Chapter 45: Interlude Playing with Simulators

Kiru stepped into the simulated shuttle bay. Her mind went over the information she had just read. Much of it was on the information she needed on her objectives for this simulated mission. However, there was also a page on the character she was playing, and how to use her abilities. She was a Solean soldier nearly eight hundred years old in this scenario. The requirement of going unarmed wasn’t too much of a hindrance. There was quite a bit written to give her an idea on what she could do. Apparently, Solean physiology was remarkably similar to that of a Star Dragon. Both species have the natural ability of star flight, and in addition to talons that can carve through modern ship armor, they also had the ability to breathe out plasma, and discharge powerful bolts of electricity. Of course, in addition to those potent natural weapons, there was also their most powerful weapon, their magic.

Honestly, magic was just mental powers so strong that they could bend reality itself to their will. Not without cost mind you, as it took energy to effect a change. The bigger the change the more energy would be required. Given the point in history, it came as no surprise that in this scenario her character was trained in Ancestral Magic. It was the oldest form of magic use, and more akin to a martial art than anything else. The Ancestral Arts as they are more commonly called focus on channeling the energy around the user into potent elemental attacks. The art also shields the user against the element they are channeling, and the art becomes more potent the longer the user is channeling. The arts were, simply put, focused on absorbing and redirecting energy. Unlike later magics, the Ancestral Arts didn’t have spells. 

As for why it was no surprise her character knew Ancestral magic, well, apparently at that time the Solean people only trained in Ancestral Magic, hence the name. Kiru appreciated having that bit of history outlined in the available reading. On another note, she also noticed the only other form of magic known to the Solean people of that time was Primal magic, which also didn’t use spells. That note also said that the Solean breath attack was a form of Primal magic. Although it didn’t elaborate on the how and why that was. She was curious, but she guessed it wasn’t important.

What was important were a few of the little skills she noted that she had access to, and how they were used. In her mind the Solean shapeshifting abilities would be most key to the mission. The tricky part was getting what she needed to use them. Soleans were apparently part of a group of shapeshifters called genetic shapeshifters. What that meant was that she actually needed DNA pertaining to a shape in order to assume that shape. Although she could make a few cosmetic changes without any DNA, so long as those changes were allowed by whatever genetic code she was using for her current form. As for how that DNA would be obtained, prolonged physical contact with a target was typically required. That contact need not be sexual, but contact of such a nature was noted to be faster.

That meant to her, that as soon as she was on the ground, she would need to find a local, and somehow achieve prolonged physical contact with them. Not having a weapon, and likely being clearly alien would complicate that. Thankfully Solean mental abilities should compensate. Their telepathy alone should be her most potent tool. Not just for the obvious either. It could also be a potent shield with which to hide her presence.

She put aside those thoughts, and approached the shuttle. The one ready to take her below to the surface. It was of a design she was not familiar with, and she hadn’t found any notes on Solean equipment of this age, nor anything of use on the locals below. It made sense though. She didn’t need to know anything about the Solean equipment, and as for the locals she wouldn’t have known anything about them that the Soleans didn’t know then.

The shuttle itself looked a little old, and clearly needed a fresh coat of paint. Its hull was littered with scratches, scorch marks, and other signs of past battles. Someone clearly hadn’t bothered to do much to clean the damage either. Kiru had to wonder why she was being sent down on a shuttle that looked like that. As she approached an officer spotted her, and greeted her before saying. “I’m surprised that we still had one of these. Although she is in good shape, considering she has been mothballed for the last six centuries.”

“Mothballed? I hope she is in working order then. But why dig a ship out of mothballs? I would think we have plenty of shuttles not in mothballs to send.”

“We do, but Fleet felt this ship was best for the job. This particular variant of the retired 1205 series assault shuttles was outfitted with a modified cloak and engine scheme for stealth atmosphere insertions. None of our modern shuttles have that equipment, and it would take too long to refit them. We were able to get this one ready for the mission in a day.”

That she understood. Right ship for the job thing. It also kind of said that this was not something they did often. Especially since the ship with the needed equipment had been in mothballs for six centuries apparently. “I see. I trust she won’t break while I am in her will she?”

The officer shook her head, “No. She didn’t need much work. And we triple-checked all her systems. Everything is in working order. Although it helps that our ships require very little maintenance in the first place. Anyway she is mission ready.”

Kiru nodded. Exchanged a few more words and then boarded the shuttle. It was time to see where this simulated mission was going to go. Moments later the shuttle left the bay. Given the nature of the mission, she was the only passenger. She found a seat in the cockpit, and enjoyed the view.

Not long after slipping out of the bay, she was greeted with the sight of a Solean cruiser. The hull, while not the same as the Constellation’s, did share a few distinctive elements. Including a dark paint job that made it much harder to make out. Rather, it would have, if it was in deep space, but here in a planetary orbit with the backdrop of a planet, and the strong light of the central star of this system, the ship was revealed in stark relief. What drew her attention was not the color or shape of the ship, but rather the features that pockmarked the hull. Mainly since they clearly didn’t belong. The hull was riddled with scorch marks, furrows, craters, and other signs of battle damage. None of the damage appeared to be anything more than superficial.

She shifted her line of sight, and soon spotted a second cruiser, her hull similarly battle-scarred. Before long a third, and then a fourth vessel came into view. All of them battle-scarred. She said nothing. Kiru figured the fleet must have been in a battle recently, and not yet taken the time to do more than patch the hull. Then again her shuttle looked much the same way. Maybe the Soleans were poor or something and that forced them to let slide battle damage if it wasn’t something that would compromise the hull. However Kiru did not see it as important enough to ask about. Not right away anyway. When she was done, she made a mental note to ask Megumi about it. Little did she realize that the answer would surprise her.

---

Before long the shuttle set down quietly in a clearing not far from the lab she was tasked to investigate. The trees blocked line of sight, and the area was devoid of people. Kiru looked around at the alien foliage. She wasn’t really looking at it, but rather looking for anything that might be out of place. While the scanners had confirmed no one was here. That didn’t mean that people wouldn’t show up, or hadn’t been in the area.

While she didn’t see anything. She could hear the sounds of fighting in the distance. Although, it did sound a little different from what she was used to, but not entirely unfamiliar. It took her but moments to recognize the sounds of explosions. A sound common to battlefields of the modern era, but the other sounds were harder to place. It took her a moment to realize that she was hearing the sounds of kinetic weapons fires.

With the sound in the distance as a guide, she slipped into the trees. Behind her the aged shuttle that had brought her down to the surface slipped into the air. Kiru didn’t see it go, but knew it had. She wasn’t worried about that, as she did have a method of contacting the fleet when her mission was completed. They would arrange extraction after that. In the meantime, her immediate concern was to locate a local, and a weapon. The first for information, and DNA. She needed the second in order to use her shapeshifting powers. As for the weapon, she would need that for defense.

Moving from tree to tree, it wasn’t long before she came across signs of fighting. Fallen trees, fires, burned out wrecks, and scattered corpses littered the terrain before her. Thankfully from her vantage point in the trees, she noted that there were no locals in sight. The fighting must have moved elsewhere. From the sounds, she could guess where. Somewhere to the north, closer to the lab that was her objective.

A groaning sound suddenly drew her attention. It sounded close. Kiru had a feeling that she just found her local. She dropped from her vantage point, and began to search the area for the source of the groaning. She came across the blood, before she even saw the injured young man that was the source of the groans.

He was a large bipedal creature at least two meters tall, muscular with thick powerful limbs. A long thin tail spread out behind him, and ended in a sharp triangular blade. His skull was crowned with a series of bony ridges, and two black horns. She had to admit that he looked fairly intimidating, but that was only if you ignored the clearly fatal wounds he had sustained.

Kiru had no need to be an expert on his physiology to know that the man didn’t have much longer to live. He was bleeding heavily. His one leg was clearly broken, and mangled with bone sticking out in all the wrong places. Most damning was the stomach wound. His belly had been split open, and if not for him holding the wound closed his guts may have spilled out.

Saving him would be out of the question, as she didn’t have the tools for it, and they were too far from a local hospital. Assuming she could find one. Not to mention her other problem. Kiru instead decided to do the only thing she could think to do for the young man. She reached out with her mind and slipped into his. With a thought, she pulled him from reality and into dreamland. 

There she showed him paradise and shielded him from the pain. Kiru was pleasantly pleased with how easily the simulated world made using these strange powers. Telepathy was quite the potent tool as well. Not only was she able to give him a form of peace, as he slowly slipped away, but she was also able to learn a bit about what was going on.

The young man was a member of Varmalch, the military of one of the local superpowers. She was in the middle of their country, the country of Valmishar. The lab was actually one of their facilities, and that made the young man here one of the defenders. Although it was clear, that the defense wasn’t going all that well. His memories confirmed it, and gave her a bit of background information. Even better, he had been in the lab, and knew a bit about what was going on, but knew nothing of the spaceship.

Apparently, the country of Valmishar had been a defeated power who had been occupied and were being run into the ground by their neighbor, Polkir. As Polkir was after their vast natural resources. At least, they were until Polkir’s king had been assassinated twelve years ago, the resulting chaos started several small wars, and allowed Valmishar to throw off the yoke. Within two years, they had rebuilt, and they built this lab here around then. Not long after that, a number of wonder weapons began pouring out of the lab every few months. She had a feeling that it was about then that the ship crashed, and then the lab was built around it. What she did also note was that those weapons along with their natural resources had allowed them to quickly grow to dominance in the region. It also eventually led to the current situation.

Kiru suspected that the attackers likely knew something about the lab. At least enough to detail its importance. She also knew who they were, but it didn’t seem to matter to her. Her objective was the lab, nothing more. Knowing the history was helpful, however.

Before she could learn much more, however the young man finally expired. Kiru took a moment to give him the proper respect, and then collected his weapons. She also took a moment to press her hand into his blood. After a few moments, that blood vanished, and she felt herself change into a female version of his species. It was an... interesting sensation.

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Changed, she looked over what she had found from him. A rifle with two spare clips, and half of a third loaded. From his memory, she knew he had carried a few more, so they must have been spent in the fighting. She also found a few grenades, but no side arm. At least now she was armed. That meant she would not need to use her special abilities to defend herself. Although she would have liked more ammo. However, she felt it more important to make for the lab, then waste time searching the nearby battlefield.

---

It had been several hours since she left the young man, and she had finally made it to the lab. Darkness had fallen, and the fighting seemed to have ebbed with the setting sun. There was still some activity, patrols around the lab, and bunkers. She had even slipped past some armor about an hour ago, as they patrolled the roads.

In front of her at the moment, was a barbed fence. A minor obstacle that she needed to slip past in order to get into the lab, undetected. Going in through the main entrance likely wouldn’t work too well. She didn’t exactly have clearance, nor did she really know who did. Not to mention, there were too many guards for her to influence with her telepathy.

Thankfully security on this side of the building wasn’t too tight. There were a few watchtowers, but she had already slipped past the spotlights. All that remained was getting past the fence. It was intact, and she didn’t have cutters, but Kiru didn’t need them. The Solean abilities she was blessed with in this simulated mission would get her past.

She switched her stance and began following the mental instructions she had been given for Ancestral Arts. In moments, blue-green flames whirled around her forearm, and when she punched forward a blast of flames streamed into the fencing. She let the flames dissipate, and surveyed her handiwork.

The flames had burned a hole in the fencing. One large enough for her to slip through, and into the base. Kiru stepped through, keeping to the shadows. She needed to get into the main building. Already she was lining up a few mental objectives. The fleet was mainly interested in the wreck, and what it was doing here. They also wanted an assessment of its impact on the locals. Although she was already getting the picture. It had already accelerated technological development and fueled the rise of a superpower. They likely weren’t using the wreck to its full potential, but their crude understanding of its technologies was already dangerous enough.

Kiru was reminded of a debate she had often heard back home. It was of general consensus that pre-FTL cultures were generally not worth interacting with. It wasn’t that they didn’t have resources, but they tended to be lacking in things to offer. Although, there was a bit of interest in observing them from orbit. As for the debate, it was mainly over what to do with them. There was the exploitation camp that wanted to go down there and use the populace as cheap labor. The problem with that was not only was it morally frowned upon, but it was expensive to occupy a whole planet and enforce the kind of labor laws needed. Worse, tacked onto that would be the required education programs. Especially for the more primitive pre-FTL cultures. It’s why the relevant camp never got anywhere. Everyone else saw it as too expensive of an investment to be worth the limited gains, or simply didn’t approve of that.

As for the other camp, they wanted to uplift those cultures. Feeling it was their moral imperative to aid these cultures. Again, it was an expensive endeavor. There also was the fact that the camp was also heavily opposed by a third camp. That one thought such cultures should be allowed to develop on their own. Not everyone agreed with them. Even if honestly the debate always ended up going their way, but that was only because everyone agreed that interference was just too costly for too little gain.

She put the old argument aside, as it didn’t seem too important to the mission. She had found a side entrance into the main building of the lab. It seemed to be the perfect entry point, and no one was nearby. There were only two people in sight, and they were looking out away from the base. None of them were expecting a lone infiltrator, they were more worried about the hostile army practically on their doorstep. She tried the door. Well almost. Just as she was about to turn the latch, the door swung open on its own, and she found herself face to face with an alien male. She reacted, her training kicking in. A loud thud resounded in her ears, as his body hit the floor hard.

She returned the rifle she had been holding to its original position, and then went inside. Briefly slinging the rifle to drag him in. she found a closet not too far down the hall and shoved him in there. It seemed like a good place to leave him. As she left, she briefly considered breaking his neck, but decided against it. Kiru knew he wasn’t going to wake anytime soon, and planned to be long gone by the time he did. As a just in case measure, she melted the lock as she was leaving. It occurred to her that he was a mind to interrogate, but unfortunately he was now unconscious. That was going to prove an obstacle even with telepathy. Might be easier to find someone else.

Kiru tried to pay better attention to her simulated telepathic senses. However they were honestly a bit hard to get used to. She was starting to miss her sensors. It had only been a few hours too.

It thankfully didn’t take her long before she found a young female alien bent over a desk in an office just down the hall. The young woman didn’t even notice Kiru when she walked in, as she was too engrossed in her work. Kiru reached out with her mind, and found no real resistance. It took mere moments to learn what she knew, and Kiru left with the alien unaware that she had been telepathically interrogated. Kiru had to admit that the Solean telepathic abilities were useful for interrogation.

Using the bit of knowledge she had discretely pillaged, she made her way deeper into the facility. She now knew where to find the hanger. Kiru had also gleaned the best route as well. One that would give her minimal contacts on the way to the hanger. She also had an idea about an escape route after she was done in the hangar.

---

A few hours later she was slipping out of the base, after a successful stint in the hangar. Some alarms blared behind her, as she had not been able to completely avoid contact with the locals. She had been forced to shoot a couple of guards. The kick of the rifle was not something she had been prepared for. She might have missed that first shot, if she hadn’t been aiming center mass. She thanked her training for that. Kiru had been trained to shoot center mass, since that was a much larger target. Not to mention there were quite a few vital organs packed there. In other words you were more likely to hit your target, and shots there are more lethal.

At the moment she didn’t seem to have any pursuers, so she may have given them a clean slip. She had managed to assess the ship these aliens had possession of. The ship was a few centuries ahead of the locals, but they had been able to glean some knowledge. Most notable were advances in rocketry, but they had also learned other concepts. Their own crude understanding of the technologies involved were the main limiters. They weren’t really ready to take full advantage of what they had.

She had already sent a report to the fleet. So far they hadn’t responded. Kiru glanced over her shoulder, and saw no signs of any pursuers, not yet anyway. It might take them a little more time to realize she was gone, and where.

Suddenly, she felt another mind connect. The mind relayed some coordinates, and then said, “Fleet has determined that we cannot allow that wreck to remain here. Long range sensors have picked up three small fleets approaching the planet, they will be here within the hour. We want you to reach that extraction point in the next thirty minutes. Good luck.”

Kiru read between the lines, and mentally exclaimed, “They wouldn’t!”

A moment later she muttered, “would they?”

She didn’t have to wait long before her question was answered.

Just as she reached the extraction site, she looked back. It was just in time to witness a beam of blue green energy strike the edge of the lab complex. An instant later she heard the roar of high intensity energy weapons fire, a sound reminiscent of, but distinctly different from that of thunder. The tower structure the beam struck exploded in a shower of fiery plasma, and chunks of melted metal and concrete. 

Seconds later, a second, then a third beam struck. Each strike announced itself with a thunderous roar, but not each strike was accompanied with an explosion. It was a sight she had never seen from the ground before, but she recognized it nonetheless. A precision orbital bombardment using a ship’s beam weapons.

After about a minute, she noticed the beams had stopped. Three bright blue stars however could be seen streaking right for the ruined complex. They struck with immense force, and exploded. The very ground beneath her feet shook, and a wave of fire rippled over her position, only to be stopped by an energy screen.

Behind her someone spoke. “Okay that should be enough. Get aboard, we are getting out of here.”

Kiru turned around and boarded the shuttle that had just appeared. An act that promptly ended the simulation, and she found her VR pod opening, and Megumi was there to greet her.

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