Chương 83: 055 – Decontaminated, Seated and Secured

As soon as the Kaedekin got the hugs out of their system, they immediately got to work. Lines of light were drawn on the deck, defining lanes that led towards the still-open ramp to the boat, as well as crosshatching lines of light that glowed in midair and acted less as a fence than a visual expression of 'please do not cross'.

A gently glowing pane appeared to one side of the lane, with stick figures and letters somehow being rendered in black to describe what the boarding procedure was, along with an arrow to direct that the sign was to be read left-to-right. Whatever the Kaedekin were doing, the pajhadin seemed able to read the sign somehow despite not having eyes, which was admittedly far more preparedness than most presenters had.

Other Kaedekin moved towards the pallets of air tanks, waving away the flight deck personnel waiting with forklifts as they simply surrounded the tanks with the glow of their magic and lifted them into the air before turning around to casually walk back towards their boat with the pallet floating after them. Please read the procedure completely before getting in line, one of the Kaedekin's speech balloon shifted to say as she made arm gestures to direct people's gazes towards it.

It was all very convenient and vaguely videogame-y. The speech balloon even had the speaker's name—'Julie'—in the upper-right corner as everyone turned towards the pane. There were only a few steps, which were rendered simply. Once the Kaedekin were sure everyone was paying attention, they began to make glowing shapes in the air, which animated the steps involved for further emphasis.

It was easy enough to interpret—line up, enter the boat in an orderly fashion, find a place to sit, put on seat belts—but several people seemed concerned about the first step, which was labeled 'Decontamination', and depicted someone standing inside what was clearly fire, while people lined up to go after them. Those people probably hadn't been part of the last visit." They can't seriously expect us to let them set us on fire to decontaminate us, do they?" someone said on the open channel.

Loren recognized Ornsted's voice, and it was clear the engineer hadn't bothered to read the written brief everyone had been sent." They're not setting us on fire Jim, it's a decontamination process,"Bill said dryly." Yes, it looks like open flames, but obviously it wouldn't be. If it's too scary for you, you can stay on the ship."" It's literally a picture of someone on fire! Why is that their decontamination procedure? Haven't they ever heard of UV? Antiseptics?""

Look, if you don't want to undergo the safety procedure, you don't have to come along." Ignoring the conversation, Loren turned towards where the Kaedekin were making a raised grate out of their glowing magic, two by two meters wide, floating a few centimeters above the deck along the path towards the boat.

Seraphine—distinguishable because unlike the others, she was wearing a black-on-black space suit with white lines defining the areas that would have been colored in another suit, although she still had a pink band on her arm—gestured towards Loren, beckoning her to come closer before pointing at the grate. Taking her cue, Loren walked towards the grate and stepped onto it, moving towards the middle.

Seraphine gave her a thumbs up—which thankfully was a gesture of approval among the Kaedekin rather than being something obscene—then held her arms out to either side. Loren imitated the gesture, and Seraphine gave another thumbs up. The Kaedekin detached something from the back of her suit, and Loren recognized Seraphine's cane. Or rather, her wand.

Loren wasn't sure whether to think that was old-fashioned verging on archaic, since not even the old monsters really carried wands around, or simply practical for someone who probably used a lot more magic on a day to day basis than she did. But then, those oldsters hardly needed them, mostly because they didn't really do anything anymore…

Seraphine tapped the end of the wand on the deck, and Loren stayed still, feeling the heat spike from the Kaedekin as flames emerged from underneath the grate, washing around her body and rising higher than her head. She could feel the magic flowing around her even as a couple of people started yelling over the open channel, and while she couldn't tell exactly what Seraphine's flames were doing unless she actually poked them, decontamination was traditionally one of the first things someone learned.

Not to keep from getting sick, because Pyrotheurgists didn't get sick, but to keep food from getting spoiled because of bacteria. No one wanted to eat food that had gone bad, after all. She didn't doubt it tasted awful. At a gesture from Seraphine, she lowered her arms and stepped off the glowing grate. According to the display, she should have started walking towards the Kaedekin boat, where one of the women was already gesturing for people move towards her.

However, given all the protesting happening over the open channel, someone was probably going to have to stay around and show those people decontamination was safe. The process went smoothly for the most part. As the air tanks were loaded onto the boat, the rest of the excursion party was decontaminated. Those who had already gone through the process were familiar with it, and if they felt nervous about essentially being surrounded by fire, the tells were too subtle to show through their suit.

The Walking Eggs were too big to fit on the grate, but Seraphine just expanded the size of the decontamination area to cover the whole armor.

Unfortunately, there were those who either hadn't read the written brief and hadn't been paying attention when everyone else had gone through decontamination—specifically the part where no one actually caught fire—and were very reluctant about undergoing decontamination, until Loren actually grabbed them by the arm and physically dragged them to the grate for wasting time, staying with them to keep them in place while the flames decontaminated them.

Commander Bronze said nothing, which was either a ringing endorsement or him looking the other way. Once everyone was cleared, going into the Kaedekin's boat was a far simpler matter. It was only when Loren reached the top of the ramp that she noticed there was an iridescent, transparent barrier just inside the boat.

Once she crossed the threshold, her suit began reporting she was in atmosphere, and her external microphone began picking up the sounds of Kaedekin talking enthusiastically as they finished securing the pallets of air tanks to the deck of the boat. The ramp led to what seemed like a large cargo bay, with the ceiling rising to eight or nine meters over Loren's head. Along the walls were windows that Loren assumed were transparent steel, giving a view of the wings on either side of the craft.

There were what looked like empty racks built into the walls, and paint on the deck delineated numbered spaces that corresponded to those racks… the bottoms of which were six meters up. Did the Kaedekin store equipment overhead to keep the deck clear? Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. The glowing lines of Kaedekin magic led towards one of the large airlock doors set into the bulkhead opposite the ramp.

It was one of several, because there was a wide elevated walkway built halfway up the bulkhead, with a stairway leading down to the deck. A pair of mirrored windows were on the wall as well, and a part of Loren wondered how much transparent steel the navy would want to buy from the Kaedekin. Having a material like that would solve so many field of view problems with a lot of equipment, if the strength and durability of the material was close enough to commonly used alloys.

There'd been speculation of using steel like that to protect laser emitters from damage. A Kaedekin not wearing one of their spacesuits was gesturing for everyone to move towards the doors. This one had long red hair that was pulled back from her face and braided over one shoulder. Loren recognized her as Doctor Namine, who had replaced Paladin Rain as their primary point of contact.

At first Loren thought she was wearing a cream-colored dress, but on closer inspection it seemed to be some sort of robe, the neck kept shut by a black necktie whose end was tucked down the robe's front. Over that she wore a white coat with a pattern of red triangles on the edges of the lapel and collar, as well as around the cuffs of the sleeves and the hem.

Running down the sleeves were a variety of symbols that Loren recognized as ancient and current symbols from Earth denoting medicine or medical practitioners, such as the Red Cross and the Caduceus of Hermes. A belt around her waist supported a bag whose markings indicated it was likely a large first aid kit, as well as a large tablet at her left hip and a strangely-shaped Kaedekin pistol at her right.

"This way please, everyone," she called out.

"We're lifting off from the flight deck now, and as soon as everyone's seated and put on a seat belt it will be safe for us to activate the thrusters and head to Surcease. If you'll all come this way, the seats are over here! Please form a line so everyone can pass through without damaging their suit…"

The passenger area of the Kaedekin boat was surprisingly comfortable, resembling the upper-middle range of a decent starliner more than a navy transport, with rows of comfortable benches interspersed with what Loren recognized as empty weapon racks. Presumably the latter were there so the Kaedekin would have someplace to put their bigger weapons when they sat down.

The seats that the excursion party had been directed to were like the benches that had been in Stargazer Fortress, supporting their suits' backpacks to take the weight off their shoulders. The Kaedekin had clearly gone to great lengths to make sure they would be comfortable, since those seats were clearly not standard.

The deck was covered with wooden planks that had a strangely metallic sheen to them, and as with the inside of Stargazer Fortress, there seemed to be artwork randomly drawn in some places, though notably not on the windows. There were windows on the hull, not simply small portholes but actual wide windows, which looked out over the wings on either side as well as the sight of them smoothly slipping back out into the Venture's fighter cove, the donut hole in the center of the ship.

More than one member of the excursion party sat next to the windows, looking outwards as they waited for the Kaedekin to activate their cloaking so they could see what it looked like from the inside. There were ladders at the forward and aft corners of the cabin that led to an upper deck, and on the forward bulkhead of the room was a large screen, which was currently showing what seemed to be the view from the front of the cockpit of the boat.

As the Kaedekin—who had shed their spacesuits very fast, and were now back to sporting their colorful clothes—helped everyone put on seat belts, while the Walking Eggs had been asked to lower themselves down on the ground, resting their weight on the deck after someone had unrolled a tarp under them to protect the wood. Once everyone was secured, Doctor Namine waved for everyone's attention again.

"Greetings and welcome, guests from the Free Trade Confedracy," she said, far more sedately than Paladin Rain had, her excitement restrained rather than bursting.

"We are Star Rangers Sorceress Doctor Namine and Paladin Captain Abyssal Glass—" she held up the tablet that had previously been hanging at her waist, "—and we will be in charge of safely escorting you from the Venture to your destination on Surcease and back. We are very glad that you have agreed to accept our invitation, though it's unfortunate that so few 'quantum engineers' were able to participate." Loren was pretty sure she heard the quotation marks on that one.

"Due to navigational protocols," Doctor Namine continued, "our route will take us first back to the control envelope of Stargazer Fortress, from which we will be following the navigation beacon down to Crashpoint City, before we proceed by air to the College of Flames. Our estimated time of arrival is one hour, at which point we will be setting down at the College."

Immediately, the deck and seat beneath Loren began vibrating with the telltale sign of some kind of reaction drive coming online, though a quick cast of her awareness towards the stern of the boat found nothing so typical as combustion occurring—which she still couldn't claim—though there seemed to be a bloom of intense heat that she left alone, because trying to claim the heat energy of a process you didn't understand was very ill-advi— Loren paused, and sent her awareness to the back of the boat again. …

No, she hadn't mistaken it. Now that she was closer, she could tell that the heat from whatever thruster the Kaedekin were using was just… disappearing. … Kaedekin magic was bullshit. And then the light coming in from the windows went weird. Loren blinked, turning towards the windows to see what the fuss was about, but by the time she'd turned towards it, the weirdness had stopped. The moon that the Venture was in orbit around was also nowhere in sight, only darkness and stars… …

and the distinctive shape of Stargazer Fortress being very pink.

"Everyone, please remain seated and secured, we will soon be entering Surcease's atmosphere," Namine announced.

"If anyone is experiencing supraluminal sickness, please inform me or Seraphine immediately, pouring rainbows in your suit is a very unpleasant experience best left avoided," Namine continued.

"Supraluminal sickness?" someone said, just as Loren managed to parse the etymology and snorted.

"Yes," Namine said.

"To the best of my knowledge, Kaedekin don't get nauseous when going faster than light, but we know some people come down with car sickness, sea sickness, air sickness and morning sickness, so we thought it best to check. Anyone?"

"We went faster than light?" someone said, confused.

"How come I didn't smell pork…?"

"No one? All right, then!" The Kaedekin seemed relieved at that, unaware of the discussion among her guests.

"All right, girls. Anchor our visitors' power armor and secure for re-entry!""""Yes!"""