Greg stepped out of one of Bianca’s portals, looking over the area they'd found for the location of their new base, right up against the wall of the section. “So, where do you guys want the walls?” Greg asked, turning to Brittany and Henrietta, the two of them following him out of the portal. They were nominally in charge of defending the faction, so he figured they should have a say in what their defenses would look like. Also… he could use the help, cause all he could think to do was make a square.

Brittany surveyed the area. “I think… let's set up along that ridge there. We can use the wall and the ridge to defend two fronts, allowing us to focus on the other two. Of course, we'd need to make sure no one got up on the ridge and attacked us from up there… but if we set up a wall along that slope, we could probably defend it with a handful of people. Plus, we could build a fort into the ridge as a fallback position.”

“That might take a bit, but it sounds doable.” Greg agreed. “Henrietta, any other ideas?”

“That all sounds acceptable.” Henrietta shrugged. “The only experience I have with defenses is recognizing them well enough to avoid the unchanged.”

Brittany sighed. “Yeah, all my experiences basically come from history books, so I wouldn't call myself an expert either. But having two walls at our backs sounds like a good idea, right?”

“I've heard good things about putting forts on hills.” Greg offered. “Maybe we could build on that one over there?”

“Maybe…” Brittany muttered. “Will we have enough space though?”

“I mean, no matter what I was going to start expanding underground.” Greg pointed out. “And there should be enough space for the hundred or so people we'll have to start, so I'll have time to work on all that.”

Brittany considered it for a moment, before nodding. “Alright, let's do that then.”

And so Greg got to work setting up a wall around a large hill. Since it was all made out of smoke, he decided to keep it simple to start, just making a solid stone wall that surrounded the crest. He didn't make it too large though, since it needed to actually be defendable by the hundred or so combatants they'd have to start, so he only made it about a hundred feet long on each side. Then, after the wall was up, he spent a while smoothing the crest out before getting started on the building they'd all be living in. The first floor he reserved as a community area, planning on filling it with couches and games so people could hang out. He then started on the second floor, and… “Shit.” Greg frowned, as his smoke refused to form into the next section of wall. “That- is going to be a problem.”

Greg considered the issue for a moment. Clearly he was hitting some sort of limit again, one that would probably rise as he gained more vitality, but not fast enough to actually make a difference here. He hopped off the building and sent some smoke into the ground, briefly manipulating it and nodding in satisfaction. He could still use the smoke he had to manipulate matter, there was just a limit to the amount of smoke he could have materialized. Which meant… creating this building was going to take a lot more work than he'd thought. Greg waved, turning the rest of the building back to smoke with a sigh. “I'm going to need some rock.”

*

“This seems like a bad idea.” Bianca muttered.

“Would you rather try to haul several tons of rock up a hill?” Greg retorted.

“No, but- you're collapsing a mountain!” Bianca hissed.

“Just a small one.” Greg grinned, taking a look at his handiwork. He'd basically created a shoot at the bottom of a mountain slope that led straight into one of Bianca’s portals, leading to the hill he was building on. Then he'd threaded his smoke through the top of the mountain, getting ready to dissolve thin lines through the entire thing that would turn the majority of it little, roughly spherical shapes, so hopefully the whole thing would collapse down the shoot and into the portal. “If it works we'll try something larger.”

Bianca scowled at him. “I'm beginning to regret my curiosity.”

“Oh, come on, this is gonna be fun!” Greg chuckled, snapping his fingers. “Ah, shit, I should have invited Victor.” He muttered as the mountain shook. “And Tessa.”

“We have to move!” Bianca hissed, tugging on his arm. They were standing directly behind the portal, which meant that if something went wrong…

Greg just rolled his eyes, grabbing Bianca with his smoke and flying them both up a few dozen feet. “There, we're safe. Happy?”

Bianca eyed the incoming rockslide nervously. “I'd be happier if you hadn't decided to collapse a mountain!”

“Psh, it's fine.” Greg waved dismissively. “Look, it's working!”

Bianca glanced down, having to begrudgingly admit that Greg's set up was working, the crumbling mountain getting funneled into the portal and deposited at the new base location. “That doesn't change the fact that it was a stupidly reckless thing to do.” She grumbled.

“Eh?” Greg wiggled his hand. “Who's even around to get hurt?”

“Me!” Bianca retorted.

“And as you can see, I have that perfectly under control, so we're good.” Greg countered.

Bianca grunted noncommittally as they continued to watch the mountain collapse, the rumbling slowly dying down as the rock slide spent itself, until it settled into a low hum. Or at least, she thought it had settled into a low hum until she realized the rocks weren't moving anymore. “Do you hear that humming?”

Greg frowned. “I do… where is that coming from?” He slowly floated towards the noise, rising higher until he reached the ceiling, placing a hand on it and feeling a vibration through it. “That's weird… is something broken?”

“Did you break something?” Bianca asked, looking at him judgmentally.

“How would I have broken anything?!? The rockslide was all the way down there!” Greg protested.

“But the humming only started after the rockslide!” Bianca pointed out.

“Correlation doesn't equal causation!” Greg retorted.

Bianca blinked. “What does that even mean?!?”

Greg sighed. “It means-” He cut off as suddenly something burst through the ceiling, shooting past them and burying itself in the ground. “Huh… see, I told you it wasn't my fault.”

“What is that thing?!?” Bianca exclaimed.

“I dunno. Let's check it out.” Greg shrugged, floating them down towards it.

“Don't- what if it's dangerous!?!” Bianca protested.

Greg paused. “Okay, I'll check it out. You go wait by the portal.” He replied, maneuvering her towards the portal instead as he continued towards whatever had come out of the ceiling. As he got closer, he realized it was some sort of drill, which explained the humming but raised a whole lot more questions, like why the hell someone was drilling through the ceiling! It wasn't the aliens, since the drill clearly wasn't one of theirs. Too mechanical looking. Which meant some idiot human had decided to make a drill and send it careening through the ship. What if they'd breached the hull and sent everyone flying into space! Who was stupid enough to even try something like this?!? Greg grimaced as he realized plenty of people were probably stupid enough to try something like this. And now he was going to have to hunt them down and do something about it.

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“Freaking morons trying to get everyone killed.” Greg grumbled as he picked up the drill to try and figure out who'd made it. “I wonder if the Archmage has a spell for thi-” Greg cut off as the drill began to flash, Bianca immediately diving through the portal and closing it behind her, and Greg bracing himself for what he assumed was going to be an explosion, turning to smoke to avoid the pain, only to freeze as instead of a boom, he was suddenly surrounded by a group of heavily armed, dangerous looking individuals wearing what had to be power armor as they fell into a defensive formation around the drill. Greg frantically searched his mind for the appropriate response to suddenly being surrounded by futuristic soldiers, only to realize they- actually hadn't noticed him yet. And so, like any responsible individual in an unfamiliar situation, he decided to sit back and wait until a clear course of action presented itself. Aaand had his other self send a message to the Archmage explaining the situation, because it never hurt to ask for help.

Greg squished his smoke down into a little black disk and flattened himself against the top of one of the soldiers’ helmets. His smoke didn't exactly blend in, but he figured people didn't take that close a look at the top of other people's heads. Plus, even if they did see him, what were they going to do, shoot him? He also left a bit of smoke with the drill, figuring it'd be a good thing to keep track of. Not long after he got into position, the soldiers began to move eerily quietly, making their way towards the section wall, their power armor shimmering as it began to blend in with the environment.

Back with his other body, he'd been having lunch with Tessa when all this went down, suddenly getting a nudge from his other mind and quickly sending the message to the Archmage. “Well… things may be happening.”

Tessa frowned. “What-”

“Where are they!?!” The Archmage cut her off as she appeared next to them.

“Uh… about four miles that way?” Greg pointed. “Near a collapsed mountain, heading towards the wall.”

The Archmage immediately disappeared and Tessa turned to Greg wide-eyed. “Greg-” She cut off again as alarms began to blare out all around them and the whole ship shuddered.

“Do not panic! The ship is under attack! Find a safe place to shelter and wait until the attack has been dealt with! Details are available on the Network!” The Archmage's voice echoed out along with the alarms.

Greg and Tessa shared a look. “I- think we should start moving people to Earth.” Greg announced.

“I think you're right.” Tessa agreed. Both of them getting up and heading to the base. “How much space do we have?”

“The underground base can fit about a hundred people at this point, but we still have the safe zone if we need it. I don't know when Earth is supposed to go wild, but currently it's still pretty tame. Particularly behind a big ass wall.” Greg replied.

“Right, that should be good for thousands if we need it.” Tessa muttered. “Alright, first we'll get the squad safe, then the rest of the faction, and we'll work on saving anyone else who needs it as we go.”

“Correction, I'll run around saving anyone who needs it. You'll be safe on Earth, organizing all the people I send over.” Greg retorted.

Tessa scowled at him. “I can help save people too!”

“I mean, not really?” Greg replied tentatively. “You can't make the portals, you can't fly, you aren't fast, you can't teleport, and you aren't immortal. You'd spend more time running around than actually helping anyone.”

Tessa grimaced. “That is- a factual argument.”

“So we're agreed?” Greg asked.

Tessa sighed. “Yes, I'll organize things on Earth.”

“Good.” Greg relaxed slightly. He'd feel a lot more comfortable with Tessa out of danger. This whole ship could explode for all he cared, as long as she was safe.

Meanwhile, back with his other self, the moment the alarms had gone off, the soldiers had immediately begun sprinting towards the wall, giving up on stealth as back at the drill more power armored soldiers began to teleport in, some staying back to protect the drill while the rest followed the original team towards the wall. None of them seemed particularly interested in heading towards the strip, hence Greg's relative lack of concern at the moment. He was more worried about the ship exploding if these soldiers accomplished their goal. He'd do something about it, but their armor resisted his smoke just like the section walls and his hardest telekinetic blast hadn't even moved the head he was sitting on, though it did force the team to hunker down and scan their surroundings for who attacked them, wasting some time before they had to move again.

Suddenly the wall they were heading towards shifted, changing into a series of battlements as aliens appeared along them. The soldiers were still cloaked, so the aliens simply readied their attacks, at least until Greg rather helpfully decided to put little plumes of smoke over each of their heads. Beams of magic shot towards each of the soldiers, flickering off their armor as they raised their rifles and shot back their own glowing beams, which were blocked by the mages’ shields. They dove for cover, but Greg quickly dissolved any rocks or outcroppings they managed to hide behind, to the point where they started to target him, not that it did much for them.

Once it became clear they weren't going to be able to get a foothold closer to the battlements, the soldiers fell back, regrouping with their incoming allies to form a coordinated assault, which Greg decided was a good opportunity to check with the aliens to see what was actually going on. His other self had looked at the ‘details’ they'd sent everyone, and all it basically said was that an enemy force was attempting to cripple the ship and showed them a picture of the soldiers so they'd know to avoid them. They had been very clear that they were absolutely not strong enough to actually face the soldiers at this point, something which Greg more than agreed with. The fuckers had tanked a barrage from the aliens, who had been strengthening themselves for years, at least, while they had learned about magic less than a month ago!

Greg couldn't find the Archmage, but he did see a grim looking Lapodala standing on the battlements, flying over and materializing next to her. “Yo! How's it going?” Greg asked cheerfully.

Lapodala stared at him incredulously. “You- the ship is under attack! How do you think it's going?!?”

Greg shrugged. “Sure, but like, how bad actually is it, you know? Are they space pirates who just want to steal some shit and bounce? Or are they rogue biologists who want to kidnap the new species and see what their insides look like? Should I be worried about being low on resources or getting preserved in a pickle jar?”

Lapodala scowled at him for a moment before letting out a huff. “They're the United Technocracy, a conglomerate of species which reject mana and seek to eradicate it from our galaxy. Their mission is to destroy anyone and anything that has ever been exposed to it then quarantine the mana that remains so that it cannot affect the rest of the galaxy.”

Greg paused. “So, no chance to negotiate then.”

“None.” Lapodala growled.

“Damn.” Greg sighed. “Do we need to worry about them turning around and assaulting the others?” The squad was debating whether or not they actually needed to evacuate to Earth or if they could just wait things out here, since the soldiers didn't seem to have any interest in heading towards the strip.

Lapodala shook her head. “No, their goal will be to get to the ship's mana core and destroy it to prevent our escape. Then they will kill us all.”

“Uh huh… and why aren't we using the mana core to escape?” Greg asked.

Lapodala rolled her eyes. “We are but you can't move something as large as a ship from one point in space to another easily or cheaply. The Archmage is currently doing everything she can to activate the emergency jump as soon as possible, but it could take hours before it's ready.”

Greg frowned. “You know, if you have an emergency measure, it should probably take less than an hour to pull off…”

“It takes time to overload a mana core, and keeping the mana core even close to that state for any significant amount of time would be… irresponsible.” Lapodala sighed. “And unfortunately, we aren't important enough to merit a better option. There are thousands of ships just like ours transporting your species, and the Republic would be happy even if only half of them made it to your new planet.”

“Hm.” Greg grunted. “So, keep the Technophiles from reaching the core?”

Lapodala nodded. “Yes. And hope their government values them as little as ours values us.”