92 Chaos Theory, Pt The four pilots flew out of Tartarus Base and found a spot of empty space for them to perform their exercises in. While there was plenty of space between the base itself and the surrounding asteroid field, a good portion of it lay within the path of the patrol drones.

Although the Admiral could have simply created a space for them to use, it was best if they stayed out of their way altogether. No sense in breaking up part of their security net just for the sake of convenience.

Besides, they had plenty of room. Well, as long as they were careful anyway.

The Admiral came up behind them in her frigate. She sat in the command chair while various officers in their stations sat around her. Among them was her brother.

Her frigate settled into the very middle of their open exercise space, and the fighters orbited around her and waited.

“Alright,” said the Admiral, “everyone appears to be pretty well warmed up. Commander, how’re their readings?”

Commander Chase looked over the pilots’ data as they scrolled down his terminal. He responded a few moments later.

“Everyone’s operational frameworks are well within expected standards. They’ve reached Promethean Equilibrium and are ready for full maneuvers.”

“Freya, feel anything out of the ordinary?”

.....

Truth be told, Eva did feel like something was different. In fact, she had slipped into her Promethean Merge so effortlessly earlier that she wasn’t sure if it was a problem or not.

Of course, she found that performing the merge became easier the more times she did so. But this time in particular seemed significantly easier. More than that, it suddenly became much more comfortable, as though she had slipped into her own clothing.

As though Prometheus had been with her for years, and she put it on as easily as her favorite flightsuit. It definitely felt out of the ordinary. But it also felt like a positive change, so she kept it to herself. At least for now.

She wondered what had triggered the change so suddenly. Was it because she had a slightly better understanding of her own body? Perhaps that made it easier for her to interface with the core. Or was it because she had brushed up against Godeater in her dreams?

Or maybe she was overthinking things and simply needed to focus.

Eva pushed those questions aside for now. She was in the middle of an exercise, and had more pressing matters to attend to. Without needing to concentrate in the slightest, she reached out with her consciousness and scanned her modules and systems quickly. They responded that everything was green and ready to go.

historical

To her surprise, each of them was overcharged very slightly before they settled back down to normal. As though there was a repeating power spike. It took her a moment to realize that it kept pace with her own heartbeats. And when she inhaled or exhaled, it seemed as though the fighter breathed alongside her.

“Nah, everything’s green,” she replied.

“Great. Then let’s start with maneuver number five and go from there... And, er, for those who couldn’t pay attention in the lectures, that’s a barrel roll into a defensive spiral into a guns defense, three times. We’ll use this as a basis for the cycle’s measurements.”

Just as the four pilots flew to their respective starting zones, Merlin reached into his flightsuit and pulled out a small handheld device. It wasn’t anything fancy – just a thin cylinder with a button on top of it.

He pressed it resolutely. After a moment, a light under the transparent red button began to blink. Satisfied that it was working properly, he tossed it back into one of his pockets.

Meanwhile, back in the hangar, the Bluffs that Merlin had tossed in there began to hum with increasing intensity. They also vibrated and heated up ever so slightly. Inside their housing, the liquid circuits bubbled as the battery heated up beyond its capabilities.

Bluffs within a certain range began to overcharge as well, and began to hum and vibrate and heat up. A chain reaction then spread throughout the asteroid as Bluffs amped up and caused nearby Bluffs to follow suit.

And as a wave of energy swept through them, their individual footprint widened, and the signals of everything around them swelled even further. Although most inanimate objects stayed roughly the same as before, electronic devices swelled far beyond double.

Their signals became amplified by three times in a matter of moments. Soon, they hit four times as high. Many electronics rang out audibly, and people suddenly found their personal devices loudly emitting piercing tones.

Worse, many of the sophisticated communication arrays littered all over the asteroid found their signals spiked as well. But due to their nature, they increased to five and even six times as much as normal.

They hummed deeply, and due to their size even began to vibrate wildly. The ground around them shook with such intensity that anyone around them could easily feel it.

All of the increased signals around the base easily broke through and trampled the base’s artificial dampening field. It was as though it never existed in the first place.

The chief of security panicked as he watched it all happen on his terminal. Warning after warning popped up on his screen as each and every single one of his dampeners were soundly defeated.

Klaxons blared around him as security officers did their best to control the situation. But there was nothing that any of them could do other than watch as the base’s overall signal ballooned beyond normal constraints.

The chief quickly opened a line directly to the Admiral’s frigate.

“Admiral! We’ve got a situation! Everything’s gone haywire and the base is lit up like a bonfire!”

The Admiral’s eyes shot wide open.

“What?! How did that even happen?”

“I-I don’t know – but it all happened over the course of a few seconds. We’re still trying to figure out how to tamp it down.”

The Admiral grit her teeth in frustration.

“Explain haywire to me.”

“Signals – the base’s signals are way beyond normal thresholds. Everything that can transmit is doing so but with far greater signal strength. Like they’re being amplified! Signals are rising steadily. It won’t be long until it breaks the field.”

Admiral Chase looked out into the asteroid field with worried eyes. Those rocks helped dampen their location naturally. But if the overall signal was strong enough, it would definitely permeate through the field. And if the field couldn’t hold back their signals, then the whole galaxy would be able to see them.

And subsequently port to them.

“Damn it all!” she yelled. “Shut down all major operations – necessary power only! Isolate all secondary power circuits. Lock down critical locations. Nothing in or out of this field, understood?”

“Yes, Admiral!”

The chief immediately relayed her orders to the rest of the teams on the base. Moments later, the base began emergency actions. Lights flicked off as their power was greatly reduced to most buildings. The darkness only lasted for a brief moment as low-power orange emergency lights came on.

And critical buildings all over the asteroid began to seal themselves. Most specifically, all of the experimental labs and the Admiral’s HQ itself locked down solid. Security doors slid shut with a solid SHWOOF. Their blast shutters lowered slowly and sealed off every single window.

An emergency alert immediately resounded as multiple red warnings flashed on one of the officer’s terminals. She was temporarily stunned when she saw them, but quickly blurted out her report.

“Admiral! Unknown signatures porting in at Point Four Seven Theta! ETA, twenty seconds. Sending drone squadron to investigate.”

Admiral Chase quickly turned back to her terminal and reopened the line to her security chief. Anger was deep in her eyes.

“We’re under attack! Some idiot actually is daring enough to come after us! Get all pilots ready to sortie against them! I want them repelled as soon as possible!”

Klaxons immediately rang through the dorms. Those who were sleeping or resting quickly sat up in alarm, their eyes bleary and swollen from exhaustion. But they got up and donned their flightsuits without complaint.

Kayt in particular was giddy to see some action. She and her friends had been waiting for so long to get into a real sortie that they languished from boredom. And now that they had an opportunity to get into a fight, she didn’t hesitate to be the first out the door.

~

While the center of the asteroid field was in great disarray, a number of drones sped towards their assigned target in perfect formation. Their sensors were on full blast, ready to intercept anything that came within attack range.

Out of the blue, a number of frigates and their fighter escorts ported in with a flash. Each and every single ship in that fleet were decorated with red and black liveries, and were emblazoned with a golden apple somewhere on their hulls.

The drones automatically veered towards the frigates and scanned them specifically, as per their programmed orders. They barely had time to transmit their findings before they were fired upon by hundreds of rounds from various ships. The drones were reduced to dust in record time.

Captain Valos sat on the command chair in the lead frigate. He whistled when he saw his fleet devastate the drone fighters with ease.

On one of his terminals, the signal that the Bluffs produced pointed to something buried deep inside of the vast asteroid field in front of him. He grinned as the conglomerated signal began to fade.

“Got here just in time,” he said. “Looks like Merlin did his part and painted us a great big target. Well, we’d best get ready to pick up our new recruit, yeah?”

“Aye, sir,” said one of his officers.

“Commence with the plan.”

His fleet then broke up into different squadrons and flew straight into the field. Their fighters wove between the asteroids with reckless abandon as the frigates navigated their way through with a little more care.

But not much more. Valos wanted his prize, and was all too eager to grasp it.