a van, but I can make that work. Give me a day or so for designs, then I can fabricate a prototype, not sure how long that will take, or how much material it will use.”
“That’s fine. Just go to Xavier for whatever you need. Ill let him know I gave permission. Also, have you considered trying for a Mana based engine instead? I’m sure Ethan can cook something up that will work. Then we won't have to deal with all this e-tech business.”
“Yeah, I talked to him a couple of days ago, but he seems to have this flying board thing stuck in his head.” Mike continued talking, but Darius got distracted when Pax spoke up in his mind, this time without prompting from Darius.
“Darius, Distress signal detected on a civilian frequency. Do you wish me to connect you?”
“Distress signal? From who? Ignore that, yes connect me.”
“cracking—I'm not sure how much longer we can hold out. We've got women and children here… we desperately need help. Please, if anyone is nearby, we're located off County Road 339, just past Mile Marker 22. We don't have much time—God, please, send help fast. I repeat, To anyone receiving this, this is Grant Morales from Arroyo Verde. We're under heavy attack by a group of lizard men, and we're completely surrounded. Our walls are cracking—”
“This is Baron Darius Williams of Zuri. I hear you.”
“Zuri? Are you close? We’re in desperate need of help.”
“Pax, how far is their location from here?”
“from the signal strength and direction, Arroyo Verde is approximately fifteen miles to your south-west.”
“Hello? Are you still there? People are dying here. Please, Ill give you anything. My daughter is here, my son… please, just help!”
“I’m here. We can be there in less than fifteen minutes. Just try to hold on, help is coming!”
“Oh thank god, please just hurry!”
Darius focused and cut the connection. “Pax connect to the PA system at the Base, announce to them that we need everyone with a suit of Power Armor to suit up.” it was still mid-morning, and Darius knew that everyone who’d signed up with the Guard spent every morning until lunch working on their training drills. Darius followed his own order and focused on suiting up. He felt the now familiar sensation of plates of metal appearing on his back, sliding up over his shoulders, down his torso, and legs, and lastly up and over his head.
The internal screen flickered and came to life, then quickly ran through its boot up sequence and diagnostics. A handful of seconds later, everything lit up green. The moment the suit was fully powered up, Pax pulled up his navigation system and set a location marker. The marker was in the middle of a black expanse, since he hadn’t been in that direction yet, but it gave him a direction and distance.
Darius spared eleven seconds to conjure his Skyblade booster pack as he rose thirty feet in the air. As he did, he saw the other members of his quick reaction force rise up one by one. In less than a minute, Sophia, Jackson, Avery, Billy, Liam and Akira were all hovering midair. Using his upgraded communication system as the relay this time, he shared their destination and the mission briefly. Once they were all under way, flying at one hundred miles per hour, he gave them the rest of the details as he knew them. He also let them know he was planning on flying ahead and distracting the lizard men to relieve the pressure on the settlement.
“You know what happened last time you flew ahead like that, right?” Sophia asked.
“I know, but this is different,” Darius replied.
“Different how?” Jackson interjected.
“Different in that we don’t know how many there are, what they can do, or even what Path they’re on,” Sophia answered before Darius could say anything.
“Ah, sumimasen, but it seems like you want to eat dirt again, shochou. If you are so eager, we have got plenty in the greenhouse. There is no need to damage your yoroi to get it.” Even Akira was adding her own bit to the conversation.
Feeling attacked on all sides, Darius gave in. “Fine, but boost power to your propulsion. We need to get there before their walls give in.” Darius swore he could hear chuckles over the comms, but just let it go. Everyone increased their power output for their flight systems by twenty percent. It was the most their armor would allow except in extreme emergencies. So, their speed increased to one hundred twenty miles per hour. Darius took Overwatch again, with his ability to climb to a higher altitude. The remaining time dropped from eight minutes to only six and a half, and Darius had to settle for that miniscule reduction. As they flew, Darius conjured Doombringer 3000, Rain of Fire, and Titan’s fist.
Darius also took the time to conjure his newest Eidolon, Eagle eye. It was an attachment to his visor that allowed him to temporarily gain eight times zoom function and the equivalent of visual sensors at Tier Two. It also enhanced his Biological, Energy, environmental, and Radar sensors to Tier One. Since it was a utility Eidolon, it didn’t cost nearly as many Creation points to make, which made it cheaper Mana wise as well. With all five temporary Hardpoints taken up, he was as prepared as he could be for the fight to come.