Chương 84: 056 – A Slight Detour

Loren had been expecting… something when they'd been told that the boat would be entering the atmosphere. She'd pictured an approaching sea of blackness, an endless dark surface that they would plunge into and it would swallow them up like a grain of sand falling into black paint. Technically, she'd gotten that. The screen in the cabin was still showing the view in front of the boat as it dove downwards into the atmosphere at an angle, and it was just… blackness. A night without stars, empty of radiance.

There was nothing to mar its surface, to give a sense of scale or act as a point of reference. Just… blackness. It was really boring, actually." —est explanation. We were still within sight of the moon and the ship, and then we were here—"" Could it have been an Alcubierre Drive?"" Horotract Fold Impeller. And not likely. The visual shift was all wrong for that. No, more likely the Kaedekin just have their own method of FTL, just like everyone else does.""

Going by the armor's video log and the time stamps, we definitely went faster than light, since the Venture's orbit was between one and two lightseconds away from the planet, and the transition we experienced was a fraction of that."" That would require precise timing, unless it's a function of—" Over the open channel, people continued speculating about Kaedekin FTL, though there were fewer of them from before.

Most of the Kaedekin had secured themselves next to someone on the excursion party and was talking to them, though for some reason Seraphine had chosen to sit somewhere else. From the way her eyes her half-lidded, she seemed to be working on maintaining something, so Loren had to make her own entertainment. Left with nothing else—she didn't really feel like participating in the baseless speculation—she looked out the window, which was much more interesting than the blackness on the screen.

Even with whatever was going on with the planet that made it absorb light, it didn't seem to cover the whole thing. Out the window, she could see the outline of the planet, a thin blue curve separating two kinds of darkness as light scattered through a sliver of atmosphere. And in front of that blue curve, she saw shapes like pure black smoke and clouds flowing, rising and sinking in unpredictable ways, or at least ways she wasn't used to.

The darkness made shapes that seemed to appear and vanish with no rhyme or reason, patterns appearing and disappearing from sight even if she could tell they were still continuing, like someone was editing what her eyes were seeing by messing with the levels of transparency in several layered images as they moved. That was more along the lines of what she was expecting. Certainly less boring than the plain blackness.

In hindsight, if this shroud around the planet was blocking all visible light, then there would be no reflections to give shape to anything from looking at it straight on. However, with a light source heading towards the observer and passing through the shroud, then the thinner bits of the shroud were visible against the light. Loren continued to watch out the window as people argued about what sort of FTL capabilities the Kaedekin had.

While the wing outside remained completely visible, glowing very pink with the boat's external running lights, the little curve of blue was slowly growing more and more obscured even as the boat began to shake from reentry and the shadowy shapes began to act like wind-tossed fog. It was… she hesitated to use the word 'beautiful'. It felt overused, especially when describing unpolluted nature. The description felt trite and cliché.

And while interesting, it really didn't meet her standards of beauty Unique, she decided. That sounded better. After all, this was the only planet in the known, explored galaxy you could see this. It had… rarity value. She did her best to angle her suit's camera to see through the window, trying to record the sight as best as she could. While intelligence would probably prefer she join in the discussion or keep her focus on getting information… well, there were enough people doing that.

Someone had to see the sights, to make a record of how the planet's shroud danced in the turbulence of reentry. … Wait… they were in the middle of reentry… why was the only illumination outside coming from the boat's running lights? Loren peered out through the window as the turbulence intensified, then reached her awareness outwards. She felt the subtle room temperature of the cabin, but when her awareness touched the metal of the booat, she found it already claimed.

Opening her eyes, she looked around the cabin as best as she could, and found her eyes going to where Seraphine was sitting on the other side of the cabin. Her eyes closed, head pressing against the window next to her, and Loren could feel heat, feel magic being funneled towards the Kaedekin as she used the hull as a conduit to pull the heat of reentry towards herself. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Damn, Loren had always wanted to do that.

She paused a moment, then decided to be a little shit." Hey, everyone… we're in the middle of reentry, right? Shouldn't the boat be leaving a plasma trail? Because I'm looking out the window, we're clearly in atmosphere, and I don't think I'm seeing any plasma." The open channel went quiet, and then everyone started turning and leaning towards the windows to see what she was talking about.

"Everyone, please remain in your seats and keep your restraints fastened while we're still making our initial descent! While the artificial gravity can compensate for reentry g-forces, it's really not a good idea to be running around right now!" Namine cried.

"Please wait until the ship levels out!" It took an embarrassingly—and therefore hilariously—long time for people to remember they could just ask the Kaedekin about their technology, at which point their boat had slowed down to supersonic speeds that no longer turned the air in front of them to plasma. Loren had been expecting a straightforward answer of 'magic' that would leave other people confused and herself feeling good that she at least had the proper context to understand where the answer was coming from.

That was technically what she got.

"Well, to deal with reentry heat, we usually use freeze rays," Namine said.

"They're set to wide beam and reduce molecular vibration to prevent the air in front of a ship coming in for reentry from turning into plasma. By keeping the air… well, air, it works better at slowing down ships. That's how we normally do it. However, because we have Seraphine with us on this trip, she's taking care of heat control by using her magic to claim and siphon up all the heat energy being generated by air friction. Much more efficient, since it actually generates energy instead of spending it.""""

""" was the resounding chorus from the excursion party. Loren spoke first, possibly because she only had half as much to not understand.

"What's a freeze ray?" she asked. It seemed like one of those phrases that was self-explanatory, so most likely it meant something other than what it was obviously phrased as—"It's a beam of energy that slows down the movement of molecules in its path, reducing their thermal energy," Namine said, patting the gun at her hip significantly.

"Well, I say beam, but the emitter can be adjusted to disperse at a very wide angle, although that significantly reduces the effectiveness of the output. We use it in our cooling systems." Oh, right. Kaedekin. The label was exactly what the thing was. It also raised more questions than answers, even for her.

Yes, she could conceive how to do something like that—personally, she would use a focused beam of light to claim all heat in a line, then massively siphon it all towards herself and leave a thermal void that would become cold—but that wasn't what was being described! It was more like… like some kind of anti- energy being imparted…

"Bullshit."

"You're… you're talking about the destruction of energy—!"

"That's not how any sort of beam works! Beams impart energy because they're a coherent stream of something, they can't—!" Yes, exactly! Thank you! Namine held up a hand, her eyes seeming to look at something else as she tilted her head.

"Excuse me a moment… I'm sorry everyone, it looks like we'll need to take a slight detour," she said.

"Sky Ranger traffic control has just informed us that a Void kaiju diverted course recently and instead of moving away from the Crashpoint breach as predicted, it crossed over. Air traffic around Crashpoint City is being reorganized as a result, which includes us." Every Kaedekin straightened where she sat, and half a dozen hands came to rest at a weapon hanging from a belt or holster.

"Do they need help, medic?" one of the Kaedekin whose name Loren didn't know said. Namine was already shaking her head.

"We can't get involved," she said.

"We're carrying guests, remember? It's not safe to bring them into a battlefield, even if it is just the airspace." Loren was treated to the sight of nearly all of the Kaedekin turning to look at the excursion party as if they just remembered their presence, then slumping in disappointment at the same time, in the exact same way.

"Oh, right…" they all chorused, all of their voices harmonizing. The exception nodded her head.

"Sky Ranger traffic control is categorizing us and we should have a flight path soon, but I'm told that coordinating air forces is taking priority. So all we can do is wait. I can only apologize for the delay, Commander Bronze."

"I'm not sure I quiet understand the issue," the intelligence officer said.

"What seems to be the cause of the delay?"

"Ah, I'm sorry, I wasn't clear," Namine said.

"At the moment, a kaiju is loose in the middle of Crashpoint City, and all available Rangers in the region are being mobilized to deal with it. Normally, a ship like ours that's so lightly laden would be expected to join the defense, but because you and your group aren't Kaedekin, we cannot in good conscience take you into the combat zone, especially since you're not properly equipped for battle."

"I'm afraid I still don't understand," Bronze said, frowning.

"What is a kayjew, and why is it causing this sort of reaction?" Namine stared at him like he'd just started speaking gibberish, then shook her head.

"If you don't know, you don't know. Paladin Captain, would you please put up the current overwatch feed from the situation at Crashpoint?" There was a beat, and then the image on the cabin's screen changed into some kind of overhead view of— Loren stared. It was an animal, that much was clear, looking vaguely like a fat worm, except it moved on short, rat-like limbs.

The head—at least, Loren assumed it was the head, since it was on the end that faced the direction the thing was moving—looked like a sea anemone, except someone had gotten the bright idea of put as many long, curving teeth as it had petal-like tendrils. Lit by brilliant spotlights from offscreen, its hide—shell? —shone in shades of navy blue and dark purple, in stark contrast to the bone-white grass beneath it.

And judging from what were clearly Kaedekin tanks surrounding it, moving backwards to maintain their distance, it was at least twelve times longer than them and four times wider. The tanks seemed to be shelling it even as they retreated, the shells dropping just in front of the creature and releasing a mist that thankfully wasn't thick enough to obscure the camera's view. Unfortunately, their attacks seemed to be ineffective.

"That's a Void kaiju," Namine said matter-of-factly.

"Current scans place it at a hundred-fifty meters long, and forty meters wide. All in all, a bit on the small side."