"You're going to feel slightly disoriented as your digital data is encoded into Lumian clusters. It's just binary to binary, though, so don't worry about anything getting lost in translation." explained Emily, looking at the main monitor in NAXA mission control, to the Navi some 42,000 kilometers up in orbit. "Oh, and don't deviate from the beam unless you're sure you have an outbound link. We can only transmit in a straight line at this point, so we won't be able to recover you if you stray outside."
"... Jeez, you sound like my mother. Chill out, I'm built for straight lines and high speeds. Wouldn't be much of a rocket with a tilt, yeah?" retorted Apollo, patting one of the heat shields supported on his back unit as he spoke proudly. Having been transmitted up with standard lightspeed communication, Apollo now resided up in the Tower satellite ready to relay into the great beyond. Tower's network design was very minimalistic, since this wasn't public space and NAXA wasn't looking to add to add a calming interior to their already massively-expensive experiment. In effect, the rocket-powered Navi was just floating in empty white space, sans the process windows that would occasionally float by.
"Apollo has jumped between satellite relays in the orbital network dozens of times already. We've got this." affirmed Glenn clearly, from down at the bottom floor of mission control, not but a few feet from the main monitor. "Are we target-locked yet?" A bit of impatience was starting to show as he asked, as he was obviously getting tired of Emily's double and triple-checks.
Emily glanced over to the technician calibrating Tower's positioning for an answer, and she received a nod and a thumbs-up for it. "Yeah, looks like we're ready to go. Tower will be automatically rotating to keep Apollo within the beam while it orbits, but don't forget the 3 hour limit. Tower will start moving behind the Earth at the end of that, so we'll lose the beam for the next 12 hours after the mission end."
"And reconnecting back to you after that would be complete guesswork. In short, 3 hours, or you become a digital space vagrant." added Mir from the mission control network, feeding her commentary into the audio transmissions.
"Yeah, yeah. Let's just fire this puppy up already and get me a liftoff!" roared Apollo as he pumped himself up for the start. At his request, Emily signaled to the mission control crew to start launch procedures. Dozens of people tapped away at their own computers and terminals, sending a variety of commands and prompts to Tower to trigger its imbedded Lumian Transmission Cannon.
"Engage the Lumian filter! Collection frequency at 32%! Measure output for a constant low-order, binary beam! Begin encoding of Apollo.exe!" shouted Emily as she issued orders across mission control, powering up the real-life LTC and transforming the pilot Navi into a particle-based existence. "Glenn, when you are ready!"
At this, Glenn turned his attention on his PET to watch the screen turn to static momentarily before restoring Apollo's image in Tower's network. "You all there, Apollo?" he asked quickly.
"... Yeah, 100%. Let's go!" answered Apollo after a pause, adjusting for that dizziness Emily had warned him about.
"Start the countdown!" exclaimed Glenn back to Emily after getting his Navi's response.
"Alright, all systems are green! Tower will fire in 10!" announced Emily as she brought up the countdown on-screen. 9... 8... 7... 6...
"Apollo, transform!" commanded Glenn as he rapidly pressed some buttons on his PET in sequence.
"Done!" acknowledged Apollo as his heavy back unit suddenly swallowed him whole. The thrusters all lifted up over his head as the heat shields expanded rapidly before clamping down over his entire body, extending further and further until he had taken the form of a to-scale rocket. Now free-floating in Tower's empty dataspace, Apollo ignited his thrusters for the initial burn as the countdown shrank down. 3... 2... 1... "Lifting off!" announced the Navi as Tower's Lumian beam fired in unison with his own thrusters at full throttle.
Silence sank in over mission control for the next several seconds, as the operation crew had nothing but a blank screen to go off of. The entire mission was out of their hands as they could only wait for the connection with Apollo to stabilize, and...
"Apollo.exe, launch is good! Maintaining speed and beginning search!" reported the spacefaring Navi as his rocket-shaped image suddenly re-appeared on the main monitor. Mission control then erupted into cheer, as the highest hurdle of their experiment had just been jumped.
The Interstellar Frontier
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The first 15 minutes of the mission period passed without anything significant to report, but no one in mission control seemed particularly discouraged. In fact, the air in the large room was quite lax. Everyone knew they were looking for a needle in a 10-parsec haystack, and that results weren't going to be easy to come by. Apollo had successfully launched beyond the solar system, and was already 8.5 parsecs out from Earth in his search. At the rate he was going, double-checking and even triple-checking the 20 parsec search area wasn't out of the question withing the next 2 hours, 45 minutes. All in all, things were going smoothly.
"The data stream is awfully consistent this far in..." sighed Emily as she tapped her fingers against her desk, her eyes focused on a mini-monitor embedded within. If Apollo was going to find anything foreign networks to land on, they'd need to pick up some kind of inconsistency in the readings first. Thus far? Zilch.
"Maybe you should go ahead and get something to eat, Emily." suggested Mir to her seemingly anxious Operator. "The mission's not ending any time soon, and this is probably as much down time as we're going to get."
"Perhaps... I'd like to stay at least for the first full pass, but..." muttered Emily, trying weakly to convince herself that her presence was necessary right now. Ultimately, she just sat there for several minutes mulling the thought of getting up. During that process, though, the proverbial dominoes started falling.
"Ugh, the connection's getting rough all of a sudden... You're still on course, Apollo?" grunted Glenn, who was fighting with his PET to compensate for the difficulties.
"Yeah, I got it... Ride's getting feisty, that's for sure." answered the rocket Navi as he kept boosting forward through the glowing tunnel of light.
Emily suddenly perked up after hearing that, and turned towards her assistants. "Are we getting any fluctuations now...?!" she asked hurriedly.
The next round of measurements were processed, and sure enough, foreign data elements were starting to catch in the Lumian beam. "With the rate this is increasing... Apollo, Glenn, can you go ahead and advance towards the 10 parsec mark? You can scale down your search along the way." theorized Emily before suggesting the target zone.
"On my way!" acknowledged Apollo who fed more power into his thrusters before blasting off for the additional parsec or so ahead of him. He didn't even need to get that far, though, as it became increasingly clear that they had landed an intersection with the Lumian beam up to the point where it was finally visible to Apollo and on the main monitor in extension. "Foreign network located! Glenn, lemme change back!" he requested as he fired up the reverse thrusters for braking.
"Just a second... Okay. We're taking the next step and entering the network, yes?" queried Glenn (almost rhetorically) as he hit a few buttons to reverse Apollo's transformation. The shell of his rocket body split apart almost instantly to let Apollo's humanoid body re-emerge from within. The bits and pieces of the rocket tucked themselves into his back unit once again, and just like that Apollo was set for exploration. His dirty blue eyes stared through his helmet into the outbound link to the foreign network, unable to discern what was on the other side.
"First things first, we'll adjust the beam's output frequency a bit to try and stabalize the intersection with the network." announced Emily, issuing the order to the technician group at the same time. Once that was done, Glenn had the green light to advance his Navi.
"Jacking Apollo into the foreign network... and we're in!" confirmed Glenn as he sent his Navi into the dataspace no other had entered before. The main monitor's image faded momentarily as Glenn's PET and the supporting machines processed the new data, and...
*bzzt*
Static.
"...?!" Emily leaped out of her chair without saying a word, unsure of how to react to this. Glenn seemed equally uncertain, as he was jamming his PET's buttons repeatedly and ultimately in futility. "Did we... lose Apollo...?" murmured Emily finally as she began to grasp the crisis.
The lead assistant frantically typed away at the nearest computer for a few moments before answering, "... Apollo.exe has been cut off from the transmission! Cause unknown!"
"What...?!" gasped Emily, while Glenn grimaced and swore under his breath. "Did Tower malfunction?!" guessed Emily.
"Tower is still outputting at the designated settings! We have a Lumian beam at the same trajectory!" came back the report.
"Then... an obstruction? We need to get another Navi out there to confirm!" realized Emily aloud.
"Another Navi where?!" shouted Glenn in response. "I'm the only certified astronaut here today! None of the other Navis here are set up for the transmission!" He was clearly frustrated, having lost his Navi by no error of his own.
"... I'll go!" volunteered Mir suddenly. "I've been running Lumian simulations even longer than Apollo, so I know the processes!"
"... Mm! That's right! This is my project, so Apollo's safety is my responsibility!" agreed Emily, who looked around mission control for the approval of everyone else. The cloud of uncertainty and nervousness still loomed over the whole room, but eventually the technicians, assistants, and even a few of the doctors began nodding. Dr. Neimann walked back over to the lead terminal from his side position to pat his niece on the shoulder. "I'll take over here, so you can focus on getting Mir through safely." he said with an assuring smile.
"Thanks, Uncle Walter!" nodded Emily, not even remembering in this situation to call him by title as discussed just 15 minutes ago. With the exploration now converted into a rescue mission, Emily dashed down the steps to the lower end of mission control to get her PET hooked up to the main monitor and assisting terminals. Glenn, standing there with his empty PET in hand, gave Emily a hard, long stare, and she did not shy away from it. Accepting that resolve, Glenn stepped aside without a word and let the young genius pass. "Mir, get straight to the dish array. We'll get Tower set up for a second transmission on this side."
"On my way." replied Mir quickly.
"... Oh, and put your helmet on for this. We don't know what kind of interference awaits." reminded Emily just before her Navi transferred. Mir's shoulders slumped as she heard that, but reluctantly followed orders as she put on the headgear she hated so much. She tucked her braided ponytail into her spacesuit before putting on the streamlined orange helmet with its polarized, full-face visor, then finally started the transfer to the dish array and Tower past that.
"The data stream is awfully consistent this far in..." sighed Emily as she tapped her fingers against her desk, her eyes focused on a mini-monitor embedded within. If Apollo was going to find anything foreign networks to land on, they'd need to pick up some kind of inconsistency in the readings first. Thus far? Zilch.
"Maybe you should go ahead and get something to eat, Emily." suggested Mir to her seemingly anxious Operator. "The mission's not ending any time soon, and this is probably as much down time as we're going to get."
"Perhaps... I'd like to stay at least for the first full pass, but..." muttered Emily, trying weakly to convince herself that her presence was necessary right now. Ultimately, she just sat there for several minutes mulling the thought of getting up. During that process, though, the proverbial dominoes started falling.
"Ugh, the connection's getting rough all of a sudden... You're still on course, Apollo?" grunted Glenn, who was fighting with his PET to compensate for the difficulties.
"Yeah, I got it... Ride's getting feisty, that's for sure." answered the rocket Navi as he kept boosting forward through the glowing tunnel of light.
Emily suddenly perked up after hearing that, and turned towards her assistants. "Are we getting any fluctuations now...?!" she asked hurriedly.
The next round of measurements were processed, and sure enough, foreign data elements were starting to catch in the Lumian beam. "With the rate this is increasing... Apollo, Glenn, can you go ahead and advance towards the 10 parsec mark? You can scale down your search along the way." theorized Emily before suggesting the target zone.
"On my way!" acknowledged Apollo who fed more power into his thrusters before blasting off for the additional parsec or so ahead of him. He didn't even need to get that far, though, as it became increasingly clear that they had landed an intersection with the Lumian beam up to the point where it was finally visible to Apollo and on the main monitor in extension. "Foreign network located! Glenn, lemme change back!" he requested as he fired up the reverse thrusters for braking.
"Just a second... Okay. We're taking the next step and entering the network, yes?" queried Glenn (almost rhetorically) as he hit a few buttons to reverse Apollo's transformation. The shell of his rocket body split apart almost instantly to let Apollo's humanoid body re-emerge from within. The bits and pieces of the rocket tucked themselves into his back unit once again, and just like that Apollo was set for exploration. His dirty blue eyes stared through his helmet into the outbound link to the foreign network, unable to discern what was on the other side.
"First things first, we'll adjust the beam's output frequency a bit to try and stabalize the intersection with the network." announced Emily, issuing the order to the technician group at the same time. Once that was done, Glenn had the green light to advance his Navi.
"Jacking Apollo into the foreign network... and we're in!" confirmed Glenn as he sent his Navi into the dataspace no other had entered before. The main monitor's image faded momentarily as Glenn's PET and the supporting machines processed the new data, and...
*bzzt*
Static.
"...?!" Emily leaped out of her chair without saying a word, unsure of how to react to this. Glenn seemed equally uncertain, as he was jamming his PET's buttons repeatedly and ultimately in futility. "Did we... lose Apollo...?" murmured Emily finally as she began to grasp the crisis.
The lead assistant frantically typed away at the nearest computer for a few moments before answering, "... Apollo.exe has been cut off from the transmission! Cause unknown!"
"What...?!" gasped Emily, while Glenn grimaced and swore under his breath. "Did Tower malfunction?!" guessed Emily.
"Tower is still outputting at the designated settings! We have a Lumian beam at the same trajectory!" came back the report.
"Then... an obstruction? We need to get another Navi out there to confirm!" realized Emily aloud.
"Another Navi where?!" shouted Glenn in response. "I'm the only certified astronaut here today! None of the other Navis here are set up for the transmission!" He was clearly frustrated, having lost his Navi by no error of his own.
"... I'll go!" volunteered Mir suddenly. "I've been running Lumian simulations even longer than Apollo, so I know the processes!"
"... Mm! That's right! This is my project, so Apollo's safety is my responsibility!" agreed Emily, who looked around mission control for the approval of everyone else. The cloud of uncertainty and nervousness still loomed over the whole room, but eventually the technicians, assistants, and even a few of the doctors began nodding. Dr. Neimann walked back over to the lead terminal from his side position to pat his niece on the shoulder. "I'll take over here, so you can focus on getting Mir through safely." he said with an assuring smile.
"Thanks, Uncle Walter!" nodded Emily, not even remembering in this situation to call him by title as discussed just 15 minutes ago. With the exploration now converted into a rescue mission, Emily dashed down the steps to the lower end of mission control to get her PET hooked up to the main monitor and assisting terminals. Glenn, standing there with his empty PET in hand, gave Emily a hard, long stare, and she did not shy away from it. Accepting that resolve, Glenn stepped aside without a word and let the young genius pass. "Mir, get straight to the dish array. We'll get Tower set up for a second transmission on this side."
"On my way." replied Mir quickly.
"... Oh, and put your helmet on for this. We don't know what kind of interference awaits." reminded Emily just before her Navi transferred. Mir's shoulders slumped as she heard that, but reluctantly followed orders as she put on the headgear she hated so much. She tucked her braided ponytail into her spacesuit before putting on the streamlined orange helmet with its polarized, full-face visor, then finally started the transfer to the dish array and Tower past that.
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"So this is what a real Lumian beam looks like..." muttered Mir from within Tower's dataspace. With the real-world LTC still transmitting, the digital plane Mir floated in had a tunnel of light extending out on one side that reached... to the ends of the universe, at a glance. Sans the obstruction that brought Mir up here in the first place, that probably wasn't entirely false. Despite the urgency, she couldn't help but be a little mystified to finally go up into outer space like she had wanted to from day one.
"I'm ready whenever you are, Mir." said Emily, breaking her Navi from the reverie. "First, we need to locate the obstruction. Depending on what it is, we may have to reposition Tower to get around... Relocating Apollo after that isn't a guarantee, though..."
"Hold onto the theories for a minute, Emily. Let's just get there first and then find a solution." suggested Mir wisely as she gently floated forward towards the Lumian tunnel thanks to her suit's booster pack.
"Mm, yeah. Mir.exe, entering the Lumian beam!" announced Emily for the mission log, allowing Mir's formal entry into hyper-lightspeed...
(Battle 1 Start)
"I'm ready whenever you are, Mir." said Emily, breaking her Navi from the reverie. "First, we need to locate the obstruction. Depending on what it is, we may have to reposition Tower to get around... Relocating Apollo after that isn't a guarantee, though..."
"Hold onto the theories for a minute, Emily. Let's just get there first and then find a solution." suggested Mir wisely as she gently floated forward towards the Lumian tunnel thanks to her suit's booster pack.
"Mm, yeah. Mir.exe, entering the Lumian beam!" announced Emily for the mission log, allowing Mir's formal entry into hyper-lightspeed...
(Battle 1 Start)
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For nearly ten minutes, Mir continued flying down the seemingly endless tunnel of light into deep space. No obstructions presented themselves. For that matter, no anomalies at all showed up to make the Lumian beam seem like anything more than a solid tunnel to the edge of the universe.
Then, five parsecs out from Earth, the beam finally hit the obstruction. The data stream ended in front of Mir, stopped dead by a solid wall. And from Mir's perspective it looked like just that: a flat wall completely blocking the transmission beam.
Then, five parsecs out from Earth, the beam finally hit the obstruction. The data stream ended in front of Mir, stopped dead by a solid wall. And from Mir's perspective it looked like just that: a flat wall completely blocking the transmission beam.
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Despite all expectations to the contrary, traveling faster than light was... not all that different from normal, at least from a Navi's point of view. To Mir, it only seemed like she was flying down a long, seemingly endless tunnel of light at the usual top speed her booster pack could muster. She really had no sense of how much faster her data was being transmitted than normal, only really noticing the weird feeling of being uniformly driven in a single direction. It actually felt like she was jacking in, just for 10 straight minutes... Yeah, not all that exciting. Mir remained attentive all the same, though, seeing as this was a life-or-death rescue mission and that she was was going to need to come to a halt very quickly when that obstruction showed up.
Squashing that 1% chance that it would resolve itself before Mir arrived, her journey came to a halt right at the 10 minute mark as she met a wall. The Lumian datastream just... stopped. It was an odd sight, lacking the disruption or interference common to broken links. It was just a dead end, composed of and indistinguishable from the same glowing light that made the rest of Mir's medium. Due to that, the research Navi turned astronaut almost crashed full-on into the wall despite all her best efforts to not do so. Mir managed a hard brake in the end by kicking her legs forward and throttling up the mini-thrusters in her shin guards to counter all the forward momentum, but her efforts could only turn that into rotational momentum as she went into a spin and lightly bounced off the wall to no effect on either party. "Well, it's solid alright..." groaned Mir as she put a hand on her helmet, before reorienting herself to look at the blockade.
"For you to just bounce off like that, there can't be a single bit of data getting through..." noted Emily of the collision, "... but you should be more careful, Mir. We'd have lost the connection again if you managed to slip through the wall somehow."
"It's not like I did it on purpose..." sighed Mir in response. "Either way, that's not digital interference. It's like we're trying to transmit through a solid wall."
"Just what kind of luck is this to find a physical obstruction in the greater galaxy... I suppose it'd have to be a stray asteroid or comet? They do break off their orbits on occasion." hypothesized Emily after showing her frustration for just a split second. "At least, I hope we didn't snipe someone's mothership."
"Cute." grunted Glenn from the corner he tucked himself into, having found himself unable to do anything about this. "You're not going to try to wait this out, are you? Let's call it an asteroid. We have no idea how fast or slow it's moving, or how big it is? Forget the mission time limit, we could be here for days, weeks... maybe more."
"Yes, that is a risk we can't take with Apollo still lost... Perhaps we're just left with digging our way through, then." admitted Emily, resigning herself to an option she didn't really prefer.
Mir initially didn't understand what her Operator meant, but her thoughts then went to the simulated Lumian Transmission Cannon strapped to her back. While it had ultimately been executing Battlechips these last few weeks, this LTC was still emulating what the real Tower satellite could do. Its intended function was and still is communication, but Tower could in fact increase its Lumian output to make the beam as destructive as Mir had shown quite a few viruses. "... How safe is that for me?" asked Mir instinctively, sensing something wrong with the way Emily had suggested her idea.
"Not... very." admitted Emily despite a good deal of hesitation. "Tower has the capacity to quantum tunnel through this, but that would involve polluting your transmission with a large excess of additional Lumians. From your perspective... You'd be in the middle of a quantum particle bombardment against the asteroid wall."
"That definitely sounds bad," said Mir bluntly, before continuing, "... but there's probably not enough time for me to travel back to Tower and let the quantum beam fire unimpeded."
"I don't think we can risk another 10 minutes without knowing Apollo's situation, no... It'll up to you and me to get you through this safely, Mir. I'll do my part, so do you think you can do yours?" pleaded Emily, making it clear there weren't many other ways to go about this.
"Can't really back out at this point... Though, I bet not many Navis have ever needed to defend themselves from their own transmission before." noted Mir in a bit of dry humor over how her lifeline was being converted into a death laser. "Let's just get this done with, Emily."
"Okay, thanks Mir." nodded Emily, before turning her attention back to the crew of mission control. "Up the collection frequency to 65%! Scale output for a grade 1 high-order beam! Do not disable the binary coding sequence for Mir! We will transmit in the high-order until a quantum tunnel is established through the obstructing asteroid!" Emily's commands sent a ripple of activity through the mission staff as numerous recalibrations were sent up to Tower to shift its beam to a destructive output level.
Up in the beam itself, Mir turned her back to the dead end wall and pulled her LTC over to her hip. She really had no idea what kind of barrage she'd be facing, but Mir's gut feeling said right away that just dodging probably wasn't going to cut it. It was a bit funny that she was about to use virtual Lumians to protect herself from the real ones, but hey, whatever kept her in one piece.
Squashing that 1% chance that it would resolve itself before Mir arrived, her journey came to a halt right at the 10 minute mark as she met a wall. The Lumian datastream just... stopped. It was an odd sight, lacking the disruption or interference common to broken links. It was just a dead end, composed of and indistinguishable from the same glowing light that made the rest of Mir's medium. Due to that, the research Navi turned astronaut almost crashed full-on into the wall despite all her best efforts to not do so. Mir managed a hard brake in the end by kicking her legs forward and throttling up the mini-thrusters in her shin guards to counter all the forward momentum, but her efforts could only turn that into rotational momentum as she went into a spin and lightly bounced off the wall to no effect on either party. "Well, it's solid alright..." groaned Mir as she put a hand on her helmet, before reorienting herself to look at the blockade.
"For you to just bounce off like that, there can't be a single bit of data getting through..." noted Emily of the collision, "... but you should be more careful, Mir. We'd have lost the connection again if you managed to slip through the wall somehow."
"It's not like I did it on purpose..." sighed Mir in response. "Either way, that's not digital interference. It's like we're trying to transmit through a solid wall."
"Just what kind of luck is this to find a physical obstruction in the greater galaxy... I suppose it'd have to be a stray asteroid or comet? They do break off their orbits on occasion." hypothesized Emily after showing her frustration for just a split second. "At least, I hope we didn't snipe someone's mothership."
"Cute." grunted Glenn from the corner he tucked himself into, having found himself unable to do anything about this. "You're not going to try to wait this out, are you? Let's call it an asteroid. We have no idea how fast or slow it's moving, or how big it is? Forget the mission time limit, we could be here for days, weeks... maybe more."
"Yes, that is a risk we can't take with Apollo still lost... Perhaps we're just left with digging our way through, then." admitted Emily, resigning herself to an option she didn't really prefer.
Mir initially didn't understand what her Operator meant, but her thoughts then went to the simulated Lumian Transmission Cannon strapped to her back. While it had ultimately been executing Battlechips these last few weeks, this LTC was still emulating what the real Tower satellite could do. Its intended function was and still is communication, but Tower could in fact increase its Lumian output to make the beam as destructive as Mir had shown quite a few viruses. "... How safe is that for me?" asked Mir instinctively, sensing something wrong with the way Emily had suggested her idea.
"Not... very." admitted Emily despite a good deal of hesitation. "Tower has the capacity to quantum tunnel through this, but that would involve polluting your transmission with a large excess of additional Lumians. From your perspective... You'd be in the middle of a quantum particle bombardment against the asteroid wall."
"That definitely sounds bad," said Mir bluntly, before continuing, "... but there's probably not enough time for me to travel back to Tower and let the quantum beam fire unimpeded."
"I don't think we can risk another 10 minutes without knowing Apollo's situation, no... It'll up to you and me to get you through this safely, Mir. I'll do my part, so do you think you can do yours?" pleaded Emily, making it clear there weren't many other ways to go about this.
"Can't really back out at this point... Though, I bet not many Navis have ever needed to defend themselves from their own transmission before." noted Mir in a bit of dry humor over how her lifeline was being converted into a death laser. "Let's just get this done with, Emily."
"Okay, thanks Mir." nodded Emily, before turning her attention back to the crew of mission control. "Up the collection frequency to 65%! Scale output for a grade 1 high-order beam! Do not disable the binary coding sequence for Mir! We will transmit in the high-order until a quantum tunnel is established through the obstructing asteroid!" Emily's commands sent a ripple of activity through the mission staff as numerous recalibrations were sent up to Tower to shift its beam to a destructive output level.
Up in the beam itself, Mir turned her back to the dead end wall and pulled her LTC over to her hip. She really had no idea what kind of barrage she'd be facing, but Mir's gut feeling said right away that just dodging probably wasn't going to cut it. It was a bit funny that she was about to use virtual Lumians to protect herself from the real ones, but hey, whatever kept her in one piece.
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((Music))
Mir had several seconds to prepare herself for what was about to be a rainfall of destructive particles. Once that time was up the first of them began approaching, passing her by and striking the solid wall behind her.
Farther back in the transmission beam, several more shot toward the asteroid, moving alarmingly fast and taking up far too much of the transmission for comfort.
___
---Stationary Objects---
Mir: 120 HP
Asteroid 200X MV2: 1500 HP
---Incoming---
Lumian Particle Cluster x5: 50 HP
---Other---
Terrain: Well you can try standing on the solid wall in front of you, but that's not recommended
Other: Lumian particles are approaching the asteroid at a rate of 5-10 clusters per turn. Each cluster has approximately 50 HP and will do its HP in damage upon impact with anything it touches.
Mir had several seconds to prepare herself for what was about to be a rainfall of destructive particles. Once that time was up the first of them began approaching, passing her by and striking the solid wall behind her.
Farther back in the transmission beam, several more shot toward the asteroid, moving alarmingly fast and taking up far too much of the transmission for comfort.
___
---Stationary Objects---
Mir: 120 HP
Asteroid 200X MV2: 1500 HP
---Incoming---
Lumian Particle Cluster x5: 50 HP
---Other---
Terrain: Well you can try standing on the solid wall in front of you, but that's not recommended
Other: Lumian particles are approaching the asteroid at a rate of 5-10 clusters per turn. Each cluster has approximately 50 HP and will do its HP in damage upon impact with anything it touches.
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"The first wave of particles is inbound, Mir!" announced Emily after Tower finished processing its orders. The good news was that the Lumian-transmitting satellite could only boost the beam's particle density gradually, so Mir was only going to face a few extra obstructions initially. The bad news was, well, the same as the good news. This wasn't going to stay pretty for long.
"I see them! What should I do, Emily?" confirmed Mir, just barely making out the silhouettes of the Lumian data packets against the equally glowing tunnel walls. If her helmet's visor wasn't completely polarized, frankly, Mir would be blinded through all of this.
"We need as many Lumians as possible to collide with the asteroid, so let's just try to avoid the incoming data while it's still just starting to stream in." explained Emily quickly, outlining the end goal of the impromptu operation.
"So basically, shooting down an incoming packet is the absolute last resort..." thought Mir aloud, before adding a request. "Can you give me my shield for now? Its weight won't be an issue all the way up here."
"On the way, Mir. Get ready to evade!" consented Emily, who hurriedly slotted the aforementioned Battlechip into her PET to allot Mir an emergency defense.
The IronShield2 manifested itself as a blast shield around the LTC's barrel just as it had last time, being so large that it could effectively obstruct Mir's entire body. The difference this time, though, was that Mir was in zero gravity. The bulky shield that she couldn't even move back down on Earth was suddenly weightless, though flailing it around wildly was still out of the question thanks to its mass. "Here goes nothing..." muttered Mir to herself as she fired up the booster pack on her back, propelling herself downward towards the bottom of the tunnel's cylindrical border.
Truth be told, she didn't actually use her spacesuit's boosters all that much. They didn't have enough thrust to counteract gravity, so down on the constructed Net, all Mir could get out of them was a little extra jump in her step. It's not that she didn't remember how to control herself in a free float, but rust was certainly a risk... Since deferring that risk wasn't an option, though, Mir could only pick out a gap between 2 of the 5 initial data packets and hope that her mental reflexes and motor skills could coordinate well enough to get her through. The wait, while just a matter of seconds, was very unnerving as Mir could do nothing but keep a stationary position and let the particles come to her. She raised the IronShield in front of her just before the pass-by occurred, and gave her thrusters a short but strong burn in her only shot at threading the gap...
Actions:
1) Equip IronShield2 (4-Hit Shield)
2) Dodge
3) Dodge
4) Dodge
"I see them! What should I do, Emily?" confirmed Mir, just barely making out the silhouettes of the Lumian data packets against the equally glowing tunnel walls. If her helmet's visor wasn't completely polarized, frankly, Mir would be blinded through all of this.
"We need as many Lumians as possible to collide with the asteroid, so let's just try to avoid the incoming data while it's still just starting to stream in." explained Emily quickly, outlining the end goal of the impromptu operation.
"So basically, shooting down an incoming packet is the absolute last resort..." thought Mir aloud, before adding a request. "Can you give me my shield for now? Its weight won't be an issue all the way up here."
"On the way, Mir. Get ready to evade!" consented Emily, who hurriedly slotted the aforementioned Battlechip into her PET to allot Mir an emergency defense.
The IronShield2 manifested itself as a blast shield around the LTC's barrel just as it had last time, being so large that it could effectively obstruct Mir's entire body. The difference this time, though, was that Mir was in zero gravity. The bulky shield that she couldn't even move back down on Earth was suddenly weightless, though flailing it around wildly was still out of the question thanks to its mass. "Here goes nothing..." muttered Mir to herself as she fired up the booster pack on her back, propelling herself downward towards the bottom of the tunnel's cylindrical border.
Truth be told, she didn't actually use her spacesuit's boosters all that much. They didn't have enough thrust to counteract gravity, so down on the constructed Net, all Mir could get out of them was a little extra jump in her step. It's not that she didn't remember how to control herself in a free float, but rust was certainly a risk... Since deferring that risk wasn't an option, though, Mir could only pick out a gap between 2 of the 5 initial data packets and hope that her mental reflexes and motor skills could coordinate well enough to get her through. The wait, while just a matter of seconds, was very unnerving as Mir could do nothing but keep a stationary position and let the particles come to her. She raised the IronShield in front of her just before the pass-by occurred, and gave her thrusters a short but strong burn in her only shot at threading the gap...
Actions:
1) Equip IronShield2 (4-Hit Shield)
2) Dodge
3) Dodge
4) Dodge
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Fortunately for Mir, the gap she chose was the widest in the particle bombardment without trying to hug the edge of the beam. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite wide enough, as while she managed to avoid one of the particles easily, the second caught the edge of her shield.
The good news was, the shield absorbed the hit. Entirely. That was also the bad news, as it meant there was one less particle striking the end of the datastream behind her.
The remaining slammed into the wall, sending shockwaves across the surface. But from Mir's perspective there was no easy way to tell just how much of an effect it was having. Meanwhile, the next wave was already approaching fast, and it was quickly starting to be more than a small stream.
___
---Stationary Objects---
Mir: 120 HP (IronShield2: 3/4 hits)
Asteroid 200X MV2: 1300 HP
---Incoming---
Lumian Particle Cluster x8: 50 HP
---Other---
Terrain: Well you can try standing on the solid wall in front of you, but that's not recommended
Other: Lumian particles are approaching the asteroid at a rate of 5-10 clusters per turn. Each cluster has approximately 50 HP and will do its HP in damage upon impact with anything it touches.
The good news was, the shield absorbed the hit. Entirely. That was also the bad news, as it meant there was one less particle striking the end of the datastream behind her.
The remaining slammed into the wall, sending shockwaves across the surface. But from Mir's perspective there was no easy way to tell just how much of an effect it was having. Meanwhile, the next wave was already approaching fast, and it was quickly starting to be more than a small stream.
___
---Stationary Objects---
Mir: 120 HP (IronShield2: 3/4 hits)
Asteroid 200X MV2: 1300 HP
---Incoming---
Lumian Particle Cluster x8: 50 HP
---Other---
Terrain: Well you can try standing on the solid wall in front of you, but that's not recommended
Other: Lumian particles are approaching the asteroid at a rate of 5-10 clusters per turn. Each cluster has approximately 50 HP and will do its HP in damage upon impact with anything it touches.
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"Oof!" grunted Mir as the second particle clipped her shield, transferring a good deal of momentum into her and sending her into an endless spiral in the middle of the beam. After taking a second to gather herself, Mir ignited her thrusters laterally to cancel out the rotational velocity of the spin and save herself a nauseating dizzy spell if that had continued much longer. Unfortunately, she didn't have a whole lot of time to enjoy the steady view as the second main pulse from Tower was quickly approaching. "H-how am I supposed to avoid that...?!" stuttered a nervous Mir after quickly realizing that this wave was a good bit denser than the last one.
"Mm... I don't think there's a choice anymore, we're just going to have to blast a hole in the waves from here out." sighed Emily in surrender, after figuring it was the only option if her Navi couldn't sneak her way through even the first batch of particles. "Let me send you a Battlechip to break through this wave, and..."
"Hang onto those for now, I think I can shoot my way through this much." interjected Mir, rejecting the offer as she pointed her own LTC towards the wave projected from its real-world counterpart. While Mir generally preferred to let the LTC fill up its Lumian tank at a paced rate, she really didn't have even half the time here for that to happen. So, with the command inputted for maximum charging, Mir brought her weapon up to full power and pulled the trigger almost immediately. A dense Lumian cluster led the beam emitted from her LTC, and bolted towards the corner of the oncoming wave just as fast as it charged towards Mir.
Without any time to wait and see how big of a gap she'd create with a hit, Mir revved her thrusters up and flew into the path that her target point would be following. The blast shield attached to the LTC's barrel was still in pretty good shape, so she braced it in front of herself as the Lumian wave approached. With any luck, only this much damage would be needed for her to sneak through the wave untouched...
Actions:
1) Quantum Striking (60 Elec damage [A+], 2TCD) @ outermost Lumian Particle Cluster
2) Maneuver into path of gap (Movement)
3) Dodge
4) Dodge
Cooldowns:
Quantum Striking - 2 turns
"Mm... I don't think there's a choice anymore, we're just going to have to blast a hole in the waves from here out." sighed Emily in surrender, after figuring it was the only option if her Navi couldn't sneak her way through even the first batch of particles. "Let me send you a Battlechip to break through this wave, and..."
"Hang onto those for now, I think I can shoot my way through this much." interjected Mir, rejecting the offer as she pointed her own LTC towards the wave projected from its real-world counterpart. While Mir generally preferred to let the LTC fill up its Lumian tank at a paced rate, she really didn't have even half the time here for that to happen. So, with the command inputted for maximum charging, Mir brought her weapon up to full power and pulled the trigger almost immediately. A dense Lumian cluster led the beam emitted from her LTC, and bolted towards the corner of the oncoming wave just as fast as it charged towards Mir.
Without any time to wait and see how big of a gap she'd create with a hit, Mir revved her thrusters up and flew into the path that her target point would be following. The blast shield attached to the LTC's barrel was still in pretty good shape, so she braced it in front of herself as the Lumian wave approached. With any luck, only this much damage would be needed for her to sneak through the wave untouched...
Actions:
1) Quantum Striking (60 Elec damage [A+], 2TCD) @ outermost Lumian Particle Cluster
2) Maneuver into path of gap (Movement)
3) Dodge
4) Dodge
Cooldowns:
Quantum Striking - 2 turns
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By blasting a hole in the edge of the oncoming particle storm, Mir was able to give herself a gap large enough to fit into. She launched herself toward it, fitting into the gap just as the wave passed. This time, she didn't get clipped by any of the remaining particles, and they all crashed into the wall behind her with no further problems.
Now if only it were always that easy.
But easy mode was over, and Tower was now transmitting at full power. Not one but two more waves were inbound, staggered enough that they looked less like separate waves and more like a steady but scattered steam of particles that left any individual gaps likely to fill up just as soon as they were made.
___
---Stationary Objects---
Mir: 120 HP (IronShield2: 3/4 hits)
Asteroid 200X MV2: 950 HP
---Incoming---
Lumian Particle Cluster x7: 50 HP each
Lumian Particle Cluster x9: 50 HP each
---Other---
Terrain: Well you can try standing on the solid wall in front of you, but that's not recommended
Other: Lumian particles are approaching the asteroid at a rate of 5-10 clusters per wave. Each cluster has approximately 50 HP and will do its HP in damage upon impact with anything it touches.
Now if only it were always that easy.
But easy mode was over, and Tower was now transmitting at full power. Not one but two more waves were inbound, staggered enough that they looked less like separate waves and more like a steady but scattered steam of particles that left any individual gaps likely to fill up just as soon as they were made.
___
---Stationary Objects---
Mir: 120 HP (IronShield2: 3/4 hits)
Asteroid 200X MV2: 950 HP
---Incoming---
Lumian Particle Cluster x7: 50 HP each
Lumian Particle Cluster x9: 50 HP each
---Other---
Terrain: Well you can try standing on the solid wall in front of you, but that's not recommended
Other: Lumian particles are approaching the asteroid at a rate of 5-10 clusters per wave. Each cluster has approximately 50 HP and will do its HP in damage upon impact with anything it touches.
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"Alright, that worked..." muttered Mir to herself as she emerged out the other end of the Lumian wave, this time unscathed. The blast shield attached to the LTC's barrel didn't even get grazed by the data packets, either. Maybe she didn't need to do any more damage to the particles than that...
"Mir, the beam's up to full power now! We'll have to get you through a constant stream of particles now!" exclaimed Emily after receiving the equivalent notice from one of the technicians.
... Or maybe not. "Wha...? How am I suppose to evade my way through a solid beam?! I don't have the kind of firepower to break through that, either!" gasped Mir, though despite her words she didn't have a whole lot of time to bemoan the situation. The beam was getting denser, fast.
"The only option, really, is to make up the lack of power with precision... You'll just have to trust me as your Operator, Mir, that I'll send you the right Battlechips and put them on the right target." decided Emily, trying to take over as much of the responsibility from her Navi as possible.
"... I guess for once, I'm glad that you can calculate trajectory even better than me." sighed Mir with a wry grin showing through her helmet's visor. "Just tell me where to go and where to shoot."
"Alright." nodded Emily as she drew out a Battlechip. "Like we saw before, the weakest place to break through is around the edge of the stream, so get yourself on a line with that."
"Got it." acknowledged Mir as she quickly fired her boosters to half power and floated back toward the edge of her tunnel.
"Now, take this FireBurn, and shoot it exactly where I say. It may look a little off from your target at the front of the stream, but our goal is to hit the particles arranged behind it as well." continued Emily as the named chip was popped into her PET. While it uploaded, the genius scientist immediately started calculating trajectories for the first two layers of the particle stream.
Mir followed the instructions to a tee, processing the transferred FireBurn through the LTC to charge up her weapon appropriately. Her aim deviated just a few hundredths of a degree off from her natural instincts, but this wasn't the first time that Emily had out-calculated her, so Mir kept her hands steady in faith.
"You're locked on, Mir! Fire!" ordered Emily suddenly.
"Firing!" confirmed Mir as she pulled the LTC's trigger, releasing the high volume of Lumians collected by the cannon all at once in a condensed, high-temperature laser. The intensity of the beam would've created a hiss if there was any virtual air to burn, but in this vacuum of space the faster-than-light collection of quantum particles could only race in silence on a collision route with another equal but superior beam. As the last lingering trail of particles left the LTC's barrel, Mir hastily listed her blast shield up front and center as a brace in anticipation of her next hole to safety appearing...
Actions:
1) Reposition (Movement)
--Rocket Science (Passive Take Aim) to:
2) FireBurn1 (50 Fire damage [A++], Line Attack (3)) @ First/Second Lumian Particle Cluster
3) Dodge
4) Dodge
Cooldowns:
Quantum Striking - 1 turn
"Mir, the beam's up to full power now! We'll have to get you through a constant stream of particles now!" exclaimed Emily after receiving the equivalent notice from one of the technicians.
... Or maybe not. "Wha...? How am I suppose to evade my way through a solid beam?! I don't have the kind of firepower to break through that, either!" gasped Mir, though despite her words she didn't have a whole lot of time to bemoan the situation. The beam was getting denser, fast.
"The only option, really, is to make up the lack of power with precision... You'll just have to trust me as your Operator, Mir, that I'll send you the right Battlechips and put them on the right target." decided Emily, trying to take over as much of the responsibility from her Navi as possible.
"... I guess for once, I'm glad that you can calculate trajectory even better than me." sighed Mir with a wry grin showing through her helmet's visor. "Just tell me where to go and where to shoot."
"Alright." nodded Emily as she drew out a Battlechip. "Like we saw before, the weakest place to break through is around the edge of the stream, so get yourself on a line with that."
"Got it." acknowledged Mir as she quickly fired her boosters to half power and floated back toward the edge of her tunnel.
"Now, take this FireBurn, and shoot it exactly where I say. It may look a little off from your target at the front of the stream, but our goal is to hit the particles arranged behind it as well." continued Emily as the named chip was popped into her PET. While it uploaded, the genius scientist immediately started calculating trajectories for the first two layers of the particle stream.
Mir followed the instructions to a tee, processing the transferred FireBurn through the LTC to charge up her weapon appropriately. Her aim deviated just a few hundredths of a degree off from her natural instincts, but this wasn't the first time that Emily had out-calculated her, so Mir kept her hands steady in faith.
"You're locked on, Mir! Fire!" ordered Emily suddenly.
"Firing!" confirmed Mir as she pulled the LTC's trigger, releasing the high volume of Lumians collected by the cannon all at once in a condensed, high-temperature laser. The intensity of the beam would've created a hiss if there was any virtual air to burn, but in this vacuum of space the faster-than-light collection of quantum particles could only race in silence on a collision route with another equal but superior beam. As the last lingering trail of particles left the LTC's barrel, Mir hastily listed her blast shield up front and center as a brace in anticipation of her next hole to safety appearing...
Actions:
1) Reposition (Movement)
--Rocket Science (Passive Take Aim) to:
2) FireBurn1 (50 Fire damage [A++], Line Attack (3)) @ First/Second Lumian Particle Cluster
3) Dodge
4) Dodge
Cooldowns:
Quantum Striking - 1 turn
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Mir was right. She didn't have a lot of time. So little time in fact that she was already having to avoid the front of the next wave by the time she started moving again, and only just barely managed it. She returned to the edge of the beam just in time for a particle cluster that was unsettlingly on target to crash into her shield.
Fortunately, she still had enough time after taking a hit to line up targets and fire her own beam through the oncoming Lumian particles, blowing a sizable hole in the barrage. Less fortunately, she missed a particle right at the very edge of the beam, which clipped the edge of her shield and dispersed into nothing. The shield, meanwhile, was still intact but didn't look like it would last much longer.
The rest of the particle beam collided with the wall behind her, and...was the wall farther behind Mir than before? Either way, between that and the constant impact of Lumian particles one could only hope that it wouldn't last much longer. But until then, the beam was still firing at full power.
___
---Stationary Objects---
Mir: 120 HP (IronShield2: 1/4 hits)
Asteroid 200X MV2: 350 HP
---Incoming---
Lumian Particle Cluster x9: 50 HP each
Lumian Particle Cluster x8: 50 HP each
---Other---
Terrain: Well you can try standing on the solid wall in front of you, but that's not recommended
Other: Lumian particles are approaching the asteroid at a rate of 5-10 clusters per wave. Each cluster has approximately 50 HP and will do its HP in damage upon impact with anything it touches.
Fortunately, she still had enough time after taking a hit to line up targets and fire her own beam through the oncoming Lumian particles, blowing a sizable hole in the barrage. Less fortunately, she missed a particle right at the very edge of the beam, which clipped the edge of her shield and dispersed into nothing. The shield, meanwhile, was still intact but didn't look like it would last much longer.
The rest of the particle beam collided with the wall behind her, and...was the wall farther behind Mir than before? Either way, between that and the constant impact of Lumian particles one could only hope that it wouldn't last much longer. But until then, the beam was still firing at full power.
___
---Stationary Objects---
Mir: 120 HP (IronShield2: 1/4 hits)
Asteroid 200X MV2: 350 HP
---Incoming---
Lumian Particle Cluster x9: 50 HP each
Lumian Particle Cluster x8: 50 HP each
---Other---
Terrain: Well you can try standing on the solid wall in front of you, but that's not recommended
Other: Lumian particles are approaching the asteroid at a rate of 5-10 clusters per wave. Each cluster has approximately 50 HP and will do its HP in damage upon impact with anything it touches.
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"Almost there, Mir! The tunnel's already starting to extend behind you!" announced Emily, relaying notice to her Navi that this self-abusive task was finally showing progress.
"I'd be a little more curious to see that if I had the time to turn around!" retorted Mir, who aside from the whole 'having to defend herself from the hyper-lightspeed threat' thing, was currently floating upside-down after that last impact on her shield sent her tumbling a ways. Err... relatively upside-down, at least. It was hard to say which way was up these deep into outer space. "Just calibrate the next chip for me! I think my shield doesn't have much left in it!" requested Mir hastily as she lit her side boosters to spin herself back to her original orientation.
"Oh, right, right... I think this Shotgun should work well. Alright Mir, the leading wave is denser than what's behind it this time, so it'll be harder get a clean shot on the second layer. Point your LTC exactly where I say, and only fire it when I say." explained Emily as she slotted the aforementioned Battlechip into her PET. "Just hang on one more time, and we should all be back on track to locating Apollo."
"Ergh... Never would've imagined the day I'd be risking my life for him." sighed Mir at the prospect of rescuing her detested rival... if she could stomach calling Apollo that. With her own well-being being at immediate risk, though, she quickly got over it and repositioned herself in the quantum tunnel as per Emily's instructions.
"Right there... yeah, that's a good spot. I'll mark the target point for you... Done." said Emily as she guided Mir through the targeting process. "Are you ready, Mir?"
"I don't have much choice, do I?" answered Mir somewhat anxiously as the next wave approached rapidly. She steadied her aim on the target marker... that in an instant was getting run over by the destructive stream. Yeah, she was ready.
"Okay Mir, fire!" ordered Emily, probably at the last possible second.
Mir didn't even respond verbally as she only had the time left to pull her LTC's trigger, which launched the Shotgun's Lumian clusters from the barrel in a very condensed spray. In truth it was actually a bit more volume to the shot than Mir normally gave the Shotgun, but she had left the LTC on constant charge during this whole survival trial, so there was a bit of... overflow. Hopefully it'd take her a few more minutes to find the network Apollo disappeared to, because her dear weapon desperately needed time to shut down and cool off.
As soon as the Shotgun blast struck against Tower's particle stream, Mir followed after her shot trail, lifting the damaged remnants of the LTC's blast shield in front of her before trying to carefully navitage the haphazard hole she hoped to make.
Actions:
1) Reposition (Movement)
--Rocket Science (Passive Take Aim) to:
2) Shotgun1 (50 damage [A++], Spread 1) @ First/Second Lumian Particle Cluster
3) Dodge
4) Dodge
Cooldowns:
Quantum Striking - Ready
"I'd be a little more curious to see that if I had the time to turn around!" retorted Mir, who aside from the whole 'having to defend herself from the hyper-lightspeed threat' thing, was currently floating upside-down after that last impact on her shield sent her tumbling a ways. Err... relatively upside-down, at least. It was hard to say which way was up these deep into outer space. "Just calibrate the next chip for me! I think my shield doesn't have much left in it!" requested Mir hastily as she lit her side boosters to spin herself back to her original orientation.
"Oh, right, right... I think this Shotgun should work well. Alright Mir, the leading wave is denser than what's behind it this time, so it'll be harder get a clean shot on the second layer. Point your LTC exactly where I say, and only fire it when I say." explained Emily as she slotted the aforementioned Battlechip into her PET. "Just hang on one more time, and we should all be back on track to locating Apollo."
"Ergh... Never would've imagined the day I'd be risking my life for him." sighed Mir at the prospect of rescuing her detested rival... if she could stomach calling Apollo that. With her own well-being being at immediate risk, though, she quickly got over it and repositioned herself in the quantum tunnel as per Emily's instructions.
"Right there... yeah, that's a good spot. I'll mark the target point for you... Done." said Emily as she guided Mir through the targeting process. "Are you ready, Mir?"
"I don't have much choice, do I?" answered Mir somewhat anxiously as the next wave approached rapidly. She steadied her aim on the target marker... that in an instant was getting run over by the destructive stream. Yeah, she was ready.
"Okay Mir, fire!" ordered Emily, probably at the last possible second.
Mir didn't even respond verbally as she only had the time left to pull her LTC's trigger, which launched the Shotgun's Lumian clusters from the barrel in a very condensed spray. In truth it was actually a bit more volume to the shot than Mir normally gave the Shotgun, but she had left the LTC on constant charge during this whole survival trial, so there was a bit of... overflow. Hopefully it'd take her a few more minutes to find the network Apollo disappeared to, because her dear weapon desperately needed time to shut down and cool off.
As soon as the Shotgun blast struck against Tower's particle stream, Mir followed after her shot trail, lifting the damaged remnants of the LTC's blast shield in front of her before trying to carefully navitage the haphazard hole she hoped to make.
Actions:
1) Reposition (Movement)
--Rocket Science (Passive Take Aim) to:
2) Shotgun1 (50 damage [A++], Spread 1) @ First/Second Lumian Particle Cluster
3) Dodge
4) Dodge
Cooldowns:
Quantum Striking - Ready
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One final shot through the beam gives Mir just enough room to navigate through as the oncoming particle clusters punch the rest of the way through the asteroid. Behind Mir, the solid wall in the datastream gives way, leaving the tunnel continuing far beyond seeing into deep space.
But the steam of particles does not stop just yet. The second wave passes shortly behind the first, and despite Mir's best efforts one last particle slams into her shield, causing it to give way and fall apart.
But that was it. As the last dense wave of particles passed, they became fewer and farther between, posing Mir no threat until they wound down and stopped entirely. She was through.
___
---Stationary Objects---
Mir: 120 HP (IronShield2: Broken)
Asteroid 200X MV2: Punched through
---Incoming---
Nothing
---Terrain---
None
'BATTLE' CLEAR
But the steam of particles does not stop just yet. The second wave passes shortly behind the first, and despite Mir's best efforts one last particle slams into her shield, causing it to give way and fall apart.
But that was it. As the last dense wave of particles passed, they became fewer and farther between, posing Mir no threat until they wound down and stopped entirely. She was through.
___
---Stationary Objects---
Mir: 120 HP (IronShield2: Broken)
Asteroid 200X MV2: Punched through
---Incoming---
Nothing
---Terrain---
None
'BATTLE' CLEAR
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"We're through! Cut the power, now! Downshift Tower's output back to initial transmission levels!" shouted Emily immediately, ordering mission control into action to spare her Navi any unnecessary quantum bombardment.
The nice thing about hyper-lightspeed was that just as fast as the particles flew, so did the changes in those particles. As soon as Tower got the transmission from NAXA HQ to shift back to a low-order beam, the rain of dense and destructive Lumians stopped, even the incredible 5 parsecs away where Mir was. That was several kinds of a relief for Mir, whose blast shield attached her LTC shattered after one final impact with an inbound Lumian cluster. "Oh my god... If this is what Navi spaceflight is going to be like in the future, I may not want any part of it after all!" gasped Mir as she finally let her anxiety go, now that her safety was finally assured.
"I'm really, really sorry Mir! We'll definitely have better precautions against a lost connection in the next mission!" Emily apologized profusely to her Navi for the desperate measure, but her mind ultimately went back to the main focus. "But... right now we need to keep moving! Hurry straight to the network and find Apollo!"
"... Right, okay." replied Mir with a nod of her helmeted head, coming to grips with the fact that this crisis wasn't about her. With a quick flash of her boosters, Mir raced through the open tunnel the asteroid previously blockaded. She had gotten caught up in this mess around the halfway point from the destination, so she still had another good 5 parsecs to fly before making contact with the mystery network. She was on orders to enter the alien digital plane ASAP to locate Apollo, so without a moment hesitation upon getting there, Mir dove right in...
The nice thing about hyper-lightspeed was that just as fast as the particles flew, so did the changes in those particles. As soon as Tower got the transmission from NAXA HQ to shift back to a low-order beam, the rain of dense and destructive Lumians stopped, even the incredible 5 parsecs away where Mir was. That was several kinds of a relief for Mir, whose blast shield attached her LTC shattered after one final impact with an inbound Lumian cluster. "Oh my god... If this is what Navi spaceflight is going to be like in the future, I may not want any part of it after all!" gasped Mir as she finally let her anxiety go, now that her safety was finally assured.
"I'm really, really sorry Mir! We'll definitely have better precautions against a lost connection in the next mission!" Emily apologized profusely to her Navi for the desperate measure, but her mind ultimately went back to the main focus. "But... right now we need to keep moving! Hurry straight to the network and find Apollo!"
"... Right, okay." replied Mir with a nod of her helmeted head, coming to grips with the fact that this crisis wasn't about her. With a quick flash of her boosters, Mir raced through the open tunnel the asteroid previously blockaded. She had gotten caught up in this mess around the halfway point from the destination, so she still had another good 5 parsecs to fly before making contact with the mystery network. She was on orders to enter the alien digital plane ASAP to locate Apollo, so without a moment hesitation upon getting there, Mir dove right in...
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((Music))
Ten parsecs away from any terrestrial network, Mir stepped out of the safety of her tunnel of light onto a rainbow bridge.
Directly beneath her as she left the beam was a pathway of solid light of variable color. The center of the pathway was violet, which shifted down the visible spectrum the closer toward the sides it got. As the pathway approached red, the light bridge decayed, dissolving into nothing rather than forming solid edges. Behind Mir. the bridge warped around the Lumian beam, creating a distorted but solid bend around the column of light it left in the network. Up ahead, the bridge decayed into nothing not too far away, but it was only one of many broken pathways forming a haphazard web stretching out around Mir. Only a few of them looked fully intact, though. Some were much more thoroughly decayed than the one Mir was on, while others had been warped by other bridges the way hers had been by the Lumian beam. Rather than becoming more solid, however, most of the other warped bridges were split apart or dispersed around another bridge that had cut through it, leaving floating fragments far too small to stand on. Although the rest of the bridges were demonstrably solid, and there was enough of an approximation of gravity to stay standing on the one she was on, Mir could feel almost no weight. Flying between them would not be too difficult.
Between some of the pathway fragments, there was nothing but empty space. Between others, however, there was a fog of static stretching between them, as though trying to hide something else within. Mir would have to get closer to find out what, if anything, was hidden there however, as from her current perspective it looked like nothing more than a featureless haze.
Beyond the reaches of the patchwork of light bridges, Mir could catch her first glimpse of what deep space looked like from within a network. It wasn't solid black, or even filled with stars like the night sky seen from the real world. Rather, Mir found herself looking at a continuous fog of radiation rendered visible. Most of the sky was either a deep blue or purple, while smaller patches were covered by clouds of lighter blue and green. More rarely, smaller patches of yellow would stick out, with dots of red within each of them. The radiation fog was, for the most part, static, although every now and then a brighter beam would streak across the sky, leaving a trail of light in its path before beginning to dissolve into nothing.
It was when one of these beams passed through the bounds of the network, threading through a hole in the strange patchwork of light, that Mir could hear the first of any sound whatsoever since entering the network. Even then, it was nothing more nothing more than a jumble of senseless noise, with no pattern to it and nothing back home to compare it too. The noise faded into nothing as soon as it came, but the beam that seemed to carry it left a more lasting mark on the network it had passed through, creating a new broken, already decaying bridge in the space it had previously occupied.
Apollo was nowhere to be seen, but flashes of light from somewhere overhead suggested that something at least was nearby.
Ten parsecs away from any terrestrial network, Mir stepped out of the safety of her tunnel of light onto a rainbow bridge.
Directly beneath her as she left the beam was a pathway of solid light of variable color. The center of the pathway was violet, which shifted down the visible spectrum the closer toward the sides it got. As the pathway approached red, the light bridge decayed, dissolving into nothing rather than forming solid edges. Behind Mir. the bridge warped around the Lumian beam, creating a distorted but solid bend around the column of light it left in the network. Up ahead, the bridge decayed into nothing not too far away, but it was only one of many broken pathways forming a haphazard web stretching out around Mir. Only a few of them looked fully intact, though. Some were much more thoroughly decayed than the one Mir was on, while others had been warped by other bridges the way hers had been by the Lumian beam. Rather than becoming more solid, however, most of the other warped bridges were split apart or dispersed around another bridge that had cut through it, leaving floating fragments far too small to stand on. Although the rest of the bridges were demonstrably solid, and there was enough of an approximation of gravity to stay standing on the one she was on, Mir could feel almost no weight. Flying between them would not be too difficult.
Between some of the pathway fragments, there was nothing but empty space. Between others, however, there was a fog of static stretching between them, as though trying to hide something else within. Mir would have to get closer to find out what, if anything, was hidden there however, as from her current perspective it looked like nothing more than a featureless haze.
Beyond the reaches of the patchwork of light bridges, Mir could catch her first glimpse of what deep space looked like from within a network. It wasn't solid black, or even filled with stars like the night sky seen from the real world. Rather, Mir found herself looking at a continuous fog of radiation rendered visible. Most of the sky was either a deep blue or purple, while smaller patches were covered by clouds of lighter blue and green. More rarely, smaller patches of yellow would stick out, with dots of red within each of them. The radiation fog was, for the most part, static, although every now and then a brighter beam would streak across the sky, leaving a trail of light in its path before beginning to dissolve into nothing.
It was when one of these beams passed through the bounds of the network, threading through a hole in the strange patchwork of light, that Mir could hear the first of any sound whatsoever since entering the network. Even then, it was nothing more nothing more than a jumble of senseless noise, with no pattern to it and nothing back home to compare it too. The noise faded into nothing as soon as it came, but the beam that seemed to carry it left a more lasting mark on the network it had passed through, creating a new broken, already decaying bridge in the space it had previously occupied.
Apollo was nowhere to be seen, but flashes of light from somewhere overhead suggested that something at least was nearby.
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Nothing could describe what Mir was feeling better than true awe. Time and time again she had imagined going up into space just as was the case now, but what laid in front of Mir now was beyond any kind of expectation she could've created. It wasn't just her, either. A cloud of dumbfound silence sank in over NAXA mission control, because this digital crossroads in outer space was something Earthlings had never witnessed. Visually it wasn't nothing that couldn't be recreated with maybe a day's worth of coding, but... this messy and haphazard mix of luminous bridges was not man-made. This was the Net world's nature, free of any sentient influences. Mir, Emily, and all of mission control had just witnessed those interstellar forces at work even, as that noise-inducing beam drew up another broken light bridge in the distance.
"Incredible..." said Emily breathlessly, finally breaking the silence with a sentiment that probably everyone in the room shared.
"Yeah... It's almost unnerving to stand here." added Mir from her own first-hand observations as she peered through and around the radiating fog. Despite the fact that she wanted to be the Navi to make this trip in the first place, Mir couldn't help but feel a little hesitation now that she was here. With a good look at everything now, though, she could finally put that hesitation into words. "Everything on Earth's Net is made with an intent, a designed purpose... A network existing just because it does is kind of scary to imagine, for any Navi."
"Huh... Um, anyway! We're recording the coordinates for this network right now, so research expeditions can come back later. We need to find Apollo! Can you see any trace of him, Mir?" asked Emily, catching herself from losing her focus to this fascinating discovery.
"No... I barely know what to make of any of this, period. This fog is just a huge cloud of interference... There's no logic to the sights or sounds, let alone tracks Apollo left behind." answered Mir, shaking her helmet left and right as she responded.
"... If Apollo's still around, he'll definitely be where the biggest commotion is. Going down quietly would be the last thing he'd do." explained Glenn suddenly, removing himself from the corner wall he had been quietly leaning against, anxiously tapping his foot from time to time with nothing to do. "My PET still can't link up with him through all that mess, so Mir's going to have to start looking somewhere. Go for the noisiest and flashiest sector you can find."
Mir hadn't noticed it immediately due to all the audio static distracting her, but there were indeed an abnormal number of light flashes from an area above her. "Egh, that's a precarious climb... Clearance to advance, Emily?"
"It's as good a bet as we have right now... but be careful. There's no telling how unstable those bridges are." cautioned Emily after giving her consent.
"Right... Well then, I'm going." announced Mir as she re-ignited the boosters on her backpack and in her leg guards, hopping from her current bridge up a little to the next one, and the next one after that, and on and on towards the unknown activity...
Actions:
--Advance towards the flashing (Movement)
"Incredible..." said Emily breathlessly, finally breaking the silence with a sentiment that probably everyone in the room shared.
"Yeah... It's almost unnerving to stand here." added Mir from her own first-hand observations as she peered through and around the radiating fog. Despite the fact that she wanted to be the Navi to make this trip in the first place, Mir couldn't help but feel a little hesitation now that she was here. With a good look at everything now, though, she could finally put that hesitation into words. "Everything on Earth's Net is made with an intent, a designed purpose... A network existing just because it does is kind of scary to imagine, for any Navi."
"Huh... Um, anyway! We're recording the coordinates for this network right now, so research expeditions can come back later. We need to find Apollo! Can you see any trace of him, Mir?" asked Emily, catching herself from losing her focus to this fascinating discovery.
"No... I barely know what to make of any of this, period. This fog is just a huge cloud of interference... There's no logic to the sights or sounds, let alone tracks Apollo left behind." answered Mir, shaking her helmet left and right as she responded.
"... If Apollo's still around, he'll definitely be where the biggest commotion is. Going down quietly would be the last thing he'd do." explained Glenn suddenly, removing himself from the corner wall he had been quietly leaning against, anxiously tapping his foot from time to time with nothing to do. "My PET still can't link up with him through all that mess, so Mir's going to have to start looking somewhere. Go for the noisiest and flashiest sector you can find."
Mir hadn't noticed it immediately due to all the audio static distracting her, but there were indeed an abnormal number of light flashes from an area above her. "Egh, that's a precarious climb... Clearance to advance, Emily?"
"It's as good a bet as we have right now... but be careful. There's no telling how unstable those bridges are." cautioned Emily after giving her consent.
"Right... Well then, I'm going." announced Mir as she re-ignited the boosters on her backpack and in her leg guards, hopping from her current bridge up a little to the next one, and the next one after that, and on and on towards the unknown activity...
Actions:
--Advance towards the flashing (Movement)
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Despite the decaying nature of the light bridges, Mir found it surprisingly easy to jump between them. All it took was enough thrust to hop off of one, and then she could cruise the rest of the way to the next. In this way she was able to continue to climb toward the disturbance. Along the way, several patches of static fog rationalized themselves as she approached them, looking oddly like familiar network architecture. One became a small pathway of random panels as she passed by, while another looked more like a network gate, except for the fact that it was being used as a connector between two light bridges. But as she passed, they faded back into static, as though they were never there at all.
Finally, Mir found herself on a vertical bridge that broke into a larger cavity in the network, largely devoid of the paths that had weaved across the rest of what she had explored. With the random and accidental network, it wouldn't be an unfair assumption that there simply wasn't any that had been made in that space, but it also wouldn't be irrational to assume they had simply been moved. Not with the massive nest-like structure on the other side of the expanse.
It was in fact the first part of the network Mir had seen that looked anywhere resembling orderly. Around a single point, the bridges of light that had made up the rest of the network so far appeared to be broken apart and clustered together, with something that could only be identified from her distance as a very bright light situated at its heart. She only had a moment to look before something considerably smaller and more humanoid flew into view from behind one of the bridges and fired a jet of rocket thrust at it, then a wave of interference erupted from within the nest. Everything around it distorted into an indiscernible haze of color, leaving a cloud of interference blocking any view of the nest.
Seconds later, a series of light bridge fragments came drifting out of the cloud, leaving their own trails in their wake that created new, if much smaller and more precarious, pathways.
Finally, Mir found herself on a vertical bridge that broke into a larger cavity in the network, largely devoid of the paths that had weaved across the rest of what she had explored. With the random and accidental network, it wouldn't be an unfair assumption that there simply wasn't any that had been made in that space, but it also wouldn't be irrational to assume they had simply been moved. Not with the massive nest-like structure on the other side of the expanse.
It was in fact the first part of the network Mir had seen that looked anywhere resembling orderly. Around a single point, the bridges of light that had made up the rest of the network so far appeared to be broken apart and clustered together, with something that could only be identified from her distance as a very bright light situated at its heart. She only had a moment to look before something considerably smaller and more humanoid flew into view from behind one of the bridges and fired a jet of rocket thrust at it, then a wave of interference erupted from within the nest. Everything around it distorted into an indiscernible haze of color, leaving a cloud of interference blocking any view of the nest.
Seconds later, a series of light bridge fragments came drifting out of the cloud, leaving their own trails in their wake that created new, if much smaller and more precarious, pathways.
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"... Well, found Apollo." reported Mir, if only by the strictest of NAXA's operational codes as she stated the painfully obvious. While his physical form was somewhat obscured from that distance due to all the interference, not one person in mission control could mistake that excessive amount of rocket thrust for anything else. "Just what does that bonehead think he's doing? Does he realize he's destroying a discovery for the ages?"
"It looks like... he's fighting against the interference?" noted Glenn uncertainly after intently staring at the main monitor as it replayed the clip of Apollo several times. "That last blast looked like its retaliation against Apollo."
"Of course... Can't he just stay put like a good little rescue target?" sighed Mir before pausing to think. "Wait... the interference is fighting back? That doesn't even make sense."
"Some sort of firewall, maybe? No, the countermeasures are too haphazard to be automated... Perhaps it's just a digital representation of the solar radiation present throughout the interstellar medium..." muttered Emily as her brain quickly tried to analyze the unknown danger on this network. Given a more immediate task at hand, though, she managed to reel herself in and get back on point. "Um, anyway... Catch up to Apollo before we lose our visual on him, Mir. We can decide how to proceed after he's re-linked to Glenn's PET."
"On it. Gotta stop him from damaging valuable research subjects, regardless." nodded Mir while discretely admitting her own priority in the matter. Whatever her motive was, though, Mir re-ignited her boosters and began hopping between broken light bridges again to reach her fellow astronaut.
Actions:
--Advance towards Apollo (Movement)
"It looks like... he's fighting against the interference?" noted Glenn uncertainly after intently staring at the main monitor as it replayed the clip of Apollo several times. "That last blast looked like its retaliation against Apollo."
"Of course... Can't he just stay put like a good little rescue target?" sighed Mir before pausing to think. "Wait... the interference is fighting back? That doesn't even make sense."
"Some sort of firewall, maybe? No, the countermeasures are too haphazard to be automated... Perhaps it's just a digital representation of the solar radiation present throughout the interstellar medium..." muttered Emily as her brain quickly tried to analyze the unknown danger on this network. Given a more immediate task at hand, though, she managed to reel herself in and get back on point. "Um, anyway... Catch up to Apollo before we lose our visual on him, Mir. We can decide how to proceed after he's re-linked to Glenn's PET."
"On it. Gotta stop him from damaging valuable research subjects, regardless." nodded Mir while discretely admitting her own priority in the matter. Whatever her motive was, though, Mir re-ignited her boosters and began hopping between broken light bridges again to reach her fellow astronaut.
Actions:
--Advance towards Apollo (Movement)
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As Mir advanced over the light platforms toward the battle, she rapidly drew closer to the cloud of interference. Too rapidly, in fact. The cloud was expanding, as most waves do, and overtaking the remaining bridges in Mir's path. As it swept over them, the light distorted along its path. Pieces of them brightened, or faded out of view, or abruptly shifted in tone as though the colors were inverted, all while the bridges themselves were warped into broken, knotted shapes. Up ahead, Apollo fired on the cloud, punching a hole in the interference and flying through before it could close around him.
Then, before it could reach Mir, the cloud thinned, leaving gaps large enough to easily fly through. Beyond the wave, the remaining bridges had molded together into a single path, twisted and knotted as though having been tied together but rapidly decaying. And at the end of it, Apollo was still floating near the nest-like structure.
Inside it, Mir could still see what didn't amount to much more than a bright light, but like the bridges the light appeared to have some semblance of form to it. Although it remained contained within the nest for the most part, it was clear even from Mir's distance that it was moving. After all, while at some angles the "light" appeared to be attached to the cage around it, the rest of it had just expanded and...uh-oh.
The nest distorted into an indiscernible mass of color again as another wave of interference was released and rapidly approached the two astronauts.
___
Mir: 120 HP
Apollo: 300 HP
Unknown data entity: ▒₦≈♪Ω↕
[Unidentified interference pattern approaching.]
Then, before it could reach Mir, the cloud thinned, leaving gaps large enough to easily fly through. Beyond the wave, the remaining bridges had molded together into a single path, twisted and knotted as though having been tied together but rapidly decaying. And at the end of it, Apollo was still floating near the nest-like structure.
Inside it, Mir could still see what didn't amount to much more than a bright light, but like the bridges the light appeared to have some semblance of form to it. Although it remained contained within the nest for the most part, it was clear even from Mir's distance that it was moving. After all, while at some angles the "light" appeared to be attached to the cage around it, the rest of it had just expanded and...uh-oh.
The nest distorted into an indiscernible mass of color again as another wave of interference was released and rapidly approached the two astronauts.
___
Mir: 120 HP
Apollo: 300 HP
Unknown data entity: ▒₦≈♪Ω↕
[Unidentified interference pattern approaching.]