"Are you absolutely sure about this?" Chief Cowan's eyes glinted with steel.
Ladon felt as uncomfortable as if he were looking into the face of a loaded double-barreled pistol.
"Everything I've told you, Chief, is completely true," feeling his mouth become as dry and disgusting as the planet where Commander Koli's soldiers had landed instead of Athos not long ago. "That's exactly how it all happened on that planet."
"Interesting," Chief Cowan leaned back in his chair, folding his hands on the belly protruding from under his Jenai uniform. "Untypical behavior for Commander Koli and his soldiers."
Ladon glanced at the two guardsmen of Cowan, who stood beside their leader. They had never participated in alien missions with Koli's special forces battalion. And, probably for this reason, they were present at the meeting. Cowan was far from stupid, understanding that it was best to ask questions about Commander Koli's activities far from the ears of his loyal soldiers.
Commander Koli, like many other commanders of various Jenai units, prefect rulers, or simply significant intelligent beings in their society, enjoyed respect in certain circles. His intellect, cunning, and ability to make enemies suffer attracted equally stern and unceremonious Jenai. Some openly expressed their support for him, while others, on the contrary, remained silent about their preferences. Whether a Jenai belonged to the upper echelons or was a common citizen, a soldier, a farmer, a miner, or a worker—this determined whether he could openly declare himself a supporter of Koli or not.
Radim had no doubt that Chief Cowan's guard was as loyal to him as one Jenai could be to another. They had many advantages compared to other people in their society: better clothes, better food, comfortable living conditions.
Serving in the guard was a privilege that most Jenai could not obtain.
But now, a question arose in Ladon's mind: was all of Chief Cowan's guard loyal to him?
A lot of time had passed since they had visited that "peaceful planet," as Chief Cowan had called it in his question. Mission reports had long been written, submitted to inspectors, censored, and placed in archives.
But for some reason, Chief Cowan decided to summon him for a conversation now, when the search for a way to Athos had been decided to be stopped. As well as the search for a way to Ermen. And, if the first decision hit Chief Cowan's reputation—the violators of the trade agreement remained without due punishment for their actions—then the second... Commander Tyrus enjoyed great respect among the Jenai, no less than Koli. And it was not so easy for a scientist to achieve such a thing.
Tyrus was promoting the program of creating atomic bombs for their subsequent use as a preemptive strike weapon against wraith ships. He was involved in various projects, including the search of technically advanced planets that had survived catastrophes. What was there to hide—he was a genius who managed to decipher the data in the Jenai's wraith data storage to find a way to attack a wraith hive ship!
And his disappearance, as well as the disappearance of an entire squad of guardsmen studying ruins on Ermen, left many questions behind. And the least of them was the desire of some commanders to know where the rest of the Ermen heritage was. Commander Koli did not ask too many questions regarding the disappearance of those Jenai. Which was quite strange, considering that, first and foremost, besides Tyrus, his people, the special forces battalion soldiers, disappeared. Koli personally trained each of them.
And he couldn't help but ask questions about why his people couldn't return from what seemed like a routine mission.
The tendency of development and revenge plans to fail significantly increased the distrust of commanders at various levels towards Cowan. Perhaps the disappearance of Tyrus and the squad of Jenai on Ermen, the disappearance of spies and scientists on Taranis, the inability to find even a peaceful settlement of hunters and gatherers, began to overflow the patience of Koli and his allies. And they began to ask Cowan questions in one way or another.
This was a dangerous situation. As such, Cowan could not know that something could happen on those planets that would make the Jenai unable to enter those worlds. But at the same time, it was he who authorized each of these operations, and therefore, took on absolutely all the risks.
And, if the incomprehensible inaccessibility of the Athosians could still be figured out, then Ermen and Taranis... The loss of such a large number of trained Jenai damaged Chief Cowan's authority more than if he had killed them himself in the main cave of his homeworld in front of the entire population.
Simply because no one knew what had happened to these people. No plausible guesses. Nor, even more so, facts.
Given that each of the missing Jenai knew the address of their homeworld perfectly—children were taught this in the Pegasus galaxy as soon as they reached a young age—an unknown danger could come to their homeworld. And the fact that Chief Cowan and no one else knew the reason for the disappearance of these Jenai was only frightening.
And it made people believe less in the prudence of their command. Even the information that spread among the Jenai that everything happening with Ermen, Taranis, and Athos would soon become clear could no longer restore Chief Cowan's former authority.
People whispered that he had become too overconfident and stupid. Literally sending valuable personnel, those he feared, to their deaths. People also whispered that Chief Cowan had never been to the worlds where the missing groups had gone. In the context that Cowan had excellent intelligence operations. And, if the spies learned that there was something on the planets that even the soldiers and scientists of the special forces battalion could not handle, then why wouldn't Cowan make them go there without having such information?
Conspiracy theories were not uncommon for Jenai. In a closed collective, a lack of education and information could turn almost any foolishness into an explosive situation.
Which, as Ladon understood, was happening now.
"What do you think, Ladon," the Jenai scientist was genuinely surprised that Chief Cowan could know his name without looking at a piece of paper. "What is the reason for Commander Koli's atypical behavior? I need the right answer."
"Atypical?" Radim was struck by a very dangerous guess.
Cowan could use his words to accuse Commander Koli of something. It didn't matter what—if there was an opportunity, an accusation could always be fabricated. Jenai had done this more than once.
The special forces battalion soldiers would never say anything against Commander Koli—neither about his actions nor his orders. It was simply impossible to get anything from them that could compromise Koli.
They were loyal to him to their last breath.
On the other hand, Radim was not a special forces soldier. He was primarily a scientist and was seconded to this unit to replace the untimely lost Tyrus and his people. Radim obeyed Koli only on missions, not in the bunker of his homeworld.
And, of course, Cowan was well aware that he could end Radim's life. Literally here and now.
Or make it unbearable.
Or, conversely, make it better.
He had just said it directly—he needed the "right" answer, not an honest one.
"My report states, Chief, that in the worlds we visited, nothing could improve the lives of the Jenai," Radim cautiously reminded him. "And this report has already passed all instances."
No, he wasn't threatening Cowan. At least not directly.
He was reminding him that if Radim changed his words now, there would always be those who could refute them. Even if he rewrote the report, even if the original was replaced, even if no one believed the dozens of Koli's special battalion soldiers who would inevitably come forward with refutations of the blatant lies...
"I'm not asking about what was written in the report, scientist Radim," Cowan said. "I'm asking why your squad, knowing that you might never return to that peaceful planet, didn't take everything from them that could be useful to the Jenai? Or did you lie, saying there were no ways to find the address of that planet?"
"My words are true, Chief Cowan," Radon shook his head. "It is impossible to find out the address of a planet that its own inhabitants do not know. To get there again... We tried, Chief. Four squads from different planets dialed the address of Athos to get there. We lost all four. And until communication with them was lost, until they stopped sending reports about the worlds they visited while dialing Athos, my theory was just a theory. But, judging by the reports, none of the squads, after we left Athos, visited the 'peaceful planet'."
"Or, by Koli's order, they decided not to return upon reaching this planet," Cowan looked at him reproachfully. "You are an intelligent person, Radim. And you do not obey Commander Koli. You are my man. And I respect scientists."
Ladon could barely suppress a bitter chuckle. Respect? Yes, Jenai scientists die more often than soldiers. And surely many could have been saved if even the smallest group of scientists had worked on the medical database from Ermen. It was simply foolish to throw all forces into the atomic project, studying it from different aspects.
"Is what I said possible, Radim?" Chief Cowan asked.
"I don't know," he admitted. "After the mission to the 'peaceful planet,' Commander Koli used the gates of four other planets to dial Athos four times faster. And then, as
"And within two weeks, all four groups passed through the gates to two or three dozen planets, after which they disappeared one by one," Cowan said. "Koli gathered his people outside his homeworld. Allegedly," the chief emphasized this word, "to search for the missing. But his real goals may differ from the announced ones. Can you check in practice—can we reach that unknown world or any other world we ended up in instead of Athos?"
"This requires empirical experiments," Ladon said cautiously. "The only way to test such a hypothesis is to dial the address of Athos, pass through the gates, and see which world we ended up in."
"And to understand whether the special forces battalion soldiers were there or not, you need someone who has already participated in similar missions," Cowan narrowed his eyes.
"Otherwise, the reconnaissance process will be twice as long," Radim admitted. "First, they will have to go to a number of planets, document them, and only on the second round, if it exists at all, can we compare..."
"Enough, scientist Radim," Cowan raised his hand. "From this moment on, you, with the support of my guard, will be engaged in this project."
"Yes, but Commander Koli will be unhappy," Ladon said as if by the way. "He believed that the redirection of Athos's gates, as well as the disappearance of the Ermen and Taranian groups, were related and..."
"Enough, scientist Radim," metal sounded in Cowan's voice. "Commander Koli is not your concern. He will not cause problems, at least not in the near future, or perhaps ever. You will depart for one of our secret bases on other planets and begin work with the support of my guard. I want to know everything about the redirection of the gates. This is your priority task. And you must succeed. The longer you take to figure this out, the less you will like the reward. Is that clear, scientist Radim?"
"Yes, Chief Cowan," Ladon confirmed, swallowing. He clearly understood what the head of all Jenai had not told him directly. Both about the redirection, and about the "peaceful planet," and about why the guard would actually be assigned to him. "However... I can't do it alone."
"Have you forgotten how to dial the gate address with your own hands, Radim?" Cowan's eyebrows rose in a disapproving gesture.
"Anyone can dial the address," the Jenai scientist said. "But to figure it out... One scientist is a speck of dust in the ocean. We need more people."
"Not when the completion of the atomic project is the priority," Cowan cut him off. "You will not get a single male scientist. We are so close to stability..."
"I understand and am inspired by the fact that our weapon against the wraiths will soon be completed," Ladon feigned admiration and joy on his face. "And I would least of all want to interfere. That's why I'm not talking about a male scientist at all."
Cowan stared at him with his small, angry eyes.
"Your sister."
"Yes, Chief. She..." Ladon almost blurted out that his sister knew as much about science as he did. It was not worth saying it aloud—the attitude towards women among most Jenai was quite practical. Especially towards women scientists. Therefore, he hoped that Cowan would meet him halfway. A week ago, Dalia discovered a couple of errors in her colleague's calculations, which could have led to even greater breakdowns during the repair of the main reactor. And, to put it mildly, her colleagues did not praise her for it. Nor did Chief Cowan himself. But the one who took credit for her work—yes. "She can help me. As a backup," he added hastily. "I believe your guard is the best of the best, but I'm not sure they will make good assistants for engineers or physicists."
"All right," Cowan's voice made it clear that this was the only concession he intended to make. "You have two hours to pack and prepare for the journey. Take everything you need. If you don't make it..."
He looked at Ladon in such a way that everything inside him froze.
"We will make it," Radim promised.
"It's in your best interest," Cowan snorted. "You are dismissed."
***
The medical scanner reached the feet, illuminating them with a green light that created a lattice pattern on the skin. After that, the equipment moved in the opposite direction, back towards the head of the patient lying on the Ancient cot.
"I thought she wasn't injured," Kirik said, approaching us with tension in his voice. "Saya demonstrated herself perfectly in battle."
"Exactly," I agreed. "You were the one who told us about the red eyes, weren't you?"
"Well... Yes."
"The red color of her augments in her eyes turns on when she enters combat mode," explained Ikhaar, standing next to me.
"I know, but..."
"The EMP field was working," I reminded him. "She tore the wraiths to shreds like a rag doll right in the zone of jamming all technologies. Even Lantians. And yet her cybernetic part worked perfectly."
"Which is actually impossible," Ikhaar chimed in. Then, looking at me, the senior engineer faltered:
"As we thought until now."
"Is it dangerous?" Kirik asked. "Can what she can do cause any problems?"
"For us or for the enemies?" I clarified, thinking about whether a cyborg could see through the Ancient equivalent of Gizello's mirror. Yes, her eyes weren't burning with hellish flames now, but after the battle... It was the periodic flashes of red in her eyes that made us very tense.
Well, then Kirik, and the Nomads who fought alongside her, told many interesting things.
The former "fugitive" didn't have time to answer. The door of the observation room for the isolation unit opened, and Seliz approached us. Giving her guardian a charming and childishly naive smile, she looked at me and said:
"Scanning is complete."
"Results?" I inquired.
"You have to see this," the girl said mysteriously, heading towards the main monitor.
Saya lay calmly on the medical cot, looking straight ahead at the ceiling and not moving. The events did not bother her at all, just as the fact that she had given us quite a surprise.
"Here," the girl pointed to the outlines of a human body, identified with the cyborg's body. The results had markings in the places where the augmented devices had been replaced with our analogues. Some of them were yellow, some orange, and others bright red. Except for one, which looked like a dark spot with red outlines. At first, it didn't catch the eye, but Seliz pointed at it with her finger. A manicured finger with a filed nail. Understandable, the child is going through a growth stage. One must assume that among the female inhabitants of Atlantis, there were those who told her about such female things. That's good. And, on the other hand, it would be fun to watch Kirik explain to his ward the reasons why every girl "dies" once a month.
"And what is this?" the former "fugitive" asked.
"What enabled her to work within the overwhelming radiation of the EMP field," she said. "The neuroprocessor, assembled on the basis of hybrid—Lantian and Salumai technologies—was able to withstand eight minutes and thirty-one seconds of operation under EMP. After which it burned out—when you turned off the field. I performed the scan immediately after she returned and was ordered to deal with it. So..."
"Wait a minute," Ikhaar interrupted her. "If the neuroprocessor is burnt out, and it is, I examined it myself after extraction, then where do these conclusions come from? She must have a different one already."
"I implanted it," Seliz confirmed. Shifting slightly to the side, she pointed to the isolation unit at the end of the medical block. "And then I asked her to come with me to one of the cluttered hangars on the large pier that hadn't been cleared yet. And I turned on the EMP..."
"What did you do?!" I became wary. "Where did you get the generator?!"
"That's what you needed it for," Ikhaar rolled his eyes. "And I thought..."
"Just a minute, guys," I asked. "Did you turn on the EMP generator within the city limits?! When it could have caused power outages and shield destruction! We would have been flooded!"
Judging by Seliz's frightened face, I had just given her very unpleasant information. Which she hadn't thought about.
But, worst of all, the "manufacturer" of the EMP generator hadn't thought about it.
"Ikhaar..."
"What 'Ikhaar'?" he suddenly exploded. "The prototype is already practically burnt out! A sphere with a two-meter radius is all it could output, and that for a minute or so. Seliz asked for a device for testing, I delivered it to the hangar. There's nothing within the EMP's range that could cause critical damage to the city. Why, if something like this happens in the city, am I the first one asked? I'm an engineer, and Chaya is responsible for the city! Why should I think about the city, about both battleships, about the generators, about the drill, about the satellite, about how to get the downed 'arrows' into the air and..."
"Ikhaar," Kirik coughed into his fist. "Don't."
"I have to!" the young man exclaimed. "I sleep two hours a night! That's the maximum! They drag me from one project to another! As if we don't have enough technical staff! Oh, right," he grimaced, "we don't! When I asked to raise more technicians from stasis, you raised one technician and two deck crew members, because you need people for the ships and..."
"Ihaar," the senior engineer cut himself off, meeting my gaze. "Calm down. Just calm down. My indignation stems from the fact that no one knew about what you two created. I assume Chaya isn't aware of this little laboratory experiment?"
"No," Ihaar said sadly. "She has no less problems than I do. She was in the lab, studying what could be done with that shadow creature that absorbs energy. I decided not to distract her and... Alright, I admit, I was stupid," he conceded reluctantly. "But it's easier for me to do what they want than to constantly coordinate and explain. I understand the danger and wouldn't do something like this if there was a chance of problems."
"Understood," I said. "When we finish here, you'll have a day off."
"What's this?" the senior engineer became wary. "Another project, like the EMP generator?"
"No. A day off is a day free from work."
"And what am I supposed to do then?" the engineer was taken aback.
"Rest," I announced. "It seems we all need it."
Another mistake of mine.
People, even the Ancients, are not robots. They are quite resilient, but they also have limits to their functionality. I should have thought about this in advance. It's because of my actual uselessness for the city's needs that I sleep perfectly well. But my "progressive" brain didn't bother to think about the fact that the others are working like hell.
I looked at Chaya, Trebal, and thought that everything was somehow falling into place on its own...
"Well... alright," Ihaar scratched the back of his head. "I'll deal with the EMP generator problems then, instead of doing a hundred things at once."
Alright, we'll introduce the "day off" policy to the personnel a bit later.
"Let's get back to Saya," I requested. "Did you burn another neuro-implant?"
"That's the thing, no," Seliza said. "Her augmentics just shut down. As they should have. More precisely, part of it didn't even turn on because it turned out to be damaged. This wasn't visible until the second scan, which I just completed."
"So, we're looking at the results of the first scan, immediately after the battle?" I clarified.
"Yes, so you can observe the changes in dynamics. And yes, the EMP generator prototype is completely out of order."
"It's a prototype, after all," Ihaar waved his hand. "I made it literally on the fly. I didn't fully understand the schematics and..." he fell silent, his face elongating. Casting a cautious glance at the motionless cyborg, he shivered. "It seems I did something wrong when making the first neuro-implant. It's the key equipment in all her augmentics. It seems it took the radiation and worked itself to death to prevent the combat mode from shutting down. But why didn't she last the full ten minutes then?"
"Our groups didn't enter the EMP field immediately," Kirik recalled. "First, they shot from sniper rifles, then moved to close combat when the wraiths scattered."
"That's why eight and a half minutes," I realized. "A minute and a half to descend from the hills into the undergrowth."
"So, my theory is that the neuro-implant managed to cope with the EMP's effect, but only by enhancing the biological part of the organism, not the cybernetic one," Seliz said. "She has extensive soft tissue damage, internal organ injuries, but not mechanical ones. It's as if she was being drained from within, by her own body."
"The neuro-implant tried to compensate for the loss of augmentics by biological enhancement," I assessed. "But how is that even possible? The field suppresses all technology."
"It suppresses Lantian and Wraith technology, and other advanced ones," Ihaar corrected. "Less powerful technologies will simply go haywire. Burn out or something similar. During assembly, I tested the prototype on Atos with some Nomad equipment. Microcircuits and the like burn out."
"On Efeon, the Ermen electronics simply shut down."
"They are based on more advanced Sekkari technology," Ihaar reminded. "Better insulation, better soldering, materials, and so on. The EMP generator affects the equipment's own electromagnetic field. The better it's shielded, the less chance it has of burning out. In fact, for this reason, we won't be able to build a large EMP cannon and blast Asuras with it to burn out the nanites there, as Chaya did with the prototypes. What the Asuras created is protected from EMP. At least from ours."
And they won't let us take the installation from Efeon – the "children" have already started moving into the destroyed city and are guarding the device like the apple of their eye.
"So, what happened to her after all?" I asked, looking at Saya.
"The neuroprocessor, receiving the command, activates combat mode and the biological part obeys it," Seliz explained. "It's like an on button. Press once – start the process. Press twice – turn it off. When Saya entered the EMP field, the hybrid technology of the implants created for her burned out. But the program remained. That's why she worked, compensating for the lack of augmentics with the body's biological resources. When we removed the neuro-implant and installed a new one, the combat command was deactivated. I scanned her the first time and saw that the rest of the augmentics also suffered. And the damage wasn't mechanical. I think she could even rely on them for some time until most of them simply burned out. And," the girl changed the image. It differed little from the first, except that the dark spot of the neuro-implant was now glowing green. "After she was in the second EMP field, no other implants burned out. They, as they should have, shut down. Well, those of them that were working at the time of the tests."
"Then why did the implants burn out the first time, and not shut down?" I still didn't understand.
"Because this one," Ihaar pointed to the red spots, "this one, this one, and in general all that are not green – these are hybrid implants. I took old technologies as a basis, improved them to check their effectiveness. And these," he pointed to those that were glowing green, "are purely Lantian production. Not a gram of Salumai technology."
"With appropriate shielding from the EMP?"
"Well, yes," Ihaar sulked. "I... It just slipped my mind that not all prototypes are Lantian. Working on them takes a lot of time, so I thought we'd only replace the key elements... Yes, I know," he winced, earning a disapproving look from me. "I screwed up. But you needed a quick result, and I have a ton of projects!"
A shiver ran down my spine.
I had convinced Saya that her new implants were purely our development. And with complete confidence in this, I released her from the stasis chamber.
I saw what she was doing to the wraiths. In how many seconds could she have killed me and Chaya on Atos if these "hybrid" implants had turned out to be something other than what I told her?
My heart sank at the thought of how close we were to our death. Because of...!!!
It's useless to swear and sort things out here. My initiatives have simply driven everyone around to the point where they are starting to make very serious mistakes.
And it's entirely my fault. I need to really slow down. Or, bring as many people back to life as possible.
"Do we have purely Lantian implants?" I asked.
"Manufacturing the entire set will take, maybe, a week or two," Ihaar admitted. "To create the necessary mini-crystals, we'll need diamonds of a certain purity, which we don't have much of. In fact, that's why I made hybrid ones..."
The senior engineer guiltily averted his gaze, hearing me reflexively take a full breath.
"I'll take care of it on my day off," he assured, looking at the scan data.
"We need to think about how to use this resistance effect," I said. "If we can make it permanent, we'll get protection from our own weapons. And then we can, for example, create EMP mines or EMP cannons, which will be useful against Wraith ships."
"Uh-huh," Ihaar mumbled. "If we have mountains of naquadah to create thousands of mines with a field radius the size of a cruiser. True, ships entering such radiation will fly through it by inertia, so we'll need a very large minefield..."
But the idea is worthwhile! Like ion cannons in "Star Wars"!
We won't have to waste ammunition destroying Wraith ships. Fire ion cannons, disable them, and voila, finish them off with pulse cannons! What a wonderful idea!
Only the skepticism on the senior engineer's face suggests that implementing such ideas will require us to build a huge automated factory. And a whole planet of naquadah for millions of space EMP mines.